The Shrine

Between DS, Wii, PS3, PSP, and Xbox 360. Last generations total handheld and home console sales have totaled more than 500 million. Total software sales exceeded 3.5 billion. That is a jump of over 200 million units of hardware, and 1 billion software from the previous generation.

Now the question is, has the dedicated industry peaked?

It seems to me that the last generation was unusually long; Nintendo was in for 6 years, Sony in for 7, and Microsoft in for 8. Whereas the previous generations were typically 4-5 years before new hardware was released.

I am still of the opinion that microtransactions, DLC and online DRM will alienate the core market this gen -- everyone will burn out on the excessive greed of the industry and look towards an alternative. I expect a mini-crash this gen.

January has certainly been...interesting.

Xbox
(360)Jan 2007: 294,000
(One)Jan 2014: ~143,000

PlayStation
(PS4)Jan 2007: 244,000
(PS3)Jan 2014: ~286,000

PS3 January 2014:
-67% from last January (adjusted)
-82% from December 2013


Xbox 360 January 2014:
-78% from last January (adjusted)
-92% from December 2013


PS3 ~53.5K
Wii U ~49K
360 ~48.5KK

I'm all sorts of confused to be honest.

The 360 sold the least in the US, for the 2nd time in it's 5th of 6th year reign or whatever year it was in, and the Wii U somehow beat it.

But most surprisingly is that all of the last gen systems aren't selling for shit. I think the PS2 was still moving 100k-200k a month when the PS3 came out because the price point was in the $99.99-129.99 range at that point.

I think last gen consoles are way too expensive atm. I guess if you've got $200-$300 to spend on a PS3 360 or Wii U you might as well spend $400 on a PS4.

kali o. wrote:I am still of the opinion that microtransactions, DLC and online DRM will alienate the core market this gen -- everyone will burn out on the excessive greed of the industry and look towards an alternative. I expect a mini-crash this gen.

I actually agree with this, with the console market contracting and game expenses expanding, and the dedicated handheld market probably on it's last legs, you're gonna see even more DLC, microtransactions, and F2P attempts to milk money. At one point people are gonna say fuck it.

Someone's eventually going to release a game that's actually complete at time of launch and/or actually release DLC that's a noteworthy expansion rather than 'we took the original game and made it 1/3 as long so we can save the rest for DLCs' and that game will clean up.

kali o. wrote:I am still of the opinion that microtransactions, DLC and online DRM will alienate the core market this gen -- everyone will burn out on the excessive greed of the industry and look towards an alternative. I expect a mini-crash this gen.

What do you think of Nintendo's new strategy? They offer you like 20% of the full game for free, then you pay a fee for the rest. Kinda like a demo + (see the Steel Diver sequel). I'm curious how that's gonna turn out myself. I've always felt the model where you let them grind it out for many, many hours or pay $1 to save all that time is better but then again, I wouldn't pay. Maybe Nintendo has the right idea? Give 'em the first taste for free to get them hooked?

Zeus wrote:

kali o. wrote:I am still of the opinion that microtransactions, DLC and online DRM will alienate the core market this gen -- everyone will burn out on the excessive greed of the industry and look towards an alternative. I expect a mini-crash this gen.

What do you think of Nintendo's new strategy? They offer you like 20% of the full game for free, then you pay a fee for the rest. Kinda like a demo + (see the Steel Diver sequel). I'm curious how that's gonna turn out myself. I've always felt the model where you let them grind it out for many, many hours or pay $1 to save all that time is better but then again, I wouldn't pay. Maybe Nintendo has the right idea? Give 'em the first taste for free to get them hooked?

People might be dumb but even the dumbest guy knows when he's paying too much.

I think game developers always have this backwards. There are guys willing to spend a lot of money on games. I remember buying Chrono Trigger for $100 and the OST for $120 or whatever crazy prices it was going for. But that's because Chrono Trigger was a good game. It's not like if you take some lame game and put some gimmicks you can suddenly now sell it for $220 for the game + OST. Civilization 5 DLCs were selling for $5-$10 and, aside from the music track, they're literally something anyone with college programming skills could've done in 5 minuets. The guys who buy them bought them not because they're too dumb to do math but that they probably really like the Civilization franchise. But you're trading the goodwill of your fanbase for a quick gain. Unless you plan to never make another game after your current one, it's best to save some of that goodwill for future. Blizzard, for example, has always been relatively light on the DLC moneygrab, and I believe this is why they actually have a lot of goodwill in the bank to make up for the fact that a lot of recent games actually aren't that good. If Diablo 2 had been charging $5 for each event they added, you wouldn't have nearly the same number of guys who bought Diablo 3, which is actually pretty bad at retaining people so I can't imagine word of mouth helped it very much. That was a game that was sold on reputation and you won't have a good reputation if burned people too much in the past.