Current console sales prove consoles aren't doomed afterall *spawn

[London Geezer]

For all the 'console gaming is dead' talk, I can't help but think that these figures show a very healthy console market. When was the last time two consoles sold so much, in their first year?? Look at those figures, over 30 million units - almost 40 million with the WiiU, which at this point cannot really be ignored.

This will NOT be the last generation of consoles, as much as people will like us to believe.

 

[goonergaz]

I've never understood that either - it's like people saying that ipad/phone/etc would take over gaming...it's just not going to happen...well, not any time soon.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't think one can call the future of consoles on a keen start to a new gen. The issues facing console relevancy are growing, and their impact might come full force in a few years. Kinda like you can't look at 3 months of launch sales of a new console and conclude everyone loves it because it sold so quickly. The following two years could see miserable sales.

@goonergaz Note the issue isn't just people moving to mobile. They are
1) mobile devices taking casual gamers
2) mobile devices becoming powerful enough to offer console experiences, at least to a standard the mainstream wants
3) Streaming services making a dedicated box irrelevant
4) PCs becoming cheaper and more flexible and a direct competitor

Obviously these won't kill consoles completely overnight, but they'll erode the console market size. We'll have to wait to the end of the console generation to see if that's true or not. There'll always be a market for the true core gamer, but will it be enough to sustain the big players? Like vinyl still existing, but being niche. Core games might have to move completely to PC because the market for dedicated consoles could drop to a few tens of million and the cost of operating a console company is too high to justify that (unless there's nothing else you company can do!).

 

[chris1515]

I don't think one can call the future of consoles on a keen start to a new gen. The issues facing console relevancy are growing, and their impact might come full force in a few years. Kinda like you can't look at 3 months of launch sales of a new console and conclude everyone loves it because it sold so quickly. The following two years could see miserable sales.

@goonergaz Note the issue isn't just people moving to mobile. They are
1) mobile devices taking casual gamers
2) mobile devices becoming powerful enough to offer console experiences, at least to a standard the mainstream wants
3) Streaming services making a dedicated box irrelevant
4) PCs becoming cheaper and more flexible and a direct competitor

Obviously these won't kill consoles completely overnight, but they'll erode the console market size. We'll have to wait to the end of the console generation to see if that's true or not. There'll always be a market for the true core gamer, but will it be enough to sustain the big players? Like vinyl still existing, but being niche. Core games might have to move completely to PC because the market for dedicated consoles could drop to a few tens of million and the cost of operating a console company is too high to justify that (unless there's nothing else you company can do!).

I don't know for casual gamers but home console gives an experience than smartphone or tablet can't give a shared experience between family for example...

There are two type of gamer the core gamer and what I call mainstream gamer playing only big franchise Madden, Fifa or NBA 2k, COD, GTA and Kinect or Singstar if they have a family...

Controler will never be beat for core and mainstream gamer... Wii audience fade but Wii U is a failed concept where is social advantage of the new controler... Like tablet or smartphone not so great from this point of view and the controler is too expensive. The Wii U is too expensive too... The Wii was 249 dollars/euro and the price of Wii controller more was reasonable... And the name Wii U is a failure too, confusing consumer...

PC is a different audience...

 

[-tkf-]

I don't think one can call the future of consoles on a keen start to a new gen. The issues facing console relevancy are growing, and their impact might come full force in a few years. Kinda like you can't look at 3 months of launch sales of a new console and conclude everyone loves it because it sold so quickly. The following two years could see miserable sales.

@goonergaz Note the issue isn't just people moving to mobile. They are
1) mobile devices taking casual gamers

Same arument used before the launch of the PS4 and XB1

2) mobile devices becoming powerful enough to offer console experiences, at least to a standard the mainstream wants

Same arument used before the launch of the PS4 and XB1

3) Streaming services making a dedicated box irrelevant

Could happen, but that really remains to be seen.

4) PCs becoming cheaper and more flexible and a direct competitor

Megathread incoming..

Obviously these won't kill consoles completely overnight, but they'll erode the console market size. We'll have to wait to the end of the console generation to see if that's true or not. There'll always be a market for the true core gamer, but will it be enough to sustain the big players? Like vinyl still existing, but being niche. Core games might have to move completely to PC because the market for dedicated consoles could drop to a few tens of million and the cost of operating a console company is too high to justify that (unless there's nothing else you company can do!).

I think we need a new thread, maybe there already is one?

