Who will be the next hardware maker to exit the market?

[Andromeda Stardust]

Wow, such animosity towards Nintendo when they're the only company still trying something new and different when it comes to console design. Playstation hasn't changed their controller much since the original Dual Shock dropped for PS1. Xbox isn't much better. Both companies also tried to copy motion control gaming last gen and failed to make a dent in the market.

[toiletunes]

Could you add Coleco to the poll? I want to change my vote

[leods]

Wow, such animosity towards Nintendo when they're the only company still trying something new and different when it comes to console design. Playstation hasn't changed their controller much since the original Dual Shock dropped for PS1. Xbox isn't much better. Both companies also tried to copy motion control gaming last gen and failed to make a dent in the market.

 

New and different. A Touchscreen... That's what I mean. If it was MS who was stupid enough to have done this, People would be laughing at how clueless they are. Nintendo on the other Hand is innovative

 

If CoD is the same Thing every year it's awful, but if there's another damned 3D Mario that's again not even as good as the previous one was, it's great, because we all love Mario. If I say Naughty Dog has no clue how to make a Videogame it's normal, but if I say Nintendo hasn't really tried to actually make a good game in a Long time, then I'm just against Nintendo.

 

There's a reason why People have moved on. I don't like super gory "adult" games. But I definitely don't Need Mario in all my games either.

[Andromeda Stardust]

@Leods: I get what you are saying. Nintendo seems to have found a comfort spot with Mario recently with New SMB. The DS game was great with Nintendo seeming to recycle all of the best elements from the original 2D games. Now with it's 4th incarnation the formula has gotten stale. NSMB-U + Luigi-U is still the best title in the series however, with an expansive World style overmap instead of the cookie cutter maps from SMB3.

 

They've gone the same direction with the 3D Marios sadly, 3D Land/World playing like glorified obstacle courses instead of expansive 3D universes. They fact they built these games on a grid is painfully obvious. Mario started out on a grid because that's how platformers were designed in the bit years. They fact that they've reverted to using grid based platforming for 3D World/Land is sad, although 3D World was very much fun and enjoyful.

 

Looking back, M64 was near perfection for it's time, and Sunshine was delightfully refreshing even if it brought on a weird new mechanic with the FLUDD pack. There series reached a high point with Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 but I understand not everyone can stomach the gravity physics. My mom got queasy watching me play.

 

So yes, I feel Nintendo is playing it too "safe" with their recent Marios. I wish they would think outside the box more. Super Mario Maker is IMO a fantastic game concept despite the user generated levels are largely hit or miss. Childhood dream realised of doing my own stages.

[+wongojack]

An interesting discussion. I don't think any of these companies will exit this market. The market and increasing customer base of "gamers" doesn't really show any signs of slowing down. Some interesting things that I observed or thought were worth repeating

 

Sony has big problems in almost everything that ISN'T Playstation (I voted for them)

Nintendo is lean but is working to diversify. How long will their cash last?

The rumblings to spin off Xbox from the rest of MS have become somewhat silent

 

The characterization that Xbox is for FPS games is weird. I play almost everything BUT those games. I guess this comes from the launch of the original Xbox where they brought FPS games to consoles. That was more of a stroke of luck than anything. The real energy around that machine was invigorated by the idea that they could bring Direct X technology to a console - and it f'ing worked. Not only that, but Microsoft also brought us Xbox live which (like it or not) has completely changed gaming. And not just multiplayer gaming. The Xbox marketplace was a big innovation. To say that gaming would be better off without them is like saying it would have been better if the Americans never entered the space race. MS is the reason that PC gaming came back. Because they built their console technology around Windows allows games to be easily ported to the PC. At this point can you even tell which one is the port?

 

All that being said, the fact that consumers are still willing to buy an Xbox product after RROD is a mystery.

 

The old argument that people will ditch consoles and only use PCs is so repetitive, I kinda think those using it must be playing with us. Consoles are much cheaper than almost ANY PC worthy of playing big titles. Plus it is a retail purchase that you don't have to think about. Just compare the complexity of buying an XOne to buying a computer on Amazon. Consumers don't want to educate themselves which will always give consoles reason to exist.

