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If MS left the console business, could anyone fill the void?

Could anyone step into Microsoft’s shoes?

  • Apple

    Votes: 59 15.0%
  • Epic

    Votes: 5 1.3%
  • Google

    Votes: 4 1.0%
  • Samsung

    Votes: 11 2.8%
  • Tencent

    Votes: 10 2.5%
  • Valve

    Votes: 126 32.0%
  • Tencent

    Votes: 6 1.5%
  • None (it’s too late)

    Votes: 173 43.9%

  • Total voters
    394

nowhat

Gold Member
Google Apple both have the $$$$$ the question is do they have the desire to hire the correct talent.

They could but given the lower ROI I doubt either are interested
Google already tried. We know how that went.

Apple also kinda tried, if you count the Pippin, but that was so long time ago that I think we can give it a pass. But have you seen the sales figures of AAA games on iOS (Death Stranding, Capcom ports and such)? They are abysmal. Apple customers, apparently, either don't want to pay the full-ish price or just aren't interested.
 
Google already tried. We know how that went.

Apple also kinda tried, if you count the Pippin, but that was so long time ago that I think we can give it a pass. But have you seen the sales figures of AAA games on iOS (Death Stranding, Capcom ports and such)? They are abysmal. Apple customers, apparently, either don't want to pay the full-ish price or just aren't interested.

Yeah this hasn’t really delivered has it…

 
I remember when Sega dropped out of consoles, the narrative was "there's only room for two". So far it hasn't been proven wrong.

True, apart from the PS3/Wii/360 generation where all 3 exceeded 80 million sales…

v9Nyinn.jpeg
 
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Oof85

Banned
Agreed, but people like this would have to acknowledge actual factual objective information to get what you are saying lol

I don't even understand the idea of making such a claim, like....based on what actual data? The gaming industry is fucking thriving right now
Lol. Lmao, even.

Select businesses are making tons of money but the industry is shaky as hell, wtf are you talking about?

Rampant layoffs, titles taking longer than ever to release.

Talk about not seeing the forest because of all them there trees in the way....
 
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Robb

Gold Member
Best case would be Valve imo.

But I could see Apple dipping their toes in. Especially once we’ve gotten to the point where you can release a console without a disc drive and not get any backlash.
 
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EDMIX

Writes a lot, says very little
shaky as hell, wtf are you talking about?
"Shaky" isn't anything objective I can work with.

Stop crying over this and provide actual information that makes any sense in terms of a measurement to support your point.
Rampant layoffs, titles taking longer than ever to release.
You had layoffs in all times during gaming, no time in the entire industry has been free from layoffs....that isn't some wild thing. Layoffs are happening all over the tech industry and even outside of it.

A game taking um "longer then ever to release" is based on the state of how complex it is to actually put AAA games out. Rockstar has suffered one of the biggest blows to this too, its so fucking shaky for them, it took RDR2 over 8 years to be made and the sadly paid dearly for this with 40 million plus sales, how they are going to recover is beyond me and we could see them close down and this be the end of the gaming industry as we know it......

(series of Tic Tok noises) lol How did I do? Was that sappy teary enough or? lol



If I want to objectively see how the industry is doing, with no actual bias, I need actual data.

(lolz, LMFAO even, it did even better, the fucking game sold 65 million units, but shucks, if they made it faster and rushed that development, we would all be better off) /s




" It's a major success, and contributes to Sony's Game & Network Services Division having its biggest ever year, bringing in approximately $25 billion in revenue"


https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/06/nin...-428percent-animal-crossing-sales-double.html



So the last 4 years has seen some of the highest growth and profit across the industry then in almost any time in the entire history of the medium, who the fuck is telling you otherwise is beyond me, but I need some actual data.

I don't see even a shred of any evidence to suggest otherwise
 
"Shaky" isn't anything objective I can work with.

Stop crying over this and provide actual information that makes any sense in terms of a measurement to support your point.

You had layoffs in all times during gaming, no time in the entire industry has been free from layoffs....that isn't some wild thing. Layoffs are happening all over the tech industry and even outside of it.

A game taking um "longer then ever to release" is based on the state of how complex it is to actually put AAA games out. Rockstar has suffered one of the biggest blows to this too, its so fucking shaky for them, it took RDR2 over 8 years to be made and the sadly paid dearly for this with 40 million plus sales, how they are going to recover is beyond me and we could see them close down and this be the end of the gaming industry as we know it......

