PS4 and Xbox One pre-order sales declining

[Germanic]

Sorry if this thread was misleading. I didn't intend to say that console gaming is dead, I intended to say it was dying out because of tablets and smartphones.

Most people enjoy playing games on tablets and smartphones. For them, console gaming is no longer even a consideration. Yes tablets and smartphones are nowhere near as good as playing on computers or consoles, but it still cuts significant market share from consoles.

If you think the PS4 or XBox One will surpass PS3/XBox 360 in terms of sales, you are wrong my friends.

 

[chimaxi83]

I enjoy reading obvious troll posts, full of dimwitted "facts", especially when they're by new members.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Sorry if this thread was misleading. I didn't intend to say that console gaming is dead, I intended to say it was dying out because of tablets and smartphones.

Most people enjoy playing games on tablets and smartphones. For them, console gaming is no longer even a consideration. Yes tablets and smartphones are nowhere near as good as playing on computers or consoles, but it still cuts significant market share from consoles.

If you think the PS4 or XBox One will surpass PS3/XBox 360 in terms of sales, you are wrong my friends.

The crowds that plays phones/tablets are not the same crowd that plays consoles, and honestly..there are probably going to be quite a few Nintendo Wii people moving on to the newer gen but not going with Nintendo. There are a considerable amount that weren't the casual crowd.

 

[Dumac]

Sorry if this thread was misleading. I didn't intend to say that console gaming is dead, I intended to say it was dying out because of tablets and smartphones.

Most people enjoy playing games on tablets and smartphones. For them, console gaming is no longer even a consideration. Yes tablets and smartphones are nowhere near as good as playing on computers or consoles, but it still cuts significant market share from consoles.

Sorry, but that just doesn't follow. Smart phone penetration is growing, and people with smartphones are sure to download some free game like Angry Birds or Candy Crush. Does this make them "mobile gamers"? I guess. Are these the people who would buy a console in the first place? I doubt it. There is no evidence of a huge market share being cut from console gaming.

Phones are in no way a replacement for an actual console. I don't even understand how you could think that. I could see an argument made against handhelds, but only a weak one at best. Handhelds are selling better than ever before.

Someone who actually likes videogames won't be satisfied with mobile 'gaming'.

If you think the PS4 or XBox One will surpass PS3/XBox 360 in terms of sales, you are wrong my friends.

I think you are the wrong one. We'll see with time. PS4 and Xbone preorders are breaking records. Amazon sold out of launch models, and Gamestop quit accepting preorders.

 

[Dumac]

I enjoy reading obvious troll posts, full of dimwitted "facts", especially when they're by new members.

I know. I tried to abstain from responding to such an obvious troll for the longest time. If I was a mod, I'd probably send the OP on a vacation, but I guess that is why I am not a mod.

 

[Midwayman]

Here's the way I think of it. Mobile gaming complements other forms of gaming, but I can't ever see mobile gaming take over. First, because the quality of the games - let's face it, these are simplistic games that in no way match any sort of AAA title. Second, mobile just will not have the power to provide a compelling living room experience any time in the next 5 years. Yes, mobile power is increasing - but even if mobile GPUs tripled in processing power overnight, they would still be less powerful than 10 year old gaming consoles.

FWIW, right now mobile GPUs are about half of what the current gen consoles are. They are expected to surpass them sometime this year or next year according to all the industry projections I've seen. I'm not quite sure what you need hardware wise to be 'compelling' but the Wii did okay with less gpu than modern flagship phones. I would think that ps3/xb360 level graphics could be classified as compelling.

In the end whats wrong with mobile in the near future is mostly controls. Check this video out. http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/designing-for-a-touch-screen It sort of explains what is going on. Eventually someone is going to get it right.

 

[blackened23]

FWIW, right now mobile GPUs are about half of what the current gen consoles are.

That is actually nowhere near true. The next generation mobile chips (such as Tegra 4) are still 1/4th to 1/5th of the power of the xbox 360 , and they're not released yet. As well, they're vertex and pixel based. Just so you know, the gaming world switched to shader based rendering more than a decade ago, so V+P is worthless for living room gaming.

If you think that mobile will catch up anytime soon, we'll agree to disagree. I'd say in 4-5 years they will catch up to xbox 360 (based on how fast current and prior gen increases have been).

 

[cmdrdredd]

That is actually nowhere near true. The next generation mobile chips (such as Tegra 4) are still 1/4th to 1/5th of the power of the xbox 360 , and they're not released yet. As well, they're vertex and pixel based. Just so you know, the gaming world switched to shader based rendering more than a decade ago, so V+P is worthless for living room gaming.

