TornadoCreator

I think you're willfully ignoring facts because they're uncomfortable. I understand that, I own both a Wii U and a Vita, do you think I want there to be a crash? Honestly though, writing off all of that as "the industry is volatile" strikes as denial. I've shown how the difference in sales between now and 2008 are quite telling in my opening post, how are you not yet convinced? Moreover, would anything convince you or will you attempt to explain everything away as though they're all isolated incidents?

Normally I'd agree but the PS4/XBO are built on x86 hardware; the same stuff PC has been using for years. There's no room for devs to "figure out" more from the hardware as we already know it's limitations. That's why despite tiny differences in hardware the developers are able to eek out greater performance from the PS4 already. There's little forward momentum available to the devs now.

This isn't just one company, or a gradual decline. Every major company was affected, studios such as Black Isle, Pandemic, Hudson Soft, Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios all went up in smoke. THQ; one of the largest publishers in the world went into complete liquidation. Atari and Index both went bankrupt. Capcom is now also facing bankruptcy, Sony is downsizing so much they're selling off real estate, Rockstar and Ubisoft have closed entire studios, Nintendo CEO and directors took a 50% pay cut, and Activision, EA, Xbox and Square Enix all replaced their CEO and/or major board members and started massive company restructuring... ...this is an industry crash, what more proof do you need; a steaming fucking crator?!

Ubisoft have already been heard complaining about the lack of power. The PS4 is already outperformed by a mid-range gaming PC. I honestly don't see how these consoles will compete in say 3 years when more intensive games are being designed. If only publishers thought like that. Rather than go after small profits they always aim for the massive AAA megahit... no clue why, greed most probably.

The crash has already happened. If company consolidation and the majority of the industry being de-listed from the stock exchange doesn't constitute a crash in your book, then by your own high standards the crash of '83 doesn't count either. If you're expecting the news to suddenly say, "Yesterday Sony exploded due to extreme lack of funds", you're going to be sorely left wanting. This is not Mad Max. How anyone can deny the crash after massive industry giant THQ died spectacularly last year I don't know. Fact is, the crash is here, it's happened.

It's an estimation, it's hardly an exact science. If they don't hit 10 million they're screwed because they won't have enough systems out there to support moderately sized exclusives, however even then 12-15 million is needed to ensure that the golden 40% figure is above 5 million, as no game yet has secured more than a 40% adoption rate without being a pack in game. Even then that's a bare minimum for success. I'd be wanting a userbase of at least 20 million before trying to push a AAA exclusive personally.This generation, in order to stay profitable, needs a combined userbase of 40 million to make multiplats viable. With a growing budget and average adoption rate not going above 25% for multiplats, this would allow software sales of 10 million to be an achievable goal. Significantly less than a userbase of 40 million though and games only remain profitable by releasing them cross-gen. Yes if 2015 is a good year I will predict difficulty for the industry in 2016-17, because one good year doesn't change the tide of the industry. Almost every major development company has been de-listed from the stock exchange and many are throwing themselves into mobile gaming in a desperate attempt to strike oil in a market that's already reached it's peak. As for Sony leaving video games... let's hope it doesn't happen but with their financial record they may be forced into bankruptcy. Alternatively, the playstation brand may be bought up by another company. Either way, while PS4 may be successful I don't see Sony having the infrastructure and capital to fund a ninth gen console. Microsoft, they are a wildcard. Whilst they have money they're hardly going to let the Xbox division have it all. If Sony makes a comeback, or if new companies enter the market, I can see Microsoft abandoning Xbox as an unprofitable venture. Lastly Nintendo, who will be fine. They're financially stable and their handheld division makes decent money. Couple that with lower development costs for first party Nintendo games and you have at least some stability. All that said, it'd not be unreasonable if Nintendo abandoned home consoles entirely after the Wii U and developed a next-gen handheld, perhaps one that can connect to your TV when at home. These are reasonable ways in which all three hardware developers could leave the home console market after this gen. So Nintendo isn't doomed.... but the entire industry is? Correct. Nintendo are, perversely, in the strongest position out of the big three largely due to the 3DS. It's not in a great position and will likely be facing losses and poor sales, but unlike Sony it has the bank to handle this for years yet. My issue is more with people acting as though Nintendo are dead in the water while simultaneously proclaiming the PS4 will dominate and sell PS2 levels of units, becoming the new big hotness, when it's demonstrably not true. Either the whole industry is doomed, or none of it is... it's the constant Nintendo bashing that annoys me.

