But now, with billions of smartphones, which amounts to a crushing ratio of 2.x orders of magnitude over consoles, games for smart mobile devices are making a serious dent - enough so that Microsoft led with their "old people" passive media features for Xbox One.
Do you have any evidence for this "serious dent" that smartphone gaming is having on the industry?
I don't see how the smartphone game market overlaps with the same market that is purchasing an Xbox 360 or PS3. If anything, it overlaps the handheld market, but the Nintendo 3DS is still selling very well despite competing with smartphones for people's gaming dollars.
For the "gaming" market (ie. people who play more than the occasional round of Solitaire or Angry Birds), smartphones are still underwhelming. Even take the Madden and CoD crowd that many gaming enthusiasts disparage. Why would they care about lackluster smartphone games?
If anything the smartphone market aligns with those who bought a Wii for Wii Sports and then hardly used the thing much longer other than maybe as a Netflix device. But that was never a long-term market anyways.
Plus, the smartphone gaming market seems to have a pricing issue where everyone expects games to be either free or $1. Can you imagine a game on the Google Play store costing $30+ dollars as they do for a 3DS or Vita? Let along $60 for a PS4 or Xbone One title?
First, you are right that smart mobile devices have the most direct impact on handhelds which were a niche within a niche already.
Second, I can't imagine a game on Google Play costing $30, never mind $60. Can you imagine a world without $30 games?
Third, those $30-60 games are only possible inside the closed console market. In this context, the idea of indy games on consoles is just strange: It is contrary to the way the console market works.
The point is that if smart mobile devices on one side, and gaming PCs on the other side peel away enough of the market, 8th generation consoles will continue the decline in unit volume that happened in the 7th generation, and lead to the end of console gaming.
You are comparing high end FPS games against casual games. When, in reality, console games are divided between dozens of genres. If everything else - fighting games, strategy games, CRPGs, simulation games, etc. are all fine on handsets and/or tablets, it's the end of consoles.
Do you have any evidence for this "serious dent" that smartphone gaming is having on the industry?
I don't see how the smartphone game market overlaps with the same market that is purchasing an Xbox 360 or PS3. If anything, it overlaps the handheld market, but the Nintendo 3DS is still selling very well despite competing with smartphones for people's gaming dollars.
For the "gaming" market (ie. people who play more than the occasional round of Solitaire or Angry Birds), smartphones are still underwhelming. Even take the Madden and CoD crowd that many gaming enthusiasts disparage. Why would they care about lackluster smartphone games?
If anything the smartphone market aligns with those who bought a Wii for Wii Sports and then hardly used the thing much longer other than maybe as a Netflix device. But that was never a long-term market anyways.
Plus, the smartphone gaming market seems to have a pricing issue where everyone expects games to be either free or $1. Can you imagine a game on the Google Play store costing $30+ dollars as they do for a 3DS or Vita? Let along $60 for a PS4 or Xbone One title?