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I don't care what anyone says about gaming PCs. $200 Xbox 360 > 1337 g4m3r PC. No extra drivers, no viruses, no lag, much less hassle, cheaper. An iMac G3 can play Age of Empires II OK, so that's fine.

Well not really, there is lag (controller has lag, HDMI to TV has lag the TV has lag. There's connection lag too), there is hassle (ever tried to backup a save?) and it's not cheaper (games cost more).

The only hassle for gaming on my iMac was installing Bootcamp, which is pretty simple. Drivers are kept up to date, most games support a range of control options, free online multiplayer etc.
 
Makes sense.

Also seeing as I have already forgotten about my old 1st gen PSP, in a drawer at home somewhere.

Come to think of it, I never used it after my first iPhone and when the App Store game offerings really took off.
 
Nintendo, you reading this. Develop for iOS and save yourself.

Imagine if Apple had followed that reasoning and the 90's and started to sell their software for 3rd-party x86 hardware in order to save themselves...

Nintendo can ask for the same price (~$50-60) in the App Store. I will still happily pay them but in no way I'll ever buy their handheld hardware again only for the games.

That's your loss, the 3DS is a great device with great games and I'm glad Nintendo won't cheapen the experience of their games by putting them on devices with crappy touch controls and no real controls.

The real onslaught will come when Apple seriously push games to Apple TV where good quality games can be purchased directly and played with iPhones and iPad as controllers.

Wondering why Apple is taking that long.

I doubt it, the reason gaming is so popular on mobile devices is because it's a quick pick-up and go while you're riding the bus experience just to pass time. Consoles are for spending time committed to the gaming experience. I doubt many people will choose the substandard performance of the Apple TV and the crappy touch controls of the iPhone/iPad in that case.
 
Just to let you guy's know, on Android you can now get a full speed DS emulator, it is getting rave reviews everywhere so on an Android device you can play Nintendo DS games :D

Agreed on your last point. For many games, there is no substitute for huge, razor-sharp, life-like action. Although mobile device games are starting to take a big chunk of the overall game revenue, my post was more directed towards living room gaming consoles, and these are indisputably doing very well right now.

But as more of the top games are ported for PCs and Macs, and some of those desktops are outfitted with increasingly more powerful graphics cards, not to mention huge, razor-sharp monitors (as well as Airplay functionality), it will become become harder and harder for dedicated gaming consoles to compete.

There will always be a market for consoles, but as hard as that's to imagine right now, that market will shrink in the coming years, in my opinion.

Never going to happen, people already have a TV by default and then a games console, they see tablets or laptops for web browsing. People have proclaimed what you have for years and time and time again been proved completely wrong. Consoles are not going away, they are way too convenient and will remain so for several years, the average consumer won't game on a Mac, it has no games and only a small proportion of owners are going to install Windows to play them.
People like convenience, that's why consoles have just gone from strength to strength, and with online play well sorted, they see no reason to get a PC or Mac for games as people still see these as complicated and too technical, to play games.
If anything Mac sales will go up along with tablets as these are seen as no fuss easy to use objects, and they will partner these with a console to follow the methodology of no fuss and easy to use.

I would also argue the power of Call Of Duty, I would say this game alone showed people how easy it was to play socially with your mates in a fun game with no fuss, just buy your console and game, connect it to your WiFi and TV and go. Considering the games popularity I would think it helped to boost the consoles image a lot. I bet most people don't even know it's on PC and Mac too.
 
Fact: if ports of Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart were released for iPhone, they would stay in the top 10 paid apps forever.

This is a really good point - I'd be curious to see $ spent on games / device sold

I'd imagine the margins are still significantly in favor of handhelds based on how much they're able to charge.

In the end though, this overall sales number is still not very surprising - for how many smartphones and tablets are out there, if each device purchases even 1 or 2 games that's a massive amount of revenue.
 
Well not really, there is lag (controller has lag, HDMI to TV has lag the TV has lag. There's connection lag too), there is hassle (ever tried to backup a save?) and it's not cheaper (games cost more).

The only hassle for gaming on my iMac was installing Bootcamp, which is pretty simple. Drivers are kept up to date, most games support a range of control options, free online multiplayer etc.

Yes, go into my games save data, select the game save, copy to the cloud, or, set my PS3 to wake up everyday and automatically backup all my saves to the cloud. It's not very hard and it's one system for all saves.
For the average consumer, it's a hell of alot easier than installing bootcamp then drivers then the game etc etc.
Or go into my console settings and enable cloud saves, then set all my games to save in the cloud, on a Xbox 360.

