Is the home console industry as healthy as it seems to be ? Nearly 10 million next-gen systems sold already

[WCP]

Ok, so 10 million is a bit of a stretch. PS4 has sold like 4.2 million as of very late December, and Xbox has sold 3 million. Not quite 10 million, but if you add in the Wii U, it's definitely over 10 million, and if you exclude the Wii U, we should still hit 10 million worldwide very soon.

There are journalists out there that were openly wondering if the console industry was doomed to failure, and it would seem that these amazing sales would contradict such notions. They were thinking that the poor sales of the Wii U wasn't just some anomaly, and that the PS4 and XB1 would also be huge disappointments, and that we were heading to some type of paradigm shift away from home console gaming. Now we get these sales reports, and we have journalists claiming the exact opposite, that the home console industry is as healthy as can be, and everything is rainbows and butterflies.

What do you think the reality of the situation really is ?


Do you think that the home console industry is as healthy as can be, or do you think that this early sales success by Sony and Microsoft is a mirage that will fade away ?

I can make valid points for either scenario. While sales for PS4 and XB1 have been better than most would have anticipated, we are in a different world when it comes to manufacturing such products. These consoles aren't using special customized parts. They are using more off the shelf type designs, which allowed both Microsoft and Sony to ship a metric fuck ton of units to the stores. Also, there are so many more potential customers in gaming nowadays compared to previous generations. Smartphones and tablets have brought the idea of gaming to the great unwashed masses, and it's only natural to expect some of these people to crave an even better gaming experience.

Also, just think of how many units of the Xbox 360 and PS3 were sold over the last 7 or 8 years. Of course, there is a going to be a percentage of 360/PS3 owners that are going to want the next product coming down the pipe. It's a given that 3 million of each of these things would have no problems selling to a gaming populace that has had to wait longer than ever before for new hardware.

The real sales test is going to be February through July. What kind of monthly sales are these companies going to get during the "dry" period. Yes, I know that both Titanfall and inFamous are coming in March, but those games are only going to move so many units. All the hardest of the hardcore have already picked up a XB1 or PS4. Now they have to sell to the more casual audience. $399 and $499 isn't exactly a drop in the bucket. It's going to be a lot harder to sell these machines to the more casual types.

I think home console gaming isn't going anywhere, but at the same time, I don't think things are quite as healthy as it might appear. I think we still have a major problem in the fact that there doesn't seem to be any middle class in gaming anymore. You either get the blockbusters like Destiny and Titanfall, or you get the smaller games like Don't Starve and Peggle 2. There seems to be no middle ground. Games like "Singularity" and "Enslaved" seem to be a dying breed. Unless you can sell 10's of millions of copies, or have an unbelievably small budget, you don't get green lit anymore. Also, you have games like Tomb Raider that sell 4 million copies and are still deemed a failure by their publisher because the game cost gazillions of dollars to make.

I've heard that Bungie now has 500 people working on Destiny. Can you imagine how many copies Destiny is going to have to sell to break even ? Think of all those employees salaries for five full years, that have to be covered by the sales of a single game. I fear we could see some more bloodshed in the gaming industry in terms of large studios being shut down. Darwinism in effect. Either adapt and survive, or end up like THQ . As a gamer, I'm a bit concerned that my choices are going to be limited to only the safest of safe blockbusters, and tiny indy games. I'm going to miss that "in-between" type game.

[Rickstilwell1]

The middle class games you mention have all gone to handhelds since last generation. The 3DS and PS Vita have them all. At least the handhelds are more sophisticated these days to make up for it. They're graphically pleasing enough to interest any casual unlike the Game Boy/Game Gear days where those people would by like "this hurts my eyes/I can't see it"

[kupomogli]

I disagree that the hardest of the hardcore have picked up a PS4 and/or an Xbox One. I think more casual gamers have picked up a PS4 and Xbox One than hardcore, and by casual gamers, I mean those that get rid of their older consoles once they get the newer one, the people who play Call of Duty, etc. I really think hardcore gamer is more of a term for those that will play prior generations and play more than just a few publishers games.

Now the casual casual. The ones that don't play games at all, I think they're all gone. Or atleast most of them. Most of the Wii's audience.

