Charlietus
Regular
Forever games are the enemy of the market, period. Dark times ahead until we can find ways for new games to get attention like they did in the past.
Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion
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I don’t think I understand this analysis. People upgrade consoles to run ‘forever games’ at higher resolutions and frame rates and at higher fidelity.
Charlietus
Regular
It's a problem for everything, be it consoles, new games or even new PC hardware. Instead of getting new games or hardware, people spend a little bit on micro transactions on the two games that they play all the time, and the market stagnates.
It wasn't a problem before.
Except that this generation has seen price increases in spite of attempts to cost reduce production. Last generation we saw modest price reductions when compared to a few generations ago. PS2 launched with an MSRP of $299 and ended it's life at $99 IIRC, so 1/3 of it's original asking price. PS4 launched at 399 and the last batch of slims were 199, so half the original price. We were seeing diminishing price reductions, but right now we have PS5, which launched at 399 for the digital edition, and the digital slim now sells for 449. I doubt it will ever get to 199 like PS4 did, even if Sony could manufacture it that cheap. I think it's more likely they add some extra storage to maintain a higher price point.
Why? Forever games are making someone money, and those someones are part of the market.
I guess I just don’t see this as a problem but a symptom. When hardware is expensive and new titles aren’t providing good experiences then what do you expect people to do?
price has a lot to do with that. There is something good about these Free to Play games for younger people. The social part, the "co-op". I.e. Fortnite can be played even if you have no money, you can play with your aunt who has a PS4, your sister who has a PC, your nephew who has a Switch, you on say a Steam Deck, your best friend on a PS5....
You can team up and create a game with all of them even if you are on different systems.
The entry barrier is equal for everyone. It's so important for younger people who just want to socialize and play with their friends. They won't care much about expensive AAAs or exclusives. Maybe some of them don't have the money to buy those games as great as they are, so they don't care.
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Charlietus
Regular
A market where some are making all the money while all others struggle to break even is a dying market.
Charlietus
Regular
Banger games are coming out all the time.
By 2027 no one's going to be buying a base PS5 at $445. I strongly doubt this. I think if anything PS5 sales will strongly pick up between 2027 to 2031 period and we'll see a replay of a long cross gen period.
Anecdotal, I can find base 1TB series X at 499, and discless 1TB series X at something over 600.
In an industry steadily moving toward long subscriptions model, does it still make sense to have a low entry price to onboard penniless consumers instead of offering a loss-less price and targeting only the more affluent crowd?
In an industry steadily moving toward long subscriptions model, does it still make sense to have a low entry price to onboard penniless consumers instead of offering a loss-less price and targeting only the more affluent crowd?
If they’re bangers, then why are people instead choosing to play the same 5 online ‘forever games’.
I can’t think of a single blockbuster release this entire year.
you don’t just get free money for coming to market, you need to develop a compelling product.
I see this as a huge correction in the making. People don’t like what developers and publishers are offering, so they don’t buy it. Make something else if you want someone to buy it (there’s still plenty of space to try and de-throne a ‘forever game’).
Software exclusivity is automatically linked to a hardware identity. It is good for development, inspires developers and creates a healthy competition in the industry. Exclusivity is everywhere in the industry, even at the level of hardware. For example, those who buy Nvidia VGA get exclusive features and this creates forward-looking competition with other manufacturers, which is actually good for users, because they can choose from several types of products. We can see how well software exclusivity still works at Nintendo today. How many consoles were sold? We can see that Sony also sticks to its own first-party titles and does not release them for everything. Those PS sales aren't that bad. MS has been forced into a business model that follows the multiplatform direction, but they still choose what to keep as exclusive games and content for how long.
Currently, the trend in the market is that multiplatform games are more profitable, but this is only because, as several people explained above, the growth of console users has decreased recently. However, don't let anyone think that if MS could sell 150 million Xboxes, they would take this direction. Interestingly, their most successful console was the one with the most exclusive games!
If they could reach the amount of hardware with which they can reach 100 million + Gamepass subscribers, they would only develop it for their own system, just like Nintendo. These are not services of love, only the current business situation dictates the direction.
And now for an analogy. You have three cars, a Porsche, a Lamborghini and a Ferrari. You love all three because they are all different and special in their own way. Each has a different engine, which has its own unique sound, dynamics and atmosphere. The driving experience is different in all three. Now imagine that the manufacturers make a decision that from now on they will only have one type of engine, the same, and from now on the manufacturers will no longer compete, they will only use this one engine because it is easier to prevail in the casual market... Where would the feeling, identity and technological competition?
