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Businesses Entertainment Games

Games Industry Off Its Game 132

Posted by Zonk from the aiming-for-a-higher-score dept.
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."
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Games Industry Off Its Game

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  • There is no question about it, there will only be Revolution!

    • Re:White Flag (Score:2, Insightful)

      by hattig ( 47930 )
      Damn you! I wanted the first Revolution post :(

      But yes, Revolution - doesn't require HDTV, will be cheaper, will try to bring new gameplay systems to the ... sofa. It certainly bypasses the problems in the article.

      XBox360 and PS3 are great for the (admittedly large number of) people with a HDTV and who are happy to connect the console to that HDTV (younger men, mainly). Of course games will still look good on a normal TV, especially if the extra power not being used on HD rendering is used to improve anti-a
      • What's the resolution of a standard TV set? 640x480? Why anti-alias at all? It's not like you can really tell the difference. Play Enemy Territory on a standard TV with s-video, at 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768, I can't see the difference with a 3X magnifying lens. The jaggies all look BLURRED.
        • You must have a very poor quality TV. Even with S-video you should be able to tell the difference, and with component video or RGB it is very easy.

          • Only HDTVs have component video or RGB. Most regular TVs just have coax, composite video, and maybe S-Video. There is a maximum resolution [wikipedia.org] that each input can take, and after that it does not look any better.

            • My 32" Sony Wega (non-HD) has component video inputs...

              • Re:White Flag (Score:3, Informative)

                by Khyber ( 864651 )
                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.
            • I've got a 27" Panasonic TV that has component-in (I bought it specifically for that) and it is not HD. Might want to get your facts straight.
            • Only HDTVs have component video or RGB

              Except if you live in Europe, where RGB signal over Scart is supported by practically all TVs.

              Seriously though, PAL-RGB looks great, even if it is only an effective resolution of 768x576. The colors have to be seen.
          • Poor quality no, poor brand name, yes. Sony Trinitron, 27". Only Sony product I own, simply because it's still plenty useful for gaming. You can't tell the difference switching from s-video to composite input coming out from my GeForce FX 6200.

      • Re:White Flag (Score:4, Insightful)

        by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Thursday February 23, 2006 @11:12AM (#14785215) Homepage
        I saw a great post somewhere about how Sony was going it fight the Revolution, and it could be very intersting if it is true. It said that Sony has been working on a similar controller setup (copied after it was announced) along with the EyeToy. The plan would be to release PS2 games that used it. Because there is so much expiriance out there with the PS2 development would be cheap. They can get the price of the little slimline PS2s down to about $100 (which will undercut the Revolution price, whatever it is) and the system is already in however many million homes. They think that by doing this they could expand the life of the system 2 years or so by grabbing casual gamers, and maybe sell 50 million additional systems (I'm guessing world wide) with this plan.

        Pure speculation, but very interesting.

        On a side note, I saw that the Revolution development kits cost $2000 which is just a fraction of what most kits (PS2, etc) cost, especially the cost of "Next Gen" systems (PS3, XBox 360). They say this would reduce the financial risk of trying to make a game for the revolution (which makes sense). I just wish they'd open it up (somehow) so end users could program it (I'd LOVE to do that, even if it must be done in a locked-down-sandbox with an interpreted language). They could sell the best user created programs on their online service.

        • Re:White Flag (Score:3, Insightful)

          by rAiNsT0rm ( 877553 )
          "I just wish they'd open it up (somehow) so end users could program it (I'd LOVE to do that, even if it must be done in a locked-down-sandbox with an interpreted language). They could sell the best user created programs on their online service."

          They will, I guarantee it. I have been personally told *twice* by Nintendo reps. that open development truly means even single person, 1st time game developers. Now, most likely this will be a scaled down dev kit but it will be there.

