Pachter: This is the Last Console Generation

[modeps]

Michael Pachter is making some bold statements. He's claiming that the systems you're playing your games on right now are part of the last generation of console gaming. 1Up (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3173424) has the following quote:

"I think we've seen the last generation of consoles," Pachter claims. He says Nintendo will likely upgrade the Wii at some point (perhaps with HD and more storage), but all three console makers will be reluctant to release any subsequent consoles -- in the future it'll be more about a standard delivery platfrom. Why? Because there's no money in it for them. And because the third party publishers simply won't allow it. "[Third party publishers] are not going to support a PS4 or Xbox 720," he says, pointing to the fact that they're already largely struggling with the cost of developing games today. "The content is not going to change in any meaningful ways because the publishers can't afford it," he continues, suggesting that the current crop of consoles will be the ones to last us well into the future.

Do you really think we've seen the last of consoles?

[AspectVoid]

Well, Sony said that the PS3 was a 10 year plan for them. Given we're only what, about 3 years in, we should have quite awhile before we know for sure.

[KlausFlouride]

What he is saying makes since from a business stand point. If you are constantly loosing your ass on hardware why would you devote billions to make more?

[Johan]

I would be perfectly content with quite a few more years from my console. In fact, I could see myself contentedly using it for five to ten more years, without any need for an upgrade. A game is fun IF IT'S FUN, regardless of the hardware it runs on. Quit pushing new hardware out the door in a race to beat others to market (MS), or to cash in on minor iterative changes (Nintendo), or to push your proprietary disk format (Sony).

[Hellstorm]

What he is saying makes since from a business stand point. If you are constantly loosing your ass on hardware why would you devote billions to make more?
Because if you're Nintendo, you actually make profit on the system. :D

[BlackHatKid]

I'm under the firm opinion that this isn't the end of consoles, but it's definitely the last ones "for a while."

I just think they're going to need some big jumps in the technology before they can put out a system that someone is going to say "WHOA!" to.

I'm also interested to see where Nintendo goes, as the Wii was definitely not a big jump in terms of a system, but rather just peripherals.

[JasonSuave]

So this guy is saying that after 3 solid decades of a vastly popular console-market, that all console hardware manufacturers are suddenly going to stop production because of escalating software costs?

I think Nintendo has proven that customers do, in fact, want cheap hardware AND cheap software (look at all the shovelware that's out there that is probably far more profitable than some of the AAA titles like Killzone and Halo). I think that the hard-core gamers are probably more at risk of seeing a retraction in the gaming software industry. However, the moms and pops who have been buying the wii will see more and more of these cheap-o gimmicky games for their kids in the future.

But common, it's not like everything sans Nintendo is going to drop out of the console hardware market. However, the ultimate goal of Microsoft is to eliminate the competition (likewise with Sony) - so will one of the major players disappear for the next console iteration? Maybe.

My money is on Sony. If they fail at the ps3, then it's going to be hard to launch a new ps4 with much credibility. However, they really need to accelerate the sales of the ps3 with some quality software because what's going to happen if Microsoft rolls out the next xbox in 2 years, and the ps3 is only half way through it's lifecycle? Then we'll just be starting to see the software developers leverage of the power of the ps3 - yet the new xbox already has better graphics. That situation could most certainly eliminate Sony from the next console iteration, leaving only Microsoft and Nintendo. I don't want to see that happen, personally, but that's the way things are shaping up as I see it.

[Venkman]

I think this Pachter guy has shown time and time again that he doesn't know shit.

[WileE.Coyte]

There have always been winners and losers in third party publishing. I think the current gen will have a longer life span but it won't be the last gen. I don't think Microsoft is loosing money on live and all of those micropayments.

[Qoz]

JasonSuave, you are correct.
Microsoft did spend millions of dollars to get where they are now with the Xbox360.,
They can serioulsy cripple Sony, if they launch an Xbox720, with backwards compatibility, in 3 years.

It doesn't even have to be extremely good hardware to make it better.
The consoles we have now are not good at 1080p resolution and in 3 years alot of people will have these and demand content.

