I don't think anyone will take Microsoft's place in the Gaming Industry.

[PhaseJump]

What if Panic took Microsoft's place with a home Playdate and a full-size crank

 

[Dodgykebaab]

I think we're watching the slow death of consoles. At least as we know them.

Like... what even is a console these days? Back in ye olden times, you had to develop for hyper specific custom hardware (arcade games were the epitome of this).

You could quite easliy apply that train of thought to PC's though.

Is a peronal computer a piece of hardware that you type lines of code into anymore or has it evolved into something else?
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A console is a type of computer designed to play platform specific software. Always has been, always will be.

 

[medisinn]

I feel like people are conflating them personally not liking newer consoles with those consoles being unpopular in general.

According to VGChartz, as of July 2025 the Switch 2 has sold 7 million and the PS5 78 million, in 2 months and a little under 5 years respectively.

Consoles aren't going anywhere. Are they lacking innovation? Yeah. Is Sony's output lacking this gen? Yep. Is Nintendo getting greedy as hell? Absolutely. These things are still selling though, Xbox excluded.

 

[PhaseJump]

You could quite easliy apply that train of thought to PC's though.

Is a peronal computer a piece of hardware that you type lines of code into anymore or has it evolved into something else?
-------
A console is a type of computer designed to play platform specific software. Always has been, always will be.

That argument comes down to what platform specific even means. Most games are built on game engines and middleware platforms that run portable between standardized, off the shelf, largely cross-compatible hardware options.

Consoles used to take the custom design route and cobble together a benchmark for game publishers to meet. They made their money patenting, controlling, and gate keeping their platform and supply chain around cartridge chips, peripherals, the retail space to sell it all. Copy protection and DRM kept them viable.

Now and further into the future of the open PC market, everybody is racing to the bottom on cost, going with AMD or Nvidia for new graphics, diminishing returns from Moore's law has people needing to upgrade less often, competition on the low end is showing up from powerful embedded processors being in everything from TVs, tablets, to disposable toys. The internet is everywhere, and fast enough to handle streaming to cheaper devices.

Complexity is coming to games and consoles, simplicity is coming to PC ecosystems. Everything is overlapping and making dedicated consoles (and even dedicated gaming PCs to a lesser extent) more irrelevant than ever, and a bigger risk to get into.

PCs stopped the hugely competitive hardware market of the 80s and early 90s, settled into a few standards, arcade boards switched to being PCs in the early 2000s, consoles became slightly customized PCs in the 2010s. Now open PCs are configured and being sold as easy to use, turn-key appliances which negates consoles.

The whole dedicated console monopoly thing could and probably should be demolished by consumer advocates getting governments to mandate cross platform portability for published game software. Like buying a movie on a tape or disc, you aren't locked to 1 hardware vendor for the VCR, DVD or BluRay player.

If there were stronger consumer production and public domain laws around, Nintendo would likely be the only ones going to war over it.