If you think that mobile will catch up anytime soon, we'll agree to disagree. I'd say in 4-5 years they will catch up to xbox 360 (based on how fast current and prior gen increases have been).

I think sometimes the mistake is made of classifying a mobile CPU and GPU together and misrepresenting the actual performance. On the GPU side you're right, it's not that close. The CPU side though? Maybe the latest quad core mobile CPU would measure up somewhat favorably to the 360, but only for CPU calculations. Even if this were so, and I don't know that it is anyway, the power requirements of a device designed to run off a battery is very small compared to something designed to plug into the wall. Battery tech has lagged behind seriously IMO. Every new CPU can do this or that at multiple times the speed of last year's phone but the battery still drains way too fast.

 

[exdeath]

Yes tablets and smartphones are nowhere near as good as playing on computers or consoles, but it still cuts significant market share from consoles.

Good. Weed out the casuals and maybe the real game consoles and studios will have to start focusing on the core demographics and devoted fans again instead of trying to appeal to the widest possible audience. Eventually they will tire of getting burned by the uncommitted unreliable casuals whose gaming tastes come and go with the latest pop trends.

 

[smackababy]

Good. Weed out the casuals and maybe the real game consoles and studios will have to start focusing on the core demographics and devoted fans again instead of trying to appeal to the widest possible audience. Eventually they will tire of getting burned by the uncommitted unreliable casuals whose gaming tastes come and go with the latest pop trends.

But the trends don't just come and go. See Justin Beiber... How is he still popular?

 

[Midwayman]

That is actually nowhere near true. The next generation mobile chips (such as Tegra 4) are still 1/4th to 1/5th of the power of the xbox 360 , and they're not released yet. As well, they're vertex and pixel based. Just so you know, the gaming world switched to shader based rendering more than a decade ago, so V+P is worthless for living room gaming.

If you think that mobile will catch up anytime soon, we'll agree to disagree. I'd say in 4-5 years they will catch up to xbox 360 (based on how fast current and prior gen increases have been).

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/03/29/tegra-5-faster-xbox-360-ps3/1

So its mabye 2.5x. I'm still closer than you are. Terga 4 may not be out until the end of the month in the shield, but similar performance power VR chips are already out. Nvidia is the one who is claiming they will be more powerful.

 

[cmdrdredd]

But the trends don't just come and go. See Justin Beiber... How is he still popular?

Cause it's still trendy...?

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/03/29/tegra-5-faster-xbox-360-ps3/1

So its mabye 2.5x. I'm still closer than you are. Terga 4 may not be out until the end of the month in the shield, but similar performance power VR chips are already out. Nvidia is the one who is claiming they will be more powerful.

It is in Nvidia's interests to claim this on PR and marketing slides against AMD in the console.

 

[Midwayman]

It is in Nvidia's interests to claim this on PR and marketing slides against AMD in the console.

Maybe. But its not the only place thinking we're about to cross that line.

Interesting article about it
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/digitalfoundry-the-quest-for-console-quality-mobile-graphics

Then there are the power VR series 6 chips due out this year. They're talking scaling to the 1000gflop range with this series. Now theoretical performance and real world are different things, but this is stuff due soon, not 5 years from now.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/03/powervr-series-6-test-chip/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T7z2_OcFDs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNEr0bXxbqs

 

[zerocool84]

Good. Weed out the casuals and maybe the real game consoles and studios will have to start focusing on the core demographics and devoted fans again instead of trying to appeal to the widest possible audience. Eventually they will tire of getting burned by the uncommitted unreliable casuals whose gaming tastes come and go with the latest pop trends.

Never happen, gaming is the largest it's ever been. Your dreams of them making games that nobody would play are dead.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Like I said, they are trying to hit a moving goal. We hit 4TFlops on GPUs last year on the PC side with the 7970. The Ghz edition and the GTX Titan as well as the GTX 780 are beyond 4TFlops now.

As was said...are they capable of direct compute, shaders etc? If it's still just vertex and pixel it doesn't even compare.

 

[Sulaco]

Never happen, gaming is the largest it's ever been. Your dreams of them making games that nobody would play are dead.

'Nobody would play'? What? That's...not even close to what he said. And also not close to being accurate.

Blindly appealing to the most generic, lowest common denominator audience is anything but a surefire guarantee of success. There's marked and measurable backlash in recent years against that strategy, and the sales show it.

