2025: Where are the big three console makers?

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pumbaa

CAGiversary!
Important note before you start reading: I'm just trying to foster intellegent conversation about an interesting issue that popped up. Try to keep your opinions in check... back them up with some reasoning... don't just sprout off random crap.

I just had an interesting conversation with one of my friends. He claimed that in 20 years Microsoft in some form or fashion would own Nintendo or that Nintendo would be a 3rd party developer developing games for Microsoft.

He comes from a computing backround, so this really didn't phase me. He also knew I'm a Nintendo fanatic and that it would be an interesting conversation... and it was.

So I'm thinking, where are the big three console makers going to be in 20 years? Take into account other industries and the rise and fall of seemingly invincible companies (IBM comes to mind...) Me? I'll respond as interesting points come out of the good work. Have fun...
 
I really don't see Nintendo lasting 20 years either. They are a great gaming company but are not nearly as large as Sony or MS and couldn't possibly compete in the long run. I think nintendo's last chance is the Revolution. IMO, nintendo consoles have gotten progressively worse since the SNES. I'm not saying the GC is bad, I own it and love it, but Nintendo is definetly not what they used to be. I think the Revolution will either make or break them, but it is too early to tell.
 
One thing I learned from reading Science Fiction is that predicting the future beyond a few months or years is rarely better than random guessing. There are so many possible variables, including those they won't exist yet for many years, that no one can really claim to know where things are going.

Think about 20 years ago. The console industry was in ruins and many compating computer platforms were seen as the future of gaming. The Soviet Union was supposedly doing alright and expected to be a rival effectively forever. Online services offered little more than text downloaded slower than it could be read and charge by the minute for access. 32-bit CPUs for personal computers were just starting to become available and the word megabyte was always assumed to mean floppy or hard drive storage, not RAM. Many avid computer users didn't even have the word gigabyte in their vocabularies because there was no point of reference.

None of the writers in preceding decades came even close to predicting the world of 1985 and nobody writing in 1985 had a clue about 2005.
 
[quote name='Scorch']Nintendo's been around over 100 years.. they aren't going anywhere.[/quote]

Most of that time they were Japan's combination of Bicycle playing card and Parker Bros. Nobody from the 50's who had been away in a meat loacker or something would recognize the current company. They might assume it was an entirely different company with the same name. If the vidoe game business becomes too much hassle they can mutate into something else yet again.

Oldsmobile had origins over a century old and was in the same business throughout but that brand was recently sent off to live on a farm where it could run and play with the other obsolet marques.
 
[quote name='epobirs'][quote name='Scorch']Nintendo's been around over 100 years.. they aren't going anywhere.[/quote]

Most of that time they were Japan's combination of Bicycle playing card and Parker Bros. Nobody from the 50's who had been away in a meat loacker or something would recognize the current company. They might assume it was an entirely different company with the same name. If the vidoe game business becomes too much hassle they can mutate into something else yet again.

Oldsmobile had origins over a century old and was in the same business throughout but that brand was recently sent off to live on a farm where it could run and play with the other obsolet marques.[/quote]

I am curious with this last comment. Part of that was due to the mindset of the consumer and the changing demopgraphic and age bands. Also I think GM has to many companies to manage and had to let some go. They are closing more and more plants here in Lansing.
 
Sega will come out with the

"Sega Super Genesis EX"

And it will destroy the compitition becoming the only console out, because of the inferioity of all the other ones. Then the console will cause wide spread panic as it become sentient and cuts off the power of the entire world cause millions of people to die or starve to death.

The surviving people will be forces to work in the silicon mines digging for silicon for they're robot masters.


===This may not happen, but its just as good as any guess on here.
 
I think Microsoft and Nintendo will both be around and be independant of one another. Nintendo always seems to operate outside of the bubble and they will continue to do so. As long as they keep turning a profit they aren't going anywhere. I seriously think they would still operate and release consoles and games with NO 3rd party support. I know I'll always buy the next Nintendo console to play Mario, Zelda, Metroid, F-Zero, etc. - especially if it's only $100.
 
[quote name='javeryh']I think Microsoft and Nintendo will both be around and be independant of one another. Nintendo always seems to operate outside of the bubble and they will continue to do so. As long as they keep turning a profit they aren't going anywhere. I seriously think they would still operate and release consoles and games with NO 3rd party support. I know I'll always buy the next Nintendo console to play Mario, Zelda, Metroid, F-Zero, etc. - especially if it's only $100.[/quote]

Foshizzle javeryhizzle.

I will as well. Why have third party support and be the dominant company in the industry if you can't make the same high margin? As long as they are profitable, they will exist.
 
I think that Sony has a number of large gambles on the table, and as a whole appear very reliant on the playstation brand. They completely missed the boat on flat screen hdtvs as well as portable mp3 players, both fields that just 5 years ago they were market dominant (walkman/discman and to a lesser extent tube tvs).
Now they are about to enter another costly format war that could easily go either way (or no way as the sacd vs dvda is showing).
Their movie studio has struggled aside from the Spideys and they recently were part of a group to buy the mgm backlog, which on the surface at least, seems more to benefit the cable group member so they have a good library to show on tv than to profit from the dvd backlist.
They are entering the portable arena and it is certainly not a given they will succeed as they have with consoles.
Without even mentioning the internal structural problems, division rivalry and financial state of the company. Sony has also demonstrated a level of arrogance that would make Nintendo recall its time at the top. As Sony is largely supported by the most hyped 3rd party games of any of the three, if it were to no longer be the market leader, it seems to have less to fall back on. Arguing that it will remain market leader forever is almost a nonissue, history has shown that manufactures will fail.

Nintendo is clearly struggling on the console front with everdwindling system sales each generation. Some might say the 64 has doomed the Cube, I also point to a lack of marketing and advertisement, by letting one's opponents paint them as an out of touch and kid-focused company (not exactly incorrect but unfair and certainly damaging). They continue to miss the use of new technology, as they are showing by almost no support for online gaming. and first party titles, while still excellent, are no longer getting the sales they used to or deserve.
Nintendo remains strong in the portable side, but large questions loom as to whether the psp will hurt badly and whether nintendo is fracturing the market in an attempt to release new systems on too short a timeline. They have strong brands, but so did Sega and they have been very underperforming and mismanaging their business.

Microsoft certainly has a large foundation to support gaming, but again, because it is so large, one could see how videogaming might stop becoming a worthwhile focus. At the moment, gaming is very much in vogue, as mainstream media loves pointing it out, as well as dropping figures about comparisons to the revenues of the movie industry. MS has approached the xbox as an extension of the computer and whether it wishes to actually align the two, as opposed to keeping a system solely dedicated to games makes a difference. It is tough to say if gamers want convergence, I dont think they do, but i suspect MS might want to move in that direction. (As some could argue Sony would).

So in 25 years? There is no strong history of japanese gaming companies being bought up by outside interests, and the attitude at nintendo seems to back this up. And while gamers can be fiercely loyal to a company, each generation also brings its own loyalties that are up for grabs. Of course, no one would have thought sonic would be playable on the nintendo, atari would have fallen so hard, the ps would destroy the 64 and so on and so on.

Id be happy in 25 years with 2 competing console makers and a good supply of fun games that continue to create new experiences whoever might be making them.
 