(series of Tic Tok noises) lol How did I do? Was that sappy teary enough or? lol



If I want to objectively see how the industry is doing, with no actual bias, I need actual data.

(lolz, LMFAO even, it did even better, the fucking game sold 65 million units, but shucks, if they made it faster and rushed that development, we would all be better off) /s




" It's a major success, and contributes to Sony's Game & Network Services Division having its biggest ever year, bringing in approximately $25 billion in revenue"


https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/06/nin...-428percent-animal-crossing-sales-double.html



So the last 4 years has seen some of the highest growth and profit across the industry then in almost any time in the entire history of the medium, who the fuck is telling you otherwise is beyond me, but I need some actual data.

I don't see even a shred of any evidence to suggest otherwise

It’s basically the Phil Spencer narrative that if Xbox is failing then the whole industry is failing
 

midnightAI

Member
I really REALLY want to see Apple gaming console and how spectacularly it will be rejected and destroyed.
I can see it now, a state of the art $3000 gaming console... that plays mobile games. They will be the best mobile games have ever looked on the most powerful console CPU and GPU that they have ever made for a gaming console, it's integrated smoothly into the Apple ecosystem showing you your heart rate from your apple watch on screen while you game and your friends with the latest iPhone can watch you gaming and they can send messages to your screen blah blah blah

(I hate the Apple talks, I have stopped watching them but I presume they are the same pretentious bullshit)
 

Thavash

Member
1) From who, morons?

2) AMD get plenty of business from Sony and PC already, Intel are a trainwreck

3) Those teams are gone, Yu Suzuki has pretty much retired, Sonic Team’s Yuji Naka left and is in jail

4) Arcades are dead, so there won’t be arcade ports which is what SEGA were primarily known for

5) Nice, if they can manufacture them cheap enough

6) You need to sell 10s of millions of consoles to get third party support and take that 30% cut, a niche console wouldn’t be worth it
1) People who love video games and see the market opportunity.
2) We just heard that the PS5 isn't selling as Sony expected. AM5 sales have been terrible on PC
3) Yeah it's going to be new programmers but guided by veterans. You think SEGA was Yuji Naka and Yu Suzuki alone ? Also, we live in the era of AI, which will make dev easier in some ways. Ideas and IP are everything now.
4) Sega is sitting on a treasure trove of IPs. IPs done right are like gold. You don't even need them to be AAA, just need them to be fun.
5) Yes.
6) Or maybe 3rd parties will want to ride the hype train of SEGA being back and a console that people are actually excited about (if they can get people excited) as opposed to the current rubbish situation.
 
1) People who love video games and see the market opportunity.
2) We just heard that the PS5 isn't selling as Sony expected. AM5 sales have been terrible on PC
3) Yeah it's going to be new programmers but guided by veterans. You think SEGA was Yuji Naka and Yu Suzuki alone ? Also, we live in the era of AI, which will make dev easier in some ways. Ideas and IP are everything now.
4) Sega is sitting on a treasure trove of IPs. IPs done right are like gold. You don't even need them to be AAA, just need them to be fun.
5) Yes.
6) Or maybe 3rd parties will want to ride the hype train of SEGA being back and a console that people are actually excited about (if they can get people excited) as opposed to the current rubbish situation.

SEGA couldn’t even get proper third party support for the Dreamcast, Namco’s Soul Calibur and Capcom’s Code Veronica and Power Stone were the only standouts, most of the other games were just conversions of older PS1 and Dreamcast games.

As for the treasure trove of IP, if you look at sales figures most of these didn’t sell well at all.

I’ve got a lot of nostalgia for SEGA of old, especially the MegaDrive, but to think SEGA of today could compete with Sony or Nintendo is ludicrous!

Stop acting like it’s 1992.
 
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Thavash

Member
SEGA couldn’t even get proper third party support for the Dreamcast, Namco’s Soul Calibur and Capcom’s Code Veronica and Power Stone were the only standouts, most of the other games were just PS1 conversions.

As for the treasure trove of IP, if you look at sales figures most of these didn’t sell well at all.

I’ve got a lot of nostalgia for SEGA of old, especially the MegaDrive, but to think SEGA of today could compete with Sony or Nintendo is ludicrous!
Read my post again. Competing is not the word. Now is the time for SEGA to go grab a niche for themselves , and give us what we're missing (fun games again). You can be profitable with a small niche many companies in many industries so this
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
The steam decks os lends itself best to console gaming. If they can get that there over rhe next couple of years we are absolutely going to see console competitor pc boxes from the likes of valve for not a monstrous amount more than a ps5 pro or ps6.

