jawa asks... about the home gaming market in 2029

If the future of gaming is streaming then Microsoft is well placed but at least one of Google/Amazon/Apple will do well. I can see Sony selling the PlayStation brand to one of these, although not necessarily in the next 10 years, but I think Nintendo is quite likely to carry on Nintendoing.

By 2029 it'll all be streaming services like Prime, Netflix etc with the option to buy and download on a more permanent basis. I'd say Sony and MS being the front runners with either Google or Amazon chasing up the rear.

Nintendo will probably be the only real company with anything remotely like what we have now.

I see Nintendo either being bought out by one of the bigger boys, and/or changing to be software only. They dont seem to me to have as much of a pull as Microsoft or Sony with the next & current generation.

My 2 boys (11&9) and all their mates are exclusively XB1 or PS4 really. And 99% of the time its Fortnite or Fifa that they're playing. Theyre not interested in anything innovative or quirky (which is how I largely perceive Nintendo to be) . As they grow up into late teens, they may be too far into the MS/Sony universe to change

KingK wrote:I see Nintendo either being bought out by one of the bigger boys, and/or changing to be software only. They dont seem to me to have as much of a pull as Microsoft or Sony with the next & current generation.

Nintendoomed

(Basically the same argument has been made since N64, and it's worth remembering that the UK is a lesser Nintendo market)

Nintendo currently has a market capitalisation (value) of circa $45 billion. Microsoft's is around $1 trillion whilst Alphabet's (Google) is roughly £846 billion. If there is a time when Nintendo's value drops (as in, say, early 2015 when the value was around $11 billion) I could see one of the giants trying to buy them out.

I don't want this to happen, of course - a market with plenty of strong competitors is, as we all know, better for consumers! Unfortunately the gaming market is unlikely to have, say, six or seven "big leaders" and - probably not surprisingly - I do see a merger or two happening at some point.

I'd guess Google, Microsoft and Sony, but with Amazon making waves too.

Remember Sega?

It's worth remarking that Nintendo own a majority of its own shares and maintain very large reserve funds worth billions of dollars. I'm by no means some kind of business nerd (smash capitalism!), but I think both of these things indicate they are happy to be a "smaller" company going up against the "bigger" boys as long as they are still profitable on their own terms. (Which is probably ultimately good if you like their consoles & games!)

If they had a couple of disastrous flops in a row it would be a different story of course.

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:Google will quit after 2 years

Definitely. They'll do a gooseberry fool job of making people understand what it is, offer it very limited support and won't see the instant returns they apparently want from anything that doesn't come under their main ad data business.

Hopefully sony only. Definitely do not want google or apple anywhere near the gaming market. Microsoft can do one too. Nintendo will probably be gone by then if they continue churning out underpowered toys.

I don't expect the big three to have changed in ten years' time. They were the same big three ten years ago, after all. Brand recognition, trust in hardware companies from software companies, established business relationships etc are all important, and make it unlikely IMO that we'll simply see massive online companies make inroads into gaming because they've got money and because the industry is heading towards streaming - you still need a device to stream on, after all. Interesting that Valve haven't been mentioned yet considering their dominance of the PC download market via Steam; they're much better placed than Amazon (who are more interested in profit than developing developers and creating IP) or Apple (who'd probably swap the control stick and buttons around just to be different to Microsoft)

Can we stop Gamerforever posting in Games Chat like Cal in Stuff?

It bugs me that a fully grown man is such a strawberry floating child.

Nintendo release a Switch with the form factor of the Gamecube, except smaller. It'll still have a handle on the rear of it, and the games will be inserted into the bottom, which looks like a mini GBA Player.

Sony will release the PS6, which is nothing but a USB stick that offers streaming. There'll be every single generation of Playstation console and every game available from that generation, but each generation is a separate subscription service of £100 a year, except for the PS6 generation which will be £200.

