Console Pro: Gamefly, $15 a month. Last game I bought was Rock Band 2 (got too much money in DLC to abandon). Why pay $60 for a game you might finish in a few days? No game is worth buying unless it provides 4 months of play at least. It has changed how I value a game.
Console Pro: Gamefly, $15 a month. Last game I bought was Rock Band 2 (got too much money in DLC to abandon). Why pay $60 for a game you might finish in a few days? No game is worth buying unless it provides 4 months of play at least. It has changed how I value a game.
I feel the same way. If the game isn't under $30 then I won't buy it. The exception is bundle packs like The Orange Box where I'm getting several games in one go. Otherwise, I can wait for the price to drop (if it's a PC game) or just buy it used later (if it's a console game). Although It's sometimes hard to find certain games used for the price I want. I'm looking at you Phantasy Star Portable!
I get home, start playing it, etc. I go online and find out that a ton of additional content such as characters and levels are only available for the console versions, at least the Xbox360. Same thing with Bioshock, tons of console-exclusive content.
Folks, a console is a crappy and inconvenient PC they want you to buy in addition to the games, and shit like the above does not motivate me to buy consoles- it makes me really resent them and the companies involved in such schenanigans.
Just to reiterate, consoles are weak PCs and it is only becoming more obvious as time goes by. Not only is the console going to meld into the PC, so is the TV and what we watch on it. Have you noticed the size of monitors matching up to TVs, while TV prices come down to match the monitors? I'd say that the merge is almost done, there's just more water that they want to squeeze out of the rock.
___________________ Sadly, I see storm clouds on the horizon. A faint stench of Vanguard is in the air.-Kien
You didn't post any sources, When I asked you for links to your sources you refused to give any. Your logic is also flawed, 290 million PC's don't mean a damn thing, sorry. How many of those can actually play modern games? Suddenly that number drops significantly now lets also remove the amount of people who don't actually play games. Yup, that number decreases yet again. Having a PC does not make you a gamer. If PC gaming was actually doing so well, where are those big numbers? There are no big selling games on the PC anymore, we have already concluded that. Only WoW and Sims 2 still make those numbers, both nearly 5 years old and by the time Call of Duty 4 is 5 years old, it will probably have outsold them (WoW only counting box sales obviously) Thats because these big numbers come from casual games and China (which plays completely different kind of games, Ever heard of Fantasy Westward Journey 2?) So the PC gaming industry YOU'RE interested in is in strong decline (Unless you got a suddenly recently discovered interest in Chinese MMO's and web browser games?) I'll also explain to you why this slow selling of PC gaming is a negative thing. Lets say Call of Duty 4 sold 13 million copies on the Xbox360 at 60$ a piece in 2 years. Thats 13 million x 60$ Lets take one of those older games you still find in bargain bins, say, Half Life. It's one of the most popular PC games.
According to Valve on report posted on Gamesutra, Half Life sold 8 million copies as of 2004, and 9.3 million had been sold by 2008.
This means that it took Valve 10 years to sell 9 million copies of the game (4 million less then the 360 version of CoD4), and obviously many of them were far below the original retail price of 50$ as the price of these games goes down. You want common sense? Here is common sense for ya: If PC gaming was doing this well, why did the PC gaming alliance came into existance? get a clue.
The same reason all the other publishing organisations did, because their is a large enough market for their research to pay there wages.
Did you think that the reason there is an Automobile Association was because cars aren't selling very well too?
My sources are still the same. Microsoft, Sony and Blizzard. Did you need links to their websites or something? Honestly mate, you have Google too. If you want to correct me on my figures go ahead.
The sale price on older games are lower but the margins are vastly higher since they no longer have overheads or R&D costs. Profit is profit. Slow selling is better than no selling. It is not my contention that fast selling isn't good, it is my contention that fast selling is all that console games do. That their games have a comparatively poor shelf life. So in your example of Half life, it didn't just fly off the shelfs and sell millions in the first year, it went on to sell millions more over the next 8 years too. Kept alive by the modding community.
If we take WoW as our example, we can see that not only did it break sales records, and again for each expansion, it kept on selling for 5 years. Stayed in the charts. But this is only a small part of the games' revenue stream.
Not every game is COD 4. I know it's all about the "game charts" for you, but that really isn't the only way PC games make money.
