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Hardware I wish Tencent made a competitor to the current gaming systems

PikminSnezkov

PikminSnezkov

ピクミン ファン
Before I start, I kindly ask we keep the discussion healthy and respectful, and at least try to keep politics out of this. No company is a saint, even look at the parent company of Xbox Gaming Studios, who according to OpenSecrets, donated money to Ron Desantis.

A while ago I was listening to Kit & Krysta podcast, which I’m a huge fan of btw, Kit pointed out how he will always play on all three systems. ( Nintendo, Xbox and PS.)

It was one of those “ohhhh” moments for me, we only indeed have three main hardware players in the gaming market. I’m a Nintendo fan myself, I only play on their systems, and mostly 1st party titles.

But seeing how the current Gen is going, Microsoft trying to acquire Activision and Sony going through their own BS, I feel like now more than ever before, we need a real new competitor, someone to disrupt the cozy party and add some spice.

The reason I chose Tencent is because 1) They already own bunch of gaming studios 2) have experience in hardware development and 3) are from China. The last one is important for me, because I believe in multipolar market, thus in my eyes it would be better for the gaming market to have as diverse range of options as possible.

You’d have more American systems like Xbox, traditional Japanese Nintendo systems and then, Eastern Tencent systems from China.

I’m also very curious if you have any other ideas which companies might benefit from entering the hardware gaming market. I’m sure there are others out there as well.:)
 
I will respectfully, decline.

Huawei got banned in NA, I'm telling you now, a Tencent console would eventually too
 
Dear god no. Either it’d flop completely and waste everyone’s time, or games would be split across even more consoles and be an even bigger pain to access.

And that’s not even accounting for the fact that it’s Tencent, which would make it even worse.
 
I think that the question is : what would Tencent bring on the market ? Are Riot and Funcom games enough to make players buy a new system ? Would Tencent even want for these games to be exclusive to their system ?

My money on who will become the fourth system maker would be more on Valve. Right now, the Deck is held back by the x64 architecture, which is not ideal for portable gaming, but if/when PC gaming will pivot to ARM they’ll have a big shot at becoming a more major player. The system will need some tweaks to become more consumer friendly, but unlike Tencent, Valve can bring something important to the table : the Steam catalog and our Steam libraries.
 
Even among Chinese, companies, Tencent isn't a very good choice because that would be a conflict of interest with the distribution they do for Nintendo.

Frankly, the console market is incredibly cutthroat and difficult to enter, and most of the companies that have the means to do it are too "tech company" to have a real appreciation for the actual game dev side of the business, as they have been repeatedly proving every time they try. The Steam Deck is the closest thing there is right now to a serious attempt, but even that's not really being positioned as a console, at least for now.
 
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ProteusRidley said:
Huawei got banned in NA
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What's the story behind that?

PikminSnezkov said:
have experience in hardware development
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They do? Or do they just have stocks in companies that make hardware?

Party Sklar said:
My money on who will become the fourth system maker would be more on Valve
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My thoughts too. Valve has excellent IPs and Steam, they've been doing fine with the Deck, they're the best position to inch their way into becoming a platform holder.
 
You realize you can't say no politics please and then right after make a political/both sidism comment, right? Like I'm not gonna get into this because it's a waste of time, but come on now lol.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.
 
You literally cannot discuss any of these gaming companies without talking about politics.
 
This would be a colossal waste of resources for Tencent. Each console maker plays to its audience really well. What would a Tencent console bring to the table? Who would leave all their friends on PSN and/or Xbox Live?

Personally, I don’t need more consoles. Console generations for me typically follow the same pattern: Nintendo first then PlayStation later for third party games under $20. No need to complicate things.
 
I really don't think the market can support a fourth console; yes the Dreamcast was over twenty years ago but in this era of consolidation for better and for (mostly) worse, these days buying a single console gets you maybe less than half of all games out there instead of 66-75% of all releases. Coming up on the premise that people need two consoles or a console and PC to play most games, and I think the one that's less proven in this market will fall to the wayside almost immediately unless they have Microsoft's cash to strongarm their way in, regardless of the developers under their umbrella.
 
Politics aside, Tencent already have a hardware with a very dedicated fanbase, which is the mobile phone. And other companies are already making that for them. They really have no incentive to make a dedicated gaming console.
 
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I think having a brand new gaming system from China would be amazing. I’ve always loved China.

Doesn’t necessarily need to be Tencent, they just happen to be the front runner.