You do need PSN Plus or Xbox Live Gold for this, but, as both are required for online play in the next gen that's a moot point really. And you get a lot of great free games with PSN Plus.
 
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Yes, go into my games save data, select the game save, copy to the cloud, or, set my PS3 to wake up everyday and automatically backup all my saves to the cloud. It's not very hard and it's one system for all saves.
For the average consumer, it's a hell of alot easier than installing bootcamp then drivers then the game etc etc.
Or go into my console settings and enable cloud saves, then set all my games to save in the cloud, on a Xbox 360.

You do need PSN Plus or Xbox Live Gold for this, but, as both are required for online play in the next gen that's a moot point really. And you get a lot of great free games with PSN Plus.

It's not really moot when 50-75% of owners don't have those services, just because you have to subscribe for PS4 multiplayer doesn't mean everyone will - just look at Xbox Live Gold figures (50%).

Some games don't let you back up either. When I tried to transfer my GT data from an old system to a new one, it wouldn't let me. It was tied to that system profile. Same for GT PSP. Whereas when I got a new iMac all I had to do was drag+drop my whole Steam folder and copied my Windows account over and everything was copied. How do you back up Xbox saves to PC? If I stop subscribing to Gold I lose access to my back up saves.

Copying data was just one example. On Nintendo machines your account is tied to hardware, on Xbox if you're banned (for whatever reason, a friend had has account banned because he had "poo" in his profile text) the console can no longer connect to the internet, fewer control options.
On PC all you have to do is run the Bootcamp installer which took 30 minutes on my new iMac. Run the bootcamp driver app. That's it! Steam autoinstalls drivers, games. You just press "Install" and that's it.
Even on Sony and Nintendo consoles you have to manually install the game and then delete the install files.
 
I guess having the games on one's phone is just more convenient. Quality is clearly not the priority...

I think this is Pretty much true.

But to be fair, the quality on a good iPhone game is arguably as good, or better than last gen console games, so it is not really a big issue for me.

Also anything with depth cannot be found on hand heads compared to a PC/PS3/XBOX in my opinion, so if at home with real time to spare I would rather play these [consoles] instead.
 
I doubt many people will choose the substandard performance of the Apple TV and the crappy touch controls of the iPhone/iPad in that case.

Doesn't mean we won't get a decent performance Apple TV 4 with tactile controls, now that they will be fully supported in iOS.
 
Nintendo can ask for the same price (~$50-60) in the App Store. I will still happily pay them but in no way I'll ever buy their handheld hardware again only for the games.

Yeah sure you will pay $50-$60 for their games but won't buy their console not even when it hits $199 or something. IN the grand scheme of things the console adds little cost to each game if you are buying 5 games a year. Plus you can always resell your console at anytime and recoup a good chunk of your initial purchase. Last you can resell your Wii U or 3ds games if you bought a physical copy. Making your $50-$60 games on a Nintendo system cost you $20-$40. You'd probably come out ahead compared to buying games on iOS.

So I think you are full of it.
 
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I think this is Pretty much true.

But to be fair, the quality on a good iPhone game is arguably as good, or better than last gen console games, so it is not really a big issue for me.

Also anything with depth cannot be found on hand heads compared to a PC/PS3/XBOX in my opinion, so if at home with real time to spare I would rather play these [consoles] instead.

Exactly. It's not a criticism of the iPhone/iPod/iPad as a gaming platform. Convenience means a lot. And sometimes simple gameplay is the best. I'm dating myself but when I was a kid Intellivision and Atari were great. But the graphics were a joke compared to what one finds on a decent iPhone game.
 
They're better off using their eShop where they set the market value of their IP and take home 100%.

You know, people love to diss Apple for taking their 30% cut, but they never stop to think that Apple has to put up servers to run the store, bandwidth so those millions of apps can get downloaded, vet all the submissions so they aren't infected with viruses or things that will ruin your phone, pay the employees who do all this work, etc. etc. It isn't like Apple is just pocketing 30% of some developer's hard work and laughing all the way to the bank. I'm sure there is some profit built into that 30%, but if it's even 10% I'd be surprised.

Think about your local retail stores, they don't sell you goods at the price they pay for them either.
 
Dedicated gaming hardware will stick around because it is dedicated gaming hardware. Nintendo is free to dream up new hardware controls/features to put into their handhelds that are specifically for gaming.


Meanwhile the iPhone is never going to get analog sticks or buttons or dpads or much of whatever comes in the future. Apple won't or can't do that. They are making a phone.

