Are you just ignoring everything else I wrote? I’ll restate to make it a little clearer:
There are seven major platforms available right now (PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, DS, PSP and PC). If PC software only accounts for $900 million, that is not a proportional piece of the pie and would be better referred to as a niche.
I think what’s being asked is, are those equivalent? Does the total number include the hardware of the console games but not the hardware of the PC? And if it does, shouldn’t the hardware be taken out of that total to find actual proportionality of software sales?
It does include the hardware but only because the hardware is completely linked to the gaming experience. A gaming PC, no matter how specialized, does not have that link and should not be counted.
Plus, the only study that does count gaming PC hardware (the $20 billion one cited above) is being slammed in the video game press for being a little unbelievable. Basically, if $20 billion of PC gaming hardware has been sold in the last three years, shouldn’t PC game software make up a bigger piece of the pie?
Or do we fall back to WoW and realize that 11 million is a lot of players, but if the only game they play is WoW, can PC gaming be anything more than a niche?
Not only that, but why are hardware sales for the two next gen consoles being counted at all? They were being sold AT A LOSS to the companies.
Can you give me an example of video game press slamming the article and or the numbers? Or with press, do you mean some console fan boy’s blog?
Because that has to do with company profits and jackall to do with total sales, which is what the 18.85 billion figure represents.
Also, the Wii has never been sold at a loss and the Xbox 360 has been in the black for a while.
My own take towards the future of console gaming and PC gaming is that as the PC continues to become ubiquitous in the home, and becoming a larger part of the family entertainment center consoles will be pushed aside. For two reasons: PC gaming tech is always more appealing and more cutting edge and no one has to sell anythign at a loss to provide that cutting edge appeal.
The risk and cost of consoles and their inability to keep up will essentially turn that market into a bunch Wii’s. Running old school hardware and catering to the casual gamer who wants to do yoga while listening to sweating to the oldie’s and want to simulate throwing frisbee’s on their TV’s.
The market will still be big, but it will no longer be a market for the mainstream and hardcore gamer. The PC will be.
I’m fairly certain that those figures are revenues, NOT profits. Do you undertsand the difference?
With “the two next gen consoles” I mean xbox 360 and PS3. PS3 is just now only turning profitable, though I haven’t seen any numbers, just speculation, and the xbox 360, if it did turn the corner, it only did so very recently. Hardly enough time to overcome the losses for the past 3 years.
Then why not include just games, and not the console price, in the study? Then it’s an apples-to-apples study.
And saying that “you can do other stuff with a PC, but a console is only for gaming” isn’t exactly right either. A lot of Playstation 3 sales were made because the PS3 for a while was one of the cheapest Blu-Ray players out there.
Allow me to link directly to the research firm’s press release. It reads like the kind of inane “PCs are bettar!!!11!!1” drivel that this thread has managed to avoid.
http://jonpeddie.com/back-pages/details/pc_gaming_gets_no_respect_the_numbers_show_otherwise/
Complaining about the casual games on the Wii like that (simulate throwing frisbee’s on their TV’s) is moronic. PC games can be easily broken down with the same mocking tones. We all play video games, one is not less “hardcore” than the other, so let’s stop that shit right now.
As for the “family entertainment PC”, I think it’s a pipe dream that has been in the news at various points in the last decade and is still no closer to being a reality. If anything, PC gaming tech is less appealing because it requires more work before the actual game playing can be done.
This is very much a misnomer. When the phrase “being sold at loss” is used it’s not referring to the amount it costs to produce a single console vs the amount said console is sold for. It refers to the amount to produce the console PLUS the R&D over the last 5 years or whatever that went in to making the console. One of the big reasons nintendo was able to avoid this was that they used previous gen technology and only spent their R&D on the Wiimote, which is also based on previous technologies that have existed. The x360 and the ps3 used tech that was at the top of the spectrum at the time the console was being developed (as in, not top of the spectrum when they finally launched, but remember consoles take a good 5 years to be developed, usually starting the moment, if not before, the previous gen is out the door).
Oh, an x360s have been turning a profit for over a year now, if I remember correctly, though I have no cite cause I’m at work and I gotta run to class. Woooo! 