In 5-6 years we will probably be ready for OnLive (realtime streaming games) og this is where Sony will release PS4 (if they do). I see plenty of room for another Microsoft console to deliver the final blow to Sony, before the market changes considerably.

[Qoz]

Microsoft is in a position to kill off the playstation, but it is the question wether they want to?

Do they wish to be the only one making high-end consoles?
Why not just relax and rake in the cash while your competition is struggling?

Microsoft could have killed of Apple long ago, but kept them alive. Perhaps to evade some lawsuits?

[GraveMatter]

After watching the OnLive conference and then seeing a bunch of other companies announcing the same type of "cloud" computing gaming services and not to mention the great article by Denis Dyack also regarding a unified gaming cloud type system, I kinda believe what this Pachter guy is saying.

Developers/publishers are trying to make the most money they can especially in this crap economy and with these new cloud based systems they'd have one platform to develop for only thus reducing their costs and don't forget about the "no piracy" with this method. That has to just look so enticing to them.

I'm kinda excited to see how this all works out...I just can't imagine running Crysis on a 3 year old laptop at 60fps at a decent resolution. Change is coming if we want it to or not...hopefully for us gamers/consumers we actually get something that isn't crap.

[Nominal]

They have said that every generation of consoles is the last.

[Roc Ingersol]

This generation will run a little long. But only because no-one is in a hurry to release a new console.

Sony can't afford to; not even remotely. Nintendo is making tons of cash but are having no real impact on 360/PS3 sales. So not only are they're in no hurry, but their success isn't putting any pressure on Microsoft/Sony. And pushing out an inevitably expensive next-gen console in 2010, when the world is largely still in a recession, isn't exactly the wisest move.

With exclusives going by the wayside, third party publishers are a little stronger and pushing things a little more. But they're not so strong that they can prevent a new generation. Nor would they want to. New hardware is the easiest way to get fresh attention on otherwise stale franchises.

And there are plenty of things that technical advances can provide that don't require larger art budgets. (AI, physics, interactive geometry, procedural content, 3D display support, etc)

[Evil Avatar]

I hope this doesn't trip the sarcasm meter... but if this was the last generation of hardware it would be the last generation of Nintendo. Nintendo makes most of their money from hardware sales.

[LilAbner]

I think this Pachter guy has shown time and time again that he doesn't know shit.

Exactly.

What a total blowhard. His research firm should fire his ass now for making such idiotic statements.

Sure it makes sense, but the public will demand new consoles at some point...although I do think this generation will probably go another 5-6 years.

[Froggy]

The native output resolution of the ps3 and 360 is 720p. Can these consoles handle 1080p as a native output while maintaining high framerates? I think a couple of games have been designed to have 1080 lines without upscaling. I just hope the standard doesn't get pushed higher. I don't even have a PS3 yet, let alone having to worry about another new TV to keep up with the Jonesies.

[Wraith]

Could this generation of consoles last longer than average, due to increased development costs?

Sure, it could happen, and we probably wouldn't be terribly surprised if it did. The average time between console generations seems to be about 5-6 years. At 6 years, that would put the next Xbox at Q4 2011. Maybe we'll see it last til 2012, but does anyone really see Microsoft pushing the 360 any farther than that?

My own armchair analysis:

The next generation won't be quite as big of a technological leap as previous generations, but we'll still see it start by 2012 at the latest.
Backwards compatibility will be much more important (both for disc-based games from the current gen and PSN/XBLM titles). The 720 (or whatever it is) will play all 360 games, and the PS4 will play all PS3 games. Compatibility with the Xbox and PS2 won't really be much of a priority.
Console makers will try to make the transition from one generation to the next easier for developers.
Sony won't have such a big price difference when the PS4 launches.
We may see a Wii 1.5 kind of revision (like Pachter suggests) to stretch out the life of the Wii. If consumers will buy it, Nintendo certainly has the money for R&D and production.
MS will try to alleviate fears about the next Xbox's reliability.
MS will include WiFi (really, it's dirt cheap, and the other consoles have it) and Blu-ray (or whatever the most recent version of Blu-ray is available).
MS and Sony will compete head to head, probably launching in the same year, and Nintendo will still be off, doing its own thing (serving non-, casual- and mainstream-gamers, first and foremost).

