The end of Retro Gaming as we know it.

[Anthony1]

Everyone knows that we now live in a video game world that is controlled basically by two companies. Sony and Microsoft. Of course Nintendo is still there, but there is still a very significant chance that they will give up on gaming hardware and turn exclusively to software sales accross all platforms.

Now, of course none of this is really new news or anything suprising, but one of the major dissapointments, with this being a two company industry, is the fact that in todays modern video game world, there isn't going to be any 3DO's, or Atari Jaguars, or Neo - Geo's.

There is just going to be Playstation 3's, and XBOX 2's and Playstation 4's and XBOX 3's and on and on and on.

So when today's youth grows older and thinks about going retro 20 years from now, they will only have old XBOX 4's and Plastation 5's to go back to. They won't have it like we do now. We have Turbo Grafx and Super Nes and Genesis and Jaguar and 3D0 and Neo-Geo and Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64 and the original Playstation, and that's just since the very late 80's.

But the future appears to be one of only Playstations and XBOXes. It's only a matter of time before Nintendo realizes that it makes more sense for them to just concentrate on making the best games possible and selling them on both the new Playstations and XBOXes and the PC.

And would any outside company dare and try to actually seriously compete with Sony and Microsoft?

Who would be so bold to go up against compaines with Billions of dollars to easily swat away any competitors like flys?

All I can say is that I'm glad to be a retro gamer in the year 2003 and not one in the year 2023.

[hezeuschrist]

Uh, ok.

[ehall]

You are absolutely right. Sony and Xbox have won. It's only a matter of time. They have all the money, so no one will try new and different ways to capture the imagination of gamers. Why bother. Doooooooom doooooooooooooooooooom...... O_O

[Epicenter]

Heh. This is what I call "extreme pessimism". Microsoft has minimal market share in the video gaming industry, and Sony and Nintendo share the rest. While Sony has the lead due to the greater amount of time the PS2 has been out, I don't see the PS3 coming out for a looooong time, giving Nintendo lots of time to gain back more of the market. Add to this the near-sure fact that, due to Sega's complete and woeful self-fuckery, they'll be bought by N soon. I've heard no such announcements of N giving up on making hardware (in fact, it shows that Sega's been giving them pointers-- like how Sega obviously pointed them to the Motorola CPU series [ like the 680x0 chips they're very fond of in vintage console and arcade games ], by getting them to use the PowerPC chip (also from Motorola, based on 68k technology), as opposed to the pathetic CPUs used in previous N systems. Also note the GBA. The design is practically identical in terms of button/screen layout to the Game Gear. Sega's built some awesome hardware in the past, and Nintendo's has been pretty lackluster from a hardware standpoint (i.e. the comprimised 16-bit CPU on 8-bit bus in the SNES, the NES' pitiful 6502@1.4 MHz cpu in the NES/Famicom, compared to Sega's Z80@4 MHz, etc.), but with Sega's help, they can easily turn that all around (and they are already, as we can see by the sales of the NGC and GBA.) So, Nintendo's clearly not going ANYWHERE.

Sony's PS3 is far off-- they're developing it in a way that's supposed to be revolutionary-- and it's going to take a long time. As for Microshaft, they're losing about $100 for each XBox they sell. "Oops." If that keeps up, they're not going to be in the video game market for long. They're already trying to get an upgrade for the XBox available that doubles as a set-top box for TV viewing, so they're obviously off on another crusade to capture all TV audiences (another inherent failure in the making, look at UltimateTV.)

Now, as for the topic itself, you state that this is the "end of RetroGaming"? I don't know of anyone who considers the GameCube to be 'retro'. We consider 'retro' to be the 64-bit, 32-bit, 16-bit, 8-bit, and below eras of gaming. Not only is the GBA doing great, and completely resurrecting the Sprite Era of gaming (before the days of polygons), but all our old systems are not going anywhere. On the off chance that MicroShit creates a VintageBomb that turns all old NES/SMS/Genesis/SNES/etc. machines into bowls of X-Box Logo Lime Jell-O, we've still got emulation.

