Next-Gen: The End of Hard Core?

[sonikku956]

With the news of Sega's and Sony's financial woes and the Vita's struggle to gain market, I can't help but think that the end of hardcore is near. They are two of the most hardcore companies, but nobody's buying their games. Seems the only successful companies are the ones that milk tired franchises like CoD, Mario, and EA sports games. Gone are the days when a controller was all that was needed for a game. Now they need silly gimmicks like bad 3D or a poor man's iPad in the middle.

On one hand, I feel I should quit gaming now and cut my losses, but on the other, maybe that's what Nintendo, Zynga, and Facebook want the hardcore community to do. We're the ones who don't pay money for fake currency, don't consider spam to be exciting, won't pay $60 for a game we already have.

Stand your ground, hardcores! Only our loyalty will save the Sonys, Segas, and Apples of this world!

Yeah, Apple sure is hardcore

[a bee]

That high latency input handheld touch screen device sure has Nintendo's, Sony's and MS's days numbered.

[ShadiWulf]

I love what I'm reading in this thread. At the first hint of a next gen console not being a graphical beast people talk about jumping ship. Because graphics are and always have been everything...

Maybe it'll be a good thing when people who clearly care more about visuals than strong gameplay or innovation leave the industry. It's funny to me because some of these people are the same people who criticize gamers who only play high-tech games like Gears of War or CoD.

Theres no need to gimp hardware =P theres no need for a Wii u. A Wii u from Microsoft and Sony wouldn't sell, because no one is going to buy a small upgrade that they can hardly notice over the 360 and PS3. That reason alone is why Microsoft and Sony will have much more powerful consoles.

Just because a console is powerful doesn't mean it can't have low graphics games, as you know i'm a big fan of digital distribution, retail is getting too costly, I guarantee you by the end of next generation, 80% of developers will be releasing most of their games digitally, saving retail for big budget AAA games.

With digital becoming so big, STEAM has become a very lucrative platform, even Japanese developers are starting to realize it's benefits. Any digital game is pretty much guaranteed to come to STEAM now, it's just too big of a market for developers to miss out on.

So if Microsoft and Sony want to go the Nintendo route and overcharge for 10+ year old hardware, then I'm not buying. Most of the games will be coming to STEAM anyways.

[ARingcade]

Graphics are an incentive to play a game, not a definitive reason. I'm completing my jump(because it's about time I start shopping for new parts anywho) from consoles onto PC's because It's more expensive for me to buy a new console and stock games than it is to upgrade my PC and stock games(which are cheaper), especially since most of the games I eye on them are on the PC regardless.

[pirovash88]

I can't take this guy seriously, he called Sony, Sega, and Apple hardcore... wow.

[Darkism 13]

With the news of Sega's and Sony's financial woes and the Vita's struggle to gain market, I can't help but think that the end of hardcore is near. They are two of the most hardcore companies, but nobody's buying their games. Seems the only successful companies are the ones that milk tired franchises like CoD, Mario, and EA sports games. Gone are the days when a controller was all that was needed for a game. Now they need silly gimmicks like bad 3D or a poor man's iPad in the middle.

On one hand, I feel I should quit gaming now and cut my losses, but on the other, maybe that's what Nintendo, Zynga, and Facebook want the hardcore community to do. We're the ones who don't pay money for fake currency, don't consider spam to be exciting, won't pay $60 for a game we already have.

Stand your ground, hardcores! Only our loyalty will save the Sonys, Segas, and Apples of this world!

Wow, where do I begin....

- Sony hardcore? Like Shadow said, Sony single handedly made video games mainstream. It was Sony who marketed and released a console that emphasized production values over gameplay. They continued this with PS2 and PS3 was supposed to continue this trend since it was meant to be a living room entertainment center. It could be argued since Xbox 360 stole much of Sony's exclusive third party support in the early days that Xbox 360 was in many ways could be considered the official successor of the PS2.

- How do you compare Nintendo to Facebook and Zynga? Nintendo has a completely different business model than those two companies and has spoken out against them on numerous occasions.

