Sega Is Leaving The Console Gaming Market [Rumor]

[TheErebus.]

http://www.japantoday.com/category/arts-culture/view/fans-mourn-segas-exit-from-the-console-video-game-market

 

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/02/24/fans-mourn-segas-exit-from-the-console-video-game-market-fume-over-new-sega-games-name/

 

So supposedly, Sega has decided to ditch the console gaming market and instead has decided to focus on Mobile and PC gaming. Now I say this is a rumor because there is no official word (or at least I couldn't find any) from SEGA.

 

Now this frightens me because Atlus is owned 100% by Sega.

Atlus makes the Persona games

Persona 5 is coming out.

 

IF P5 GETS CANCELLED I WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING.

[NinjaSnipe11]

I didn't know Sega was even making games anymore.

[CherryRammer]

Sonic lol

[xca0]

phantasy star online 2

[Llyssa]

By the metrics, consoles are dying. They don't live up to "Glorius PC Master Race" in performance, their sales are foundering, and they're too niche usage to stay competitive against versatile things like mobile devices.

 

It's noted that PCs are also declining, but as they're multi-functional AND have a legitimate out-of-the-box business usage, they have a significantly longer way to fall than entertainment-only consoles.

 

The only market share that consoles have cornered at all is motion capture gaming, and it's hard to find anyone in the gaming industry that would push the idea of Wii-U being the future of consoles. It's mainly a novelty act with some main-stream success.

 

Microsoft's Kinect is well liked in general because it has many non-gaming applications, but having something that uses the same hardware specs, but costs less and needs less creativity to repurpose makes a lot more sense, so it's just a matter of time before MS gets on board the bandwagon to convert completely away from their relatively flagging console.

 

If any of this is news or strange to you, just look at warframe's forums. If there is any "seriously wtf?" bug reported these days, it's an Xbox exclusive, and comes from the massive performance gaps between the console and the PC. Both the PS4 and Xbox communities are tiny, despite the fact the DE dominated the PS4 heavily as the most-downloaded and most-played game on that platform.

 

DE is actually a rather odd duck, in fact, as most developers have been jumping ship because consoles are restrictive in so many ways, and have such miniscule markets.

 

Sega dumping consoles isn't anything unusual in that light, it's merely a bit surprising as they were once a console giant themselves. However, they've learned their lessons, and have managed to beat hasty retreats from dying markets often enough that they're still alive and well today.

 

For a piece of perspective on mobile gaming, consider:

Over 80% of americans have mobile phones. That's roughly 252 million units available to play, in the US alone.

Combined current gen consoles have around 30 million units shipped, worldwide. That means, at best, their market (worldwide) is equal to 1/8th of the US mobile gaming market.

 

For even better perspective yet: iphone has between 20% and 30% market share on mobile phone sales. This year, so far, they've sold 74 million units world wide--in 2 months! That's more than twice as many units as all of the consoles have sold, combined, in the past 3 YEARS.... and they're not even the market majority.

 

Even getting just 1% of mobile users to buy your game ends up as more sales than having 100% of console users buy your game... and companies have found that giving the game away, and then selling in-game content earns TONS more money than selling the game does. It's also been found that selling a game and then selling in-game content makes people hate you.... but it costs a lot of money to create and ship CDs/DVDs all over the world. So your best bet is being DLC... and DLC can work on any platform, so why limit yourself to a platform that has virtually no users?

[sappinmahsentry]

By the metrics, consoles are dying. They don't live up to "Glorius PC Master Race" in performance, their sales are foundering, and they're too niche usage to stay competitive against versatile things like mobile devices.

 

It's noted that PCs are also declining, but as they're multi-functional AND have a legitimate out-of-the-box business usage, they have a significantly longer way to fall than entertainment-only consoles.

 

The only market share that consoles have cornered at all is motion capture gaming, and it's hard to find anyone in the gaming industry that would push the idea of Wii-U being the future of consoles. It's mainly a novelty act with some main-stream success.

 

Microsoft's Kinect is well liked in general because it has many non-gaming applications, but having something that uses the same hardware specs, but costs less and needs less creativity to repurpose makes a lot more sense, so it's just a matter of time before MS gets on board the bandwagon to convert completely away from their relatively flagging console.

 

If any of this is news or strange to you, just look at warframe's forums. If there is any "seriously wtf?" bug reported these days, it's an Xbox exclusive, and comes from the massive performance gaps between the console and the PC. Both the PS4 and Xbox communities are tiny, despite the fact the DE dominated the PS4 heavily as the most-downloaded and most-played game on that platform.