They have so many unique gaming studios and that combined with tremendous talent, we could see something very special.

Shigeru Miyamoto actually has sometimes shared how some of the inspiration he got was from Japanese nature.

I could totally see many games from this hypothetical system being inspired by Chinese nature and mythology. China is a very beautiful country with rich culture.
 
PikminSnezkov said:
I think having a brand new gaming system from China would be amazing. I’ve always loved China.

Doesn’t necessarily need to be Tencent, they just happen to be the front runner.

They have so many unique gaming studios and that combined with tremendous talent, we could see something very special.

Shigeru Miyamoto actually has sometimes shared how some of the inspiration he got was from Japanese nature.

I could totally see many games from this hypothetical system being inspired by Chinese nature and mythology. China is a very beautiful country with rich culture.
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There are Chinese developers making cool games though. They don't need to be tied to a hardware manufacturer.

Ultimately at the end of the day the console industry is a very impenetrable market that requires a ton of money up front. Nobody is gonna bother making a serious competitor (Stadia et. al doesn't count).
 
Mekanos said:
There are Chinese developers making cool games though. They don't need to be tied to a hardware manufacturer.

Ultimately at the end of the day the console industry is a very impenetrable market that requires a ton of money up front. Nobody is gonna bother making a serious competitor (Stadia et. al doesn't count).
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Yeah that’s a great point, thank you for sharing : )
 
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meatbag said:
I'd say Stadia counts and is proof that establishing a video game platform is much, much harder than it looks. You can't just throw Google money at people and have things work out.
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My point was more that Stadia was just a cute side project for Google, they didn't bother investing in serious infrastructure for it to create a box that could actually compete with the big 3. It was a rounding error in terms of their financials.
 
I... kinda just can't see the motivation on their side to bother with console space? I would expect their core market to still be predominantly PC and mobile focused, especially thanks to that lengthy ban on consoles.

Edit: Actually, the mainland government's been cracking down on minors playing games recently, right? The following question then is, can a mainland company even rely on a domestic market as a stronghold/foundation to support making a new system?
Or would the cash be better off spent on investing in certain companies abroad that are already being publicly traded?
 
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meatbag said:
I'd say Stadia counts and is proof that establishing a video game platform is much, much harder than it looks. You can't just throw Google money at people and have things work out.
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yes but they tried to go from not being in video games to trying to make a console and games. It's like trying to run before you can crawl. Tencent is not new to the industry.
 
Tencent flirted with the idea of a handheld PC and an Android handheld but aside from the patent images they went nowhere. At the same time they've worked with One-Netbook to some degree on the OneXPlayer.

I think given their patents, that they have a PC game launcher in China and their 40% stake in Epic that any "console" would just be like the Steam Deck; PC hardware that is essentially focused around their storefront and EGS.
 
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Mekanos said:
they didn't bother investing in serious infrastructure for it to create a box that could actually compete with the big 3
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Of course. Again, it's proof of how hard it is to become a platform holder. Also, I think Google's tech was sound, it's just that they had the wrong idea of how to appeal to the market.

Hocot8 said:
Tencent is not new to the industry.
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True, but I don't think they're actively managing any of their game studios. As far as I know they're content to make money off the video game IPs they own. What @Jodast said is probably what Tencent would do.
 
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There is no room in the market for a fourth console, hell there’s barely enough room for three!
 
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So, a lot of my job focuses on tech coming from China. With that dawg, I'm out. For many reasons.

Let a small tech company blow up and succeed. But Tencent with a console was the fastest no I've ever come to.

Edit: someone above mentioned a small Chinese company to try, not Tencent. 100% fine with that, I've lived in China many years and its culture is top-tier, with creativity rising.
 
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PikminSnezkov said:
Before I start, I kindly ask we keep the discussion healthy and respectful, and at least try to keep politics out of this. No company is a saint, even look at the parent company of Xbox Gaming Studios, who according to OpenSecrets, donated money to Ron Desantis.

A while ago I was listening to Kit & Krysta podcast, which I’m a huge fan of btw, Kit pointed out how he will always play on all three systems. ( Nintendo, Xbox and PS.)

It was one of those “ohhhh” moments for me, we only indeed have three main hardware players in the gaming market. I’m a Nintendo fan myself, I only play on their systems, and mostly 1st party titles.

But seeing how the current Gen is going, Microsoft trying to acquire Activision and Sony going through their own BS, I feel like now more than ever before, we need a real new competitor, someone to disrupt the cozy party and add some spice.

