[quote name='Stele']Let's just say DLC revenue comes nowhere close to making up for revenue declines in physical game sales. Games go on sale for a reason, and it's usually not because they're selling like hot cakes. The market is gravitating toward episodic and social games. In the end, mind share is mind share. You spend an hour playing $0.99 Angry Birds, that's the same hour for a $60 Halo 4. Smartphones are very much a category killer. Camera, GPS, music players, and now videogames. In less than 5 years, nearly all smartphones will have HD-capable projectors. They're a little expensive right now at $30/unit, so most smartphone manufacturers haven't adopted them, but prices will come down. That essentially solves the screen problem for tablets and smartphones. Consoles will have no place in this world.
BTW, traditional videogame companies are doing "horribly" in THIS economy, so I'm not sure what the point of that comment was.[/QUOTE]
Handhelds are what should be shaking in their boots. If you could be playing a Vita or your iPhone, those are more likely fighting over the same "mind-share". I'm never sitting at home, kids asleep, and think to myself, hmm, should I play a AAA console title, or Angry Birds. Welp, Angry Birds it is. I'm playing crappy little mobile games when I'm at the airport, waiting for an appointment, on the road. Maybe that is happening frequently with people outside of my social circles, so I wouldn't claim to say a majority of people are like that, but the mobile experience is nothing like a console or a PC one.
Also, the demographic is shifting. Gamers are older. As you get older, you assume more responsibilities. Family, job, etc. Because of that, I seldom pay full price for a game, I wait a few months and grab it for 25% less. I have the disposable income to afford games, so I can buy them on deals and create a backlog.
Even if phones in 5 years will have an HD projector, unless they have a better input method, you're not going to be playing advanced games by "tap here", "drag to reload"? What, you'll carry a controller with you everywhere? OK...then it's no longer truly a mobile game, you're packing around an Xbox controller with you.
I think the hardware is mildly stale, we're seeing sequels and franchises be successful while new IP does not do as well. I blame the consumers in a lot of ways. They are voting with their dollars, but I think they're making some very uninformed votes. A new COD each year? Really? Well, people are buying them. Madden every year? Hunh...OK. Games that push the boundaries, or try, but come up slightly short, are blasted on blogs and gaming sites, and with all those voices, can never succeed in the modern metacritic era.
Baller Beats. FANTASTIC game, but the reviewers all say it sucks because they can't bounce a basketball, or they live in some two story shitty apartment. That doesn't mean the game fails. It means they aren't the target market. Borderlands 1? That was a huge leap. They went to cell shaded graphics, they tried a grand co-op scheme and succeeded. There are hits and misses, but there are lots of good games that get overlooked, because the consumers are lazy, and don't search for them. Not every game can have $10M advertising budgets.
I don't think consoles are dying, I think they are at the end of the current hardware cycle, they have become entertainment boxes, not just gaming devices, and are more entrenched in our living rooms than our bedrooms, which is an historical shift.
from Newegg.com
Sorecry $9.99
Gears of War 3 $11.99
Homefront $7.99
