Microsoft says Xbox has "lost the console wars."

Overall, consoles just seem like a Gen X/Millenial phenomenon rather than a Gen Z one.

Total consoles sales foe 7th gen was about 270 million.
8th gen was about 190 million.
9th gen barely hit 80 million 4 years in.

This did not include Switch but I did not include the DS for the 7th or 8th gen.

It's just hard to get attention spans past 5 minutes when there are quick and easy dopamine rushes with a smartphone.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1101872/unit-sales-video-game-consoles/
 
Overall, consoles just seem like a Gen X/Millenial phenomenon rather than a Gen Z one.

Total consoles sales foe 7th gen was about 270 million.
8th gen was about 190 million.
9th gen barely hit 80 million 4 years in.

This did not include Switch but I did not include the DS for the 7th or 8th gen.

It's just hard to get attention spans past 5 minutes when there are quick and easy dopamine rushes with a smartphone.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1101872/unit-sales-video-game-consoles/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/687059/nintendo-switch-unit-sales-worldwide/

Consoles aren't going anywhere.
 
Switch is not really a console as most don't use it as a console.

9th gen sales are especially bad considering it came about during covid as you would have guessed many would have done alot of gaming being stuck at home. Also, there was a $300 console available, which is incredibly cheap factoring in inflation.

More important than sales is attach rate. I think Miscrosoft is still doing good in this area so I doubt they are ready to give up consoles just yet.

It's always been a bit perplexing how bad Xbox has done outside of North America. While Nintendo and Sony might have more exclusives, it's not as if the Xbox has nothing especially factoring in their impressive backwards compatibility. The Series S just seems like a perfect match for a massive market on Asia as it consumes such low power and is very small, one of the primary gripes of the Asian market in regards to the original Xbox. High tariffs maybe?
 
Switch is not really a console as most don't use it as a console.
It's a console.

But you may be right. I mean ... the Xbox may not even have another generation at this point as Microsoft is focusing on the subscription model. I don't see the PlayStation or Nintendo going anywhere, though.
 
Switch is not really a console as most don't use it as a console.

I mean, I can always throw out the ol' "MY EXPERIENCE IS DIFFERENT" but to be honest, I actually do NEVER take the switch out of the dock. It's not a handheld console to me.

I have used it on the plane, and I stand it up on the tray and use a controller.

Calling the switch "just a handheld" is disingenuous in my eyes, Nintendo found a way to combine the handheld market and the TV console market into one device that is doing VERY successfully as both.
 
I mean, outside of the Switch, what's there been worth playing?

Practically everything you can get on the PS5, there's a PS4 version as well. There's only a handful of PS5/XBSX games that you can only find on the console (i.e. no PC port), and none of them are really big sellers.

The Switch is really the only console that has high selling exclusive games.

I don't think console gaming is going to die any time soon, but obviously the market Sony and MS are targeting in shrinking and might not be worth the investment.
 
Practically everything you can get on the PS5, there's a PS4 version as well. There's only a handful of PS5/XBSX games that you can only find on the console (i.e. no PC port), and none of them are really big sellers.
I believe the first major title to not release on old generation consoles was Ratchet&Clank Rift Apart
Some are pretty big timed exclusives, like FF7 Rebirth
I expect if the next GTA is going console-only at launch it will be quite a driver of sales.
 
Overall, consoles just seem like a Gen X/Millenial phenomenon rather than a Gen Z one.

Total consoles sales foe 7th gen was about 270 million.
8th gen was about 190 million.
9th gen barely hit 80 million 4 years in.

This did not include Switch but I did not include the DS for the 7th or 8th gen.

It's just hard to get attention spans past 5 minutes when there are quick and easy dopamine rushes with a smartphone.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1101872/unit-sales-video-game-consoles/
If you're excluding the Switch from gen 8/9 then you should exclude the Wii from gen 7. The Switch is Nintendo's console whether you acknowledge it or not. Still, ignoring the Switch, the PlayStation 5 is still matching pace with the PlayStation 4 as the fastest selling console of all time. It's sold 60 million units so far. Excluding the Wii from gen 7 makes total sales then 169 million. Excluding Wii U sales from gen 8 makes it 175 million for those years. We still have 3-5 years left in gen 9, so you're also comparing a half console generation with full console generations.

