Could console gaming ever become a one-horse race?

[Skykid]

Ed raised such an interesting point I thought it was worthy of a thread.

Today's consoles really are just PC's in boxes with limited functionality and a tailored OS. Last gen there was little to really differentiate PS3 and 360 apart from a few architectural decisions in the Xbox that made programmer's jobs slightly easier. Graphical output varied marginally, and both consoles sucked at backward compatibility.
I'd wager Xbox Live was the real clincher that divided Sony and MS so neatly in sales.

The only real innovator last gen was Nintendo, because they used their DS/3DS/Wii to offer a markedly different experience to the more FPS centric battling going on in the other quarter, who simply built on the Xboxes and PS2's/PS1's of the generations prior. But now the family oriented market appears to have lost interest in the whole casual thing, probably because they all have ipads.

Putting handhelds entirely aside (since that market offers a very different type of gaming benefit - portability), we're left with Xbone and PS4.

If Xbone were to suffer all the failings it deserves and Sony were to actually offer an online service to rival XBL, is it conceivable that we could finally end up in a one-console race for the first time ever?

What would really differentiate them? Control pad? I don't really think that's enough. Is it possible for MS to shoot themselves so hard in the foot that they crash out of the game, leaving PS4 on its lonesome, or is that an unimaginable scenario? And where the heck would it leave multiformat journalism!

Discuss!

[DJ Incompetent]

No.
Ya can't combine the throwaway culture with 8 year console cycles, complete with system updates that can radically change how things go.

The impatient will nab the competing products eventually.

[Skykid]

No.
Ya can't combine the throwaway culture with 8 year console cycles, complete with system updates that can radically change how things go.

The impatient will nab the competing products eventually.

I hear you, but change is possible at any point. Unless Nintendo perform a miracle or ditch the Wii U (more likely, given their track record) I can't see them getting back in the game. MS? We'll see, but it's as possible that they'll bomb hard as they'll have miraculous success at this stage. It's a pretty wobbly situation.

I suppose you could rephrase the idea as "does competition matter?" Why does a developer need to support or make multi-format titles when they can get it all done on one. We know from Sega's swan song that developer support can ditch you damn quick if you're not delivering on userbase.

I suppose Xbone could always rely on a Treasure title.

[louisg]

Wasn't this the NES era and, to a lesser extent, the PS1 era? One competitor dominated the market by leaps and bounds. I don't think we'll have a situation where the XBox One and Wii-U are pulled from shelves. If they don't do well, they'll probably simmer in the background for the next few years kinda like the Sega Master System did.

I was under the impression that the PS3 and XBox 360 differed fairly radically in design, to the point that people had trouble porting to the PS3... can't recall specifics at the moment though.

[trap15]

NES did have relatively significant competition (albeit quite small in the US; in other regions it varied from 'small' to 'bigger than NES' [see South America and the Master System]).

PS1 had some fairly notable competition (though it's not questionable who was more successful) from N64 in the US, and the Saturn was quite popular in Japan.

This is the first time I can think of where one company seems like it'll end up completely dominating in every region for the entire generation.

[louisg]

NES did have relatively significant competition (albeit quite small in the US; in other regions it varied from 'small' to 'bigger than NES' [see South America and the Master System]).

PS1 had some fairly notable competition (though it's not questionable who was more successful) from N64 in the US, and the Saturn was quite popular in Japan.

This is the first time I can think of where one company seems like it'll end up completely dominating in every region for the entire generation.

I guess from the US perspective the NES totally controlled that generation. Not to mention that Sega was very nearly the only entity making games for the SMS!

But I guess for every region and in terms of sales, that would be unprecedented, yeah.

[cools]

[Ed Oscuro]

Well, I'll just offer another random thought that hopefully has some relation to the topic: The state of the GPU business within the last 10 years has mainly had nVidia or ATI on top, but for a period one company or another didn't seem to be pushing the other on price or performance. Recently this seems to have improved, but now we're looking at the launch of a Titan-derived GTX 780, which is an expensive card ($650 or so and on up) by most any measure, but not considering what it's based on. ATI is lagging far behind that offering at the moment, but even at the top it seems that having strong competition has pushed both companies. There's not only been big improvements in performance and price, but also some noteworthy improvements in noise, temperature, energy use, and bundled-along features for taking on other computational tasks.