The reason I chose Tencent is because 1) They already own bunch of gaming studios 2) have experience in hardware development and 3) are from China. The last one is important for me, because I believe in multipolar market, thus in my eyes it would be better for the gaming market to have as diverse range of options as possible.

You’d have more American systems like Xbox, traditional Japanese Nintendo systems and then, Eastern Tencent systems from China.

I’m also very curious if you have any other ideas which companies might benefit from entering the hardware gaming market. I’m sure there are others out there as well.:)
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I will decline it. No Tencent console & no Apple console. Even I want Xbox console out leaving just PC, Playstation & Nintendo for console gaming hardware business
 
I'm not sure if a console is in their best interest. targeting PC and Mobile is less of a hassle and wider reaching
 
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PikminSnezkov said:
Before I start, I kindly ask we keep the discussion healthy and respectful, and at least try to keep politics out of this. No company is a saint, even look at the parent company of Xbox Gaming Studios, who according to OpenSecrets, donated money to Ron Desantis.

A while ago I was listening to Kit & Krysta podcast, which I’m a huge fan of btw, Kit pointed out how he will always play on all three systems. ( Nintendo, Xbox and PS.)

It was one of those “ohhhh” moments for me, we only indeed have three main hardware players in the gaming market. I’m a Nintendo fan myself, I only play on their systems, and mostly 1st party titles.

But seeing how the current Gen is going, Microsoft trying to acquire Activision and Sony going through their own BS, I feel like now more than ever before, we need a real new competitor, someone to disrupt the cozy party and add some spice.

The reason I chose Tencent is because 1) They already own bunch of gaming studios 2) have experience in hardware development and 3) are from China. The last one is important for me, because I believe in multipolar market, thus in my eyes it would be better for the gaming market to have as diverse range of options as possible.

You’d have more American systems like Xbox, traditional Japanese Nintendo systems and then, Eastern Tencent systems from China.

I’m also very curious if you have any other ideas which companies might benefit from entering the hardware gaming market. I’m sure there are others out there as well.:)
Click to expand...
I think you're right in that the market is very much too comfortable nowadays. Sony and Nintendo each need someone to light a fire under their asses and get their execs making decisions like MS was when they were trying to claw back from the scummy behaviors they tried to get away with on the Xbox One initially.

I think PC is the competition to all of these but people will probably laugh at this as many have outdated/stereotypical ideas of what PC gaming is. Nowadays the PC and console markets are basically becoming more and more alike.

On PC we have controller support, controller friendly interfaces, exclusives to different storefronts (terrible idea), portables etc...

On consoles we're getting more and more performance options like on PS5, XSX and even some Switch games afaik, multiple performance profiles that devs need to target compared to the historical 1 per console (Xbox has Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S to target, Switch has handheld and docked modes), the actual hardware of the consoles are becoming less custom and more off the shelf - XSX and PS5 are basically PCs in a box with a friendly locked down interface in a lot of ways, and the Switch is the same but more a locked down but super juiced up tablet.

We're also seeing the digital game delivery format gain huge popularity on consoles and performance patches and downloads post launch become basically unavoidable even on Switch (which isn't inherently bad, depends on whether the devs misuse it.)

All of this to say, we need more competition not less.
 
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Hajeman said:
I will decline it. No Tencent console & no Apple console. Even I want Xbox console out leaving just PC, Playstation & Nintendo for console gaming hardware business
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That would just make Sony behave even worse than they already do.
 
Brofield said:
I really don't think the market can support a fourth console; yes the Dreamcast was over twenty years ago but in this era of consolidation for better and for (mostly) worse, these days buying a single console gets you maybe less than half of all games out there instead of 66-75% of all releases. Coming up on the premise that people need two consoles or a console and PC to play most games, and I think the one that's less proven in this market will fall to the wayside almost immediately unless they have Microsoft's cash to strongarm their way in, regardless of the developers under their umbrella.
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Dreamcast wasn't really a scenario of 4 consoles in a market, but rather Sega bring the first in a long series of gaming hardware manufacturers to end up having to stick to their strength rather than struggle to support 2 platforms. Sega went back to their strength of arcade hardware, just like Sony axed their handheld line with Vita and Nintendo ended their home console line with Wii U and stuck to their strength of portables
 
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Would mobile count? I think it may since it already contributed the most to annual gaming revenue in a way and everyone has one.
 
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