 

DE is actually a rather odd duck, in fact, as most developers have been jumping ship because consoles are restrictive in so many ways, and have such miniscule markets.

 

Sega dumping consoles isn't anything unusual in that light, it's merely a bit surprising as they were once a console giant themselves. However, they've learned their lessons, and have managed to beat hasty retreats from dying markets often enough that they're still alive and well today.

 

For a piece of perspective on mobile gaming, consider:

Over 80% of americans have mobile phones. That's roughly 252 million units available to play, in the US alone.

Combined current gen consoles have around 30 million units shipped, worldwide. That means, at best, their market (worldwide) is equal to 1/8th of the US mobile gaming market.

 

For even better perspective yet: iphone has between 20% and 30% market share on mobile phone sales. This year, so far, they've sold 74 million units world wide--in 2 months! That's more than twice as many units as all of the consoles have sold, combined, in the past 3 YEARS.... and they're not even the market majority.

 

Even getting just 1% of mobile users to buy your game ends up as more sales than having 100% of console users buy your game... and companies have found that giving the game away, and then selling in-game content earns TONS more money than selling the game does. It's also been found that selling a game and then selling in-game content makes people hate you.... but it costs a lot of money to create and ship CDs/DVDs all over the world. So your best bet is being DLC... and DLC can work on any platform, so why limit yourself to a platform that has virtually no users?

I have only to say two things, Wii U.

[S.T.M.P.D]

By the metrics, consoles are dying. They don't live up to "Glorius PC Master Race" in performance, their sales are foundering, and they're too niche usage to stay competitive against versatile things like mobile devices.

 

It's noted that PCs are also declining, but as they're multi-functional AND have a legitimate out-of-the-box business usage, they have a significantly longer way to fall than entertainment-only consoles.

 

The only market share that consoles have cornered at all is motion capture gaming, and it's hard to find anyone in the gaming industry that would push the idea of Wii-U being the future of consoles. It's mainly a novelty act with some main-stream success.

 

Microsoft's Kinect is well liked in general because it has many non-gaming applications, but having something that uses the same hardware specs, but costs less and needs less creativity to repurpose makes a lot more sense, so it's just a matter of time before MS gets on board the bandwagon to convert completely away from their relatively flagging console.

 

If any of this is news or strange to you, just look at warframe's forums. If there is any "seriously wtf?" bug reported these days, it's an Xbox exclusive, and comes from the massive performance gaps between the console and the PC. Both the PS4 and Xbox communities are tiny, despite the fact the DE dominated the PS4 heavily as the most-downloaded and most-played game on that platform.

 

DE is actually a rather odd duck, in fact, as most developers have been jumping ship because consoles are restrictive in so many ways, and have such miniscule markets.

 

Sega dumping consoles isn't anything unusual in that light, it's merely a bit surprising as they were once a console giant themselves. However, they've learned their lessons, and have managed to beat hasty retreats from dying markets often enough that they're still alive and well today.

 

For a piece of perspective on mobile gaming, consider:

Over 80% of americans have mobile phones. That's roughly 252 million units available to play, in the US alone.

Combined current gen consoles have around 30 million units shipped, worldwide. That means, at best, their market (worldwide) is equal to 1/8th of the US mobile gaming market.

 

For even better perspective yet: iphone has between 20% and 30% market share on mobile phone sales. This year, so far, they've sold 74 million units world wide--in 2 months! That's more than twice as many units as all of the consoles have sold, combined, in the past 3 YEARS.... and they're not even the market majority.

 

Even getting just 1% of mobile users to buy your game ends up as more sales than having 100% of console users buy your game... and companies have found that giving the game away, and then selling in-game content earns TONS more money than selling the game does. It's also been found that selling a game and then selling in-game content makes people hate you.... but it costs a lot of money to create and ship CDs/DVDs all over the world. So your best bet is being DLC... and DLC can work on any platform, so why limit yourself to a platform that has virtually no users?

Huh. That's depressing. Expect the future of gaming to be saturated with stupid Farmville-style freemium products instead of works people have actually put time and effort and soul into.

That's...really depressing.

[Llyssa]

Huh. That's depressing. Expect the future of gaming to be saturated with stupid Farmville-style freemium products instead of works people have actually put time and effort and soul into.

That's...really depressing.

