Amazon possibly entering the gaming market

[forsooth]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Bezos has Rockets!


And they land on a "tail of fire".

Look in Crystal Ball.

Maybe Bezos build Elon Musk pneumatic rail-gun train. Alpha plans Monday.

[Mivo]

Originally Posted by Ekaros

I can't see there to be market as a gaming device...

For casual gaming, maybe. For hardcore gaming, indeed no. That audience owns a Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, and will get a Xbox One or PS4 later in the year. It's not only a matter of hardware performance, but also (and maybe especially) of gaming franchises.

But the casual market, that is: people who play games on their phones and tablets, or on Facebook, is potentially much bigger than the traditional PC/console video games market (and substantially cheaper to break into).

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by forsooth

Look in Crystal Ball.

Maybe Bezos build Elon Musk pneumatic rail-gun train. Alpha plans Monday.

Not impossible.
But building Hyperloop requires lots of *political* influence and state government approval.
Bezos has too many enemies who would rather die than see him succeed at anything.

Edit: Hyperloop infogaphic:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-...ystem-himself/

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Mivo

For casual gaming, maybe. For hardcore gaming, indeed no. That audience owns a Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, and will get a Xbox One or PS4 later in the year. It's not only a matter of hardware performance, but also (and maybe especially) of gaming franchises.

But the casual market, that is: people who play games on their phones and tablets, or on Facebook, is potentially much bigger than the traditional PC/console video games market (and substantially cheaper to break into).

Because of their gaming communties it is very unlikely XBOX or PS gamers would switch to a new platform unless the next gen boxes tank and since the two new ones are almost identical that is also unlikely.

However, a good portion of the Wii user base is still up for grabs.

There is a window of opportunity for a new player.
Some would like to see Apple go there:

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-31747_7...-a-no-brainer/

Problem I see there is the existing iOS games are designed for iPad screen aspect ratio and resolutions instead of HDTV resolutions and aspect. So the games will have to be ported, not merely patched for a game controller like existing android games.

Google is also rumored to be looking into that general direction for the same obvious reasons and they *have* made at least one (dubious) effort in the STB arena. They'll likely try again next year.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-575...nd-smartwatch/

Anybody looking to get into the low end STB/gaming space has to do it now, though: Microsoft already has a $99 XBOX solution on the market and a diskless XBOX Lite designed and ready to go for next year. They didn't launch it this year because they didn't want to detract from the next gen intro but when it launches it would have eveything from casual games to full AAA downloadable titles in its catalog so any wannabes really need to jump in this year.

Which is why I think the (rumored) Amazon box will be more off a streamer with gaming than a console. Roku and WD are formidable players but its easier to bang heads with them than try to squeeze between the established console players. More money there, too.

[Ekaros]

Originally Posted by Mivo

For casual gaming, maybe. For hardcore gaming, indeed no. That audience owns a Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, and will get a Xbox One or PS4 later in the year. It's not only a matter of hardware performance, but also (and maybe especially) of gaming franchises.

But the casual market, that is: people who play games on their phones and tablets, or on Facebook, is potentially much bigger than the traditional PC/console video games market (and substantially cheaper to break into).

The devices might sell, but the attach rate has been horrible with OUYA.

Consider how many phones there are out there and how many of users pay for content for those... Now compare the amount of devices...

Potential is there, but the realisation has been lacking for these devices...

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by Mivo

For casual gaming, maybe. For hardcore gaming, indeed no. That audience owns a Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, and will get a Xbox One or PS4 later in the year. It's not only a matter of hardware performance, but also (and maybe especially) of gaming franchises.

But the casual market, that is: people who play games on their phones and tablets, or on Facebook, is potentially much bigger than the traditional PC/console video games market (and substantially cheaper to break into).

I think the hard core gaming community is on the decline. Or at least waning to the core. It used to be you bought a console to play mainstream games and hard core gaming was done on a gaming computer. The PS3/4 and Xbox consoles are gaming PCs for the living room. That makes them very expensive for casual gamers. These set top entertainment consoles play the casual games we grew up with, stream television, and run light weight apps. A lot of people are interested.

Until recently, these entertainment consoles were kind of expensive and pretty limited, but android changed things. The idea of using a headless, batteryless Nexus or Fire as a Family Console is attractive.

Movies, music, games, weather, news, and email in the living room (or kitchen or bedroom) for $200 might be a winning ticket. Add a year of prime and a controller to the package and there will be one under every tree this Christmas.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by wizwor

Movies, music, games, weather, news, and email in the living room (or kitchen or bedroom) for $200 might be a winning ticket. Add a year of prime and a controller to the package and there will be one under every tree this Christmas.

Not at $200.
Go there and they'll tank.

$99 is the ceiling for this category.
Easily doable since the screen and battery are major cost elements in the tablets.

[wizwor]

I disagree. For $200 -- what most of us paid for an Atari 2600 or a PS1 -- you get the games plus movies and apps. $199.99 is an attractive number for people looking at a console of any kind. Pre-install the Atari games collection, Angry Birds, Netflix, Prime, and a web browser. I can see the commercials -- the family playing space invaders, watching Nemo, and laughing at YouTube videos then cut to mom checking her email and clicking a link to a great deal on Amazon.com before opening a cook book to start dinner.

That $99.99 price if for the crap -- the Rokus and NeoTVs that don't do much and do nothing well. People who have used these will notice that the kid has a real controller rather than a couple buttons on a remote control. They will see the web browser and YT which are not available of their streamer.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by wizwor

I disagree. For $200 -- what most of us paid for an Atari 2600 or a PS1 -- you get the games plus movies and apps.