20 years from now, video games, along with many other forms of infadel entertainment, will be outlawed as the world succumbs to the rising tide of Islam.

GEE-HAAD!!!!! :x :x :x
 
[quote name='fanskad'][quote name='javeryh']I think Microsoft and Nintendo will both be around and be independant of one another. Nintendo always seems to operate outside of the bubble and they will continue to do so. As long as they keep turning a profit they aren't going anywhere. I seriously think they would still operate and release consoles and games with NO 3rd party support. I know I'll always buy the next Nintendo console to play Mario, Zelda, Metroid, F-Zero, etc. - especially if it's only $100.[/quote]

Foshizzle javeryhizzle.

I will as well. Why have third party support and be the dominant company in the industry if you can't make the same high margin? As long as they are profitable, they will exist.[/quote]

While I am in agreement, i.e. I would continue to buy Nintendo consoles even if there were no third-party support, I don't think there are enough of us who would. Honestly, I think it would be better for Nintendo to go the way of Sega, at least as far as the home console market goes. They should continue in the handheld market, and continue to make innovative games and accessories for home and handhelds, but there is nothing the GCN can do that can't be done on the other machines, there will likely be nothing that can be done on the Revolution that can't be done (better) on the other Next-Gen consoles, and there just isn't enough support (read: money) for it to be worth N's effort.
 
Nintendo will be around. Sony will be around. Microsoft will be around if the next console does well. The only reason it may not do as well is if they plan to implement different versions of the console. (One with a harddrive, one without) I don't know why everybody thinks Nintendo will be gone. If they are making money (and they are) why would they pack up and leave?
 
In 20 years any number of situations could come about.

I would be very surprised if the next 20 years continues along with no changes and there are simply 3 main consoles from the current guys (Sony, MS, Nintendo) though.

Think 20 years back. (1985) There were the big two of Nintendo and Sega. (NES came out in 1985, SMS I think in 1986)

If Microsoft's next console doesn't gain ground (or even worse - loses ground) on the PS3, they very well might decide to stop doing home consoles altogher, and we'll have just Sony and Nintendo and maybe some new blood in the gen after next. Who knows?

There could be another 'crash' and maybe there will be no major consoles in 20 years.

Or maybe video gaming will morph into something we don't anticipate.
 
sony will rule and everyone will have to get PS6 brain inplants or they will be hunted down by the Law.

there will be an underground Sega team ran but a little masked animal . sadly mario will be sent into the sun live on PPV



Really though

I think sony will become the next nintendo (getting so big they think noone can touch them and BOOM out of nowhere a new company takes over the #1 spot. ) Xbox will get out of the market long ago and bill gates will be flying people to the moon ( i think hes the one who paid for mario to go into the sun) Nintnedo will be retro and get out of the market for awhile but then join in again and shock everyone
 
[quote name='screwkick']Sega will make a console comeback. Mark my words...[/quote]

If it's like the Genesis or Dreamcast, I would looooooove to see this happen. :shock:
 
[quote name='Rig']Nintendo will be around. Sony will be around. Microsoft will be around if the next console does well. The only reason it may not do as well is if they plan to implement different versions of the console. (One with a harddrive, one without) I don't know why everybody thinks Nintendo will be gone. If they are making money (and they are) why would they pack up and leave?[/quote]

I don't think anyone is speculating that Nintendo will go away entirely, just that they will quit making home consoles. They make a console that is better than what 99.999999% of any other companie could do, but that simply isn't good enough, and it isn't where the money is either. The money is in the software, and their expertise is the software. They need to swallow their pride and give up on the home consoles, and I think the only real snag to that is giving up on the licensing fees, but there isn't enough third-party sales for that to add up to much anyway (when balanced against R&D), so, as I stated, it is a pride thing. It will happen. I think Revolution will probably be their last home console. Make your peace with it.
 
My guess is that both Sony and Microsoft will be going strong, with sales of their new systems about equal. Nintendo will be bought by Microsoft or will only be making handheld systems and games.
 
If you think about it MS is more likely to get out of the console market. Even after N64 and gamecube Nintendo is still very successful. Even if their next system only have about the same success they would still be ok.

On the other hand Xbox Next might be MS last chance. While MS does have a deep pocket, they are not going to throw money away. The gave up their sport games after that failed, as well as other projects that doesnt look good. The whole point of Xbox and live was for MS to get a foot in the market, and they are doing it at a cost of losing money so they can have more success in the future. If they cant get enough from Xbox Next MS could be leaving the console market.
 
Another thing to consider is that there won't be consoles as we know them now.

There will be games, and almost every piece of fun code ever written will be sustained under emulation but software may by that point become far removed from hardware platform specificity. When Java first appeared it would have seemed insane to suggest that a decent modern game could be produced in it since the overhead of the VM sacrificed so much of the underlying hardware's power. Years later companies like Popcap are turning Java games into a nice business starting on the PC and expanding onto cellphones. This now includes some decent 3D stuff for the phones with much more powerful stuff on the way.

This stuff is nowhere near producing the likes of Doom 3 or Half Life 2 but one interesting thing can be observed. The rate at which platform independent engines like Java, Flash, and Shockwave are increasing their capabilites is greater than the rate of improvement for the hardware itself. Alien hominid is a good example. This is a very playable fast action game that is playable on PCs and Macs (and anything else with a Flash implementation) froma single code base.

Twenty years from now will be at least four console generations. The level of complexity and investment possible for games only keeps growing. Once a certain threshold in hardware power is achieved a majority of game developers may say, "Screw it, we can do everything we could possibly want on top of this widely distributed VM. We're not even going to think about hardware differences anymore."
 
[quote name='epobirs']Another thing to consider is that there won't be consoles as we know them now.

There will be games, and almost every piece of fun code ever written will be sustained under emulation but software may by that point become far removed from hardware platform specificity. When Java first appeared it would have seemed insane to suggest that a decent modern game could be produced in it since the overhead of the VM sacrificed so much of the underlying hardware's power. Years later companies like Popcap are turning Java games into a nice business starting on the PC and expanding onto cellphones. This now includes some decent 3D stuff for the phones with much more powerful stuff on the way.

This stuff is nowhere near producing the likes of Doom 3 or Half Life 2 but one interesting thing can be observed. The rate at which platform independent engines like Java, Flash, and Shockwave are increasing their capabilites is greater than the rate of improvement for the hardware itself. Alien hominid is a good example. This is a very playable fast action game that is playable on PCs and Macs (and anything else with a Flash implementation) froma single code base.

Twenty years from now will be at least four console generations. The level of complexity and investment possible for games only keeps growing. Once a certain threshold in hardware power is achieved a majority of game developers may say, "Screw it, we can do everything we could possibly want on top of this widely distributed VM. We're not even going to think about hardware differences anymore."[/quote]

Specific consoles are the way developers can max out a game without requiring uber expensive PC components from the end user. It might seem like computers will become so powerful that platform independent solutions will be all that is needed. But I think PC gamers will always want that little bit more.

In the past it's been thought that a current PC was all people would ever need...

"640K is more memory than anyone will ever need" - Bill Gates.

But it is hard to predict the future. It could happen that a common standard is rolled out. Who's to say.
 
