Why, it’s almost as though BOTH platforms are healthy, profitable and viable!
Yeah, they are. Which is why statements like this confuse me so:
[QUOTE=Kinthalis]
Or to put it another way, if PC gaming isn’t successful, the Ps3 is DEAD and the xbox is got a foot in the grave.
[/QUOTE]
He was saying that, to call PC gaming a loss, you’d have to call the consoles a loss as well since PC gaming is doing at least as well as any (singular) console. How could you call PC gaming a failure and then say the Xbox360 is a success (or vice versa)?
Well no wonder you are confused.
My statement was making the same point Jophiel was making.
I said IF PC is not doing good… Which is what the poster I was originally replying to was saying saying.
I KNOW PC is doing well. Anyone withy half a brain and any sort of knowledge of the marketplace knows it’s doing well. AND so are consoles.
But a lot of console gamers swear PC is dead and consoles rule all.
In fact you were saying exactly that not too long ago.
No, I didn’t get a PS1 right when they first came out. I never get the first release of ANY new console or device…because the first releases generally still have a few bugs in them.
I’ve been known to buy games online and then pirate them if there are DRM hassles. In my mind, I paid for the game, so I don’t see it as wrong.
If you really mean pirate and not copy, then what you are doing is wrong. Pirate means copy and sell to others, or copy without paying for it (such as buying it, copying it, then returning the original).
I assume he means download them from illegal sharing sites and then apply a crack to get them to work, just as you would if you were pirating the game. The twist is that he owns the game so he’s not really pirating it, but rather getting around hassles with the legit installation. I’ve done that too.
This is probably because you are a highly technical computer user who does things (you know, like keeping your drivers up to date) that head off these sorts of problems before they happen. Or perhaps you’re just lucky, because there’s no predicting “Oh, I’m sorry, our game doesn’t play nice with your very popular free antivirus software, perhaps you should try a different one, like that nice product from Symantec.” :rolleyes:
And again, I am saying that PC gaming would be MORE successful - emphasis COMPARITIVE - if people didn’t have all these problems with their systems, but lets face it; There’s an entire INDUSTRY devoted to keeping peoples’ PCs working, whereas, even with the much exagerated failure rate of the Xbox 360, the WORST the end user ever had to deal with was Microsoft saying “We’re very sorry, we’ll replace it for you.” rather than getting some tech in India saying “Okay, click start, then run, type ‘dxdiag’ and tell me what version it says you have. It’s in the upper left hand corner of the box that pops up. Okay, now download this file, run it, reboot…” The observant members of the audience will note that nowhere did I say that PC gaming is “Dead” “a failure” “fading” or whatever. I’m saying that if PC gaming WERE TRULY as easy for people as console gaming, then CONSOLE gaming would probably be dead, and PC gaming would be… wait for it… MUCH MORE SUCCESSFUL than it is now. However, it’s not and they aren’t. Way to misconstrue the case, Kinthalis.
It baffles me that people continue to argue that PCs are easy for the average person. They’re really still not. They’re getting closer (more because a larger percentage of “the average person” has grown up with them than anything else) but consoles require about the same degree of technical know-how as a CD player. It’s not even in the same league.
Also, WRT to “everyone rushing to build MMOs because the PC market is so damn lucrative” uhm… I hate to say, but most MMOs are a quick way to flush money down the toilet. The failure rate there is gruesome. People keep looking at WoW and saying “If we could only get 10% of that, we’d be golden!” but they don’t realize that they are not going to.
You’re comparing modern PC gaming with console gaming from the 90’s and early 2000’s? The PS3 and the Xbox 360 is what you want to compare it with. My PC is a thousand times more stable than my Xbox 360, and my PS3. If a game is out on all formats, I will always choose the PC, because I know it will work.
Really it’s a matter of education (fighting ignorance?) regarding how PC’s work and how to maintain them. But, if you can’t really be bothered with that, that’s fine too. That’s why consoles are there. They’re great, and easy to use for the average gamer.
Have fun with your old games. But if you want a modern gaming experience, you’ll want to upgrade I think.
As an aside, what’s the internet like in the USA? From what I gather from this thread in some places it can be quite dodgy. Here in the UK I get 30mbps and unlimited downloads (it’s the cheapest plan my ISP provides), which is why downloading 20GB games isn’t really a problem. In fact, it’s quicker than walking into town and back to physically buy the game!
It’s not just MMO’s they are rushing to build though.
