Social networking will decide this console generation

I just stumbled across this article and the author has an interesting take on what will ultimately decide this console gen. If someone were to ask you what you thought would decide this console gen, some of you would say games or the console with the most power.

What is almost never discussed, are some of the other intangibles that could potentially sway support for one console over another. Social media or networking, has impacted many areas of our own lives, from a personal and professional perspective. Gaming is not immune to this, as evident by MS early investment in Xbox Live 13 years ago, and recently with the simple addition of the "share" button on PS4 remote.

What are your thoughts on this article and topic?

http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/05/social-networking-will-win-the-console-wars/

Social networking can burn in hell.

@Pffrbt: Really?

personally, I despise where gaming is trying to be herded. the online, social and multi-media, combined with, dumbed-down game with handholding, "cinematic presentation", forced multiplayer, microt's, pay2playfree2play, dlc within weeks of release and a lack of customization and options means I am stopping with my 360 and heading back to pc's.

I won't be a part of the dark era of the decline of console gaming.

Sony has already won at least the first two years of this generation because of the positive and negative media hype that came out of E3. So yeah this isn't a theory without merit.

I agree. Its not System Wars anymore.... Its Service Wars, PSN versus XBL.

I'm still getting a Wii U though.

Personally, my view differs from yours in terms of where I see gaming as a whole. If you had mentioned that two years ago, I would have agreed. But the waters are changing and it is for the better. We just need to start looking at how games are being developed and looked at by the gaming community. We have the uprising of indie games that focus on retro-stylized aesthetics with an oldschool feel. We have Kajima admitting to AAA titles not being as highly anticipated as before. We have companies being held to a higher standard now of quality and even PR relations.

In general, I sort of liken it to that of clothing style. There is the saying that styles of clothing go through a cycle and eventually repeat and I think we are seeing hints of that occurring now. At least for myself, I do see gaming moving toward how it use to be in past but updated. Given how in-tune gamers are now with video game releases and their respective company, there is much more of a push toward having a voice and in the end, companies will have to listen or they will lose money.

I will agree on the matter of DLC and personally, I do worry of the potential abuse of the system. It is a system that has benefits but also potential consequences if abused. Not so sure about p2p (pay-to-pay) since if anything, we have seen that the trend is actually to avoid them. P2P has been around for many years and in the last few years, we have seen repeated attempts and failures in implementing. Just look at the outcry from ESO; there are many gamers out there that are tired of it and companies have already seen that unless truly worth it, they will be forced to either drop p2p or drop the game. So although I do some problems arising, I do see it improving in many areas. Things like social media and forced online is merely a matter of accepting reality. We are becoming more connected and by next gen-consoles, expect all consoles to move toward being online required.

I the article overstates its case and ignores a lot of inconvenient facts. Word of mouth counts for a lot and social media helps spread word of mouth, but word of mouth isn't spread only or even primarily through consoles. More gamers communicate about their games using their cellphones and computers than than their consoles.

The passage below is another example of the writer ignoring the obvious in order to try to make a point.

According to Nielsen’s data, twice as many people in the United States bought a PlayStation 3 for its entertainment features versus the Xbox 360. This is not surprising as the story of the previous generation console war included the battle between HD-DVDs and Blu-ray discs as the predominant high-definition media format. The Blu-ray won. The PlayStation 3 has a Blu-ray player. The Xbox 360 does not. Console users also typically spent 24 hours per week watching video-on-demand or streaming video services on the PlayStation 3 versus 13 hours a week watching video-on-demand or streaming video services on the Xbox 360.

In 2013 physical movie sales were in the toilet (tellingly, Sony puts movies online before it puts them on blu-ray) while streaming and digital sales are doing really well, so its incredibly unlikely that multimedia types are buying the PS3 for blu-ray. Logically, film fans who are own or buy gaming hardware are using the PS3 over the X360 because it doesn't put streaming services like Netflix behind a paywall.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304887104579306440621142958

Digital movie purchases surged 47% last year to $1.19 billion, according to data released by Digital Entertainment Group, an industry trade group. It was the fastest-growing category as total home-entertainment revenue inched up 0.7% to $18.22 billion.

Digital growth just barely made up for ongoing declines in sales and rentals of physical discs. The total U.S. home-entertainment market remains well below its peak of more than $22 billion 2004, a drop that has squeezed the profits of every studio and led to widespread cost cutting.

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Why are so many gamers against gaming becoming more mainstream? You want it to remain some hobby you do in a dark basement alone? The social aspects of this gen are the best part of gaming and it's making games more accessible to more and more people.

I can certainly see how social networking will help. I've been posting gameplay clips using Game DVR and Xbox Upload on the X1 and a lot of people have been asking me questions about the Xbox One and the games, and one of my friends who was a PS3 gamer is now getting an Xbox One after seeing all of the cool stuff it does.

@darthgumballs:

where does my comment point to anything close to "basement" and non-mainstream gaming? as well, since, i'm actually old enough to know what gaming was like when it wasn't mainstream I would never want to go back to that era because of all the improvements that have taken place.

and, lol, the social aspects of gaming are far from being the best part of gaming. the games and me playing them by myself are the best parts of gaming. "accessibility" through social systems is irrelevant to many gamers and, in fact, your "more and more people" idea is just one part of the reason why I look at gaming as having gone past its golden era: diminished returns.

there comes a point in time where one can no longer use old ideas to further their cause: "social networking will help." help what? accessibility is not an issue. non-mainstream is not an issue. basement gaming as a hobby is not an issue. social media, online and multiplayer aspects aren't even the issue, since, they are already here. (again, diminished returns.)

what matters is exactly what I said in my original comment, while, you're talking about fine-tuning what we already have.

i'm talking about getting to the business of creating great games and putting the gaming industry back on the right track.