Definitely. The industry may crash and burn, but the medium itself will continue... the question is, will it even be recognisable as "video games"; as we think of them, in the future.

Profitable now sure, during it's first year launching tbe PS4... but with fewer and fewer releases, company consolidation etc. it'll be getting less and less in software licencing fees (especially as the largest profits come from the PS3 with it's far more substantial userbase). Playstation is unlikely earn enough to hold Sony afloat, so much so that the company is already liquidating assets and downsizing. PS4 is underpowered and yet it's the most powerful console on the market. Given that, it's unlikely this gen will last much more than 4 years, but I don't see Sony having enough in capital to design and manufacturer the Playstation 5 with launch titles in that time; all whilst maintaining support for the Playstation 4, Playstation 3, and Vita; none of which it's currently in a position to discontinue. Of the three hardware devs, Sony Is the one I see most likely to be leaving the industry this generation sadly.

I've been saying this for a long time but the statistics quite conclusively back up what I'm saying; not that the signs weren't there to begin with. This industry is doomed. This is the second video game crash in action, much like the crash of '83, we saw death throws as companies struggled against inevitability in 1984, and we see it now in 2014; exactly 30 years later like some macabre example of the adage "history repeats itself". Now, please be aware it brings me little pleasure to bring this news, and I don't wish to sensationalise; particularly in an industry where sensationalism is second nature, but this is a fact. You can write me off as yet another fearmonger if you wish but it won't cushion the blow nor change the tides to do so. This industry has, since it's inception, survived on a boom cycle that we see again and again. For every boom though there's always an inevitable rush to meet it, with oversaturation soon following. The market gives way as demand falls off, and the remaining demand simply cannot sustain the glut of generic products, and the entire trend collapses. This pattern is one we can see again and again, the mascot platformer boom of the early 90s, the JRPG boom of the mid 90s, the survival horror boom of the late 90s, and the music game boom of the 00's that allowed for yearly releases of Guitar Hero at one point. The thing to remember is each time these bubble's burst, they've invariably lead to studio closure and industry consolidations. The major difference is that most of the industry wasn't trying to emulate Final Fantasy or Resident Evil when their respective boom periods went the way of Lindsay Lohans career. Today though, AAA games cost so much to make, and require so many sales in a fractured and quite frankly far too small userbase, that if you're not targetting the multiplayer FPS crowd; you're just not making money. As much as we hate to admit it, Call Of Duty and Halo are pretty much the only things making money during the economic shifts of the last decade, hense why the current consoles launched with Call Of Duty, Battlefield, and Killzone out the gate, and the Halo collection is already touted as the game-changer the Xbox One needs. What this means though, is when the multiplayer FPS bubble bursts, and it will burst, it takes the entire industry along with it. Now, don't get me wrong there will be a few things that survive; even florish. A crash doesn't necessitate an end to good or profitable products; in fact the crash in the 80's saw a boom here in the UK for home computers which saw the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC become successful. The problem currently is that middle-production studios that used to make the mid-budget niche games before everything became either bloated budget AAA or indie games, they've all been bought up and consolidated into one of the big five publishers, or bought outright for first party development; otherwise they just flat out die off, fail to pay their bills and disappear such as Black Isle, Pandemic, and Looking Glass Studios. Even the big boys such as THQ, Atari, and following fast in their footsteps Capcom, and perhaps soon Sony themselves. To deny that financial trouble exists in this industry is to simply bury ones head in the sand. The problem with this situation is that these big consolidation filled mega-corporate developer giants like EA, Activision, or Square Enix are, by their very nature immovable; they have shareholders to satisfy meaning they can't make a move without first explaining it and every permutation of it first. They lack the ability smaller studios have to take risks. They are much like the Titanic, too big and moving ahead too fast to change course in response to the will of the industry, largely because they've absorbed every smaller vessal along it's way. Again, much like the Titanic, this industry has now slammed into the iceburg but the captains are so lost all they can think to do is go on full steam ahead instead of screaming "women and children first". They could release smaller niche titles needing a minorty market interest to each make steady profit, but instead they throw yet more money on more financially intensive AAA games; none of which have a sustainable future. It's almost as if these corporate fat-cats are incapable of understanding basic economic trends. Today's figues are in and the outlook is bleak to say the least. With no home console toping the 100,000 weekly worldwide sales mark for hardware, and only the 3DS managing respectable sales of 126,000 sales we can safely say this year marks some of the worst sales this industry has seen. With total hardware sales failing to top half a million units sold; a meager 483,000 units in fact, of which almost 100,000 units are last gen hardware and you have an industry flailing in it's death throws right there. Only one game broke 100,000 sales in the week ending July 5th and that was Mario Kart 8 for WII U. Global software sales failed to hit 4 million sales across all platforms, and again last gen sales contributed far too much with more than half those sales; 2.3 million, being for last gen hardware. And this is from an industry that claimed to be recession-proof. Going back to the start of the recession, a mere 6 years shows not a single system selling less than 100,000 hardware units, a global hardware sales of over 1.3 million, with the DS selling more hardware on it's own (487,000) than the entire industry does today. The 10 best selling games all topped 130,000 sales each with some breaking the 300,000 mark, none of which are in their first month of sales. Global software sales where at over 7.5 million weekly sales; in July, in the middle of the worst banking crisis since the 1930s. When that year is doubling your sales statistics, it's time to panic. By my estimation, this industry needs at least 40 million current gen consoles (PS4, Xbox One, Wii U), in peoples homes by the end of the year, minimum. With each platform needing at least 12-15 million units in it's own right to be viable. Even with that boost, I don't see how this industry can flourish under the current conditions as developers are still requiring lifetime sales of 7-10 million units per game to turn a profit and that audience simply doesn't exist for most genres. I won't be shocked if when the dust settles some time around late 2015, if there's only one of the big three still standing, if indeed any of them are.