 

I'd like to think that gaming controls will somehow make a resurgence on mobile devices, but I don't think there is real consumer demand for that. Instead, Apple thinks you don't even need a USB port on your computer or tablet. Why would I ever want to plug anything in when I can just touch the screen . . . ?

[omegadot]

I have no problem with the Wii U itself. Between it and my XBone I much prefer it and play it quite a bit more. (My PC is basically a project1999 and CS box once in a while at this point) I like the controller and the Gamepad. I would like a little more use out of the pad, but I think what I get is still good. I also think the games are great fun and executed well. The system itself is incredibly reliable and just gets me to a game quickly.

 

The thing is I don't want great games from them anymore. They do that all the time, it's not very interesting. I don't want a good controller. That's simply required for entry. I'm used to solid controls, good music, colorful scenes, etc. What I want is something different. Even if isn't the product of a 30 year refinement process. I consider the new Marios great games but they are still just hyper polished versions of the same run. Good work but I'd love to see that level of care applied elsewhere. I got Xenoblade and Splatoon! Wonderful. Most of the rest tread veeeeeery closely to the Mario universe.

 

I love the Wii U but I'm looking for something a bit different out of the next generation of Nintendo. Innovative is a scary word to me after I met motion controls. (looks longingly disappointed at Metroid Prime 3) After that they may as well leave the home console market as far as I'm concerned.

[Flojomojo]

All that being said, the fact that consumers are still willing to buy an Xbox product after RROD is a mystery.

What's to get? My Xbox RROD'ed two years after I bought it, and they repaired it at their expense, paying shipping both directions. There were enough of these in the shipping chain that the UPS shop (for dropoff) and driver (for delivery) knew exactly what they were. It has worked perfectly ever since. I bought a replacement a few years ago thinking I would need it. As it happens, I didn't, the old one is still working great, more than 10 years later. The Xbone, while ugly, is working fine as well. I have a lot of games on the the platform and the One is starting to allow them to work in backwards compatibility, which is nice.

 

My original PS3, which was nice because it could also play PS2 games, died a few years ago. The repair options were so unattractive I just bought a replacement Slim, which has been fine.

 

Stuff breaks, but it's not enough to make me feel one way or the other about a company. Microsoft handled the hardware failure a lot better, in my experience.

[Raticon]

Well, i am a litte bit of a Playstation fanboy in the sense that i have all of the Playstations right here at home, 1, 2 3 and 4 but i haven't touched upon the Sony handhelds in a while.
I have never owned any Xbox but friends do and it's a fair console with some great games i never had or may have on my Playstations, so they have their strenghts.

I believe Sony will be exiting the handheld market in a quite near future. The Vita didn't sell nearly as much as the earlier PSP and it's versions as Sony would like to, and this day and age it mostly seems to serve as a kind of expansion for the PS3 or PS4 with gaming streamed to it and whatnot, and suffers some real hard competition from ordinary mobile phones and pads on the "casual" side of gaming, while not being nearly as powerful to itself challenge the stationary consoles with anything but downgraded versions of the stationaries games.

I believe Nintendo will be the first that exits the markets for stationary consoles, if they haven't already and the NX will be purely handheld. If this is the case i sadly feel that the life for Nintendo even on the handheld scene will be shortlived as they have always been much for backwards compatibility and relatively long lived systems on the handheld side, while the rest of the "handheld" market in phones, pads etc are still experiencing extreme development in the hardware area with every new generation being just a few years apart and then massively faster and more advanced than the previous.

Any handheld that wants to survive in such an enviroment can't be as long lived as either the Game Boy or the PSP ever was, as the games will feel dated even after just 2 years.

With consoles more and more turning to PC-like architectures while the same time acting as media centres with Netflix etc, web browsers, streaming music players and the like i have a hard time seeing how they can differentiate themselves in the future.
Looking 10+ years in the future i dont think we have consoles as we know them anymore.