[quote name='wubb']
Specific consoles are the way developers can max out a game without requiring uber expensive PC components from the end user. It might seem like computers will become so powerful that platform independent solutions will be all that is needed. But I think PC gamers will always want that little bit more.

In the past it's been thought that a current PC was all people would ever need...

"640K is more memory than anyone will ever need" - Bill Gates.

But it is hard to predict the future. It could happen that a common standard is rolled out. Who's to say.[/quote]

First of all, that quote attributed to Gates is a hoax. There is no evidence he ever made such a statement. He himself denies it and can point to published articles from the same era in which he spoke of the ability to address increasingly greater amounts of memory as one of the primary drivers of advancements in personal computers. That cliché false quote is tedious nonsense that needs to die.

There are limits to everything. When producing a stream of information, be it photons or vibrations in the air, there is no reward for exceeding the capacity of the target. In the case of games that is the human sensory apparatus. Audio has already come very close to that point. Humans can perceive the deficiencies of 16-bit 48 KHz CD audio but it is simply beyond their capability to find fault at the 24-bit 96 KHz level. Differing playback equipment can make a difference but that isn't the concern of those operating recording studios. Once 24-bit 96 KHz audio becomes the norm it may go unchanged for decades. The sample rate may increase at some point but not by more than double.

The visual side of things has much farther to go but in terms of numbers the ultimate goal is well understood. The upper limits of human visual acuity and color perception have been tested for decades and the data is pretty solid. It's pretty well understood at what point it is useless to increase the pixel resolution of a display of a certain size. Print systems are already well past that point. A high end printer can easily produce high quality fonts that a human can only read through a magnifying glass. It was a little less than 20 years ago that 300 dpi in an Apple Laserwriter cost $8,000 and was considered a minor miracle. That kind of money now buys printers offering the detail described above. Manufacturers only seek to lower the price and no longer seek to increase the resolution because nobody can tell the difference. The only people seeking greater resolution are those seeking to adapt the technology to microscopic manufacturing.

Much as DVD's replacement came along in much shorter timespan than it took for DVD to displace the bulk of VCR sales, the successor to HDTV will come along much sooner than it took NTSC/PAL to be euthanized. Several companies are already creating displays far beyond 1080p resolution for high-end markets but those will come down in price just as their predecessors did. I can remember when a 17" 1024x768 monitor was $1,000. It will be considerably less than twenty years before the next level of display resolution starts to enter the mass market. At that point the displays will begin to approach the same quality where print devices began seeing diminishing returns on the value of increased resolution.

The primary challenges that don't have a known endpoint are those of perception, not numbers. An animated human can be presented on a display that a human cannot distinguish from a window facing a real setting but so far that animated figure will not fool the average viewer into believing it is real. At best it will pass for a biological entity that has something oddly wrong with it. Teaching computers to create virtual humans that pass for real is probably doable but it's one of those problems that nobody can honestly predict a date when it will be solved.

For many developers that time when platforms cease to matter is much closer. For some it's already here. Many games currently released are not especially challenging of any current platform and where available across all three have little or no distinguishing features. An example of a good game that doesn't push hard is Super Monkey Ball. It lloks good but it offer little challenge to current hardware. Nor does it need to. If Sega had the option of producing a single binary resulting in a disc that ran across all platforms they'd jump at it. Katamari Damacy is another example. It's only on the PS2 and doesn't make great demands of that hardware. It could easily be done in a VM on any of the next generation systems and onward into the future.

This is also true for games running under emulation. Most of the games from the 80's arcades and home systems can already be reproduced in a Java version of MAME and other emulators, as seen at www.everyvideogame.com right now. This site works on PCs, Macs, Linux, anything with an up to date VM and miniscule by today's standards processing power and display resolution.

As time goes on more developers will be decoupled from the hardware. Middleware does a certain portion of this already. A single company can optimize their engine for any number of platforms and in turn their clients eliminate writing a huge amount of platform specific code for those parts of the game that are the same. With rising costs for larger production staffs the value in this will only increase.
 
"consoles" will eventually blend with PCs. I mean, that's basically all an Xbox is. As needs for the ever-increasing demands for games goes up, so will the specs of the consoles. Eventually game makers will realize that there's a broader customer base that have PCs than any one console. And some smart company will make software and a USB device that will allow the PC to read games from the different consoles. Plug in your USB controller and you're set to go. I think the big future for "consoles wars" will be for portable consoles (which may eventually become more and more like PDAs), since it isn't as easy to carry around a desktop or even a laptop.
The biggest war IMHO will be between game developers rather than consoles.
 
The only thing I can really be sure of about gaming in 2025 is that I'll still have yet to play some of the games I have now, and Chrono Trigger will be one of my favorite games.
 
[quote name='Kayden']The only thing I can really be sure of about gaming in 2025 is that I'll still have yet to play some of the games I have now, and Chrono Trigger will be one of my favorite games.[/quote]

I think I agree with this quote more than any so far.

Someone mentioned this earlier, but I also think Nintendo should step down from home consoles and focus on their strengths--first party games and handhelds. I would love eat my words here, as I cherish my GameCube (and the first great wireless controllers), but I question many of Nintendo's strategies.

As far as Microsoft, maybe this is just me, but I think they should definitely focus on expanding their userbase, especially outside of the U.S. As a slower-paced, console-style RPG and strategy-RPG gamer, there's simply nothing to justify a purchase. How well is the Xbox doing outside of the U.S.? Action games are great, but I need more. Signing Hironobu Sakaguchi will hopefully change this, but only time will tell.

Sony needs to take what they've been doing and step it up. They lost a fair amount of ground this generation, so they need to find a way to stand apart (stronger first-party development teams, more exclusive third-party series/titles, etc).
 
[quote name='cthcky33']by then all forms of entertainment and electronics will all be single do everything devices[/quote]

God, I hope that's not true.
 
nintendo will be touting wi-fi and how they can interact with some god damn portable device that no one cares about

well then again, they'll probably be making zelda for sony and MS by that time..
 
[quote name='guessed'][quote name='Rig']Nintendo will be around. Sony will be around. Microsoft will be around if the next console does well. The only reason it may not do as well is if they plan to implement different versions of the console. (One with a harddrive, one without) I don't know why everybody thinks Nintendo will be gone. If they are making money (and they are) why would they pack up and leave?[/quote]

I don't think anyone is speculating that Nintendo will go away entirely, just that they will quit making home consoles. They make a console that is better than what 99.999999% of any other companie could do, but that simply isn't good enough, and it isn't where the money is either. The money is in the software, and their expertise is the software. They need to swallow their pride and give up on the home consoles, and I think the only real snag to that is giving up on the licensing fees, but there isn't enough third-party sales for that to add up to much anyway (when balanced against R&D), so, as I stated, it is a pride thing. It will happen. I think Revolution will probably be their last home console. Make your peace with it.[/quote]

...

......

:whistle2:k

No offense, but that is a pretty lame argument. Like Rig said, Nintendo is making money. They have constantly been in the black. The same can't be said for the videogame divisions of either other company. You also know nothing at all about the next generation. From what we do know, if anything, Sony and M$ have both been entirely too cocky, not even considering Nintendo and their experience in each companies' next gen plans (like some have mentioned, sounds a lot like the Yamauchi days of Nintendo - just before the PSX era). Given the money situation, ol' Bill isn't going to perpetually dump his fortune into a black hole. If the revenue doesn't begin to come in, he will eventually call it quits. M$ is the most likely out of the three to be at it's last chance. And all of Sony's countless problems (most of which have been mentioned in this thread) aren't too good for them either. And they are even cockier than M$. If the day does come where M$ edges past them, or Nintendo regains their former glory (don't count this out - it's more than possible :wink: ), it will be Sony who is on their last leg.