So that is another reason Nintendo will be fine.

Yes sure many users will never get a Nintendo handheld. But that isn't so much different than before the iPhone came out.
 
It's not really moot when 50-75% of owners don't have those services, just because you have to subscribe for PS4 multiplayer doesn't mean everyone will - just look at Xbox Live Gold figures (50%).

Some games don't let you back up either. When I tried to transfer my GT data from an old system to a new one, it wouldn't let me. It was tied to that system profile. Same for GT PSP. Whereas when I got a new iMac all I had to do was drag+drop my whole Steam folder and copied my Windows account over and everything was copied. How do you back up Xbox saves to PC? If I stop subscribing to Gold I lose access to my back up saves.

Copying data was just one example. On Nintendo machines your account is tied to hardware, on Xbox if you're banned (for whatever reason, a friend had has account banned because he had "poo" in his profile text) the console can no longer connect to the internet, fewer control options.
On PC all you have to do is run the Bootcamp installer which took 30 minutes on my new iMac. Run the bootcamp driver app. That's it! Steam autoinstalls drivers, games. You just press "Install" and that's it.
Even on Sony and Nintendo consoles you have to manually install the game and then delete the install files.

Why would you need to backup your Xbox games to a PC? And yes, ask the majority of people to install boot camp and drivers and games etc and they will look at you with a blank face. Not as easy as a console mate.
PSN Plus is better to backup games on, much easier to use, plus you simply copy your saves to the console if you cancel your account. Simples, also I upgraded my hard drive and transferring my GT data couldn't have been simpler, you just need to create an account with the same username and email, then copy the saves back onto the machine once the games are installed. And what install files on a PS3? It only install files you need for better games performance.
 
Think about your local retail stores, they don't sell you goods at the price they pay for them either.
Which is why he referred to them using their own e-shop.

iOS apps generally don't give apple even a dollar per unit. 30% of a 60 dollar unit (Nintendo) however, is nearly 20 dollars. That becomes a lot.

Also keep in mind that (3)DS games are not actually that large. Roms today are in the range of 64mb to 512mb, and are generally never updated after that. iOS are in many cases far larger, updates are frequent, and also bandwidth expensive.

On top of that, they provide very little 'free' software either that leech off their resources.
 
Since I got my Vita I hardly ever game on my iPad or iPhone, but I completely understand why you wouldn't want a whole separate device to game on. I just love having physically buttons and not constantly having my fingers block the action.
 
Apples and oranges

Sadly, while I have an Xbox, all my gaming is done in iOS, so clearly I'm not a real gamer. That said, I don't see the console market going away, at least not because iOS and Google Play are growing. That's like saying people are going to stop buying Porsches, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis BECAUSE sales for Honda Civics and Hyundai Elantras are going up. Great - more people are buying cars and less expensive (cheap) cars are getting better. Fantastic! Just bought an Elantra myself last year. Real car people who have the means to acquire higher-end automobiles will still buy them, just as real gamers will still buy consoles.

I suspect Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Kia, GM, Ford sell more than the other models I listed globally, but clearly that doesn't spell the end of the Porsche.
 
Agreed. Smartphones and tablets have basically cannibalized most of the "handheld devices" category.

Err... no they haven't.

There are more of them, yes, but handhelds are still making tons of money and the amount of handheld sold generation by generation is going up.
 
You know, people love to diss Apple for taking their 30% cut, but they never stop to think that Apple has to put up servers to run the store, bandwidth so those millions of apps can get downloaded, vet all the submissions so they aren't infected with viruses or things that will ruin your phone, pay the employees who do all this work, etc. etc. It isn't like Apple is just pocketing 30% of some developer's hard work and laughing all the way to the bank. I'm sure there is some profit built into that 30%, but if it's even 10% I'd be surprised.

Think about your local retail stores, they don't sell you goods at the price they pay for them either.

I think most people agree that the 30% Apple take for the apps is perfectly reasonable. What people are complaining about is the 30% they take for in-app purchases and in-app subscriptions where they do none of the things you listed.
 
Why would you need to backup your Xbox games to a PC?

Not games; save files.

By PS3 installs I mean the downloaded install files when you get games from PSN. After a PS1 sale over the summer I had around 13 files I had to run one by one (which took 3-5 minutes each) and then had to go through them again to delete them. Very cumbersome.

Whereas on Steam all you do is run the game, it auto-installs everything.
 
Seems like you still live in your G3 era. The extra divers, lags are long gone, the resolution is a 'bit' better than 720p and the virus reasoning is a joke, right?

