But I think consoles are dead. The game console market is dead. Media peeps continue to think that a new generation will arrive and that they will be invited to events like E3 and stuff but everything is saying “no, no and no” to that.
First, profits. Making and selling game consoles isn’t making a lot of money and never really did except for Nintendo. It’s costing a fucking lot of money to make ship and distribute these machines, look at the state of the industry: MS leads and makes money with the 360 but the Xbox division is still in the red from a decade of losing money. Sony is bleeding billions from PS3 and now Vita disasters. Nintendo printed money and it stopped so abruptly that a year after a huge drop of Wii/DS sales and the 3DS mistake, Nintendo loses money. Of course Apple doesn’t want to get in this game. No 25% margin and huge costs? Bye. Uninteresting. And they all want to make money like Cupertino.
Second, market. Devices everywhere, quad-core, 4”, 7”, 13”, 32” inches displays we are surrounded by powerful things that can run games. It’s the first time ever. Before we had big computers in the office room or small consoles in the living room. Now we have a wide array of game-capable devices anywhere and in the context of our economy, people buy Swiss-knife like devices because they’re great (smartphones). The dedicated, game-only devices would work if they were dirt cheap. They are not. You know what I see kids play the most these days (I have a good sample in the park outside my place everyday for lunch)? CARDS. They play cards, take pictures or play some quick games on their phones, send 300 sms in half an hour and that’s it. Handheld consoles are out.
Third, development. We hit a wall, we’re at the max since the last generation. Games like MGS4 have budget around 100 million dollars and it’s insane to develop something for years and sell it for a couple of weeks. This was the model the AAA business was following, thinking that we would create a new Hollywood. Making games is way more complex than movies and despite better tools, we still need years to output one forgettable AAA game. And that’s why they’re so dull these days: there’s no time/it’s too risky to go for something new, let’s just make things pretty and overly fucking scripted to oblivion. That’s a testament of how hard it is to make games using all this graphic goodness, not that publishers are (that) lazy. This is unsustainable.
Also, game developers can make some bucks from being independent. Would you rather aim for this unknown dude who worked on GTA 5 like a slave or aim to be Notch? People move fast today, they do a game at a big name publisher, leave, do some consulting while working on their own game etc. The all 30-years-in-the-same-building Nintendo-ish dream is not happening anymore. And that’s a good thing!
So instead of being “I don’t understand what’s going on with the industry, can’t wait for the next gen!” let’s just move on from caring about machines and manufacturers, let’s focus on games and apps. Let’s reward people making good stuff.
Edit: just watched E3 confs and trailers… So dull, so lame, so hideous, so douche-y, so tacky, so gimmicky, so WTF. The list goes on.