Nintendo has not had any of these problems lately. They also have way more treasure stored up than most realize. They have not had to waste this treasure. They have been constantly adding to it. And the trend will continue in their upcoming hardware, as it has with the current hardware. Why would a company decide to dissappear while they are still making money (and possibly be the only ones doing so), no matter what "place" they may be in? Also, they are a company of loyalists (Shigeru Miyamoto has been working for around the past 25 years for them - on salary! He receives no commission and is fine with that.). And, as you said yourself, they are a prideful company. You will not find them in the same boat as Sega was in. Sega could have stayed their course, and stuck it out, possibly being destroyed (they did have a slight chance of making it). Or they could choose the safe route and stay alive. (One of their main problems, though, was the internal strife and financial distress they were in - Nintendo is far from that position. In fact, under the guidance of Satoru Iwata, they have become a stronger company internally and they have healed the many wounds with third parties that were caused mainly by Yamauchi's pride - both because of the possibilities that Nintendo offers as well as the diplomacy that they have developed as a company. Just look at the third party exclusives that Nintendo has enjoyed up to this point in the GCN's life. Look at the new way of working with third parties they have developed over the past six months and even prior. Look at what is happening with third party collaboration with Nintendo in the future.) Back to the pride issue, if it came down to the destruction of the company (which is unlikely), Nintendo would not desire to "just survive." They would take it to the competition and go down in a flaming fury of kamikaze Japanese pride, either coming out victorious, or seriouosly debilitating their competion, despite their foe's victory.

BTW, Iwata did say today that the Revolution will be backwards compatible with all GCN games. Also, it seems that maybe they are going after a proprietary Wi-Fi protocol, that will be a completely free service. He continuously mentioned Wi-Fi enabled, but never "internet." The DS will be online (worldwide Wi-Fi) this year (with a completely free service). And the Revolution will be the same, out of the box, from the starting gate, free service. This is why Demasked has been so long in coming. It's going to hit like a ton of bricks, instead of trickling out of the pipeline. Nintendo will have a free "worldwide Wi-Fi" service (most likely not TCP/IP - for info on who could have created the public internet as we know it, if they had gotten the pieces together better, see: link ) that is above and beyond anything that XBL2 (or whatever you want to dub it) will be capable of offering. Nintendo has slowly learned lessons for two generations (on top of their thirteen years previous experience). Reggie also said (on Wednesday) that we will see the regular franchises (Mario, Link, Samus) from the beginning of the Revolution in a new and innovative way. There will also be super strong third party support from the get go. Nintendo is currently working with many of them (i.e. offering their experienced team members, etc...). And you will see completely new franchises as well. There will be a launch lineup, oh yes there will. And this is not even touching the many all but confirmed rumors that we will begin to see as truth in the coming months. You see, technology is evolving. The videogame industry has fought against it. Nintendo brought a fallen industry out of the dust. They are once again changing the way the world looks at videogames. Most people think that Nintendo has arrogantly said that gamers don't want online and have never made an attempt. Read that article I provided a link to. You will see that that is a gross misconception. It is true that gamers don't want the current online gaming structure, they just don't know it yet. You see, when Henry Ford offered to Mark Twain half ownership in his company for $800, Mark Twain laughed. He said that no one would ever buy one of those crazy things. They would scare people's horses. If something doesn't yet exist, you don't know that you want it.



My point is, in a worst case scenario, Sony will still be around after the PS3. If they bombed the PS3, then they will be on their last chance with the PS4. But M$ needs to make a turn around this time. They have their foot in videogames. Now they have to find a way to make it profitable. Can Bill keep dumping money, every generation, into this current abyss? Certainly. Is he stupid? The man changed the way the world works. I'd say the answer is a "no." Despite being in third / a tie for second (whatever numbers you look at, it's irrelevant), Nintendo is in the least trouble of anyone. I personally think that it is very likely that we have all three of the current competitors after this coming generation (it's impossible to forcast twenty years from now). But the generation after this one, could be the deciding factor for someone (from what we know now). I just infinitely doubt that it will be Nintendo. As Reggie said, the Revolution technical specs will put Nintendo on equal footing with their competitors. Iwata's comments on graphical power is not saying that Nintendo will have a clunky machine, but graphics will not be what drives the sales. But Reggie admits that Nintendo is in a game of catch-up. But it is things such as the "worldwide Wi-Fi," the expansive first and third party games library and the overall innovation of gameplay that will then give them the edge.
 
[quote name='adamada']"consoles" will eventually blend with PCs. I mean, that's basically all an Xbox is. As needs for the ever-increasing demands for games goes up, so will the specs of the consoles. Eventually game makers will realize that there's a broader customer base that have PCs than any one console. And some smart company will make software and a USB device that will allow the PC to read games from the different consoles. Plug in your USB controller and you're set to go. I think the big future for "consoles wars" will be for portable consoles (which may eventually become more and more like PDAs), since it isn't as easy to carry around a desktop or even a laptop.
The biggest war IMHO will be between game developers rather than consoles.[/quote]

First, the console makers would not allow that. Second, USB cannot transfer that type of information.

But as for your portable assumptions, look no further than the NDS. Try looking up the V-Pocket trademark information (if you are not already familiar with it). And I believe you should also be able to find information on Nintendo having licensed the PalmOS. I wouldn't be surprised if e3 brings news of a cartridge that has a whole Palm Software Suite, as well as offering much more functionality.

[quote name='defiance_17'][quote name='Kayden']The only thing I can really be sure of about gaming in 2025 is that I'll still have yet to play some of the games I have now, and Chrono Trigger will be one of my favorite games.[/quote]

I think I agree with this quote more than any so far.

Someone mentioned this earlier, but I also think Nintendo should step down from home consoles and focus on their strengths--first party games and handhelds. I would love eat my words here, as I cherish my GameCube (and the first great wireless controllers), but I question many of Nintendo's strategies.

As far as Microsoft, maybe this is just me, but I think they should definitely focus on expanding their userbase, especially outside of the U.S. As a slower-paced, console-style RPG and strategy-RPG gamer, there's simply nothing to justify a purchase. How well is the Xbox doing outside of the U.S.? Action games are great, but I need more. Signing Hironobu Sakaguchi will hopefully change this, but only time will tell.

Sony needs to take what they've been doing and step it up. They lost a fair amount of ground this generation, so they need to find a way to stand apart (stronger first-party development teams, more exclusive third-party series/titles, etc).[/quote]

See my above post. Nintendo moving aside is not only highly unlikely, but nigh unto impossible.

M$ is already working with Japanese developers. They know they are weak there. Hopefully it works, but remember they are an American company. It will still be hard for them in Japan.

And you're right on with Sony. The one thing that they do right, that I wish Nintendo would learn from, is they have great marketing. It has true style that appeals to people. But I think that Nintendo will be heading in that direction as well.