Consoles are not dying, consumers are just abandoning Xbox consoles. The Xbox console brand has never recovered from the Xbox One fiasco. People focus in on Don Mattrick and the launch event, but the era of hard-hitting exclusive properties also fell by the wayside in a misguided effort to make the console an "entertainment center" rather than a gaming console.
I believe the first major title to not release on old generation consoles was Ratchet&Clank Rift Apart
Some are pretty big timed exclusives, like FF7 Rebirth
I expect if the next GTA is going console-only at launch it will be quite a driver of sales.
Rift Apart wasn't a huge seller. It has sold 4 million copies across both PC and PS5. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the worst selling entry in the series since Lightning Returns, having sold only 2-2.5 million copies so far. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has sold more than 11 million copies on PS5 alone by comparison, with the majority of those sales happening in the first four months of release.
 
If you're excluding the Switch from gen 8/9 then you should exclude the Wii from gen 7. The Switch is Nintendo's console whether you acknowledge it or not. Still, ignoring the Switch, the PlayStation 5 is still matching pace with the PlayStation 4 as the fastest selling console of all time. It's sold 60 million units so far. Excluding the Wii from gen 7 makes total sales then 169 million. Excluding Wii U sales from gen 8 makes it 175 million for those years. We still have 3-5 years left in gen 9, so you're also comparing a half console generation with full console generations.

Consoles are not dying, consumers are just abandoning Xbox consoles. The Xbox console brand has never recovered from the Xbox One fiasco. People focus in on Don Mattrick and the launch event, but the era of hard-hitting exclusive properties also fell by the wayside in a misguided effort to make the console an "entertainment center" rather than a gaming console.

Rift Apart wasn't a huge seller. It has sold 4 million copies across both PC and PS5. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the worst selling entry in the series since Lightning Returns, having sold only 2-2.5 million copies so far. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has sold more than 11 million copies on PS5 alone by comparison, with the majority of those sales happening in the first four months of release.
It’s totally dying … if you remove an entire console from the equation for absolutely no reason.
 
It’s totally dying … if you remove an entire console from the equation for absolutely no reason.
The point is that the Switch would not have sold nearly as many as it would have if it was launched next to another standalone cheaper handheld as was the case with the Wii and DS.

As successful as the Switch has been, it still falls short of a Wii / DS combo.
 
The point is that the Switch would not have sold nearly as many as it would have if it was launched next to another standalone cheaper handheld as was the case with the Wii and DS.

As successful as the Switch has been, it still falls short of a Wii / DS combo.
The Switch was selling less than the Wii did at the start of its lifecycle. Both were "competing" with the DS. The DS Lite was released around the same time as the Wii, and the 3DS was still getting Pokémon games when the Switch launched. Ultra Sun and Moon came out 8 months after the Switch launched. Switch got a big boost at the end of 2021 and going into 2022 with a series of Pokémon releases. The 3DS was also discontinued at the end of 2020. You can also see how console sales get boosted by Pokémon, with Sword & Shield being released around month 32 on the chart and Let's Go Eevee & Pikachu releasing around month 20. You can see the first boost at month 7 from Super Mario Odyssey.

1725462294323.png
 
Perhaps sales are doing fine for 9th gen, but this video encompasses why the overall experience has just been awful on consoles and why more people (including myself) are going PC.


View: https://youtu.be/EJxaIP8F3K8?si=OOpL_DEBxI3MfP7I

He breaks it down into 3 reasons why 9th generation has been a letdown.

1.) Games: while there are massive libraries on both consoles when you include backward compatibility and remakes, there are few new ideas, held back by last gen, and now many broken games that are exclusive to the new consoles. Much of this has been due the nightmarish PC cross platform approach.

2.) User experience: We have ultrafast SSDs now but in a test, Halo took over 4x longer to play on Series X than it did with Xbox 360. Then there are the game updates as mentioned. Forum users here likely have faster internet than the average person, but for those that have to watch an update bar slowly fill on their dashboard, it kills the experience. Worse, the updates often stop as you try to play another games as everything has to be online now.

3.) Community: I forget how awesome it was to have everyone queued up in a party chatting before a match with their INCLUDED microphones. THIS WAS OVER 15 YEARS AGO. Nobody talks now or croastalking is disabled so as to protect people from hurt feelings. All of the fun has been stripped out of multi-player in the name of 'online safety'.

I would gladly pay $700 for an upgraded Xbox 360 with an SSD and upgraded graphics. Nothing more (dashboard ads), Nothing less (exclusive titles, open communication).

These consoles are not it, so a new Steam account playing pre-2020 games on a budget pc, comes much closer for me than this generation could ever come.
 
I think consoles would be doing even worse if it wasn't for the sorry state of budget GPUs lately. 5+ years ago, we had sub-$200 cards that played new titles at 1080p with ease. Now we have trash 'budget cards' like the 6500xt that struggle on the lowest 1080p setting on today's over taxing games, which in fairness, is part of the problem too.
 
