"The Game Console Is Dead"

[deanb]

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/10/consolation-prize/all/

 

The title is sensationalist, but the general takeaway of the current era of console gaming is at a close, and I do agree that I don't think we'll see it near quarter billion consoles again. Too much eating at the edges, why spend £300 on a new console when you can get a £150 tablet? That's not me saying one is better than the other, but certainly for many of the not-so-core gamers it's an option that is there, especially when a tablet has much more uses than a Wii U or what not would, on top of gaming. And for the bit-more-core-than-most can splash out a bit more and pick up a gaming PC which has massively matured over the past few years, especially in ease of getting all the goodness out, like Big Screen n Workshop for one (the sales don't hurt either).

 

Normally I'd be mentioning streaming gaming too, but that's looking shakey at the moment. Guess we'll see what Sony make of Gaikia.

 

But yeah, consoles need to change, and fast. Selling digital games for £59 is not cool. Also a big selling point of late is that they're not for games, but for Netflix n iPlayer too. There's next to no F2P too, or much variation in pricing. A lot of the exciting stuff at the moment is on PC and phone, where it's cheaper to put out a riskier game (especially with Kickstarter to fund that risk).

 

So yeah, thoughts. The article actually has good content if you can get past the title.

[Cyber Rat]

Humans suck at predictions.

 

That said, I don't expect the next console generation to be big, because the casual crowd that jumped into gaming this gen likely found something else to do after waggling and waving with motion controls to their heart's content. Like posting on Tumblr.

 

Also, I love how "why spend 300 on a console when you can pay half as much for a tablet" has replaced "why spend 1000 on a PC when you can spend 300 on a console". The PC didn't die. I doubt smartphones/tablets will murder game consoles.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Cyber Rat

[CorgiShinobi]

Ditto to Cyber's logic.

 

And it's not just the title that's sensational. You get right into the center and we're reading...

 

The result: Years from now, 225 million devices will almost certainly be seen as the point at which the console business peaked. Gamers are going elsewhere for their fix. The console’s time at the top of the heap is drawing to an end, and these machines won’t survive without radical change.

 

or this beauty

 

Consoles used to do everything best, but those strengths are now being wiped away. Unlike PC games, which may require finicky custom settings, consoles “just work,” fans have long pointed out. Well, so does the iPad. Consoles are cheaper than PCs? Not when you factor in the growing disparity in game prices. Consoles have all the good content? Well, if you want Nintendo- or Sony-exclusive games, you’ll need to buy their hardware. But for many gamers, Angry Birds is becoming more attractive than Mario.

 

I could also pull out another paragraph or two, but the point lies that I'm reading some big claims as if I were to have discovered Nostradamus's lost prophecies of the gaming industry. Except that we're comparing apples to oranges.

 

I mean, as I was reading through to the end, I felt like we were reading the old discussions on the rise of mobile gaming, but the counterpoint to the whole debate was how different they were that neither one truly posed a threat as devices. On business strategy, yes, but we can't begin to proclaim failure when all these devices serve different and distinct purposes.

 

To simply focus on game consoles, they do have to evolve, but please yell it into my face (your screen) that I'm wrong when I say game consoles do evolve. Look at each generation of consoles and compare their place in the consumer's household. A Nintendo 64 was simply a game playing machine. It was part of an era where multiplayer became a staple of gaming rather than a feature. Look to the PlayStation 2 and you have yourself one of the first DVD players, or the Xbox offering LAN support. Now consoles have become gaming computers with services and other features that were almost fantasy a decade before.

 

Of course, there are still threats. Alienware wasn't the first to do this, but the X51 line was a step toward bringing PCs into the console territory. No matter how much you want to prove to someone they can build a gaming PC, there's an appeal to having something "ready-to-go." Well, there was that, but also the ability to upgrade the X51 so it could stay modern, something a console has never done before.

 

When I came to the realization that my PS3 was essentially dead, the technician and I were talking about modern consoles. He wished that Sony and Microsoft would allow the consumer to upgrade the internal components, but obviously there are some "limitations" to what said companies want us to do. All I had to do is change the memory, but it was a unique and obsolete, thus I would have had to change the whole motherboard.

