Pundits are insisting that games consoles are headed for doom. IGN offers an opinion on the biggest question in gaming. [source : IGN]
The traditional games business is worth around $25 billion a year, so the obvious answer to the question of whether or not consoles are dead, is a resounding ‘what the hell are you talking about?’
Not only, but consoles are freakin’ awesome. They are built to play games. Certainly, they are ugly brutes, hideous noisy boxes, but by all that is holy, they make life good. This is why talk of their ‘death’ is so upsetting.
Nevertheless, talk we must.
Between them, the business units at Sony and Microsoft have lost a whacking $10 billion since 2000.
It’s true that consoles move through existence with every sign of vitality, but there are suggestions of an inner sickness, a sense of impending dilapidation. Sorrow awaits.
Things go from hale and hearty to stone cold and underground in a spectacularly short period of time, most especially in the tech and entertainment businesses.
None of this is good. The things that we are supposed to believe will “replace” consoles aren’t as good at playing games, aren’t designed for this specific, sacred purpose, aren’t as emotionally interesting. The death of consoles, if such is their fate, would be a disaster for ‘gaming’ as we who game understand the term. There is no circle of life crap going on here. It’s all bad.
