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When do you think the Retro era will end?

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Gatt:

I don't think we're in any danger of that happening.  Honestly,  if MAME emulates Silent Scope or Crazy Taxi you'll see traffic here explode.  Same with any number of Japan only titles.  Those games are a different generations Pac-Man and Donkey Kong,  and they'll generate the same type of response.

The first pre-fab guy that releases a pre-fab modular control panel is going to make a mint.

Additionally,  those numbers also have an interesting correlation...


--- Quote ---The Xbox 360 was released on November 22, 2005, in the United States and Canada; December 2, 2005, in Europe and December 10, 2005
--- End quote ---

PC use as a gaming machine is currently in a cyclical decline*.  So it's reasonable to assume that the drop in activity here is equivalent to the drop in PC Gaming activity.  In the next few years,  as the consoles falter and the Steambox/PC take over again as a gaming platform,  you'll see interest explode again.

*Gaming is showing a cyclical patter.  Atari -> C64 -> Nes/SNES/Genesis -> PC -> X-box/Psx.  Consoles tend to be control/display limited,  meaning the diversity of titles is inherently lower than the PC (Referencing the C64 as a PC),  so it's easier to fatigue a generation of gamers on a Console because you have a much smaller amount of potential game types.  Additionally,  Consoles are very heavily managed and done so in a profit oriented fashion,  resulting in rapid saturation of  few genres speeding gamer fatigue.  An event we're seeing today with consoles.

**The next generation of consoles are doomed to unavoidable failure.  Publishers refuse to contain costs by eliminating their bloat,  making the number of units needed to sell unrealistic on anything but a mature platform.  EA states that for a IP to be worth pursuing,  it has to sell at least 5 million units or roughly 3.5% of the console owners (140 million 360's/PS3's have been sold).  3.5% of the early adopters is only a few hundred thousand at best.  Publishers won't be able to sustain themselves on the much smaller installed base of the next generation,  and we're going to end up with a death spiral where Publishers are folding because they've become unsustainable,  and consoles will fold because games sell consoles,  but there won't be games.  Steambox will help shift gaming back to the PC platform and we'll see a resurgence of emulation interest.

ark_ader:

The retro scene ended years ago.

All that is left is the deniers, the uninitiated and the gawkers. 

Gray_Area:


--- Quote from: Gatt on December 29, 2012, 01:21:52 am ---**The next generation of consoles are doomed to unavoidable failure...Steambox will help shift gaming back to the PC platform and we'll see a resurgence of emulation interest.

--- End quote ---

I think it will go further than that - given the miniaturation of devices, embedded systems, wireless - where it'll be like what we saw in sci-fi cartoons in the 70s and 80s. There won't be a platform, except insofar as there being an electronic medium to access/interact with and through.


But, to re-state, I'm meaning specifically when the time companies like GGG and Ultimarc will have to shut down or move on to other things - as I consider the hobby to be 'retro' only when conventional (and some special - but limited to pre-'00) arcade controls are used.

ed12:

a saying ring's in my mind
build it they will come
guess what ?

ed

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