It's hard to imagine the nVidia of 2006, faulty GPU engineering and PhysX-abusing company that it was, really working so hard to gain this position, without the pressure from AMD. I've been happy for the past few years with an ATI-based card - and you can see that AMD, despite a rather long history now of relatively underperforming X86 CPU performance, was better positioned than Intel and nVidia, or some combination of those companies, to provide a single-chip core component suitable for the upcoming first-tier consoles. It's hard to imagine that AMD would have gotten to this position without pressure from either company - especially, in the case of Intel, to find some niche where its designs would serve the market well.

I think the main lesson here is not that something would differentiate consoles - but that there would cease to be a viable competition, and therefore no more differentiating factors. While it seemed that Intel has been sailing smoothly since the release of the Core 2 Duo, it's important to remember that AMD has still had its fans, who divide the numbers to get a price to performance ratio and, finding a part they like, buy it. Even though I think this is sometimes a silly exercise - why buy last-gen hardware for a savings of a few dozen dollars or so? - they have been exerting pressure on Intel right along, and even if the top performance isn't quite there, the products are essentially interchangeable and so the orders still will arrive.

The worry is that Microsoft has ceded so very much territory to Sony on pretty much every front that it's easy to imagine a scenario where they won't just drop back to a second tier, but they will cease to be relevant. When you consider the $100 tax for the privilege of becoming one of the DRM-locked few, and all the rumors about CPU-related yield issues for their system, you can't really say that there's a lot of room for Microsoft to fluidly reposition their console to acknowledge consumer pressures.

This leaves me feeling torn. What is better - leave Sony (and "third party candidate" Nintendo) the heir to modern gaming, with Microsoft bowing out entirely, or to have Microsoft taking its lumps and repositioning its console to be cheaper after a while, but staying firm on their DRM-related policies? (There are other possibilities, but I think these are the two more likely ones.) I don't know. I do know that it's probably premature to bet on any quick PS4 price drops - the lack of stiff competition has already seemingly hampered issues.

A final thought - it's interesting to remember how the PS3 was considered the more powerful of the two consoles, but I struggle to think of any situation where this would seemingly matter to anyone. The consoles have seemingly had exclusives, not a performance gap. (And trailing off this final thought - I hope the newly-implemented old architecture means improved latency for both systems, but especially for the PS3.)

[Ed Oscuro]

NES did have relatively significant competition (albeit quite small in the US; in other regions it varied from 'small' to 'bigger than NES' [see South America and the Master System]).

I really would push back against that characterization. Less than a dozen million SMSes compared to over 60 million NES/Famicom units. The ratio is on par with that between the SMS and the Atari 7800 (under 4 million units).

I would say that generation wasn't terribly hampered by the NES staying on top so long - this ultimately provided consumers with quite good choice over the years, although the system was extremely dated quite quickly. And, of course, the market was rebounding from a crash.

I don't know whether one could really say it would be a good idea to have generations quite as long as the NES, but that depends really. We haven't seen what this generation can do yet - it's a given it'll look much nicer than the current one, which isn't really that bad to begin with. One could easily blame the privileged, wealthy PC gamer perspective for saying that one shouldn't tolerate old hardware and outdated-looking games; after all, many very good games that have stood the test of time were produced for the old consoles with relatively long shelf lives.

[O. Van Bruce]

stuff

Damm it Ed, that was "just another random thought"?

[broken harbour]

The last few generations have kind of been a one horse race...in terms of consoles sold. The PS1, and especially the PS2 era's were totally owned by Sony.

Even tho Microsoft is full of confidence and hubris now.... if their console bombs like a Wii-U, I can see them changing their tune quickly. They could do away with all the DRM and other stupid online only nonsense with some system updates and server changes.

Some developers are probably already pushing MS to do this, if not, to their own detriment.

