Oh please. Like anyone has a dedicated WoW computer. That would be like adding in the cost of internet service.
The solution would therefore be to take hardware out of the equation, no?
BTW, his response is specifically geared at people who think gaming on a PC necessarily involves an expensive rig. It’s one of the things console gamers use against PC gamers.
Graphics cards are pretty much dedicated video game hardware. There’s almost no other point to buying one.
And well I hate to break it to you about dedicated WOW computers Multiboxing some people buy multiple computers to play WOW.
Though I think hardware sales should be taken out of the console numbers.
His response was a callback to longtime arguments that he can upscale any computer to a gaming rig for around the cost of a console, at least when the current generation came out. (Console prices may have dropped far enough to undermine that premise.)
My point is that the vast plurality of gaming involves a game that requires ZERO dollars in computer upgrades. Meaning you don’t actually have to spend a penny on hardware to play WoW, while you do have to spend money on a console to play console games.
For the record, NPD data does account for Walmart. While they don’t get the numbers directly for Wally, they use statistical sampling for their monthly reports. They same thing that Billboard/Soundscan does as Walmart doesn’t give sales data to anybody.
Secondly, including subscription numbers/downloadable content is nice and all, but if you’re using that number to show some PC gaming superiority, it ignores the same things on the console.
Thirdly, if World of Warcraft has around 12 million players paying around $13 a month, that accounts for roughly $2 billion or 15% of the PC gaming sales.
Any way you slice, PC gaming is still an insignificant sliver compared to the business created by console gaming. That’s not to knock it, it’s just reality.
Wow a fanboy to the end eh?
It’s pretty clear that PC gaming as a platform can stand up to either of the other two current gen consoles as a market: Ps3 or xbox 360. That is on their own, not combined and lumped together with another 10 platforms. Specially considering that the PS3 is STILL loosing money on it’s consoles, and xbox only recently broke even, yeah, I’d say in terms of money to be made on the market PC gaming is still in there. Looking at Microsoft’s numbers, didn’t that division only loose them money until recently?
More importantly 13 billion is not an “insignificant” market any way you cut it. It’ll still be around long after you guys get bored of swinging your sony dildos at your TV screens to make the beach ball go really far.
Well…do they? I wouldn’t discount anything from hobbyists.
No mention of the Wii? That’s mature. 
But either way, 15% of the PC market is controlled by one game. “Fanboy” arguments aside (and I resent the implication), that’s not a good way to build a platform. There’s WoW and there’s everything else. There’s nothing like that on the console side. I never said PC gaming isn’t a viable platform, but there’s no way you can slice it that doesn’t put it near the back of the pack.
I’m sorry if reality has a console bias.
ETA: Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 stopped losing money on the hardware years ago. The Wii was always sold for a profit.
Wrong about the Ps3:
http://www.digitalbattle.com/2010/02/05/sony-still-losing-money-on-ps3-sales/
You’re right about the xbox though at around 2007 they turned a profit for hardware sales. The xbox 360 division however, didn’t start to see a profit until 2008.
Yeah, neither the xbox360 nor the Ps3 can stand up to the Wii either. They’re not in the same league.
Huh. Must have been the switch from the regular PS3 to the PS3 Slim.
At least we can agree on something.
Yeah nobody is going to be interested in 85% of 13 billion. Isn’t that roughly what the entire movie industry took in? I don’t see anyone claiming movies are dead. And sure you can slice it differently we’ve already gone from $500 million to 13 billion. We’re still comparing the entire console market (including hardware sales) against PC sales alone.
PC may not be the dominate gaming platform but people need to stop acting like it’s a withered zombie only alive because nobody has bothered to finish it off yet.
I’m confused. By “26x multiplication” are you saying that people on average spend 26x as much on game as they do on the console itself?
No, they don’t have a dedicated wow computer. But they build their computer with gaming in mind, which often (but not necesarily) means a beefier CPU, more ram, better motherboard, etc. The only really mandatory component is a video card, but you dismissively write this off as if WoW is the entire market, whereas most PC gamers I know play much more than WoW. Intel wouldn’t sell as many high end I7s or core 2 quads, no one would care about an X58 motherboard, etc.
Do you think WoW is some flash-based web game or something? It’s a full-on 3d game, and as of the last expansion, definitely beyond the capabilities of a console. Even if you already have your CPU/ram/etc for general computer usage, you need a dedicated video card (cheap integrated graphics won’t handle it adequately), which is spending a penny on hardware.