Regardless what hardcore actually means, I think there are a lot of people out there that are waiting for games to be released on either console before picking one up. Two friends and I haven't picked up a PS4 because right now there's nothing you can''t get that you can already play on the PS3, or atleast that we're interested in. I'm interested in Infamous Second Son, but after thinking about it, not much else, so I'm probably going to wait until the end of this year and pick one up when the newer games are out and I can get them for $20 on sale.

Right now the PS360 are at 160 million combined. If you remove about 40 million for dead consoles or people who own both consoles, that's still 120 million. I think the PS4 and Xbox One are going to atleast get 140 million console sales combined.

[Bojay1997]

Didn't we just have this entire discussion a couple of weeks ago?

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/show...o-this-article

[WCP]

Didn't we just have this entire discussion a couple of weeks ago?

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/show...o-this-article

Yeah, but why not put a fresh spin on it now that we know that both have sold well over 3 million each in a couple months time.

Also, I'm bored... Might as well discuss something

[WCP]

The 3DS and PS Vita have them all.

I don't know about the 3DS, but I can tell you that Vita has ALL of the Indy games, but the vita doesn't have much of anything but the Indy games, or Sony produced games for their own handheld. The recent Killzone game is supposed to be really good and Tearaway seems pretty freaking awesome, but both of those games are financed by Sony, and were probably well under development before Sony knew the Vita would have lackluster sales. It's an unfortunate situation, but I just don't see Sony investing that much more money in making big Vita games anymore, and the 3rd parties have mostly abandaoned ship. Sure you get the Sonic All-Stars Racing here and there, but not much else.

However, the Vita is absolutely OVERFLOWING with Indy love. And the Indy games normally play pretty well on Vita.


But I don't see anything like Singularity or Enslaved coming to Vita. Unless it's a JPN import converted to the US. Vita is doing a bit better in Japan now.

[kupomogli]

I also don't think Sony gives a sh** about the Vita. The games they've released to it were already in development, and some have actually been cancelled. Warrior's Lair looked like a pretty good Diablo clone and Sony abandoned it. Here's the latest gameplay video showing mostly the warrior class, but there's also some wizard and assassin gameplay in there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrxJ5uNGHzs

The only support Sony is giving to the Vita is SCEJ who's actually making games for it. Other than that it's porting games they probably got the license to for cheap. Borderlands 2, that most people who want to play it have already played it on the PS360 or PC, and Epic Mickey 2, which most people couldn't give two sh*ts about. Two games that are yet again, more ports, when Sony said on release that they're going to try and make it so Vita isn't called a port machine, yet they're the ones doing the ports. Also God of War Collection which is also in development for the Vita.

Instead of Borderlands 2, obviously on the Vita because Sony is selling out, catering to the FPS fanbase in hopes that they purchase the system, a port that I think would have worked incredibly well for the Vita would be Dragon Age Origins. Graphically, aside from character models, it's pretty bad, so having the same quality of graphics appear on the Vita would be no problem. The PC version is easily the best version, but because of the Vita's touch pad, it could be the second best version. Keep the third person view, but also add in an overhead view that's on the PC version for players to pause the action, click on allies to attack specific enemies or use specific attacks etc. Fix the framerate issues and all the bugs which don't allow certain special classes to be acquired on consoles. As good of a game as Dragon Age Origins and as much content as there is, it'd be a great port that also uses the features the Vita offers.

With as good as the PS4 is selling, I'm hoping it actually gets people interested in purchasing a Vita because of remote play and PS+. Maybe that'll get Sony more interested in developing for the Vita, third parties more interested in developing or bringing there games out to the west. There are a good amount of RPGs on the Vita which are exclusive to Japan.

[Tanooki]

Is it going to go away no. Is it healthy as it appears, definitely not. What you're seeing right now with the two just released systems is the hype and preorder/early adopter ripple effect. You get a bunch of sales out of the gate, and then it along with new releases trickle to a shadow of its former self. People who got on made things look good, and the companies will lie about their new first holiday sales being excellent being a sign of things to come, and that's about it. Many if not most who are willing to ditch $400-500 on a system alone before even adding in a couple games to use it with have run out. If you look at craigslist, the garbage that happened to the Wii U a year ago, is happening already now. Many sales were preselling predator dicks who went to craigslist, ebay and amazon asking hundreds over retail to get it then and now for the season. Much of those systems people weren't stupid enough to fall into the trap over and still got the at retail so those prices now are break even or loss level pricing to get rid of it, and others, they just vanished a little after the holiday and probably got returned to retail with their gift receipts in tow.