$199 is where XBOX360 is *now*.
And XBOX has been as low as $149, new.
(Definitely headed there by next spring if not sooner.)

And Xbox already offers Amazon Prime video along with Vudu, Netflix, XBOX video and Music, Crackle, Crunchyroll, etc, etc.
Plus disk-based games, video, and audio. Name Brand arcade games and Indie games by the thousand. Cloud services for your own music and photos. Easy cheap expandability. Plus an installed base in the 70-80M range.

At $129 you have Wii with lesser media capabilities but a deep casual gaming catalog. It might even be at $99 by Xmas. There are even rumors that the slow selling but more media savvy Wii U might hit $199 by Xmas.

The above-mentioned Ouya is priced at $100 list and available as low as $90.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/OUYA+-+O...&skuId=8042042

And on the streaming side, Roku runs as low as $50 with a *lot* of built-in custom streaming capabilities. Most of the geric android streaming solutions run $79-$129 (f tey include a camera).

So, no.
$199 for an Android-based casual gaming/streaming box is *not* going to result in high sales volume, bundled freebies or not.

Amazon customers are loyal but not *that* loyal.

[wizwor]

I believe I'm paying a monthly fee for the right to stream netflix (additional fee) to my kid's xbox. I think xbox is going to be a major player in this space, but $200 plus a monthly fee doesn't trump $200 in my book. While the xbox has a lot of games, few are free and most are pretty expensive vs free for most of the Play and Amazon offerings. The WII is SD and not a player going forward. OUYA doesn't stream well but is interesting just the same.

Remember that $200 includes a controller and a year of Prime in my speculation.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by wizwor

I believe I'm paying a monthly fee for the right to stream netflix (additional fee) to my kid's xbox. I think xbox is going to be a major player in this space, but $200 plus a monthly fee doesn't trump $200 in my book. While the xbox has a lot of games, few are free and most are pretty expensive vs free for most of the Play and Amazon offerings. The WII is SD and not a player going forward. OUYA doesn't stream well but is interesting just the same.

Remember that $200 includes a controller and a year of Prime in my speculation.

Ouya has a controller and is still under $100.

A month of Prime (like the tablets) makes sense but a year adds unnecessary cost. Consumers take bundled services for granted and look at the upfront cost more often than a lifecycle cost.
That is why the $99 XBox has been so popular and why subsidized smartphones are still the most popular.

Take out the year of Prime and your "Fire STB" would be at $129 and could probably squeeze down to $99, maybe with special offers.

The window of opportunity is going to be short because by next fall the Next-gen consoles will be in full production with a good enough catalog to appeal to more than true believers and (for Xbox One) the home theater crowd. Which will generate enough sales that the current consoles will move closer to $99.

[Namekuseijin]

you guys are not gamers, that's for sure. smartphone/tablet games are even more laughably entry-level and simplistic than nintendo games... no gaming blockbusters to be expected...

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

you guys are not gamers, that's for sure. smartphone/tablet games are even more laughably entry-level and simplistic than nintendo games... no gaming blockbusters to be expected...

Well, now...
Granting that the current meme is that *real* gamers use $2000 PC rigs, some of us do "dabble" in console gaming when not reading ebooks.

But the laughably entry-level and simplistic smartphone and tablet games are generating lots of sales and revenue; $5B in 2011, projected to go to $12B by 2014. "There's gold in them that hills." Penty of reason for Amazon (and Apple and Google and Ouya and everybody and their uncle) to look into getting a piece of that growing pie instead of letting the living room portion go to Microsoft.

The appeal of these games may seem a bit odd to folks weaned on Metal Gear, Witcher, and Call of Duty, but it may help if you think of them as "digital passtimes" closer kin to crossword and word search puzzles than the immersive narrative experiences of modern gaming. (Or the "pale imitation" on consoles.)

The goal is mostly to allow people to relax, de-stress, focus on something simple but challenging and, for a while, forget for a few minutes about the all-too-real challenges of the real world. Because, frankly, to a lot of people, a few minutes at a time is all they can spare from their hectic schedule. And those folks, they are *legion*.

This doesn't mean the end of either console gaming or classic, hard core PC gaming but rather the spread of digital gaming into new domains and new businesses. Most of the people indulging in the odd round of Bejeweled or Fruit Ninja would never venture into the likes of BORDERLANDS or DISHONORED, much less the ELDER SCROLLS or the shooter realms. (At lleast, not yet. Give them time.)

It is a new and separate business very well suited for the already-amortised, still fully functional, current gen console designs. (Or for top of the line dirt-cheap android boxes.) Instead of slowly fading like the PS1, PS2, and Original Xbox, the 360 and (maybe) PS3 will find a second life as entry-level gamer/streamer boxes, bridging both worlds and leading some of thee casual gamers into the world of the modern narrative "core" gaming.

There's room for both in the overall market and even on (some of) the same hardware. It's a good thing for the gaming community, really; a fair amount of fruit slicers will eventually move on to the higherend games, maybe even Fallout 4.

Now me, I'm going to dabble a bit more on Pandora, whacking loaders before getting on with the rest of my dreary day.

[fjtorres]

BTW, this is the kind of device a FireTV might bring to town:
http://liliputing.com/2012/11/wise-t...ideo-chat.html

(Note the prices.)
I rather like the Kinect-like camera-equipped model.
No muss, no fuss Skype in the living room.

[frahse]

I gave up on "real gaming" when cheats became so prevalent. I guess there was no way around it, for someone would make a map and publish it but when it became blatant, the challenge was gone.

Sure you could have have a "little" fun, but the seriousness was diluted and the desire to spend big bucks as well.

People now get that "little fun" on their phones and tablets.