Well, my dad works at Nintendo and~: Console Wars Horseshit Megathread

[Paelos]

They need to stop dicking around and actually start competing again. The gimmick smoke and mirrors shit needs to go away.

[Yegolev]

Reading the very long article, I don't know that Nintendo will get away from gimmicks anytime soon.  Unless Fils-Aime takes Iwata's job, but more likely this spot will be filled by a JP exec.

[Ingmar]

For all of that, the 3DS was still the top selling system in the US for December:

http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/16/december-2013-npd-xbox-one-outsells-a-supply-constrained-playstation-4/

Also of note: XBone is outselling the PS4 in the US (not overall yet, but for December) and the 360 is still selling a lot of units itself.

[Hawkbit]

I played more 3ds than I did PS3 last year.  I mostly play at home, too. 

[Teleku]

Yeah, everybody I've talked to about it has said they bought an Xbox.  Most said it was because they felt the xbone had so many more features than PS4, and so was the obvious choice.  Hrm.

[01101010]

Yeah, everybody I've talked to about it has said they bought an Xbox.  Most said it was because they felt the xbone had so many more features than PS4, and so was the obvious choice.  Hrm.

?

[Fabricated]

No one I've talked to (mostly college students) has bought any next-gen system yet and most said they were going to get a PS4 if anything which is odd.

[Paelos]

No one I've talked to (mostly college students) has bought any next-gen system yet and most said they were going to get a PS4 if anything which is odd.

Same, althought I know less college student. Almost everyone I spoke to mentioned the lack of games at release.

[dusematic]

Everyone I know got an XBO.  I got a PS4, because, man, those Japs sure know how to cook up a good video game.  Also have a WiiU.  So spice.

[Hawkbit]

Almost everyone I spoke to mentioned the lack of games at release.

Yep.  The wife was going to give me $500 at Christmas to buy a PS4, but I told her to wait.  The only game I'm interested in that I can't get on PC is the new Infamous which isn't even out yet.  Not to mention traditionally the first run of consoles is higher in failure rates.

More importantly, my taste in games has changed.  Really looking forward to Divinity OS and the Obsidian RPG over anything else this year.

[schild]

They should've died and gone into software only when the Playstation landed. All they've been doing is delaying the inevitable.

[Jeff Kelly]

market reacted as expected. nintendo's stock dropped by 20% after the announcement. Iwata already proactively declared that he 'will not resign' as CEO.

[Miasma]

I don't understand how the xbox one could be keeping pace with the ps4.  Unless it's purely because sony can't produce enough units to fill demand.  There are piles of xbox ones all over but the ps4 is sold out most everywhere.

I hope nintendo realizes how badly they are doing and decide to make some major changes.

[schild]

Purely supply and demand. The PS4 has already won the next 5 years. Their only competition is a potential Valve-made Steambox.

[Lakov_Sanite]

For all intents and purposes steambox is a pc and will not beat consoles for all the same reasons.

[Kageru]

And the consoles are just PC's... the fight will be in software and exclusives.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Of course consoles are essentially pc's but the differences are incredibly important.

A console is a console is a console:  When you buy an xbox or ps4 or wiiu you know exactly what you are getting, steambox is not consistant on any level.
Games, exclusives and the like:  Right now steam can't even get mass effect 3 for the pc.  If you have a pc you can play it, if you have a steam box....maybe? PC's still win out when it comes to variety.

Steambox also looks like with so many developers for the different versions it will be less a console than a dvd player.  Reliability and functionality is going to vary wildly except they will all be labelled "steambox" so any bad apples on the manufacturing side could spoil the whole bunch.

Last but certainly not least, anyone can just connect their pc to their tv and use a controller for most games so who are the steamboxes actually for?

[Fabricated]

The PS4 appears to be supply constrained. Worldwide they're going to crush the fuck out of the Xbox One, but I'm a bit surprised about how well its doing in the US so hey maybe some competition there.

The WiiU is already officially "That box the remaining Nintendo fans use to play Smash, Zelda, Mario, and Metroid", which is fine really if Nintendo is willing to live with it. The Gamecube was the same but I don't regret owning mine.

[Paelos]

I wouldn't regret owning any Nintendo console if the cost wasn't more than $300.

[Jeff Kelly]

If they'd aggressively put their back catalog on the virtual console of both Wii U and 3DS I 'd guess that many people would actually be OK with that.

[Kail]

If they'd aggressively put their back catalog on the virtual console of both Wii U and 3DS I 'd guess that many people would actually be OK with that.

