September 7th, 2012

There will only be one console that launches next year, says GameStop

21 Comments

Paul Raines, the CEO of GameStop has said that, based on what they’ve heard, they’ve “not been expecting two more consoles in 2013″. Instead, they’re “expecting Wii U this holiday, another one next year, and another one in ’14″. If true, an extra year without two competitors to fend off would be a huge gift to Nintendo.

  • http://PolyKhromeGames.blogspot.com/ Brian Lockett

    If this turns out true, well, then I sure hope somebody picks up that phone, because I f***ing called it!

    • http://PolyKhromeGames.blogspot.com/ Brian Lockett

      Furthermore, I think that Sony at least is not in a rush frankly because they’re right in saying that PS3 can technically still go head-to-head with Wii U for a while, and also in the fact that Sony just bought the cloud-gaming service Gaikai for a hefty $380 million, during one of their biggest year of profit losses to date.

      If it came down to it, of the three console leaders today, they’d be the first company willing to change over from traditional consoles to cloud-based/streaming gaming. They’d probably be the first ones to change media-based console gaming to 100% cloud-based gaming, and I think their acquisition of Gaikai makes it reasonable to guess such might be the case.

      I think Sony’s trying to gain some more sales from the PS3/PS Vita connectivity they’ve invested so much interest in but have yet to really play well on yet, especially since they’ve already enticed their gamers that such is what they’re going to do, in terms of competing with Wii U. I think they’ll want to do something with that promise first before going on with a possible PS4/PS Vita connectivity, because, again, PS Vita was a huge investment for them (they made Vita at a full three-year-loss in initial profit loss).

      I think PS Vita’s too important of an investment to give up on or change their marketing plans with it, or to even release a PS4 just yet. They kinda need PS3 to help sell the appeal of the PS Vita. Part of the promotion of PS Vita is that it’s a “mini PS3″ and can play along with PS3. To move on, they’ll want stronger sales of the PS Vita first, all while taking advantage of saving money by continuing to hang with PS3 for just a while longer.

      Both PS3 and PS Vita have proven to being a slow climb for them in terms of returns from their heavy investments (compared to PS2, which rather soared in sales from its start), and they don’t want to get burned again by abandoning the Vita too soon. This would make a PS4 by 2014 a reasonable guess.

      So, PS4 just might be a cloud-gaming machine. They might be waiting until PS Vita sales increase some more before moving on to a PS4. And a PS4 release might not be planned for release until 2014. But these are all guesses here.

    • Randon Arnold

      Who’s to say that that PS4 won’t work with the Vita.

    • http://PolyKhromeGames.blogspot.com/ Brian Lockett

      Well, if you’ll notice, I said that Sony’s promoting PS Vita as “future-proof.” That’s why I said it. I’m quite sure that they could make Vita compatible with a PS4. Though, my point was that they probably wouldn’t want to do that right away, since the big marketing angle and biggest justification for the two models’ prices is that PS Vita resembles near-PS3 quality.

  • http://www.stephen-parry.com/ Stephen

    I honestly think it will be the 720 next year and PS4 following. Sony was very late to the cycle last time and there have been more “Leaks” of the next Xbox that Playstation…saying that I could be totally wrong and Sony is just better at hiding their stuff

  • Joaquim

    I think the 2013 is ouya and 14 X-BOX

    • http://www.facebook.com/henrik.puetz Henrik Puetz

      I think that , too-
      because a new XBOX should be announced at least 1 year before launch – 3 months to go… and Sony confirmed PS will be out in the 10 – year – cycle.

  • Nin⊙▂☉Tend0

    With $ony’s current lack of money im not surprised that only one console is launching next year XD

    • Hybrilynx

      sony doesnt make money just from making games like nintendo does. sony, probably doesnt really even care about making games, just like how microsoft doesnt really care about making a internet browser. they have more important things to do.

    • http://PolyKhromeGames.blogspot.com/ Brian Lockett

      Yeah, you’re right–Sony’s never cared about making games. Just as much as they’ve never cared about making movies or music. It’s just another venture for them, not a passion.

    • Tails the Foxhound

      With the way the Vita is bombing (sub 40k last month, sub 1 million LTD, is regularly outsold by it’s predecessor) , I’d honestly be shocked if there was a PS4 at all.

  • ddddd

    Rumor says the XBOX 720, or whatever it gets called, will be delayed because of faulty CPUs that must be replaced, stalling new dev kit upgrades.

    • Ichigo Kurosaki

      Yea we already know Microsoft was aiming for a next yr release but since there’s that delay it may not be anything being released next yr. Probably just a rumor. Unless Sony surprises everyone with an early release.

  • http://www.facebook.com/martin.kearney.104 Martin Kearney

    It’s the OUYA. I just know it. The others will wait a year or two.

    • jdub

      Precisely what I was about to say

    • http://PolyKhromeGames.blogspot.com/ Brian Lockett

      I sincerely doubt the new console they’re referring to will be the OUYA, just for the simple fact that that it seems that OUYA will feature digital distribution of its games only via Android marketplaces. It makes no sense to them to sell a console they can’t make money from selling games for it. In fact, I doubt GameStop cares about the OUYA much at all, considering OUYA’s very open nature.

    • http://www.facebook.com/martin.kearney.104 Martin Kearney

      That may be so, but rember, I don’t think Sony and Microsoft would want to rush their console. If they do, (and I know they will) rush their consoles, it might not turn out well. I’m waiting till next year’s E3 for more details. I don’t want a repeat of this year. Also, there were rumors of the OUYA coming to Gamestop. It’s supposed to compete with the other consoles. Looks very different it terms of size, but the controller is a little too simlar to the Xbox 360 controller.

  • Beat

    Well That’s good. Maybe Wii U will still be considered this generation. And then people won’t bash it so hard when the PS4 comes out with crazy hardware specs.

  • Alex_Atkin_UK

    I have said it before, I don’t think Sony are in a hurry to release next year as it would cannibalise their PS Vita crossbuy/crossplay strategy.

    I also think Sony are going to have a problem due to Playstation Plus. They are releasing free games for the service which has gotten them a lot of new subscribers, me included. However that is because the PS3 has a large back catalog of old games which have long since stopped selling at full price so are fairly safe to give away like this.

    However, what are they going to offer to PS+ subscribers on PS4?
    No developer is going to want to give their games away for free like that on a brand new console that hasn’t had time to sell those games at top dollar for months first.

    Microsoft however are clearly reaching the limits of what the Xbox can do at this point and will want to try and beat Sony to launch again.

  • Diamond Ammo

    eh, why care, just get a pc and you won’t have to wait so long for the next generation, pc is already in the 8th generation, this happened in 2007, and soon after the 8th gen consoes releas pc will jump to 9th generation

  • aguy

    PS vita XL