The field of gaming has been changing a lot in the last few months as the mobile gaming market has taken the forefront, both worrying people and leaving some questioning its future, while at the same time also spreading out to dominate sales.
First, a quick intro for the new frosh. This column focuses on the changes within the gaming industry, new technologies and products, software and firmware changes, public issues and controversies, and rarely, specific games. I try to avoid talking about specific games because there are so many different genres that it would be impossible to ever interest most people, but the systems are much more limited. I personally have an Xbox 360, and a Nintendo DSi, while my sister has a Nintendo Wii, and a DS Lite. I would consider buying a PS3 – especially if I had the disposable income or I got a press review unit (Hey Sony! People read my column, I could review PS3 updates and games a lot easier if I had a PS3) but I have found that a lot of the exclusives on PS3 just don’t appeal to me as much as the ones on Xbox. I am of the belief that there is no ‘best’ console, everything is dependent on what kinds of games you like personally and which console caters to that demographic. So I will try to be as un-biased as possible.
So, now to include some changes to this scope for the future of this column. So far I have focused mainly on the home consoles, including the Microsoft Xbox 360, the Sony Playstation 3, and the Nintendo Wii, with some discussion of the mobile systems. The mobile industry has focused mainly on the Nintendo DS (and all its different iterations) and the Sony Playstation Portable (and its different versions), while Microsoft has still refrained from releasing a portable version of the Xbox, despite many groups looking for it each year at E3.
In its present state, I am worried about the future of the portable gaming market in its current form, but hopeful that the current changes are beneficial. The first part of the portable gaming market, the existing dedicated systems, is the part that I am worried about. Both the PSP and the DS have been suffering recently amid declining sales, and both have ended up taking some drastic measures to try and compete. Sony appears to be releasing a dumbed down budget version of the PSP, staged between the failure of the PSP Go and the coming release of the PSP Vita. This new version is extremely bulky, with a small screen and cheap materials. Personally I can’t imagine what kind of market Sony is trying to reach with this system: either the dumb consumer who doesn’t realize that there is a difference, or the Christmas shopping parent who simply has to fulfill the “I want a PSP, NOW!!” scream. Nintendo, on the other hand, has drastically dropped the price of the newest version of the DS: the 3DS. The no-glasses-3D capable system has some truly incredible technology imbedded in it, hence its substantial initial price. But now, not even a year later Nintendo has dropped the price to just $170. There is no way the manufacturing costs of the components can have dropped so quickly, so Nintendo must be taking a substantial loss on every single system sold. For a company to discount their product so much so close to its release date is a really bad sign. Did they completely misjudge the market? Did they overprice it at the beginning and scare people off? Was it too early for 3D maybe, judging by the extremely low number of games that have been released since the 3DS was released, maybe this is true. But at the same time, the Kinect peripheral for the Xbox 360 hasn’t had many new games since its release almost a year ago – yet it is the best selling peripheral of all time. Why the difference?
I think the problem for the 3DS is the second part of the portable gaming market that I want to talk about, and that is mobile gaming. Mobile gaming is the standard name most gaming sites have come up with to talk about gaming on systems like smartphones and tablets. Historically, most gaming sites just ignored mobile gaming because it was limited to extremely simple games for cell phones – a lot would be more comparable to Gameboy games than the DS and PSP games that were out at the time. Since then, though, the introduction of the iPhone, iPad, smartphones, and tablets have caused a drastic growth of development of quality games in this category. New games released for the iOS and Android (which is slowly starting to get more AAA titles) are rapidly approaching the quality of portable gaming systems, and I think that is scaring the gaming system manufacturers. There is no reason why a smart phone with a dual core processor shouldn’t be able to run a full Pokemon game (just to use an example from Nintendo’s library of IPs that they just won’t let die). A perfect proof of this is Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 which was released for iPhone and the iPad, where the game was almost identical to the DS version.
I think a fundamental change is coming soon for the portable gaming market, one that will see the dominance of dedicated portable gaming systems die and have mobile devices take over the entire market. Of course the manufacturers want to avoid this for as long as possible because they are currently enjoying an almost perfect monopoly on the market. If you want to play a Pokemon or Mario game you have to buy a DS system from Nintendo. If you want to play Monster Hunter or Metal Gear Solid you are going to have to buy a PSP. Even for multiplatform releases, there are really only the two systems to choose from. Compare this with mobile gaming where there is a lot more variety. True, there are really still only two types – Android and iOS, but there are multiple manufacturers on the Android side. The best comparison is probably Mac vs. PC gaming, where there are lots of different manufacturers on the PC side making PCs for every specific need. People have the inherent desire to be different and to stand out (which is funny considering everyone ends up buying the same phone) and have a piece of technology represent them. It is this basic desire that I think is hurting Nintendo and Sony in the current portable gaming market; people don’t want the same generic gaming system as everybody else – and offering different coloured shells don’t help. The other big problem for Nintendo and Sony is that their gaming systems are just that — gaming systems — while the newest mobile devices have thousands of apps, while also having browsers, phoning (of course), all in addition to the gaming. The new PSP Vita will apparently be more like a smartphone, but I don’t think it can ever come close to what already exists and is being continually improved. Another factor impacting portable gaming right now is the ability to advance hardware just like in PC gaming, this allows for new programs and games to continually be written without the limitations of a standard architecture.
Eventually, the big gaming companies are going to admit defeat to mobile gaming and will probably shift to becoming developers and distributors of games for smart phones and Apple devices. In the meantime, I am looking forward to the release of the PSP Vita to see how well is survives. While I think they have a great device (and have finally fixed the problem with having only one analog control) I just don’t think it will succeed. The games that can be made for the system are so close to full console games that I think most people will just get the console game. At the same time, any casual games are going to be defeated by the inconvenience of having to carry around the device. Who will want to buy and carry around a portable gaming system when their phone can play the identical games?
So that is my rant for this issue and my predictions for the future of the gaming industry, specifically the portable/mobile gaming market. Whatever happens, I hope my prediction of failure for the PSP Vita doesn’t stop Sony from giving me a PS3 to test out games. Anyway, have a good midterm week, study hard, and don’t forget to break out the console and play some games to break the monotony of classes.
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