The reason why Xia Tian was not interested in game consoles was that he knew that the future development trend of games was becoming easier and easier and more and more inclined toward light players.

For example, early electronic games, such as "Super Mary" on Red and White, "Contra", "King of Fighters" on Arcade, "Street Fighter", "Legend of Sword and Fairy" on Computers, "Legend of Jin Yong" and so on, are all relatively difficult games.

Although "Super Mary" and "Contra", although the operation is simple, as long as you make a little mistake, the character you control will die. More than a dozen lives may not be able to pass the level.

Games such as "The King of Fighters" and "Street Fighter" must also remember the buttons for the ultimate move, otherwise they will be killed by those masters and will not even be able to use a single move.

The maze in "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" is outrageous, so it is also named "The Legend of Sword and Fairy"; "The Legend of Jin Yong" must follow the strategy, otherwise you will not know how to trigger the next story...

However, because electronic games were scarce at that time, although these games were not easy to play, a large number of players were still fascinated by this.

However, with the development of the game industry, more and more games have emerged, making players more and more choices. When the game is too difficult and difficult to get started, many players will choose to try it out easily.

...

In addition, another reason that restricts players is that the increase in work pressure and the reduction in game time make it difficult for people to completely immerse themselves in the game.

Because the main players of electronic games are young people, and young people are also the main players of the work army. Between games and work, most people have to choose to work.

In order to relieve the pressure of work, many people choose to play games after work. In order to get the most fun of gaming in the shortest time, people can only turn to those fast food games.

Therefore, in order to retain players, game developers have to try to make the game easier and easier, so that players can play it smoothly without using their brains. Moreover, the time required for games is getting lower and lower, so people's fragmented time can be used as much as possible.

For example, "Fruit Ninja" and "Angry Birds" can be played in less than half a minute. You can use the time of taking a ride, the time of going to the toilet or the time of eating.

For example, in order to retain mild users, "World of Warcraft" deleted the talent tree, a large number of skills, a large number of career characteristics, and added task guidance, npc logos, etc. Although it simplifies the operation and facilitates mild users, it also makes players lose interest in exploring and adventure.

After all, the reason why World of Warcraft attracted many players was that it provided players with a vast, dangerous and mysterious virtual world. Players gain fun through adventures, which makes players more happy than simply brushing bosses and picking up equipment.

For example, the supernatural events in Shemjin Town, the invisible people in Crow Ridge, the Starvin legend in Night Town, Love and Family, the story of Pamila, etc.

These tasks and hidden easter eggs are the most attractive things about World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, because of the simplification of the task process and the reduction of character upgrade experience, players can upgrade smoothly without doing so many tasks, which reduces the chance of gaining deeper understanding of World of Warcraft, and naturally it is difficult to have too much sense of belonging to this game.

This has to be said, it is a regret!

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Of course, Blizzard Entertainment is not the only gaming company to do so.

When developing new games, most game companies first consider how to attract mild users.

Therefore, there are so-called "one-sword level ninety-nine", "automatic wayfinding", "automatic task transfer", "automatic pickup", "online delivery of equipment" and other operations.

Although these practices are somewhat low-powered and mentally retarded to the eyes of old players, the money-making ability of these games should not be underestimated.

Like "The Legend of Blue Moon", which everyone mocks, the monthly turnover is as high as 200 million yuan, which is even more profitable than many Nintendo's super masterpieces.

...

The users faced by game consoles are usually heavy game users, commonly known as "hardcore players".

They like to play games very much, so they spend hundreds of dollars to buy a console that specializes in playing games.

However, the sales of game consoles are declining year by year. Thinking about Nintendo's Wii sales that exceeded 100 million units, Sony's P3 and Microsoft's Xbox360 also exceeded 80 million units. The sales of the third-generation game consoles reached more than 270 million units.

But now, Sony's ps4 has been released for more than five years, and its sales have just reached 80 million. Microsoft's xboxone has only sold 37 million units. It can be said that the sales of consoles have dropped significantly compared to the past.

The reason for this is that with the development of technology, home computers are becoming stronger and stronger than consoles in terms of gaming performance. In particular, home computers can be updated with configurations and massaged with Moore's Law, which can be updated every one or two years.

Of course, because now it is entering a bottleneck period, Moore's Law is becoming increasingly inaccurate. But no matter what, it is still OK to update and replace gaming computers every two or three years.

However, the update of game consoles is much slower. Basically, the update of game consoles will only be updated every six to seven years.

This is because developing game consoles is a very cost-effective and energy-consuming thing, and game consoles are not profitable, they can only make money by publishing games and extracting share of money. Therefore, it will take at least three to five years for a console to make money. This restricts game companies from developing new consoles.

Therefore, it is not surprising that game consoles will lag behind home computers in terms of performance. Therefore, more and more players are giving up game consoles and choosing computers.

Coupled with the prosperity of mobile games, the market for handheld game consoles, which had always been well-selling, was seriously impacted.

Previously, Sony's PSP could be sold for 75 million units, and Nintendo's NDS sales reached 150 million units, which was shocking!

However, the subsequent PV sales were only about 10 million units, while Nintendo's 3Ds sales were only more than 70 million units. Although it sounds like a lot, it is actually not enough for Apple's mobile phones. You know, Apple's iPhone 6 sold more than 200 million units!

Therefore, developing game consoles is useless, just like the Blu-ray DVD developed by Sony, it is purely a technology that costs more money, has less rewards, and is destined to be eliminated.

So Xia Tian did not plan to develop game consoles. He was planning to make more money on computer games and mobile games.
Chapter completed!