Console gaming holds its ground
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The rise in smartphone and tablet gaming among Bruneians has not affected the sales of console games, local retailers said recently.
“I see phone gaming and tablet gaming as casual gaming and it affects consoles minimally,” said the manager of Game Central who only wanted to be identified as Jimmy.
“I am a gamer myself and I play on all platforms and games on smartphones or tablets just do not have the full blown gaming experience that you get on consoles. A lot of gamers in Brunei also seek out the latest big games, and yes, I believe the gaming community is quite big.”
The supervisor of EGM Trading Company, who did not want to be named, said the gaming community in Brunei is “really huge”.
“They are willing to spend a lot of money on this stuff, even though these game consoles cost more than smartphones and tablets over time – especially when you buy games,” she explained.
She added that gamers buy consoles for the gaming experience and that the rise in popularity of smartphones and tablets as platforms for games do not compare to those played on consoles.
Lanie Cenzon, a representative of ETA Games, said that the high performance of console games is still its selling point over smarphones and tablets.
“They [local gamers] like playing consoles and due to the big console gaming community in Brunei, most of them prefer to play on consoles.”
“Performance plays a part in their decision to stay on console gaming,” she said.
A recent article claimed that gaming consoles would have serious competition with smartphones and tablets as these devices today were also built for gaming, with a robust app stores that sell a generous amount of games from “Temple Run” to “Need for Speed.”
Traditional gaming, however, still retains the tried and tested formula of selling the games off the shelves at a hefty US$80 (Bt2,543) a pop, the article, which came out in The Brunei Times’ “Refresh” column, said.
This old business model still exists when most software and apps for PCs and mobile devices today have abandoned physical media and are mainly distributed online, it read.
It added that true gamers might argue that the gaming experience on mobile devices differ greatly to consoles, but many smartphone and tablet users love their games on their devices.
