The "consoles are dead" years before the PS4 were crazy

[the-pi-guy]

I think about this a lot. Probably at least once a month.

Just a funny reminder about how wrong people can be, even when they're relatively in touch with an industry.

IGN: Are consoles dead?

Game Consoles are already dead, and developers know it

To no big surprise, tablets and phones are increasingly winning over developers: 38 percent wrote their last game for mobile devices, 55 percent moved to mobile for their latest game, and 58 percent plan their next game there.

More than half of the surveyed developers, or 53%, self-identified as "indie" developers — i.e., they're not associated with megacorps like Electronic Arts that are solely devoted to turning out the next blockbuster. Which may help explain one of the survey's more surprising findings, which is that many of these developers are actually once again warming to PCs and Macs.

Those stats don't lie: 34.6 percent of developers say they've developed PC/Mac games in the past, 48 percent are doing so now, and 49 percent plan future games.

There was this large sense that mobile was going to consume the console industry.  

It was even a major theme during the PS4 announcement.

Remote play, social media on PlayStation, games that had integrated features with mobile, play on the go. There will be companion apps for specific games, you can browse your PlayStation feed on your tablets and your phone.

Most of these things are still in existence, but they are not the selling point that Sony was driving with the PS4 announcement. This was almost the first word that Sony had on the PS4. Sony was pushing fairly hard on this idea that your phone and your PlayStation 4 will go well together.

10 years later, consoles are thriving; the PS5 did not include this brazen mobile push.

[the-pi-guy]

I'm like 99% sure I made a similar thread or at the very least a post about this before.

And I'm like 95% sure I'll make another one in 5 years.

It's just so ironic in retrospect.

[kitler53]

i was playing GoW the other day but then thought to myself,.. ya'know candy crush is basically the same game...


i don't really know what the future is but i'll say this:
- game input is super important.   i'm not playing a game with inappropriate input.  this swings both ways:
  - an FPS with "touch screen" controls are awful.
  - a game like candy crush isn't exactly awful on a controller (dualSense) but it feels better on a touch screen

- no matter how much the industry wants me to use the cloud to play my games i will never prefer it.   it's adequate in a pinch but even at it's best the extra 50 ms of lag feels awful.

- VR is not going to go mainstream.  it's neat on occasion but i don't want it to be my primary way to experience games.

- as much as I hate to say it,.. i think nintendo may have gotten it right with switch.   i don't have one but my steamdeck is so dang versatile.
  1. i can take it with me to play mobile.
  2. i could  buy a dock to play it on my TV with a regular controller via bluetooth.
  3. it has every input you'd ever want on a controller (dualSense) while mobile
  4. it also has a touch screen so you could do everything you'd ever want on mobile game.
  5. i haven't tried it out yet but i'll assume it can (or could be made to) support wiiU style gameplay.  despite wiiU's market failure i still think the idea of playing a game on TV with inputs on a touch screen can be interesting.


i don't know if there is a good technical path forward but a next gen console that was like a switch expect that the dock somehow boosted the device would be amazing to me.   take every game mobile a lower performance without sacrificing high performance while at home would be the best of both worlds.   

[Legend]

Ouya was the most hilarious element of that stupid time period. Managed to get $8.5 million on kickstarter thanks to the mobile + pc is the future talk.

I still remember on its launch day having a little bit of FOMO lol. "New consoles are so rare, I don't expect anything but maybe I should buy one!"

[BananaKing]

Ouya was the most hilarious element of that stupid time period. Managed to get $8.5 million on kickstarter thanks to the mobile + pc is the future talk.

I still remember on its launch day having a little bit of FOMO lol. "New consoles are so rare, I don't expect anything but maybe I should buy one!"

What a horrible ad.

Also, its fun to remember the hate for CoD at that time. All "hard-core gamers" hated it lol.

[Dr. Pezus]

Mobile gaming is just too dang boring and repetitive to be a replacement