This is just ridiculous. If it were so, this would have happened over the past 5-10 years or so, instead of it going exactly the opposite way. PCs are already ubiquitous in the home and PC tech is better, but not more appealing. The simplicity of the console and it’s staying power is the trademark of it’s appeal.
As for them turning into a bunch of wiis, you’re comparing consoles that focus on high-end gaming to a console who’s manufacturer (Nintendo) made a specific choice to do exactly the opposite. That’s like saying that in 10 years from now the Porsches and BMWs, which can’t keep up with a Ferrari, will be equivalent to Hondas.
I have noticed that the PC game section of my local Best Buy has been shrinking over the years and today it’s pretty small.
I was waiting for this thread to start. Once I’m off work I’ll get started on my essay on the subject. For now, however, I just really wish that we could cross-platform consoles and PCs; because I challenge you to pick a game. Any game you like - shooter, fighting, sports, whatever, pick it and my mouse-and-keyboard input will obliterate whatever imprecise fumbling your two sticks can manage.
The dumbing-down required for console games and the rise of the multi-platform release means that control schemes and gameplay mechanics are limited to the lowest common denominator.
I weep openly at every commercial pushing a PC-360-PS3-Wii release. Games like these are almost never good.
The PS3 on launch was retailing for $600 and was made of components that cost Sony $900 per unit. That’s just manufacturing costs. The XBox 360 was in a similar position on launch though there wasn’t the flurry of cost analysis with it mainly because the disparity wasn’t as extreme as it was with the PS3 whose pricing could be thought as suicidal two different ways. It’s not a misnomer to call it selling at a loss.
The XBox division has finally been profitable recently but I’m not sure about the hardware itself. Price on components has obviously come down but the design has shifted a bit and they have lowered the price of the console. Either way I strongly doubt that Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot with their current pricing scheme.
This is not a thread discussing the merits of mouse/keyboard vs a controller. Please take that shit elsewhere.
Also, I think any PC/console discussion needs a Godwin-like law for someone using the phrase “dumbed down”. It only makes yourself look stupid.
Again, there’re all just VIDEO games, not computer games or console games. VIDEO games. We are in this together. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have healthy debate. Not this fanboy shit.
And how about you take your junior modding elsewhere and keep a civil tongue in your head when someone makes a perfectly valid point.
I came in here to say exactly that. Most of the types of games I love are best on the PC but have become so riddled with horrible DRM schemes that I’ve stopped buying expansions and new titles because of it. It’s really their loss. I still fill my days, but don’t spend as much money doing it.
I will definitely be looking at this, and I might do exactly the same. I don’t mind proving I actually BOUGHT the game, but once I’ve done that, don’t screw with my system or otherwise hint that I’m a criminal, when it’s the criminals who escape all that DRM is supposed to deter in the first place 
This thread was supposed to be about status and trends in the video game market. It is not another thread about what games are more fun or easier, etc. (I play exclusively PC games, so I probably agree with you more than not on that.) Tubes’ post is off topic, although Justin could have been more polite about it.
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I would like to see numbers on game sales, no hardware devices included. Both number of games sold and revenues and profits therefrom. Those would be the market numbers a game producer would want to look at when deciding what platforms to develop for.
Judging from shelf space in a general store like Target, PC and console games are doing roughly as well as each other.
But it’s a game with a monthly subscription. I also think you wave off the other MMOG’s too quickly. While none of them can equal WoW, I would be surprised if, combined, they didn’t at least add another 10 million.
If you’d asked me 6 months ago I might have agreed that PC gaming was dying but not now. In the last 6 months I’ve bought Far Cry, Colonization, X3 Reunion, Fallout 3, Warhammer Online, Football Manager 2009, C&C Red Alert 3, The Witcher EE and a few older games on digital download. I haven’t bought a PS3 game since GTA4.
I’m not sure when the supposed golden age of PC gaming was; I don’t remember buying so many games so close together as I have recently.
I have to agree that it’s rather unfair to compare pc software sales to console software AND hardware sales. I built my PC specifically for gaming.
This is sort of possible. I think I said something similar and LOUNE in another thread said that he think he’d hold up well under these circumstances.
Well, you can get one of these for under $20 which will let you use your xbox 360 joystick with your PC. Most PC games are flexible about input methods and will allow you to bind all the controls to the gamepad. So use your own PC, or find a friend with a PC, set up your joystick, and go play online against other players. See how it goes.