Are you implying that the Xbox 360 is not 1080p? It is. The iMac G3 actually doesn't have problems with drivers, but if you're using Windows, chances are that you'll run into some driver problems. Some games will have performance issues. We are also all aware of the threat to Windows by viruses, right?

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People like convenience, that's why consoles have just gone from strength to strength, and with online play well sorted, they see no reason to get a PC or Mac for games as people still see these as complicated and too technical, to play games.

I would also argue the power of Call Of Duty, I would say this game alone showed people how easy it was to play socially with your mates in a fun game with no fuss, just buy your console and game, connect it to your WiFi and TV and go. Considering the games popularity I would think it helped to boost the consoles image a lot. I bet most people don't even know it's on PC and Mac too.

Yep, there's nothing like bringing out a console and playing 4-player locally. Unfortunately, Microsoft managed to make it fussy with the 360 by requiring each player to log into an account and making wireless controllers that can be unreliable, but it's still a lot easier than dealing with a PC.

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The only hassle for gaming on my iMac was installing Bootcamp, which is pretty simple. Drivers are kept up to date, most games support a range of control options, free online multiplayer etc.

Ha, I've found that Bootcamp on an iMac is a lot easier than a regular Windows computer. That really keeps the drivers up to date. Still, have you tried GTA IV? There are games that are simply not optimized or geared towards PCs. Especially when it comes to local multiplayer, the gaming console makes getting a game going perfectly easy for the user (besides a few bumps every company decided to introduce in the 2006-ish console era). A game console is pretty much a PC built 99% for gaming.
 
You are totally contradicting yourself. You are saying iTunes games are "crap" because Nintendo isn't on the app store. In other words, you claim that Nintendo games would be an awful lot better than the average game on the app store. If that is the case, then surely they can justify a higher price.

And if I go into a physical store and buy a Nintendo game, you can bet that Nintendo gets an awful lot less than 70% of what I pay. Plus there's the little detail that about 400 million users with accounts would have easy access to these games.

I didn't say any of that, those are all strawmen you just made up. I'm saying they're crap because I believe the software IS crap. If I had to pinpoint a reason, it's because the pricepoint on iOS is too low to support AAA quality. The reason the pricepoint is too low is because Apple intentionally created a commodtiized storefront that applies race to the bottom pressure so they could sell more hardware.

Apple has basically created the gaming equivalent of the Dollar Store. People here are acting like opening up a Dollar Store will make the mall next door go out of business.

You know, people love to diss Apple for taking their 30% cut, but they never stop to think that Apple has to put up servers to run the store, bandwidth so those millions of apps can get downloaded, vet all the submissions so they aren't infected with viruses or things that will ruin your phone, pay the employees who do all this work, etc. etc. It isn't like Apple is just pocketing 30% of some developer's hard work and laughing all the way to the bank. I'm sure there is some profit built into that 30%, but if it's even 10% I'd be surprised.

Think about your local retail stores, they don't sell you goods at the price they pay for them either.

I'm not dissing Apple, you're not reading correctly. They're entitled to their 30% distribution cut. I'm saying it would be dumb for Nintendo to port their IP to a third party digital distributor when they have their own digital distribution system (the eShop) that not only allows them to retain 100% revenue, but is also not a commoditized mess that will degrade the value of their IP.

And retail stores use a different pricing structure than digital distribution. Retailers pricedrop below the MSRP because they have to move units. If they don't move units, they pay for shelf space and restocking fees. Because of this, the pricing of physical goods becomes a dynamic optimization problem. Retailers will also eat a loss if they have to, to get goods off shelves. None of this has anything to do with that 30% distribution cut you're talking about.
 
Meanwhile the iPhone is never going to get analog sticks or buttons or dpads or much of whatever comes in the future. Apple won't or can't do that. They are making a phone.

Actually, if you check out some of the new features, one of them is official 3rd-party game controller support.
 
Not games; save files.

By PS3 installs I mean the downloaded install files when you get games from PSN. After a PS1 sale over the summer I had around 13 files I had to run one by one (which took 3-5 minutes each) and then had to go through them again to delete them. Very cumbersome.

Whereas on Steam all you do is run the game, it auto-installs everything.

I see. It is a pain to do that and their is no other way to delete the files. I guess maybe it comes back to the Joe Blogs idea, set like that to prevent people accidentally deleting files?
I am not having a go about PC/ Mac gaming, they will always have there place, but I do feel console gaming is easier for mr average and they are here to stay just as much.
 
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