Console Wars Are Over – Content Wars Have Begun

There have been a lot of op-ed pieces lately about the end of the console wars. With Xbox finding their own way and Sony and Nintendo representing different parts of the industry, it seems there’s now little reason to compare the big three. We’ll do it anyway though, eh?

I started a segment on how the gaming industry will look very different in five years. But the reality – for those not deep in the trenches – is that the industry already looks very different. We might balk at the idea that phone games will be the end of our precious consoles but for the cool kids, that is already very much a reality. This was most obvious to me during a recent trip to Manchester Museum. We walked past hundreds of kids on a trip, enjoying their packed lunches and all playing Call of Duty Warzone. Most of them played better than I could with a controller.

These children will never be locked down to a box. They certainly won’t spend a second of their life making petty comments about disc data capacity on the internet. Ha ha ha, twenty discs for Metal Gear Solid 4 on Xbox 360.

The console wars may be over. The content wars have just begun.

Getting Your Fill

You wouldn’t know it to look at the message boards and social media threads, but today what you play is more important than where you play. There’s been a blurred line here in the past. People naturally play the games where they are. Therefore they prefer the games where they are. In console war terms, that means the opposite console has the wrong games, and therefore not being able to play them is no problem. As Xbox releases more content on PlayStation, and Sony bring their games to PC, we start to see that this isn’t as strictly true as the received wisdom would have us believe. People just want to play everything worth playing in the place they already are.

Today the games are the platform. Being able to skip from phone to PC and to a degree console is a must-have for many gaming fans. That’s true for the dozen or so forever games that dominate the charts. It’s also a benefit for the classic mini-game websites, offering up the likes of this simple cubes game and playable wherever you are. What was once fully locked to Flash games is now available anywhere and everywhere.

The only time it’s not true is for the games built around costing many millions of dollars and – hopefully – earning much more back. And that’s because the idea of playing God of War on a phone is painful. But then, I’d say the same about watching a film, and that transition happened as people moved away from big TVs. And it’s important to remember that there are multiple ways of playing God of War on the move, if the mood takes you. From this Shift game all the way up to the latest and greatest blockbuster – all can be a potential multiplatform hit.

Where Content is King

But what does this content-led future look like? It’s not some sci-fi hellscape. We can already see what it’s like.

I’ve written before about Fortnite being the future of gaming. This isn’t only a very popular game. It is a collection of very popular games, all sitting under one roof. Aimed at completely different audiences, an entire suite of software all under the Fortnite umbrella. People who never would have played Fortnite leap at the chance to play Fortnite Festival. And you don’t have to own a PlayStation or Xbox to get involved. You don’t need to own a gaming device at all.

The biggest games are everywhere, and it’s not even close. Meanwhile, even Star Wars games are bombing on console.

This isn’t a doom and gloom article. There’s still many more years in the console business, especially when you consider that our current devices are good for at least another five or ten years. The impact this has on future console sales will be really interesting to see. Fortnite might grow beyond the PS4 eventually. But by that point, you’ll probably be able to play it on your TV anyway. Then why would someone who only plays Fortnite, Warzone and Rocket League bother to buy a PS6 or 7?

The pressures facing the gaming industry are really only the pressures facing the AAA single player gaming industry. And even then, some franchises are immune. Grand Theft Auto 6 – itself likely to be a forever game in part – will be so absolutely humongous that it will shift consoles and raise the outlook of the entire industry. No pressure.

Content Wars – Conclusion

While it’s bad news for the old guard, the gaming industry has never been as strong as it is today. And while we can gaze back at the PS2 generation in envy, the situation isn’t currently so dire as to force us to play our backlogs.

But that doesn’t change the fact that things are changing. And in some ways it will be for the better. When the biggest, most popular games are playable anywhere, it makes it easier for everybody to join in. It also shifts the idea of what a popular game actually is. We’ve all seen what basically amount to meme games top the charts because the right Twitch streamer released a video to the right crowd at the right time.

Where we spend our time will become more defined by content and less by console. If that means we’re all playing a wider variety of games without the huge barrier of entry, then it can only be a good thing.