Down 30% year over year. The spectacle of watching this zombie generation drone on is becoming less alarming and more fascinating with each underwhelming month that passes. It's possible that the entire year will be down, and I don't know when (if ever) that has happened before.

Regardless, I think the notion of 10 year cycles is dead. After all, what has anyone gained from postponing the launch of new hardware? Studios are closing, sales have stagnated, and the adoption rate whenever new hardware does hit will take just as long as it would've had they launched the newness two years ago. The only catch, of course, is that this generation is dead. They can jam all the tubes down its throat and cram it full of feeding tubes and watch its muscles spasm when stimulated by electricity. But the motherfuc*er's STILL DEAD, killed partly by time and partly by the stupidity of the players in the game. $250-$400 on ancient hardware is embarrassing when these kinds of numbers are being posted. Can someone call the PS1/PS2 era Sony so they can tell these dumbshlts how it's done? I mean, in spite of all of Microsoft's bluster, they are an embarrassment as the steward of western console gaming.

[QUOTE="S0lidSnake"]

[QUOTE="Shame-usBlackley"]

Down 30% year over year. The spectacle of watching this zombie generation drone on is becoming less alarming and more fascinating with each underwhelming month that passes. It's possible that the entire year will be down, and I don't know when (if ever) that has happened before.

Regardless, I think the notion of 10 year cycles is dead. After all, what has anyone gained from postponing the launch of new hardware? Studios are closing, sales have stagnated, and the adoption rate whenever new hardware does hit will take just as long as it would've had they launched the newness two years ago. The only catch, of course, is that this generation is dead. They can jam all the tubes down its throat and cram it full of feeding tubes and watch its muscles spasm when stimulated by electricity. But the motherfuc*er's STILL DEAD, killed partly by time and partly by the stupidity of the players in the game. $250-$400 on ancient hardware is embarrassing when these kinds of numbers are being posted. Can someone call the PS1/PS2 era Sony so they can tell these dumbshlts how it's done? I mean, in spite of all of Microsoft's bluster, they are an embarrassment as the steward of western console gaming.

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lol obligatory Shameus' 'This gen is too long' post. I get it man, im with you on this but in every NPD thread you say the same thing. :P

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Someone has to. I mean, you'd think after a while, they'd DO SOMETHING, instead of just sitting there with their thumbs up their asses trying to act like everything is okay. It's not okay. Not at all.

[QUOTE="c_rake"]

[QUOTE="Shame-usBlackley"]

Down 30% year over year. The spectacle of watching this zombie generation drone on is becoming less alarming and more fascinating with each underwhelming month that passes. It's possible that the entire year will be down, and I don't know when (if ever) that has happened before.

Regardless, I think the notion of 10 year cycles is dead. After all, what has anyone gained from postponing the launch of new hardware? Studios are closing, sales have stagnated, and the adoption rate whenever new hardware does hit will take just as long as it would've had they launched the newness two years ago. The only catch, of course, is that this generation is dead. They can jam all the tubes down its throat and cram it full of feeding tubes and watch its muscles spasm when stimulated by electricity. But the motherfuc*er's STILL DEAD, killed partly by time and partly by the stupidity of the players in the game. $250-$400 on ancient hardware is embarrassing when these kinds of numbers are being posted. Can someone call the PS1/PS2 era Sony so they can tell these dumbshlts how it's done? I mean, in spite of all of Microsoft's bluster, they are an embarrassment as the steward of western console gaming.

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I wouldn't go that far. I think this just proves that a 10-year cycle is only sustainable if new consoles manage to get released five or six years after launch. The last two PlayStations did pretty well on that front, despite support for them drying up pretty fast. They need to look at it as a means of allowing old hardware to stay on the market as the industry moves forward rather than a reason to stifle progress. That's the problem.

It's as you've said before: they need to stop worrying about when to launch a new console because they will always be expensive. Might as well do it now while there's still some life left in the current crop rather than later. Hoping that the Wii U will somehow get them into gear at this point.

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Right, but all that shows is that it was debating semantics. In the past, new hardware launched on a five or six year cycle, and then all of a sudden, we started hearing this stupidity about ten years, and everyone took that in the literal sense (and of course they did, because the existing model of five or six years followed by three or four years spent winding down before a console truly died was already well established at that point, so why wouldn't they take it to mean something different and literal?), and so now here we arelooking at 8 year cycles, and the industry is falling apart -- doors are shuttering everywhere, games are not doing well despite having a healthy base to draw from, and the logic of that decision looks very, very flawed. They challenged historical precedent and got knocked the fuc* out.

And really, where are all the new buyers? I remember Greatest Hits titles showing up in the top ten for YEARS during the PS1/PS2 era. Further, why are Greatest Hits titles sold for $29 when that pricing model isn't working? It's not just a hardware thing, but a software one as well. Each month, there should be a ton of people jumping in and buying a bunch of cheap, awesome games and these people aren't there this time. It's actually quite scary. Where are all the tens of thousands of people playing GTA IV for the first time? Why isn't Arkham Asylum selling at a steady clip each month? There are DOZENS and DOZENS of amazing games and these new buyers aren't even showing up as a blip on the sales radar.