Think of how disastrous the PS3 launch was, it was too expensive, came out a year after Xbox360, had barely any games until 2009.... but they saved it eventually, I think it even outsold the Xbox360 and had a higher attach rate. (I'd have to check some sales figures)

[Marc]

I don't think so. In an ideal world, XB0 (why Xbone, did I miss something?) would fail, badly. PS4 would be my 'new' console, and a Wii U would be my console for the kids. Sadly, even a quick chat to some of the more casual gamers I know tells me that they don't know, don't car, and have no comprehension of what MS are trying to force through here. I think we're in for an interesting free-for-all, obviously the publishers would love to go for the XB0 and ignore PS4, gamers are screaming that XB0 is a bunch of shit and that they'll vote with their wallets... yet I'm not convinced. I hope the PS4 pulls ahead, but if the crowds take after XB0 then publishers will simply freeze PS4 out.

[louisg]

I don't think so. In an ideal world, XB0 (why Xbone, did I miss something?) would fail, badly. PS4 would be my 'new' console, and a Wii U would be my console for the kids. Sadly, even a quick chat to some of the more casual gamers I know tells me that they don't know, don't car, and have no comprehension of what MS are trying to force through here. I think we're in for an interesting free-for-all, obviously the publishers would love to go for the XB0 and ignore PS4, gamers are screaming that XB0 is a bunch of shit and that they'll vote with their wallets... yet I'm not convinced. I hope the PS4 pulls ahead, but if the crowds take after XB0 then publishers will simply freeze PS4 out.

With the new consoles as expensive as they are, I wonder how many of the more casual gamers are going to be adopting them in the first year or so. Plus PS4 is $100 cheaper, and that's done wonders in the past, assuming the quality is comparable.

But I wouldn't say this is shaping up to be any more of a one-console generation than any of the other gens I mentioned. I'm sure with the kind of marketing muscle MS has that something will work, even if they end up relegated to the back of GameStop (worst case scenario I assume, unless it's a bomb where they sell like 10 of them ). But, as I think Ed or someone above pointed out, if PS3 can recover from the whole $599 debacle, anything is possible here. Maybe in a year the XBox One drops price, maybe ripping out features in order to make it cheaper. Who knows. I'm still not entirely counting Nintendo out, though it does look pretty grim for their Wii-U.

Keep in mind too that nothing is out yet. I'm just sad that the era of the $300-or-less console is over! I wonder what that'll do to sales, given that we're not totally done with this economic downturn.

[Ganelon]

I addressed a similar topic here a few months ago. Consoles live and die by the games that people are willing to buy a console for, not by what's in the system (except for costs). Otherwise, the NES would have died early to the SMS. Even if you disagree with this mentality, you should understand that this is the standard business view towards gaming.

If overall multi-homing costs (monetary and psychological) are viewed as sufficiently low (e.g. I would buy a $500 system just for one interesting fighting game; Joe Shmoe will buy a $500 system if there are fun games he finds very fun available on that system), then people will buy that console. I do think the Xbox One can survive in some shape just off fans of Halo, Forza, and other exclusive Microsoft series. I don't see the system faring well though. If worse comes to worst, Microsoft should have a patch (and foreplanned contract leeway) to eliminate some of the more onerous Xbone policies.

For that same reason, I wouldn't count Nintendo yet. Do JP gamers even care about the vast majority of games that have been announced? This sort of stuff generally isn't what tops the weekly charts in Japan but what Nintendo announced today is.

I can't see the Xbox One being very competitive as-is though. There will be too much bad word-of-mouth spread, and Microsoft already showed with the original Xbox that while it's willing to lose money on consoles, it won't do anything too financially inviable. And yes, early adopters tend to be bigger fans or at least more up-to-date on gaming news, where every online poll I've seen has indicated over 4 times more PS4 supporters than Xbone supporters. As information moves across social networks, more casual gamers will be aware of the Xbone's limitations. However, you can never entirely discount a console maker that's been successful in publishing games.

[louisg]

I addressed a similar topic here a few months ago. Consoles live and die by the games that people are willing to buy a console for, not by what's in the system (except for costs). Otherwise, the NES would have died early to the SMS. Even if you disagree with this mentality, you should understand that this is the standard business view towards gaming.

