Are Consoles Dead?

[VirtueTT]

Well Messiaah, the article highlights consoles and mobile phones, not PC's. So its safe to safe it wont touch a PC in performance but hints towards the mobile market consuming/destroying the console market. We'll see what happens in 2014

[W1nTry]

Only time will ultimately tell

[MessiaaH]

Keep in mind, those mobile phones would have graphics of current gen consoles, which is consoles of what, 5 years ago? Put it in perspective, d ps4 is going to be significantly more powerful than that. The phone go still have a long way to go to reach up to a console. D console will still be significantly ahead. at d same time being significantly behind pc.

[TriniXaeno]

The article definitely adds a ton of fuel to the fire.

When industry players like Nvidia endorse a concept like that, the market will surely pay attention.

Hardware capability is only one piece of the puzzle of course. As mentioned before, when consoles were able to rival Arcade machines in terms of performance and you could get Street Fighter and Tekken at home for US$59.95 that spelt the end of an era. Arcades all but died.

Arcades were all joysticks. Consoles were all game pads. Even so, consumers adapted and brought us to the stage we are today.

When the mobile platform makes a similar coup, and your Android and IOS device is able to run games as well as the current generation of consoles....will there be a similar exodus?

Fast forward to the future and answer that question personally.

Will you in 2016 buy Tekken 8 or Street Fighter 9 for your phone, your tablet, your netbook or your console?

Without a ubiquitous input device like the PS3 or XBOX controller....my gaming money is still on the console.

It would take another leap to truly give mainstream  gaming life on the mobile platform. Something like the xbox controller that is available for the PC now. If they could make that work across the board with Android / IOS wirelessly.

Then also, storage. Since those platforms don't currently use disc drives, you will need a ton of storage for games. Better graphics = bigger textures. So while Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies will fit comfortably on your 16GB sd.....not so with Tekken 8 and SF 9. Especially if you want to maintain fidelity when the output is displayed on a 1080p screen via hdmi.

Interesting challenges. As W1n said, we will see how the market and industry responds in time.

[woodyear99]

Indeed who knows where things will go. One thing for certain, exciting times ahead.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note using Tapatalk

[MessiaaH]

It easy to see where things will go if you watch the industry.
Plenty of d points wyatt raised. Storage space, etc.

Also take into account price. Someone will pay 60$ for COD on they xbox, they not paying that for COD on a phone.
It have rel plenty things have to change, adjust and adapt for mobile to ever overtake consoles.

And the things that has to change = less profit for d big boys.
I repeat, it not going to happen, no time soon, no no no time soon.

The flagship console for d next 10 years rocking ah 7670, really? Yawn. Men more concerned about profit than technological advancement. Tech released to d consumers is tech they had 20 years ago.

Mobile devices that could surpass console of d same era not going to see d light of day anytime soon.
Also arcade dead because of convenience and price. Not because of graphics. Killer Instincts in d arcade was far superior to that of d n64. But comparable graphics is not what kill arcade. nobody paying 1$ ah coin, to stand up in ah hot swetty smelly arcade, when they coudl buy d game and swet home.

Playing a mobile device on a big screen TV is actually less convenient than having a console always hooked up.
Convenience is one of d things that harm pc gaming also. U doh hada install no game, jus buy d disc slap it in and press play. Easy for d users. and Piracy. But now with d advent of steam, its actually more convience to juss click download on a steam game, wihtout leaving yuh couch, and piracy of online games is becoming rare. Which is why pc gaming picking back up with ah vengeance d past 2 years and onwards.

U could imagine, man swetting, phone ring, and everybody hada pause game for frank to go outside and talk to aunt betsy? Not convenient at all compared to console.

So if u take all things into account.

1) Convenience
2) Storage Capacity
3) Price
4) Graphical Capabilities to surpass console of same era
5) Input (controllers vs touchscreen etc)
6) TVs
7) Publishers profit margin.

Taken everything into account. u could easily see where things headed, where they going to be, and when we going to get there.

It's very possible consoles could die, but it wont die to a super high end smartphone with like graphics.
I will die to angry birds, and plant vs zombies if it dies. because no way in hell a mobile phone going to surpass a console for at least 50 years.

[TriniXaeno]

I think what we will see happening earlier....is just as you said....the industry will begin to cater more to that plants vs zombies market.

Why? Because a billion mobile devices out there will be capable of running amped up versions of those games. The sales potential will be huge.

