A recent
Reuters report points to alot of numbers and predictions about the game console market, but here's what I think in a nutshell for 2006 in games.
My predictions are below.
- Nintendo Revolution will release this year after being shown off at E3. My predicted release date for Nintendo Revolution will be in June or July to capitalize on kids' summer vacation time. My predicted price: $299.
- Sony's Playstation 3 will release in this year. With Sony's Blu-ray DVD selections releasing in spring and summer, Sony has bet the farm on the Blu-Ray format, so I predict an early release of the PS3 shortly after the release of the first Blu-ray movies. Because this is an important fight, Sony will lose money on PS3s which will have Blu-ray included in order to leverage sales of movies in the Blu-ray format. They'll make it up in the long run with sales of Blu-ray discs. I'm predicting March or April for release of PS3 with a price of $399. They'll launch with few games, but hopefully with enough media content. The first sales are going to traded as commodities on EBay initially, but within 3 to 4 months the market should stabilize.
- Xbox 360's audiences will grow, but without support from Japanese companies it will languish.
- Nintendo DS will continue to sell extraordinarily well -- Animal Crossing DS is the child-generation version of MMOG, after all, and by Christmas we will see an Animal Crossing style game with Pokemon characters.
- Sony's PSP will continue to be the geek's choice for mobile platform, but both the Nintendo DS and the video-enabled iPod will continue to eat away sales in this area of the marketplace.
I believe the video game trends are in the following directions:
- Gamers wanting larger scale community games will gravitate toward PC and DS.
- Gamers, after spending several thousand dollars in upgrading their living rooms with high-def systems will want to spend more time in them, however, they will be increasingly wary of screen-burn in and thus limit their playing time more, thus sales of video games will remain flat (or decline).
- Single Player games will more commonly be squeezed onto mobile platforms rather than on console systems.
- Hi-Def is the future of console gaming.
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