          What I'd like to see is a cool fr

          • Re:White Flag (Score:3, Interesting)

            by MBCook ( 132727 )
            I don't care if their idea of an "open console" means "here is a virtual NES devkit, and you can download your creations to the Revolution". Giving hobbiests a REAL development platform on a real console, no matter how scaled back (within reason, like I said above, NES is enough, SNES would be great, PS/N64 would be fanstastic) would be a major boon for a large number of reasons. First of all there is NO hardware out there for people to make games for except the PC. Sure, you can try on the GBA or whatever

            • Re:White Flag (Score:3, Informative)

              by rAiNsT0rm ( 877553 )
              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
            • If they really want to allow for open game development, providing NES/SNES/N64 devkits wouldn't be the best way of doing it. What's the point of providing an easy development platform if you're going to restrict indie devs to some 20-year-old piece of hardware? I'm not too knowledgeable on the subject, but it seems like it would be much easier for devs to have a dumbed-down version of the complete Rev dev kit. Even if it significantly limited their software, they'd still have access to the full power of the
        • I know that with each passing year, with each new leap in creativity on the part of hardware and software developers, the gaming market opens up to a larger and larger section of the market. Especially with the advent of the original Playstation and some of the first impressively realistic sports titles, not everyone who plays video games is a "gamer". Nonetheless, I definitely think it's a wise move on Nintendo's part to consider making this development kit, as well as any planned stripped down and marked
        • I don't think it would be possible to do anything more than what we've seen with eytoy on the PS2. The thing is, if you've got input systems like gyroscopes and optical sensors, you're going to want to design your hardware specifically for acomplishing those tasks. Trying to lay that on the PS2s CPU might be a little tricky.
          • Micro-controllers are cheap. While the EyeToy part may tax the CPU, you could easily put a rather powerful MCU into the controller to process things (or at least do the initial processing) leaving the PS2 CPU with little to nothing to do. Also, games don't have to be as complex as God of War or something like that. Something much simpler can still be fun and would leave a ton of CPU cycles to process the input of the different controllers. Even the more complex Mario Party mini-games would leave the CPU wit
  • The new-generation consoles look best when plugged into high-definition TV sets
    Shouldn't that be "The new-generation consoles look best when shut off"? Or is that quantum consoles?
  • "how many people will buy a new television just for the latest version of the Madden football game."

    Two of my coworkers have the XBox 360 and HD TV's and both have called the game a waste of money.

    -Rick

    • Same Here (Score:1)

      by mfh ( 56 )
      Two of my coworkers have the XBox 360 and HD TV's and both have called the game a waste of money.

      The 360 and HD doesn't compare to Doom3/Fear/CoD2 on a really nice monitor (like the NEC GX90^2 [futureshop.ca]).

    • Re:Madden on the 360 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Golias ( 176380 ) on Thursday February 23, 2006 @10:55AM (#14785039)
      and it is not clear how many people will buy a new television just for the latest version of the Madden football game.

      From all accounts, the new Madden game sucks.

      But it is just possible that one or two people might buy a new TV for some other reason, like... oh, I don't know... watching television, perhaps? Those people will probably want a console that looks good on their new set.

      DOA4 is almost enough to make me want a 360 for my HD system... almost. A couple more good games, and I'll seriously consider it. Meanwhile, I'm waiting to see what Sony comes up with.
      • By and large, no. HDTV has a very low market penetration, and it hasn't been ramping up- some people want it, but most people just don't give a shit. HDTVs are expensive, most people keep their TVs for years if not decades. Personally, the only TV I own is a 15" model that dates back to college, and I don't plan on replacing it til it breaks. In 6 or 7 years HDTV might have a decent penetration rate for HD on consoles to matter, but for the next generation, Nintendo is making the smart choice.
    • I could have told you that and I've never played sports video games.
    • Did they already own a copy of Madden 06? I imagine there's not much difference between Madden 06 on the 360 and Madden 06 on the GC, PS2 or XBox. It's not like Madden 64 where they actually built a new engine for the new system. They just ported their current engine over to the 360. I had to opporunity to play Madden 2005 on the PS1 (yes, they did make a PS1 version of that game) and have to admit that it was almost as good as the PS2 version, just not as pretty.
      • "They just ported their current engine over to the 360." Nope. The engine is new hence why the game is lacking features. They didn't have the time given thegame had to be out for launch. This tears version will be much better.
        • You can port something and still not be able to implement certain features due to the differences in hardware platform, especially if your engine is chock full of platform-specific optimizations for each target. It might be a brand new engine but it seemed to feel the same as the other 06 engines so I assumed it was just a port. I have no doubt the 07 version for the 360 will be better (and maybe even completed before it's rushed out the door).

