GDC: This is the last console generation, says Pachter

PC gamers rejoice \o/

I think he may have a point.

I can’t say I agree – his theory is that next time around we’ll see a ‘single platform’ situation and I just don’t think we’re at the stage where such a thing will be possible yet.

That said, I get the impression that this generation may well turn out to be much longer than people were initially expecting. I’m calling 2012ish for the new wave of the new wave.

I agree with him. Though I don’t see cloud gaming taking off quickly.

I see us having many iterations of Ps3 and the 360.

Also the Depression is a major factor; so no new consoles until 2015 at least. Plus fewer and fewer big budget games. This current time period will be seen as the second golden age of gaming, and it is now near its end…

I don’t think we’re going to see new console hardware even announced before 2012, and I think Pachter does make a very valid point. The current publishing model’s failing essentially.

I bet Iwata goes and announces Wii 2 now.

I think Pach-Man is wrong.

The simple fact that people will want to play PC games doesn’t really allow the console market to disappear.

All the current generation of consoles are, are PC’s without the hassle anyway…

And I certainly can’t see the likes of Rockstar, Bungie, EA, Activision, et al just deciding to forget about the billions that they turned over last year and try something new just for the sake of it.

Real business isn’t that fickle.

A lot of the fault lies with the model itself, though – not just the machines. There are too many machines with almost the same capabilities, the default game price point is $60 and nobody dares break that so ‘less than AAA’ projects get shitcanned or fail at retail because they’re not ‘worth that’, the best-selling platform is only truly successful for the platform creator, reviewers punish more unusual projects for lacking top-notch graphics or multiplayer even if those things aren’t required, the media are basically in the pockets of the publishers and therefore held to ransom on what they can and can’t cover, etc. etc. etc.

Moving to a full-download system and allowing smaller developers and publishers to get the same exposure and distribution as the big players would probably help a lot more than a single platform, tbh. Not every game in the world has to be AAA or mass market, but the current practises only really encourage that sort of development. And it’s so costly that it’s killing all but the biggest and the blandest.

Wii 2? At GDC? Naw!

I disagree with him on many counts. Although not that the content won’t chnage, he’s right, games are insanely expensive, and it just isn’t viable to get anymore detailed until some streamlining development is done.

Even then, it may be difficult.

But cloud gaming just isn’t viable. Think about the number of online LIVE/PSN accounts in a ratio to the hardware counts. Not everyone can do cloud gaming.

I reckon desktop gaming will take over before cloud gaming does. And I reckon that is possibly the biggest hurdle for developers to face; browser games.

And suggesting third party’s won’t support a PS4 or 720, is absolutely ridiculous. All it needs is to be proven a viable platform to sell and profit from software on, and they will support it.

I think the Cloud stuff will change everything. I’m just not sure it’ll change everything quite yet. To be honest, I don’t want to buy “consoles”. I just want to play games sometimes.

You’re right though, Blerk. The whole model as it stands is completely broken.

He’s not counting hand helds right? Nor set top boxes with controllers that access clouded games. Or any other game playing device that might contradict his claim.

Cockmuncher

I think we’ll see moderate updates to each console, Wii HD, 360+ and PSthree over the next five years. Each will be compatible with current software, with some sort of added functionality, which new games can choose to take advantage of.

But yeah, when you see some of the sales big name games are getting, and the general financial pickle everyone is in, I don’t think anybody in the industry (save for journalists ) will be happy with a new console to support.

World is gonna end in 2012, so he might be right.

Agreed Blerk about the final point.

The only publishers not at risk are creating the most generic games out there.

Outside of that the only thing actually advancing the medium is coming from first party’s/second party’s or publisher’s who set themselves up for an inevitable fall.

yep patcher microsoft, sony and nintendo will just pack up there bags move to the costa del sol and sell time shares for a living instead. do you really think after all the billions and billions spent and earned they`ll just give up because of the cloud gaming system. i think not. i for one will still buy consoles and the games. and as someone else stated on this thread the 720 and ps4 not profitable you need a new job because you analictical skills are beyond shite.

Of course, the ideal solution for the next-gen would be to ‘do a Nintendo’. The PS4 and Xbox 720 essentially being ‘overclocked’ versions of the current platforms, with the same capabilities, dev kits and tools, but just… beefier. More power, cheaper hardware, no need to retrain everybody. And backwards compatible by default. Everyone wins.

Well, the most innovative games, arguably, are emerging from the indie space, precisely because they’re not bound by the shackles of the “traditional” publishing model.

