Carmack: Consoles could become a niche | Hacker News Reader

Carmack: Consoles could become a niche

develop-online.net

39 pointsmwilcox44 comments

I'm somewhat surprised he isn't predicting something closer to a mix of the OnLive strategy partnered with the last-mile provider (Comcast, AT&T, etc.). It seems like some way of letting game makers or these services rent space in data centers on the last mile (ala the datacenters at the CME, NYSE, NASDAQ, etc.) might make it possible to deal with the fps latency issue and stream to a fairly dumb client that runs on most console/set-top box platforms.

Certainly, if I were making a 5/10-year bet, that'd be it.

The video-game idea, to me, is gone anyway. There's a unknown factor that has disappeared. 80s and 90s machines were all surfing the edge of what could be possible to render on a screen. And we, as consumers, had almost no idea. You'd be blown away by 2.5D, transparency, polygons etc etc. The 'shaders' era put an end to that race, even though the handheld constraints gives new room to compete. Somehow it's good, it means games will be more about games and not about making awesome HD-wallpapers-replay-demos; but at the same time I can't shake the feeling that developpers needed the hardware limitations to fuel their creativity. And also do people want more realism ? I'm more drawn to impressionism these days...

Except the gaming equivalent of an audiophile is a PC gamer, constantly fiddling with his "rig" to get THE most high-quality graphics at THE fastest framerate he can manage.

Consoles are like Bose Wave Stereos.

Next year's iPad will most likely be more powerful than the XBOX 360 and PS3 (it already has more ram and supports a higher resolution). That will be a big deal. As it stands, it already does better graphics than last generation's consoles. Add in the really high resolution display, and you can see why console gaming will become more niche.

People have limited money to spend on electronics, and as gaming on consoles becomes better, more people will play games on them instead of buying dedicated gaming machines. With technology like AirPlay, consumers can play tablet games on big TVs.

The same hardware that is in tablets makes its way to phones, which is going to make portable gaming systems very niche. We may even see phones next year that can create better looking games than the XBOX 360 and PS3.

Cloud gaming is on the way, and this will further erode consoles. You'll be able to have a dumb terminal of a TV or set top box that uses servers to render gaming content. Better looking games will naturally happen as servers become cheaper and more powerful.

None of this will replace the console gaming experience for those that really want that experience, but for the more casual audience, it will begin to erode it. With tablets, AirPlay, cloud gaming, etc. what future does a console like the Wii have? Phones can even be used as motion controllers with all of their sensors built in.

There will be a future for XBOX 360 and PS3 style consoles, but I agree that it will be more niche and that the next generation will last a long time. Because of this, I hope the next generation of consoles are built to last a long time.

It's rather interesting that contrary to the popular wisdom around here, general purpose computers are still preferred over locked-down electronic appliances. This is precisely the reason why iPads, iPhones and Androids are probably going to eat into the gaming consoles market.

The biggest problem of PCs is the fast evolution of hardware. When you buy a game for PS3, you know it will work well on your PS3. And when you buy a PS3, you know you'll keep finding games for it, even in 3 years from now. And I bet there are still titles released for PS2. That's the only advantage of console gaming and is quite a big one.

The fast evolution of mobile devices is actually a disadvantage for the kind of people that buy gaming consoles in the first place.

However, console gaming has been a niche for quite some time. This is not new. The exception was Nintendo's Wii, but that was just a fluke.

I'm really surprised that people think consoles are currently a niche market for games, after an example like Call of Duty selling 8.4 million copies in the US in a month, with almost all of the copies on consoles, not PC. And if ever there was a PC-friendly genre, it's the first-person shooter.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/31995/Exclusive_Black_Ops...

The problem with your article is this sentence: "digital sales via outlets such as Steam not taken into account for this total"

Digital distribution dominates on the PC now, and if your figures don't take it into account, then your figures aren't very useful.

I'm really surprised that people think consoles are currently a niche market for games

http://boardgames.about.com/od/monopolyfaq/f/copies_sold.htm

According to Hasbro, as of early 2008, more than 250 million copies of Monopoly have been sold worldwide. (As of early 2003, the estimate was "more than 200 million copies.") The company estimates that nearly 500 million people have played Monopoly.

Anyone want to guess how many decks of playing cards, or chess sets have been sold?

There are some very big numbers for the oldest and most classic video games as well. Take a look at the estimated numbers for Super Mario Brothers. Or the entire Mario franchise.