You're still going to have your Maddens, your Wii-Sports-Dance-Party, and your CoDs at the top of the sales charts all the time. But beyond that, that sort of "second tier" of games is not going to survive by just piggy backing "me too" concepts ad nauseam.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Like I said, they are trying to hit a moving goal. We hit 4TFlops on GPUs last year on the PC side with the 7970. The Ghz edition and the GTX Titan as well as the GTX 780 are beyond 4TFlops now.

As was said...are they capable of direct compute, shaders etc? If it's still just vertex and pixel it doesn't even compare.

I think some of them are already unified and are compute capable (hell there's one or two that almost has parity with nVidia/AMD/Intel in what APIs they support).

PowerVR's unique tile-based, deferred rendering/shading architecture allows a very small area of a die to deliver higher performance and image quality at lower power consumption than all competing technologies. All major APIs are supported including the latest versions of the OpenGL ES, OpenGL, DirectX and OpenCL APIs

Isn't deferred rendering/shader the popular rendering setup right now?

I think Rogue (the new PowerVR GPU) is DirectX 11 capable.

nVidia is bringing Kepler's setup to their mobile platform after Tegra 4, which will likely be shown off at the beginning of 2014.

Intel is supposedly going to start bolstering the GPU in Atom, and there's recent talk that they want to speed up development of those platforms as well.

In short, I think it'll only be a couple of years before mobile platforms surpass 360/PS3 level. Now there being games that push those capabilities is quite another thing, but CryEngine and UE are both supporting mobile platforms, as well as some others, so the tools to do it are there.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I think some of them are already unified and are compute capable (hell there's one or two that almost has parity with nVidia/AMD/Intel in what APIs they support).



Isn't deferred rendering/shader the popular rendering setup right now?

I think Rogue (the new PowerVR GPU) is DirectX 11 capable.

nVidia is bringing Kepler's setup to their mobile platform after Tegra 4, which will likely be shown off at the beginning of 2014.

Intel is supposedly going to start bolstering the GPU in Atom, and there's recent talk that they want to speed up development of those platforms as well.

In short, I think it'll only be a couple of years before mobile platforms surpass 360/PS3 level. Now there being games that push those capabilities is quite another thing, but CryEngine and UE are both supporting mobile platforms, as well as some others, so the tools to do it are there.

Ok and the other thing...can they be profitable? I still don't think people will be paying $40+ to play a game, on their phone. If not it won't work out too well. Licensing an engine would cost a lot to begin with.

 

[blackened23]

The design of mobile chips runs contrary to what a AAA living room experience requires. Mobile chips are designed for battery life and efficiency. Not the best graphical performance required for gaming, and with that - they won't match dedicated set top devices any time soon.

Furthermore, just look at mobile games. Does anyone really take this garbage seriously? Okay, well I play a few when i'm bored and have nothing better to do during lunch breaks. But as I mentioned earlier these are 2-3$ games with quality completely commensurate with the price. This isn't something designed for a top quality living room experience, and I don't see that changing any time soon. The design of mobile devices (efficiency) runs contrary to what a top quality experience with the best graphics requires.

Efficiency and performance is always a balancing act. To gain one you lose the other, relatively speaking. The design of mobile devices is tilted towards 10% power and 90% efficiency and longevity.

 

[Midwayman]

Like I said, they are trying to hit a moving goal. We hit 4TFlops on GPUs last year on the PC side with the 7970. The Ghz edition and the GTX Titan as well as the GTX 780 are beyond 4TFlops now.

As was said...are they capable of direct compute, shaders etc? If it's still just vertex and pixel it doesn't even compare.

Yes. The power vr series 6 is dx11 and open gl ES 3.0 compatible. Not sure on tegra 4. It has GPU compute as well. And yes they'll always be behind PC's and consoles (well near launch anyways) for thermal reasons if nothing else. However that was never my contention at least. Within the next couple years we'll be seeing some impressible looking graphics possible on your phone/tablet.

 

[Sazuzaki]

And rightfully so. Console gaming is pretty much dead and I don't see how console manufacturers can revive console gaming back.

Tablets, smartphones and other portable devices have now stolen a significantly large portion of the gaming market share.

Computer gaming offers superior graphics, modding and physics in the long term. The XBox One and PS4 also have low-end graphics cards compared to high-end computers.

http://www.examiner.com/article/ps4-and-xbox-one-pre-order-sales-declining

I just LOLed at this... =P

 

[dighn]

the "upper class" bit was a nice touch.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

Both console pre-orders have sold out.

I guess that would cause sales to decline, yeah.

 

[Tweak155]

the "upper class" bit was a nice touch.

Haha.

 

[smackababy]

Both console pre-orders have sold out.

I guess that would cause sales to decline, yeah.

So, pre-orders have ceased completely then? Clearly console gaming is dying!