The console wars are over and nobody won

(kotaku.com)

37 points | by raytopia18 hours ago

3 comments

  • retrac9811 hours ago
    Games nowadays have a real accessibility issue.

    Every new game feels like I need to spend hours learning how it works before I get to having fun, when as a working parent I might only have 30 minutes here or there where I’m able to play. When I get back to a game after a couple of weeks off, I can’t remember what I was doing, or what the controls are. It’s just not fun.

    Furthermore, every time I turn my console on, everything needs an update in order to be played. So there’s a 15-20 minute wait to get to any sort of entertainment.

    Contrast this to the OG Xbox/PS2 era - I’d turn the console on and be having fun within a minute or two in a game that was easy to understand. I don’t think this was due to a lack of depth in the games either. They generally just seemed to have an “easy to learn, hard to master” aspect to them that doesn’t feel present today.

    Obviously this is a huge generalisation. But the cumulative effect is that it’s switched me off gaming completely. Unless something is considered a true masterpiece, I won’t even bother.

    My Xbox is packed away for now. I expect the next time I’ll turn it on will be for GTA 6.

    • Zanfa9 hours ago
      Call of Duty is the worst with this. After purchasing Modern Warfare, waiting for it to download 60GB, all you get is a fancy menu where the game you purchased is hidden away somewhere below the fold and it tries to upsell other CoDs instead. When you eventually figure out how to navigate the menu and find the game, you can't play it, because apparently, the 60GB download didn't include any of the game. That's another 50GB download. Oh and turns out, that also doesn't actually include the game mode you were interested in. That's another 25GB.
    • choobacker10 hours ago
      > as a working parent I might only have 30 minutes here or there where I’m able to play. When I get back to a game after a couple of weeks off, I can’t remember what I was doing, or what the controls are. It’s just not fun.

      +1, I fall into this category. It's tough.

      But is it a problem for the gaming industry? How many sales can they expect from the time poor?

      I manage to still play, by choosing conceptually simple games (puzzle, platformer, sports, GTA, some FPS), and playing on the Steam Deck. Portability + instant resume works well for this.

    • senkora4 hours ago
      One thing I appreciate about modern games is that a lot of them have quest systems that can remind you of your next objective at any point, and/or maps that tell you where you haven’t been.

      This makes it easy for me to log on, do 30 minutes of gaming and then log off and make some incremental progress on the game.

      (My experience here is mostly with Nintendo and indie games on the Switch, for reference)

    • tuna748 hours ago
      There are a lot of games that have less complex controls and game mechanics. You just have to buy those instead of what you are buying now.
  • MarkusWandel15 hours ago
    Not a gamer, but isn't that basically that the Steam Deck won, by merging the "portable", "game console" and "gaming PC" categories into one device?
    • falcor8414 hours ago
      Good point, but arguably it's that Steam (rather than Steam Deck) won, as (with the relatively low hardware margins) they probably prefer that it be others like Asus and Lenovo selling steam handhelds.
    • 4 hours ago
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    • pjmlp13 hours ago
      SteamDeck "success" is still out there to validate.

      Doesn't have the sales of any Nintendo handheld that has earned its place on history books, and remains to be seen for how long Microsoft will tolerate Proton as Windows/DirectX translation layer.

    • numpad013 hours ago
      I don't think it has meaningful volume to be considered a winner. Mental to physical share ratio is low, similar to Boston Dynamics in robotics, RISC-V in processors, etc.
  • paulryanrogers17 hours ago
    ATI/AMD made out pretty well across many generations.
    • tengbretson13 hours ago
      I suppose you could argue it may have helped keep the boat afloat before they launched Zen, but as far as I know the margins on their game console chips are terrible.
      • toast013 hours ago
        The margins are terrible, but they make it up in volume. :P Seriously though, having a volume product that covers its costs keeps the business running; even if it doesn't make a lot of margin, it enables producing products that do have reasonable margins. Zen, especially since Zen 2, can probably pay for itself now, but it's still nice to have two high volume customers.
    • wbl15 hours ago
      Not really. It's only the Xbox and Xbox One, PS4/5 where AMD CPU got used. ATI has some more design wins. Earlier generations were somewhat exotic in comparison to PC.
      • andrekandre13 hours ago

          > It's only the Xbox and Xbox One, PS4/5 where AMD CPU got used.
        
        i think maybe forgetting about gpus?

        gamecube → wii → wiiu = amd/ati gpu

        xbox 360 (amd/ati gpu) → one → series = amd gpu/cpu

        ps4 → ps5 = amd gpu/cpu