[JasonSuave]

Microsoft is in a position to kill off the playstation, but it is the question wether they want to?


In terms of competition, it's good practice to always have another player in your competitive market. It helps customers understand products and features better and usually results in a higher net sales for both players - I know it sounds weird, but unless we're talking about commodities, it's always healthy to have competition.

The question for people like Microsoft is: how much competition do they want? I think the gamer market has done a great job at drawing a very large line between Microsoft and Nintendo. For this reason, I believe it's in Microsoft's best interest to eliminate Sony as quickly as possible. This is definitely obvious based on the statements from Microsoft back in the xbox-days. I remember them saying that they view the xbox as a loss leader for quite some time, because video games become a profitable business component to their model.

So, even if it's going to cost a ton of money to quickly roll out another xbox (in 2-3 years) - a. Microsoft most certainly can afford it and b. it could be the final blow to sony's gaming division, given sony can't quickly retaliate with a ps4.

[Sammael]

I am thankful for a longer cycle this time around. Let them duke it out for a while longer, so that I can not have to worry about replacing these things... But you know what? I've already bought 2 fucking 360's. How about making your hardware to last, MS.

My PS3 is still going strong, my Wii has some minor graphical glitches... All better than having the hardware fail on me 3 times in such a short period of time.

[Cedrock]

waiting for the next headline "Michael Pachter retardation is irreversible"

[XxSATANxX]

See that really long limb there?

I think we will see a new generation Next year. Come on all you MS hanger outers fess up your already working on the new XBOX.

I think we will see a new player on the Hardware side. Come on all you Apple freaks fess up you've already started and it's a hybrid wii/apple TV/PC thingie.

Onlive and the "cloud" computing start ups are trying to what stop Gamestop from selling used games? Please.......

Sony is looking to become smaller and more profitable.

This is the ONLY segment of the economy growing! I see many things happening and so do some of you. NDA be dammed throw a brother a bone.....

[DeuceMojo]

Of course it's the last generation of consoles!!!

And, as Francis Fukuyama famously pointed out, it's the end of history!!!

Al Gore didn't invent the Internet -- I did.

The world is flat! Oliver Stone is genius! History will smile fondly upon the administration of George W. Bush, just like he said it would.

<insert your inane outburst here>

[agentclam]

Agree with skepticism against Pachter. OnLive sounds great, but any service with massive overhead costs balanced against ad hoc, low-priced subscriptions can run into trouble. In the same way that Netflix is going to be tested as Hulu and other producer-direct services grow, what's to stop EA or Activision from creating a Live/Steam system? Margins in the entertainment industry are too thin for middlemen to thrive.

[Sloth]

He makes a good point that developers and publishers waste dev cycles on cross platform development. When I worked for a game studio the game we shipped was delayed an extra year because of the ps3

[Johan]

Margins in the entertainment industry are too thin for middlemen to thrive.

ShameStop would disagree.

I mean, GameStop.

[Virtuoso]

Pachter:

http://obli.net/media/1/20050818-how-about-a-nice-cup-of-shut-the-fuck-up.jpg

[TeeCakes]

He makes a good point that developers and publishers waste dev cycles on cross platform development. When I worked for a game studio the game we shipped was delayed an extra year because of the ps3

And the same can be said about the FF13 delay, while porting over to the 360. If the title was still a PS3 exclusive, it'd probably be released by now.

The good thing about competition is that the consumer gets more choices, and gets more control over their buying options. When the OnLive future becomes a reality, I hesitate to say that it would be the best form of progress for the industry.

But either way, the PS3 is on Year 3 of 10, so I won't be losing too much sleep over Patcher's Pontificating Predictions.

[Froggy]

Hum... I have seen a lot less Sony Defense Force around here than usual. A lot of unchecked comments from the other team.

