390°

The State of the Games Industry: 'Consoles Are In Trouble'

IndustryGamers: The Games Summit track of panels at CES contained some interesting topics and revealed some new insights. The panel on the State of the Games Industry was moderated by Mike Vorhaus, the president of Magid Advisors, strategic consulting firm. Panelists included Sean Vanderdasson, Senior Vice President of Game Services at games network Wild Tangent; Sean Spector, Co-Founder and Senior VP of Business Development and Content at game rental specialist (and owners of Direct2Drive) GameFly; Gene Hoffman, CEO of Vindicia, a provider of billing solutions for digital merchants; Nanea Reeves, Chief Product Officer at cloud gaming provider Gaikai; and Chris Early, Vice President of Digital Publishing at Ubisoft. The discussion lead off with some statistics on the industry to provide some background to the opinions the panel would present.

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industrygamers.com
metsgaming4524d ago (Edited 4524d ago )

DOOOOOOMMMMMMMM

Enough of this doom garbage really

thorstein4523d ago (Edited 4523d ago )

Meh. It is just "Industry"Gamers trolling for hits/ trying to make themselves relevant. These guys don't know journalism or the industry.

sikbeta4523d ago (Edited 4523d ago )

Sales were down 21% in 2011, the idea is to grow, they gaming biz jurnos are reporting a fact, now you can discuss WHY? recession could be the answer

ATi_Elite4524d ago

......and gloom!

WoW times sure have changed! A doom and Gloom article that isn't talking about PC Gaming!

The Video Game Industry is a multi-billion dollar market, there's enough cash for everyone.

thorstein4523d ago

I can only give you one bubble and it was for intelligent. But well said!

Between these console doom and gloom, handheld doom and gloom and PC doom and gloom, you'd think that the entire video games industry (which is in the 10s of BILLIONS of dollars) was dying.

ROFLcopters.

Anon19744524d ago

Ok, did no one read the article? These guys are 100% correct. We have no idea what console gaming is going to look like past this gen. Hell, even Microsoft was saying a couple of years ago - Don't expect the next Xbox to be like a traditional console. It may be more like an inexpensive, digital distribution hub. That was Shane Kim, while he was still the head of the Xbox, not that long ago.

No one is saying games are going away. I don't see how anyone who actually read the article could possibly think that's what they're implying. But past this gen, why couldn't games be built into our TV's as part of a subscription service. We could subscribe to game networks like we do movie channels. Distribution costs are eliminated, piracy is eliminated, expensive console development cycles become a thing of the past and revenue for the game companies becomes more stable because it's subscription based. Just like you watch the channels that have the hottest TV shows, you'd subscribe to the networks that have the games that interested you.

It's only a matter of time.

Tyre4524d ago

You see that's were ur r right, Nobody knows, period. Only Sony Nintendo and Microsoft know. So these guys are talking out of there *$$es. One think we DO know is that Sony have said that the PS4 will be disc based and that views of nextgen as Digital Online Only are too extreme and impossible. Consoles are far from being into trouble, hell this gen has seen an Increase of Console use compared to the previous gen. BS article.

DeadIIIRed4524d ago

Mass digital distribution won't be feasible for another decade or even two. The state of the American internet infrastructure just would not be able to handle the extra load.

HardCover4523d ago

"So these guys are talking out of there *$$es."

OH HEY! Sounds just like the comments on most of these sorts of articles where people read the title, skim the introduction, then use the comments section to express their opinions about whatever they feel like.

JaredH4524d ago

2012 has everyone so paranoid.

SilentNegotiator4524d ago (Edited 4524d ago )

Let's have a look:

*GameFly's biggest competition is the other cheap solution...pre-owned. And you actually get to OWN those games. And they "PREDICT" that Gamestop will close a bunch of stores. Shocker.

*Gene Hoffman "a provider of billing solutions for digital merchants" also "PREDICTS" that physical delivery will "be challenged very hard" because he gets his money from digital delivery.

*Nanea Reeves, Chief Product Officer at cloud gaming provider Gaikai, "PREDICTS" that the big three are going to start opting out of consoles (in their sudden dislike for money?).

.......This could not be anymore masturbatory and ridiculous. A bunch of people from businesses pretending to be knowledgeable about things turning out PERFECTLY for THEM.

Pintheshadows4524d ago

.......This could not be anymore masturbatory!? Do you mean inflammatory?

SilentNegotiator4524d ago

Nope, I meant masturbatory. As in self-serving and only to benefit one's self. I don't know if the word is used that way in every English speaking region, but I've heard it used (in a nonsexual manner) lots of times.

jspencep4523d ago

You are exactly right about these "analysts." Its so obvious that they are predicting themselves rich! I laughed out loud when the guy from GameFly predicted the demise of GameStop.
This is a pointless article.

dedicatedtogamers4523d ago

Lemme ask you guys something: would you consider the last generation a success? I'm talking about the PS2/Xbox/GCN generation. I think any honest person would admit that last generation was a big-time success.

Since clearly these folks are talking about sales, let's look at sales (rough numbers):

PS2 - 140 million
Xbox - 25 million
GCN - 20 million

So, roughly 185 million hardware units moved. Pretty dang good, huh!

But what about this generation? 360/PS3/Wii numbers (again, rough estimates).

Wii - 90 million and still selling
360 - 60 million and still selling
PS3 - 55 million and still selling

So, this generation, 205 million hardware units have sold and this generation isn't even over yet. Perhaps my maths aren't so good, but last time I checked, 205 million is a significantly higher number than 185 million. "Consoles are in trouble"? Right...

tee_bag2424523d ago (Edited 4523d ago )

What you've said is pretty much spot on. The console and gaming industry is the biggest its ever been in history!
These guys should know better but i'm not surprised from looking at their credentials - pure speculators at best, they have very little to do with the larger core of the video game industry and have absolutely zero influence with any direction its going to take in the future.