The end user experience with steam destroys sonys eco system so time will tell.

I honestly feel aony are just helping more people migrate to pc with this decision.
 
Read my post again. Competing is not the word. Now is the time for SEGA to go grab a niche for themselves , and give us what we're missing (fun games again). You can be profitable with a small niche many companies in many industries so this

Not really, the console/platform business relies on selling huge volumes of games to make it economically worthwhile.

If you take a 30% cut of third party game sales then the more copies that are sold the better.

For the above to work you need a platform with tens of millions of paying customers.

That’s why Master System and MegaDrive were successful and made profit, while Saturn and Dreamcast failed and resulted in huge losses.

5Utxj6g.jpeg
 
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Thavash

Member
Not really, the console/platform business relies on selling huge volumes of games to make it economically worthwhile.

If you take a 30% cut of third party game sales then the more copies that are sold the better.

For the above to work you need a platform with tens of millions of paying customers.

That’s why Master System and MegaDrive were successful and made profit, while Saturn and Dreamcast failed and resulted in huge losses.

5Utxj6g.jpeg
Ok , let's be clear. The losses during this period were NOT solely due to the Saturn. The Saturn was a HUGE hit in Japan. And that clown Stolar killed it early in the West which prevented more money coming in. Then the Dreamcast was also killed early by Peter Moore. SEGA made those losses due to OVERALL bad business decisions, spending a ton on Shenmue, the decline of arcades etc.

When you're talking about an independent console operation now, remember that gaming is a MUCH bigger business now, with more developed markets (even in the developing world) , so a console that captured the Saturn percentage of market share in TODAYS market could be profitable in a focused well run operation
 
Ok , let's be clear. The losses during this period were NOT solely due to the Saturn. The Saturn was a HUGE hit in Japan. And that clown Stolar killed it early in the West which prevented more money coming in. Then the Dreamcast was also killed early by Peter Moore. SEGA made those losses due to OVERALL bad business decisions, spending a ton on Shenmue, the decline of arcades etc.

When you're talking about an independent console operation now, remember that gaming is a MUCH bigger business now, with more developed markets (even in the developing world) , so a console that captured the Saturn percentage of market share in TODAYS market could be profitable in a focused well run operation

Bernie cancelled the Saturn in the west in mid 97 because by that point they couldn’t give them away and games weren’t selling (look at the top 10 best selling Saturn games in the west, all from 95/96), N64’s launch was the final nail in the coffin and a lot of Saturn owners had switched to PS1 by that point.

IHwhAx6.jpeg



Having Saturn-like marketshare today wouldn’t be enough either. Remember, for a new SEGA console to sell it would need exclusives, so bye bye to that money you were making selling Yakuza games on PlayStation.


uIWtZaH.png
 
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FStubbs

Member
Tencent could do it. I'm not sure anyone else easily could.

Xbox collapsed due to hubris and stupidity, not because the market could only support 2.
 

Thavash

Member
Bernie cancelled the Saturn in the west in mid 97 because by that point they couldn’t give them away and games weren’t selling (look at the top 10 best selling Saturn games in the west, all from 95/96), N64’s launch was the final nail in the coffin and a lot of Saturn owners had switched to PS1 by that point.

IHwhAx6.jpeg



Having Saturn-like marketshare today wouldn’t be enough either. Remember, for a new SEGA console to sell it would need exclusives, so bye bye to that money you were making selling Yakuza games on PlayStation.


uIWtZaH.png
Firstly , Bernie made the mistake of saying "The Saturn is not our future" before the Dreamcast was launched. That is an unforgivable error. The drop in Saturn sales was due to that comment, not the other way around. If they actually kept releasing so many of the games from Japan, they would still have had some sales - what that number is I don't know. Now your chart shows the Saturn sold about 25% of the PS1s software total in it's final year , what would that 25% be today ?
In terms of your second chart, that's global and the Saturn didn't even launch in so many regions. Sony had the muscle of being a global electronics vendor (which admittedly would be a similar advantage today)
 
I would love Sega to make a comeback but they don't really have to as they are doing well being multiplatform. However, it will likely be a Chinese company that would replace Microsoft. They could probably sustain themselves by selling in China alone
 

Mohonky

Member
Would there even be any point? If MS dropped out of consoles, which exclusive must have titles would disappear?