This is an interesting thought. The next Xbox3 and PS4 will be way more powerful again. But will they release a new model every year like the iPad/iPhone? I guess not. The momentum (and money) of mobile is incredible.

On the other side everyone expects Apple to make something interesting with their Apple TV like enabling Apps or selling their own TV. I am not sure they will do because Airplay works fine. But a standalone box has a few advantages to mobile devices which only stream to the TV: More internal room. Unlimited electricity. Better Controllers.

@Cloud Gaming This is really interesting and has potential for disruption. But OnLive is not available in Europe, so I can't try out how good/bad it is working. I can only speculate lag will always bother the die-hard fans?

The console market is already becoming a niche.

They're for social games (like WiiSports) that you play with friends and family or story-driven games (RPGs, etc) that you don't need a PC to play.

Honestly, I don't know how anyone plays FPS games on consoles. I play Halo 3 with my son now and the controls are infuriating.

I played many FPS on PCs, and was equally frustrated with my xbox when I first got it. But once I got used to it, I can really say that playing FPSs with a controller is better than with a mouse&keyboard.

To each his own, I guess. I find a good mouse to be the best aiming tool there is.

The console market is already becoming a niche

Do you think so? I think most males in the 10-40 year old age group have at least one console sitting around at home. Many of them don't play them very often, but they got 'em.

I don't know anyone who plays games on an actual PC anymore. Just buying a PC game seems to require you to carry around an encyclopaedic knowledge of graphics cards in order to determine ahead of time whether it'll run.

> ...consoles may soon become a niche product for highly dedicated, purist consumers.

Isn't that the role that high-end gaming PCs fill now? It sounds like he's saying game consoles as we know them are just going to go away.

Yeah, Carmack hasn't said the most intelligible things as of the past couple years. Him and other PC acolytes from the 90s aren't all completely "there" with their wonky prognostications. He seems to want to marginalize the console's importance by dropping technology buzzwords into the same sentences (I mean there is OnLive but that hasn't been too impressive). High-end gaming on the PC is what is becoming-no, it already is a niche, who am I kidding?

I tend to agree. My phone & laptop can play games, make calls, browse the web, stream media and connect me to my friends, regardless of where I am. Why do I want an expensive hunk of hardware sitting next to my TV (both of which) that I barely use?

Consoles need to offer something different to stand out. I bought a PS3 to play a specific game and because it was the cheapest Blu Ray player at the time. With consoles getting less exclusives & more games I want to play getting distributed to my phone & computer, I can't say the console really offers me anything of worth...

The current generation of game-consoles have had a long lifecycle as it is. The Xbox has now been around what, 7 years?

All consoles will definitely begin to become a niche product. I think the more avid gamers will go back to using their PC. Don't get me wrong, I love using my iPad.. but not for "serious" gaming. Angry Birds, yes. Halo, no.

I cannot see consoles living forever though, there are already so many ways to have a "full media experience", which is what the current consoles are trying to offer to make them a viable part of everyone's living room.

It wont for simple economic reasons: if (big IF) consoles really go down in popularity that means there wont be enough users to justify selling units at a loss, the main reason why consoles were always cheaper than gaming rigs.

Just look at the history of consoles, there were many models that had small userbases and thus were a niche. All failed, no exceptions.

Nobody is going to subsidize a console if there aren't enough game sales to get that investment back.

Similarly if people stopped buying smartphones then carriers would stop subsidizing them, so iPhones would cost $600 and then who would want one? not nearly enough people to justify current production levels, and BTW without those it would be far more than $600 without a subsidy.

Hardcore gamers, "purists", are already using highend gaming rigs that cost several times more than a console does. But they are a minority and sales numbers prove it.

If all this happened then consoles would disappear, or morph into something resembling the Phantom, which BTW failed big time.

On the one hand you have the growing trend of kids and teenagers investing heavily in tablets and smartphones, and would see that as their go to standard for gaming in the next 10 years.

One the other hand, the concept of the tv and a centralized hub of media and entertainment continues to persist regardless of emerging technology markets.

I can't help but think that a service like Onlive will play a significant role in this. People will just use Airplay, Smartglass, etc. to get their game on the TV.

