Friday, January 23, 2015

Console Games vs. Mobile Games

When people find out I work for a video game company, the first question they ask is, "What is your prediction for console games?" This is because everyone seems to be playing mobile games and the mobile market has turned the entire video game industry on its head.

If I look at my own video game habits, I spend much more time playing mobile games than I do playing console ones. I always have my phone with me and so whenever I have five minutes to spare, I pull out my phone and play a quick game of Risk or some other casual game.

However for the past two weeks I have gone back to Bioshock: Infinite and it has been a lot of fun. Instead of watching television on my boat, I have put in a couple of hours every night playing on my PS3 console. It is tough to stop for the night and so I have a self-imposed hard-stop every evening at 10:30. Otherwise I will continue playing and never go to sleep. This isn't an every night occurrence but accounts for 5 or 6 hours a week of entertainment. If I were to add up all of the 5-minute mobile game sessions in a week, I am probably only at 2 or 3 hours total.

Mobile phones are getting much more powerful and we are beginning to see some complex games that far surpass early generation consoles. While it is possible that full-featured games will appear on mobile platforms, I think that Triple-A titles like Uncharted and Bioshock: Infinite are best experienced in the luxury of your living room with a comfortable chair or couch, large screen TV, and plate of nachos close by. Therefore I don't see console nor console games going away any time soon.

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