COD 4 still makes money for the people who wrote Quake 2. Quake2 is now an advertising sponsoered browser game. It works on any machine and it still makes them money. Half of ID's income derives from the lisencing of their game engine. Online poker brings in more money than all the X 360 games combined. Woot COD4 sold 13 million copies in 3 months. Good for them, but that's not the only way to make money. Except if you make console games, in which case it pretty much is the only way to market.
Lots of games work on PC's. Lots of games work on all PC's Lots of new games work on all PC's. COD4 works on all PC's made in the last 10 years. you don't need a "gaming rig to play lots of PC games. Spore, Supreme Commander, Total War, Civilisation COD, Quake, Unreal, MS flight, they all work on anything. They even work on consoles. Loads and loads of games do. Even the high end games that are built for gaming rigs tend to be scaleable to work on non gaming rigs. If not, people just buy older games that will.
The PC gaming industry is not in strong decline, it is a long period of sustained growth. It grew by 18% last year. Roughly what it has grown every year since it's inception. There are very few industries int he world that grow this fast, very few that grow this fast for this long, and very few that grew at all in the midst of this historic global recession.
P.S. Valve sold more copies of Half Life 2 on PC than Infinity Ward sold copies of COD 4 on Xbox 360. If either of those games cracks the PC modding community, they will continue to get large after sales for many years to come.
Infintiy Ward also spent more on advertising. Millions more. I'm not knocking their business, it works fine. Very mediocre game though.
You can always port a console game to the PC. The PC also has all the hardware available to play them. The difference is whether the console make would want to open up the PC to their game. Most don't. As the Wii and XBox360 have become outdated they're sales are going to diminish further, and PC sales increase. The only exception console is the PS3 since its hardware was set so high its just starting its life cycle. Its happened with every console cycle.
MMOs outsell any console game. WoW has earned more revenue then all of Mario. MMOs are also usually excluded from chart numbers because their business model is hard to track. Most blockbuster games on consoles garner less revenue then 2nd rate mmos. When it comes to gameplay, PCs are now always first.
You can always port a console game to the PC. The PC also has all the hardware available to play them. The difference is whether the console make would want to open up the PC to their game. Most don't. As the Wii and XBox360 have become outdated they're sales are going to diminish further, and PC sales increase. The only exception console is the PS3 since its hardware was set so high its just starting its life cycle. Its happened with every console cycle. MMOs outsell any console game. WoW has earned more revenue then all of Mario. MMOs are also usually excluded from chart numbers because their business model is hard to track. Most blockbuster games on consoles garner less revenue then 2nd rate mmos. When it comes to gameplay, PCs are now always first.
I doubt blizzard has made more off WoW then Nintendo has with Mario. Now counting games only...then yes. Counting everything else that could go with a IP then no.
Hold on Snow Leopard, imma let you finish, but Windows had one of the best operating systems of all time.
If the Powerball lottery was like Lotro, nobody would win for 2 years, and then everyone in Nebraska would win on the same day. And then Nebraska would get nerfed.-pinkwood lotro fourms
AMD 4800 2.4ghz-3GB RAM 533mhz-EVGA 9500GT 512mb-320gb HD
Comments
Heres another interesting article.
blogcritics.org/gaming/article/the-future-of-pc-gaming-is/
[edit]
Heres an old article from 2002 predicting what we would be doing now.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2223428.stm
This article makes some predictions for the next 10 years, some are a little OTT, but an interesting read none the less.
www.computerworld.com/action/article.do
Console Pro: Gamefly, $15 a month. Last game I bought was Rock Band 2 (got too much money in DLC to abandon). Why pay $60 for a game you might finish in a few days? No game is worth buying unless it provides 4 months of play at least. It has changed how I value a game.
I feel the same way. If the game isn't under $30 then I won't buy it. The exception is bundle packs like The Orange Box where I'm getting several games in one go. Otherwise, I can wait for the price to drop (if it's a PC game) or just buy it used later (if it's a console game). Although It's sometimes hard to find certain games used for the price I want. I'm looking at you Phantasy Star Portable!
Just to put in my two cents here:
I bought Lord of the Rings: Conquest for the PC.
I get home, start playing it, etc. I go online and find out that a ton of additional content such as characters and levels are only available for the console versions, at least the Xbox360. Same thing with Bioshock, tons of console-exclusive content.
