Why I Play On A SNES |Page 2|Now You're Playing With Super Power!|Forum|SNES HUB

Mongunzoo said
These are fast becoming more epic and informative than my conversations with Grimm.

 

We have GOT to do a roundtable,guys! There is nowhere else you can get this depth of discussion, and we need to start using this to our advantage! 

A roundtable is a great idea.  I’m also up for giving a podcast a shot as well.

Mongunzoo said
Quality is in the eyes of the beholder. I think Bioshock is quality, but it barely sold over 3 million copies across 2 platforms. In comparison a game like COD I find boring, yet it sells close to Mario numbers.

 

I find Dark Souls engaging and Skyrim boring and derivative, yet one sells 10s of millions and the other sells 1.5.

 

I am talking about games that move systems, not games you buy once you get over the hardware hurdle. There are many good games, but to the Tier 1 and 2 Non-Customers they don’t even exist until they BUY THE SYSTEM FOR THE MEGAHIT. It takes a game like Super Mario Brothers or Halo to spur growth. What causes one game to take hold and others to only be noticed later, once you have made your purchase? NO ONE KNOWS, but guesses can be made. You mentioned crystal balls. They are often foggy but it is the job of the CEOs and publishers to “see the future”, and with so much money on the line they must get more wrong than right.

 

I’m with you when it comes to having lots of games. But if that alone was the answer the industry would not be in the shape it is in.

You are exactly right, quality is in the eye of the beholder.  It is for this reason that quantity is so important; the larger the size of your library, the more likely you are to have something for everyone (it’s just that everyone’s “something” is different).

That is what makes the SNES’ library so special.  If you like JRPGs, for example, I guarantee you will find something you love on the SNES.  You might not like Earthbound, you might not like Breath of Fire, but SOMETHING is bound to appeal to you.

Every system needs a killer app, absolutely, but that is just one game.  A killer app without a LARGE library to back it up equals a failed system.  The N64 had Mario 64; that’s a heck of a killer app.  So you buy an N64 for Mario, but what if you want to play fighting games?  Or RPGs?  Or 2D games?  There’s just not enough variety there to carry the system.

The PS2’s killer app was originally its DVD-playing capabilities and later became the GTA series.  But these two factors alone would not have been enough for the system to dominate like it did.  The PS2’s library is staggeringly large.  If you are at all interested in videogames, there is absolutely something for you there, regardless of genre preference.  The same cannot be said for consoles with small libraries, even if they have a killer app to help push the hardware.

Using back of the envelope math, let’s say 90% of the 44 million 16-bit machines were the only console in the home.  That means there are 40 million homes with games.  Let’s assume there are 3 people per home.  That means out of 255 million people, there are about 80 million homes.

So in the 16-bit era, roughly 1 in every 2 homes had a console.  Recognizing that you’ll never reach 100% penetration of all homes, that right there shows there isn’t too much growth potential for the industry in general (outside of our well discussed population growth).

In 2008 there are around 80 million consoles sold and there are 300 million people.  Let’s assume that 70% of the 80 million consoles are the only console in the home and there are once again 3 people per home.  Therefore 56 million out of 100 million homes have games.  

This means the market actually grew by about 10% in a decade; certainly not great but definitely not 0.  Given that the Playstation brand dominated this era, I think it is fair to attribute the majority of this growth to them.  ]

So in conclusion, what makes the PS2 so impressive is that they actually did grow the market (ever so slightly) and kept a big piece of the pie for themselves.    

Of course, I used a ton of assumptions to “prove” 10% growth.  Using a slightly different set of assumptions, you could just as easily show 0% or 20% growth.

So I think we can agree that the PS2 modestly grew the market.  The Wii attempted to grow the market and despite some initial success, ultimately failed to do so.

It would be interesting to look at the “attach rate” per console (ie games sold per console) in the 16-bit era vs. the PS2 era.   If there was growth there, then the industry was successful in selling more to their existing customer base.  

Going forward, it looks like this generation was ultimately a bust for the industry as far as growing (or even maintaining) the customer base goes, despite being the longest generation yet.  A diminishing customer base plus increased production costs certainly flashes red for investors.

So we can conclude that the business model the console manufacturers are working off of is unsustainable and doesn’t seem to be improving.

It would be interesting to take a deeper look at mobile and browser based games.  Perhaps companies like Rovio and Zygnga were successful in getting a segment of the Wii crowd to spend their time on an iPad instead of on a console….