So, I'm not exactly panicking.. and my NES is not yet Jell-O. I'll keep you updated if that changes, though.

[Ed Oscuro]

Lol.

Nevermind that Neo Geo games are still being made, that people still program Atari games, forget handhelds, forget cell phones, forget Capcom Generations, Namco Museum, Konami Collector series & Castlevania Chronicles...it's all dooooooooooooooom.

Just like the guy in Aliens said...


Game over, man!

[hydr0x]

Everyone knows that we now live in a video game world that is controlled basically by two companies. Sony and Microsoft.

O_O come on man, thats ridiculous, i really don't want to insult u, but PLS just try to look beyond ur US borders

and why do u think there will be only 2 consoles? there are a lot more consoles with new games at the moment:

Gamecube, PS2, X-Box obviously
Neo Geo, you should know that, right?
Atari homebrews
PSOne still new games
GBA will see a lot of homebrews too (btw u completly "forgot" to mention the handheld market, which has gba, n-gage, psp)
and afaik there are even new dreamcast games

oh and i nearly forgot, the pirate market in south america, africa and china

[Needle]

It's very easy to say "Sony and Microsoft control the games market" now. A few years down the line, this "irrefutable facts" could very much be turned upside down. Point in case?

When I was younger, I thought that Nintendo and Sega would be battling it out until I was old and grey. And I believe we all know how that turned out.

[omnedon]

I remember when a company had an unbeleivably powerful stranglehold on the market. They could do no wrong. The competition tried with fancier graphics, and superior sound, but still only got less than a quarter of the market shared between them. It seemed at the time, that there would not be a gaming future without this company being a dominant force in it. As a matter of fact, even if you had one of the competitions systems, people still called it by the name of the dominant system of the day. It was utterly pervasive.

Until a developer turned hardware manufacturer, and set a stagnant industry on it's head, re-inventing everything.

http://www.thelogbook.com/artwork/oct00/atari.jpg

And the developer was obviously :) Nintendo.

The only constant in this game, is change. It's what makes it so fun and fascinating to watch!

[davidbrit2]

Precisely. The game industry became extremely stagnant, bottomed out badly, then Nintendo snuck in and blew everyone away. It'll happen again, hopefully.

[congobongo]

As Omnedon stated, you don't know what could happen to shake things up. There could be another crash thus paving the way for more focused "enthusiasts" systems. Consumers as a whole may tire of ultra-realistic fps and 3ps shooters (please let it be true) demanding a return to originality over volume. Our concept of "computers" and "internet" may change so drastically that we no longer look to consoles to run software media but place the focus on developers alone regardless of medium. The only thing we know for sure is that we don't know what will happen tomorrow. We can only guess.

[Anthony1]

Unfortunately, I must have been very unclear with the point that I was trying to make with this thread.


Sure, Retro Gaming is in no way, shape, or form, dead now. And quite honestly, it will never be dead. What I'm trying to say is that we are going to be living in a video game world that will ultimately be controlled by two mega corporations, and the old days of new systems coming out of the blue as extreme underdogs, to challenge the big boys are over. So, what I'm trying to say is that we were fortunate to live in a time when there actually was some healty competition, and alot of different horses in the race.

Those days are history. But Retro Gaming isn't history. People will always be into going back and playing the classics. The downside that I was trying to illustrate is that people 20 years from now that are only interested in going back 10 to 15 years in the past, will only be going back to Playstion 3's and XBOX 2's, and Playstation 4's and XBOX 3's.

