Topic: Third Party doing something right...

[UncleBob]

Atari games were what "real" games were at the time.

Cell phone games are "real" games now.  Just because kids are used to low-quality ****, it doesn't mean they won't accept the better stuff when exposed to it.

I can't be the only one here who really wanted the-highly-advertised-game-based-off-of-a-popular-license-of-the-day and was later disappointed to find out the game was complete crap.  Bad games didn't ruin my idea of gaming, and I have faith that it won't for others.

[...] even Mario Bros started out on that console.

Woah, woah, woah... Arcade says "Hello?"

[broodwars]

Cell phone games are "real" games now.  Just because kids are used to low-quality ****, it doesn't mean they won't accept the better stuff when exposed to it.

Umm...yes, it does, or have you missed all the stories about companies unable to make money on the app store/google play store because the ceiling for games on those platforms is $.99 (if it hasn't been lowered to "free" already)? They won't accept the better stuff because they refuse to PAY for the better stuff.

[marvel_moviefan_2012]

It's actually what caused the crash in 83 so we could either be in store for another crash or this really is the trend. Either way if it were true there was no market for dedicated gaming consoles why in the hell is PS4 doing so damn fine? Gaming as a whole has grown bigger than it was in the 90's and yet the industry managed to survive the lower sales and onslaught of crap back then.



UB, you missed the point ALL of the games he mentioned on Atari started out in Arcades but they had their console debut, either literal or its what people remember because its what they owned, on Atari. except E.T but come on that was a rush job to fit a movie release those games always suck.

[broodwars]

It's actually what caused the crash in 83 so we could either be in store for another crash or this really is the trend. Either way if it were true there was no market for dedicated gaming consoles why in the hell is PS4 doing so damn fine?

Because the PS4 isn't targeting the app store generation. It's targeting us, the older generation who still buy and play traditional games. On the flipside, pretty much the entire audience Nintendo gained with the Wii has gone to mobile, and a large portion of those that haven't have gone to Sony or Microsoft instead. Sony's doing alright (for now) because they're not relying on the audience Nintendo relied on. Where I'm concerned is 3-5 years down the line when the app store generation has become the primary audience.

[marvel_moviefan_2012]

Is it really the case? Hasn't the industry said all along that the typical gamer is a 35 year old male has that changed? Was that the statistic when *we* were kids? If so then I suspect it will remain the same, these kids will do what we did they will discover the good games when they get older and continue to drive the industry forward and they will buy the consoles for their kids its an endless cycle.


Believe it or not my parents used to be gamers my mom could get the high score on Pac-Man or Asteroids both in the arcades we had and on our Atari, she played NES for a good while too then slowly she stopped gaming as much, Tetris and Mario party from time to time but then Wii came along and she was right there. I saw that a lot people from the 70's who were adults in the 80's, OUR parents, playing Pong, Atari, etc, and they raised US on video games, we grew up and are raising our kids and the cycle continues.

Cell phone games might replace Game Boy (or DS) games and Tablet games might replace PC games in the sense that cell phones will replace dedicated handheld devices and Tablets will replace dedicated PC's, but I even question if that is going to happen. The dedicated game console has no replacement because it serves a purpose. The closest to come along is Steam machine and they dropped the ball on that one.

The gaming market has always supported FOUR different markets, since the early 80's on. It used to be games were made for Arcades, Consoles, Handhelds, and PC's, even when "PC" was divided into about 6 different standards and the industry still managed to survive.

Think of cell phones and tablets as replacing Arcades, the cheap quick pick up and play game you drop a couple quarters in when you are waiting for your food. That is what cell phone games have replaced, the other markets live on unphased. Long term trends still point to a 4 platform market I can see that being sustainable at least for another decade since its lasted 3 so far.

[Ian Sane]

Has the typical gamer been 35 year old males forever or has it come that way as kids who played games in the early 80's have reached 35?  I didn't play in the Atari era but in the NES/SNES era I didn't know any adults who played videogames.  But then it might be because my parents didn't play games so they emphasized that videogames were some dumb kids' interest.

It seems like videogames have followed along with me as I've gotten older, at least in the console front.  The PlayStation 1 was very much marketed as the sort of thing teenagers would want to play over the more kid focused Nintendo consoles of previous generations.  I become a teen and, boom, here's a teen focused console.  Today the PS4 is selling with people my age.  It's not really aimed at the younger generation raised with the Wii or with phone games.  So has Sony remained a steady force in gaming or have they just been selling to the same audience for 20 years?  Nintendo didn't change as the NES audience got older and steadily lost them and then found success with a new audience on the Wii but then has lost that audience as well.

Is the audience of the big three growing or are they just selling to people born in the 20th century?

[UncleBob]

There's been rumblings and discussions about this for awhile now...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YI79BJC/

Skylanders 5 is very likely going to have a release on the Wii.  I'm not surprised - the last numbers I saw (not VGChartz, but not industry-wide) had the Wii version outselling all three "next-gen" consoles (went 360, Wii, Wii U, with the 360 and Wii systems being pretty close).  Looks like we might have a Wii release after Rodea, if the October release frame for Skylanders games holds consistent.  And it'll be a third-party title.  Weird.

[BranDonk Kong]

This is a game for babies.

[UncleBob]

Babies can't afford to buy into Skylanders. :p