Very interesting, I will twirl my moustache now.

[Virtuoso]

And the same can be said about the FF13 delay, while porting over to the 360. If the title was still a PS3 exclusive, it'd probably be released by now.

The good thing about competition is that the consumer gets more choices, and gets more control over their buying options. When the OnLive future becomes a reality, I hesitate to say that it would be the best form of progress for the industry.

But either way, the PS3 is on Year 3 of 10, so I won't be losing too much sleep over Patcher's Pontificating Predictions.

Come on now 'Cakes, you don't need to defend your beloved PS3 at the moment.

That being said, there will be a new MS console, and a new Nintendo console. Is it inefficient? Absolutely. Will it persist? At least for a while longer.

As far as the PS4, that will happen when there is a new type of media to sell ;)

[drakkarim]

Patcher:

http://obli.net/media/1/20050818-how-about-a-nice-cup-of-shut-the-fuck-up.jpg

amen. i think at least 2 of the 3 consoles still have one generational bowel movement in them.

after that, i would agree, discs just seem so 80's anymore, so the other alternative is streaming or just downloading only. as for architectures... hard to say, i think sony has to milk the ps3 for the next dozen years to even recoup a penny, the wii will put out some more meaningless updates like it likes to do with all of its gaming hardware. so that would leave the xbox team to do something of notability.

i was just thinking that by the time xbox3/720/1080 or whatever they call it rolls out, it would make sense to have the hard drives be SSD instead of stupid platters, i would venture to guess that prices on them at that point would be at the price point of normal platter hard drives today, which could perhaps imply that usb flash devices or SD cards or something like that would be the cost of discs today? that way you buy a card/flash with a game on it, plug it in, and it gets put on the ssd.

or you buy some tiny super cheap sd/flash card with some authentication code to download the game directly from xBoxLiveSuperOcho.

anyway, what was the question?

[Johan]

Patcher:

Exactly who is this "Patcher" fellow, and how did he get in our thread on Pachter? :confused:

Yeeeeehaaaa! For great justice!

[Virtuoso]

Exactly who is this "Patcher" fellow, and how did he get in our thread on Pachter? :confused:

Yeeeeehaaaa! For great justice!

Har dee har har.

[Johan]

Har dee har har.

I don't get it.

Yeeeehaaa! Pushing my luck now! Don't hurt me!

[Virtuoso]

I don't get it.

Yeeeehaaa! Pushing my luck now! Don't hurt me!

Don't make me get all Internet Tough Guy on your ass and slap you with my e-peen :D.

[TeeCakes]

Exactly who is this "Patcher" fellow, and how did he get in our thread on Pachter? :confused:

Yeeeeehaaaa! For great justice!

Dang, I did it too!

I would make some witty comment implying that I meant it as a pun of his "patchwork" theories that "needle" away at sanity in the games industry, but not even Atlas could spin that bad boy.

[dirtbag]

Do you really think we've seen the last of consoles?
PC Gaming Console Gaming is Dying!

Isn't some idiot saying crap like this every day?:rolleyes:

[Mr.Green]

So much vitriol over a simple prediction.

Anyway, I don't think this is the last generation but the next one sure won't come as quickly as this one did. I don't expect Xbox 3 before Christmas 2012.

[Chrome Dome]

i was just thinking that by the time xbox3/720/1080 or whatever they call it rolls out, it would make sense to have the hard drives be SSD instead of stupid platters, i would venture to guess that prices on them at that point would be at the price point of normal platter hard drives today, which could perhaps imply that usb flash devices or SD cards or something like that would be the cost of discs today? that way you buy a card/flash with a game on it, plug it in, and it gets put on the ssd.

Back to the future? Hard to believe we could go back to a cart based system, albiet a physically smaller but actually much larger cart.
I would love to see it happen if only for the problems with noise pollution in my place that would be resolved. My 360 sounds like a jet airplane every time the game disk needs to spin.
I remember having similar thoughts about RF wireless controllers prior to this gen of consoles, so I hope your right.