- Also, how do you compare Apple to Sony or Sega? Apple doesn't make games. They don't even publish games. Their devices aren't even designed to play games and they have very little to no interest in gaming at all. Gaming is just a bonus feature for their devices. So how is that hardcore? In fact, should they ever get into gaming, they would never appeal to the hardcore gamer because of the company's beliefs. Steve Jobs may be gone, but his ideas about technology are still within the company. They believe in making things simple and accessible for the mass market. They believe in as Steve Jobs once put it that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. So making any device with a bunch of buttons and analog sticks is not something Apple would do.

As far as hardcore gaming is concerned, it ended LONG AGO. What we consider hardcore now is only hardcore because the lack of marketing a publisher gives the game or because of the lack of attention the media will give to a particular game.

[Black_Diamond]

In my view, gaming needs to slow down, and not just consoles or handhelds, but anything that can become a gaming device. Even PCs need to slow down. The reason is simple: Gaming Budgets are becoming too bloated. The last thing we need is a single game being developed to cost twice as much as GTA4 did.

[Classic Fan]

Apple is hardcore in that they provide a platform that is utilized by hardcore developers like Cave, Sega, and id Software. Same with Sony even if their games aren't. And Apple doesn't care about games? It's the biggest market on iOS! And let's not forget the commercials for iPod touch.

[Beat]

Sigh....one of these threads.

Hardcore gaming isn't going anywhere. Just in the last two weeks we got Kid Icarus and Xenoblade from Nintendo. At PAX, I got to play all sorts of awesome indie games like Vessel, Snapshot, and Super Crate Box. Vessel and SCB are out by the way, and SCB is totally free. Just google it.

SEGA's still going to provide hardcore games digitally like Virtua Fighter, House of the Dead , and Hell Yeah. Developers like Treasure and Platinum Games still exist, are not in any trouble, and will continue to exist. We just had incredibly difficult games like Shinobi and Dark Souls, and Mutant Mudds debut last year, though no one including most people on this forum bothered with Shinobi.

I could go on, but I will really begin to drone. My point? There is no impending "end" of hardcore gaming. Hardcore games never left. You can buy hardcore games right now. The rise of digital services has allowed the garage developer to make a massive come back, and through these services we are getting plenty of quality hardcore content.

And this is all assuming that those "tired franchise" you whine about don't provide a hardcore experience. Which they do. Unless you don't consider their predecessors during the 90s to be hardcore games either.

Casual gaming has existed for as long as there has been an industry. It was the mainstream gamer that made Pong a success and jump started this industry to begin with. This industry isn't a zero sum game, it isn't all or nothing, there has ALWAYS been a mix, and there will continue to be. For as long as there are hardcore gamers, there are hardcore games. They will just have to learn to share their ever expanding industry, cause social and mobile gaming isn't going away either.

You forgot, Kid Icarus and Xenoblade are Nintendo games! Which means all these people will about how casual they are, regardless if they have played them or not!

[ShadowLegend]

Theres no need to gimp hardware =P theres no need for a Wii u. A Wii u from Microsoft and Sony wouldn't sell, because no one is going to buy a small upgrade that they can hardly notice over the 360 and PS3. That reason alone is why Microsoft and Sony will have much more powerful consoles.

Just because a console is powerful doesn't mean it can't have low graphics games, as you know i'm a big fan of digital distribution, retail is getting too costly, I guarantee you by the end of next generation, 80% of developers will be releasing most of their games digitally, saving retail for big budget AAA games.

With digital becoming so big, STEAM has become a very lucrative platform, even Japanese developers are starting to realize it's benefits. Any digital game is pretty much guaranteed to come to STEAM now, it's just too big of a market for developers to miss out on.

So if Microsoft and Sony want to go the Nintendo route and overcharge for 10+ year old hardware, then I'm not buying. Most of the games will be coming to STEAM anyways.

I agree that we need more than a "small" upgrade...obviously a system not noticeably a technologically improvement over its predecessors will be looked down upon.

But this trend of trying to equal PC gaming and budgets on home consoles needs to end. The gaming industry can't afford it and Digital Distribution is not a be-all-end-all solution to every single problem like people seem to think it is.

Food for thought; if services like Steam are so infinitely profitable for publishers, we'd see more PC-only publishers. We don't. Almost nothing is released today exclusively on the PC.