 

Maybe it will take a kick in the pants for consoles to open up, but at the same time it's like what Totalbiscuit said back in one of his Mailbags (or whatever). Consoles have their place, and they're well defined as those AAA home gaming devices. I'm sure if he was asked about this particular topic, he would reaffirm the position of consoles, but like we've discussed years ago in the past how mobiles (and now tablets) can only go so far to being "dedicated" gaming devices.

 

Just, do we really see a time down the line where a sales associate is going to recommend an iPad over a 3DS or PS Vita for handheld gaming?

 

EDIT: And I will say, though I'm not the biggest PC gamer, the fact that the 360 was first released in my junior year of high school and now I'm about to graduate college, I just no longer see the appeal is owning such an ancient piece of hardware. Still, while people may not be crazy about it, it's still a "gaming machine." It's the same logic as to why the PS2 was a success for 10 years. It played games, and sometimes people just want to play a game.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Atomsk88

[excel_excel]

But for many gamers, Angry Birds is becoming more attractive than Mario.

 

Isn't that like....I mean Mario game sales have been at their most massive in years. I guess the biggest difference there is, Mario games are normally full price retail releases and Angry Birds is 69p. I mean granted its covering very familiar ground but the New Super Mario Bros series is a monster when it comes to sales, and that's from a full price retail perspective. How well is Angry Birds doing as a retail console release?

[Thursday Next]

The downward trends and what not look very similar to what we saw at the end of the Xbox/PS2 Cycle. With all the rumours that a new generation might be in the offing soon, I'm wouldn't say I am at all surprised at the current downward trends.

 

What I will say is that if and when a new generation of consoles is released, they will be more powerful than the majority of PC's in peoples' homes and we'll see PC gaming decline a bit while consoles shoot up again. I'm pretty confident in this as it is exactly what happened over the past two/three Cycles. Only difference this time is that we'll see a bit more on top thanks to digital...

 

Which is why we'll also see the whole videogames market increase in size as we have done over the past few Cycles. Digital tends to build on top of retail sales rather than cannibalising them (or at least retail sales are still going up at the same rate with digital sales on top of that maybe retail would climb faster without digital?).

 

So, the takeaway from this is that Consoles are not dying, neither is PC, PC is having a renaissance now that consoles are showing their age, but that will likely turn around again if/when the Cycle begins anew.

 

It is at this point that I realise that I may be playing too much mass effect...

[Hot Heart]

It is at this point that I realise that I may be playing too much mass effect...

 

The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. The PC master races rise, evolve, advance, and at the apex of their glory, they are extinguished.

[jayc4life]

How well is Angry Birds doing as a retail console release?

Probably not that well, since they're trying to sell 3 (4? I dunno which "Trilogy" this is, but i assume it's not including Rio) 89c games from a phone for €34.99.

 

 

I tweeted that on the 14th. Can't imagine it's changed since. Activision: says it all really.

[deanb]

That said, I don't expect the next console generation to be big, because the casual crowd that jumped into gaming this gen likely found something else to do after waggling and waving with motion controls to their heart's content. Like posting on Tumblr.

 

Also, I love how "why spend 300 on a console when you can pay half as much for a tablet" has replaced "why spend 1000 on a PC when you can spend 300 on a console". The PC didn't die. I doubt smartphones/tablets will murder game consoles.

First point is a big part of this I think. And it'll especially hurt Nintendo (Who have already had their value drop and lowered their upcoming forecasts, despite having a new console coming out). Wii came out, people bought it, played it a bit then moved on to the next thing. Which is seemingly tablets.

As for the second part remember that the console has pretty much one use (two if you count Netflix & co), a PC and tablet can do much more which is a big part for many people (And the software and games are cheaper).

 

And it's not just the title that's sensational. You get right into the center and we're reading...

 

The result: Years from now, 225 million devices will almost certainly be seen as the point at which the console business peaked. Gamers are going elsewhere for their fix. The console’s time at the top of the heap is drawing to an end, and these machines won’t survive without radical change.