  • Summing it up (Score:5, Informative)

    by utawoutau ( 668151 ) on Thursday February 23, 2006 @10:48AM (#14784980)
    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."

  • 1) they dont really have to have a HD tv to play the new generation of consoles - ya it makes it look extra nice n purty (more than it would be otherwise), but no, its not necessary - hell, I'd be just as happy on my pos 19 inch crt standard definition (OH no!, something thats not high def!?! the console manufacturers will hate me for it!)

    2) I hate sports games, the major improvements stopped years ago, now its just the graphics, but aside from that, even if I did like sports games, I sure as hell wouldnt

  • bad article (Score:3, Interesting)

    by the computer guy nex ( 916959 ) on Thursday February 23, 2006 @10:53AM (#14785023)
    "And the cost of the new gaming systems continues to rise."

    PS3's price continues to rise. A $300 Xbox360 is less (adjusted for inflation) than PS1 PS2 Xbox1 NES SNES and the N64.

    Also hard to say the Industry is in trouble when they set records in sales and profit last year (console, not PC).
    • Nobody in their right mind would buy a $300 XBox 360. At a bare minimum, you have to fork over another $40 for the memory card, but you're still far from the functionality provided by the $400 version of the console. In the end, the $400 version of the 360 turns out to be cheaper for like 90% of users.

      • Nobody in their right mind would buy a $300 XBox 360.

        At least, not until Linux runs on it...

        • ... and if you run Linux, you'd be insane to get the one without a hard drive, so you'll want the higher priced version.
          • Unless you can hack one in yourself, and save some money. Gonna want a bigger disk anyway... But I don't even know what's in the box with the disk in it. Maybe more than just a disk? I'm too lazy to look :)
            • That's true, the unit does support USB mass storage drives, so that may well be a solution for running linux on the lower-cost unit.
              • I hate to consider USB much of a solution for anything. I saw a speed/CPU usage test between USB2 and IEEE1394 once, and at peak transfer, the USB solution was about 80% of the speed of the 1394, while it also used as much as 15% of the CPU. I believe it was a P4 box but I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was over 1GHz. The 1394 used like 1% of the CPU...

    • Re:bad article (Score:5, Informative)

      by Winterblink ( 575267 ) on Thursday February 23, 2006 @11:00AM (#14785091) Homepage
      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.

      • 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.

        Industry analysts have gone on about how expensive the components will be. Sony might pass those costs on to customers, but will likely eat most of them instead. If that happens, Sony will need the PS3 to be a massive success - both in terms of console sales and game sales - in order for it to be profita

        • Industry analysts have gone on about how expensive the components will be

          I agree, but by extension they've made assumptions about how much the end cost will be of the completed product. They can cover their asses by saying they're only making assumptions, but the PR damage is done. Tell the teeming masses that the components add up to 800 bucks and they start to freak out about having to shell out that much, potentially.

          I'm not saying it's better not knowing, but Sony executives would probably disag
    • Didn't the $150 NES get you the console, two controllers, two games (SMB/Duckhunt, I can't remember the other cart? Or was that it?) and a light gun?
      • That was the most popular configuration. The dual cartridge SMB/Duck Hunt, two controllers, light gun, automatic video switch, and the console itself. It was a pretty good deal really.

      • Re:bad article (Score:2, Informative)

        by Manmademan ( 952354 )
        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.
        • IGN covered this last year. [ign.com]
          The only successful consoles that have debuted at a price point higher than $250 been the Playstations. Nintendo's consoles have always launched at $200, and Sega released a couple at $200-250. Even adjusted for inflation, the vast majority of consoles launched below $400, and those that didn't flopped (i.e. NeoGeo, 3DO, Saturn).

  • Ass Backwards (Score:4, Insightful)

    by G_Biloba ( 519320 ) on Thursday February 23, 2006 @10:53AM (#14785024)
    This statement has it all wrong: "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." HD TV owners (like myself) will only buy HD capable content. So, it is about reaching the current market with the most disposible income and least amount of impulse control (like myself).

