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Comment by otabdeveloper4 | Hacker News Reader

"Game consoles" are a niche lifestyle item for gen-X and millennials with money to waste. (Like vinyl records.)

Nobody under 20 knows what a "console" is even for, they play games on their iPhone almost exclusively.

This is hilariously incorrect and out-of-touch. Obviously phones are #1 by a huge margin, but the console market is as large as it's ever been as gaming as a whole became genuinely mainstream, and kids absolutely still play on them. Switch at 155 million sales, PS5 at 93 million, and under-20s have plenty of experience with hand-me-downs.

> the console market is as large as it's ever been as gaming as a whole became genuinely mainstream

Yes, like I said - lifestyle item for gen-X and millennials who have money now.

> ...and kids absolutely still play on them

The vast majority is kids playing their parents' console.

If the market wasn't being driven by parents' demand then no modern kid would be asking to buy a console. (They can play Roblox and Brawl Stars on their iPhone/iPad.)

> Nobody under 20 knows what a "console" is even for, they play games on their iPhone almost exclusively.

so which one is it - nobody under 20 knows what console is for or these kids are playing their parents console? you are contradicting yourself, something something moving the goalpost...

If only mobile devices had better external monitor support. It’s funny that iOS / macOS has by far the best controller experience from all devices pairing wise (even getting an Xbox controller to work properly on windows requires a dongle). iPad + controller just lacks games (and with emulators not even that, just good configuration).

> If only mobile devices had better external monitor support.

What I don’t get is modern phones are impressive. My iPhone from several years back was capable of running full blown Civ6 and certain older Total War titles. So clearly the raw compute power and control limitations aren’t an issue (I doubt game companies care much about the latter at all now that RTS games made it consoles)

Yet I don’t see many interesting games available for mobile. It’s all copy/paste puzzle/gambling/idle/gacha crap.

Indeed. The platform is severely underused due to the economics. From more recent games I played Alien Isolation (works great, but I didn’t finish it), Monkey Island (iPad is perfect for point and clicks), X-Com was also perfect. The power is there.

apparently my two primary school kids are nobodies for enjoying their PS3 or RetroArch

and they don't have smartphone yet, if they do it will be heavily restricted, they can play games on PS3 or portable like SF2000, phone ain't gaming device

Every single person under 20 knows what a Nintendo Switch is

Article author is an example

This comment is peak HN.

> Nobody under 20 knows what a "console" is even for, they play games on their iPhone almost exclusively.

Imagine saying this before GTA 6 which will release only on consoles this year.

That will be the game to get the entire world on their games consoles.

> That will be the game to get the entire world on their games consoles.

Console gaming is like 15% of all gaming world-wide, and GTA 6 is like a single-digit slice of that 15% slice.

What you're missing is that gaming as a whole >10x'd since the genX/millennial heyday, so consoles are actually more popular than they were 20~30 years ago even if they are a smaller portion of the overall pie (PS2-as-a-DVD-player notwithstanding).

Yes, consoles are an expensive lifestyle item for millennials who have money now.

You've repeated this baseless assertion three times now verbatim without adding any justification whatsoever for your beliefs that I think would self-evidently not survive contact with reality if you had any interaction with teenagers. From the statistics I can find, around 30% of console players are GenZ/GenA.

> From the statistics I can find, around 30% of console players are GenZ/GenA.

This is a theoretical maximum in a specific USA-centric bubble.

Consoles (and gaming in general) is just not a thing for teenagers anymore.

Gaming is gonna go the way of the electric guitar. Remember when guitar was actually cool and not just a midlife crisis marker for tired middle aged men?

I live in Japan. Gaming, including console gaming, is extremely popular for teenagers. You have literally zero idea what you're talking about. It sounds like you've just come up with some contrarian bait to sound edgy that I have regrettably taken the hook for.

The breakdown here doesn’t tell the whole story I feel. Mobile gaming is largely Asian countries hooked on gambling apps. The traditional “gaming” on consoles and PC still exists more than it ever has.

It feels like saying game consoles are dead because slot machines at the casino are more profitable “gaming” machines.

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