21–30 of 49 posts
They're for social games (like WiiSports) that you play with friends and family or story-driven games (RPGs, etc) that you don't need a PC to play.
Honestly, I don't know how anyone plays FPS games on consoles. I play Halo 3 with my son now and the controls are infuriating.
It'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…
The original Playstation came out in 1994 and wasn't discontinued until 2009. The PS2 is still being manufactured. PS3 still has a while to go by that metric. If you want to talk time between models, PS1-to-PS2 was 6 years, and PS2-PS3 was 6 years, leaving PS4 to be only slightly behind the curve if it comes out next year.
Consoles have always been subpar in some way or another compared to top-of-the-line PCs at release; that article's claim is silly. My PC at the release of the PS3 had four times the PS3's RAM, and it wasn't even top-of-the-line. One of the biggest benefits of targeting a console is that it's a stable, homogeneous platform.
Tablets and phones aren't the new consoles, they're the new GameBoys. In that way, I agree with you that they could hurt Nintendo the most, mainly by virtue of the DS having been the leader in that market.
Let the mobile gaming market mature, and you'll find it filling niches you hadn't thought possible.
I 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.
Of course, and also throughput and latency. There is money to be made solving these problems, though, independent of the gaming industry. Compare the state of streaming video now to the state it was 5 years ago and 10 years ago.
The console market is already becoming a niche. They're for social games (like WiiSports) that you play with friends and family or story-driven games (RPGs, etc) that you don't need a PC to play. Honestly, I don't know how anyone plays FPS games on consoles. I play Halo 3 with my son now and the controls are infuriating.
Just look at the history of consoles, there were many models that had small userbases and thus were a niche. All failed, no exceptions.
Nobody is going to subsidize a console if there aren't enough game sales to get that investment back.
Similarly if people stopped buying smartphones then carriers would stop subsidizing them, so iPhones would cost $600 and then who would want one? not nearly enough people to justify current production levels, and BTW without those it would be far more than $600 without a subsidy.
Hardcore gamers, "purists", are already using highend gaming rigs that cost several times more than a console does. But they are a minority and sales numbers prove it.
If all this happened then consoles would disappear, or morph into something resembling the Phantom, which BTW failed big time.
People have limited money to spend on electronics, and as gaming on consoles becomes better, more people will play games on them instead of buying dedicated gaming machines. With technology like AirPlay, consumers can play tablet games on big TVs.
The same hardware that is in tablets makes its way to phones, which is going to make portable gaming systems very niche. We may even see phones next year that can create better looking games than the XBOX 360 and PS3.
Cloud gaming is on the way, and this will further erode consoles. You'll be able to have a dumb terminal of a TV or set top box that uses servers to render gaming content. Better looking games will naturally happen as servers become cheaper and more powerful.
None of this will replace the console gaming experience for those that really want that experience, but for the more casual audience, it will begin to erode it. With tablets, AirPlay, cloud gaming, etc. what future does a console like the Wii have? Phones can even be used as motion controllers with all of their sensors built in.
There will be a future for XBOX 360 and PS3 style consoles, but I agree that it will be more niche and that the next generation will last a long time. Because of this, I hope the next generation of consoles are built to last a long time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.