I'm not sure that's really true. The SMS did a lot wrong, including being severely mismarketed in the US. And there have definitely been systems in the past with a strong, solid library that lost to newer systems with a fraction of the titles: instances of gamers buying a system then waiting for games. Price seems to count for a lot, and I think that's one of the reasons the Saturn got trounced by the original Playstation, aside from Sega rushing out sub-par launch games. There's also the momentum of a brand to consider, but I don't think either MS or Sony have an edge over each other as far as that goes at this point-- nothing like Sony post-PSX or Nintendo after the original NES.

[Skykid]

I think you guys are slightly fudging historical facts and missing the idea of an actual one-horse race: as in, all the competition is so failed that it's almost non-existent. Think Dreamcast.

There was plenty of successful competition in the NES era, if we look at it from a global scale. It was no longer the only presence in the market when the SMS broke, which may have flopped in the US completely and not fared much better in Japan, but brought Sega plenty of revenue in Europe, where it was popular for many years in a large market, continuing to sell even after the advent of the Mega Drive. In Japan NEC stole plenty of the Fami's thunder with the PCE.

SFC and MD was hardly all one-sided. Again MD was hugely successful in Europe and did better in the US, with a good head start on the SFC.

Why talk about N64 like it bombed hard against the PSX? It wasn't market leader but 33 Million Units sold? Keep in mind the PS3 has only moved 70 Million units this generation for some perspective on things (the market is much larger than it was in the PSX era, customer base inflation.)

The only gen I can think of that was really approaching a one-horse race was the PS2/GC/Dreamcast era. The PS2 sold 150 million units, far outstripping the Gamecube and Xbox's 20 million and the Dreamcast's calamitous lifespan.

So yeah, when I say one-horse race, I'm meaning is it possible to really only have one primary console source for consumers. All PS4 and no competition so to speak. I don't think that's ever *really* happened to date.

[louisg]

So yeah, when I say one-horse race, I'm meaning is it possible to really only have one primary console source for consumers. All PS4 and no competition so to speak. I don't think that's ever *really* happened to date.

I guess that's why I can't see it being very likely, especially with a company with as much cash to throw around as Microsoft with all of this at stake. Though I could see something happening like MS not bothering to do a new machine the generation after this one.

[Ganelon]

I'm not sure that's really true. The SMS did a lot wrong, including being severely mismarketed in the US. And there have definitely been systems in the past with a strong, solid library that lost to newer systems with a fraction of the titles: instances of gamers buying a system then waiting for games. Price seems to count for a lot, and I think that's one of the reasons the Saturn got trounced by the original Playstation, aside from Sega rushing out sub-par launch games. There's also the momentum of a brand to consider, but I don't think either MS or Sony have an edge over each other as far as that goes at this point-- nothing like Sony post-PSX or Nintendo after the original NES.

It sounds like you're misunderstanding multi-homing costs—or didn't realize my second paragraph elaborated on the first—because I'm not seeing any major disagreement. Remember that these costs are based on both psychological and monetary factors. I wish I could take credit for the idea but I was told by a reliable source that it's a traditional business analysis concept for new video game consoles.

Marketing affects consumers' perception of games and is therefore certainly a psychological factor of multi-homing costs. A solid library is in the eye of the beholder and—if it's not enough to entice a consumer to buy a system for—suggests the games aren't appealing enough to the average consumer. Even in the uncommon instances when consumers buy a console before games, they go in with the expectation that certain games will soon be available to their liking; almost nobody buys a console just to have the console (at least not yet...). Price is certainly a key factor and, like I mentioned, is a direct monetary cost. Brand momentum hasn't been a factor yet: PS1 succeeded from nothing and 360 did well from a heavily disadvantageous position while Virtual Boy, 32X, and early PS3 were all created in the heydays of each manufacturer's success and showed that if the software isn't sufficiently attractive, then the system won't succeed.