The market is ready and willling. Not to mention, the delivery system is smooth as silk (with all the various marketplaces already fully developed)

Very similar to what happened when the industry began catering more to the console market than the PC (for mostly the same reasons).

PC gamers sat in a corner and complained that they had the superior platform, yet games came out designed with xbox 360 / PS3 in mind first...PC a distant second.

On the flip side.....the cost to develop on the mobile platform is a fraction of the costs of a console title at today's IQ levels.

When they are able to push pixels like the consoles, it won't be so easy to wtfpwn that market again. You would need to spend a lot more dollars to produce a killer mobile game and then it won't be able to sell for $3.99 anymore.

fun times ahead.

Can't wait to see how it pans out.

[shivadee]

Consoles are on a platform controlled and governed by first party. This gives them control over what you can and cannot play. PC allows the player to choose how they want to play(to some extent). As long as First Party can control the gamer the developer/publisher will follow the first party. Everything else is secondary.

As for mobile development, if you have not seen the approval (and cost) process for Apple/Droid you will cry when you do. I have 3 shipped titles on the App Store. I've done the submission process and you will not like it. Their fail rate for titles to be pushed to their platform is increasing. This goes STRAIGHT back to my comment on first party.

Before you can begin to talk about storage, power and capability you need the money. That comes from Publishers...and they are not going to invest in something they cannot control. End of story.

[TriniXaeno]

Shiv, from your industry experience, what is the ballpark cost to create a title like Call of Duty

vs say something like Plants Vs Zombies.

Talking about 3 Million US$ for the CoD and about us$100,000 for the Plants vs Zombies? What sort of numbers we looking at?

[shivadee]

COD is upwards of 100 million in overhead. Dont be fooled for a half second that that game is cheap to roll out....VOP budget and promotion on games of that scale cost a f*ckton, and a HUGE reason why other titles that are considered "good" dont sell. 5 Studios make COD every year...that is ALOT of money for studios. A game like PvZ is dependent on the team. Ill put it this way, the lil kids games that sell for fodder on shelves (Wii Draw, Zhu Zhu Pets ) run 300k And that is just on one SKU (Nintendo DS). This is with an outsourced studio.

When you are rolling out on multiple SKU's (DS, 3DS, Wii, 360, PS3 and PC) you are also considering locs (localization). So you need to do languages. MINIMUM international language is EFIGS (English, French, Itallian, German, Spanish) You need a team to localize and then another team to source and get all the VO (Voice overs) for those localizations. You need to pay those voice actors, you need to pay the studio to record....COD was released in 9 languages.

People forget QA as well. Bug testing, bug fixing....the list is enormous.

This is just a FRACTION of what is needed to be considered before even saying "ah have a real bess idea"

Like i said. It's a HUGE investment by companies to push these games out, so no doubt they would protect their investment via control.....hence the console.

I bet if you was forking out 100+ Million (if we had it) on a project you would damn well better want your investment protected.

[W1nTry]

What I am extrapolating from this is that as long as the mobile market stays relatively open first party will not invest as they cannot secure their investment. In this regards Apple iPhone and BB are/can be considered controlled environments (BB particularly) and even WP7. However with the massive quantities of android being sold, it means they would primarly want to target the platform of choice (android) but it is not sensible at this time to even consider that.
Shiv if I were to gaze into the crystal ball, should a steam-like secured app/platform be developed for the smartphone products, would it then make it an attractive option for first party game developers?

[shivadee]

Steam isn't really a platform like iphone or WP7. It's more like a portal for games, a central hub if you will. That being said there is no "policy" or control in place like an actual first party platform. Their rules are very loose, its free to sign up to steamworks. When you release a game its free too, even if its broken, Valve doesn't care. They are just the messenger. And they take a cut of your sales.

"You want your game advertised on a banner, that would be XXX dollars" ...ok done. There are no regulations involved therefore no standard. No standard meaning no bar to set or control. You notice we are going back to control of investment again...

[MessiaaH]

@ Shiv,

It's so refreshing to see somebody making sense and not just blurting out nonsensical pie in the sky ideas that makes no sense what so ever. (You know who you are).

+1

[shivadee]

Its funny we spoke to Valve about the Prototype 2 release. Asked them if they have protocols, any payment or submission process "no....just send it when you're done". Its very cool but scary for developers who dont know protocol. For XBoX/PS3 and Nintendo (the BANE of this generation) they have one......long......ass.....expensive.....process. gawd.

[TriniXaeno]

300k for a simple game like plants vs zombies???

DAMN

That is a ton more than I would have expected.