I think consoles will become niche because networks will eventually get fast enough so that you see the same dynamic with games that you see with blue-ray/movies. Instead of players needing to buy expensive, specialized graphics rendering equipment they can just connect to a service using whatever user-input/video-playing device they have. Sites like onlive are already trying to do this (though obviously, they aren't really there yet)

I think this could work for a lot of games, but I'm skeptical that it would work for quick twitch games (eg FPS) because of latency issues.

I'm not convinced (at least, not for real-time games). Streaming non-interactive video requires advances in bandwidth. Streaming interactive video requires near-zero latency if the rendering is done in the cloud. Without it, there will be a noticeable and frustrating gap between action and feedback.

> Streaming non-interactive video requires advances in bandwidth.

Of course, and also throughput and latency. There is money to be made solving these problems, though, independent of the gaming industry. Compare the state of streaming video now to the state it was 5 years ago and 10 years ago.

It's clear that the console market is at a turning point.

The Xbox360, PS3 and Wii have all (AFAIK) gone well beyond the lifespans of their predecessors. It's just taking longer and longer to recoup that investment.

When they came out they were much better (in price-performance terms) than their PC equivalents. As expected, this lasts no longer than 6-12 months.

Rumor has it that the next Playstation will be subpar compared tot he PCs of that time [1] (read the whole thing).

One issue with the PS3/Xbox style gaming is that we're hitting a wall when it comes to improved graphics. Graphics are getting better but not at a rate that people tend to care about. The bigger problem is that those improved graphics come at the cost of content creation (meaning it's more expensive to develop a "level" with more complex models, higher res textures and so forth). Games are getting shorter [2].

At the same time mobile gaming is taking off. Tablets (and possibly phones) are becoming the new consoles. The current iPad has 1GB of RAM and some pretty impressive graphics (given the form factor). And it's only getting better for the foreseeable future.

Mobile gaming I think will hurt Nintendo the most and I see a not insignificant possibility that Nintendo will end up like Sega and just be a software house. I seem to remember reading something about their investors questioning them not bringing their valuable franchises to iOS.

[1]: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/04/the-x86-playstation-4-...

[2]: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/04/the-incredible-shrinki...

I don't understand why people compare tablets and phones to console. It's like you have never played a console game before. Console gaming is about big screens, epic scenery. people having fun together. xbox is turning into the living room PC, eventually gaming will be a just feature. They have already announced IE for xbox. they are going to add more and more live tv options and apps in the future. It is backed by WP, Windows..ect.

However I'm not sure about Wii and PS. They have no Platform to compete with Apple TV and Google TV.

Consoles was never just about big scenes/epic scenery or people having fun together. Starting from nintendo up to PS2 there was plenty of casual games (think tetris).

If consoles are going to be limited to epic games then investing in consoles becomes a huge gamble. You have 200 million to spend, do you want to create 1000 games for the iphone or 1 big console game that if it gets below an 80 on metacritic will be considered a "flop".

People don't buy misses on consoles and they don't buy casual games. They buy the big epic games like you described and that is KILLING the industry.

You are 100% correct. The big blockbuster games will become like movies and the casual games will be like tv shows. Blockbuster movies flop all the time like "John Carter". On the other hand we are going to have freemuim multiplayer games (WoW, Diablo3, COD)

>I don't understand why people compare tablets and phones to console.

Consoles were, and are, still dominant because the most time that the average person spent with a screen was a TV.

However, the consumer's usage habits are adjusting. The primary screen they are beginning to use is the smartphone and, eventually, it will be the same for the tablet because it is so mobile. This is where gaming is going to have to go.

>Console gaming is about big screens, epic scenery.

That may be what consoles are about but that is not what gaming is about. I would think that it's a dream for any gamer to have access to the same game wherever you are.

>They have already announced IE for xbox.

This will likely be the least used feature of all of MS's announcements. I don't know anyone who enjoyed using a browser sitting 10 feet away from the screen.

I agree that more time will be spent on casual games but the big blockbuster, multiplayer, RPG games will still have their market.

the IE for xbox is just part of the movement on Xbox to turn it into the entertainment center of the living room. It's sayign that it's not only for gaming. The fact that Xbox is used more as an entertainment center than gaming is just sign of things to come. It's pretty obvious that the next xbox is going to be marketed as an entertainment center rather than a console.

Put a powerful cpu, gpu and an usb controller and there's no technical difference between a tablet and a console. Console games have only historically had different graphics and gameplay because of historical limitations of mobile hardware. Not because there's anything magically special about an xbox. You give mobile devices similar hardware and consoles become dumb pipes.

