Games Industry Off Its Game

A Washington Post article explores the problems facing the games industry in this year of console generation turnover and lackluster PC game sales. From the article: "There are other potential problems. The new-generation consoles look best when plugged into high-definition TV sets -- and it is not clear how many people will buy a new television just for the latest version of the Madden football game. And the cost of the new gaming systems continues to rise. Perhaps no question haunts the industry more at the moment than the mystery of when Sony's PlayStation 3 will come out and how much it will cost."

Summing it up

[utawoutau]

I think that a quote from the end of the article sums it up nicely.

Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, deemed the industry's troubles to be "cyclical and entirely predictable." What's important is that gaming is growing in popularity, and consumers will continue spending as the industry works out its kinks, he said.

"The early adopters all know what's going on," he said. "They all expect the PlayStation 3 this year. That always tends to slow down purchases for the current platform, no matter how good the current games are. They're sitting on their dollars more than they will be a year or two from now."

Re:bad article

[Winterblink]

PS3's price continues to rise.

That's funny, because no price has ever been announced by Sony. I love how industry, market, and armchair analysts continue to go on about how expensive it will be, when it might not necessarily be so.

Re:White Flag

[Khyber]

Component was out before the HD-TV set ever was. Remember those front-projector TVs you'd see in bars? They used component, Red, Green, Blue. Only thing that's changed is there is more than one type of signal that goes down the wires, now. Your Wega only handles the standard RGB signal that's sent over those wires, whereas high-def TVs will be able to pick up and use those other signals that give razor-sharp definition.

Re:bad article

[Manmademan]

The NES was not $150 at launch. It took a couple years to drop down to this price. The SMB/Duck Hunt package didn't even appear for a year and a half or so after the console's debut, and it did so at $199. All console launches ever have been around the $3-400 mark, going as far back as the Atari 2600.

Re:White Flag

[rAiNsT0rm]

I owned a Net Yaroze (decent but too dificult for what it can do), and also have worked with the PS2 Linux Kit (utter crap). I have also worked with the Gamecube dev kits and can say of all the consoles it is one of the best.

While I can't say I have any great inside info on how in depth the dev kit will be, I do know that Nintendo is committed to letting small/indie developers have at the Revolution for very low cost. Even the smaller professional developers are swooning for the Revolution due to costs and timeframes of the competitors being way out of their league.

We'll have to wait to see how full-fledged it will be and whatnot, but Nintendo has repeatedly stated its stance on this issue and it is a smart move no matter how they pull it off. Like I said I'd be happy to have a free simplistic dev kit, and even at just $2000 it is a steal for the full dev kits.