Retail Threatens Steam Ban

[RCBH928]

Well, when I say dying I mean
1)Not all the big any more, maybe niche
2) Just the way things look to me, not a statement I am willing to back up

I just remember back in the days like '95 and '98 , PC was the thing for gaming. New hardware , faster processor , bigger graphics card. I think In like '98 the PC could do a lot of things the consoles could not, Quake for example , am right?

Now I hardly hear the same thing going on for the PC's, consoles play online and in HD, all ps3's got bluray unlike PC's. And even more, everyone here is saying PC sections in retail stores is diminishing.
I constantly read gaming news, and very rarely I hear about a PC game.
The thing I know is that a 360 game would be released, then some time later it will be ported to the PC when all the hype is gone.

WoW, Civilization, Starcraft, and Diablo 3 are the only games that I know making the buzz on the PC.

Also I don't find many PC GAMING forums or PC GAMING podcasts. I am not saying they don't exist(so no one posts me links) , but if you go to popular gaming websites its all about the consoles (just open ign or gamespot, how much of the page is reserved for PC?).

I for one am thinking of buying a PC for gaming needs(and hook it by HDMI to the tv), it will:
1) Be my media center
2) Media storage
3)Play all games, retro(nes,snes,genesis,psx, even saturn ) PC, and 360 games.
4)Play online for free
5)Once technology advances I can upgrade.

I am not a fanboy of anything, and I am not contradicting myself. I am just saying how I see things from my perspective .

But I think the real reason behind the downsizing of the PC gaming community, is that with the PC you have all these files and different setups to do.
With consoles , a ps3 is just any other ps3. It will work with all ps3 games, no extra setup required , everything is plug and play.

[ZeroAX]

I constantly read gaming news, and very rarely I hear about a PC game.
The thing I know is that a 360 game would be released, then some time later it will be ported to the PC when all the hype is gone.


But I think the real reason behind the downsizing of the PC gaming community, is that with the PC you have all these files and different setups to do.
With consoles , a ps3 is just any other ps3. It will work with all ps3 games, no extra setup required , everything is plug and play.

THat is because companies pay those sites to promote their consoles. As I said AMD and Intel don't pay to have PCs promoted.

Likewise with the 360 part. M$ pays for time exclusives for the 360 (they are that desperate for exclusives. I understand having normal exclusives, but timed exclusives to me is like saying "our exclusive games suck" (they don't, but they do have fewer development studios than Sony and the big N) )


And dude seriously, that is a big fat stereotypical (if you can say that about a machine) lie. My little cousins don't know English (8 and 10 years old) and have been able to install and play PC games. I honestly don't ever remember PCs being hard to set up (at least since 1999). It is like saying driving stick is hard. It's not. You are just not used to it.


btw I'm saying all this in a friendly way, I hope it doesn't come across as angry or anything.

Actually I am angry at all those American gaming sites, that don't know the single thing about PC games, and yet dare make top # lists of best games, and the only PC games they know are Half Life, WoW and Counter Strike at best (yet they only name the last one to make fun of it).



btw best PC gaming blog I know

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/

[alienjesus]

And dude seriously, that is a big fat stereotypical (if you can say that about a machine) lie. My little cousins don't know English (8 and 10 years old) and have been able to install and play PC games. I honestly don't ever remember PCs being hard to set up (at least since 1999). It is like saying driving stick is hard. It's not. You are just not used to it.

Call me a big fat stereotypical liar then, because this is one of the things thats always put me off PC gaming. Long Installs, complcated computer set-ups to play the latest games. Perhaps it's not that hard, but in that case I'm just thick evidently, because I prefer the put-in-and-play nature of video game consoles. I also hate how much space gets used up if I want to play lots of PC games. I have to either have huge amounts of space in my hard drive or else clean out my system a lot. And then reinstall the games the next time I want to play...

Of course, with the 360 and PS3, it seems obligatory long installs that use up loads of system space aren't a mile off from consoles now anyhow. Maybe I'll get over my prejudices and try PC gaming when that happens. For now, I'm sticking to my Wii and my retro consoles.

I'm sure I'm going to get a few posts arguing this. I look forward to being proven wrong.

[J T]

For some hard figures about how PC gaming is not dead, read this post from Nethlem at Kotaku that was made during their recent "PC Gaming Week".

http://kotaku.com/comment/31666590/

"The PC gaming week made me think about something... it's the whole "PC gaming is dead" debate.

People basicly throw this claim into a discussion but hardly have any evidence to back up their claim besides "there are no games for PC", "there is no money in PC gaming because of piracy" or some old NPD sales report. So i figured there must be a way to bring some actual facts to this discussion.

These facts can be easily obtained, trough the annual finnancial reports by publishers. So i did look up some reports and the results are rather suprising. That's why i'm gonna share them with you people here:
(All $ numbers are MILLIONS)

Electronics Arts

Link to the report: [files.shareholder.com]

Important information is on page 184 of the adobe document.

Net revenue by platform

Xbox360 - $868
PS3 - $771
Wii - $570
PC - $687

As you can see the PC made even more net revenue then the Wii did. It's within shooting range of the PS3.

Activision Blizzard

Link to the report: [files.shareholder.com]

Important information is on page 27 of the adobe document.

Net revenue by platform

Xbox360 - $857
PS3 - $584
Wii - $584
PC - $1.412

It should be noted that this is the Report of 2009, all other publisher reports are from 2010, the one for activision 2010 isn't released yet afaik. So it doesn't include Starcraft 2, but it does include Modern Warfare 2. As you can see WoW is hard at work. The money generated by WoW alone dwarfs any other platform by far.