The free to play online experience is doing well, many indies have made more money the first week on PC than in months on console platforms, and even big tripple A titles do very well on PC, specially considering that the PC market is mostly digital now, and digital sales represent over twice the profit for these companies vs a retail console sale (take a look at Skyrim PC for example).
Or maybe take a gander at Diablo 3’s latest sales figures. 6.3 million in the first week, NOT counting several Asian territories (where the game is huge!).
No, I just thought I’d point out how “well” the MMO market is doing. The things are a money trap at this point. The road to bankruptcy is paved with failed MMOs.
Yeah, because the Xbox Live Indie Games section is a godawful dumping ground with very little in the way of methods to sort the wheat from the chaff. And many of these games are exactly the sort of nostalgia trip/in joke that appeals to the people who probably had nerdy childhoods and are now entirely at home on the PC. Yes, I am generalizing, and Cthulu Saves the World says my generalization is right. 
Do we have to go over this AGAIN? No matter how many times you say “is doing well” or “is comparable to” or whatever, you are missing the point.
Yes please, we shall use a once-in-a-decade game from a sure-hit studio with infinite money that it only even released on one platform anyway, so people couldn’t choose a different one if they wanted to as the standard for the state of the PC gaming industry. If every game on the PC sold like Diablo 3, we wouldn’t be having this chat, but one hilarious anomaly every five years or so from Blizzard does not a towering industry make.
I’m more curious about the numbers for, say, Call of Modern Duty Warfare 6. Which, according to VGChartz (Which, I note, I don’t entirely trust, but I don’t know another source for this kind of thing), sold the following breakout: (Okay, the game in question is ACTUALLY Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3)
Xbox 360: 14.01 million global units
PS3: 11.81 million global units
PC: 1.36 million global units
Wii (What? This game came out on the Wii?): 0.46 million global units
Now I realize that this is probably as much an outlier as Diablo, but a quick glance at other games in the series shows a similar breakout. Ditto Battlefield 3. Heck, ditto Skyrim, which according to the same source moved 5.91m/3.75m/2.19m on 360/PS3/PC. Does this include digital sales? Hell if I know, but even if it doesn’t, and TWICE as many people bought the game digitally as didn’t, then it’s still not equalling the number of people who picked it up on the console.
Now, we have the following possible reasons why people could be buying this stuff on the console:
#1) Don’t have a PC that will run it/At all
#2) Prefer console ease of use
#3) Are too stupid to understand that the game looks better on the PC
Which reasons do you think are in play here?
Again, I’m not saying that this is the death knell for the PC game industry or anything ridiculous like that - clearly, there’s a big market for casual Free-to-play offerings, at the very least - but I find it baffling that you are even trying to argue that PC gaming wouldn’t do better if it were easier for the everyman.
Read the press release again. They SOLD 5.1 million copies in the first week, including to players in Asian territories.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/diablo-iii-sets-pc-game-130000595.html
I have an XBox 360, and I almost never play it. I’m not interested in most of the games that are available for it. I vastly prefer turn based games to real time games, among other things. I don’t have a PS3. If a console doesn’t offer games that I want to play, I don’t buy the console. The only reason I have the XBox was because I desperately wanted Rock Band: The Beatles. I’ve got a couple of other games for that XBox, but it’s just not something I turn on very often.
And a lot of the PC games that I want are older games, as well. I’d prefer to have newer games, but I don’t particularly want things like sports sims or FPSs. It’s like…I used to go to video arcades a lot. But the games changed, and I don’t see games that I’d be interested in any more.
As for maintaining my PC, I update my virus protection every week, and check for updates on my other stuff every 10 days. I have lists of chores, and when I’m supposed to do them. Things like cleaning out my purse, deep cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning out my car…just trivial little stuff that needs to be done on a regular basis. If I don’t have it on a list, I’d probably never get around to it. So the computer “housekeeping” goes on a list, too. It’s like deep cleaning the bathroom, I don’t particularly enjoy doing it but I know it’s gotta be done or I’ll have a big problem on my hands sooner or later.
Playing games should be fun. There should be a bare minimum of work that the player should be expected to do before installing and playing the game. I’ve pretty much decided not to buy any more Civilization games because 1) if I buy the first one to come out, there’s going to be another, better version out that will have more content at a lower price and 2) I really don’t want to spend several hours trying to tweak my computer in order to get it to work.