That's a little harder to judge. After all, are we directly affected by wars in Iraq because our taxes change? Where is the line drawn? As for if more people where affected by the world wars, I'm not sure but I know a few history graduates who'd probably be able to tell me. I'll get back to you on that.

'Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends Complete' on PS Vita... no competition. I got DW8 for PS3 but later got this version for Vita and have sunk more than 50 hours into it. Easily the best game of this year for me; sadly though it lacks competition. This year has been barren when it comes to new releases. 'Bravely Default' was certainly a great game, probably my second pick but that's it really. Everything else I've been playing is an earlier release. 'Super Mario 3D World' would count but it released right at the end of last year.

That's what most people think, but actually no. Despite their size, both world wars where shockingly low for deathtoll. Often the same soldiers would be in the same trenches for months, and both sides occupied enemy cities leaving the civilian population relatively unscathed. This didn't happen in earlier wars. Even accounting for the holocaust, the dealth toll is shockingly low for the world wars compared to say Napoleonic times or the Viking invasions, where "burn down everything, and kill everyone except the women you intend to rape" was the norm. People forget about the massive slaughters that happened in earlier times, more modern deaths resonate more.

If you take a more spread average, we've been trending towards less warfare since the 11th century, possibly earlier though reliable records are hard to come by.

Did he? How do I not remember that?

Ummm...I'll be your best friend? But seriosuly...I'd jump on this if I had a wiiu. Also....would it even work on an American(AKA BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!*)? No idea. I think it's EU specific, but the only way to check is by using it... which would render it useless.