 

or this beauty

 

Consoles used to do everything best, but those strengths are now being wiped away. Unlike PC games, which may require finicky custom settings, consoles “just work,” fans have long pointed out. Well, so does the iPad. Consoles are cheaper than PCs? Not when you factor in the growing disparity in game prices. Consoles have all the good content? Well, if you want Nintendo- or Sony-exclusive games, you’ll need to buy their hardware. But for many gamers, Angry Birds is becoming more attractive than Mario.

Angry Birds is becoming more attractive than Mario though. Mario can't boast the kind of figures Angry Birds can, even combining his 50+ games over 25+ years. And that for a lot of companies (and their investors) matters. Many people question why would they buy a $200 system and a $40 game when a $1/free game is providing them with just as much fun. T-Mobile didn't use Mario for their

did they? The main advantage Nintendos systems (and thus their games) is that you'd feel okay handing a kid a 3DS over an iPhone (he says as someone who regularly has kids playing Lego 4+ on his phone)

 

To simply focus on game consoles, they do have to evolve, but please yell it into my face (your screen) that I'm wrong when I say game consoles do evolve. Look at each generation of consoles and compare their place in the consumer's household. A Nintendo 64 was simply a game playing machine. It was part of an era where multiplayer became a staple of gaming rather than a feature. Look to the PlayStation 2 and you have yourself one of the first DVD players, or the Xbox offering LAN support. Now consoles have become gaming computers with services and other features that were almost fantasy a decade before.

I think this is a big one worth pointing out. The problem is where consoles have evolved to providing stuff on top of gaming like the current addition of Netflixing, but tablets have managed to step in during this generation and fill that void and then some too. And PC's have been doing it forever. With SmartTVs n AppleTV's n Google TVs n all that coming out it's going to make consoles a bit obsolete for the secondary functions. But that has the benefit of consoles potentially focusing back onto gaming some more than they have done the past few years.

 

Maybe it will take a kick in the pants for consoles to open up, but at the same time it's like what Totalbiscuit said back in one of his Mailbags (or whatever). Consoles have their place, and they're well defined as those AAA home gaming devices. I'm sure if he was asked about this particular topic, he would reaffirm the position of consoles, but like we've discussed years ago in the past how mobiles (and now tablets) can only go so far to being "dedicated" gaming devices.

Yeah don't get me wrong, you're going to struggle to have Call of Duty on a tablet, but if you're someone who isn't console gaming for the "AAA", then there's plenty other opportunities out there for you on much more appealing/cheaper devices. As Jay has linked, why would you pay £35 for Angry Birds on your console, when it's only 69p on your tablet/phone? Tablets eat at the edges, the core, the guys that have been there from day one, will likely remain, and sales of stuff like COD will likely continue going up. But the non-AAA games, the games that can be put on phones and tablets, the gamers that only have £300 to spend/justify on a device, they're likely going to go away from console gaming. Hence the reckoning we'll likely never see quarter billion consoles again.

 

Just, do we really see a time down the line where a sales associate is going to recommend an iPad over a 3DS or PS Vita for handheld gaming?

Well when they can upsell iTunes apps, sure they'll recommend anything. Don't forget the reaction there was to the PSPGo. It's just as good a gaming device as the PSP, but I doubt you'd see one being recommended over a PSP purely because there's nothing to be made on it.

 

The downward trends and what not look very similar to what we saw at the end of the Xbox/PS2 Cycle. With all the rumours that a new generation might be in the offing soon, I'm wouldn't say I am at all surprised at the current downward trends.

 

What I will say is that if and when a new generation of consoles is released, they will be more powerful than the majority of PC's in peoples' homes and we'll see PC gaming decline a bit while consoles shoot up again. I'm pretty confident in this as it is exactly what happened over the past two/three Cycles. Only difference this time is that we'll see a bit more on top thanks to digital...