It’s a similar situation to the one facing book publishing at the moment. Getting a “novel” published it nigh on impossible, but it’s likely that a proliferation of e-book readers will mean a huge amount of material “not fit” for publication will be made available.

FFS. Enough with the “generic bland” shit.

Tell me what’s safe about “Brain Age” or “Wii Fit”. Then we can talk “only generic safe games sell”.

Yeah, I don’t think that cloud gaming will have such a significant impact on consoles any time soon. If they do disapper, I’d say that it’d be through their own fault, rather than being succeeded by an online only service.

Right now, if you’re a console manufacturer, you have a market for that is split into people with the internet, and people without it.

That’s a whole lot of people who simply won’t be able to play cloud based games, whether they want to or not.

As long as these people exist in the huge numbers that they do, there will be a market for offline gaming.

That is true, but Nintendo basically created its own model, innit, with unique, motion-based hardware. Pad consoles are stuck in a rut.

Mind control! It’s the future.

Mind control in the Cloud. Bet Iwata announces it.

For the most part I was talking about the hi-def model, Tonka.

But seeing as you mentioned them, both of those titles are games which only Nintendo could sell. If EA (say) had invented them they’d have completely tanked. Nintendo are in a unique position which is what makes their platform dominance so dangerous in many ways – like I said above, it’s Nintendo themselves who actually reap the majority of the benefit.

Blerk, I kind of expect that to happen if I was going to put money on any which one. Unless the next generation has ready-made engines to develop in, if you know what I mean. That’s one other option. Even then though, it’s the assets of a game which take the most time and money, and they’d still be there.

Patrick, well yeah that’s true apart from on consoles. The most innovative or more to the point – niche console games are coming from the aforementioned parties. I hadn’t even considered the PC market.

He’s wrong, and largely for one reason. Nintendo.

Nintendo have been making money off of selling hardware for years. They aren’t about to change a successful business model because everyone else is struggling with it. They like money, remember.

Blerk has got the right idea. Complete wholesale change of console hardware is completely flawed but the Nintendo approach combined with pure digital distribution easily has enough money it to be appealing to publishers. This time around, there won’t be a move to HD meaning console hardware should be capable of kicking out 1080p natively with more processing power for pretty physics and graphics at relatively cheap prices. Given that we aren’t getting that now, it’ll be a reasonable enough upgrade for most “core” gamers to get it off the ground.

To top that off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sony & Microsoft collaborate on such a thing with one doing software and the other doing hardware.

Everybody seems to be drunk on this OnLive malarkey. It’s simply not going to scale to mass market levels by 2012.

Yeah, seriously…

“Generic” games are supposedly so, because millions upon millions of gamers enjoy them.

Tonka, I don’t think Blerk or I were talking about those Publisher’s Wii market attempts, as generic.

Mainly the Call of Duty’s, Madden’s and Need for Speed’s of the industry. The franchises on HD consoles, becomign generic and bland becuase no major risks can be taken with an average budget of $20mil. And for the truly AAA selling projects we’re talking twice or thrice that easily.

somuchfearofchangelol

yes you can also take into account the pricing of games, consoles and services they rip off there customers left right and centre. so if they were to be addressed properly and set at price where the consumer and company both come away smiling its win win situation. but thats for sony microsoft and nintendo to sort out.

Shatner our resident elitist everyone, he’ll be here all week!

But still. The market supports CoD and Rythm Gold. Halo 3 and a bathroom scale with a hula hoop sim, World of Goo, No More Heroes etc etc.

I agree that the rising costs of development has given us more middle of the road games. But there is plenty of other games coming out. Games that sell well enough to get sequels and make money.

The perceived need to make bombastic FPSs is just so much hot air. Devs can chose to make a small budget title. Release it on STEAM or PSN or whatever.

I just don’t buy the whole “only Nintendo can make a mint on low budget games” (points to Games Party (1 & 2),No More Heroes and Mega Man 9).

And what’s generic about a Postapocalyptic RPG in first person view? (To point at the other end)

I liked Shatner better when his space bar was working.

and it also boils down to the simple fact that we as consumers/fans/collectors want to physically own the game and the hardware it works on. i want to be able to own touch even lick the products i buy. not have it sit on some sever the otherside of the world where we have to rent these things on a daily weekly or monthly basis. it will be fun to watch millions of people all trying to play crysis at the same time.

yoursenseofownershipisanillusion.readtheEULAlol

But the revenue from a small PSn title, or a bunch of them, just isn’t worth it, becuase it’s even more difficult to advertise on Steam or XBLA or PSN. As Pat said, it’s an even playign field there.

