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Who remembers the Console wars? If you thought, ‘you mean what’s going on right now?’, this article is for you. Imagine I’m Morpheus for a second, and I’m here to tell you that the world you’ve been told is real isn’t real at all… Okay, it’s not that serious, but I believe the term “console wars” is a brilliant marketing scheme and not an actual brawl-for-it-all — at least not yet.
As the wars were beginning to simmer in the 1990s, there were probably between 100-200 million console gamers worldwide, a quick estimate based on sales figures at the time. What’s the difference now? As of 2021, there are 3.24 billion gamers in the world today according to research done by Statista. If Sega and Nintendo were still duking it out with that number of potential consumers, I believe Sega would still be making consoles today. In the early 1990s, Nintendo had the majority of the market share when Sega proved itself as a legitimate competitor with the Genesis and titles such as Sonic the Hedgehog. By 2001 however, Sega had officially stopped manufacturing consoles due to the Dreamcast’s failure, instead shifting its focus to developing and publishing games — their official secession from the console war. By this time, Sony and Microsoft were in the race, Microsoft also offering PC gaming of course. From that point on, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have been the big three. These “wars” seem without end.
We see a lot of the similarities between now and then: exclusive games (though some games now lose exclusivity through time), player benefits (Xbox members get X, while PlayStation members get Y), even new consoles like PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series are strategically priced to rival one another. Will we ever see a company bow out like Sega did? No. Why? That number I mentioned earlier: 3.24 billion! There are enough gamers for everyone. In a study in 2014 by Entertainment Software Association, over half of all US households own an average of two consoles.
In fact, if you ask me, the actual console wars ended around the 2010s with the introduction of cross-platform play. Right now, we are experiencing a new type of competitive market in the video game industry. The big three (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo) have coexisted for a few console generations and as of late have been buying up developers and studios. All three have also been able to produce plenty of income. It feels as though its three armies stockpiling, preparing themselves for battle. Right now, as gamers we’re all waiting for the big move. We don’t know what it is, but we’ll know it when we see it. Does it start another console war? Or does it start something we have no term for? Time will certainly tell.
Whether or not gamers fall for this console war marketing tactic is irrelevant. We’re buying all sorts of games for all sorts of platforms because one thing is for sure — it’s a good time to be alive for gamers. We’re getting spoiled with innovation from the companies trying to outdo one another. Some gamers choose sides, but others will open their wallets for everyone. Google even got into the mix with Stadia, and though not as popular as the other consoles, its still alive and has its own fan base. The future of these companies is unclear but the future for gamers is very bright indeed.
