The Big Bad Console Thread - Sway your Station with an Xboner !

Joeboo - some exceptions like Skyrimmayhappen, but for the most part that's rare. Ubisoft and Activision both have backed this up by saying that their PC sales generally account for less than 10% and they knowexactlyhow many units they have sold, both digital and physical.

It does change from year to year and title to title, but they did say that a few years ago.

Those numbers either mean that PC is growing rapidly, or console sales were shrinking greatly, or a little of both(probably the most likely). Shows PC pretty much on par with each console as of 2013, but pretty far behind back in 2012

When we actually see big, AAA games being released on Phones that are the same as their PC/Console counterparts then I'll buy into the whole "phones are the future" shtick. That's not happened on any significant scale yet. It's unlikely that it'll happen during this generation either.

If Phones make the same leap in technology during this next console generation as they did during the last generation, they'll be caught up to consoles pretty quick.

Look at cell phones in 2005 compared to today. Holy shit, what a crazy difference.(and I know we've had this discussion either here or elsewhere too)

mkopec_sl said:

This was my entire point about the future and handhelds. They are getting more powerful by the year. The next Samsung S5 is rumored to have the new 8 core processor in it. Even intell is focusing their business model to further develop for the mobile market. Its the future, not some box in your living room. The future is a handheld device with all that shit on it, al your games, all your entertainment, friends, etc.... and the future all the other devies in your hme will sync with that handheld. Even your fridge. THATS the future. "UT, you only have 4 eggs left, better stop and get some more"

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You only have to look at the iPhone 5s to see what the future holds. It's the first mobile device to use a PowerVR rogue GPU, and it's damn impressive.



And next years GPUs are likely to be 2x more powerful. The astonishingly quick pace of mobile development has been amazing to watch.

joeboo_sl said:

If Phones make the same leap in technology during this next console generation as they did during the last generation, they'll be caught up to consoles pretty quick.

Look at cell phones in 2005 compared to today. Holy shit, what a crazy difference.(and I know we've had this discussion either here or elsewhere too)

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The phone hardware will catch up, but it's a matter of them going "can we make and sell these games to this audience at these prices" and actually having that happen. The hardware surpassed this last generation a while ago, but it still did not happen. Plus, there's the huge issue of Storage Capacity and the fact that everything is now going to be tailored to BR disc sizes. The only way I could see those games working on phones is if they sold a dock for it with an external harddrive. Should probably throw in a controller too.

I do not think Phones taking over as a primary gaming device is going to happen until Cloud Gaming becomes a reality and that's not going to happen until our internet infrastructure goes under a drastic change to be able to support it.

mkopec_sl said:

Thats just one company with only a few games. I would like to see the number breakdown on the all time hits like CoD or BF3 or any of those heavy hitters. Or hell lets compare Diablo 3 pc vs console.

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Unfortunately, Activision combine their results with Blizzard, so we get stuff like this --



http://investor.activision.com/commo...ss_release.pdf

PC Sales seemed to be around 10%~ for Q1 and Q2 2013 -Activision | Blizzard - Quarterly Results

And EA --



PC seems to do rather well for EA.

Electronic Arts Reports Q3 FY13 Financial Results (NASDAQ:EA)

Those numbers don't really say much about multiplatform games, especially considering that nearly everyone has (or has tried) their hand in the Social Gaming cookie jar, which counts for PC sales.

Those EA numbers are interesting. PC actually outsold either console in Q2 2013, and outsold PS3 in Q1 2013 as well. Q3 the consoles came back with a vengeance, I have to think mostly because of Madden Football, which isn't available on PC

The saddest part of the EA numbers is that PS2 is as close to Wii sales, as Wii is to the other 2 consoles(going by percentages), lol.

Sean_sl said:

The phone hardware will catch up, but it's a matter of them going "can we make and sell these games to this audience at these prices" and actually having that happen. The hardware surpassed this last generation a while ago, but it still did not happen. Plus, there's the huge issue of Storage Capacity and the fact that everything is now going to be tailored to BR disc sizes. The only way I could see those games working on phones is if they sold a dock for it with an external harddrive. Should probably throw in a controller too.

I do not think Phones taking over as a primary gaming device is going to happen until Cloud Gaming becomes a reality and that's not going to happen until our internet infrastructure goes under a drastic change to be able to support it.

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You have to remember that the App Store has only been around for 4 years~, and its growing at an astonishingly quick rate every month. Spending on tablets/revenues is already massively overshadowing spending on dedicated gaming handhelds..



Google Play jumps ahead of Nintendo and Sony in mobile game sales
(Note: Figures don't include in app advertising, which would push revenues even higher.)

