Console Bubble Bursts

[Rocky 1,224]

News Story

In a report published Tuesday, market research company In-Stat/MDR predicted that worldwide shipments of game consoles will reach 19.3 million this year, compared with 35 million in 2003.

That's quite a downturn.

[Sup 0]

Of course. This wave of consoles is getting old.

[Dan 0]

yep, wait for PS3 and XBoxII

[NightCrawler 137]

Hopefully some will begin to see the real light, PC's are better game machines.

[pz3 338]

Hopefully some will begin to see the real light, PC's are better game machines.

←

Amen

[firefly2442 0]

Mods, upgrades, development, email, etc..... computers are superior.

[Arms 0]

Unless you have the computer to make your computer superior.

[Hoak 0]

I'm waiting to see Publisher reaction to the inevitable console game sales slump that will hit... Publishers have SATURATED the realism console market with a slew of realism titles that are little more than redundant clones and offer a complete paucity of game design innovation...

Even the stupidest rubes for marketing hype and advertising are going to burn out, and unavoidable consumer apathy combined with the inevitability of shrinking market growth will mean dramatically depressed sales.

It's seriously doubtful that next-gen consoles are going to revitalize the market; all the technology in the world can't overcome the limitations of the medium i.e. limitations of: display resolution, controller interface, or the cost for the new console and game product development that will have to be passed on to the

the consumer...

Arakawa Minoru was right; consumers don't need games, and with prices already soaring for products of dubious entertainment bang for the buck value -- soner or later (probably sooner) there's going to be a big 'market correction' -- i.e. shakeout...

Edited December 1, 2004 by Hoak

[cajun47 0]

i just bought an xbox for halo series. its pretty good but no where near as good as pc gaming. i ordered a new pc from ibuypower.

[CR6 0]

Actually, I'm not sure if Sony and Microsoft care too much that they are not selling as many consoles. Both make more money from sales of games, not hardware. In fact, MS loses money with every Xbox unit sold.

Sony already has won this round of the console wars with the PS2 and have already came out with their budget PStwo unit. (An aside: Where do you put the HD on that thing I wonder? I guess most people don't need the HD for most games, which is maybe why the next Xbox may not have a built-in HD too)

Microsoft's strategy is more to just get themselves into everyone's living room - whether it's through an Xbox or a Media Center PC.

As we speak, there are shortages of PS2 hardware and Xbox hardware this Christmas, so there's no way they'll top 2003, especially with the market already so saturated.

Ref:

http://www.xbox365.com/news/news.cgi/artic...kkVEjSPGIhB9225

http://www.mcvuk.com/html/news/story.jsp?newsId=1929409

Reeves is hopeful that SCEE can meet its sales targets for the fiscal year: “If we don’t, it won’t be through lack of demand”.

He did, however, respond to suggestions from third-parties that the lack of PS2 hardware this Christmas will have a major impact on software sales. “We have an installed base in Europe of nearly 26 million units,” he stated.

“I’m not sure that the next two or three million will make any real difference to software sales this Christmas.”

[Hoak 0]

A lot of that is Corporate shareholder hype, Microsoft will have to achieve market penetration of several hundred fold for it to have a large enough target audience for it's X-Box game software unit's profets compensate for the losses of the X-Box hardware unit's losses...

...