Thing is there's not many huge downwards trends. But a lot of the non-AAA has subsided/vanished (whereas they boomed at the end of last generation as consoles became £70), and last generation tablet PCs ran XP and were aimed at business use. Digitally downloading your games was also considered a bit of a joke. There's a lot of uncertainty; don't forget at the end of last generation going off history n what not people thought the Wii was going to bust given how weird it was (and Nintendo's continuing decline) and here we are with it the best selling console of the past generation.

As for PCs, I don't think it'll be like last time. PC's have gotten very powerful and I think a large reason we're not seeing consoles so soon is because they're struggling to make them on-par and still be consoles. Moore's Law is exponential, any consoles in R&D now will be comparatively obsolete before they hit the shop floors unless they are priced as high again as the PS3 was.* I don't pay too much attention to the growth of phone/tablet guts over the years but they're already quad core (and the screens output far in excess of current consoles too, though Next Gen has UHD)

 

Which is why we'll also see the whole videogames market increase in size as we have done over the past few Cycles. Digital tends to build on top of retail sales rather than cannibalising them (or at least retail sales are still going up at the same rate with digital sales on top of that maybe retail would climb faster without digital?).

Sure video games market will grow, the point put forward though is that specifically the console market won't.

 

It's worth reinforcing my viewpoint for myself (and I'm pretty sure it's that of the article too) isn't that consoles will up n vanish forever, but that their role within gaming, and general presence, is going to diminish as other platforms rise and stake their claim, tearing away it's limbs one by one.

 

*If I continue with stuff here it'll likely expand into a topic we already have a different thread for.

[CorgiShinobi]

I just don't see a true threat from tablets, much like how mobiles still stay in their corner of the market. If anything, they're another window of opportunity for developers who work on console games. Just recently we had that tablet Borderlands game, but I'm sure Gearbox isn't going to up and leave consoles to make Borderlands 3 a top-down tablet sequel.

 

Heck, strategy guides on tablet have been a recent trend for console games. If anything, like tablets are to television, tablets could be a companion device for consoles.

 

(And I'm pretty sure the PSP Go failed because of it being a strictly digital retail device that ostracized itself from the established PSP UMD library.)

[deanb]

It doesn't matter if tablets run the exact same games you get on consoles, what matter is that they can run games. I don't know how else to phrase this. You are weird and niche in that you like to play AAA games, and will become only weirder and nicher still. Console games will have their place, just like Grand Strategy does, but it's likely not going to be at this peak again because phones/tablets/laptops provide games "good enough" for a large majority and at a significantly reduced price point. There are people that will pay £40 for Uncharted 4, but there are many more people who will not.

 

btw I think today marked the first day a game has seen a simultaneous release on X360, PS3, PC, PSVita, Android and iOS so it's not too unlikely that BL3 would see a tablet release. Though I'll reaffirm that's not the point. But I wouldn't be surprised EA wouldn't be putting their flagship racing titles on phones if they weren't seeing a lot of people picking up stuff like Real Racing (which EA themselves picked up) on their phones.

[Mister Jack]

"He thinks Angry BIrds is going to replace Mario."

 

[CorgiShinobi]

Yeah, and my Nokia 3310 ran games too.

 

I "get" this prediction, but it's still a prediction. I agree with the other comments about how, well, there are cycles to the industry. Adding new devices that can run a game hasn't exactly proven they'll maintain a new-found dominance over an older device. Putting your games on other devices adds profit, not so much an adaptive strategy to "shift" to the dominant platform.

[deanb]

Your Nokia 3310 ran games like this

 

When consoles had this

 

Compared to now where a tablet games is like this:

 

Or this:

(And this one was a PITA to find cos I couldn't be sure it wasn't the console version screenshots I was picking up in my search)

edit: This one is by the way. It's yanked from the Unreal site, it's one of their featured mobile games.

 

Or this

 

Using a 3310 as a "well this is a phone and didn't win over gamers despite it's lack of games market, SDK, hardware, ability to even be compared with a console, etc etc" doesn't really work as a modern comparison.

[excel_excel]

And it's not just the title that's sensational. You get right into the center and we're reading...

 

The result: Years from now, 225 million devices will almost certainly be seen as the point at which the console business peaked. Gamers are going elsewhere for their fix. The console’s time at the top of the heap is drawing to an end, and these machines won’t survive without radical change.