There is no technical difference between a laptop, console, desktop either. But who would want a tablet that is as thick as a laptop, with fans and 1 hour battery life. You can't just stick a i7 and quadcore GPU in a tablet. Your iPad is good for casual games. People are playing lots of casual games but those games are unrelated to games like COD, Battlefield, Elder Scrolls, GTA, FIFA, Madden. It's like comparing a TV show to a big blockbuster movie.

This is already happening. Search for "android hd gameplay hdmi" on youtube and you see countless examples of connecting an android phone to a HD display through HDMI. Hell, there are examples of streaming Netflix on your HDTV.

Phones already support bluetooth, so there is no reason why a couple of dualshocks cannot work with my android phone for team gaming.

I daresay if Sony did not have its "sunken cost" pathology about the playstation consoles, it could rule the gaming world - it already makes Playstation phones and it is one of the world's largest game publishers - it is just too scared to take the final leap. In one shot, it could come up with a phone and game library that could cannibalize its PS2 range.

Tell me when a tablet can play the latest blockbuster AAA titles on max settings on a big screen. keep in mind that most laptops can't even do this. Your scenario might come true if game publishers stop developing AAA games that require very resource intensive games.

neither can a console. We're not comparing a mobile to a high end desktop but to current generation consoles.

You can play skyrim on xbox. anyway that is not the point. You have games on your laptop, you have games on your phone and you have games on your tv.

The console market is fine and most of what Ars claims has been said at the cusp of every new console generation.

The original Playstation came out in 1994 and wasn't discontinued until 2009. The PS2 is still being manufactured. PS3 still has a while to go by that metric. If you want to talk time between models, PS1-to-PS2 was 6 years, and PS2-PS3 was 6 years, leaving PS4 to be only slightly behind the curve if it comes out next year.

Consoles have always been subpar in some way or another compared to top-of-the-line PCs at release; that article's claim is silly. My PC at the release of the PS3 had four times the PS3's RAM, and it wasn't even top-of-the-line. One of the biggest benefits of targeting a console is that it's a stable, homogeneous platform.

Tablets and phones aren't the new consoles, they're the new GameBoys. In that way, I agree with you that they could hurt Nintendo the most, mainly by virtue of the DS having been the leader in that market.

> When they came out they were much better (in price-performance terms) than their PC equivalents. As expected, this lasts no longer than 6-12 months.

That may be true in price/performance, but in absolute price terms, those 6-7 year old consoles are still a better deal. The quality of experience you get from a $200 Xbox continues to be much higher than that of a $200 PC.

FYI, Nintendo is right on schedule with their console compared to their predecessors, and Nintendo doesn't sell their hardware at a loss, so I don't think it's fair to lump them in with PS3 and Xbox. In some ways Nintendo is a very innovative company, in others they are a very conservative company too.

> The Xbox360, PS3 and Wii have all (AFAIK) gone well beyond the lifespans of their predecessors.

    PS1 (Dec 1994)
    PS2 (Nov 2000) = PS1 + 71 months
    PS3 (Nov 2006) = PS2 + 72 months
    today (Jun 2012) = PS3 + 67 months

    Gamecube (Sep 2001)
    Wii (Nov 2006) = GC + 62 months
    today (Jun 2012) = Wii + 67 months
    (Wii U already announced for later this year)

    Xbox (Nov 2001)
    Xbox360 (Nov 2005) = Xbox + 48 months
    today (Jun 2012) = Xbox360 + 79 months

Only one of these is significantly beyond the lifespan of its predecessors, and that's in large part because its predecessor had such a short lifespan, by industry standards.

The Xbox360, PS3 and Wii have all (AFAIK) gone well beyond the lifespans of their predecessors. It's just taking longer and longer to recoup that investment.

The Wii was profitable from the first unit sold.

The argument people keep making that mobile devices are only for "casual" gamers does not hold water. While largely true today, there is no reason this will continue to be the case. Look at the console market and you'll see that all early games were what anyone would describe as "casual" today.

Let the mobile gaming market mature, and you'll find it filling niches you hadn't thought possible.

If they want to keep their own mainstream market, consoles will need to keep innovating, rather than just offer pretty much what a PC/laptop/tablet is offering, with varying degrees of visual graphics.

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