Is console gaming dying?

[thilanliyan]

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/ps3/2009/12/14/is-console-gaming-dying/1

No it isn't.

 

[erwos]

Pretty much the dumbest thing I've read all day.

 

[purbeast0]

'i have black friends so i can't be racist'

i read the first page and that was enough to make me not want to read the rest.

 

[Queasy]

Changing to adapt to market conditions and the recession? Yes.

Dying? No.

 

[smackababy]

I started to read it, but still couldn't get past the sensational title.

 

[R Nilla]

Am I going to read that article?

The answers to both of these questions are the same.

 

[mmntech]

I don't have to read it because I know what it's about.

 

[zerocool84]

This is the biggest console gaming has EVER been. I never remember so many people talking about console gaming. You used to be such a nerd for playing video games but now everyone plays.

 

[gorcorps]

This guy is fucking retarded. I jumped to the 2nd page and here's what I see:

Sony posted its first loss in 14 years... and that's his argument for consoles dying. Completely ignoring the economic condition of the country/world.

Microsoft posts loss... and then sites an article saying they just are seeing LESS revenue than before. Making less money is NOT a loss, a loss by definition is when costs surpass revenue which didn't happen. At least he tries to save it with an article showing the entertainment division may be operating under actual losses.

 

[smackababy]

I love how anyone can think console gaming is dying. The current gen systems have sold around 23% of what the total American released systems before it have sold total (NES, SNES, Genesis, Saturn, N64, PS1, PS2, Xbox, Gamecube)

114 million current gen units / 488 million old gen units. I would say gaming is on the rise. I believe the only two systems the Wii hasn't surpassed in sales are the PS1 and PS2, both over 125 million units sold.

 

[mmntech]

This guy is fucking retarded. I jumped to the 2nd page and here's what I see:

Sony posted its first loss in 14 years... and that's his argument for consoles dying. Completely ignoring the economic condition of the country/world.

Microsoft posts loss... and then sites an article saying they just are seeing LESS revenue than before. Making less money is NOT a loss, a loss by definition is when costs surpass revenue which didn't happen. At least he tries to save it with an article showing the entertainment division may be operating under actual losses.

Oh Literal Jim. Without even reading it, the article is obviously mocking the "PC gaming is dying" crowd. It's a tongue-in-cheek way of doing it by blowing small losses in the console gaming sector right out of proportion. PC gaming has been in a slump for years though. It's a clear trend.

 

[novasatori]

In a sense I would say both Console and PC Gaming are going to die as we know it thanks to things like OnLive

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Those trees are made out of titties

 

[Deeko]

I scanned the first page but that's it.

No, console gaming is not dying. Far from it. In the "golden age" of console gaming, the NES/SNES/Genesis days, consoles didn't sell NEARLY as well. Look at how much the PS2 has sold, and continues to sell. PS3/XBox360/Wii are all selling very well. Will any of them eclipse the PS2? Maybe, maybe not...still too early to tell. However, if the Wii "only" sells 100 million units, that's hardly an indication of it dying. In fact, if you took PS2 (through 2006), Xbox, and Gamecube sales, against PS3, XBox360, Wii, and PS2 (post 2006) sales, after 6 years has passed, I'll bet the total for the latter group is as high or higher...despite the massive recession.

That article is stupid.

 

[Sadaiyappan]

I'm positive that the Wii killed gaming. It did NOT save gaming, it killed gaming.

 

[zerocool84]

I'm positive that the Wii killed gaming. It did NOT save gaming, it killed gaming.

That's like saying Apple killed phones.

 

[BenSkywalker]

In a sense I would say both Console and PC Gaming are going to die as we know it thanks to things like OnLive

Are you thinking that is going to happen in the '30s or '40s or later?

 

[novasatori]

Are you thinking that is going to happen in the '30s or '40s or later?

I completely forgot about this topic, but I think 20 years would be a fair guess for cloud gaming to be the major player in the gaming place.

I see it picking up a lot of speed within the next 5 years though depending on when its released to market, and possibly being widely adopted within 10 years or earlier, but I think the main limit will be the ability of internet providers to provide fast enough connections for most people to use the service. Not to forget the ability of the companies to provide enough compute power for all users.

It really has a lot of advantages imo, and from what I've heard/seen it works really well.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Total US bandwidth for the internet for 2008 was roughly 1.84 EB.

1080p video feed is about 8Mbps if we compress and target a bit below optimal for fast motion. There are ~50Million console gamers in the US(still have a ways to go this generation, just getting some ballpark numbers).

Each gamer using a compressed feed would need about 28.8Gb per hour(3.6GB) for moderate to low quality feed for gaming(that's at 24fps and below optimal for fast motion but just using some numbers). If each console was played one hour per day it would take up ~180TB of bandwidth per day. That works out to ~65 EB per year.

So, we would need roughly thirty five times more bandwidth then the entire internet used in 2008 just for the video feed if the typical gamer played one hour a day in a cloud computing setup.

Feel free to double check the numbers, just putting some numbers out there for people to ponder to understand why I can't help but laugh heavily when I hear about cloud computing taking off any time soon

 

[novasatori]

As far as I know the current feeds are only 720p at the moment, but yes I agree it is not going to happen too soon, but 10-20 years isn't really soon I don't think.

10 years ago dial up was big, 20 years ago the internet was just a baby.

 

[BenSkywalker]

While 720p works now, 10 years from now that would be a considerable downgrade over any set top device(even now it is sometimes).

The problem with the increase in bandwidth is that it has fallen off markedly. Companies aren't seeing the potential revenue returns making the build up further then they already have, and replacing huge chunks of infrastructure for no potential increase in margins isn't something we are likely to see too much of. Said another way, the orders of magnitude growth in bandwidth that we saw over the course of a decade are over now, it appears that we will have to wait to see any real increases until we are dealing with replacement of existing infrastructure due to age.

BTW- Looking up the average gamers play time and it's closer to three hourse per day, that puts the bandwidth needs about 100 times higher then what we used in 2008 if the market was limited to 50Million(We are actually at 60Million right now with all three platforms still selling extremely well).

 

[Maximilian]

Why are there less console sales now than in the 90's, early 00's? Did the recession single handedly cause that or what?

Genuine question as i never actually noticed the sales figures for consoles before.

 

[EvilComputer92]

That's like saying Apple killed phones.

Apple's phone was better than other phones at the time in almost every way possible, including the hardware. The Wii on the other hand is using last gen hardware and becoming a magnet for shovelware.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Why are there less console sales now than in the 90's, early 00's? Did the recession single handedly cause that or what?

Console sales are higher now, not sure what you mean? The 50Million number was just for the US(it's actually 60Million- was lowballing), global installed base on this generation is closer to 110Million at the moment and we still have a couple years to go(last week ~2.1Million current gen consoles sold). The Wii isn't selling as well as the PS2 did, but the 360 and PS3 are selling much better then the GC and XB did which offsets it. Software sales are only off versus last years record, it is still significantly higher then it was ten years ago.

 

[zerocool84]

Apple's phone was better than other phones at the time in almost every way possible, including the hardware. The Wii on the other hand is using last gen hardware and becoming a magnet for shovelware.

So making a good product that obviously everyone wants is bad?