While we have it much better right now. Myself for instance, I'm mostly interested in playing systems from the Turbo forward. These are the systems that I'm revisiting:

1. Turbo Grafx 16
2. Sega Genesis
3. Super Nintendo
4. Sega CD
5. Sega 32 X
6. 3DO
7. Atari Jaguar
8. Sony Playstation
9. Sega Saturn
10. Nintendo 64

These are basically the major systems of the last 11 or 12 years, and I have a good amount to choose from. But what I'm saying is that somebody 20 years from now, that wants to go back a decade or so, will only be looking at a list like this:

1. Playstation 4
2. XBOX 3
3. Playstation 5
4. XBOX 4
5. Playstation 6
6. XBOX 5


And actually, that list probably really won't be that accurate either, as in another 10 to 15 years, we probably won't even actually have physical game systems in our living rooms. It will probably all be delivered over Fiber Optic lines, or whatever they will be using at the time, by even bigger Media Conglomerates.


Basically the whole point that I was tyring to make is that we aren't going to be seeing any 3D0's or Jaguars, or 32X's or Neo-Geo's any more. And I'm not talking about those actual systems. I'm talking about those type of competitors.

Sure you guys can mention how at one point nobody thought that anybody could touch Atari. And that at one point nobody thought anybody could touch Nintendo and Sega. But you simply aren't understanding the current economics of this market that we are in.

Do you know the market caps of Microsoft and Sony? Microsoft could actually buy Nintendo and Sony if they wanted to. It's a totally different game now. This is a 8 to 12 Billion dollar industry we are in. There isn't any more room for companies like NEC or Matsushita or 3D0 or Atari or anything like that. This is a whole new era.

And believe me, I'm not glad that this is the way it is, I just understand that this is the way it is. That's why I'm so happy that I grew up in maybe the greatest era in video game history. I started playing games heavily with the Turbo and have been ever since. It was a great ride buying all these different systems on the day they came out. It was a great ride reading all those magazines wondering if Atari had any chance against the big boys of Sega and Nintendo.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Hi Anthony1, welcome to the Roundtable! Glad to see ya here.

I think what so many folks are trying to say here is that it's all a matter of perspective. I know that from my viewpoint, I don't considering anything from the SNES forward to be "classic" - but that's just my viewpoint. What is and isn't classic, what is and isn't fun, that's all entirely subjective. No doubt someone will grow up with the PS8.33 and think it's the best thing ever - but it's not because they're in love with the hardware, it's because of what games they played on it. I can see where you're coming from if you're saying that we no longer have the variety of hardware platforms that we once did, but in that way, interactive media is merely mirroring other major media like radio, TV and print: as it costs more to compete - due to advertising, R&D, promotion and distribution costs - only the most major players are still in the game (compare this also to the growing number of major corporate-owned media outlets). A few well-meaning independents, like SNK, are sticking around, but with this medium, increasingly it's about software, not hardware.

[hydr0x]

anthony ur 2nd post doesn't differ at all from the first and i think we all know what u want to say with ur 2 posts, but it's still narrow-minded and even completely unrealistic, i will say it again, your whole thoughts are based on the fact that there are only 2 big hardware companies right now, this is just not true!! we have 3 big hardware developers at the moment (sony, ms, nintendo) and what u seem to forget: let's imagine nintendo would really stop making consoles (it's unrealistic cause they are making profit from selling consoles, so why stop??????) and would only make software, well, you know nintendos software, it's great and they would make huge profit on it and still have their handhelds, so perhaps 2 console-generations later they will have made enough money to re-enter the console market, who knows?
another example: ya know, thera are still a lot HUGE electronic-manufacturers(panasonic...) which don't have an own console but would be able to make one, so why do u think no one will ever try??? just imagine, let's say atari, sega, ea whoever and panasonic, phillips, whoever would cooperate, do u really think they wouldn't be able to take away some market-share??? i don't think so, even if it's only like 5%

[Mayhem]

True, but why get into it if you're only going to achieve 5% share? M$ went in aiming to be #1 in the market by throwing a LOT of money about. They haven't gotten there yet mainly due to perceived image and many PS1 owners just following on and buying PS2. You need a lot of money to get into this industry now... how much did Sony spend researching the PS2 for example? Billions I'd imagine. You need to make it back somehow...

