Regarding the next-gen systems, I keep reading quite a bit of stuff on the internet and all the news sources for games. More specifically- I keep reading how the “experts” think that the Next Gen systems aren’t necessarily “needed” yet. (Such articles that quote Wedbush Morgan Securities and CNN money can be found HERE and HERE). To quote the Wedbush Morgan study:
"Unlike most industry observers, we do not believe that the industry has reached the end of a 'console cycle' that is winding down with slow or even negative growth. Rather, we believe that the current consoles (at least the PS2 and the GameCube) will continue to be the systems of choice for several more years, and expect a transition to the next-generation consoles to occur gradually…”
One question keeps coming to mind when I read the reports from these sources, and that is “are these people making these statements actually gamers who know the industry?”
I would like to offer an informed gamer’s counter-argument. I don’t have much in the way of “official credentials”, other than the fact that I was an early adopter of the Atari 2600, and just about every console system since, and I have been doing game reviews since I got my start doing some war-sim reviews for www.wargamer.com in the early 90s. (I’ve always been about three types of games “good games”, war games, and sports games.”) This is an industry that I have studied and been an active participant and member of since the late 1970s. The same can be said of Bangpow, the other co-founder of this site. We both grew up with this industry, and we’ve seen its triumphs and failures (like the crash of ’84) take place. One thing I feel confident in saying is that bean-counters in suits often have no idea what the average gamer wants or desires.
That said, I agree with a portion of the reports- the gaming industry IS growing. Heck, the gaming CULTURE is growing far beyond many could have expected. What was once considered a nerdish pastime has become the “cool thing” that just about every “kid” from ages 9 to 35 is doing. That’s great for all of us, and the industry has been headed that way for a long time. Its good to see something we all love become a huge part of the culture. However, despite the fact that the industry is growing like a wild-fire, I think many of us can honestly say that though accountants and stuffed-shirts can look at numbers and try to apply known business trends, they surely aren't knowledgeable gamers. I’d go so far as to claim that few of these accounting-centric “experts” really have any clue about the gamers- the very people who drive this industry.
That’s nothing for them to really be ashamed of. Few people under the age of 40 would understand today’s gamer, unless they themselves were active in the gaming culture. But I would think that the gamer should be the key determining factor in gauging the industry- not the accounting. Unfortunately, the gamers themselves often don’t enter into any pie-graphs that accounting firms and CNN Money would like to show.
That’s why I think there’s a huge error in the formula that “experts” seem to be applying to the assumed lack-of-need for the release of Next Gen systems.
The question is, does industry growth and brisk game sales mean that new hardware should be shelved for “several more years”? To me, those are the words of someone who probably has never picked up a controller in their life. These are the words of someone who has no idea how maxxed out the PS2 hardware is for today’s games (and has been for about 2 years now.) Are they aware of the slowdown seen in NCAA 2006, NFL 2K5, and many other games released in 2004/2005? Are they aware that the XBOX isn’t trailing too far behind. The PS2 hardware is ancient. It’s five years old, and Sony intends to stretch a 6th year out of it. The XBOX isn’t too far behind in terms of age either. I’m sure that fact does not go into accounting and growth analysis for the industry (a very NEW industry, I might add.) Are the “experts” aware of the glut of games coming out using the Doom III engine (such as Quake 4 and several others)? Are the experts aware of the extremely high-definition “Hellgate: London” due out later this year on PC, and destined to eventually be a very popular console port? What about the increasingly popular 3D MMORPGs that the current consoles cannot handle if they were made for them, simply because of polygon limitations? These are just some of the MANY examples. How well-researched are these studies in terms of knowing the gamer and knowing their tastes? My guess is that they didn’t even talk to gamers- they just looked at accounting charts and graphs.
The experts also forget console gaming history. The hardware maker that releases first – especially with sports game support at launch- often wins. Look at the 16 bit Genesis (Beating the SNES to market by a year, and beating them in sales.) Look at the original Sony Playstation, and its monstrous sales against the Sega Saturn and the Nintendo 64, - both systems releasing much later than the Playstation, and never catching up. Finally, look at the Playstation 2, which beat the Microsoft XBOX and the Nintendo GameCube to market by a wide margin (a year) and has been reaping the rewards ever since- despite the competition having more tech horsepower.
To me, the time is right for both the XBOX 360 and the PS3 to hit the market. Experts don’t understand that the worlds that the designers need to create for us to play in are being compromised by underpowered systems, and that’s been the case for over a year. Sure, the games sell, because the game culture will feast on whatever is available and playable (within reason- if the game is good.) That said, a balance sheet is no gauge of how many of those gamers are ready for something new, and would like a bigger game world with more realistic gameplay and better graphics. The “Hobbiest” gamer – the habitual early adopters- (and some would say “addicts”) are an ever-growing gamer community. Plus, lets not forget, console makers have finally wised-up to backward compatibility as a rule from system to system, thereby making the consideration of an upgrade less difficult on the gamer.
However, you won’t see that on an accounting spreadsheet report either.
Quietcool72
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