The Console Market Is In Crisis - techcrunch

I don't deny some of the salient points the author is making, but... There are a number of factors that this author conveniently ignores:

1. The prior generation was completely supply-bound in its first several months. Every single console made was sold, but they hadn't reached the total that PS4 or X1 had reached, not even close, if you use a fair comparison. A better comparison would be to compare same numbers at same point in life cycle. After completing Holiday of 2006, the PS3 had sold ~700,000 units! The PS3 had less than a million under it's belt by the time the PS4 had 4 million. Come on, man.

2. Do you know why the numbers are skewed? Because the Wii was an insane fad in 2006/2007 like none had ever seen. It's the Pet Rock of our generation. Yeah, exclude the Wii and let's talk about the shrinking console market using this small window. You can't just "wave away" the Wii, but seriously, look where the Wii took the market - great hardware numbers for a while, but the people buying a Wii were a wider audience that we've lost.

3. Author is only using NPD data, which accounts only for NA - we don't know how much stock was intended for European launches. You can't find a PS4 on shelves yet (maybe on Amazon though).

4. The available leisure dollar for the average American was far different in 2006 than in 2014 - we have had a disastrous recession.

5. The PS2 comparison doesn't hold as much water (I assume the author was trying to compare end of life PS2 to end of life PS3) because the PS3 has been out for much much much longer than the PS2 was at that point.

6. In 2006, the Xbox 360 had already been out for some time (a full year). It had the time to develop meaningful exclusives - notably, it's not the CONSOLE that released in Holiday 2006, it was Gears of War. Not only did it have meaningful titles, it also had overcome it's terrible supply issues.

7. There were more supported systems on the market in 2006.

It would be interesting with some sort of comparison of available games (exclusive or not) during different cycles. Personally I'd love have a PS4 since I enjoy the feel of playing on a console (just as much as I love the different experience of playing on a PC), but as of yet there isn't any games available on either the PS4 or Xbox One that I'm interested in.

A mod already deleted this one this morning because it is an editorial rather than news.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gamernews/comments/200muo/the_console_market_is_in_crisis_due_to/cfypg7p

Eh I disagree. This writer is ignoring some hugely important factors.

1 . the ps3 and 360 have been out for 4 years longer than their counter parts.

2. The global market went through a massive recession that we're still recovering from.

3. The reduction of exclusives is due to rising production costs and easier porting

I'm convinced that this was the last console generation but (maybe) one or two.

The next "next gen" will be a total flop. Then there will be an attempt to revive the market, which will fail utterly.

You can't sustain a high-tech market with a product cycle of 5 to 8 years. Move to commodity hardware, and focus on software.

PC 4 eva

Not surprised, nowadays the PC is offering much more for much less, as long as you can wait a few months for the games they are almost free and you don't need to pay for online subscriptions and other nonsense. No need to talk about hardware.

If anything I'm surprised still so many people is buying the new consoles but unless consoles reinvent themselves soon they are a dying dinosaur and they will be less relevant with each new generation. I almost feel bad for Microsoft, ditching PC gaming in favor of their console doesn't look like a smart move right now. You know what they say, don't put all your eggs in one single basket. Actually I'm thankful as this meant the end of GFWL, rejoice!

I've removed this because it's editorial, not news.