They are all coming to PC and 3rd party exclusives basically don't even exist anymore.

You either buy a Sony Playwhater for the Sony titles and own a PC or forego the PC and keep the Sony console for the 3rd party titles as well.

What would honestly go missing? Another contender jumping into the ring would just be a financial flop.
 
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apple could come along and waltz in with some affordable (to the shock of everyone) m chip powered icloud integrated dedicated game console and would rip everyone a new asshole
 

Embearded

Member
I can see a chinese company with money to burn, trying to break into the industry.
They could setup multiple studios in china with a fraction of the cost in west and start pumping out games.
 
Firstly , Bernie made the mistake of saying "The Saturn is not our future" before the Dreamcast was launched. That is an unforgivable error. The drop in Saturn sales was due to that comment, not the other way around. If they actually kept releasing so many of the games from Japan, they would still have had some sales - what that number is I don't know. Now your chart shows the Saturn sold about 25% of the PS1s software total in it's final year , what would that 25% be today ?
In terms of your second chart, that's global and the Saturn didn't even launch in so many regions. Sony had the muscle of being a global electronics vendor (which admittedly would be a similar advantage today)

Bernie spelling it out didn’t help, but by mid 1997 the writing was clearly on the wall, the console was going for £99 and they were losing loads of money per console sale, to the point they didn’t want to keep selling them.

Why? Because software sales fell off a cliff after 1996 with the N64 launching. Many of the games that were doing well in Japan were bullet-hell shooters which just weren’t popular in the west, in fact 2D game sales as a whole just plummeted in the west.
 
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Mattyp

Gold Member
I really REALLY want to see Apple gaming console and how spectacularly it will be rejected and destroyed.
They don't need to, they already make more from gaming then any of the companies of present without having to lift a finger. The newest M stacked console but could provide some hefty graphics for a super tiny and soundless form but.
 
They don't need to, they already make more from gaming then any of the companies of present without having to lift a finger. The newest M stacked console but could provide some hefty graphics for a super tiny and soundless form but.

Apple probally makes more than Playstation, Nintendo and XBox combined.
 

Matsuchezz

Member
Not many companies can spend billions of dollars producing crappy games, release crappy defective consoles as MS, suck for 20+ years, giveaway hundreds of millions of dollars on 1 dollar game subscriptions and keep sucking at it. That void will be pretty hard to fill. They are pretty pretty good at sucking balls and ass.
 
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//DEVIL//

Member
Again, crashing?

RYIiM2v.png
You are factoring the PS5 sales during Covid where everyone and his mother wanted to buy a console because they are stock at home. Once that finished ps5 sales dropped significantly to the point Sony dropped a whole brand new game eithe MW3 or spider man last vacation just to keep trajectory of the PS4 sales and even then it didn’t .

And this is just a personal opinion but the lack of Sony really next gen games in the near future is not gonna help it much beyond the sales hype of the ps5 pro this fall. I mean.. they showed a ps5 pro playing ps4 games ….
 

akira__

Banned
What void?
Their consistent winning streak speak for itself.

Xbox won't release midgen refresh because they already did according to them with the Xbox series x.

Phil also said that midgen refresh would lead to development issues. Having 2 consoles are difficult for devs according to him.
 

Ian Henry

Member
I think Samsung and most certainly, Tencent, have the resources to compete but it would probably be a difficult space to engage or participate in.
 

mrqs

Member
How? Why? Do we need more consoles? Consoles >only< work with exclusives. If Microsoft can't compete, no one else can. The gaming box will be PlayStation and PCs. Nintendo has its own market and no one can shake them out of it, for now. I don't see console gaming competitors growing in the next 10 years.

Either way, in the future (10-20 years) streaming will be the way 99% of people play games.
 

Hugare

Member
Must be a company with many studios and lots of money

Valve would have a lot of money, expertise in hardware and lots of fans already. Problem is, they dont have many studios, and tho Half Life 3 or something would sell loads of consoles, they would still need to keep pumping out exclusive games, and they wouldnt be able to do so.

Apple? lol. They dont have AAA studios working for them to make exclusives, their hardware would be proprietary so third party support would suck and would be expensive af. Just no.

Epic/Google/Samsung (lol): No studios. Why would I buy a console with no exclusives? I would rather pay the same or more for Playstation knowing that I would have third party and first party titles (tho Sony is lacking lately)

Tencent has a lot of shares from game studios, but they dont really control them. Never above 50% of shares. Their own studios suck and arent able to pump out AAA games. They would have the money to buy many studios, but I dont see them having this drive.