Warframe is "farmville-style freemium", if you never noticed. <.<

[Hyenasaurus]

Sorry, but I'm still resenting Atlus over not making anymore Trauma Team/Trauma Center type games >:C

[(PSN)Legolegend144]

By the metrics, consoles are dying. They don't live up to "Glorius PC Master Race" in performance, their sales are foundering, and they're too niche usage to stay competitive against versatile things like mobile devices.

It's noted that PCs are also declining, but as they're multi-functional AND have a legitimate out-of-the-box business usage, they have a significantly longer way to fall than entertainment-only consoles.

The only market share that consoles have cornered at all is motion capture gaming, and it's hard to find anyone in the gaming industry that would push the idea of Wii-U being the future of consoles. It's mainly a novelty act with some main-stream success.

Microsoft's Kinect is well liked in general because it has many non-gaming applications, but having something that uses the same hardware specs, but costs less and needs less creativity to repurpose makes a lot more sense, so it's just a matter of time before MS gets on board the bandwagon to convert completely away from their relatively flagging console.

If any of this is news or strange to you, just look at warframe's forums. If there is any "seriously wtf?" bug reported these days, it's an Xbox exclusive, and comes from the massive performance gaps between the console and the PC. Both the PS4 and Xbox communities are tiny, despite the fact the DE dominated the PS4 heavily as the most-downloaded and most-played game on that platform.

DE is actually a rather odd duck, in fact, as most developers have been jumping ship because consoles are restrictive in so many ways, and have such miniscule markets.

Sega dumping consoles isn't anything unusual in that light, it's merely a bit surprising as they were once a console giant themselves. However, they've learned their lessons, and have managed to beat hasty retreats from dying markets often enough that they're still alive and well today.

For a piece of perspective on mobile gaming, consider:

Over 80% of americans have mobile phones. That's roughly 252 million units available to play, in the US alone.

Combined current gen consoles have around 30 million units shipped, worldwide. That means, at best, their market (worldwide) is equal to 1/8th of the US mobile gaming market.

For even better perspective yet: iphone has between 20% and 30% market share on mobile phone sales. This year, so far, they've sold 74 million units world wide--in 2 months! That's more than twice as many units as all of the consoles have sold, combined, in the past 3 YEARS.... and they're not even the market majority.

Even getting just 1% of mobile users to buy your game ends up as more sales than having 100% of console users buy your game... and companies have found that giving the game away, and then selling in-game content earns TONS more money than selling the game does. It's also been found that selling a game and then selling in-game content makes people hate you.... but it costs a lot of money to create and ship CDs/DVDs all over the world. So your best bet is being DLC... and DLC can work on any platform, so why limit yourself to a platform that has virtually no users?

If all game companies cared only about money, I'd agree with you, but as it stands that's not the case.

Many developers still look to create quality content that can't be achieved on mobile devices, and until developers seek only to maximize profit, consoles will remain.

Edited March 1, 2015 by (PS4)Legolegend144

[Sixty5]

I'm struggling to remember the last time Sega (not their subsidiaries) actually did anything meaningful as far as games go.

[Sixty5]

I'm struggling to remember the last time Sega (not their subsidiaries) actually did anything meaningful as far as games go.

[sappinmahsentry]

The double-post is real.

[Mokkania]

double upvote.

[Vargras]

I'm struggling to remember the last time Sega (not their subsidiaries) actually did anything meaningful as far as games go.

Probably Sonic Adventure, back in the Dreamcast days. Since then, their former star franchise (Sonic) has continued to flounder, with a handful of successes against several failures. Most of their money at this point probably comes from them publishing other games or licensing their characters out (such as Sonic in Smash Bros).

[Llyssa]

Probably Sonic Adventure, back in the Dreamcast days. Since then, their former star franchise (Sonic) has continued to flounder, with a handful of successes against several failures. Most of their money at this point probably comes from them publishing other games or licensing their characters out (such as Sonic in Smash Bros).

Actually, they run Phantasy Star Online 2, which has several million users.

 

They still have significant market share with their japanese releases of a number of franchises.

 

They just don't bother much with releasing outside of japan, and haven't for a while.

 

They also own a chain of videogame themed theme parks (also in japan).

 

They're still quite relevant, they just don't bother much with marketing outside of japan.

 

EDIT: It's worth noting that their Yakuza series, on a per-game basis(and as a whole) outsells the HALO series in japanese markets, by a factor of like 4:1.

 

Also, it's worth noting that they made almost $4 Billion (with a B) last year.

 

Smash Brothers only sold around a million copies, so unless you believe Sega made $4,000 in royalties per copy of Smash Brothers sold, you should probably recalculate your estimates.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Llyssa