[ianoid]

Substitute Xbox for N64 and 2003 for 1998.

Yawn! Nobody thought Sony could break into the market. Nobody thought Microsoft could break into the market. Do you think the largest entertainment industry in the world will be controlled by two parties alone? That no other companies won't want a piece of that pie or be able to get it? That's just plain silly to say no.

In a black and white world, I'm yellow. And not from liver disfunction either.

[brandver3]

And there is no way to even know if we will ever get to a X-box 2. MS has lost A LOT of money. It was arong 500 Million this year and a I think 250 Million last year (If some knows the official numbers for last year let me know).
And they predicted by next year they will have lost 1 Billion dollars. I don't care who you are or how much money you have, 1 Billion dollars is a lot of money. And MS has shareholders who, so the word is, think if the money doesn't start coming in soon, that they are going to turn of the faucet and let the Box sink.

Now Sony can really go both ways right now, they been on top for eight years, but they are hurting. I find it funny that financially the company is at a eight year low, and they have been in the industry for eight years. The rest of the company is trying to revitalize themselves witht the PS side , hence the PSX. This kind of desperation could lead to collosal mistakes on there part, as it has with many companies in the past.

So with the stat of thing there is no way to gaurentee that there will even be a X-box 2, or a PS4, hell, even a PS3 for that matter, who knows.

All three companies could fold up tommorrow, and then we could have SNK, Nokia, and Panasonic all competing for our video game dollars, you never know.

[Cmtz]

I know what you are trying to say. I do know that Sony and Microsoft have a lot of money and that in the current market you need a lot of money to make it in the gaming world. But, remember the market will change and current will mean a diffrent thing in 5 or 10 years.

[ManekiNeko]

I'm kinda hoping for an industry crash myself. That ought to take care of those PS5 worries...

JR

[omnedon]

I understand what you are saying Anthony1.


Howvever, I stand by my contention that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In 1981 the very idea that Atari would cease to be the dominant force in the games market was unthinkable. Seemed impossible.

What seems impossible now, isn't.

[Anthony1]

Look, I woluld absolutely love it, if there were alot more competitors in the gaming arena, from the hardware side.

But the reality is that there really is only 3 right now, with one of them hanging on for dear life.


When NEC released the U.S. version of the PC Engine, here in the United States, it was a totally different ballgame. It wasn't a 10 Billion dollar industry. Any company that could manufacture a console could get in the game. Same thing with the 3D0 and Atari Jaguar when they got in the game as well.

It's just a totally different climate right now. Unless you have several Billion dollars to possibly waste, nobody would even consider taking a chance at going up against Sony and Microsoft.

Sure, Nintendo is going to make another console, but that move will be more about pride than anything else. They don't want their last two pieces of hardware to be their legacy. Especially in Japan.

But after the next Nintendo home unit, I would guess that they will finally throw in the hardware towel, (not the portable hardware towell though).

Who has Billions of dollars in the bank to potentially throw away in going head to head with Sony and Microsoft?

Nobody is going to blow that kind of coin, unless they think they really have a realistic chance of making it work.

Let me play Devils advocate for just a second and try to imagine somebody going up against Sony and Microsoft.

It would probably take several major companies coming together to try to grab some market share in this super lucrative market.

I would guess that you would need Intel, Nvidia and Electronic Arts to all join together to make a new gaming platform. Then, just possibly, could you actually have a competitor that could actually throw their hat into the ring. But the chances of three companies like that all getting together to try to battle Sony and Microsoft is just completely assinine.

So I just don't see it.

I think that the next time that Sony and Microsoft are actually going to have some legit competition, is when Comcast or SBC, or Time Warner decide to deliver an on demand video game service into peoples homes through super advanced cable boxes and fiber optic lines.

