Welcome back to my blog and welcome to 2012, a most interesting year in gaming. The year starts with the rumour that Sony or Microsoft will not compete in the next console generation and presumably leave the hardware market altogether.
An article by IndustryGamers cites comments made in a panel on the future of consoles.
Speaking during CES (...), Nanea Reeves, chief product officer for Gaikai, predicted, "Not all of the current console makers will have one more generation. That will be the big news at E3."
Reeves' comments can be understood better in the context of the entire session:
“Are we all in agreement that there will be a PS4 and there'll be an Xbox 720? And/or when is the console dead?” [panel host Mike] Vorhaus asked the panel. (...)
“I think some will have one more cycle and I think others will not,” said Reeves. “I think that will be the big news at E3. That's just my prediction.” “That's a very newsworthy opinion,” said Vorhaus. “Which of the three people are not going to have a next console?” “I'm not going to say which one, but I will predict that there will be one.” said Reeves. (...)
The panel ended with a provocative question: What will be the biggest surprises coming up for 2012? (...) Nanea Reeves, Gaikai: “I will go with the previous comment. I think one console will opt out of the next gen.” (...)
Mike Vorhaus, Magid Advisors: “I think Nintendo will be the one to do what you are suggesting [opt out of the next gen].”
I am very surprised that these comments have been spun into so many news stories, assuming Reeves has actual first-hand knowledge of either Microsoft or Sony bowing out of the hardware race. I am certain she doesn't. I called them up and they refused to elaborate on the story. It is clear, though, that they enjoy all the press coverage.
Ask yourself: Who is making these comments? Gaikai has a vested interest in talking up the death of gaming consoles - and understandably so. Steve Perlman, CEO of Gaikai's rival OnLive, told me in an interview in 2010 that this (meaning Wii, PS3 and Xbox360) was "probably the last generation." This is not news, this is PR. This is like Mercedes spreading rumours that the Japanese car industry is in big trouble.
Also, such comments are meant to be overstated. I have hosted a number of such panels myself and the point is to get the participants to make exaggerated statements which news outlets pick up on and which the community can discuss.
Besides, if any company really were to leave the hardware market they would not formally announce it at E3, because that would blatantly hurt their current-gen sales and third-party relations. They would refuse to comment for as long as possible.
So, rest assured that these comments are not worth your attention. Microsoft and Sony may, indeed, opt out of the hardware race. But Gaikai would not know about it any sooner than us. And, in my mind, we will eventually see another PlayStation and another Xbox competing with the Wii U.
Again, I have been busy with another big project. I have just produced a thirty-minute television documentary on the history of Nintendo, featuring Shigeru Miyamoto, Michael Pachter, Steve Wiebe as well as many fans and experts. The documentary is trying to surprise even the most knowledgable fan of videogames with interesting facts. Did you know that Nintendo was founded in 1889? Did you know that in ´Donkey Kong´, Popeye was originally meant to jump over the barrels? Did you know that the Sony PlayStation started as commission work for Nintendo?
I have received great support from beforemario, Pix'n Love Publishing, EDGE magazine, EGMNOW, various artists participating in the iam8bit exhibition, as well as - of course - from Nintendo and Sony Computer Entertainment.
The documentary is in German. English and Japanese soundbytes are only subtitled, though. And we have taken great care to produce some pretty and pretty self-explanatory slides. The documentary is called ´The Nintendo Story´ and is scheduled to air in two weeks, namely on Friday, November 18th at 9:30pm on ZDFkultur. If you cannot receive the digital channel on your set, you can either watch it on Zattoo or through the ZDF network's streaming portal, the Mediathek.
Alternatively, the documentary is set to be repeated on 3sat the following Sunday, November 20th at 4:30pm. I hope you are able to watch it and I am most interested in your feedback.
EDIT And here is the direct link to the video stream in my tv network's streaming application, the ZDF Mediathek. Enjoy.
Market analyst Michael Pachter (Wedbush Securities) has suggested that Nintendo should consider licensing their intellectual property like ´Super Mario´ and ´The Legend of Zelda´ to rival console makers, as well as tablet and smartphone manufacturers and providers.
Pachter said this in an interview with me the day before yesterday and he reiterated his point during the market analysis panel at Gameplaces International in Frankfurt yesterday. Alongside Pachter, Jesse Divnich from EEDAR and Peter Warman from Newzoo took part in the 90-minute discussion, hosted by myself.
Paraphrasing him, he noted that there were no more blue oceans for Nintendo to discover. They got lucky with the Wii, he said. Now, though, the company would have to face direct competition in what he called a red ocean full of sharks and they were sure to lose such a battle. He also noted that he did not view the Wii U as a next generation console, but simply as an HD-capable Wii, which merely catches up with Xbox360 and PS3. As such, Pachter said, it will arrive two years late and likely suffer from a similar lack of software as the 3DS did - and still does. In what was a lively and often entertaining discussion, the charismatic Pachter also noted rather modestly that he was "often wrong, but never in doubt."
His colleague Peter Warman appeared to disagree on the issue of Nintendo. Slightly exaggerating his point, he noted that market analysts are the single reason why Nintendo is struggling at the moment. Investors rely solely on their market data and vision on the future of games. And on many points analysts views are exact the opposite from those of Nintendo, or at least Nintendo's CEO Satoru Iwata.
Warman believes the challenge of Nintendo is not as much battling the other console manufacturers but competing against the long list of companies and investors lining up to take the cloud, browser and app gaming experience to the TV screen. And casual games will go first, taking a stab directly at Nintendo's core business. And because of Nintendo's very early announcement, Nintendo has provided Apple the opportunity to announce their Apple TV on the same day the Wii U launches. After all, Apple launched the iPad 2 on the same day as the 3DS. That was no coincidence.
"Games are no longer products but a service," Warman added. "A service you take across the various screens you interact with and a service that keeps evolving ensuring never-ending engagement and entertainment. A service allowing you to pay an amount of money that suits your budget and suits the kick you get from playing it."
When the discussion moved on to Sony, Jesse Divnich said that the Xperia Play was, again paraphrasing here, dead in the water. He questioned why Sony Ericsson was in charge of the device and not SCE. There was no reason to even talk about it, he asserted. The Vita, however, received almost unanimous praise by the three analysts. They were getting enthused about the hardware and the relatively low price tag. Further entries in the home console arena, Michael Pachter asserted, would not launch before 2014, though.
EDIT I misrepresented Michael Pachter's opinion and I apologise for doing so. Michael clarified his stance thus:
I said that they must consider supporting other platforms with their software, but didn't mean to suggest that they must get out of the hardware business altogether. I merely believe that they can no longer command the prices and market share from their hardware that they have enjoyed in the past, as competition is eroding their advantage.