And my response was sarcastically aimed at the ridiculous lie that you need to spend $5k on a gaming computer and upgrade every 6 months. Well, that, and it’s unfair to count all console sales as console gaming revenue, but not count computer hardware. And especially if you (incorrectly believe) that people are spending gazillions of dollars on their fictional $5000 computer, that’s an even more significant unfair gap in the comparison.
I think all hardware sales should be measured seperately, especially since they have a very different revenue to profitable ratio compared to game sales and subscriptions, so they just inflate the revenue numbers without anywhere near a corresponding number in profit.
This inaccurate. First, Blizzard/WoW fudges their active subscriber numbers to look bigger than they actually are, and secondly, the number still is huge - in the millions - but $14 a month is only the US retail price. A significant chunk of the active subscriber playerbase comes from China and other Asian countries where $14 would be a significant chunk of their monthly salaries. They pay more like a few cents per hour.
I’m not sure of the accuracy of this numbers, but you seem to be taking for granted that they’re true. You truly believe that $13 billion is an insignificant market?
No, but I do like the quote GameSpot includes with the news: “PC gaming dying? To the contrary, says a group of companies with considerable financial investments in the platform.”
Say what you will about the NPD numbers, but at least they’re an unbiased third party.
I also have to question any report that includes “retail sales, downloadable sales, subscription and microtransaction fees, and online advertising” without detailing exactly what that means. The press release on the PCGA site seems to hint that the biggest portions of money in that total comes people buying virtual hats for their avatar in some Facebook game. Which is not “PC gaming” the way people in this thread think of that phrase.
Also unmentioned in the GameSpot article is the fact that the $13 billion is a worldwide figure, which is an unfair comparison to the US-only NPD numbers. If you adde dup all the console stats that the PC Gaming Alliance report includes on the PC side, it would be well past $50 billion, at least.
You’re believing the evidence you want to believe. The NPD numbers are off probably by at least an order of magnitude for the reasons people outlined in this thread.
I agree that without more analysis of what exactly they’re including, I don’t trust/care about their number. I was only making the case that the NPD measurements are a structurally unfair, and vastly inaccurate, way to make these comparisons.
I’ve actually been encouraged by some of the news lately, like how DAO sold more copies on the PC and how BFBC2’s biggest platform is the PC. I’m wondering how many sales blockbusters like starcraft 2 and diablo 3 can generate.
What reasons? The Walmart thing? The NPD Group is a reputable statistical analysis firm. No one has any reason to believe their projections are faulty.
I read that BBC2 has more online players on the PC. But for sales, the consoles win.
I don’t understand why console gamers have so much interest in the sales figures for PC games to begin with.
Have you been reading the thread? Console hardware is included in the sales number - a big portion of them - while PC hardware sales are not. Only retail game sales are counted, which is the primary means to get console games, and yet most PC games are sold digitally and not counted. There’s also a tendency compare “consoles” meaning every game system made, including psp, ds, ps3, 360, ps2, wii, etc. and then compare them all in one block vs pc games.
Drawing comparisons about how much each industry is worth from the NPD numbers is worthless. The analysis is deeply structurally flawed.
I’m sorry but WOW? My wife’s ancient laptop (with cheap integrated graphics) that struggles to play Plants Vs Zombies can play WOW on low settings. Her computer (which is actually my cast off computer) that hasn’t been upgraded in 3 years can play WOW with maxed settings. Other than harddrive space I can’t imagine a port to the console would be limited by hardware requirements. Nobody who doesn’t already have a computer that’s ready for retirement is going to need hardware upgrades to play WOW. It’s simply not something that is going to drive hardware sales any time soon.
I’d argue things like the Civilization series, Total War series and Sims series seem to have more people that don’t normally upgrade to go out and buy new computers over WOW.
I’m not saying it’s cutting edge, but the new areas combined with a graphics revamp they did with the last expansion make it beyond running it with integrated graphics or something. Consoles definitely would not have the ram to run it - they have a total of 512mb shared between main memory and the video memory and that would never cut it on the new content. It is designed to scale really well at the low end, but I doubt your three year old castoff computer can run things adequately maxed out at any decent resolution.
I’m not trying to point out WoW as a game that has huge hardware requirements - it definitely doesn’t - but it was raised earlier as an example of game where you need no hardware at all, and that’s not true.