That's still a good 10 years away, so I think we will see this:


November 2005 - Sony releases Trinity, otherwise known as the PS3
September 2006 - Microsoft releases XBOX Next
December 2006 - Nintendo releases Nintendo Super 256 (just kidding)
May 2009 - Nintendo announces at e3 that they are no longer going to release home video game machines, but just concentrate on their portable line and software accross all platforms, except competiting portables.
September 2010 - Sony and Time Warner collaborate on a on demand Playstation 4 service.
November 2011 - Microsoft, Comcast and SBC collaborate ona on demand XBOX 3 service.
September 2012 - Atari releases a game system so powerfull, that it causes all the planets in the solar system to collapse upon themselves.

GAME OVER

[RubbarDucklin]

Well, I bet there was someone JUST like you 10 years ago saying that its all over and that Nintendo and Sega are the only people making games and that its all over. NEW companies spring up and some might even become prosperous.

[Anthony1]

RubbarDucklin: Yeah there could have been somebody 10 years ago saying that it's all over and that all we are going to have is Nintedo and Sega, but they would be dead wrong.

And not dead wrong because the only constant is change, and industrys always change and morph and recycle themselves.

They would be dead wrong because 10 years ago, this wasn't a 12 or so Billion dollar industry.

You see what happened is that all the money that Sega and Nintendo made in the hey days of gaming woke up some of the really big boys. They saw these smaller companies making some serious coin, and they woke up and smelled the frapachino and decided that our industry had finally gotten big enough where it actually interested them.

Then they decided to take over the industry.

10 years ago a company didn't need several billion dollars just to develop a system and then another billion to market it and lauch it.

It's just a totally different animal now.

This industry has matured to the point where only a super power type company can really compete.

[Needle]

I fail to see how Nintendo is "hanging on for dear life" when they're the only ones making a profit.

Sony has been pushing their consoles hard because the REST of their business is suffering.

I understand what you're trying so say, and I realize your intentions are good. But it just doesn't make any sense to predict an unpredictable future.

[hezeuschrist]

Who has Billions of dollars in the bank to potentially throw away in going head to head with Sony and Microsoft?

Gee, let me think, every multimedia company you see plastered all over the US and Japan? To think that Sony won't fall, or that Microsoft won't give up (They can't fall, they were never up) is to think that there was no chance of Chrysler having to merge, or that Ford and GM will never lose to the Japanese competitor's. What you're spouting is, pardon me, uneducated bullshit. There is no way ANY industry is ever dominated by 2 companies for decades at a time, it never happens. The automobile industry got it's socks rocked right off when the Japanese took the boat over. Nintendo and Sega didn't even have all that much time on top.

And so what do you think if Nintendo bows out of the console market? You don't find the trend? Logically, Sony would be the next to go down, then Microsoft, then whoever it was that killed them.

There is no chance that 20 years from now it will be Sony and Microsoft, hell even 5 years from now Microsoft probably wont have any hand in the game market other than setting up online networks for the companies that can make a system that doesn't suck ass. Other companies will challenge, and will do better than Microsoft (not like it'd be much of a challenge to create a system with more than 1 good game), and even Sony and Nintendo. That doesn't mean that Sony won't be making consoles 20 years from now, but it does mean that there is no way they can stay on top for almost 3 decades.

[Dire 51]

Yeah, and look what happened to television. In the '60s it was NBC, ABC and CBS. That was it. No one thought there would ever be anything to challenge the "Big Three". Then what happened? In the '70s cable tv - and the VCR - showed up, which started the ball rolling toward the end of the "Big Three"'s dominance. In the "80s even more cable networks showed up - along with another network! In the '90s and even now, more and more things were introduced that continued to draw people awy from the "Big Three" - and granted, while the "Big Three" aren't exactly out of the running (not by a long shot), they sure don't have the clout they had in the '60s anymore.

Things change. It's the nature of any industry. Sometimes the changes are unpredictable. Simply put, you don't know what's going to happen until it happens. There could be a crash tomorrow, and Sony and Microsoft might not consider it viable to continue to produce hardware or software and pull out of the industry completely. Things might drastically improve for Microsoft in a month and the XBox could become number one for the next five years. The earth could blow up next week, making this entire discussion moot. No one knows. Period.

