ign Are Consoles Dead?

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Pundits are insisting that games consoles are headed for doom.

IGN offers an opinion on the biggest question in gaming.

The traditional games business is worth around $25 billion a year, so the obvious answer to the question of whether or not consoles are dead, is a resounding 'what the hell are you talking about?'

Not only, but consoles are freakin' awesome. They are built to play games. Certainly, they are ugly brutes, hideous noisy boxes, but by all that is holy, they make life good. This is why talk of their 'death' is so upsetting.

Nevertheless, talk we must.

It's true that consoles move through existence with every sign of vitality, but there are suggestions of an inner sickness, a sense of impending dilapidation. Sorrow awaits.

Things go from hale and hearty to stone cold and underground in a spectacularly short period of time, most especially in the tech and entertainment businesses.

None of this is good. The things that we are supposed to believe will "replace" consoles aren't as good at playing games, aren't designed for this specific, sacred purpose, aren't as emotionally interesting. The death of consoles, if such is their fate, would be a disaster for 'gaming' as we who game understand the term. There is no circle of life crap going on here. It's all bad.

These notions, and the arguments that follow in this article, will be dominating strategic thinking at Sony and Microsoft, as leaders at these august firms decide how to approach their next generation consoles.

Incredible Risk

For the people who make the consoles, this play of launching new machines represents the biggest risks on both companies' books. If they get this wrong, it would be catastrophic for them.

Little wonder they are holding back. (There are no plans for either Sony or Microsoft to show a new machine at E3 this year.)

Look at it from their point of view. Between them, the business units at Sony and Microsoft have lost a whacking $10 billion since 2000. The opportunity that greeted both companies at the dawn of the century was ownership of the living room, a place at the center of consumer's entertainment lives. It was a noble investment.

But that opportunity does not look anywhere near as attractive now.

In 2000, the year the world's best-selling console ever was launched, Apple was still 12 months away from launching iPhone's progenitor iPod and thereby changing the history of entertainment. Now it's the most valuable company in the world and the most powerful player in the gaming business. Facebook didn't exist. Free-to-play made zero sense. PC gaming was screwed. The assumptions and the projections Sony and Microsoft were making back then just don't exist anymore.

When Peter Moore bound onto the stage at various E3s in the middle part of the last decade, he was seriously arguing that consoles would be the devices through which we consumed entertainment and communicated with one another. At the time, it seemed plausible.

If he tried that shtick today, he' be dragged away by burly nurses, and semi-gently invited to spend some quiet time in a sparsely furnished room.

It's not just the titanic cost, the gargantuan risk this undertaking represents. Problem is, the opportunity for riches is undoubtedly smaller than it's ever been before. For the first time in many console generations, no-one is seriously predicting that the next generation will be bigger than the last. Not even Jack Tretton.

Where are the New Consoles?

So the answer to the question about the death of consoles can be found in how the console manufacturers are behaving. And here's the thing. They don't look too keen, do they? If history is any indicator, we are well past due some new machines.

The console guys are looking at this like the man who, having furtively popped into Burger King on his way back from work, is presented at home with a surprisingly large spaghetti bolognese.

At the beginning of this year, Nanea Reeves was mocked and derided for suggesting that one company in the current console battle might drop out. Look, it's unlikely but it's really not that crazy. Sony is seriously short of dough. Microsoft is just starting to claw back some of its investments in the games business.

There are a lot of great business reasons why either of these companies might find an urgently hot thing to fill their attention. The world has changed.

Sony boss Kaz Hirai loves games, but not enough to bring one of Japan's greatest ever corporations to its knees. Whatever form PlayStation 4 takes, he's got to come up with something genuinely new. A better-graphics box at $400? Not going to work.

Already we hear stories of an next Xbox that doesn't even have a disk drive. What kinda console is that? Well, maybe it's one that reflects a changing reality - that the future is certainly not about going to the mall and buying a $60 game about shooting people. In England, the country's biggest retailer of games is about to go bust. If that's not a bad sign, then what is?

And what of Nintendo, the original high priest of console-dom, keeper of the flame? It is a company that has never looked less likely to stand astride the Chichen Itza of global entertainment. It is a supplicant, in the thrall of the new gods. We are told that 3DS is a successful handheld gaming device, Compared to what Vita? Sure. Compared to iPhone? Bow down Mario. Grovel in the dirt Donkey Kong.

