What's up everybody, Damon here on in today's gaming news
A former PlayStation exec thinks he knows how to grow the console industry. GTA is probably trapped in the USA, and CD Projekt sells good old games to a familiar face
This is your Daily Fix. The console audience is not growing. We know this
The best-selling console of all time is the PlayStation 2. No console since has matched its numbers
So how will console manufacturers break through that barrier? By learning a crucial lesson from the videotape format war one former PlayStation executive has suggested
Speaking on the Pause for Thought and Naomi Kyle YouTube channel, which features a former host of this very show
Sean Layden, former boss of Sony Interactive Entertainment America, said the console video game market has hit a limit and significant change is needed to expand beyond it
We talk about gaming as being this $250 billion industry, which it is, and have hundreds of millions of users, which it does
But of course, that includes, if you're playing Wordle, you're a gamer. If you're playing Candy Crush, you're a gamer in that number
But the number of discrete consoles sold over any particular generation caps out about 250 million If you line up all the PS1s Sega Saturns and N64s and you go by generations we need to crack that cap that barrier To fact check him a bit here
the PS1, Sega Saturn, N64 generation only had about 144 million consoles sold
But point taken. Layton said the video game industry should study the past as it looks to the future
In particular, Betamax is lost to VHS in the videotape format war
The videotape format war was a late 1970s, early 80s battle between Sony's Betamax and JVC's VHS for dominance in home video, with VHS ultimately
winning due to longer recording times, broader licensing with more manufacturers, and key
partnerships with movie studios. Those partnerships made movies available for rental and purchase on
VHS more readily, despite Betamax often having slightly better initial quality. Layton said Betamax lost to VHS for one reason only, that VHS licensed its format across many
different manufacturers. Sony held the unique Betamax patent trademark and everything. It never
went wide like VHS. Later on, Sony and the Philips created the compact disc consortium
They created the patent and then they licensed it out to all the other manufacturers. Same thing
happened with DVD. Same thing happened with Blu-ray. They said that we'll compete on the device
This Lainey said is exactly what the video game industry should do create a gaming format consortium of sorts He saying there should just be one gaming format that would work on any console exactly the way other media works You can play any Blu in any Blu player for example
That's how you get to the ubiquity of the toaster. But right now, I think we're trapped
in this containment field, Layden said. Following Layden's thought here, though, it would require Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo
to come together to agree upon a singular gaming format that means all video games play on all consoles
Not only that, but any company would then be able to try its hand at making a PlayStation or an Xbox
and compete with the first-party console manufacturers in the market. And Layden might be right
This might be the only way to grow the console audience. I also think it is extremely unlikely to happen
especially for Nintendo. Xbox's audience is shrinking, Sony's is stagnant, but Nintendo's has been growing recently
The Switch was its most popular console ever. Nintendo is the one platform that has seen growth
over the last two decades. For now, Nintendo and Sony seem fine with keeping the status quo
while Microsoft, out of necessity, seems willing to experiment. Everything is an Xbox, they say
We'll see how much it can shake things up as we move into the next generation of consoles
Moving on, for years, Grand Theft Auto fans have wondered whether Rockstar might take the franchise
out of its traditional American setting into cities and other countries But according to one former developer that never going to happen and fans just need to accept it In an interview with Games Hub former Rockstar Games technical director Obe Vermeer who worked at the company from 1995 to 2009
said there were ideas about post-Liberty City, San Andreas, and Vice City GTA games
set in Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, and Istanbul. But it was GTA Tokyo that almost actually happened
According to Vermeer, who left Rockstar just after finishing GTA 4, another studio in Japan was going to take Rockstar's code and develop GTA Tokyo
He didn't say which studio. But then it didn't happen in the end, he said. Why? It sounds like Rockstar came to the realization that American cities are the natural and best setting for GTA
and given it takes so long to release new games in the series, going international is too big of a risk
He said, People love having these wild ideas, but then when you've got billions of dollars riding on it
it's too easy to go, let's do what we know again. And also, America is basically the epicenter of Western culture
so everybody knows the cities, even people who haven't been there. If games still took a year to make, then yeah, sure, you can have a little fun
but you're not going to get that when there's a GTA every 12 years. You're not going to set it in a new location
You don't really need to either because the technology changes so much. Nobody is going to say that they're not going to play GTA 6
because they've already played Vice City. That doesn't make sense. It's completely different
I'm afraid we're stuck in this loop of about five American cities. Let's just get used to it