saturation of the market with dozens of consoles? check

How is that a "check"? Where's the dozens?

I had thought there was more but reviewing in detail it turns out to be a small handful: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PSP, Wii, DS, DS Lite. I don't think N-gage is relevant anymore.

So I'll give you that one.

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http://www.gamemusicjukebox.com/
Game p/reviewer for http://www.gameindustry.com/

saturation of the market with dozens of consoles? check

How is that a "check"? Where's the dozens? The market has consolidated down to three major console platforms (PS3/X360/Wii). Back in the 80s there were a lot more consoles. The market also doesn't seem to be saturated yet since console sales and console game sales continue to grow at impressive levels. We're far, far away from a "check" on this one.

hundreds of mostly low-quality games? check

Compared to back then? Hell no. Even "low quality" games cost a few million $$$ these days. No one's got a few million to dump that easily. Back then it was very, very different because development teams were often made up of only a handful of people at most who were working from home or very small offices. Most games had a budget of a few thousand dollars and were made within a few weeks or months.

Nowadays, even if you want to produce a low quality game, you need a team of 20+ people, a decent office + equipment + software licenses + beer + hookers and all that crap which will set you back a few million dollars at a development cycle of approximately 2-3 years.

Lastly, there's also the difference in scale. "Hundreds of low quality games" back then would equal "hundreds of thousands" of low quality games today simply because the market grew by a few 1000% since the early 80s. Today's market can easily stomach a few hundred "low quality" games because it's so much bigger.

Totally different thing. Once again we're far, far away from a "check".

Hundreds of games in development? check

Once again we need to remember how the scale changed. Today's market is so much bigger that we'd only need to worry if dozens of thousands of games were in the making but the entry level requirements of today's market (a budget of a few million dollars and a certain level of proficiency) do create a "natural" border that isn't easily overcome by any kid that can code three lines of Assembler (like back in the early 80s).
Again: Totally different thing.

Sounds liek a mdoerately interesting premise. But it looks as if they're using an updated Beyond Good & Evil engine and they could do with some better character art.

Still, a 16th century Venice sounds like a blast to walk through, and they could get some great Chtulu-ish mythos going on.

saturation of the market with dozens of consoles? check
hundreds of mostly low-quality games? check
Hundreds of games in development? check

There's one difference though. Back then it was almost entirely relegated to kids and nerds. There was a much smaller amount of consumers that were interested in them.

These days the market is positively huge, but then again GTA4 is only 1 game out of many.

"In a world full of se...." ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

is anyone else concerned about this? Companys laying off skilled staff, no jobs to go to, outsourcing/mocap the current darlings of publishers...where do we go from here

I don't think it will crash any time soon given how profitable it has been in recent years. Monthly returns for the industry seems to be averaging half-billion in sales. With GTA4 the industry noted the biggest boost in sales in years with something like over a billion dollars.

However if the video game industry was to crash it would not be for the reasons you point out Wildone. George Santayana said it best, "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them." The following abridged Wikipedia article on the North American video game crash of 1983 best sums it up...

The North American video game crash of 1983 was the crash of the US video game market in the early 1980s. It almost destroyed the fledgling industry and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing home computers and video game consoles in North America.

There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was saturation of the market with dozens of consoles and hundreds of mostly low-quality games. Hundreds of games were in development for the 1983 release alone, and this overproduction resulted in a saturated market without the consumer interest it needed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983

saturation of the market with dozens of consoles? check
hundreds of mostly low-quality games? check
Hundreds of games in development? check
saturated market without the consumer interest? this is the only thing keeping the video game industry from collapsing. Consumer interest is really high right now. If publishers, like EA, continue to put out crap it's only a matter of time before consumers loose interest and move onto other things. Granted the 1983 crash was bad, but if a crashed happened today it would be devastating.


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http://www.gamemusicjukebox.com/
Game p/reviewer for http://www.gameindustry.com/
This comment was edited on May 28, 00:15.

is anyone else concerned about this? Companys laying off skilled staff, no jobs to go to, outsourcing/mocap the current darlings of publishers...where do we go from here

Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft

o'rly?

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http://www.gamemusicjukebox.com/
Game p/reviewer for http://www.gameindustry.com/

Cryptic story line, eh? Tell me more without actually telling me anything...

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