Live services have killed gaming.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHZru-6M8BY

These companies are focusing less on games, and more on microtransactions which can make far more money. I was watching a YouTube video a while back talking about how more companies are catering towards the rich, and this is just is evident with Live Services. One wealthy individual can make you more money than 1000 regular people just purchasing the game. And unfortunately, you have an entire generation of gamers who grew up with this style of game.

I was surprised though to find out that the PS5 only has 22 exclusive games.

And this is one of the reasons I think The Switch has succeeded where the PS5 and Xbox have failed. Because they're still making games for everyone, and not just whales.

I will agree about the community though. MS and Sony should have included headsets. And I agree with the whole fun being stripped out for "online safety". Men trash talk. Always have, and always will. But that's considered "problematic".
 
Everything is down. The worldwide economy is garbage.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us...-with-record-labor-day-air-travel-2024-08-28/

U.S. travelers set to end summer on a high note with record Labor Day air travel​


https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/consumer-spending
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/...p-inflation-rises-moderately-july-2024-08-30/
perscons.png


Isn't the phenomenom gaming spending is moving toward a small amount of giant winners that people never stop to play like Minecraft/Fornite and co. that people see ? Not a reduction in spending.

Gamers new hardware, new games money is going into old game.
 
Oof, that's a kick to the nuts - years of work losing to a sparkle horse. But yeah, ripping on each other, cracking jokes, and chatting with interesting characters is what made matchmaking so enjoyable.
 
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us...-with-record-labor-day-air-travel-2024-08-28/

U.S. travelers set to end summer on a high note with record Labor Day air travel​


https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/consumer-spending
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/...p-inflation-rises-moderately-july-2024-08-30/
View attachment 678270

Isn't the phenomenom gaming spending is moving toward a small amount of giant winners that people never stop to play like Minecraft/Fornite and co. that people see ? Not a reduction in spending.

Gamers new hardware, new games money is going into old game.
All of these economic indicators such as GDP, unemployment, market performance are fake and ghey except these guys down here:

Screenshot_20240908_002706.jpg


More and more adults are childless with no hope for actually owning anything significant as they get older, so screw it, might as well go deeper into debt.
 
All of these economic indicators such as GDP, unemployment, market performance are fake and ghey except these guys down here:
Not used any of those, used actual spending, all-time record air travel and yes personal saving would be down from record high covid era same for the record household debt.

6.9% personal saving rate in Canada is not historically low:

q1-2024-saving-rate.jpg


When people were locked-in, it was abnormally high.

If they go to debt for that spending, in regard of console sales not sure it matter, they are spending. Is worldwide overall gaming spending down at all to start with (outside the 2021-2022 stay inside peak) ? Lot of talk about how it did move, we just saw Black Myth break some steam record.
 
Not used any of those, used actual spending, all-time record air travel and yes personal saving would be down from record high covid era same for the record household debt.

6.9% personal saving rate in Canada is not historically low:

View attachment 678274

When people were locked-in, it was abnormally high.

If they go to debt for that spending, in regard of console sales not sure it matter, they are spending. Is worldwide overall gaming spending down at all to start with (outside the 2021-2022 stay inside peak) ? Lot of talk about how it did move, we just saw Black Myth break some steam record.
Spending is up because inflation has been at record highs for so long. In the US your dollar only goes 80% as far as it did just 4 years ago. That is a 20% drop in value compared to just 7% in the previous 4-year period.
 
Spending is up because inflation has been at record highs for so long. In the US your dollar only goes 80% as far as it did just 4 years ago. That is a 20% drop in value compared to just 7% in the previous 4-year period.
While I can't speak for Canada, just like how they manipulated actual unemployment rates over the last decade, same is likely so for savings rate. If you get $50k from the government while only earning $10k on the side (not uncommon for 'urbanites') while having $1k in the bank, does that make your savings rate 10%?

Like I said, fake and ghey. All real world economic indicators show that mass 3rd world immigration is slowly during the western countries into the 3rd world.
 
Spending is up because inflation has been at record highs for so long. In the US your dollar only goes 80% as far as it did just 4 years ago. That is a 20% drop in value compared to just 7% in the previous 4-year period.
This is trying to adjust for inflation (real spending they call) and something like air travel was not counted in dollar spent but travelers.
 
I think XBOX killed themselves.
I don't care if my console is XBOX or PS. What I care about are exclusives. PS just recently started bringing their exclusives to PC.
XBOX always brought their games to PC, so for someone who owns a PC and would like some couch gaming, it would be natural for me to go for PS.

I'm sad, because as much hate as Microsoft gets, I think Sony are the bad guys here.
Also, I love Blizzard games and they are better off with Microsoft than with that asshole Kotick.
 
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