[quote name='gsr']nintendo will be touting wi-fi and how they can interact with some god damn portable device that no one cares about

well then again, they'll probably be making zelda for sony and MS by that time..[/quote]

I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid that you'll have to retard your fanboyism just a few notches. Thank-you. :roll:

Sarcasm aside, whther you like it or not, every innovation that Nintendo has ever made, Sony has stolen and tried to claim as their own (i.e. cross pad vs. cross pad, L & R buttons vs. two L & R buttons, analog stick vs. two analog sticks, rumble motor vs. two rumble motors. But this time Nintendo got the jump on Sony. The DS already has two screens! :p ).

But as much as everyone cries about connectivity (hah! you can already connect four GBA's a la LoZ:FSA and FF:CC - Nintendo is learning. I guess they better put two gyroscopes in the Revolution controllers... :roll: ), it is here to stay. And companies just need to learn how to use it well. The PS3 is supposedly already scheduled to have connectivity with the PSP. Please don't spew hatred when you don't understand what is going on in the world.

And again, see my above post for information on the future of Nintendo franchises...
 
For starters, the Xbox business has already produced a profitable quarter. Many within Microsoft expected to forego profits for this entire generation but things have proceeded better than they expected despite selling fewer machines than intended. It turns out the older audience with its own income and spending discretion buys a lot of games compared to the younger audience.

That N-Sider article is a bit nonsensical. Everybody and their brother made ventures into online games and services. Nintendo is hardly alone in this. One of the big reason so many failed was that rather than embracing the Internet they sought to do things from scratch and inevitable spent tons of money coming up with something that had less functionality. Part of this was due to the requirements for creating a viable client node.

The number of NES units in US and Japanese home compared to PCs is a meaningless value. I can remember doing online stuff on Atari and Commodore 8-bit systems. There were a few niceties that a PC didn't offer, especially if you were connecting to a BBS or service that offered proprietary support for those system's character sets for improving on ASCII art. But overall they sucked mightily compared to having even a monochrome monitor with a real usable 80x25 character display. That, and enough memory for decent buffering so you could be recording your seesion without noticable disk access or review previous portions of the session quickly. Once you got used to doing this stuff on a PC (or Mac, or Amiga or Atari ST once they came on the scene) an 8-bit or 16-bit console were intolerably primitive. A more modern comparison would be the WebTV and similar web access devices that had no local hard drive. I spent a month testing printer drivers for WebTV in 1997 and it was an exrcise in misery even compared to a VGA Window 3.1 486SX system (the first thing I did a lot of web use on was such a laptop) because the PC had a much more readable display. Trying to do decent text on a TV at greater than 40 columns gets ugly very quickly. 60 columns is borderline, 80 verges on illegible.

It's no surprise in hindsight that all of these proprietary approaches were failures. The Internet ultimately triumphed because it was largely ignored for commercial purposes for so long. There is a notorious bit about Microsoft doing an amazing overnight turnaround to embrace the Internet rather than continuing to push their proprietary original version of MSN. A lot of writer give the impression that Microsoft was completely down on the Internet when the opposite was true. Internally at Redmond everybody was well acquainted with the net and MS had long operated their publis Usenet server for newsgroups dedicated to MS products and issues.

What kept Microsoft from pushing the Internet as an integral part of Windows before Win95 was the belief that the consumer market wasn't going to jump on this stuff over analog connections. The learning curve was too high and graphic elements too constrained by low bandwidth. (HTML was a pretty primitive environment back then.) A system like the web that didn't distribute a big pile of material to the client in advance via floppy or CD-ROM was assumed to be only viable over broadband that wouldn't happening for years.

Essentially you had a group of nerds assuming the stuff they loved would be too nerdy to make money on non-nerds. As soon as those first consumer oriented ISPs showed there might be a market, Microsoft dumped their big Blackbird (MSN developer's suite) investment and got on board.

The Internet as we know owes a lot of its best qualites to not being owned by any one entity. AOL and similar operation produce development environments that took weeks of study and experimentation before anything useful could be done. Meanwhile, someone could learn the basics of HTML and create their first site over a weekend. Anybody could come up with a new idea and put it before the W3C where it had a good chance of being made available to everybody. Thus the web conquered by not seeking to dominate.
 
[quote name='MorPhiend']

First, the console makers would not allow that. Second, USB cannot transfer that type of information.

But as for your portable assumptions, look no further than the NDS. Try looking up the V-Pocket trademark information (if you are not already familiar with it). And I believe you should also be able to find information on Nintendo having licensed the PalmOS. I wouldn't be surprised if e3 brings news of a cartridge that has a whole Palm Software Suite, as well as offering much more functionality.


But as much as everyone cries about connectivity (hah! you can already connect four GBA's a la LoZ:FSA and FF:CC - Nintendo is learning. I guess they better put two gyroscopes in the Revolution controllers... :roll: ), it is here to stay. And companies just need to learn how to use it well. The PS3 is supposedly already scheduled to have connectivity with the PSP. Please don't spew hatred when you don't understand what is going on in the world.

And again, see my above post for information on the future of Nintendo franchises...[/quote]

USB is not the limitng factor here. Bits is bits. The real issue here is why anyone would bother making a console that was a mere PC peripheral. This misses the economic point of running on a generic virtual machine that allows the game to be independent of any one platform.

I wouldn't make too much of the PalmOS rumors. Apple has had a PalmOS license for year with no products resulting, and the same can be said for several other big companies. Unless Nintendo is looking to charge a good chunk of change for this it's difficult to see how this amount to a business for them. They may just be implementing a tiny subset of PalmOS for their online client support, much like the Xbox uses a stripped down version of the Win2K kernel to host the DirectX API suite.

Yes, we all know about the existing games supporting GameCube-GBA connectivity but the reception so far has been less than overwhelming. The products have served to test out some ideas but doing this wirelessly with host and clients that natively support this kind of activity has a better shot of making this a major selling point. Whenever you require consumers to buy an accessory like the GC-GBA cable you've placed a serious impediment in the product's road to acceptance. Even requiring each player to own a DS in addition to one of them owning the host console is an obstacle but if that combination cannot be made to pull in the bucks then it is a lost cause. The only way to improve the situation would be for several DS-like controllers to be bundled with the console for a rather expensive package. Some things have great appeal in concept but never work out well in practice.
 
One thing that ppl haven't mentioned is people. Everyone's talked about customer base but what I'm referring to are the ppl who grew up w/ the Nintendos, Segas, Sonys and yes, Microsofts. I think one of the reasons for the console crash of the 80s was due to the fact that video games were a new phenomenon and the ppl old enough to buy it weren't as fascinated with it as their children were. Now that the kids have grown up and have disposable income, they are now capable of buying the things their parents normally bought when they were younger. Don't forget, there's currently a 80s nostalgia wave going on as a friend who owns an antique shop is making brisk sales off of old Transformers, GI Joes and He-Mans. It's in now because a generation of kids have grown up and are reclaiming their youth. Today's generation of kids who've never experienced a world w/o Sony, Nintendo, and MS (and dare I say it w/ sadness, EA) will be a BIG influence on what is popular 20 yrs from now. These kids who've never contemplate of existing in a world w/o Xbox Live or Sony Online (and soon-to-be WiFi DS networks) will demand connectivity out of the box, wireless controllers standard, new takes on current franchises (just as the previous generation grew up on Mario) will require new innovative play, etc. And I haven't even considered PC gamers. I think there will be blurred line between PC and consoles in 20 yrs but I think it will take another 40 yrs before PC/console convergence becomes a reality. Seriously though, I think that the human factor is what will influence the direction of the next 'big 3' console makers.
 