Even Wii U, the one and only "next generation" console that we have seen looks a lot like a certain other Apple product. A handheld screen, by golly. So much for disruptive technology. So much for blue sky thinking.

Blame the Economy

Everyone in gaming is getting ready for the next generation consoles to arrive. We are able to write off 20% year-on-year declines in game sales as a mere symptom of late-cycle ennui and lower numbers of big game releases.

But there are other symptoms that are not so easily brushed aside. The stock value of companies like EA and Activision have been steadily dropping for the last few years. You want to blame the economy? Sure, go ahead.

But PC gaming has been exploding. More people spend more time playing games than ever before. Meanwhile, the top five games companies by value have halved in value, and those that have dropped out of the list- traditional games publishers - have been replaced by free-to-play and social companies.

Still blaming the economy?

ngmoco's Ben Cousins pointed all this out at GDC last week. He also showed us a graph comparing the history of the arcade game business to that of the console game business.

At some point in 1999, consoles overtook arcades, which have since become almost entirely irrelevant both as a business and as a way to consume interactive entertainment. That same year, consoles officially became as good as arcades, graphics-wise, with the launch of Dreamcast.

This year, we have seen the launch of the new iPad, a device which, despite its current whizzery, offers future powers we can only imagine. Offer a man from Mars the chance to reach out and grab an iPad or an Xbox 360. Which will it be?

There is Hope

But consoles are seriously great devices, important, essential. In an interview this week, Epic founder Tim Sweeney, one of the smartest thinkers in this business, described them in the simplest terms, as perfectly formed for the purpose of playing games. They are entirely engineered to output fast-moving graphics. They are connected to handheld controllers which have no other purpose than to control games. Their entire eco-system is about competition, fun, excitement.

Sweeney added that when the next generation does come - in whatever form - it will provide a graphical leap that the iPads of this world will take eight years or so to match. Eight years! That's 2020.

So, if we leave PC gaming aside, consoles will still be the best way to consume games for a span of time encompassing three more Olympic games and two World Cups and maybe even another Diablo game.

People talk about the fact that 500 million people have played Angry Birds compared to 25 million players of Call of Duty. But, really, these numbers are like comparing flying pigs with flying helicopters.

Also, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are smart. It isn't beyond the realms of possibility that any of them, possibly all of them, will create something that surprises everyone, even Apple. Perhaps we will see a unified platform, or a cloud system that really works or, hell, who knows.

The fact is that consoles are under sustained attack from alternative devices and platforms like mobile and social and free-to-play. It's like horde mode. The enemy has the numbers. The console has the firepower.

Who can predict the outcome with certainty?

But here's an indisputable idea. Any person of good sense must understand which side to root for.

IGN

[Alladaskill17]

I read this article yesterday, and disagree with it, the future of consoles is only death (imo) if:

• Publisher's continue to charge outrageous DLC prices
  
• Rumors of the Disc Drive-less consoles are true
  
• (and) Lack of venues to rent *any* game; Redbox does not cut it with limited selection and (imo) GameFly is too expensive after promotional time ends.
  

[AJerman]

Yeah, if consoles are destined for failure, it's only because of the greed of the publishers. It has absolutely nothing to do with tablets and smart phones and stuff like that. The only reason the iPad can currently PRETEND to compare to a console, is because our current generation of consoles are years old already. When they are refreshed, they will once again be YEARS ahead of any tablet. It's not really difficult to understand. A tablet is built to be silent, light, low power consumption, and run cool. None of which are requirements for a console, meaning a console will ALWAYS have far superior technology. All this iPad taking over consoles talk is non-sense. What will kill consoles is games getting closer to REQUIRING DLCs to play a game fully. Requiring you to pay to get online play if you buy a game used, and all the other little ways that the game makers and publishers think they are being clever to make a little more money.

[123456789A]

If they stop making consoles and we move to some "post PC" era because of tablets, they better still have some way of playing real games (not casual/touch games).

[Emn1ty]

Tablets and smart phones are for spontaneous gaming, not prolonged hours of it. Not to mention those devices are not made for that purpose, bottle-necking their performance in that area and diluting the usage time among multiple things.

The other issue with those platforms is the frequency of release. 6-18 month release cycles are far too frequent for the hardware to ever be taken advantage of.

I doubt they will cause the downfall of console until they can replace them as media centers (which they currently cannot).

[The_Decimator]

Oh look, it's the 3DS/Wii U/Vita/whatever console they'll complain about next apocalypse again...