Console gaming itself on a disc has very well marginalized itself on the duo of MS and Sony systems last generation and it's keeping up. Due to budgets and fear much of it narrows itself to a few solid and super strong genres you can get your money back out of and a profit with little compared risk over others. Do you see a lot of side scrolling platformers, simulations, jrpgs, family group games, shooters (not FPS), and various others on discs? Nope. They're either on downloads or on the 3DS, why because it's safe, cheap, and more risks can be had there. But also due to being downloads they also tend to hit the PC download networks too which doesn't help as they can be cheaper and will look and sound nicer usually too.

I suspect that lack of games lack of wanting to pay full price blow that nailed the Wii U will also hit the PS4 and the One, maybe not as bad because they have third parties willing to fillate them a lot more since they weren't snubbed like Nintendo did when they made Wii U without their input, but it'll happen still.

Handheld dedicated devices and then android/ios like tablets will be the way going forward if you want a lot of variety as it's just easier, cheaper, and a more warm market for such things so no the console market is going to not be as fuzzy and rosey looking in general once the next gen hype wave rolls out. Key games will make buzz as always, but price drops will have to come even sooner this generation to get more in line with them.

[kupomogli]

*Nintendo. Lick, lick, slurp. Gag, cough. Lick.*

Sorry, but from your recent post in another thread and this one, it's like every chance you get you put Nintendo up on a pedestal while bashing the other publishers, also producing misinformation while you're at it.

The PS4 and Xbox One aren't like the Wii U as your post tries so desperately to point out. While the black Wii U was harder to find, since day one the Wii U has had plenty of stock for anyone that's wanted one. It's almost two months since the release of the PS4 in the US, and finding a PS4 in stock, unless it's the same day they send more shipments is difficult to impossible.

There are also plenty of exclusives and multiconsole titles coming out for the PS4 and Xbox One this year. Xbox One has Titanfall and Halo 5. Sony has DriveClub, The Order 1866, Infamous Second Son, MLB The Show 14, and some digital only games. Both consoles are getting games like Tom Clancy's the Division, The Crew, Destiny, and others at retail year one.

Like every other generation before, do you expect developers to just drop what they're doing on games that are set for release on previous generation consoles and move everything over to a console with fewer sales? No. It's never like that. When the Xbox 360 was released, most of its games were multiconsole titles with the PS2. The Xbox 360 actually got very few exclusives in its first year on the market, almost no notable ones unless they were first party. The PS4 and Xbox One are getting several notable releases within the first year of their release.

When the PS2 released there were some good titles at launch, I think, but aside from one or two games, there was pretty much nothing that interested me until a year after launch.

It's expected that the first year of console launches aren't going to be that great. The Wii U actually got a decent amount of support early on and at first was one of the best first year launches out of any system, but it's clear that hardly anyone but Nintendo fans wanted a Wii U, and most Nintendo fans didn't support third party unless it was exclusive, so in turn, the developers dropped support. When Nintendo fans only support the console by buying exclusives and nothing more, they only have themselves to blame when the third party developers sh** all over them and drop support.

[Tanooki]

Do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you take a post like I made, make a dickbag little 'comment' like that to quote me and then rattle on about shit like that? I'm not putting Nintendo up on a pedestal, get over yourself. I'm basing it off of history of any of them including Nintendo. Certain people will buy a system up front, and a hell of a lot more will not because of the price. Wii U got hit with that reality as $300-350 was too much, now the wimp 8GB machine is toast and the other has almost $100 in free games in the box and a $50 price cut to kind of move it better. Last generation Sony had the arrogance of $600 is a cheap price for the PS3, we saw how that went regardless how damn good tht system is (I have one.) You're deflecting to try and start a fight I'm not going to engage in, and relative ability to find a PS4 these days is regional. I've seen them locally, but at that price for what I can get on it, I'm just not interested. I didn't get the PS3 until it was 2 years old and had Uncharted among a few other titles I really wanted and don't regret it, PS4 will be the same, price dropped and a library first.