Naw, the video game crash of the early 80's was simply the result of bad business planning. People would have kept buying games all along as demonstrated on home computers if the companies hadn't self-destructed or amputated their video game operations before the infection could bring down the whole company.

The biggest problem was that third party publishers were under no control by the console makers. They produced no revenue for Atari, Coleco, and Mattel beyond boosting the platforms' desirability and there was no quality control. It may not seem like it but console makers do require publishers to get their games approved before they are allowed to pass into manufacturing of the media. The additonal aspect of having to pay royalties makes publishers more thoughtful of what they choose to produce. Back then the market got flooded with horrible crap. It became very difficult for casual consumers to know what to buy and worthy titles were lost in the crowd. Revenues collapsed and the industries with it.

The game industry never stopped. Pretty much all of the worthwhile publishers continued with home computer games. For those doing Atari 5200 and colecoVision game the existence of the Atari 8-bit and MSX computers provided identical platforms where their skills were immediately applicable. In turn, a lot of games produced for home computers became NES games when that system became dominant.
 
[quote name='epobirs']Naw, the video game crash of the early 80's was simply the result of bad business planning. People would have kept buying games all along as demonstrated on home computers if the companies hadn't self-destructed or amputated their video game operations before the infection could bring down the whole company.

The biggest problem was that third party publishers were under no control by the console makers. They produced no revenue for Atari, Coleco, and Mattel beyond boosting the platforms' desirability and there was no quality control. It may not seem like it but console makers do require publishers to get their games approved before they are allowed to pass into manufacturing of the media. The additonal aspect of having to pay royalties makes publishers more thoughtful of what they choose to produce. Back then the market got flooded with horrible crap. It became very difficult for casual consumers to know what to buy and worthy titles were lost in the crowd. Revenues collapsed and the industries with it.

The game industry never stopped. Pretty much all of the worthwhile publishers continued with home computer games. For those doing Atari 5200 and colecoVision game the existence of the Atari 8-bit and MSX computers provided identical platforms where their skills were immediately applicable. In turn, a lot of games produced for home computers became NES games when that system became dominant.[/quote]

I dunno, I think that poor planning might've been a contributing factor to the 80s crash but don't forget computers were also not as common as they are today so the only ppl who were buying said electronic (read: video) games were the ones who owned computers. I never said the game industry stopped but I believe that the kids who grew up w/ Atari then are now coming into their own and can afford to reclaim their youth. So now they are able to commit their disposables to consoles and the like which the game companies (theoretically) use to create bigger and/or better games - hence the evolution from simple 8-bit creations to the 4.7Gig DVD monsters. Now since we're talking future here, I think today's kids will greatly influence as to what will be the game makers of tomorrow. The most enduring franchises will survive in some way or shape. I think even if Nintendo does leave the console game, I believe they would make a strong 3rd party publisher especially considering they have 3 or 4 strong franchises under their belt (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc.)

I do agree that the 3rd parties needed to be reined in and vigilance over quality control but I think it's still a problem today since games such as BMXXX (or *vomit* The Girl Game) still continue to be made since they can take it as a loss on their tax forms.
 
[quote name='jaykrue'][quote name='epobirs']Naw, the video game crash of the early 80's was simply the result of bad business planning. People would have kept buying games all along as demonstrated on home computers if the companies hadn't self-destructed or amputated their video game operations before the infection could bring down the whole company.

The biggest problem was that third party publishers were under no control by the console makers. They produced no revenue for Atari, Coleco, and Mattel beyond boosting the platforms' desirability and there was no quality control. It may not seem like it but console makers do require publishers to get their games approved before they are allowed to pass into manufacturing of the media. The additonal aspect of having to pay royalties makes publishers more thoughtful of what they choose to produce. Back then the market got flooded with horrible crap. It became very difficult for casual consumers to know what to buy and worthy titles were lost in the crowd. Revenues collapsed and the industries with it.

The game industry never stopped. Pretty much all of the worthwhile publishers continued with home computer games. For those doing Atari 5200 and colecoVision game the existence of the Atari 8-bit and MSX computers provided identical platforms where their skills were immediately applicable. In turn, a lot of games produced for home computers became NES games when that system became dominant.[/quote]

I dunno, I think that poor planning might've been a contributing factor to the 80s crash but .[/quote]

There is no "but". He's exactly right. It was a combination of poor planning and cockiness by Atari. Did you know they produced more Pac Man cartridges than they had Atari CONSOLES? The supply not only MET the demand but exceeded it to the point that the market was completely flooded with shit games. Atari games were selling for as low as $5 brand new retail at one point before they dumped millions of unusold cartridges in the desert in 1983/84.
 
[quote name='mmn'][quote name='jaykrue'][quote name='epobirs']Naw, the video game crash of the early 80's was simply the result of bad business planning. People would have kept buying games all along as demonstrated on home computers if the companies hadn't self-destructed or amputated their video game operations before the infection could bring down the whole company.

The biggest problem was that third party publishers were under no control by the console makers. They produced no revenue for Atari, Coleco, and Mattel beyond boosting the platforms' desirability and there was no quality control. It may not seem like it but console makers do require publishers to get their games approved before they are allowed to pass into manufacturing of the media. The additonal aspect of having to pay royalties makes publishers more thoughtful of what they choose to produce. Back then the market got flooded with horrible crap. It became very difficult for casual consumers to know what to buy and worthy titles were lost in the crowd. Revenues collapsed and the industries with it.

The game industry never stopped. Pretty much all of the worthwhile publishers continued with home computer games. For those doing Atari 5200 and colecoVision game the existence of the Atari 8-bit and MSX computers provided identical platforms where their skills were immediately applicable. In turn, a lot of games produced for home computers became NES games when that system became dominant.[/quote]

I dunno, I think that poor planning might've been a contributing factor to the 80s crash but .[/quote]

There is no "but". He's exactly right. It was a combination of poor planning and cockiness by Atari. Did you know they produced more Pac Man cartridges than they had Atari CONSOLES? The supply not only MET the demand but exceeded it to the point that the market was completely flooded with shit games. Atari games were selling for as low as $5 brand new retail at one point before they dumped millions of unusold cartridges in the desert in 1983/84.[/quote]

You're willfully ignoring what I said after 'but'. I said computers were also not as common as they are today so the only ppl who were buying them were the ones who owned computers. I probably should've said consoles but I wasn't inclusive but I meant to throw them in there as well. Now if what you say is true (more pacman cartridges than they had atari consoles), you can say that the demand for atari consoles was low since the only ppl who were buying atari consoles already had them and they only need one pacman catridge per console. But what about those ppl who didn't have either the money to buy the atari console (but want it) or simply had no interest in the video game phenomenon. Mostly, kids represented the former while parents represent the latter. Video games were for the most part still considered children's toys at the time and thus above the notice of adults. Parents bought them for their kids not themselves. I used to travel a lot w/ my parents and most of the ppl I visited (relatives, friends of relatives, friends of friends, etc.) did not play their Ataris or Collecovisions. Their kids did. Which contrast what is going on today. It's not uncommon today to see adults buying game systems today for THEMSELVES. My cousin who grew up w/ me and now has 3 kids has 2 playstations just so he can play Disgaea or NFL2K while his kids have Super Monkey Ball and Katamari Damacy. Supply and demand are influenced by human beings and even the best of marketing will not coax those who are simply not interested.
 