Folks, a console is a crappy and inconvenient PC they want you to buy in addition to the games, and shit like the above does not motivate me to buy consoles- it makes me really resent them and the companies involved in such schenanigans.
Just to reiterate, consoles are weak PCs and it is only becoming more obvious as time goes by. Not only is the console going to meld into the PC, so is the TV and what we watch on it. Have you noticed the size of monitors matching up to TVs, while TV prices come down to match the monitors? I'd say that the merge is almost done, there's just more water that they want to squeeze out of the rock.
___________________
Sadly, I see storm clouds on the horizon. A faint stench of Vanguard is in the air.-Kien
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/12/13/
The same reason all the other publishing organisations did, because their is a large enough market for their research to pay there wages.
Did you think that the reason there is an Automobile Association was because cars aren't selling very well too?
My sources are still the same. Microsoft, Sony and Blizzard. Did you need links to their websites or something? Honestly mate, you have Google too. If you want to correct me on my figures go ahead.
The sale price on older games are lower but the margins are vastly higher since they no longer have overheads or R&D costs. Profit is profit. Slow selling is better than no selling. It is not my contention that fast selling isn't good, it is my contention that fast selling is all that console games do. That their games have a comparatively poor shelf life. So in your example of Half life, it didn't just fly off the shelfs and sell millions in the first year, it went on to sell millions more over the next 8 years too. Kept alive by the modding community.
If we take WoW as our example, we can see that not only did it break sales records, and again for each expansion, it kept on selling for 5 years. Stayed in the charts. But this is only a small part of the games' revenue stream.
Not every game is COD 4. I know it's all about the "game charts" for you, but that really isn't the only way PC games make money.
COD 4 still makes money for the people who wrote Quake 2. Quake2 is now an advertising sponsoered browser game. It works on any machine and it still makes them money. Half of ID's income derives from the lisencing of their game engine. Online poker brings in more money than all the X 360 games combined. Woot COD4 sold 13 million copies in 3 months. Good for them, but that's not the only way to make money. Except if you make console games, in which case it pretty much is the only way to market.
Lots of games work on PC's. Lots of games work on all PC's Lots of new games work on all PC's. COD4 works on all PC's made in the last 10 years. you don't need a "gaming rig to play lots of PC games. Spore, Supreme Commander, Total War, Civilisation COD, Quake, Unreal, MS flight, they all work on anything. They even work on consoles. Loads and loads of games do. Even the high end games that are built for gaming rigs tend to be scaleable to work on non gaming rigs. If not, people just buy older games that will.
The PC gaming industry is not in strong decline, it is a long period of sustained growth. It grew by 18% last year. Roughly what it has grown every year since it's inception. There are very few industries int he world that grow this fast, very few that grow this fast for this long, and very few that grew at all in the midst of this historic global recession.
P.S. Valve sold more copies of Half Life 2 on PC than Infinity Ward sold copies of COD 4 on Xbox 360. If either of those games cracks the PC modding community, they will continue to get large after sales for many years to come.
Infintiy Ward also spent more on advertising. Millions more. I'm not knocking their business, it works fine. Very mediocre game though.
You can always port a console game to the PC. The PC also has all the hardware available to play them. The difference is whether the console make would want to open up the PC to their game. Most don't. As the Wii and XBox360 have become outdated they're sales are going to diminish further, and PC sales increase. The only exception console is the PS3 since its hardware was set so high its just starting its life cycle. Its happened with every console cycle.
MMOs outsell any console game. WoW has earned more revenue then all of Mario. MMOs are also usually excluded from chart numbers because their business model is hard to track. Most blockbuster games on consoles garner less revenue then 2nd rate mmos. When it comes to gameplay, PCs are now always first.
I doubt blizzard has made more off WoW then Nintendo has with Mario. Now counting games only...then yes. Counting everything else that could go with a IP then no.
Hold on Snow Leopard, imma let you finish, but Windows had one of the best operating systems of all time.
If the Powerball lottery was like Lotro, nobody would win for 2 years, and then everyone in Nebraska would win on the same day.
And then Nebraska would get nerfed.-pinkwood lotro fourms
AMD 4800 2.4ghz-3GB RAM 533mhz-EVGA 9500GT 512mb-320gb HD