“To be successful, games need to be on every platform.”
“The most successful games are multiplatform”
=> They are also the ones that tend to be cross-generational. If you’ve been playing the games that supposedly “everyone plays” while they “ignore exclusives” and believe “exclusives don’t matter”, then a persistent cross-generational state of affairs in a gen btn console HW doesn’t have the impact some have claimed today. You can think it does now, but true-up the rest of the proclamations. The gamers supposedly playing all of those games…NBA 2K, CoD, all the GAAS stuff…those players have been playing those games while “held back” by the previous gen, so people not upgrading to the PS6 won’t impact that segment of the market as something new. They already do.
=> On PC, those of us on the high-end, for time immemorial, have upgraded while being conscious that we are “held back” by PC Potato Nation; the 86% of the market. The market slice that drives consumption of older games, non-premium games, tons of GAAS…isn’t worried about performance…plays at 1080p. For the 14% who stay on the bleeding edge & current gen tech, it is a market economy we have become accustomed to and settled with. For some console players, it will be system shock; a bit of “Welcome to the suck”.
=> I see some other content creators finally getting the thing I have been talking about for years, CLV (although they don’t use this term). The battleground is the digital storefront, the console piece of HW is the primary access-point for that, you need to put it in the hands of users, and give them a reason to choose yours over another competitor’s. You can do that with differentiated content (exclusives), differentiated & competitive pricing (value), or exclusive access to a value-service.
=> I’ve also mentioned before how other consumer electronic spaces have for a long time stopped generational MSRP cuts. An iPhone or Galaxy will cost you launch MSRP the day before the new one launches. For a long time, suppliers have kept their MSRP for SKUs until they launch the new one. Those days have come to console & other world economic factors are leading to additional price increases.
=> Reality: some people and parts of the market will get priced out. On PC, people have been getting priced out of the $500 budget build that used to be viable a decade ago. The era of the $500 GPU has also ended (the GTX 1070 launched w/an MSRP of $379, $449 for the Founders Edition). On PC, the “cross-gen” market economy and value-prop decision factor is an engrained way of life.
None of this is to say anything is fair, justified. It is to state conditions of dynamics in adjacent markets. People will have to make choices and decisions. Maybe next-gen there will be an actual battle btn the market demo that puts a priority on quality vs the demo that puts a priority on low-cost of access. In that world, maybe value-props like Smart Delivery, Game Pass, Play Anywhere, and being able to access your games on a mobile device through the Cloud will make a bigger difference. The console cross-gen split might start to look more like PC. If so, I reckon the ones who decide to stay on the edge of tech in consoles will do the same as high-end PC players…make decisions about where they want to play, and make peace with that decision.
As I wrote earlier this week, the gaming industry has been on a perpetual, long-term bubble for the last 5 – 7 years. If the blister pops, there will be more damage. But it also seems that the blister is not likely to heal on its own. At least not quickly and without the death by 1000-cuts approach we are experiencing. There needs to be a market correction. And “the answer” to that is not less powerful HW, although lower-priced SKUs will be part of the mix. The unfortunate key answer is fewer games. And sad to stay fewer studios. Over-saturating inventory with product people don’t buy, especially in the face of rising HW prices, doesn’t make sense.
Rounding Off Infinity 