It’s not viable in that sense, for the big publishers.

And there’s quite a bit generic about a sequel to a top-down sometric strategy RPG, that is actually a gory, grey, expansive FPS.

Bethesda RPG’s have never been innovative, they have been adequate and fun. And not financial risks, given they are the only HD true WRPG’s about on consoles.

and to go off subject just slightly who plays there wii as a serious games machine i bet it isnt many of you. its a console for fat lazy kids and adults who want to be seen doing something about there weight as well the casual gamer who doesnt really care to much for gaming as a whole. i wouldnt waste my money on one i still stand by the fact its a completely gimicky toy granted one thats sold over 50 million. but how many of that 50 million already own a ps3 or 360 its light relief thats all it is.

Fallout 3 is ‘big budget’, though. And without the Fallout license or Bethesda behind it, would anyone have given it a second glance?

The trouble is that, for instance, CoD4 exists. And pretty much everyone agree that it’s currently the pinnacle of FPS. So anyone making an FPS has to try and ‘better’ that or face annihilation at review or apathy from the general public, because you’re essentially launching at the same price. That’s just too much for most smaller companies. We’ve reached a stage where people are considering an 8/10 to be ‘not worth bothering with’, which is insane. Those ‘lesser’ games are going to start to disappear.

A sliding price scale and cheaper (downloadable or not) distribution is possibly the solution, but at the minute nobody seems brave enough to break out of the ‘full price’ arena outside of the Wii shovelware market.

Don’t you like HD games?

HD makes gameplay good.

Bullshit Deadboy.

The popularity of on demand TV and computers proves we like having non-physical media for the majority of stuff. Only occasionally do we want something physical to show for it.

Marriage Certificates, Vinyls, etc. But most of the time I am fine with keeping my text on my phone and computer, and my music on iTunes.

Blerk; you sound like Iwata 4 years ago.

Patcher real idiot

Oh noes – I don’t want to be Iwata!

Oh, wait – he’s loaded. I do want to be Iwata!

It will be a while before enough people have a decent enough broadband to support it on a massive scale, but this is almost certainly the future.

As Pat noted before, some of the best innovation this gen has come from XBLA and PSN precisely because those services bypass the standard retail channels. Imagine if Braid had come out as a boxed product at £39.99. The idea wouldn’t have got off the ground, let alone into you local GAME.

Games cost too much, both at retail and in development and have done for a while now. It’s not just a case of big, bad, nasty publishers making bucket loads of cash either. Having seen it from the other end too there is a panic-inducing level of risk for any game release, let alone a AAA title.

The current gen’s online model is the trailblazer. Next gen (whenever it arrives) will likely still have physical media incorporated, but if tech continues to evolve in the way it has of late the one after that could be online solus.

“Sony is not going to put out a console until they make a profit on this generation, and my math puts that at around 2015,” Pachter said.”

So this isn’t the final generation. It’s just going to take while till the next generation. Wich is great for the gamedevelopement.

This is bologne. Why? Because not everyone is ALWAYS hooked up to the internet. What about when I’m at my cottage that doesn’t have internet but decide to bring my 360 along for downtime? What about all the people who don’t have the internet speed required for the high def thing? They’re not going to make YOU BEING ONLINE a requirement for SINGLE PLAYER GAMING. Maybe eventually, but we’re not at that point yet where everyone has access to this internet speed at all times in any location, so it’s garbage to assume that you shouldn’t be able to single player game without high speed internet access at this point in time.

To be honest I find this future a bit scary! I do like to own console hardware, I even like games on disks. Hmm, maybe I’m really getting old …

Why do we have to radically shift the paradigme?
Choose one over the other? Why can’t we have the best of both worlds? Together!
A PS3 or 360 (or a Gaming PC /Mac with full power CPU and über graphic-cards) which also happen to be able to run cloud gaming services?

I addition, I would prefer Sony or Microsoft to run a cloud gaming service over this new company (OnLive). This way they could still make money off the service and reinvest it into games development.

My comments were more about Cloud gaming but still.

And the biggest question remains:
How much will it cost on OnLive to play 200+ hours of Fallout3, GTA4, Halo3-Multiplayer (just to name a few time-demanding games) ???
Less then the €60 (or the €20-€40 for secondhand or “platinum”-versions) we pay now?

Usually any subscription fee (leasing) is higher than the price you pay once for a disc/download. Not good for consumers …