  • Don't forget Infinium.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by IamGarageGuy 2 ( 687655 ) on Thursday February 23, 2006 @10:54AM (#14785034) Journal
    All game developers released a sigh of releif when the new Phantom console was officially postponed. They were all shaking in their boots wondering how to cope with this new console that will destroy all other consoles. It's not fair to have this over their heads for all this time ond now only to postpone and have them all worrying for years to come. :)

  • One simple reason why nobody's buying games... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Neeex ( 768224 ) on Thursday February 23, 2006 @10:55AM (#14785046) Homepage
    ... they're all playing World of Warcraft.
    • I posted that earlier in another thread how WoW is really hurting the games industry and people freaked out. But think about it - think about all the gamers you know who play WoW - these are people who used to buy a new game every month, and now they're playing only one game all the time. Great for Blizzard, kinda sucks for everyone else. Of course, you can't blame Blizzard for making a freakin' awsome game.

      Either way, WoW has conquered half of hardcore PC gaming, and is probably singlehandedly responsib
    • The biggest problem with WoW and some other modern MMORPGs like CoH/CoV is that they:
      1. Don't have the plethora of horrible boring time sinks (gotta fish for 20 more hours to bump my skill level from 5 to 6!) that cause people to say "screw this" and cancel the account.
      2. You can't "win" the game. Normally people play games for awhile and they either get stuck or win the game and put it away and buy a new one. With MMORPGs that doesn't happen and they play forever.
      3. Have a community of people who woul
      • Don't have the plethora of horrible boring time sinks (gotta fish for 20 more hours to bump my skill level from 5 to 6!) that cause people to say "screw this" and cancel the account.

        You never played WoW right? You wanna tell me that reaching High Warlord is not one of the most brutal time sinks ever in any game? Not to mention the plethora of other timesinks for raising various factions. Did you ever raise Argent Dawn faction to exalted? How do you like killing the same goddamn undead in Western/Eastern Pla
        • It's not like you _have_ to do that to advance though. I mean compared to most other games the time sinks in WoW are very optional. Plus, you level so fast in WoW that hitting the cap is an attainable goal for your average person.
        • Just compare WoW to Ultima Online. Wow caps out at lvl 60. There's still a few things to do at that point. Like try to find a "Legendary" weapon (the orange ones are legendary IIRC). I've seen one of these.

          I used to play UO with a few friends. I didn't play it because I enjoyed it. I played it because some of my friends lived too far away to visit for gaming sessions. I hated UO. I'd rather grind ten levels (from 40-50, not 1-11) on Wow than play UO. There was a "power hour" on UO where your skills

    • This shouldn't be funny. It's pretty accurate. People playing MMOGs are far less likely to buy other games because: (1) MMOGs are addictive, (2) They need a lot of time investment to achieve "success" (or to "win" the game) and (3) MMOG game experience for many far surpasses boring single player experiences. This has been known for years now.

      Just look at the massive amount of people playing these games [mmogchart.com].
    • I completely agree.

      UO kept me from buying a new game each month for 7.5 years. Now WoW has kept me from buying anything for 1.5 years. Long term commitment to a game "system" (engine, patches, add-ons, new engine, etc.) will likely be the new trend.

      Personally, I don't understand the attraction of game consoles. Sure I had my Atari 2600, Nintendo, Super NES, Sega Genesis... but when I saw the trend that a new console was going to come out each year, from three different companies and the games would not be

    • We haven't bought another game since installing WoW, we used to buy a new console game about once a month on average. In fact, I don't think the GameCube has even been switched on in 9 months - as opposed to daily pre-WoW (Animal Crossing encourages daily care and feeding).

  • Is anyone else growing the slightest bit tired of all these redundant "games industry is teh s uck" articles which keep floating around, only to be intterupted every so often with a "omg games industry is teh b etter!" article?

  • Ten Years?!? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kbonapart ( 645754 ) <`moc.oohay' `ta' `nnyl_nahsal'> on Thursday February 23, 2006 @11:01AM (#14785095)
    From the article:

    "Sony President Ken Kutaragi has said that he expects the device to be "expensive." While game consoles have typically enjoyed a five-year lifespan, Sony has said it is shooting for 10 years this time out."

