3 ms·

i agree with most of your points but not all. Sure tablets are a compromise, but the pc/tablet/mobile hardware market is moving MUCH faster than the console mar

by kayoone 14y ago

i agree with most of your points but not all. Sure tablets are a compromise, but the pc/tablet/mobile hardware market is moving MUCH faster than the console market. Current gen consoles have been around since 2005/6, a time when even the iphone didnt exist and things like Free to play or digital distribution were a non-issue. Today all of that has changed dramatically and the console makers reacted to it, but only very slowly and in general they are limited to adapt to these new markets. The PC, tablets, mobile phones however have done a massive step in the same timeframe. Measured by todays standards, mobile gaming didnt exist in 2005, today its the biggest growth market in gaming there is. Even though tablets are still much less powerful than a current gen console, many of todays top notch games on tablets dont look too far off of console games... Of course touch controls are limited and games need to be tailored to those, but in the end its an issue about which market is more attractive to developers. Mobile and Free to play certainly has alot less risk than pay-upfront triple-A titles with millions of budget. That being said i still see a good future for consoles as entertainment devices in the living room, in fact an Apple-TV like device with powerful hardware and Apps (including tripe-A free to play games) could be a massive hit!

talmand 14y ago
The reason mobile gaming has major growth is because the market is rushing to fill a vacuum. Once things have settled a bit let's see how it compares then. Plus comparing tablets made today with consoles based on five-year-plus hardware is not a proper comparison. Let's see how they match up once the console refresh has happened. Touch controls don't bother me because eventually bluetooth based controllers will be common once we get used to the idea of hooking a tablet to the TV.
- kayoone 14y ago
  True but still, even PC hardware todays evolves much faster than consoles because of their very long lifecycle and that is definately holding the state of high end PC games back because today you cant make a blockbuster game that isnt cross-platform. Of course the next-gen consoles will be much much faster, but that doesnt stop their lifecycle from being very long compared to almost all other entertainment devices.
  - talmand 14y ago
    Well, I can't really disagree, especially about the part of PC games being held back because of consoles. But I think that eventually the hardware refresh on mobile and tablets will taper off because they'll have to hit a wall at some point. Unless a breakthrough in battery technology happens you can only go so far in upping specs on mobile devices. Plus there's the heat aspect. Plus, once the market is flush with devices, or when people who want a tablet gets one, will people toss out their old tablet to buy a new one that's better in some insignificant way that matters little to them? I have a tablet and I can't see replacing it anytime soon unless it breaks or I find a large enough amount of software no longer works on it. Although I'm not saying the market would follow my whims but it just seems likely there's a large enough group that thinks in a similar fashion.
teamonkey 14y ago
I'm not sure it's correct to say that the consoles haven't evolved. The fixed hardware hasn't changed since 2005/2006, but the software has been very nimble, especially on the 360, which has had 2-3 very different iterations of its OS as it transitioned from games console to full multimedia device. This console generation has been unusually long and one of the reasons is that the console makers got so much right this time that its taken a long time for the consoles to feel dated.
- kayoone 14y ago
  Since today anyone has to make cross-platform games to make a profit, the consoles are the lowest common denominator which enables them to stay in the game. On the other hand its holding the PC gaming market and hardware development back in a sense. I agree that the Software has enabled some innovation but still their ecosystem is still very hard to get into for developers compared to the iOS world for example.
  - teamonkey 14y ago
    Consoles are not really holding the PC market back. Apart from fancier graphics, the big areas where the PC wins is fast mass storage[1] and fewer restrictions over net access[2]. Sure we could fill 4GB of memory somehow and find interesting ways to saturate as many CPU cores as we're given, but PC games so far haven't done anything really interesting with the extra power they have. [1] Data for a 360 game needs to fit on and run from one or more DVD; the PS3's larger blu-ray storage is slow. Cross-platform console games need to deal with those two constraints. [2] MMOs and social gaming are restricted on consoles.

by kayoone 14y ago

talmand 14y ago

The reason mobile gaming has major growth is because the market is rushing to fill a vacuum. Once things have settled a bit let's see how it compares then. Plus comparing tablets made today with consoles based on five-year-plus hardware is not a proper comparison. Let's see how they match up once the console refresh has happened. Touch controls don't bother me because eventually bluetooth based controllers will be common once we get used to the idea of hooking a tablet to the TV.

kayoone 14y ago
True but still, even PC hardware todays evolves much faster than consoles because of their very long lifecycle and that is definately holding the state of high end PC games back because today you cant make a blockbuster game that isnt cross-platform. Of course the next-gen consoles will be much much faster, but that doesnt stop their lifecycle from being very long compared to almost all other entertainment devices.
- talmand 14y ago
  Well, I can't really disagree, especially about the part of PC games being held back because of consoles. But I think that eventually the hardware refresh on mobile and tablets will taper off because they'll have to hit a wall at some point. Unless a breakthrough in battery technology happens you can only go so far in upping specs on mobile devices. Plus there's the heat aspect. Plus, once the market is flush with devices, or when people who want a tablet gets one, will people toss out their old tablet to buy a new one that's better in some insignificant way that matters little to them? I have a tablet and I can't see replacing it anytime soon unless it breaks or I find a large enough amount of software no longer works on it. Although I'm not saying the market would follow my whims but it just seems likely there's a large enough group that thinks in a similar fashion.

teamonkey 14y ago

I'm not sure it's correct to say that the consoles haven't evolved. The fixed hardware hasn't changed since 2005/2006, but the software has been very nimble, especially on the 360, which has had 2-3 very different iterations of its OS as it transitioned from games console to full multimedia device. This console generation has been unusually long and one of the reasons is that the console makers got so much right this time that its taken a long time for the consoles to feel dated.

kayoone 14y ago
Since today anyone has to make cross-platform games to make a profit, the consoles are the lowest common denominator which enables them to stay in the game. On the other hand its holding the PC gaming market and hardware development back in a sense. I agree that the Software has enabled some innovation but still their ecosystem is still very hard to get into for developers compared to the iOS world for example.
- teamonkey 14y ago
  Consoles are not really holding the PC market back. Apart from fancier graphics, the big areas where the PC wins is fast mass storage[1] and fewer restrictions over net access[2]. Sure we could fill 4GB of memory somehow and find interesting ways to saturate as many CPU cores as we're given, but PC games so far haven't done anything really interesting with the extra power they have. [1] Data for a 360 game needs to fit on and run from one or more DVD; the PS3's larger blu-ray storage is slow. Cross-platform console games need to deal with those two constraints. [2] MMOs and social gaming are restricted on consoles.