[Ed Oscuro]

Funny you should mention that -- now that the FCC has relaxed guidelines, Murdoch & Co. look set to snap up a large share of the news market. It's not just them...the sort of climate that the FCC is encouraging to develop will be big on mergers, and who will be the voice of reason? I don't worry about it so much myself since we have the 'net, and a smart person can see past the B.S. (I'm sorry if you like Fox News, but arguing with your commentators is NOT professional...though they do have good points at times, as does O'Reily...) What does this do for the common person?

And what does that do with this topic?

While it's true that the market does have a tendency towards volatile change and that change is happening with increasing frequency, I don't think we have to abandon our instincts completely. It all depends on whether Big Money consolidates their positions in the current climate (personally, the XBOX is a great machine and it's a shame there isn't more stuff out on it) or whether some new player can muscle in.

One thing to remember is that the New Scene isn't just about the next big console, or having the biggest network. There are some relatively simple types of gaming that promise to pull in lots of money--Hideo Kojima was talking about a "disposable game" that you play as far as you can in one sitting (doesn't that sound a little strange coming from the anti-establishmentarian, anti-nuclear and likely pro-environmental tree hugger that he seems to be at times?)

There's the E-Card Reader for the GameBoy Advance...I'm a personal sucker for things that are obviously exotic and require new hardware, especially if they keep the words "Limited Edition" off the thing. (Should remind some of you folks about what happened to the baseball collecting scene around 1994-1995.) Limited Editions suck, and they're such an obvious ploy to simply make easy money from repackaging your normal product and limiting the run to ridiculously small quantities. This is NOT the way to go.

Wireless communications are likely to be a big, big player. The simplest use for infrared, bluetooth and the like is probably simpler than their most supposedly important function (at current, nobody but owners of expensive Vandem Clio type machines and psychotics use handheld machines for casual web surfing)...multiplayer among handhelds! Yes, losing the cord on your GameBoy would be a big plus indeed.

What about the PC scene? PCs based around Microsoft's "Media Center" Windows XP operating system are generally pretty awful buys for the money, but this isn't a trend that's likely to disappear soon. A lot of people at this forum like to use their PC on a TV...computers like these will not only make that commonplace, but will probably give an extra incentive for TV manufacturers to increase resolution on their HDTVs and bring down the price, all the while bringing the internet, television, and general computing closer together.

I don't know what the result will be, but suffice to say this will be an interesting time to watch gaming.

[Aswald]

A lack of real choices, not just in video gaming, is unfortunately a serious problem today. I'd be surprised if future retro-gamers have even 2 choices, really. But then, has there really been innovation in gaming genres for years now, except for Mario 64?

[overengen]

I think that Microsoft should stick to making software and make their Live net available to all of the other platforms as well, that will generate a lot more money than trying to push their xbox alone!

[YoshiM]

Does it really matter that the future generations may not have a multitude of hardware to choose from like we did in the past? As long as good software comes out there could be only one hardware platform as far as future gamers would probably care about.

Anthony1 talks about companies having to be big in order to jump into the industry. It's always been that way pretty much since 1977. The difference today is that games are a lot more EXPENSIVE to make than they were in the past. In the past one person could code out a game-graphics, sound, design, everything. Even though this happened in the past it still took some talent and some good seed money to make it: see Activision. Can't really do that today as the games that are demanded need to be more complex, prettier, have real sounds, etc. etc. You need a team of people to do that if you want to get a game out to the public in a decent amount of time. You need the equipment to be able to satisfy the wants of the audience. This all takes money. Not because big business moved in (ie Sony or Microsoft), but because of software evolution.