Also MW2 had a huge impact on the console net revenue, boosting it considerably. For comparisson here are the 2008 numbers that don't include MW2:

Xbox360 - $362
PS3 - $241
Wii - $407
PC - $1.251

Without a mega release like MW2 the WoW/PC revenue alone surpasses that of ALL consoles combined.

Take Two Interactive

Link to the report:
[phx.corporate-ir.net]

Important information is on page 23 of the adobe document.

Net revenue by platform

Xbox360 - $171
PS3 - $155
Wii - $5
PC - $10

That's Red Dead Redemption hard at work, which didn't get a PC release.
The PC once again generated more net revenue then the Wii did.
Without such a mega seller the platforms are way closer to each other. For comparisson reasons here are the numbers from 2009 where no huge console exclusive title like RDR got released.

Xbox360 - $30
PS3 - $11
Wii - $15
PC - $13

As you can see, without a huge console exclusive getting released the PC holds up pretty well. Who knows how the numbers for 2010 would have looked if they actually released RDR for the PC too...

Ubisoft

Link to the report:
[www.ubisoftgroup.com]

Important information is on page 16 of the adobe document.

Sales by platform in %.
(sadly there is no net revenue in $ values)

Xbox360 - 22%
PS3 - 23%
Wii - 26%
PC - 8%

Okay doesn't look that great over at Ubisoft. But the question is, why? Hasn't Ubisoft been the one who invented their awesome new DRM to combat piracy? Doesn't look like it worked that well... to the contrary i think it actually backfired. Also they make the majority of their money trugh Wii casual titles, so it could also be a problem with their overall software lineup.

Another Publisher i wanted to add had been Bethesda Softworks (ZeniMax Media Inc.). But sadly i couldn't find any annual finanical reports from them. If you find them feel free to share them.

But it's not far stretched to assume that the PC side of things don't look that bad at ZeniMax either. Considering that that Bethesda has a tradition in strong PC games, they also have Arkane studios, Splash Damage and the newly aquired id Software which traditionaly are also very strong in the PC sector.

So here you have it, these are actual facts about the market situation. And they clearly show there is TONS of money to be made on the PC. It's the task of publishers/developers to tab into that potential and actually make that money.

And before anybody brings this up: I'm well aware that EA has The Sims, Acti/Blizzard has WoW which are big hitters. But as the examples of MW2/RDR show that the console market also depends very heavily on a few very big franchises beeing sold. So i don't see that as an valid counter-point.

Thanks for reading (if you got this far) feel free to discuss and feel free to link to this comment the next time some troll comes along going "there is no money in PC gaming herp derp".

[ZeroAX]

bows down to J T


Also PC games don't get any console hype for free. MS actually payed Square money in order to promote FF13 in the MS E3 conference. On the other hand, no one makes a big deal of GTA 4 coming out on PC as well (although that could be because GTA 4 sucks, and its port to the PC sucks even more )


EDIT

I just so that you didn't make that post. Anyway it is still a great read, but I have to make a smaller bow to you (for linking it) and the big bow to that guy for writing it

anyway the replies of one guy in that post hurt my head. The guy made a huge point. If you are not going to count WoW and Sims, you might as well not count CoD and Halo/GoW (Nintendo games are totally different beast, but it seams only Nintendo themselves can tap into their market). And if you look at the big picture, consoles without CoD would be like pcs without WoW.

And I think it is wrong to add up PS3 and 360 sales and call them console sales. I should cost just as much to port a game from the 360 to PS3, as from the 360 to PC

[Ivo]

For some hard figures about how PC gaming is not dead (...)

I read your post JT, and I think you really earned some props for going to the trouble of rounding up some facts.

Ivo.

[J T]

For some hard figures about how PC gaming is not dead (...)

I read your post JT, and I think you really earned some props for going to the trouble of rounding up some facts.

Ivo.

I was just quoting the commenter on Kotaku that did all the work. He is the one that deserves the praise.

[Ivo]

For some hard figures about how PC gaming is not dead (...)

I read your post JT, and I think you really earned some props for going to the trouble of rounding up some facts.

Ivo.

I was just quoting the commenter on Kotaku that did all the work. He is the one that deserves the praise.

Yeah didn't notice that The props go into the commenter then

Still thanks for linking us up.

[Erik_Twice]

It's common knowledge that most "mainstream" gaming sites have no journalistic integrity and won't give a game less than a seven because "Sony will pull the ads".

Also I have never heard of any PC developer and much less Intel or Nvidia inviting journalists over to a 5 star hotel so they can "test the game".

And nobody is so keen on keeping the PC platform "alive" than they would lose millions on two different itinerations of the hardware or spend all you won with your first two machines on the third.

Call me a big fat stereotypical liar then, because this is one of the things thats always put me off PC gaming. Long Installs, complcated computer set-ups to play the latest games.

You have not installed any game in a very long time if you think that. Time it, because it doesn't take hours, 15 minutes at most.

And the setups are automatic, you don't need to tweak anything. And even if you did, it's not hard.

[SpaceBooger]

Just to add my 2cents.
My PC is capable of playing Batman Arkham Asylum, Ghostbusters, Borderlands, SF4, Mass Effect... etc with all of the graphics settings cranked up making them look better than their console counterparts.
I don't think people are building PCs for gaming alone nowadays because PCs are no longer built to be glorified wordprocessors that need to be upgraded for games.

I don't have a newer console, but I do have a PC that plays all the games nicely... and my PC has almost perfect backwards capabilities.