And mobile revenue in Japan is outpacing both consoles and handheld revenue combined -

-Japanese mobile game industry (feature phone + smartphone) was $5.1 billion for 2012.
-Japanese consoles/handhelds software + hardware was $4.6 billion for 2012.

Size Of Japan Japan Mobile And Social Games Consulting

You may not like that mobile games aren't as full featured as console games, but the general market doesn't seem to care.

In 2 years, when crossgen COD/Fifa/whatever stop coming out on the 360/PS3, the mainstream market may not want to upgrade to a PS4/Xbox One/Steam Machine. They might be content to stick with their phones and tablets instead, which is the real big danger for Sony and Microsoft.

Phone + wireless streaming to your TV + bluetooth controller = console you can easily take anywhere, and always have all your games with you.

joeboo_sl said:

The saddest part of the EA numbers is that PS2 is as close to Wii sales, as Wii is to the other 2 consoles(going by percentages), lol.

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It'll be fun to see next year's version of that and see where the WiiU falls. Will it beat the PS2 for EA?! Probably not. I'm not sure when they're dropping PS2 versions of sports games, but they've already dropped the WiiU versions.

Actually I'm not sure if it'll be on there at all since I can't remember if EA is actually making a single WiiU game.

Most of the Vita games look better than that Infinity Blade III video...

Cor_sl said:

You have to remember that the App Store has only been around for 4 years~, and its growing at an astonishingly quick rate every month. Spending on tablets/revenues is already massively overshadowing spending on dedicated gaming handhelds..

You may not like that mobile games aren't as full featured as console games, but the general market doesn't seem to care.

In 2 years, when crossgen COD/Fifa/whatever stop coming out on the 360/PS3, the mainstream market may not want to upgrade to a PS4/Xbox One/Steam Machine. They might be content to stick with their phones and tablets instead, which is the real big danger for Sony and Microsoft.

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And none of this means that the mobile market is replacing the console market. Games are breaking sales records year after year. I'm pretty sure that GTA5 shows that the console market has as much life in it as ever.

Also Fifa still hasn't stopped being made for the PS2, so yeah. It's probably not going to stop being made for the X360/PS3 in 2 years. There's also a iOS and Android version of Fifa 14 and they aren't going to kill console sales. The mobile and console market are going to exist along side each other if anything.

Sean_sl said:

And none of this means that the mobile market is replacing the console market. Games are breaking sales records year after year. I'm pretty sure that GTA5 shows that the console market has as much life in it as ever.

Also Fifa still hasn't stopped being made for the PS2, so yeah. It's probably not going to stop being made for the X360/PS3 in 2 years. There's also a iOS and Android version of Fifa 14 and they aren't going to kill console sales.The mobile and console market are going to exist along side each other if anything.

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Yes, which is what I said earlier. The console/dedicated gaming device market is probably going to shrink considerably though, and these devices will become decidedly more niche, much like dedicated mp3 players and gps devices.

I don't think GTA5 is much of an indication of anything, by the way. I mean, it's impressive how many units it shipped, but you have to remember that it's selling to a huge market of 150+ (?) million people. People only need to spend $60/?35/40eur to buy GTA5 - they don't need to shell out $400/?349/400eur for a new console to play it. That console cost is going to be a huge barrier of entry for a lot of people. They're going to have to consider whether they want a new games console, or a new tablet, or a new smartphone, and I think a lot more people are going to go for the latter options as they have a lot more utility.

And again, you keep forgetting that the app store is only five years old. It launched in June 2008. The Xbox 360 was nearly 3 years old at that point, and the PS3 was 2 years old. The App Store's growth has been astonishing. In just five years, it has already displaced handheld gaming, and it's showing no signs of slowing down.

We already know that people are using their current gen consoles for playing media more than playing games --

The study found PS3 gamers spent 28 percent of their time playing offline video games and 18 percent playing online games. Overall, PS3 owners spent 46 percent of their time in 2012 playing games and 54 percent with non-gaming media services.

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Nielsen: gaming takes back seat on PS3 - GameSpot

I don't think that bodes well for the future of gaming consoles at all. Are these people who predominantly use their PS3s and 360s as Netflix boxes going to buy in to next gen? I'm not so sure.

Cor_sl said:

I don't think that bodes well for the future of gaming consoles at all. Are these people who predominantly use their PS3s and 360s as Netflix boxes going to buy in to next gen? I'm not so sure.

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I don't think it's indicative of anything that people are doing those things (watching shows/movies, listening to music) on their gaming systems. Including gaming, these are activities that people have always split amongst their free time. The only difference is now they can do all of those things on one box.