It actually really is. In terms of percentage of people fighting; there are less people engaged in warfare today than any other times in human history. Almost every war currently being fought is little more than a boarder skirmish or single nation civil war. We live in truly peaceful times.

I actually wasn't counting Vesperia as it only got an English release on Xbox 360. I was counting Symphonia Chronicles as two games.

Vesperia, Xillia, Graces f, and Symphonia 1 & 2. We'll soon have Xillia 2 and Zestiria which will bump it up to seven if you count the Symphonia games separately.

Thanks Strangelove, these games all keep their value because they're often limited print or imported so cost £15-30 each... sometimes more. I don't like to spend more than £10 on a game unless I know I'll like it and these games rarely have demos (and even then, it'd be hard to judge from a demo). But yeah, I'm careful when buying games after all, disability benefit isn't much. Pity about Star Ocean... I was intrigued by what I'd heard so far so it was the one I was most likely to pick up next. What's bad about it, just in general?

I think the PS2 era was just more well known for RPGs. Honestly, much like the SNES, the PS2 sucks for RPGs here because they where either Japan only, or Japan and North America only. Europe gets shafted for video games, particularly RPGs. The region free of PS3 and Vita are the main reason I choose Sony as my primary hardware dev. It's the main reason I'll get the PS4 too. The PS3 has loads though, I'm just not familiar with them. Eternal Sonata, Disgaea 4, Hyperdimention Neptunia 1-3, Star Ocean 4, Valkyria Chronicles, Ar Tonelico Qoga, Cross Edge, Atelier Rorona, Time And Eternity, Trinity Universe, Agarest: Generations Of War Zero, Last Rebellion, and White Knight Chronicles are just some of what I've found on Amazon. Add in the games I already know about, there's at least 4 'Tales Of' games, Resonance Of Fate, Ni No Kuni, FFX/X-2 HD and 3 FFXIII games (even if they are shit). That's a lot of JRPGs and I'm certain I'm missing some... most of these I've not played and finding good non-spoiler information on them is hard. Hense asking for recommendations. I've heard good things about Neir, I'll probably pick that one up fairly soon.

Hi, I'm looking to expand my horizons when it comes to contemporary gen RPGs. I know many are somewhat obscure but thankfully the PS3 is region free and English is often used as a default language. I was wondering if people could suggest a few RPGs that may be interesting, I'm already familiar with the Tales Of... series, Resonance Of Fate, and Ni No Kuni, as well as more western RPGs such as Fallout 3, Dragon Age, and Demon's Souls. I'm looking more for the JRPG, though any RPG would be worth looking into at least (except Final Fantasy XIII obviously, I have taste). Thanks in advance. Looking forward to seeing what people suggest.

I think you'll find Mr. GOH that you're the one mistaken. As the Englishman I'll explain how to speak English... as an American I'm sure you speak the native languages of your land; such as Salish or Navaho, and I promise to not correct you on those languages

Yeah... Flapjacks aren't pancakes, not even close. Flapjacks are baked oat cakes made with either syrup, honey or treacle depending on the type (most common is syrup). I keep hearing this, even from other British people and wondering where they're getting it... this is a flapjack: Yeah, half and half is a thing pretty much everywhere in UK. You'll occasionally find places in villages all across the country who claim it's not a thing " 'round these parts", and act like you've asked for hippo tongue; but usually it's a normal request.

I love the Saturn, one of my favourite consoles. Some great arcade games like Daytona USA, Fighters Megamix, Titan Wars, NiGHTS and Saturn Bomberman; good platformers like Gex, Rayman, Croc, Spot and Sonic 3D; and it had the first Resident Evil, the first Tomb Raider, Alien Trilogy, and so much more. PSOne may have overtook it in later years but from 1995 to 1996 it was the console to own I say. Plus, it has the best, most comfortable controller ever; especially for 2D fighters which the Saturn was known for.