In the last few years I discovered I enjoy social networks, but when the recent The Last of Us DLC asked me if I wanted to share things on Facebook, I said "get the **** outta here"

I'm confident most core gamers are exactly the same.

wtf dude? are you being serious right now?

I am not so sure all core gamer's feel the same. Especially those core gamers who have been indoctrinated early in social media. BK, I am assuming that you are of the elder age group here in the forums. If you are, their is a different perspective to social networking and gaming with the younger generation of gamer. We are seeing a paradigm shift, in how we interact with games and other gamer's online.

Carnage, I do not believe that the author was inferring, that social media is a driving force behind word of mouth. What the author is stating, is that having a robust online service, coupled with a strong social networking vehicle, Xbox Live party chat, friends list, multi-chat across games, and twitch as examples, will ultimately decide which console will be most successful. Here is the authors opening paragraph...

"Comparisons between the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 home gaming consoles usually revolve around chipsets, display resolutions, and controller designs. But integrating social tools and fostering online community may be the most influential factors in which of the two take the superior position in terms of market share and consumer loyalty in the eighth generation console war."

While it is reasonable to draw your conclusion, that more PS3 owners used Netflix do to the lack of a pay wall, you are neglecting that online activity on the Xbox 360 was tied more to gaming. Anyone on an Xbox 360 gaming online, has access to services such as Netflix because of the XBL subscription. However, 360 owners spent more time gaming than watching Netflix. What is being measured here, is the type of activities online on each console. And as the article suggests, is the reason why Sony focused on "gamers" this gen and MS on entertainment.

"The NDP Group reported in October that 50 percent more players used the Xbox 360 for online gaming than the PlayStation 3. Nielsen’s numbers back up this conclusion. Console owners typically spent 33 hours per week playing online games on the Xbox 360, versus 18 hours per week playing online games on the PlayStation 3".

I wish gamespot had a like button so I could social network about not liking social networking 0,0

@Areez:

i'm an older gamer and I understand your point about the social aspects of gaming. however, even when I was younger and there was no online multi we all got together and played our blades of steel and nba lives, madden, etc.. it's just a natural part of one's age.

I use social media in my regular life, but, i just don't need or want it in my gaming. and, the novelty and usefulness fades as one ages.

however, i still feel it comes down to mostly the single vs multi-player emphasis of gamers in the end.

and, being a single-player only gamer one can understand why i despise the trends of modern gaming and see it impacting the quality of my games and is a reason why i will not participate in consoles any further than my 360.

I still doubt even today's teen and young adult gamers care abour sharing stuff on facebook when they are playing games.

I mean, raise your hands if you do, but I think the vast majority of gamers do not consider it a selling point, at least not nearly to the point the article implies.

According to recent studies most young kids and young adults are getting tired of facebook and looking towards twitter. But even then i doubt someone would put them self in a position to be the laughing stock in their circles if they actually shared something on facebook.

Or at least i would think they do, i have and will never use facebook.

Also as previous consoles the thing that decides where someone ends up if they are in doubt, has proven to be what your friends have, so if thats a ps4 well then you are more likely to buy that.

Yeah, that stuff's dumb. Never saw the appeal. If it was sharing such things through whatever social features the consoles have, sure -- whatever. At least then I'm posting it to a community of like-minded folks. But Facebook? Eh...

Sorry for the lack of clarity, word of mouth is my pet theory. I think word of mouth is the only thing that makes social media on consoles important. The fact that gamers without specialized equipment can now easily post video or screenshots of their playthroughs helps fans of games spread the word about them. However, I don't think the strength of a console's social media connectivity is a big deal since people have lots of tech better suited to communication (its easier to write a message using a keyboard than a dpad).

I didn't touch upon the fact that the X360 (where COD and Battlefield sell most of their copies) is a more popular console for online gaming, but I didn't see that as relevant to some of the article's mistakes. Its also worth keeping in mind that the Xbox One's big focus was on multimedia (NFL deal and Kinect functionality than anything) not social media. By all accounts the social media functionality out of the gate was kind of a mess (not nearly as smooth as the X360's) though I understand all of the big problems have been recently fixed.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/3/5170246/xbox-one-party-chat-problems-microsoft-fix

As for Sony and MS's differing focuses, its worth keeping in mind that MS was planning on making massive inroads among non-gamers (they talked about a billion consoles being sold this gen, mostly to non-gamers)) while Sony was a little more grounded (they hoped to just sell to gamers). As I pointed out after MS's presentation, while people like additional functionality, there was/is no evidence consumers are willing to pay money for media boxes. The lead platforms for Netflix are not dedicated, cheap $50 media boxes, but consoles and PCs, so hoping that movie fans would plop down $500 on a multimedia box which let them change channels via voice always struck me as unrealistic.

Social networking and instant access to information in general has put the PS4 ahead. It's very important from a marketing perspective.

Title is a bit misleading. The article is more or less about why and how MS and PS integrated chat systems through their respected networks.

I don't think it will decide this generation one bit. Both have established networks in which you can play games and talk to each other just fine.

I don't think gamers really want more than that, just viable communication within games. In the long run I think the exclusives and pricing bundles will decide.