 

or this beauty

 

Consoles used to do everything best, but those strengths are now being wiped away. Unlike PC games, which may require finicky custom settings, consoles “just work,” fans have long pointed out. Well, so does the iPad. Consoles are cheaper than PCs? Not when you factor in the growing disparity in game prices. Consoles have all the good content? Well, if you want Nintendo- or Sony-exclusive games, you’ll need to buy their hardware. But for many gamers, Angry Birds is becoming more attractive than Mario.

Angry Birds is becoming more attractive than Mario though. Mario can't boast the kind of figures Angry Birds can, even combining his 50+ games over 25+ years. And that for a lot of companies (and their investors) matters. Many people question why would they buy a $200 system and a $40 game when a $1/free game is providing them with just as much fun. T-Mobile didn't use Mario for their

did they? The main advantage Nintendos systems (and thus their games) is that you'd feel okay handing a kid a 3DS over an iPhone (he says as someone who regularly has kids playing Lego 4+ on his phone)

 

I'd argue the main advantage of Nintendo consoles is Nintendo games themselves, the franchises that you can only buy on them. Its clear even Nintendo themselves have moved away from 'the safe console for children' approach, espicially in their advertising. You don't ever see stuff like this in their ad campaigns anymore.

 

If Angry Birds is becoming the 'next Mario' and is replacing it surely we'd see Mario sales on consoles declining. New Super Mario Bros 2 for the 3DS topped 1.25 million sales in Japan. New Super Mario 3D Land managed over 5 million worldwide, same for Mario Kart 7 which is currently over 6 million worldwide. We should be seeing Angry Birds eating away at those sales, yet it doesn't appear to be happening.

T-mobile in Spain did that promotion with Angry Birds because you can play it on their phones, hell the stunt was 'controlled' by a T-mobile device. Using a T-mobile device to play a Mario themed stunt would have been a waste as you can't play it on their devices. I think in that instance, its not related to popularity and more with what makes sense to use to push you're products properly.

 

Of course though, Angry Birds is more popular than Mario right now, but what isn't Angry Birds more popular than?

[jayc4life]

Of course though, Angry Birds is more popular than Mario right now, but what isn't Angry Birds more popular than?

Call of Duty.

 

/thread

[excel_excel]

Of course though, Angry Birds is more popular than Mario right now, but what isn't Angry Birds more popular than?

Call of Duty.

 

/thread

 

Is it though? If we are going off those billion downloads then I think not!

[CorgiShinobi]

Using a 3310 as a "well this is a phone and didn't win over gamers despite it's lack of games market, SDK, hardware, ability to even be compared with a console, etc etc" doesn't really work as a modern comparison.

Just taking advantage of the "it runs games" argument.

 

There has to be more than just the capacity to run a game. You showed some impressive app games, but they're also a dime a dozen and sometimes get pushed aside in favor of more simplistic and less "polished" games. Infinity Balde was that "AAA"-esque mobile game that was suppose to prove mobiles as a gamer's device.

 

Wait, does anyone still remember Infinity Blade? Its three installments have grossed $23 million... BUT ANGRY BIRDS IS WHERE IT'S AT!

[Chewblaha]

Of course though, Angry Birds is more popular than Mario right now, but what isn't Angry Birds more popular than?

Call of Duty.

 

/thread

 

/thlead

[deanb]

Stuff

 

The thing with the Nintendo games being only available on the Nintendo consoles is it means it only applies to those who like the Nintendo games in the first place. And it's worth pointing out a fair chunk of their recent influx of players don't see Mario, they see Mii (their latest Mario game even has Mii's in it). Anyway, it's the same with all first party games and consoles, it's not really a thing exclusive to Nintendo. (Though as already mentioned investors would love if it wasn't the case).

 

And yeah, t-mobile example was stupid. I just remembered them being used for marketing stunt and grabbed it when it popped up as t-mobile one.

 

Wait which is it? It's not any more popular than Mario because Mario is a Nintendo power house, or it's more popular than anything?