[louisg]

I'm not sure that's really true. The SMS did a lot wrong, including being severely mismarketed in the US. And there have definitely been systems in the past with a strong, solid library that lost to newer systems with a fraction of the titles: instances of gamers buying a system then waiting for games. Price seems to count for a lot, and I think that's one of the reasons the Saturn got trounced by the original Playstation, aside from Sega rushing out sub-par launch games. There's also the momentum of a brand to consider, but I don't think either MS or Sony have an edge over each other as far as that goes at this point-- nothing like Sony post-PSX or Nintendo after the original NES.

It sounds like you're misunderstanding multi-homing costs—or didn't realize my second paragraph elaborated on the first—because I'm not seeing any major disagreement. Remember that these costs are based on both psychological and monetary factors. I wish I could take credit for the idea but I was told by a reliable source that it's a traditional business analysis concept for new video game consoles.

Marketing affects consumers' perception of games and is therefore certainly a psychological factor of multi-homing costs. A solid library is in the eye of the beholder and—if it's not enough to entice a consumer to buy a system for—suggests the games aren't appealing enough to the average consumer. Even in the uncommon instances when consumers buy a console before games, they go in with the expectation that certain games will soon be available to their liking; almost nobody buys a console just to have the console (at least not yet...). Price is certainly a key factor and, like I mentioned, is a direct monetary cost. Brand momentum hasn't been a factor yet: PS1 succeeded from nothing and 360 did well from a heavily disadvantageous position while Virtual Boy, 32X, and early PS3 were all created in the heydays of each manufacturer's success and showed that if the software isn't sufficiently attractive, then the system won't succeed.

Was the 360's position heavily disadvantageous? Maybe in Japan... Halo was enormous-- the XBox didn't make a huge dent last generation, but it certainly was coming up, and did better than PS2 in some subsets of the gaming population. It did better than, say, the GameCube. So, Nintendo succeeding with the Wii was much more of a surprise than the 360 succeeding. And I seem to remember a lot of pretty blind loyalty surrounding the PS2 because the PS1 was such a hit, which really made that system take off, game library or steep system cost be damned. 32X and Virtual Boy were both just terrible ideas and everyone knew neither were the successors people expected, and then the PS3 was too expensive and sold as an it-can-do-everything-media-center unit, which always confuses consumers.

Anyway...

[Ed Oscuro]

I think you guys are slightly fudging historical facts and missing the idea of an actual one-horse race: as in, all the competition is so failed that it's almost non-existent. Think Dreamcast.

The Dreamcast was actually outsold by the GameCube and Xbox by only about a two-to-one margin, and not much more. Considering how long it was on the market it didn't do too badly! It's the PS2 that sold over 15 times more than the Dreamcast, and pulled far ahead of all the competition (but after many years more availability than the Dreamcast and even the other systems). It did better than the SMS in comparison to Nintendo's console, but far worse in comparison to Sony's. Of course, in absolute numbers, the Dreamcast still did slightly worse than the SMS, selling slightly fewer units.

So one could say that, despite the size of the video game market being much larger, the market grew most for only one player. But if you add together all the "also-ran" consoles, you've still got nearly as many consoles being sold as were during the NES era, so you could say that market was still holding steady, in terms of consoles sold only. Of course this says nothing about revenues - many of these consoles were sold at a loss, which wasn't true in the NES era - or about games sold to owners of each system.

Personally it makes me rather queasy to think the PS2 really did so much better than the other consoles, but there you go.

[Skykid]

Personally it makes me rather queasy to think the PS2 really did so much better than the other consoles, but there you go.

I can understand that. Certainly not my favourite console of all time, although I enjoyed some stuff on it. Resolution so shitty though, and mountains of garbage software that has somehow shaped the industry we have today.

[BryanM]

Man, the PSX2 was a nice console. I got it for Dragon Quest and uh, as a DVD player mainly. (It came out pretty close to the video paradigm shift, something they clearly hoped would be a factor with PSX3 but didn't. It's hilarious how Microsoft pushed the wrong pony (HD DVD) even then, though.) Its library is irresponsibly diverse - competition for GOAT console.

.... and then it took like five years for Dragon Quest to come out.

(why Xbone, did I miss something?)