I would murder a nun (a mean one) if it meant they'd put more decent previous gen titles on the 3DS.  Before I grabbed the system, I imagined the virtual console would be a massive library of all their old stuff, at least in terms of Game Boy titles (given that each version of the system has been able to emulate the previous one just fine).  They're sitting on a gold mine of old titles, I wonder why we don't see more of them.

For that matter, I kind of wonder this about most of the old game companies, especially on the PC.  I guess the projected sales must be close to zero or they'd already be doing it, but I can't help but wish we had the option to buy the old Mega Man or Chrono Trigger games on Steam or Gog or something.

[Lakov_Sanite]

If they'd aggressively put their back catalog on the virtual console of both Wii U and 3DS I 'd guess that many people would actually be OK with that.

I would murder a nun (a mean one) if it meant they'd put more decent previous gen titles on the 3DS.  Before I grabbed the system, I imagined the virtual console would be a massive library of all their old stuff, at least in terms of Game Boy titles (given that each version of the system has been able to emulate the previous one just fine).  They're sitting on a gold mine of old titles, I wonder why we don't see more of them.

For that matter, I kind of wonder this about most of the old game companies, especially on the PC.  I guess the projected sales must be close to zero or they'd already be doing it, but I can't help but wish we had the option to buy the old Mega Man or Chrono Trigger games on Steam or Gog or something.

With a lot of games I'd suspect there are licensing issues because likely all contracts specify what platform they can be released on and a virtual console would count as a new platform so each and every deal would need to be renegotiated.

[Kageru]

Of course consoles are essentially pc's but the differences are incredibly important.

A console is a console is a console:  When you buy an xbox or ps4 or wiiu you know exactly what you are getting, steambox is not consistant on any level.
Games, exclusives and the like:  Right now steam can't even get mass effect 3 for the pc.  If you have a pc you can play it, if you have a steam box....maybe? PC's still win out when it comes to variety.

Steambox also looks like with so many developers for the different versions it will be less a console than a dvd player.  Reliability and functionality is going to vary wildly except they will all be labelled "steambox" so any bad apples on the manufacturing side could spoil the whole bunch.

Last but certainly not least, anyone can just connect their pc to their tv and use a controller for most games so who are the steamboxes actually for?

An alienware console will be an alienware console... the fact there's some "hopefuls" hoping they'll sell millions of steamboxes or it will help their boutique PC business are just that. And really PC incompatibility issues have faded because the hardware has gotten less interesting and more standardized. Plus a bit of competition helps stop some vendor think they can ship hardware and not upgrade it for a decade.

The steamboxes are for people who are too scared of PC's and don't need the flexibility an open system can provide... you know, like console players as your post identified.

[eldaec]

Last thing I'm doing is dragging my PC up and down the stairs every time I want to use it on the big TV. Also I don't really want to put a full blown second PC in the living room.

So I guess steambox is for me.

Even if I can only play a minority of steam games on it, even just indie titles, I'm good with that.

I don't really care if it takes over the world or not.

Some people brought up console hardware consistency, only thing I'd add, is that it is much less important than it used to be, because there is so much more middleware between the developer and the iron, and because there is less temptation to address the iron directly given how overengineered it usually is now.

It's still a thing, but not the thing it used to be.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Look I'm not saying it's a guaranteed flop or anything and for some people it'll be great but it's just not a contender in the console wars like, at all.

[Fordel]

Purely supply and demand. The PS4 has already won the next 5 years. Their only competition is a potential Valve-made Steambox.

Has the PS4 released in Japan yet?

[Rendakor]

No, Feb. 22nd I believe.

[Fordel]

So that's another Jillion ps4's sold and negative fifty Xbox's.

[Kageru]

Look I'm not saying it's a guaranteed flop or anything and for some people it'll be great but it's just not a contender in the console wars like, at all.

can't argue with that logic.

It probably isn't.. consoles are for people to play the "blockbuster" titles massive advertising has convinced them they must play. It will be more fun to see if it can build a base, refine the platform and then start challenging the market as the current consoles flag in 3-5 years.

I don't really care, I have steam and there's nothing on consoles / mobile I care about.

[Trouble]

Valve is betting that consoles are going to be sidelined in the next couple years when head mounted VR goes mainstream. Reason being that the processing powered needed to deliver the minimum for convincing VR is beyond current gen consoles and will require a beefy PC for the indefinite future (since VR will scale in quality with increasing PC specs far beyond what we currently have). That combined with their bet that VR is _so compelling_ an experience beyond normal media that people will be tearing down the walls to get it.

http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%20Days%202014.pdf

[Kageru]

I'm not sure how VR interacts with the living room / sofa / big screen TV environment that consoles and steambox are aimed at. It seems to be somewhat in conflict.