 

dammit folks have wrote stuff. *edits stuff*

 

 

Call of Duty.

Exactly. Consoles become the sole home of COD. If you're not COD or COD-like then you can kindly fuck off. (Unless you're Minecraft in which case you can be a PC game then a mobile game, then be a console game and take CODs crown). MS have put Halo 4 as one of their most expensive games yet, and I'd wager most of the games released this month and into early next won't be cheap to make and develop. The non-AAA just can't cope with those kinds of figures consoles require and the small amount it gives back in return. But PC and tablet certainly provides a home for that; cheap to nothing for the "devkits" (where required) and a massive userbase to draw from and next to no external pressure from competing with the marketing the big AAA studios throw at a single game. And a long tail too, with PC and phone/tablet being almost wholly digital your product is kept constantly "in stock" so you're not even needing to focus all marketing efforts on making your game do well for just a couple weeks.

 

 

Just taking advantage of the "it runs games" argument.

 

There has to be more than just the capacity to run a game. You showed some impressive app games, but they're also a dime a dozen and sometimes get pushed aside in favor of more simplistic and less "polished" games. Infinity Balde was that "AAA"-esque mobile game that was suppose to prove mobiles as a gamer's device.

 

Wait, does anyone still remember Infinity Blade? Its three installments have grossed $23 million... BUT ANGRY BIRDS IS WHERE IT'S AT!

So you were being silly/pedantic? You know full well the discussion is about modern phones, tablets and PCs. Though you did at least provide an instance to show a stark juxtaposition between the kind of products on offer in previous generations and thus why they can't be used to wholly base the future on.

 

I don't think you meant to call those apps a dime a dozen, unless one of us doesn't know how to use that phrase. Surely you mean the cheap simple games are a dime a dozen. The games like Horn and such aren't exactly common (though getting more common as time goes on). And I'm not aiming to even show these as "gamers games". As I've said several times now, consoles are there and will continue to be there as a "core gamers" platform.

 

btw Infinity Blade is currently only at 2 games, and the first game grossed $23million, the second game has no sales figures listed (and iTunes unhelpfully doesn't list any on the app either).

[excel_excel]

Stuff

 

The thing with the Nintendo games being only available on the Nintendo consoles is it means it only applies to those who like the Nintendo games in the first place. And it's worth pointing out a fair chunk of their recent influx of players don't see Mario, they see Mii (their latest Mario game even has Mii's in it). Anyway, it's the same with all first party games and consoles, it's not really a thing exclusive to Nintendo. (Though as already mentioned investors would love if it wasn't the case).

 

And yeah, t-mobile example was stupid. I just remembered them being used for marketing stunt and grabbed it when it popped up as t-mobile one.

 

Wait which is it? It's not any more popular than Mario because Mario is a Nintendo power house, or it's more popular than anything?

 

 

Its more popular than Mario, but that popularity hasn't effected Mario game sales. Mario games haven't all of a sudden with this massive billion downloads of Angry Birds been actually affected sales wise.

 

I don't see Miis being a factor of sales at Mario games at all. There's no Miis in Mario 3D Land, there's no Miis in New Super Mario Bros 3DS, even Mario Bros Wii U which features Miis isn't even a factor in their advertising for the game. There's not even one mention of Miis in this September trailer for Mario Bros Wii U.

[deanb]

Excel have you followed this thread from the start, including the kinda prerequisite article right at the top? It's not "Mario has drop dead", and no one expects Mario to be offset to negative billion sales. That's just stupid. The point however was that Angry Birds is proving to be a much wider phenomenon, aided by it's high availability, wide range of platforms, and low price. The only way you're going to buy Mario is if you go out of your way to pick up a Nintendo console. And 5million is still waaaayy less than 1billion.