X
Box
One

Xbone - two syllables. Unique. Easy to say. Everyone knows what you're talking about.

Bone - To have intercourse with/Screw over.

Boner - A wiener.

There can be no other term that more effectively and efficiently describes this product on a physical or emotional level than what we have now. It is literally more memorable and a better name for the product than the real name they gave it themselves - which is never a good sign. Marketing done goofed.

I hear you, but change is possible at any point. Unless Nintendo perform a miracle or ditch the Wii U (more likely, given their track record) I can't see them getting back in the game.

A terrible assumption to make, considering it's currently a $350 box without any games. And you're comparing it to $500 boxes without any games that don't exist yet. What is can never compare to the shadows of What Might Be.

Another thing I find annoying is the "lul casuals play eyephone now" dismissive attitude a lot of people have. If that were the case, why is the 3DS doing so well now after such a weak start, huh, Interchangeable Internet Person?

Nintendo has a core library of titles they rehash every generation as the backbone of their business model. Let's run through the checklist of the games they have released for the U so far:

[x] 2d Mario Game
[ ] 3d Mario Game
[ ] Mario Kart
[ ] Zelda
[ ] Smash Brothers
[ ] Animal Crossing
[ ] Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem

Their library always sidesteps the "guns guns guns", sports and jRPG markets - games where hundreds of titles are released every year, an arena that no one can compete in.

Ideally the plan is to provide a backbone of titles, and then support would fill in from there from having an install base, to include rampant outright bribery. A unique Monster Hunter game in a couple years when the box is ~$250 and adopter attrition has worked away at the Wii, could turn things around very quickly.

Basically what I'm saying here is that the WiiU is currently the Ouya. In the future it will be Not The Ouya.

Given all that, yeah it's been selling like dogshit. I scarcely think the Boner or the Phantasy Star 4 will do much better in there "right out of the gate" phase... but we can all come back in here to laugh at how wrong I am in the future.

That's the privilege people from the future have. Those entitled bastards...

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

I've only really skimmed over this thread as there's a lot going on but I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in. I think it's certainly possible that a one-horse race could happen but we're still a long way from it. Assuming for argument's sake that the Xbone and Wii bomb and PS4 crushes the competition from the other 2 manufacturers, there's still the possibility of another (completely unexpected) contender to appear. Remember back in the day before Playstation even existed? It's kind of a given that the competition is between those already in the race. What if say Apple saw an un-contested market and decided to grab a slice of the pie? I think videogaming is too huge a market for people to not try and capitalise on it.

[Edmond Dantes]

Given all that, yeah it's been selling like dogshit. I scarcely think the Boner or the Phantasy Star 4 will do much better in there "right out of the gate" phase...

... didn't Phantasy Star IV already have a shot at success back when it was a Sega Genesis game?

[BryanM]

I see you might have missed the reference. Here you go good sir~

[gameoverDude]

I'm thinking it's possible if XBOne catches enough backlash over 24-hour authentication ("Daddy, can I play?") and other bullshit. I know I'm not the only one writing off the XBone entirely due to some of M$'s anti-consumer decisions.

[neorichieb1971]

At the moment there is too much brand loyalty going on. With most things in life there is really only a need for one type of anything, but as it the case with most things people like styles, brands, colours.. basically choice.

Does it matter though? Choice or lack of choice of hardware does little to change the landscape of what games are available. Currently FPS probably outsells every other genre 2-1 (wild guess). Its not my cup of tea. But I don't see that changing with a 1 horse race.

What if you did not like the controller? Would you give up gaming altogether on consoles?

What if the console had policies you just couldn't get on with? No alternative?


Anyway, its never going to happen. Simply because consoles are the technological shift. Without consoles blu ray wouldn't have been introduced into millions of homes. A billion HDTV's probably wouldn't have been sold. 4K TV's are coming out and it will be the console/PC buffs who buy them first. Consoles are right up there with Iphones. Consoles and phones represent a product line where people will put down ridiculous amounts of money for bragging rights.

In a one horse race who determines when the next gen is appropriate? Without competition it could wildly change from its current formula.