EDIT: Although, yes, I know how ironic it is I'm posting this on a tablet...

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Is there anything gaming related in recent times that has actually died? We're living in "perpetual death" of pretty much everything these days - At least that's what the online news headline generators tell us.

Death does not mean dipping in popularity, not even heavily diminishing in popularity, it means ceasing to exist....

[Emn1ty]

Things will never die, they will merely consolidate/transfer to a different form of existence. I doubt any of these things will truly die until the cloud enters our own homes in a fully wireless environment. (tvs, computer screens, computers, phones, etc all interconnected on the same network sharing the same information and possibly even operating systems). But that's not necessarily around the corner.

[HawkMan]

I read this article yesterday, and disagree with it, the future of consoles is only death (imo) if:

• Publisher's continue to charge outrageous DLC prices
  
• Rumors of the Disc Drive-less consoles are true
  
• (and) Lack of venues to rent *any* game; Redbox does not cut it with limited selection and (imo) GameFly is too expensive after promotional time ends.
  

None of those will kill consoles.

People are more than willing to pay for dlc, that's why it's priced where it is. And because they ARE expensive to make.

People don't care about disks, disc less or not you will for the next generation still get physical copies in the form of solid state cartridge with cheap EPROM and maybe a small chunk of EEPROM for updates and such.

We managed fine without ANY way to rent before and mat of Europe still does, even today renting still gives you cheaper access to as many games a month as you wish. Only the core players really use these services anyway.

[123456789A]

Is there anything gaming related in recent times that has actually died? We're living in "perpetual death" of pretty much everything these days - At least that's what the online news headline generators tell us.

Death does not mean dipping in popularity, not even heavily diminishing in popularity, it means ceasing to exist....

Well nothing ceases to exist entirely. They still make typewriters.

Not using your definition here, but I'd say arcades are dead and have been dead for a while largely because of home consoles. I don't think tablets are going to replace dedicated game hardware for a while, but if/when they do, the game experience better be more than some lame touch game where my fingers are covering half of what's going on in the game, not to mention the clumsy controls.

If they're going to use a tablet as something that plugs in/streams to a big screen TV and has an external gamepad (kind of like a console today), then there are going to be heat and power issues when you try to play a demanding game for 8+ hours and your tablet overheats. My iPhone overheated all the time with just basic games.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Well nothing ceases to exist entirely. They still make typewriters.

Not using your definition here, but I'd say arcades are dead and have been dead for a while largely because of home consoles. I don't think tablets are going to replace dedicated game hardware for a while, but if/when they do, the game experience better be more than some lame touch game where my fingers are covering half of what's going on in the game, not to mention the clumsy controls.

If they're going to use a tablet as something that plugs in/streams to a big screen TV and has an external gamepad (kind of like a console today), then there are going to be heat and power issues when you try to play a demanding game for 8+ hours and your tablet overheats. My iPhone overheated all the time with just basic games.

I get where you're coming from, but the advances to tablets/phones from consoles/portable handhelds is nowhere near as "iconic" as the typewriter to a PC :p It's more a matter of taste than a functional/efficiency based choice.

I guess I'm a little jaded as this console generation has had the word dead plastered over just about everything.

[HawkMan]

I thought there was an article last year about how they stopped making the last typewriters.

[ZonoBurk]

I hope not, since I just got a PS3. LOL

[SiCKX]

Silly stuff right there. Everyone's super dramatic about "end of" this and that these days.

Activision/EA/Ubisoft would be small time if it wasn't for consoles. Even what used to be a PC bigshot, Bioware.. makes more money off consoles.

[rajputwarrior]

Only thin dead on future consoles is any sort of physical media.

[compl3x]

This issue comes up every so often but we still have consoles and there is still news of newer ones being made or developed.

Barring the PC master race, people like their consoles and enjoy sitting on their couch playing them.

[mrp04]

I can't believe anyone actually believes this. There will always be gamers who want to enjoy a "full" game and not some little touch controlled tablet game. And from those there will always be games who would rather buy a console than a PC capable of gaming. These numbers will only grow, there is no reason to believe people will completely stop playing traditional console games in favor of tablet games. The new consoles probably will not be using cutting-edge hardware in order to keep the cost down, but it'll still be far better than anything we have now. Hopefully they'll be able to run games at 1920x1080. 1280x720 (and lower) is getting really old, especially after experiencing games at 2560x1600. It's breathtaking.