[InnovaX5]

I just never liked the Xbox or the 360. I had no problems with my original Xbox, my 360 RROD'ed, I got a new one and I didn't really care to play it anymore for some reason. Ironically I love my Xbox One, its one of my favorite consoles of all time. I also love my PS4 because of its ease of playing Japanese Imports. I actually prefer the Xbox One to it when it comes to US releases...go figure. I think it comes down to the fact I prefer the Xbox One controller over the DS4 and how nice Xbox Live is now.

 

I hated the Wii, motion controls with arthritis sucks, bad. I'm not too keen on the Wii U's touch sections in games but I do enjoy the Wii U as much as I did the Nintendo 64, Nintendo is Nintendo. I'm a huge fan of both the 3DS and the PS Vita too. Really wish they'd make a 3DS adapter for the Wii U, that'd be awesome but with the NX coming, I'm sure it'll never happen.

 

I own an i7 Steam Machine, I got it as a Christmas gift. I enjoy that little thing just as much as I enjoy my normal consoles. I love the fact that I don't need to switch game disks and I've got my entire library of Steam titles available on the comfort of my couch. Its a seriously great little console and I can't recommend it enough to a gamer who is a console gamer. Sure, a gaming PC is cheaper and can have higher specs. This little box is perfect for someone who doesn't want to use windows, doesn't want to use OSX and wants to enjoy PC titles anywhere. I really do think Valve is going to shake up the console market in a big way once the technology gets better for the price ranges.

[Agamemnon2]

Nintendo is dying, the only question is whethe the console market itself will die before the company does. Ah well, for everything there's a season.

[Flojomojo]

I think you should post some facts to support your assertion that "Nintendo is dying." That's a pretty bold statement.

[leods]

Nintendo is back at being profitable recently. I don't think they're dying at all. And aparently they are being forced to Change their platform (traditional console) to better suit the ever changing world around them.

 

I have to admit. There's still place for kinda oldschool consoles out there. People who want to give their child a console still might want it to be as offline as possible. They'd still rather go to the store and buy their Kids a game in a box to give them for Christmas. Also, as much as I love PC, there are many complexities inherent to the platform. Compexities that could be diminished even further, and possibly will but that will take some time.

 

We can't know. Sega went from doing great with the Mega Drive to bankrupt in less than a decade.

 

Gaming is changing radically. It's becomming Mainstream. Big corporations are taking controll and getting bigger and more influential than ever.

 

I don't think it's that easy to say some Company or other is dying. It's easy to say we don't Need consoles anymore. I've just said this myself in this thread. But the truth is, we haven't needed consoles for the past 10 years, and consoles are going strong.

 

I find the whole discussion super interesting, and I do ask myself what the future is going to be like. But we can't possibly know for sure. If it was that easy the big companies would be the first to know.

[Bill Loguidice]

I think you should post some facts to support your assertion that "Nintendo is dying." That's a pretty bold statement.

 

I agree that it's a stretch to say "Nintendo is dying" just because the 3DS is in its inevitable decline (about 5 years on the market) and the Wii U never really caught on. It's one of the lower points for Nintendo as a company, but up and down cycles are inevitable. Nintendo still has significant cash reserves, they're beginning to diversify their business a bit more again (amiibo, mobile, QOL, etc.), they still have their IP stable, etc.

 

I think what Nintendo CAN'T afford is for the NX platform to fail to resonate. If that happens, there are few options left for the company, outside of them becoming the top multi-platform third party developer on the planet. The waning years of the Wii were poorly managed, as were the launches of both the 3DS and Wii U. Only the 3DS was able to recover, thanks to aggressive price cuts and getting enough software in the pipeline. They really need a properly executed NX launch, and an NX platform that can remain a significant part of the market for at least the next 5 years.

 

I'll be terribly fascinated for the NX's full reveal at E3 of this year (presumably for a Holiday 2016 launch). I think we'll have lots of answers based on the overall reaction even then.

[Bill Loguidice]

Nintendo is back at being profitable recently. I don't think they're dying at all. And aparently they are being forced to Change their platform (traditional console) to better suit the ever changing world around them.

