Thoughts on new consoles?

[ImaNihilist]

Next gen consoles have been, more or less, a complete failure. The PS4 is outselling the XBO, but the volume on both is so low it's not really worth talking about. Sales are so bad that Sony lumped PS3 and PS4 sales together in their last report to make it seem less apocalyptic.

SNES - 50 million
PS1 - 100 million
PS2 - 155 million
PS3 - 80 million
PS4 - 7 million

Yeah, it's only been around a few months. But it's already sort of peaked. Volume isn't exactly picking up. The hype train is over. Even internally Sony made the decision to allocate only minimal advertising dollars to the PS4 launch (Microsoft, on the other hand, went wild — and it didn't pay off).

Could a killer game switch things up? Maybe. But I think the days of killer exclusive AAA titles that sell systems are over. I just went through the Titanfall launch and saw how that played out, and it did not play out as well as anyone had hoped.
I'd be impressed if lifetime sales of the PS4 ever reach 40 million units.

The reality is that 7 million units globally, spread over two quarters, is abysmal for a consumer electronics device today (in a category that used to see serious growth). A smartphone can easily do 30 million units in a single quarter. The DS is the only console holding on at this point, partially because it's cheap to produce and evolves slowly over time. It's a smarter strategy, and really the only thing that can survive in this market.

You have to ask yourself, as many developers today are: If you are going to make a game, does it really make any sense to make a PS4 or XBO exclusive? The answer is a resounding, "No." The only reason anything at all is being made for next-gen consoles is because Microsoft and Sony are paying out the *** to make it happen. Microsoft in particular is basically saying, "Hey, we'll literally give you a gift basket of tens of millions in media dollars to make this happen. Please make a game for us. Please?"