Basiclly, the sales of the current consoles are simply pointing directly against everything you say.
The casuals want to play a game that takes up 50GB on a big screen on a couch. The PS4 is proof of this.

 

[goonergaz]

yeah, many of these points were made during last gen (quite a few years ago the first rumblings started) - I don't disagree the console may end up being a niche product and I'll probably dust the last console I owned off while telling stories to my grand children, but consoles will always satisfy a need much like PCs currently do within the gaming arena.

Sorry if it all went a bit OT!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Basiclly, the sales of the current consoles are simply pointing directly against everything you say.

No it doesn't; it's too early to tell. A simile is Wii U. Nintendo fans saw 3 million sales at launch as proof that those of use who said it had limited appeal were wrong. Months later, they still pointed to it being the fastest selling console (over three months) as proof everyone loved Wii U. It was only after a year or so they could finally see that a strong early start isn't indicative of long term performance. A product can start strong and fizzle, or start weak and grow (or start strong and stay strong, or be still born!).

The timeline for consoles is longer than Wii U's first year so the start is a year rather than three months. One year of new consoles selling to the hard-core console fans doesn't prove that the 120+ million more-casual console gamers are going to be buying these machines over the coming 4 years. It might happen, it might not, but there is zero proof.

The casuals want to play a game that takes up 50GB on a big screen on a couch. The PS4 is proof of this.

But the alternatives are starting to offer that experience, or at least have the potential to. When Joe Public can play Uncharted on their Samsung TV streamed over PSNow instead of buying a console, will they still buy a PS4 or will they be content with the streamed service?

That's not a rhetorical question, it's a literal one. We don't know how things will play out in the coming years, but there are lots of challenges to the console market. Taking one year of sales as proof that the console industry is good for another generation is jumping to conclusions IMO. It's only proof that there was a lot of core console gamers interested in new consoles.

 

[liolio]

I think this gen proves that if value proposal is here and so is stock then the core gamers can be faster to upgrade than it has been usually the case.
If it shows something it could be that costly systems, even subsidized, slightly ahead of the technological curve, as we've seen quite a few are not the best approach to move system into the hands of the customers.

Making prediction is tough, especially about the future, there are ecosystems that have the potential to compete with consoles and to even take over, the matter of will those ecosystem get there and when is a complicated one as companies can messed up and contrary to BS that is economics the economic actors can take bad decisions, lots of them, and actually be fine with it as long as they have the size to do so /scale issue. The bigger the corporation the higher its potential to "hide" inefficiency, miss investments, bad decisions, etc.

 

[London Geezer]

That's not a rhetorical question, it's a literal one. We don't know how things will play out in the coming years, but there are lots of challenges to the console market. Taking one year of sales as proof that the console industry is good for another generation is jumping to conclusions IMO. It's only proof that there was a lot of core console gamers interested in new consoles.

We must avoid jumping to conclusions, but it is undeniable that some conclusions can be made with the data we have so far. If we count the people who bought in this first year as 'active gamers', then we have a market of at least 30-40 million people, actively buying hardware in the last year and especially games. A lot of games.

Until the market is this large, no one is going anywhere. Especially now that the console market is a relatively profitable one and the days of selling hardware at a loss are long gone.

 

[goonergaz]

Well if you want to talk about proof then that's impossible until after the event!

Wii sold well largely because it expanded on the userbase by introducing a new way to control games that anyone of any age could understand (even my wife lol) - as well as an amazingly cheap price point and it had no competition at all. Wii U suffered because that userbase expanded into was quite happy where it was and the price was frankly far too high. It sold well to begin with because that was the fans buying the new machine.

The point is PS4 has sold incredibly well and hasn't had to drop the price to try and achive that. It's still selling well at near launch price a year after launch and it launched alongside a very similar competitor.

There is a very strong case to be made for PS4 selling really well for it's lifespan - if it starts to struggle on sales Sony simply drops the price and mass-market will adopt, why wouldn't they? The tech you talk about is years away from being anything like having a PS4 in the living room and on top of that it's all dependant on technology (internet speed, availability & reliablity, compatable TVs etc) whereas with a PS4 you just buy a box and get no issues.

This gen is practically assured to be a good gen for Sony.

 

[Nesh]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-01-06-this-is-what-need-for-speed-no-limits-looks-like

Speaking of tablets and mobiles reaching the console experience, that NFS game looks outstanding and more interesting than the latest NFS we got on the current consoles. Considering the small screens, artifacts and low resolution wont be a problem.

