The Changing Face of Gaming Consoles | DHS Telegram | Dixon, CA

Posted by Taylor Linyard on Dec 6, 2012 in Student Interest

Back when console gaming first took off everyone was busy playing games on their computers, Nintendo?s, PSP?s, and Xbox?s.? As technology has gotten more and more advanced, the way people play games has changed as well. Some people feel that that time of the console gaming platforms, as well as the handheld devices, has reached its red ring of death stage.? Video game industry sales have been down recently.? Sales of game discs, consoles and accessories were down 24% in September compared to sales from the same month last year.? Some experts believe that the decrease in profits, as well as the increase in social gaming, have affected the big name computer gaming console makers.? Microsoft?s Xbox 360, Sony?s Playstation 3, and Nintendo?s Wii are the industry standards and would seem to be the ones who would be most affected by this trend.? Others feel that the downturn in console and handheld gaming is due to gamers loosing interest in that type of gameplay.? Other consultants feel that console games will grow again and they they will never really go away.

The way people use their consoles has changed as well.? People now use their game consoles to stream movies, watch You Tube videos, or even access the internet.? Microsoft says that forty percent of the Xbox?s use is non-gaming at this point, with Amazon and Netflix streaming accounting for most of the forty percent.? In fact, almost half of Netflix?s movie streaming customers use game consoles like the XBox to access those videos.? Of course, if people are using the console to watch movies or surf the internet they are not using it to play video games and are buying fewer games as well since that is not the focus of their console anymore.

The use of handheld devices like Smartphones has also changed the gaming world.? It is much easier for someone to pull out their phone, hit an icon, and play a quick session of a game online rather than being tied to the console in their living room.? Games like ?Angry Birds? and ?Plants vs. Zombies? have taken off in the social gaming world and offer a whole other venue for gamers to consider.? Most gamers still like their console games, but they are also looking for more opportunities to play outside of the console world.? Gamers are also playing on more than one platform.? It is not unusual for a home gamer to have several platforms and bounce back and forth between them, rather than being a dedicated Xbox user or Nintendo Wii fan to the exclusion of everything else.

Another reason for the downward movement might be that the graphic improvements in games are just not as impressive as they were in the past.? The changes being made now might be visible to a? minority of gamers who really focus on the visual aspects of the game, but for most average gamers the graphic improvements are not huge changes and so there is mot that feeling of I?ve got to have this game because the graphics are so much better.

While consoles will continue to be popular and are not going away, their makers defiantly have their work cut out for them to keep gamers interested and buying new games.

Source: http://www.dhstelegram.com/blog/2012/12/06/the-changing-face-of-gaming/

Talk Like a Pirate Day raiders Demi Lovato iOS 6 Features big brother Shakira chick fil a