[jayc4life]

The thing is though, how profitable and popular are game franchises that are exclusively on mobile and tablet platforms, either as franchises that stand on their own, or extensions of existing console/PC franchises that offer up unique experiences? Probably not many. Angry Birds would be the obvious answer to the first one, and perhaps Real Racing, Temple Run (and its many reskinned iterations), or Infinity Blade would get honourable mentions, but take those out of the equation and what have you? Not many games that give you a true AAA-esque experience while being totally comfortable with the fact that it isn't on a console. Need For Speed Most Wanted seems like it's getting good reaction on handhelds and phones atm, and Borderlands Legends looks pretty good so far, so there's clearly a market for this stuff, but in no way does that detract from consoles at all. Both can co-exist, and perhaps be better off for it.

 

The game console is far from dead yet, but if it does die, it won't be tablets that land the fatal blow.

 

On that note, I just had a thought that aside from it being about 13GB or so, an iPad or Windows Surface or equivalent should be perfectly capable of running XCOM with Unreal Engine 3. 2K needs to make this happen yesterday. Strip cutscenes and just give me straight-up boardgame mechanics. I'd buy five.

[TheMightyEthan]

Of course phone/tablet will never compete in the AAA category (or at least not any time soon). That's not the point. The point is that many of the more casual gamers who jumped on console this gen are never going to buy another console again because they can get their casual fix from their phone/tablet. AAA gamers will stick with consoles and PC, but as dean said AAA is fairly niche. It's just a niche that buys a LOT.

[excel_excel]

Excel have you followed this thread from the start, including the kinda prerequisite article right at the top? It's not "Mario has drop dead", and no one expects Mario to be offset to negative billion sales. That's just stupid. The point however was that Angry Birds is proving to be a much wider phenomenon, aided by it's high availability, wide range of platforms, and low price. The only way you're going to buy Mario is if you go out of your way to pick up a Nintendo console. And 5million is still waaaayy less than 1billion.

 

I have followed it from the start. I was just saying how this massive phenomenon of Angry Birds seemingly isn't really effecting Mario sales and these comparisons that's its the new Mario are a bit silly. Angry Birds is its own thing completely, its hard to even say its even comparable to any gaming franchise ever its so past anything in terms of popularity, and popularity this quickly.

Of course 5 million is way less than 1 billion, I'm well aware of that, but that's 5 million at a regular retail price that actually stays at its high price unlike other titles which have their price lowered after a few weeks. Its still impressive considering its on a dying platform according to this article. And the 3DS is less of a multimedia device than pretty much anything available right now. Bah right.... maybe I've gone off the rails here.

 

Anyway, do Nintendo titles count as AAA games? Totally get the argument that AAA are a massive selling niche at this point, but do they fall under that banner? I was thinking about AAA titles and how they are massively produced titles with massive ad campaigns and all that, but I guess something like New Super Mario Bros Wii U wouldn't really count as something that's had a massive production.

[CorgiShinobi]

So you were being silly/pedantic? You know full well the discussion is about modern phones, tablets and PCs. Though you did at least provide an instance to show a stark juxtaposition between the kind of products on offer in previous generations and thus why they can't be used to wholly base the future on.

 

I don't think you meant to call those apps a dime a dozen, unless one of us doesn't know how to use that phrase. Surely you mean the cheap simple games are a dime a dozen. The games like Horn and such aren't exactly common (though getting more common as time goes on). And I'm not aiming to even show these as "gamers games". As I've said several times now, consoles are there and will continue to be there as a "core gamers" platform.

 

btw Infinity Blade is currently only at 2 games, and the first game grossed $23million, the second game has no sales figures listed (and iTunes unhelpfully doesn't list any on the app either).

Yes, being silly because "can run games" was pretty broad. We even have LeapFrog devices that "can run games," albeit with an educational focus.

 

My syntax was off as I was referring to how app games are a dime a dozen. You have a million and such app games out there that you'd have to say the more intricate and polished games are living in a pile of shovelware where only the more commonly popular games get to bask in the sunlight. Those tend to be good games too, but what do we really know about the purchasing habits of app games and their respective devices? Maybe another factor into why Angry Birds is still a success is because, as a whole, tablet/mobile "gamers" really only require a few games on the device.

 

And yeah, there are only two Infinity Blade games actually, but where I was confused was Infinity Blade: Awakening which is a book, or "novella."