The simple fact that the game business on home computers continued without a pause should tell you something. There is no mystery that home computers sales increased after they became the promary venue for games until Nintendo resurrected the business. Not with better product but with a better business model. The kind that was critical to making a dedicated game player work for its producer as an ongoing source of revenue.

Yes, there are much more adults playing games now but don't think many didn't start back then. My now 46 year old sister got an Atari 2600 as a gift for her first marriage in 1978. This wasn't a surprise. She had let it be known it was on her want list.

I don't know how old you but take from someone who around. The people didn't leave or lose interest. They were simply not given anything in the way of consoles to buy. Keep in mind this period where the console industry was inactive lasted less than three years. The vast majority of those who flocked to the NES remembered and even owned the previous generation of machines. Thanks to incremental increases in ROM capacity vs. cost the NES was able to host games that weren't practical on the early consoles. The NES hardware itself was rather primitve, all stuff done in the 70's but it reflected what that equipment could do with greater storage made affordable. The only thing that has kept her away from gaming over the years has been her workaholic nature and that her level of success allows her to do things that are more expensive than gaming. For instance, she and her husband took up trap shooting about a year ago. She's gotten scarily good at it and has won competitions with opponents who had previously competed in the Olympics. Her investment in custome made guns and equipment is much greater than my video game spending for the last year. The cost of the ammo is more than I live on some months.

There were plenty of young adults like her when the Atari became the first big home video game system. Many of those who start families earlier than her are already grandparents.

Another thing to remember is that the game industry was much smaller then due to the audience size but it was built on that audience just the same. Most of those people never stopped gaming. They just did on Apples, Atari, and Commodore computers, for the most part. I never bothered with the early console generation because my Atari 800 offered so much more. Every Atari 5200 games plus hundreds of others on floppy disk.

One reason it made little difference to us was that the computers of that era were largely static platforms. You could pretty much grab any game off the shelf without looking at the minimum requirements. So long as it was written for your brand you were all set.
 
[quote name='Scorch']Nintendo's been around over 100 years.. they aren't going anywhere.[/quote]

So has Ford, and they are just mediocre.
 
[quote name='epobirs']The simple fact that the game business on home computers continued without a pause should tell you something. There is no mystery that home computers sales increased after they became the promary venue for games until Nintendo resurrected the business. Not with better product but with a better business model. The kind that was critical to making a dedicated game player work for its producer as an ongoing source of revenue.

Yes, there are much more adults playing games now but don't think many didn't start back then. My now 46 year old sister got an Atari 2600 as a gift for her first marriage in 1978. This wasn't a surprise. She had let it be known it was on her want list.

I don't know how old you but take from someone who around. The people didn't leave or lose interest. They were simply not given anything in the way of consoles to buy. Keep in mind this period where the console industry was inactive lasted less than three years. The vast majority of those who flocked to the NES remembered and even owned the previous generation of machines. Thanks to incremental increases in ROM capacity vs. cost the NES was able to host games that weren't practical on the early consoles. The NES hardware itself was rather primitve, all stuff done in the 70's but it reflected what that equipment could do with greater storage made affordable. The only thing that has kept her away from gaming over the years has been her workaholic nature and that her level of success allows her to do things that are more expensive than gaming. For instance, she and her husband took up trap shooting about a year ago. She's gotten scarily good at it and has won competitions with opponents who had previously competed in the Olympics. Her investment in custome made guns and equipment is much greater than my video game spending for the last year. The cost of the ammo is more than I live on some months.

There were plenty of young adults like her when the Atari became the first big home video game system. Many of those who start families earlier than her are already grandparents.

Another thing to remember is that the game industry was much smaller then due to the audience size but it was built on that audience just the same. Most of those people never stopped gaming. They just did on Apples, Atari, and Commodore computers, for the most part. I never bothered with the early console generation because my Atari 800 offered so much more. Every Atari 5200 games plus hundreds of others on floppy disk.

One reason it made little difference to us was that the computers of that era were largely static platforms. You could pretty much grab any game off the shelf without looking at the minimum requirements. So long as it was written for your brand you were all set.[/quote]

Well, I'm 27 (28 this coming may21) so I was around for the atari era. I had a 2600 as well as a 5200 (both presents) and I took my games around w/ me in a shoe box. And as I mentioned before, ataris were still largely the domain of children. The fact that your sister gave it up to take up trap shooting tells me that she lost interest so she wasn't a hardcore gamer. And as you said, the audience was smaller because no one knew what to make of these new fascinating gadgets so it was perceived as a child's toy. More than likely there were probably ppl who are like your sister who would fall under the classification of early adopter but that niche group is usually smaller than the general population. I recall one of my aunts getting a colecovision so she could play Frogger after playing it at my house but I remember her giving it up due to lack of interest in the games. They simply felt childish to her. I think the fact that my generation grew up gaming we really never left it behind and are more than happy to spend our disposables on them. My parents were about my age now when they got my atari but it was a toy to them. Even numerous attempts to annoy them into playing games w/ me were to no avail. I think the mentality of 20somethings in the 80s were most definitely different from my peers and I. My cousins who were in their 20s were too busy worrying about the next Michael Jackson tape and Madonna's fishnet gloves to take video games seriously.
 
[quote name='jaykrue']
Well, I'm 27 (28 this coming may21) so I was around for the atari era. I had a 2600 as well as a 5200 (both presents) and I took my games around w/ me in a shoe box. And as I mentioned before, ataris were still largely the domain of children. The fact that your sister gave it up to take up trap shooting tells me that she lost interest so she wasn't a hardcore gamer. And as you said, the audience was smaller because no one knew what to make of these new fascinating gadgets so it was perceived as a child's toy. More than likely there were probably ppl who are like your sister who would fall under the classification of early adopter but that niche group is usually smaller than the general population. I recall one of my aunts getting a colecovision so she could play Frogger after playing it at my house but I remember her giving it up due to lack of interest in the games. They simply felt childish to her. I think the fact that my generation grew up gaming we really never left it behind and are more than happy to spend our disposables on them. My parents were about my age now when they got my atari but it was a toy to them. Even numerous attempts to annoy them into playing games w/ me were to no avail. I think the mentality of 20somethings in the 80s were most definitely different from my peers and I. My cousins who were in their 20s were too busy worrying about the next Michael Jackson tape and Madonna's fishnet gloves to take video games seriously.[/quote]

You really missed the point. My sister still plays occasionally. She has a PS2 and GameCube. She bought the PS2 just for DDR. She can afford to do that kind of buying. Games are not a substitute for everything else. She does the shooting, an expensive hobby, because she can afford it. In much the same way my brother-in-law has no interest in things like golf games because he can afford to buy good equipment and play at good courses. When he picks up a game controller it's for the mini-games in Super Monkey Ball.