    Are they kidding? They expect it to last ten years, fine, but are they trying to say that they will keep making new games for this platform? I remember the Super Nintendo, and that system rocked, yo. Pilot Wings, F-Zero, Final Fantasy VI were all gems, and had replay value. But after a while, new games stopped appearing, and I was seeing everyone purchase N64s, and playing Goldeneye with all thier friends. And all I had to offer was Mario Kart for thier multiplayer cravings.

    Then the Playstation hit the scene, and my SNES got placed on the closet shelf of Eternity. When Microsoft comes out with the Xbox 720, will Sony stick with thier three year old platform? When Nintendo offers thier newest platform that jacks directly into your cyber-brain, with Sony continue to hock Silent Hill 12?

    Game Platforms are supposed to have a longer life span then computers by definition. All they are are game systems. They don't do spreadsheets, they don't balance your taxes, they don't have hard drives...

    Oh, wait, they do now. Well, strike that...start over...

    With Game Platforms becoming more like home computers, thier Start-To-Trash date will grow shorter and shorter. Ten years is a pipe dream. It's 2006. Let's see, ten years ago...

    Yeah, I think I'm going to go boot up my old 486 and log into World of Warcraft. I'll let you know how it goes in a week when the program finally loads.

    To sum up, a ten year old gaming platform would be like still playing Final Fatasy Mystic Quest, and saying how graphicly stunning it is. Not Gonna Happen.
    • damn I just ran out of mod points too...parent makes an excellent point, please mod up!
    • But isn't the ps3 being built on the new cell processor ? I doubt they haven't thought about an upgrade cell processor that plugs into the expansion port(?) to provide more processing power for the new games.
      • Expansion cards for consoles never work though. Nobody wants to build a game for it because the install base will be small, and nobody wants to buy the card because there's no good reason to buy a card that no game supports. History has reaffirmed many times that if you want people to use a feature on a console you build it in from the start or you don't get it.
    • Playstation 1 was launched over 10 years ago. You can still buy new PSone systems. Playstation 1 games are still getting released, and you can play them on PS1 or PS2. The system isn't dead, at least to people who care about gameplay rather than graphics. If the PS3 is as popular as the PS1 then it will also likely last that long.

    • What I wonder is the exact opposite? When will the time come that cycle time has become so compressed that a manufacturer is developing two consoles simultaneously? One to come out in, say, 2009 and another to come out three or four years later, because delayed-but-incrementally-better-console is sufficiently out-of-sync with what we'd consider to be a console "generation" that you can't get all three or four players on the market and then have an open throwdown... consumers will abandon the wai

      • Wizards of the Coast already did that with the 3.0 version of D&D. They knew they were releasing a flawed product, and planned to come out with it three years after the release of 3.0.

        However, corprate types took over, and popped it out one and a half years earlier then planned.

        And how well did it work out for them? I still play 3.0 rules, and 3.5 be damned.
    • Consoles tend to have life cycles- the first 5 years or so its marketed towards the hardcore console fans, after that as the system's lifespan winds down it's increasingly targeted towards the younger and casual set, or maybe marketed in places like latin america that might be viable until the console is a little more affordable. IIRC, the Sega Master system did extremely well there long after it's traditional lifespan would have been up.
    • They were selling 200 mhz computers in 1996 which is more than plenty to run Starcraft or the original Counterstrike which are still very popular today. Although getting an enjoyable experience is a whole different story.
    • The comment is not that far off. The new nintendo is not that much faster than the older model. In fact there is no reason why the Revolution with its specs couldn't have been released at the time of the Gamecube five years ago abeit at a much higher selling price.
      • "The new nintendo is not that much faster than the older model."
        Uh, says who?

        Some developers claimed that their alpha dev kits were "only" three times faster than the GameCube, but what does that mean, and who says that this is the case for the finished Revolution hardware?

  • "And the cost of the new gaming systems continues to rise."