Now if we are talking about hardware development, you'd BETTER be a somewhat large company to start this venture. Or have some sort of brand recognition along with some innovative people on board. R&D with hardware was always expensive no matter what period in history it is. And then you have to hope the thing is somewhat of a success. If you look back, many of the companies that brought us consoles were decent sized companies.

[Eternal Champion]

I don't think there can be more than 2 or 3 big companies in the console wars, because of the nature of the industry. Take PC gaming, where it doesn't matter what machine you have, as long as you have the proper requirements and OS. E.g, I can play Doom II on my home computer, my laptop, my work computer, etc, etc. But if I want to play, say, Metroid Prime, I have to buy a $150 GCN. But if I want to play GTA Vice City, I have to buy a $200 PS2.
The fact remains, because of those high prices, MOST consumers are a one-console player. Hardcore people will have more than one, but I think that's why the market shares of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are what they are, and why it's so cut throat.

I think I've given up on console gaming. In five years I think I'll start getting GC games used, maybe, if I still care. (although I'm tempted to pick up an N64) I think the very nature of console gaming ultimately is against the consumer--new consoles every few years that we are expected to buy, RARELY downwardly compatible, always changing media, etc, etc. I HOPE this industry, the way it is, crashes--it NEEDS to evolve.

P.S. Regarding the Neo-Geo--I don't understand how it could be considered "still around". When was the last time it was manufactured and available to buy? How can new games be made for a console that is no longer made? Where will they be sold?

As for TG16, 3DO, Jaguar--calling them "underdogs" is certainly being democratic. Again, because of the nature of a console-based industry, there was no room for a third competitor, and they were decimated. Especially the Jag.

[hydr0x]

It's always been that way pretty much since 1977. The difference today is that games are a lot more EXPENSIVE to make than they were in the past. In the past one person could code out a game-graphics, sound, design, everything. Even though this happened in the past it still took some talent and some good seed money to make it: see Activision. Can't really do that today as the games that are demanded need to be more complex, prettier, have real sounds, etc. etc. You need a team of people to do that if you want to get a game out to the public in a decent amount of time. You need the equipment to be able to satisfy the wants of the audience. This all takes money. Not because big business moved in (ie Sony or Microsoft), but because of software evolution.


that's not entirely true, 3 examples: Gunman Chronicles, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat

all programmed by a single person, ok, this was only possible cause those were mods, but half-life 2 afaik will also have a mod function, ut2k3 has and so on, people can make games on their own, and sometimes these games will be sold as full-price games (see those examples)

[YoshiM]

It's always been that way pretty much since 1977. The difference today is that games are a lot more EXPENSIVE to make than they were in the past. In the past one person could code out a game-graphics, sound, design, everything. Even though this happened in the past it still took some talent and some good seed money to make it: see Activision. Can't really do that today as the games that are demanded need to be more complex, prettier, have real sounds, etc. etc. You need a team of people to do that if you want to get a game out to the public in a decent amount of time. You need the equipment to be able to satisfy the wants of the audience. This all takes money. Not because big business moved in (ie Sony or Microsoft), but because of software evolution.


that's not entirely true, 3 examples: Gunman Chronicles, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat

all programmed by a single person, ok, this was only possible cause those were mods, but half-life 2 afaik will also have a mod function, ut2k3 has and so on, people can make games on their own, and sometimes these games will be sold as full-price games (see those examples)

While true that these add-ons became popular and they (well at least for sure Counter-Strike) were lucky enough to have their mod picked up and sold by a company, these are still mods. The base product was built by a team by a sizable company and sold with the capability to be tweaked by the savvy masses. Without that base, would said programmer sat and built a game of that complexity by himself and then sell it? Possible, but to be honest highly doubtful as to do all that AND be able to get it out the door before the technology gets surpassed would take more time than that person could possibly afford.

There will always be little exceptions to anything, but the truth of it all is that really one person cannot really bust out onto the main gaming scene BY THEMSELVES (ie developing a game of itself, not a massive tweak of an existing title). That's just my POV from what I've seen in the industry today.