"Mike Vorhaus, Magid Advisors: “I think Nintendo will be the one to do what you are suggesting [opt out of the next gen]"

Umm Wii U already announced (not to mention Nintendo made a killing of profit this gen - as have the other platforms).
IMHO they need to get their heads out of their a@s

_Aarix_4523d ago

But I like doom, its a fun game.

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 4523d ago
Slade4524d ago

digital jerkoffs that are so insecure there share of the pie is only 15 percent..........

they would love to see consoles go down. It isnt happening

At least they were smart enough and not bias enough not to say physical games were going away

frelyler4524d ago

M$ billion dollar profits say hello dumbass.

Soldierone4524d ago

Didn't Microsoft just report 6.7 billion in sales from Xbox alone? really seems like doom to me.

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130°

What Happens to Your Steam Account When You Die?

The Outerhaven writes: While Steam has come out recently, stating that Steam accounts can't be transferred, we need to think about it since we all will eventually kick the bucket. But if Valve is denying transferring accounts, what can be done? Plenty, actually.

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theouterhaven.net
thorstein3d ago

It goes to my kids because I gave them the passwords.

To Steam: Missio has a song that conveys my feelings about you stealing my purchase after I die. It's called "Middle Fingers"

shinoff21832d ago

Pretty much. My son knows my info.

Abear212d ago

Yeah worrying about digital ownership when you’re on the other side of the grass seems a little strange, but also on brand for these millennial journalists to worry about.

qalpha2d ago

I'm sure Keith will be happy to hear he's a millennial journalist.

Goodguy013d ago

I suppose if I have kids, I'd just give em my account details by retirement age. If I die young then...idk lol.

CrimsonWing692d ago

Yea, I mean just give someone the password to your account. Is that difficult to do or something? Like, I’m legit asking because I don’t know.

anast2d ago (Edited 2d ago )

It's not difficult but It's against the policy. If they find out, they will lock the account permanently.

CrimsonWing692d ago

Ah ok, I had a feeling there was something like that. It seems kind of weird that you can’t just hand your account over to a family member or friend and let them take over the account.

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220°

Ghost of Tsushima PC has 84% positive reviews and a peak online audience of 72 thousand people

On 16 May, the long-awaited release of the PC version of Ghost of Tsushima took place. And the game proved to be a great success on the first day.

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gagadget.com
PrinceOfAnger15d ago

69,477
all-time peak 3 minutes ago.

thorstein15d ago

Nice. It's really cool that PC players get to play this masterpiece.

PrinceOfAnger15d ago

It has surpassed spider man now
it's 71k+
game did this with way shorter time than spider man.

itsmebryan14d ago (Edited 14d ago )

@prince
I'm confused. Does that number mean total players at one time playing like a snapshot
or total sales? If it's the former that's not very accurate because I know I'm not the only person that buys games and plays them later and that number is not included.

RNTody15d ago

Great, I loved this game. Definitely think it's Sucker Punch's best work to date!

rippermcrip15d ago

Is this going to be the new thing thing? Articles about Steam reviews? Which of course was in response to the false article about the review bombings in the first place.

Christopher15d ago

Hey, just a heads up that the new owners did open news to Steam updates, but we try our best to not allow them to go on daily updates unless relevant to some other news. I understand this isn't everyone's cup and tea and sympathize, but the door has been open. If you feel it's 'too much' please do PM me or submit a ticket to the mod team. Thank you.

15d ago
shinoff218315d ago

I came here to post this link in that specific article. 84 perce t is pretty good. How many bad reviews were there like 5

GamerzElite15d ago

This is good game and Ghost eliminate all fake outrage.

CrimsonWing6915d ago (Edited 15d ago )

I always get confused by this, but is 72k good sales numbers for a game? I keep seeing games fail at selling 2.5 million and that they need to be on multiple platforms but is an additional 72k adding much?

Fishy Fingers15d ago

Im not sure how its confusing :\

72k actively playing. Not 72k sold.

A good example is Helldivers 2, 6m sold, 450k (at its peak) active players.

But how many swords swung is what we're all really waiting for.

shinoff218315d ago

Lmao. How many swords swung. I was hoping for how many steps

wesnytsfs14d ago

And its how many years old from initial release.

Crows9015d ago

72k is concurrent
...that is not the sold figure.

Michiel198915d ago

for one they already had a huge launch on the playstation, they don't need to sell 5m to make the porting to pc profitable and as pointed out below that number you see is just the people playing it at this moment.

Plague-Doctor2715d ago (Edited 15d ago )

Also from the insomniac leak we know these PC ports are a quick turnaround and budgeted around $2-4 million. At 100k sales they break even including Steams cut. They may not sell millions but they are a great ROI

elazz15d ago (Edited 15d ago )

72k concurrent. That is a global number. People who bought the game are not playing at the same time because of timezones, working schedules, holidays, events... There is no good rule of thumb but you can extrapolate based on other games that also released sales data. Then it is clear that the PC release alone accounts for at least 500K copies sold on steam, maybe closer to 700-800K. Probably will sell over a million this extended weekend.

According to steamspy and other data gathering sites games like Days Gone, Spider Man, God Of War, Horizon Zero Dawn have sold 2 to 5 million copies on Steam. So I expect Ghost to reach similar numbers. Probably even surpass it.

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60°

VR MOBA 'Mecha Party' Is Now Available On Steam & PSVR 2

Mecha Party brings the VR MOBA to Europe and Asia on PSVR 2 and Steam, while the Quest 3 version targets a summer release.

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uploadvr.com
Babadook714d ago

This looks pretty good. RIGZ made me queasy but I've got better VR legs now (I think).