    Huh? Since when? The new systems cost $399 at launch, which is far less than the old school Atari systems that cost somewhere around $800. The Nintendo and Super Nintendo were priced cheaper, though in that era many games cost $60+ and the industry was far less competitive (slower development cycles, less demand). We have been paying $50 for games for well over a decade. Not even factoring in inflation or the fact that today's systems are also media
    • This article gets no digg.

      Sorry, I have to say it:
      "I award you no digg, and may god have mercy on your soul."
    • I totaly agree with you. Statements like these make the article look like it was written by some clueless moron who just wanted to write something bad to attract attention:
      "The new-generation consoles look best when plugged into high-definition TV sets"
      Uh, Nintendo Revolution? Ever heard of that?!
      "And the cost of the new gaming systems continues to rise."
      Um, hello? The Revolution again?
  • The new-generation consoles look best when plugged into high-definition TV sets

    Can't they just add a friggin' VGA connector to them? Sheesh.
    • Can't they just add a friggin' VGA connector to them? Sheesh.

      I could be misremembering, but I could swear I saw at some point that the Revolution will have one built-in.
    • No, Microsoft would much rather make an extra $20 selling you a special 360-to-VGA lead than letting you use one off the shelf.

      Still, if your point is that you'd rather just hook these machines up to a monitor than fork out for a HDTV, then yes you can do that. It's not even anything new - my Dreamcast looks stunning through VGA.
      • Actually, I picked up my $20 Microsoft 360-to-VGA connector "off the shelf", and makes the system look fantastic on my flat-panel Viewsonic. Did you mean "out of the box"?
  • This is hardly news.

    On the other hand, I think more and more we're reaching the goals of what gamers want their games to look like, and falling short on games playing how gamers want them to play. Instant action, game balance, getting enough game for your dollar, ease of use, originality - a lot of these concepts are simple but get lost in the wayside of "but it draw 4.2 trillion pixels per second! Look how detailed his nose is!"

    The games industry in general isn't in trouble, but designers that want to st
  • What's happening is that everyone's going crazy about the next-gen consoles and instead of porting games from the PC to the console, they're doing the reverse and it shows.

    Even Red Storm has been bit by this, as is evident from RS:Lockdown. It's a straight port from the console to the PC and so watered down that they're losing their entire IP on the PC side.
  • I'd be happy to hear that the decline in the sales of videogames and consoles were offset by a rise in the sales of books and exercise equipment, but somehow I doubt it.
  • I bought WoW in last November and have not bought a game since. WoW is like crack ( and it does bother me )so I have not gone out and purchased a game every couple of months like I have historically done. Ironically, I don't believe I am spending less on gaming, it just that all the money goes to Blizzard in the form of subscription fees. Now multiply me by the 5.5 million subscribers out there and I can undertsand why the gaming industry as a whole is slumping.
  • Interesting that this news comes following an announcement that the video games industry is expected to double by 2011. I think analysts look at a sales slump that is most likely due to the fact that consumers are waiting to see where things lie in the next-gen battle, and extrapolate that slump forever. Just because sales are down now, doesn't mean they will be next year, next month, or even tomorrow.
  • I'm not paying more than $150 Dollars for a Console and I'm certainly no longer interested paying for packaging when electronic media can now be delivered via availible high speed networks. My buck stops here.
  • And the cost of the new gaming systems continues to rise.

    That's because consoles are slowly becoming more what the PC game machine is. You can't argue that PCs have a big advantage in getting the latest hardware specs before consoles do.

    As consoles try to compete for the greatest hardware, their prices rise up.
  • The reason the industry is suffering is because forthcoming games and consoles will cost you an arm and a leg to buy, will look dandy on hardware you can't afford, and otherwise suck because nobody is making anything good save for a rare little nugget of fun here and there. Meanwhile interest in gaming is rising among consumers, but only until they realize that they can't afford a console, and once they can, that it was a waste of money. Inevitably, this will change, but for now gamers are stuck with shitty
  • Online gaming services. My own crystal ball version of the future indicates that we're going to see the collapse of computer game stores. Instead, consoles will probably be sold through conventional electronics retailers. Most games will be sold online and most of them will be going through conventional gaming services.

    The MMORPGs will be only some of what is available through your online gaming service. Being able to log onto a server and play your favorite MMORPG or a networked FPS or even solo games and

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