In another analogy, in a lot of cases, I’ll buy ebooks, but not always. I enjoy browsing shelves of books, because even the better ebook listings are not as good as being able to pick up a book and examining it. Sometimes it’s impossible to tell just what sort of book is being sold, as I’m only given the title and the author. The same goes for games. In many cases, I want to examine the game, as in many cases the packaging has more info on it than the online game listing has.
You seriously think developers haven’t gone bankrupt making console games?
I’m really not going to waste my time on you if you lack that very basic understanding of the industry. Can you give me examples of studios going under due to a failed MMO? I’d love to see evidence of this “money trap”.
So excuses, followed by insults at PC gamers. Stay classy Airk.
What exactly IS your point other than it’s NOT doing well, and it’s NOT comparable? Which only show your ignorance of the market.
Diablo 3 was one of several examples I used in that paragraph.
I’ll stop you right there, before your ignorance of the market continues to embarrass you. VGAChartz is a laughing stock in these arguments. They DO NOT track sales. They poll a few random people at local gamestops and extrapolate from those numbers. You can imagine that these numbers might have some serious Bias, no?
I’ll give you some examples if you don’t believe me.
When Diablo3 announced the 6.3 million sales, VGAChartz had it selling 800,000 copies.
When The Wticher 2 announced nearly 2 million sales, VGA Chartz said the PC version had sold 80,000.
Valve and Dice have stated that games like Portla 2 and Battlefield BAD Company 2 sold MORE on PC than console. VGA Chartz says console outsold PC something like 10 to 1.
When come back, bring real numbers. Preferably by the publisher/developer.
I’m sorry… when did I say this? Care to quote me? ';cause I really don’t recall saying making PC gaming easier would be a bad thing.
I think YOU need to read your own link.
It says exactly what I said.
6.3 million and NOT including SOME Asian territories. Try again.
I am a Steamoholic.
I’m here admitting it and need help 
In all seriousness, it is the way of the future. Piracy has been rampant and damaging for too long. Things like Steam hopefully will put the profit back into these games - particularly small/Indie organizations. Hopefully we will see a re-emergence of PC games instead of the steady decline over the past decade+.
I think this meme is really mostly a problem of perspective.
The PC game market has been GROWING since well, always. However, consoles blew up with the past couple of generations, growing exponentially, specially in the States, where most of us people interacting in forums like these are located.
It’s why every who isn’t a PC gamer is convinced that it’s dying.
Nevermind that the platform has the most number of highly rated games of any other platform. Nevermind that in terms of profitability on the software side it is a match for any single console platform, and it’s not too far behind even taking them together.
Nevermind that just about every developer not connected with the console manufacturers puts games out on PC.
I mean everything tells you that PC is not dying, it’s doing well, in fact it’s continually growing.
No one would be putting out games on it if it wasn’t a profitable market.
And yet this silliness persists.
Not only does it persists, but there are some people who get really angry when these facts are pointed out to them, because god damn it, PC is dying and that’s that.
Come on Kinthalis, you’re better than this.
In Blizzard’s own press release, it says they GAVE AWAY 1.2 million copies of Diablo III to WoW Annual Pass subscribers. So 6.3 million minus 1.2 million comped copies is 5.1 million copies sold.
But you’re partially right, Blizzard separated out the Korean game rooms. But those copies of the game still had to be purchased by the game room owners, so they’re counted in the 5.1 million figure. Because the press release says nothing about those copies being excluded from the total (which they would definitely say, because it would make their accomplishment all the more impressive).
Really?
Then why, before Steam…when I went into Software stores there used to be rows upon rows of games and this has declined now to the point where there is one shelf with something like 40 PC games on it…half educational?
THAT’S what I based my perception on…and if that isn’t DYING…I don’t know what is.
Steam was a breath of fresh air…all sorts of games to chose from and some of them even looked damn good!
Maybe those games existed…but I live in a major metropolitian area and I will tell you it sure looked like PC games were not only dying…but essentially dead.
I hopped on Steam pretty early and it sure looks like there are many more small developer/Indie games then there used to be. It now LOOKS like PC games are starting to rise…but if PC games were doing well before, I sure would hate to see what dying looked like.
In “software” stores or game stores? Gamestop devotes most of their space to used console games which isn’t an option for most PC titles. Should I assume new console games are dying because 75% of the space is devoted to used titles?
I haven’t been game shopping at a Best Buy recently but a couple summers ago they had 1.5 double-sides aisles with PC games. I’d imagine digital distribution and online retail box purchasing has taken a good bite out of it though. The games still sell, just through other channels.