 

I have to admit. There's still place for kinda oldschool consoles out there. People who want to give their child a console still might want it to be as offline as possible. They'd still rather go to the store and buy their Kids a game in a box to give them for Christmas. Also, as much as I love PC, there are many complexities inherent to the platform. Compexities that could be diminished even further, and possibly will but that will take some time.

 

That might be outdated thinking. We as a society have been conditioned to buy digital only mobile apps for many years now, and certainly some of the most popular titles with kids are download only or subscription-based Web games. I know all of my daughters play the most of those types of games, and I certainly don't know of any deviation from their classmates. In any case, at least from my own sample size, getting a digital gift is as impactful to them as getting a physical gift. After all, they don't play the packaging or physical media. I also don't think most other parents give the digital thing a second thought. It's just the way things are done now.

 

As for me, as insane as my collection of physical videogame and computer items is, I'm fully on-board with the change to primarily digital. I find just about any good reason NOT to get physical discs these days. I'd much rather have it digital, so I can use it on multiple systems in my house without having to worry about having the disc handy. The only real exception is the Wii U, which has a broken account system, so for that I'm forced to buy discs to use it on our systems.

[Flojomojo]

That might be outdated thinking. ... I'm fully on-board with the change to primarily digital.

Me too, even on 3DS and Wii U, but I don't think we can speak for everyone. Look at Disney Infinity, Skylanders, Lego whatever-its-called. Physical stuff still has a big hold on kids.

 

I would like to see stats on how many current generation consoles are on the internet. The previous gen was way surprising to me -- many fewer than before I would have thought.

 

(edit: whoops, typo)

[Bill Loguidice]

Me too, even on 3DS and Wii U, but I don't think we can speak for everyone. Look at Disney Infinity, Skylanders, Lego whatever-its-called. Physical stuff still has a big hold on kids.

 

I would like to see stats on how many current generation consoles are on the internet. The previous gen was way surprising to me -- many fewer than before.

 

I consider the toy-based games their own thing (and we have at least one of each available type in our household). That's a boon to retailers and probably how they'll ultimately stay relevant with videogames. Not every game type is amenable to companion toys, though, and certainly the market will clearly be able to bear only so many of those types of products before we have the first major failure (every attempt to date has been a raging success, of course).

 

The last stats I saw were something like 92% (it was somewhere in the low 90s) of PS4's were connected consoles, and the story I read speculated there was at least as much on the Xbox One side (there was no speculation about the Wii U). That's hardly surprising considering how much pretty much anything we connect to the TV (and usually the TV's themselves), have some type of connectivity option and function to their full potential only when connected. I think that's something like the digital thing where it's no longer something people really think about not doing. And certainly in the cases of the PS4 and Xbox One, with all the monthly "free" games, it doesn't make much sense to not pay the roughly $40 a year for the premium subscriptions.

[Flojomojo]

That's cool. I remember being shocked at how few 360/ps3's were online, it was less than half if I recall. Also there was a crapstorm over the always-connected aspect of the Xbox One.

[cybercylon]

That's cool. I remember being shocked at how few 360/ps3's were online, it was less than half if I recall. Also there was a crapstorm over the always-connected aspect of the Xbox One.

 

If you do a search even for here, you can find the threads on that one. It was definitely a crap storm. I've always wondered if Sony intended to do the same, but changed their policy at E3 to one up Microsoft. The Microsoft had to back peddle.

 

Then again... I am not sure if Sony had similar plans. If I remember correctly, back in the PS2 days, Sony did file a patent for some technology where a small part of the Blu-ray disk would be write once only, potentially locking the game to that console. Still hasn't been used, and it may not be important anymore.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, doesn't one generally need frequent online access for Steam? Next consoles will likely have that requirement. People will be more used to it.

 

We will see what happens with Nintendo's NX. What do they need to do to be more successful this time around? Not a clue from me... hopefully they have one.

[Flojomojo]

Correct me if I am wrong, doesn't one generally need frequent online access for Steam? Next consoles will likely have that requirement. People will be more used to it.

