Since the birth of video games, consoles and arcade consoles have been the leading industries in the game market from the beginning. Unexpectedly, due to the rise of mobile phones, the two game markets have been seriously affected, and now that the latter is about to disappear around the world, the remaining game consoles are still supporting the home game console market.
Due to the similarity of gaming systems and the nature of the transferable platform, most games can be moved to the mobile game market and the computer game market according to hardware requirements. In addition to restricting game manufacturers with contracts such as exclusive games, coupled with the rise of cloud gaming platforms, there is hardly anything that can stop the trend of games moving towards multiple platforms.
This introduction is about the manufacturers that still create fruitful results in this grim situation, known as the big three game consoles, and how they have influenced the video game industry.
Microsoft
In the early history of video games, Microsoft wanted to enter the game market for a long time, but in the early years, the market share was occupied by SEGA, Nintendo, and SONY. In the era when PS2 was just emerging, when Nintendo lost market share in consoles due to strategic failure, SEGA launched Dreamcast and SONY to compete for the console market, but because of SONY's fraudulent marketing, SEGA completely lost money and withdrew from the console market.
At that time, Microsoft took advantage of the large vacancy in the game console market, stepped into this field in one fell swoop, at the beginning of the period, europe and the United States were occupied by xbox, East Asia was defeated, and then at the expense of money and constantly throwing a lot of money, finally in the 360 era but SONY courted. Although the market was finally divided by Sony and Nintendo, coupled with the erosion of the mobile game market, Microsoft began to lose money again, but Microsoft has not yet given up.
SONY
In fact, SONY did not step into the video game console market at the beginning, and at the beginning of the period, in the very early era when there were only two game console manufacturers, SEGA and Nintendo, Nintendo could find SONY to assist in the development of expansion components in order to expand the game console. At this time, Sony put forward the CD-ROM function claim, which conflicted with the old Nintendo's claim that it still wanted to maintain the cassette mechanism, and finally led to a rupture.
At this time, SONY used the technology learned from Nintendo and the hardware advantages of its own home appliance developers to develop a new generation of CD-ROM-based home game consoles. Due to the powerful function of the console and the excellent environment conducive to program development, excellent video game developers fell to Sony and became the largest occupier of the largest video game console market that year.
This advantage continued into the third generation of the PS, and because the company's profitability was too smooth, the company department was too arrogant and developed a very impersonal game development environment. Coupled with the resurrection of the Nintendo console, the market has been seriously divided, until the current five generations of products, there are still some markets that cannot be recovered.
Although SONY started out as a home appliance in the early days, its positive and enterprising spirit is admirable, even if it cooperates with Nintendo, it will take the opportunity to absorb the technology and knowledge of the other party, and seize the market when the other party is weak. And the use of misleading tactics in business promotion, so that a large number of customers are willing to buy their own products, at the commercial level is worthy of recognition, but not worth learning.
Nintendo
As a long-established game console manufacturer, Nintendo started with the Japanese card "Hanaza", and from the beginning it was a full-fledged entertainment game manufacturer, and because of this, it is also very aware of what players want.
Since the beginning of the Nintendo Red and White Machine, it has been welcomed by a large number of players. Although the console advantage was lost due to a misjudgment in the middle, Nintendo, from the perspective of the player, did not focus on the function of the game console, and redeveloped the game console based on gameplay. This misplaced competition successfully opened up another game market, and finally grabbed a part of the market that was originally functional.
Today, the sales of Nintendo Switch consoles that are out of the circle have exceeded 100 million units, and they have once again returned to the leading position among the three manufacturers. On the Switch console you can play "Mario Kart 8", the originator of the Q version of the racing game, the fitness effect of the somatosensory game "Fitness Ring Adventure", the open world full of distraction "The Legend of Zelda", and a variety of excellent game works that can be shared with family and friends, suitable for all ages, simply not too happy.
Nintendo is arguably the most focused company of all console manufacturers on gaming entertainment, focusing on in-game fun rather than blindly following suit. Up to now, many popular and interesting games have been developed, if the general game console factory focuses on profit and performance, then Nintendo focuses on friends and family and fun, and in all console manufacturers, only SEGA is similar in concept.
Exception: SEGA
In the very early years, the largest proportion of game consoles in the world was only nintendo and SEGA. At that time, SEGA followed the United States to enter Japan, the main customer was the U.S. Navy, the boss of the year was an American, so it was a full-fledged American businessman, and now it is a Japanese businessman from beginning to end. Nintendo won with fun and mall rules, while SEGA won with technology.
When Nintendo launched the red and white machine, SEGA launched the SEGA Master system; when Nintendo launched the Super Nintendo, SEGA launched a 16BIT game console; even if a new rival Sony launched the PS1, SEGA still relied on its strong technical power to launch the Saturn console. Before SEGA failed, his technical prowess was always at the forefront of home consoles, and at the level of game software, SEGA was synonymous with creativity and madness.
Themes such as crazy taxis, mosquitoes, talking mermaids, apartment gods, etc. are beyond the imagination of other game companies. In the company's last console, Dreamcast, game creativity reached the peak of its time, and the shenmue series, the ancestor of completely free sandbox games, was the work of that year, but the concept was too avant-garde at that time for many people to accept.
After the company withdrew the console department, it turned to Japan to start selling Kashiwa Qingge, game arcades and other machines to maintain the company's operation, and the game department began to become more conservative, rarely appearing in the early years of those crazy masterpieces that were like ghosts. But anyone who follows SEGA will also find that although it has become more conservative, the crazy ideas in the hearts of the producers still leak out from time to time, which is well revealed in the branches of games such as "Like Dragon".
summary
To summarize the above three video game console manufacturers (plus one that withdrew from the market), in the long history of the video game company's development decisions, often due to different development environments lead to the development period extended. Especially in the current situation of great progress in science and technology, in fact, the game console has been no different from the computer host, the computer host can do it, the game console can also do, and therefore the boundary between the two is very blurred.
This, coupled with the rise of cloud platforms, has resulted in all games being playable on all hardware. After a while, it is likely that there will be no so-called market separation, the game is all cloud-based, even if people are on the street or take the subway, they can easily play AAA masterpieces, and home game consoles may eventually only become a twilight industry. Consumers are very ruthless, where the fun game is, where to go, in order to avoid this result, it can only find a way to build their own platform.
However, building your own platform is not easy, in addition to writing a program to set up a platform, you must also visit many manufacturers and ask them to join their own platform. In the early stage, we offer a lot of preferential treatment and assist them in development, etc., of course, there are also manufacturers who are reluctant to provide preferential treatment. For example, Google is reluctant to provide benefits, and even asks to pay the original price, and the focus is on Google to find someone on its own, which the author seems to be just a waste of time.
In addition, because of the rise of cloud gaming, the only thing that can benefit is probably the cooperation platform between NVIDA and STEAM. The reason is that these two companies are one of the display card faucets, the other is the game platform faucet, equivalent to a two-pronged approach, the most cutting-edge game technology plus the largest customer base of the game platform, it is difficult for anyone to compete with it.
At that time, the days of buying game consoles and various hardware peripherals for games will also pass.