The head of ngmoco's new Stockholm studio, Ben Cousins, believes that the death of traditional home consoles is already underway.
Fear not, though: Cousins doesn't think consoles will be completely eradicated, just like cinemas weren't completely wiped out when TVs arrived on the scene.
"By 'die', I mean talk about something that has significantly smaller market share with no sign of return," Cousins said at this year's Game Developers Conference.
Destruction
According to the former EA and Sony employee, this drop in market share happens when "customers move to a new solution" and "a new product comes into your category and massively expands the overall market."
Cousins thinks both will happen due to the disruption smartphones and tablets are having on consoles.
"I believe that mobile devices and mobile platforms are the disruptive technologies that are going to cut a slice through the Western market," Cousins said.
Bite-sized smartphone and tablet games are "cheaper and more convenient, but these advantages now really matter."
If he's talking about potable consoles his observations are about 2 years too late, The problem with Nintendo and Sony in this regard is that they've failed to embrace convergence, theres only so much room in peoples pockets, why carry around a games console a camera, a videocamera, a movie player, a mp3 player a pda, and a phone ? when you can carry one slim device which does all 7 and more !
Sony had a bit of a Kodak digital camera moment, holding back because they wanted to sell everyone 7 devices rather than just one, but should have realised they can't control consumer trends, just follow them.
Hopefully now they've bought out Ericsson they can do a true PS phone not the rather longwindedly named Sony Ericsson Experian Play with a foreign OS and adopt Apples far more simple approach of 1 year 1 handset, keeping fragmentation to a minimum cutting overheads and making the brand simpler and more solid in the eyes of the consumer.
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Etharius |16:28 - 12 March 2012
Hmm, seems like he's stating the obvious - there are only so many customers, and any new install-base will affect another. Consoles are generally cheaper in terms of initial investment, and although the games cost more they do deliver far more in terms of quality and longevity. It's these factors that need to be addressed on current portable technology before any real threat to the console market is truly realised. Vita is probably the closest convergence of the two markets at the moment, though the software (browser especially) needs to be addressed before you could consider replacing a tablet with it.
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divisionbell7 |14:19 - 12 March 2012
All mobile gaming does is water down gaming. Any true gamer will stick to a console or a PC. I don't see mobile gaming ever take over real gaming, unless real gamers go away.
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