... though I hope it's good and I want it for my PC!

[Malakili]

I can see VR overlapping with the last generation of consoles more than the current one.  It seems like consoles are moving more towards all purpose media boxes.  I can't see people sitting there watching Netflix while wearing VR goggles.

VR also clashes with the multi-tasking nature of a lot of gaming these days.  Play a round of X, read the news.  Go do 5 quests in an MMO, idle in town while I write an e-mail.  Watch netflix while playing Plants v. Zombies on my tablet.  VR requires 100% of your attention for as long as you're playing.

[Jeff Kelly]

I don't get the whole PC/Console dichotomy.

For all the boasting about 'Master Race' etc and the small renaissance Indie devs gave the platform it's pretty much stayed a marginalized platform. Steam and Steam machines were never about becoming the dominant game platform that's a ridiculous prospect anyway. It's about keeping the PC intact as a game platform to prevent Microsoft from managing to kill it completely.

Consoles have been the highest revenue generating platforms for a while now and even though on the surface the PC still has a large market share most of that money is tied up in revenues for MMOs (2/3rds in fact, also the reason why dev houses are so keen on being the 'next WoW'). Depending on the research data consoles in 2013 had between 43% ond 48% of the revenue share in the gaming business with mobile being a distant second with 18%. 'Classical' PC boxed games or downloads had only 9% of the revenue share (about 6 billion dollar vs. about 30 billion for consoles). Mobile gaming on tablets and phones already garners twice the profit that 'traditional' PC gaming does and the MMO sector garners nearly three times the profits of the 'traditional PC gaming sector.

The problem with the stance of 'consoles are on the way out and PC gaming will be on the upswing once $technology hits' is that the PC is already being squeezed out by tablets and phones as far as normal computing needs are concerned and traditionally 'gaming PCs' have always been a niche for the hard core enthusiast crowd - a lucrative niche but a niche nevertheless. NVidia already has huge problems because the enthusiast crowd can no longer support their business and they have no presence in the current gen of consoles or a significant share of the 'integrated graphics' market.

A significant fraction of users already doesn't really need a PC anymore. They usually own one that's either old or dirt cheap for the few things they still need a real computer for (text processing etc.) and use their mobiles for pretty much everything else. This will pose to be an even greater 'barrier of entry' for PC gaming, especially if you want them to invest into a system that offers significantly better visuals than the new consoles. As much as Valve and the oculus guys want it to be the case it's unlikely that a significant portion of their market will ever invest in a $1200+ PC 'just' for gaming with better visuals or to be able to use an oculus rift. One reason that indies even managed to somewhat reinvigorate the PC as a platform comes from the fact that most games are so 'lo-fi' that even a three or more year old PC can run them. Windows as a platform is under siege on the business side from Apple and Mac OS X and on the consumer side from iOS and Android and the value proposition of mobile and tablet computers.

If it weren't for the business sector, the PC market would have already seen a huge crash as tablet and phones sales are practically eating their lunch and if it weren't for DirectX being the de facto standard and PCs being the dev platforms of choice for console development we'd see even less PC ports than we already do and they would probably be even more shitty (also Europe as being basically the last bastion of PC gaming). The Steam Machine is basically Valve's way to try and save the PC as a viable platform once Microsoft completely abandons gaming on the PC as part of their strategy or is becoming so marginalized because of tablet and phones that nobody would care for it as a gaming platform anyway.

The enthusiast crowd is very seriously living in a bubble if it thinks that consoles will be going away any time soon because of the PC becoming a viable platform again. More likely the whole console business will crash because of mobile eating away at their profits eventually.

[Wizgar]

Valve is betting that consoles are going to be sidelined in the next couple years when head mounted VR goes mainstream.

Then they're fucked, because that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

[MrHat]

Valve is betting that consoles are going to be sidelined in the next couple years when head mounted VR goes mainstream. Reason being that the processing powered needed to deliver the minimum for convincing VR is beyond current gen consoles and will require a beefy PC for the indefinite future (since VR will scale in quality with increasing PC specs far beyond what we currently have). That combined with their bet that VR is _so compelling_ an experience beyond normal media that people will be tearing down the walls to get it.

http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%20Days%202014.pdf

Thanks for that link.