Video game consoles are doomed… right? | Opinion

gamesindustry.biz:

Console gaming is dying.

If you've been in this business for more than 15 years, you've probably heard a sentence like that before. In the early 2000s, it was PC gaming that was dying. Consoles were booming, piracy was putting off publishers, and the same old games were topping the charts. Forget PCs, it was all about PlayStation.

Then Steam came along, and the indie scene, and, well, let's just say nobody is predicting the end of PCs anymore.

Then, about eight years ago, handheld gaming was dying. PS Vita had flopped, the Nintendo 3DS had sold half of what its predecessor managed, and smartphone games were the dominant form of gaming globally. Forget handhelds, it was all about iPhone.

Then Switch came along and created a popular product that sat somewhere between consoles and mobile and, well, let's just say nobody is predicting the end of handhelds anymore.

Things are a little different this time. There's compelling data to show that the console market is slowing down, and both Xbox and PlayStation spent much of last week talking about their multiplatform strategies.

In fact, it's been a bad week for fans of that box under the TV.

"Xbox and PlayStation need to make cheaper games, find more customers, or both"

On Wednesday last week, Sony revealed that it will miss its target of shipping 25 million PS5 consoles in the financial year by four million (at least). That means that the PS5, which is now in full supply, is trending behind the PS4.

In the financial Q&As that followed, COO and CFO Hiroki Totoki talked about how releasing more PS5 games on PC was part of an 'aggressive' plan to grow margins.

Then the very next day, Xbox's much anticipated business update confirmed that some of its games would be coming to PS5. The company still went to great lengths to remind everyone that it's not about to walk away from hardware, and its key titles remain 'exclusive' to Xbox and PC. But its strategy has long been about going beyond the box, and last week was a further move in doing