I believe MS wont leave, they'll just be dormant. Sony will get (even more) arrogant after a while, MS will skip one gen or two (maybe even three), rethink their strategy, then they might be back with a new killer Xbox.
 
Google already tried. We know how that went.

Apple also kinda tried, if you count the Pippin, but that was so long time ago that I think we can give it a pass. But have you seen the sales figures of AAA games on iOS (Death Stranding, Capcom ports and such)? They are abysmal. Apple customers, apparently, either don't want to pay the full-ish price or just aren't interested.

I remember when Apple started marketing this whole universal platform stuff with games and it seemed a good idea to me.

Macs aren’t really for gaming, but if you saw a AAA game on the App Store where you could play on Mac then continue on your iPhone on the go, you’d think that might sway people.

Obviously not, the Resi games and Death Stranding have been total flops for Apple.
 
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Ponderling

Member
The end goal is to remove choice and have a single, A.I platform streaming directly into your brain implant.
Provided you are a good citizen and have the appropriate social credit score.
 

Edgelord79

Gold Member
Too late. Sony has years of knowledge making consoles; experiences and mistakes they’ve learned from. Valve would be second closest but still doesn’t have direct knowledge of the console market like Sony and then there is everybody else who would be at the greatest disadvantage.

I think consoles are volatile business for everyone and it’s very risky. Lots of overhead to get into too. Sony has somehow managed it well and I’m not sure if it’s worth it for a lot of companies.
 

Edmund

is waiting for Starfield 7
The word void implies emptiness. Something that people might perhaps miss. No one will miss Microsoft if they leave the console business.
 
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The word void implies emptiness. Something that people might perhaps miss. No one will miss Microsoft if they leave the console business.

Despite their faults they’ve sold, what, nearly 30 million Series consoles so far? It’s not 360 numbers but it’s not the end of the world either.

I suspect a lot of these owners started with a 360 and became “locked in” to the Xbox ecosystem thanks to digital purchases.

Just because they can no longer compete with Sony and Nintendo doesn’t mean they should throw that away too.
 

Oof85

Banned
"Shaky" isn't anything objective I can work with.

Stop crying over this and provide actual information that makes any sense in terms of a measurement to support your point.

You had layoffs in all times during gaming, no time in the entire industry has been free from layoffs....that isn't some wild thing. Layoffs are happening all over the tech industry and even outside of it.

A game taking um "longer then ever to release" is based on the state of how complex it is to actually put AAA games out. Rockstar has suffered one of the biggest blows to this too, its so fucking shaky for them, it took RDR2 over 8 years to be made and the sadly paid dearly for this with 40 million plus sales, how they are going to recover is beyond me and we could see them close down and this be the end of the gaming industry as we know it......

(series of Tic Tok noises) lol How did I do? Was that sappy teary enough or? lol



If I want to objectively see how the industry is doing, with no actual bias, I need actual data.

(lolz, LMFAO even, it did even better, the fucking game sold 65 million units, but shucks, if they made it faster and rushed that development, we would all be better off) /s




" It's a major success, and contributes to Sony's Game & Network Services Division having its biggest ever year, bringing in approximately $25 billion in revenue"


https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/06/nin...-428percent-animal-crossing-sales-double.html



So the last 4 years has seen some of the highest growth and profit across the industry then in almost any time in the entire history of the medium, who the fuck is telling you otherwise is beyond me, but I need some actual data.

I don't see even a shred of any evidence to suggest otherwise
So just to be clear, all those weekly threads with layoffs at various publishers doesn't mean the industry is shaky?

The 10k jobs lost in 2023 and the 12k jobs lost in 2024(so far mind you) are the trademarks of a thriving industry, yes?

Revenue loss in both 2023(2.3%) and 2024 so far not indication of a shaky market?

The fact that there's not been viable console market growth, just publishers trying to milk more from their faithful.

Yes, you can always point to some company in a declining market and say "see, they're making money so everything's fine right?" but that's stupid and shortsighted.

I mean, Nerf still makes waterguns but you understand that the market is decimated since the fall of Super Soakers, yes?

The market is brutally contracting, the sentiment is overall mid and the high points for the future are riding on Nintendo's Switch follow-up and GTA6 to bring some excitement back to the market.

No we're not doomed but I can't see how anyone can see all the layoffs, people just leaving the business entirely and think "this is fine".

Literal dog in room on fire meme status.
 
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