The real question is this: what if new consoles don't get the industry out of this slump? I've been hearing people say (and I've been saying it myself for a while now), that new consoles will bring sales back up to what they once were. But what if they don't? What happens then?
Vari3ty
Working in sales, one of the key lessons is this:When shlt goes bad, you go back to the basics.
I think that's what the console manufacturers need to do -- stop being all artistic and stupid and be realists. They have to understand that they are working in a very, very constrained economy and video games, as much as they'd like to believe otherwise, are a want, not a need.
The were parameters set up to follow from previous generations that worked solidly, if not spectacularly. The NES and SNES sold a ton of systems, and the PS2 was a fvcking monster. So here's the question: when the norm is already so goddamned good, why would you go trying something different? Follow that existing model and follow it well -- back to the basics. Attractive launch prices, attractive software prices, stop making it more of a value to wait instead of buying on Day One as they have been with all this DLC and Season Pass horseshlt. Stop trying to sell eight year old hardware for $300, and stop making people question the value of the hobby by hitting them once and then again and again -- that's a busted model; encouraging people to wait to buy your game after you've already had to coerce them to buy your overpriced system. Speaking of which, they should follow the established model for price drops. This hardware should be $100 now.
The basics: make affordable systems with lots of games, and they WILL sell. And if they don't, at least then the market crashed on its own, instead of being helped along by the idiots currently in charge. Video games have been around over thirty years now -- they are part of our social fabric, not just in America, but around the world. There are people who are retirement age now who grew up with these things. People want to play games, the companies just need to stop giving them reasons not to.
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