Microsoft will no longer push out an Xbox console, instead releasing the Xbox app onto everything with an internet connection, which is now able to run Xbox games through streaming with no latency even on the lowest of internet speeds. They'll still push out updates that change the way thing looks every quarter of the year, though.

Google's Stadia eventually releases, but at the same month as the PS6, meaning all that preparation they made is wasted. They let Microsoft merge the Stadia system into the Xbox app, then give up supporting it with new releases.

Amazon have worked hard to make sure the Fire branding is recognised as a unified platform for everything, and when the time comes for taking gaming to the next level, they are successful. Unfortunately, while they've been busy with that, Argos have taken most of their business when it comes to selling anything not Amazon related.

A new company has entered the hardware and software business, with their first console presenting an online ecosystem that turns the home screen into a home city, where you don't even need to boot up a game to be interacting with people. Anyone you can see, you can talk to, with the achivement system giving the currency needed to buy cosmetics within the city to make yourself stand out. It's a novel idea, but the first few months have little to offer, as the company advertised and released it all within a week two years ago with only two proper games available to buy, with five more being added across the next two years. Third party games took until this year to start releasing, as no ports of older games were allowed to come to it (though remakes were fine, as proven when REmake releases for it).

Apple Arcade hadn't taken off, and the service had been discontinue nine years ago. On this year, Apple goes bust, leaving Samsung to be leader of the mobile market at all price points.

Pedz wrote:Can we stop Gamerforever posting in Games Chat like Cal in Stuff?

It bugs me that a fully grown man is such a strawberry floating child.

It's such a perplexing thing to root for, too. :lol:

"I really, really, really hope the one Japanese company has a monopoly over the entire industry in ten years' time! strawberry float all those employees everywhere else and strawberry float everyone else's option of choice; I want only the games I like to be commercially available and every other developer to fail!"

DarkRula wrote:(Highly-detailed vision of a possible scenario)

Rula, you've got a flair for the imaginative and I like that!

- - - - - - - - - -

The results are in!

The vote has completed and GRcade has made a choice. The forum believes that... there will be no change! Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, the current three market leaders, will remain supreme in 2029!

Google are viewed as being the strongest challenger but they only polled half of the votes gathered by Nintendo in third place.

See, let's look back on this in ten years' time and see how accurate our thoughts were. Thanks for taking part!

jawafour wrote:Rula, you've got a flair for the imaginative and I like that!

Thanks. I do my best.

jawafour wrote: let's look back on this in ten years' time and see how accurate our thoughts were.

Supposing we remember this thread, and EA hasn't taken over and closed down GRcade, it'll be interesting to compare.

Pedz wrote:Can we stop Gamerforever posting in Games Chat like Cal in Stuff?

It bugs me that a fully grown man is such a strawberry floating child.

I gotta agree. GRcade's "console war" bullshit, playground talk has, as far as I can tell, long been dead on the site.

By 2029 the cloud gaming tech will have all its kinks worked out. Stadia will likely be joined by similar services launched by MS and Sony, although probably along side their consoles for those who still want them. I don't see Nintendo heading that way and I wouldn't be surprised if they got caught out. Google seem to have a head start with Stadia but I think the industry experience of MS and Sony will lead them to developing much better platforms with better titles so I would not bet on them coming out on top.

Sony and MS are going to focus more on the service side of things for sure, so I would not be surprised if we see games marketed as being on "PSN" and maybe "XN" rather than attached to specific hardware.

Do you suppose there is a scenario where things start to go backwards?

A combination of finite energy sources running out and getting costlier, and the instability of rampant climate change on national infrastructures mean that tech gets smaller, cleverer, less power intensive. And also more based on critical technology rather than frivolous stuff.

I always wonder when peak games will come. Unlike films, a primarily storytelling medium, which will always endure but has perhaps rarely improved due to new technologies, games only really expand and tell new stories when new interactive tech allows it. What if that tap is turned off?

The way the world's going we won't be here in 10 years.

jawa asks... about the home gaming market in 2029

Which three companies will lead the home gaming market in 2029?

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