[Amarok]

Don't worry, neither PC nor console games are dying. Just another zomgdrama piece to get you all worked up and worried. =)

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I think I speak for the majority of sensible gamers out there when I say that consoles are not dead, and they won't die any time soon. Smartphones and tablets are not dedicated gaming devices. Consoles are and that's where their strength lies. Companies like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo can offer a device that outputs high quality graphics. No company out there can even match the PS3, X360, or Wii in terms of image quality and performance with a smartphone or tablet.

Remember the Samaritan demo by Epic Games? That was running with Unreal Engine 3 on three NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580s. Apparently now, it can run on one of NVIDIA's next-gen video cards. At GDC 2012, Epic Games showed off Unreal Engine 4 behind closed doors. Here's what Mark Rein (vice president of Epic Games) said about it: "If Samaritan looked like a piece of crap, that's what Unreal Engine 4 would look like," The gap between console hardware and smartphone/tablet capability will widen even more with the next generation.

Also, I really don't buy the lack of physical media rumours. At most, we may see consoles that opt for flash-based storage like SD cards. But I don't think we'll see consoles that lack physical media of any type. The size of games is likely to go up in the next generation because of higher quality assets (e.g. better textures, higher quality video, etc). Can you honestly expect people to download a 15-30 GB game (or more)? A lot of ISPs in the US as well as Canada have monthly bandwidth limits. It makes more sense to offer physical media alongside digital media. That way, you have the choice of either downloading a game, ordering one online, or going to a store.

[BillyJack]

I think that there are many factors and you cannot forget them if you want a good answer.

The companies do not make money on the consoles. At least that is what they always say. They make money on the games. So if you are Microsoft or Sony then why would you rush to put a new console out on the market when people are still buying games. We think that the console is outdated and it is. They know it is out dated. But why spend money to rush a console out the door when they are making money on games. If they put out a new console it will take time for people to buy them and get the numbers up to what they are currently. While people are holding out on buying a console they are not buying games and therefore Microsoft and Sony loose money.

Several mistakes happened with the current consoles in my opinion. The Xbox was still not that popular compared to Sony when the 360 came out. Sony console was hard to develop on due to its cell processor. Plus I believe Sony was late at releasing the console compared to the Xbox 360. Nintendo sold a lot of units but other than that no one really buys there games. I really know much about the portable game systems but is seems like they make money on them.

Nintendo is not really a competitor so that leaves Sony and Microsoft. If neither one of them are rushing to the market with a new console then why rush. Specially since people are buying games anyway. Once the sales of games start to slide then they will have more interest in a new console. That will revive the game sales and the cycle starts all over again.

I would not compare phone and tablet games to consoles. Just like you cannot compare consoles to PCs. Although consoles and PCs have a similar demographic. People play consoles because that is what they love and others play PCs because that is what they love. The people who play games on phones and tablets are a different demographic that consist of people who might never play a game on a console or PC. It is a growing business is what it is. That type of market has never existed or was real small. Now it is growing and there is opportunity. That is why companies are capitalizing on that market. If a company stops targeting the console or PC market then another company will take up that empty void. After all there is money to be made.

So if someone is talking about a game market dieing then they obviously do not know how to make money, did not explain themselves correctly or we are misunderstanding them. Trust me. There is plenty of room for consoles, PCs, phones, and tablets.

I think that if Sony does not make a platform that is similar to the Xbox for development then they have the most to loose. Microsoft is bringing the desktop, tablet, phone, and Xbox together. That does not mean that a game can run on all of those platforms or that they would want to, but it will be easy to port games across the platform. Specially compared to Sony. Sony's PSP and Playstation have a totally different architecture which makes it hard to port games. They have android tablets that is also not the same. If they make a Windows tablet it will also be different. I know if I was a game developer company I would want to develop on Microsoft's platform vs Sony.

The console and hardware is just a way to sell games. Add a new controller, motion device, etc. Its all to lure us to buy the console so that they can make money on the games. Without the hardware, there are no games.

These are my opinions of what I read, see, and how I understand what is going on. I am lazy and have not read any facts so I have not references for you guys. lol

[AWilliams87]

I always believed the Microsoft should just have created the Xbox OS to license rather than go full in by manufacturing the hardware as well. There could have been a much bigger economic ecosystem around it than what we have now. Perhaps today, an OEM could have created a Smart Xbox TV instead of a stand alone console.

[HawkMan]

Yup, that says it all.