The average joe will think that tablets and consoles are closer

 

[Arwin]

I've found that storage capacity has been a bigger inhibition for having a 'console like' experience on an iPad than anything else. A powerful Android tablet with expandable storage is likely to do better, but lacks some advantages there again. Right now, my best handheld console like experience is my Playstation Vita, whether it is through its native apps or through remote play (which is starting to become viable for more and more games now).

 

[Deleted member 86764]

I think we're able to say that the console market is very healthy as things currently stand. However, has anyone noticed the recent trend towards F2P games being advertised on TV now? That is a scary prospect, mobile gaming is still on the constant rise.

I also agree that streaming services could annihilate console and PC gaming in the same way that music services have essentially killed CD sales.

 

[London Geezer]

I think we're able to say that the console market is very healthy as things currently stand. However, has anyone noticed the recent trend towards F2P games being advertised on TV now? That is a scary prospect, mobile gaming is still on the constant rise.

I also agree that streaming services could annihilate console and PC gaming in the same way that music services have essentially killed CD sales.

Only when streaming will provide the same quality we would get from dedicated hardware, it will make sense.
Streaming games is not the same as what happened with iTunes. That wasn't even streaming, as you are still downloading music to your 'dedicated hardware' of choice, to be played when you want.
True music and movie streaming (say Spotify and Netflix) are a completely different ballgame than game streaming as you just need to passively watch, and even that quality still hasn't reached Bluray quality. A format that still has a market, many times smaller than the console gaming market and still somehow surviving.

 

[goonergaz]

Only when streaming will provide the same quality we would get from dedicated hardware, it will make sense.

Will it ever catch up? I don't think so personally - certainly not for a very long time.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Only when streaming will provide the same quality we would get from dedicated hardware, it will make sense.
Streaming games is not the same as what happened with iTunes. That wasn't even streaming, as you are still downloading music to your 'dedicated hardware' of choice, to be played when you want.
True music and movie streaming (say Spotify and Netflix) are a completely different ballgame than game streaming as you just need to passively watch, and even that quality still hasn't reached Bluray quality. A format that still has a market, many times smaller than the console gaming market and still somehow surviving.

Oh, I agree with what you're saying. Spotify actually has very high bitrates on downloads or streaming (I'm a Premium member). Also, I think the Netflix quality is pretty high and not all that far behind the perceived quality of Blurays.

The biggest thing preventing streaming, in my opinion, isn't the connection speeds it's those VR/AR headsets.

 

[psorcerer]

Months later, they still pointed to it being the fastest selling console (over three months) as proof everyone loved Wii U.

I think that pointing out to baseless fans claims is not a good argument. It was obvious from the start that Wii U will flop. And it happened. It was not even remotely obvious that PS4 will sell this good. Yes, it was obvious that it will sell good, but not "better than Wii" good.

 

[chris1515]

The gen 8 console market will probably shrink compare to gen 7 because Wii audience is gone elsewhere. I think 160 to 200 millions consoles seems a good guess...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Making prediction is tough, especially about the future

Yep. That's why I tend to stick to predicting the past.

Only when streaming will provide the same quality we would get from dedicated hardware, it will make sense.

It doesn't have to be the same; only good enough.

True music and movie streaming (say Spotify and Netflix) are a completely different ballgame than game streaming as you just need to passively watch, and even that quality still hasn't reached Bluray quality. A format that still has a market, many times smaller than the console gaming market and still somehow surviving.

The disc market is dwindling AFAIK because people prefer the lower quality, greater convenience of streamed movies. I have access to a library that I probably couldn't physical fit in my dwelling if on plastic discs, and I can access that library without having to dig around boxes of discs trying to find the movie I want. The only thing really holding steaming movies back is the crapness of the services, which continue to offer ridiculous limitations and experiences the little I've tried. Quality is a secondary issue but that'll be fixed with better codec and improving infrastructure. Fibre networks will enable BRD quality.

There will definitely be people sticking with consoles as long as they're available, but I do wonder what percentage will remain at the end of this gen. That depends mostly on what the competition does. If mobile can't get its act together regards decent controller-based gaming, consoles will have a comfortable round.

 

[psorcerer]

The gen 8 console market will probably shrink compare to gen 7 because Wii audience is gone elsewhere.

I'd say there is a 70% chance for that. I.e. it's very probable, but may not be the case if Sony will market PS4 well enough to wider audience.