Currently, the trend in the market is that multiplatform games are more profitable, but this is only because, as several people explained above, the growth of console users has decreased recently. However, don't let anyone think that if MS could sell 150 million Xboxes, they would take this direction. Interestingly, their most successful console was the one with the most exclusive games!
If they could reach the amount of hardware with which they can reach 100 million + Gamepass subscribers, they would only develop it for their own system, just like Nintendo. These are not services of love, only the current business situation dictates the direction.
And now for an analogy. You have three cars, a Porsche, a Lamborghini and a Ferrari. You love all three because they are all different and special in their own way. Each has a different engine, which has its own unique sound, dynamics and atmosphere. The driving experience is different in all three. Now imagine that the manufacturers make a decision that from now on they will only have one type of engine, the same, and from now on the manufacturers will no longer compete, they will only use this one engine because it is easier to prevail in the casual market... Where would the feeling, identity and technological competition?
Charlietus
Regular
The problem is games getting great reviews, having positive player reception and still falling short nonetheless.
Some example this year? FF7 rebirth. I didn't love that game, but it had 93 on metacritic with great word of mouth. Still isn't enough today. Even Warhammer failed to make the top 30 in europe while being great. Astrobot sold good compared to the budget, but it deserved a lot more. If making a great game isn't enough anymore, why should developers try to make it so? At that point just make a genshin clone and sell skins and micro transactions, as that's where the money is.
following your analogy, people would decide on what they consider the most reliable for them -Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini...- on another level, or the design, whatever.
I usually agree with you. You can even see this in online stores, where the Epic Store has Rocket League as an exclusie game. My nephews play that game a lot and it's free to play but I purchased several cars for them to play. It's delisted from Steam..., you are forced to install the Epic Store to play it.
That being said, the challenge exclusives are facing is that they sell a lot less than those Free to Play games.
imho, this year was huge game quality wise.
Black Myth Wukong, Stalker 2, Silent Hill 2, Indiana Jones, Dragon's Dogma 2, Prince of Persia, Balatro, Astrobot, etc.
If you see the best games of 2024 you still see the classics like Counter Strike, DOTA 2, CoD, Apex Legends, PUBG Battlegrounds, etc. I guess Fortnite would be there if it was published on Steam.
Best of Steam - 2024
A look back at the year's top sellers, new releases, most-played games, and more!
If we look at it from MS's point of view, the current trend is that they need as many subscribers as possible. This can be achieved in several ways, with services, favorable pricing, and games. The characteristic of this subscription system is that we consumers have almost no idea how successful or popular a game is within the system. Multiplayer games can only be measured in terms of popularity, but we have no idea how many people play singleplayer games because of the Day1 "free" Gamepass. MS doesn't disclose data, but they know exactly which games have an impact on subscriptions. It's a strange situation, but exclusive games nowadays only serve the purpose of maintaining and increasing the number of subscribers. Physical sales were reduced to a minimum. We will probably only know how successful a first-party game is within the subscription system if it is either continuously supported or has a new part.
It’s important to note that amount of hours played isn’t necessarily a reflection of a good game being released.
Though both good and bad games alike require your time, games with FOMO and addictive properties tend to grab all your attention whether you want to give it any or not.
Thus; why addicts don’t care about the quality of the meal they are eating, as long as they are getting their fix. Game addiction is a real issue and these F2P games dig deep into the various psyche of their players to keep them locked in and grinding their treadmills forever which is what leads to their payouts.
Great games are made all the time, it doesn’t mean they have the addictive qualities that most successful F2P/live service titles do.
If time played was the only metric being used to rank the quality of a game, oh boy we have a major issue in the game industry.
None of these were blockbusters lol. Good games (at least I think some of them were, imo Palworld does not look very good but it has its fans), but nobody is going to remember Black Myth or a Warhammer 40k game 10-20 years from now. In fact outside of game review outlets and computer graphics enthusiasts (aka us, people into tech demos and graphical showcases) I don’t think I heard anyone mention Black Myth.
Last gen we had some crazy generation-defining hits (RDR2 comes to mind, TLOU2 although controversial for some will certainly be remembered for a long time along side its predecessor, Witcher 3, etc) but I can’t really think of anything this gen like that. Maybe GTA6 will be filling that gap, and I guess BG3 could be this in retrospect.
High quality or not, none of these are blockbusters.
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