I don't expect any developer to drop what they're doing, I don't even get where you're going with that as it wasn't up for debate. The unique games you're listing for either system is limited to a few genres and noted franchises too, so depending on the person you can take it or leave it if you want in now, or later as it's not like they're going anywhere soon. It's a given most systems have been set with less than great first years but greatness comes depending also on personal taste in games. Many would say the first year of the Genesis was crap, others would argue if they wanted some badass Sega arcade titles among a few others then it was great stuff. Sometimes a system has a pretty solid first 12 months like the Dreamcast did or the SNES. It's all luck of the draw.

You're saying nothing new about the problem with Nintendo and their supporters. They put out a lot of games, and in general their quality is fairly high so the fans gobble them up which leaves less dough to buy third party, and some companies get annoyed at that. Some take it as a challenge and develop to compete with better stuff, others get butt hurt and pack their shit and leave. This generation though, the reality of it is Nintendo fucked themselves years before the Wii U was out. My brother is a producer for a west coast gaming developer who is a licensee of all three hardware people so I get told things. I know that third parties during the last generation approached all three system makers asking for specific things in the upcoming generation of hardware. Sony and MS took it to heart and as you can see you have two system which have pretty similar capabilities from the hardware both have, they're like family, not black and white. Nintendo though told their licensees and perspective licensees to take a fucking walk that they'd make their hardware for their needs and they can support it or not, and clearly many have not, uniquely demanding (while justified) they build a base before they give them software or they're not interested. That's where the Wii U is damned by the company that played deaf. In the end it'll be a Gamecube maybe, probably a N64 with a lot of nice first and second party games and few third party games worth a crap and they'll go it alone which will end up like last generation with that shitty Wii I'll have to get a Sony system to fill the gap. You may want to place me in a box with my blinders on and nose up NIntendo's collective ass, but they do fairly well annoy me on the console front, handhelds though they keep me happy. I haven't been truly happy with them on a home system since the gamecube which did get decent third party support which they haven't had since.

[Daltone]

Is anyone making any money off all those consoles?

[SuperEliteGamer]

Well,it's not like consoles will suddenly stop being succesful any time soon.

[Press_Start]

Not as long as devs keep believing their games will sell 6 million every time.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/wat.../1100-6411643/

[Tanooki]

That sad story you linked there is one of many. I found it offensive that the developer of that new Tomb Raider game from last year was bitching and whining they took a loss despite that game selling multi-million copies of it. People demanding to sell like 4-6M copies of their games (and that's assumed at $60) deserve to fail. It's equally bad planning as it is pure arrogance to just assume shit like that.

[kupomogli]

I agree. Some publishers and developers really seem to mismanage their company on how much budget they put into a game and how much they expect to sell. You always see these very same publishers complaining about lost profits in every single game they release. You expect them to learn, but then here goes, example, Square Enix with yet another quote on how they're going to mobile because they can't support the consoles cost of development.

[dgdgagdae]

I knew who had started this thread based on the title.

WCP, you're always worried about units sold and industry health. Does this kind of thing keep you up at night?

[WCP]

I knew who had started this thread based on the title.

WCP, you're always worried about units sold and industry health. Does this kind of thing keep you up at night?

No, it definitely doesn't keep me up at night. I don't own any stock in any video game companies. I just think the console wars are fascinating, and I'm genuinely interested in how everything will play out. I don't have any specific horse in this race, nor do I derive any personal satisfaction from one company struggling and another company enjoying success. Still, it's always interesting to see how things will play out, because rarely is the lead held for more than two generations, or even more than one generation. The company that was on top of the world in the previous cycle could fall to the bottom. We've seen it happen over and over. That's the nice thing about this industry, nothing is guaranteed. The heavy favorite going into a generation can end up in last place, and the underdog that nobody gave a chance could shock everybody.

Of course, sometimes things do play out exactly like expected, and the guy that everyone thinks will win, does win, but we've also seen the exact opposite. We know that anything can happen.

[Neb6]

Until I see something on the PS4 or XB One that actually crank out something even close to the number of textured and lit polygons per second that the stats suggest they are capable of -- I'm going to wait.

So far I haven't seen anything much beyond what the 360 and PS3 can do.