 

It's my understanding that if you cache your login, and use Steam in "offline mode," you can go a long time (perhaps forever) without touching the internet. The installed executables are matched to your purchase information and can only run on that machine.

 

Not that I would want to be offline for any length of time, yuck.

[+wongojack]

/\/\ You can totally share your library with your family.

[Flojomojo]

/\/\ You can totally share your library with your family.

Yeah, perhaps I should have said the purchases are locked to your account, not just one machine. Only Nintendo does that. Meh.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Nintendo is back at being profitable recently. I don't think they're dying at all. And aparently they are being forced to Change their platform (traditional console) to better suit the ever changing world around them.

 

I have to admit. There's still place for kinda oldschool consoles out there. People who want to give their child a console still might want it to be as offline as possible. They'd still rather go to the store and buy their Kids a game in a box to give them for Christmas. Also, as much as I love PC, there are many complexities inherent to the platform. Compexities that could be diminished even further, and possibly will but that will take some time.

 

We can't know. Sega went from doing great with the Mega Drive to bankrupt in less than a decade.

 

Gaming is changing radically. It's becomming Mainstream. Big corporations are taking controll and getting bigger and more influential than ever.

 

I don't think it's that easy to say some Company or other is dying. It's easy to say we don't Need consoles anymore. I've just said this myself in this thread. But the truth is, we haven't needed consoles for the past 10 years, and consoles are going strong.

 

I find the whole discussion super interesting, and I do ask myself what the future is going to be like. But we can't possibly know for sure. If it was that easy the big companies would be the first to know.

I agree with much of your post, but I do think there is and will still be a place for dedicated consoles, even if it becomes niche market in the future. It's all I choose to game on. Maybe Chameleon or some other creation will take over if the big three decide to drop out of the console race. Who knows. I wouldn't mind belonging to a niche market. After all, I collect homebrews for the Atari and NES. That's a niche among a niche in retro gaming.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

If you do a search even for here, you can find the threads on that one. It was definitely a crap storm. I've always wondered if Sony intended to do the same, but changed their policy at E3 to one up Microsoft. The Microsoft had to back peddle.

 

Then again... I am not sure if Sony had similar plans. If I remember correctly, back in the PS2 days, Sony did file a patent for some technology where a small part of the Blu-ray disk would be write once only, potentially locking the game to that console. Still hasn't been used, and it may not be important anymore.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, doesn't one generally need frequent online access for Steam? Next consoles will likely have that requirement. People will be more used to it.

 

We will see what happens with Nintendo's NX. What do they need to do to be more successful this time around? Not a clue from me... hopefully they have one.

I remember the shit crapstorm that happened after Xbox announced their restrictive reuse policy. Boy they changed their tune quick. I think that is the primary reason why Sony is winning this gen. I still have my PS3 and the 7 or 8 titles I own for it that were never released on the Wii. Pretty much the Little big Planet Trilogy plus Karting, 3D Dot heroes, and Southpark The Stick of Truth. And that Family Guy game I'm pretty tempted to sell. Which reminds me, I need to check out some of the titles in the Ratchet and Clank series, but still so much backlog between the multitude of Nintendo titles I've amassed spanning multiple generations. Whatever games I buy, I'll need to run them and download the updates and whatever DLC I want before Sony unplugs the PS3 servers.

[JamesD]

If you look at stock prices, Nintendo stock isn't even down to it's 10 year low yet, so I don't think they are going out of business.
The stock prices that peaked right after the Wii craze hit were 5 times higher but that's more of an anomaly.
What I see as being an issue is that they are set to intro a new console right as we head into another global recession.
I think one more failure in the TV oriented console market may lead them to pull back to just making handhelds.

[Unbeliever]

I have a question: How is the Xbox One doing these days? I haven't really seen any selling information lately on the console. I'm assuming it's doing rather well with the introduction to backward compatible games (some, not all). Is there any further speculation on what the NX will be? From what I've read, it seems the notion is Nintendo's next iteration will be a portable or a hybrid of both a console and portable.