If you're just going on 28 then you just being born when the Atari was launched. No offense but the perspective of a small child is very different from that of a teenager in the same era. Take my word for it when I tell you that plenty of people of all ages took to gaming when it happened. Not necessarily console games as they existed then but gaming in general. Text adventures like the Infocom titles were much more likely to hold the attention of a 40 year old in those days but would naturally have meant nothing to a child just starting to read. Chances are what was happening in the home computer area was off your radar.

Ask yourself a question. During that three year period when the console business was written off for dead, did you stop having an interest in games? If the flow of product had continued would you have kept requesting them from your parents or relatives or was your interest somehow magically switched off? If you factor in what was happening throughout the entire realm of interactive gaming you'll see the audience didn't fail. If anything it kept growing with home computers sales. The game industry was already diverse. The failure of a few companies specializing in one form of delivery didn't stop the creation of new products for the other venues nor did the demand cease. It just shifted to where the supply was. The same could be said for most industries. If Dell went out of business tomorrow it would inconvenience a lot of customers but the PC business would keep rolling along.
 
Sony will trail both the Nintendo/Apple joint venture console, and the Microsoft/EA (don't forget their merger in 2016 2 years after EA's console took the market lead over the other three)...... The N-Gage XD unveils it's 21st redesign that finally includes the long promised video phone feature....... Street Fighter 4 is released on the same day as Tekken 12.....Virtual Boy becomes "the" hot retro item and fetches over 1,000 for a boxed console on Ebay.............Sega finally releases a good 3-D Sonic game...... Ms. Pac Man is re-released.... Trip Hawkins passes away, fianlly releasing gamers from game ing news that insist on reporting every damn opinion of his even though he lost relevancy 30 years prior.......
 
What you may not have realized as a child was that the adults were holding out on you. They didn't want their stuff being handled by some grubby fingered child. Sandra Tsing Loh wrote an article in the late 80's that appears in her book, 'Depth Takes a Holiday,' that sums it up perfectly.

You need to use more than one of the links to see the whole essay but this should at least get you those links:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/157...795-8854344?v=search-inside&keywords=Nintendo
 
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/595/595537p1.html

I thought this was an interesting article detailing some developer's thoughts on the cuurent situation of the industry and where it's headed. Greg Costikyan made some interesting points, but seems like he's just BSing for attention. Had he made a worthwhile video game that was innnovative himself or one that people have even cared about I'd be more willing to listen to his opinions, right now it just sounds like hot air.
 
[quote name='Duo_Maxwell']http://xbox.ign.com/articles/595/595537p1.html

I thought this was an interesting article detailing some developer's thoughts on the cuurent situation of the industry and where it's headed. Greg Costikyan made some interesting points, but seems like he's just BSing for attention. Had he made a worthwhile video game that was innnovative himself or one that people have even cared about I'd be more willing to listen to his opinions, right now it just sounds like hot air.[/quote]

He's always been a full of crap wannabe in gaming. The one thing I give hime credit for is a funny fantasy novel satirizing what life would be like for people who had to actuallly live by D&D rules. 'Another Day, Another Dungeon' was the title IIRC.

Brenda Laural is another of those perpetual bullshit artist whose own attempts at products failed miserably but they are endlessly called upon to blather at events like GDC.

Costikyan doesn't appear to offer any info to back up his assertions. What exactly was so terrible about Microsoft's presentation? The impression I get is that he didn't see emphasis on his pet genre so it was all bad. Never mind that Microsoft is building on one of the most successful elements of their existing system.

Apparently he thinks Nintendo should casually blow tens of millions of dollars in trying to recruit every developer on the planet when only one in a hundred would do anything worth a damn. I'm very hard put to believe that all the usual suspect in the business haven't approach for Revolution support already. Whether they bite or not is another story but at least it isn't throwing bales of money in the furnace trying to heat the house.

Warren Spector's primary complaint appears to be that capital investors aren't competing to offer him money after his last employer, where he was the star player, went down in flames.

Chris HEader's complaint is nothing short of bizarre. The reasons for why the PPC core in the Cell (which may be the basis for the cores in the Xbox CPU as well) is simplified compared to a 970 is no great mystery. In the Cell's case especially, that core isn't where the action is. It just runs the show. In the case of the Xbox I be willing to bet that IBM can document very well that this approach is well suited to rapidly processing the code for games at a very low cost compared to a full featured CPU for a desktop PC or server. This guy seems to live in a very narrow universe where new ideas (albeit borrowed from 80's supercomputers) are not welcome.
 
[quote name='jaykrue']The fact that your sister gave it up to take up trap shooting tells me that she lost interest so she wasn't a hardcore gamer. [/quote]

Quoted because I want everyone to fully appreciate the sagacity of that line.
 
[quote name='epobirs'][quote name='Duo_Maxwell']http://xbox.ign.com/articles/595/595537p1.html

I thought this was an interesting article detailing some developer's thoughts on the cuurent situation of the industry and where it's headed. Greg Costikyan made some interesting points, but seems like he's just BSing for attention. Had he made a worthwhile video game that was innnovative himself or one that people have even cared about I'd be more willing to listen to his opinions, right now it just sounds like hot air.[/quote]

He's always been a full of crap wannabe in gaming. The one thing I give hime credit for is a funny fantasy novel satirizing what life would be like for people who had to actuallly live by D&D rules. 'Another Day, Another Dungeon' was the title IIRC.

Brenda Laural is another of those perpetual bullshit artist whose own attempts at products failed miserably but they are endlessly called upon to blather at events like GDC.

Costikyan doesn't appear to offer any info to back up his assertions. What exactly was so terrible about Microsoft's presentation? The impression I get is that he didn't see emphasis on his pet genre so it was all bad. Never mind that Microsoft is building on one of the most successful elements of their existing system.

Apparently he thinks Nintendo should casually blow tens of millions of dollars in trying to recruit every developer on the planet when only one in a hundred would do anything worth a damn. I'm very hard put to believe that all the usual suspect in the business haven't approach for Revolution support already. Whether they bite or not is another story but at least it isn't throwing bales of money in the furnace trying to heat the house.

Warren Spector's primary complaint appears to be that capital investors aren't competing to offer him money after his last employer, where he was the star player, went down in flames.

Chris HEader's complaint is nothing short of bizarre. The reasons for why the PPC core in the Cell (which may be the basis for the cores in the Xbox CPU as well) is simplified compared to a 970 is no great mystery. In the Cell's case especially, that core isn't where the action is. It just runs the show. In the case of the Xbox I be willing to bet that IBM can document very well that this approach is well suited to rapidly processing the code for games at a very low cost compared to a full featured CPU for a desktop PC or server. This guy seems to live in a very narrow universe where new ideas (albeit borrowed from 80's supercomputers) are not welcome.[/quote]

Agreed, Laural and Costikan just came off as crackpots more or less (I've heard Laural talk enough before to know she basuically is one) and I didn't pay much attention to Header's comments because I don't know that much about the technology involved. I think you may be right Spector too, tyhough he had a good point and at least offered thoughts on how he thinks the situation can change. Though I know hardly anything about him, Della Rocca appeared to be making the most sense, or at least on a track that made sense, and sadly it seems like he was cut short so Laural and Costikan could pointlessly rant about BS.
 
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