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View Full Version : Is the games industry getting just a little too crowded?



Gemini-Phoenix
04-19-2005, 08:51 AM
It's getting to the point where it's starting to get crowded.

I appreciate the fact that there are three major companies all battling it out, and all doing a good job of it, but it is getting ridiculous now. If they're not careful, we're just going to have a repeat of 1994 / 1995 again and another 32bit war on our hands!


At the moment, the average game player has all three of the major consoles, plus maybe a GameBoy and maybe a DS by now. Now in my opinion that's far too many consoles to be buying games for as it is, but if you throw the new three consoles in the mix, as well as the PSP, then it starts to look a bit crowded!


And that's not even mentioning the consoles which have fallen by the wayside like the DreamCast...


How do they expect us to keep up? All they seem to be interested in is taking our money. They seem to think that having more products to buy games for will let them achieve their goal (Which it does) but at the end of the day it's forcing us to make harder purchasing decisions... They don't care about gamers - All they care about is knocking out some kind of a product which us (Like idiots) will buy...


But it's getting to the sage where things are moving too fast. Anyone who wants to gain a half decent gaming collection stands no chance.


Take a common game like Spiderman 2 (The movie) for instance - How many consoles is that game now on? Every single bloody one of them - So that's at least six consoles that game is on. And they are all different in some small way - Any normal person would not be able to buy all of them, so they are then presented with the choice of which one to buy... And how can you justify paying for the same game twice just to be able to play it on your Tv or on the move?


Myself - I am still lagging behind still buying up PSone and DreamCast games! I buy PS2 / Cube / Xbox one's too, as well as GBA and Ngage ones. And believe me when I say that it is very expensive to do so. I spend nearly £500 a week, and still I can't seem to keep up...


As far as home consoles goes, it's ok. We have three, and three only - And it doesn't look as if that is going to change anytime soon. Soon each of those three will be superceeded by three more, and hopefully all be backwards compable. So that's fairly straight forward. Current games will go down in price, and in the case of the PS2 and Cube - Maybe they will remain as budget priced consoles for some time in the future... (As the Mega Drive and PSone did before them)

It's this handheld market which is starting to get a bit messy - We have the GBA and now the DS (Which in my mind is unnecessary) as well as the Ngage, Gizmondo, Zodiac, and now the PSP. I think it's probably safe to say the Ngage won't be around for much longer though, and very soon the GBA will be replaced by a GBA 2 possibly...

But even if you take the three major ones - The GBA, DS, and PSP - That now takes the total of consoles to buy for all the way up to six! That's six consoles which all want you to buy their full priced games!


In my opinion, I think handheld games should be half the price that they are now - Simply for the fact that they are basically half the game their grown up siblings are. How many people will be able to afford to buy the PS2 version of a game, and then the corresponding PSP version? Not many - And if a lot of games are released in "Two parts" like this, then it get's quite confusing and expensive! (Take GT4 for reference)


I'll continue this in another thread, as it is more focussed on the downfall of Nintendo... - The downfall of Nintendo is almost upon us! (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58725)

anagrama
04-19-2005, 09:00 AM
NEWSFLASH: You don't have to buy every game on every console.

Kejoriv
04-19-2005, 09:12 AM
I say bring it on. The more game companies the better. More competition means the companies have to think harder to develop better better games/ systems for people to buy.

sabre2922
04-19-2005, 09:37 AM
Surprisingly the high interest and overall acceptance of video games in our current culture can actually support the flooding of games and early release of next-gen consoles.

Right around the launch of Xbox 1 I was convinced that we were headed for yet another video game industry crash that would make '83-'84 look like a walk in the park but the industry steamed forward full throttle and now has surpassed the movie industry for 2 years in a row now what was once a "geek hobby" is now a 9 BILLION DOLLAR a year Industry.

I still see a possibility of a downward spyral as far as sales go for the simple reason that most of my friends are perfectly happy with their PS2s,Xboxs or Gamecubes right now and the push to release the next batch of consoles may not prove to be as succesfull as Sony or Microsoft may think ;)

Captain Wrong
04-19-2005, 11:11 AM
How many times do we need to start this topic?

anagrama
04-19-2005, 11:23 AM
How many times do we need to start this topic?

In order to ensure cosmic balance in the Universe, it is required that the number of "The games industry is doomed" threads must maintain parity with the number of "OMG Nintendo is doomed" threads.
Wouldn't want to be responsibe for the universe collapsing inwards on itself now, would you?

Cmosfm
04-19-2005, 11:28 AM
How many times do we need to start this topic?

In order to ensure cosmic balance in the Universe, it is required that the number of "The games industry is doomed" threads must maintain parity with the number of "OMG Nintendo is doomed" threads.
Wouldn't want to be responsibe for the universe collapsing inwards on itself now, would you?

And thank GOD Gemini is doing his part on both counts for the day, otherwise we'd be doomed to an eternity of pointless wandering.

Or some shit, I dunno.