Feature: Tough Questions for the New Console Generation Subscribe to this RSS feed
The console landscape has shifted significantly this generation, which brings up some tough questions. We're answering them.
Next-Generation presented a list entitled the "Top 30 Defining Moments in Gaming History", but it's not the list that intrigued me. It's the questions at the end of the feature that left me wondering:
"Now the industry is struggling to understand Nintendo's success. Is the market really growing? Are casual games the future? Are the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 akin to the final glorious generation of Cretaceous dinosaurs? Ask us again in 30 years."
Since Next-Gen will not answer these questions in another 30 years, I've decided to tackle these tough questions now:
Question #1: Is the market really growing?
The new Wii audience?
This is perhaps the most pertinent question in the industry right now. It is still to early in this generation of consoles to actually tell whether the industry is continually growing. We've seen Microsoft and Nintendo trying to expand the market with games like Scene It, Viva Pinata, Wii Sports, and the upcoming game Wii Fit.
Nintendo has claimed by staggering sales numbers that it has expanded the market, but there was never a survey to accurately define the who were buying the consoles. One the other hand, there have been reports of a more people outside of the gaming community have become interested in video games and that the Wii is helping elderly patients.
Even a while back, the Associated Press reported with the Wii is still constantly selling out eight months after release. Even more impressive is that quite a few of the Wii's consumers have never owned a console before:
"Rein Auh, 30, never owned a console, but he decided to buy a Wii so he and his wife could have some fun and get some exercise. He spent $350 at the Nintendo store on a Wii and some extras. Walking out of the store, he looked back at the crowd of people still waiting."
It could be safe to say that the market is gradually expanding, but nothing that conclusively points towards that more and more non-gamers are gravitating towards these new video games. Console makers and video game developers are putting games out there, but ultimately it's the consumer who decides whether they are interested in the console.
For now, it's blurry how much of this generation is made up of non-gamers. In five or six years (whenever this generation ends) a more accurate depiction should become clear how well these casual initiatives did to expand the existing market.
