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Carmack: Consoles could become a niche
11–20 of 49 posts
Re: Carmack: Consoles could become a niche
#12The current generation of game-consoles have had a long lifecycle as it is. The Xbox has now been around what, 7 years?
All consoles will definitely begin to become a niche product. I think the more avid gamers will go back to using their PC. Don't get me wrong, I love using my iPad.. but not for "serious" gaming. Angry Birds, yes. Halo, no.
I cannot see consoles living forever though, there are already so many ways to have a "full media experience", which is what the current consoles are trying to offer to make them a viable part of everyone's living room.
Re: Carmack: Consoles could become a niche
#13It's clear that the console market is at a turning point. The Xbox360, PS3 and Wii have all (AFAIK) gone well beyond the lifespans of their predecessors. It's just taking longer and longer to recoup that investment. When they came out they were much better (in price-performance terms) than their PC equivalents. As expected, this lasts no longer than 6-12 months. Rumor has it that the next Playstation will be subpar c…
I don't understand why people compare tablets and phones to console. It's like you have never played a console game before. Console gaming is about big screens, epic scenery. people having fun together.
xbox is turning into the living room PC, eventually gaming will be a just feature. They have already announced IE for xbox. they are going to add more and more live tv options and apps in the future. It is backed by WP, Windows..ect.
However I'm not sure about Wii and PS. They have no Platform to compete with Apple TV and Google TV.
Re: Carmack: Consoles could become a niche
#14I'm somewhat surprised he isn't predicting something closer to a mix of the OnLive strategy partnered with the last-mile provider (Comcast, AT&T, etc.). It seems like some way of letting game makers or these services rent space in data centers on the last mile (ala the datacenters at the CME, NYSE, NASDAQ, etc.) might make it possible to deal with the fps latency issue and stream to a fairly dumb client that runs on…
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Re: Carmack: Consoles could become a niche
#15I think consoles will become niche because networks will eventually get fast enough so that you see the same dynamic with games that you see with blue-ray/movies. Instead of players needing to buy expensive, specialized graphics rendering equipment they can just connect to a service using whatever user-input/video-playing device they have. Sites like onlive are already trying to do this (though obviously, they aren't…
I think this could work for a lot of games, but I'm skeptical that it would work for quick twitch games (eg FPS) because of latency issues.
Re: Carmack: Consoles could become a niche
#16I think consoles will become niche because networks will eventually get fast enough so that you see the same dynamic with games that you see with blue-ray/movies. Instead of players needing to buy expensive, specialized graphics rendering equipment they can just connect to a service using whatever user-input/video-playing device they have. Sites like onlive are already trying to do this (though obviously, they aren't…
I'm not convinced (at least, not for real-time games). Streaming non-interactive video requires advances in bandwidth. Streaming interactive video requires near-zero latency if the rendering is done in the cloud. Without it, there will be a noticeable and frustrating gap between action and feedback.
Re: Carmack: Consoles could become a niche
#17It's clear that the console market is at a turning point. The Xbox360, PS3 and Wii have all (AFAIK) gone well beyond the lifespans of their predecessors. It's just taking longer and longer to recoup that investment. When they came out they were much better (in price-performance terms) than their PC equivalents. As expected, this lasts no longer than 6-12 months. Rumor has it that the next Playstation will be subpar c…
I don't understand why people compare tablets and phones to console. It's like you have never played a console game before. Console gaming is about big screens, epic scenery. people having fun together. xbox is turning into the living room PC, eventually gaming will be a just feature. They have already announced IE for xbox. they are going to add more and more live tv options and apps in the future. It is backed by W…
Consoles was never just about big scenes/epic scenery or people having fun together. Starting from nintendo up to PS2 there was plenty of casual games (think tetris).
If consoles are going to be limited to epic games then investing in consoles becomes a huge gamble. You have 200 million to spend, do you want to create 1000 games for the iphone or 1 big console game that if it gets below an 80 on metacritic will be considered a "flop".
People don't buy misses on consoles and they don't buy casual games. They buy the big epic games like you described and that is KILLING the industry.
Re: Carmack: Consoles could become a niche
#18> ...consoles may soon become a niche product for highly dedicated, purist consumers. Isn't that the role that high-end gaming PCs fill now? It sounds like he's saying game consoles as we know them are just going to go away.
Yeah, Carmack hasn't said the most intelligible things as of the past couple years. Him and other PC acolytes from the 90s aren't all completely "there" with their wonky prognostications. He seems to want to marginalize the console's importance by dropping technology buzzwords into the same sentences (I mean there is OnLive but that hasn't been too impressive). High-end gaming on the PC is what is becoming-no, it already is a niche, who am I kidding?
Re: Carmack: Consoles could become a niche
#19It's clear that the console market is at a turning point. The Xbox360, PS3 and Wii have all (AFAIK) gone well beyond the lifespans of their predecessors. It's just taking longer and longer to recoup that investment. When they came out they were much better (in price-performance terms) than their PC equivalents. As expected, this lasts no longer than 6-12 months. Rumor has it that the next Playstation will be subpar c…
I don't understand why people compare tablets and phones to console. It's like you have never played a console game before. Console gaming is about big screens, epic scenery. people having fun together. xbox is turning into the living room PC, eventually gaming will be a just feature. They have already announced IE for xbox. they are going to add more and more live tv options and apps in the future. It is backed by W…
>I don't understand why people compare tablets and phones to console.
Consoles were, and are, still dominant because the most time that the average person spent with a screen was a TV.
However, the consumer's usage habits are adjusting. The primary screen they are beginning to use is the smartphone and, eventually, it will be the same for the tablet because it is so mobile. This is where gaming is going to have to go.
>Console gaming is about big screens, epic scenery.
That may be what consoles are about but that is not what gaming is about. I would think that it's a dream for any gamer to have access to the same game wherever you are.
>They have already announced IE for xbox.
This will likely be the least used feature of all of MS's announcements. I don't know anyone who enjoyed using a browser sitting 10 feet away from the screen.
Re: Carmack: Consoles could become a niche
#20It's clear that the console market is at a turning point. The Xbox360, PS3 and Wii have all (AFAIK) gone well beyond the lifespans of their predecessors. It's just taking longer and longer to recoup that investment. When they came out they were much better (in price-performance terms) than their PC equivalents. As expected, this lasts no longer than 6-12 months. Rumor has it that the next Playstation will be subpar c…
I don't understand why people compare tablets and phones to console. It's like you have never played a console game before. Console gaming is about big screens, epic scenery. people having fun together. xbox is turning into the living room PC, eventually gaming will be a just feature. They have already announced IE for xbox. they are going to add more and more live tv options and apps in the future. It is backed by W…
Put a powerful cpu, gpu and an usb controller and there's no technical difference between a tablet and a console. Console games have only historically had different graphics and gameplay because of historical limitations of mobile hardware. Not because there's anything magically special about an xbox. You give mobile devices similar hardware and consoles become dumb pipes.