Goodbye PC games, hello console and handheld games.

[aweigh]

Most of my friends won't bat an eyelash at spending $1000 dollars on buying all the current consoles and tons of games, controllers and peripherals, but the thought of actually buying a decent $250 video card that'll run a modern game just boggles their fucking mind and almost makes their head explode. They seem to think PC gaming is something from some alternate dimension that only millionaires dabble in because their 1GHz PC with 256MB of RAM can't play Far Cry (or some other hyped game).

Another reason for the OMG DEATH of PC gaming is of course, piracy, which is rampant. None of (few) PC gaming friends I have actually buy many games, and pirate everything. They almost always buy only the ones they want to play online, like BF2 or some MMORPG (which would also help explain why they sell so damn much, i.e. can't pirate them without difficulty). The good news on this front is that with StarForce 3.5 the pirates seem to have finally met their match, as both Splinter Cell 3 and King Kong were never pirated succesfully due to the uber protection. Unfortunately, StarForce 3.5 also fucks up your machine, and has caused many people who bought those two games endless problems and subsequent reformats.

As for cross-plataform development, I can only see that as beneficial for PC gaming. I don't see it as "omg dumbed down console ports!" but instead as simply MORE games for the PC which will attract console kids over to it when they see how much uber they are when run on a modern PC than on their PS2/whatever. The way I see it, more console ports doesn't necessarily have to mean LESS quality/indie games for the PC, as the people who make those games would make them regardless.

 

[GreenNight]

The good news on this front is that with StarForce 3.5 the pirates seem to have finally met their match, as both Splinter Cell 3 and King Kong were never pirated succesfully due to the uber protection. Unfortunately, StarForce 3.5 also fucks up your machine, and has caused many people who bought those two games endless problems and subsequent reformats.

I won't buy games with stupid protection programs, just like I don't buy music with DRM. Even having bought Civ IV I have downloaded the no-dvd crack because I have everything installed, I should need no DVD in the drive.

And I'm not the only one acting this way.

Make decent games, sell them at decent prices, set decent protections that don't make the consumer pass through innecesary hops and the product will sell. Create iterative and expensive shit, with protections destined to destroy your PC or DVD (this last means another sale) and sales will plummet even more.

But I'm a radical, don't listen to me.

 

[aweigh]

Yes, but the fact remains that StarForce was a good investment for Ubisoft. You should see the release-groups forums on places like the isonews or nforce.nl and you'd be able to tell just how many people "broke down" and bought Splinter Cell 3 because it was never cracked. There is no refuting that regargless if SC3 was an uber hit or not, it sold more because of its protection, and that's all that matters to Ubisoft. They don't care if StarForce royally fucks up your machine and you have to jump through hoops just to play a game you already bought (and there have even been reports of StarForces frying a DVD-ROM drive), because they already got your money. And the thing is, no matter how much shit StarForce made you go through just to play SC3, and no matter how many times you cursed Ubisoft for using such intrusive protection (which works), you'll STILL buy SC4 when it comes because most gamers are sheep and don't have any balls, and the idea of a boycott is foreign to us because hey, that new game is shiny and has particles and shit, I must haves it! And the cycle of abuse will continue...

 

[Kairal]

Console Piracy exists as well you know. I only know one person who actually buys all their Xbox games legally, everyone else pirates most of them.

I don;t want to sound like an idiot, but getting a PC that can run game is a fairly complicated business if (like me) you know absolutely nothing about it. Compare having to search around for a decent graphics card, upgrading the motherboard getting the correct drives, increasing your RAM etc. with walking to a shop coughing up a bit of money and then taking it home. It's much easier to get a console, they have far more games, the games are garantueed to run at max settings and every game on the console will run without any upgrades.

There is a fairly significant advantage to getting a console so it's no surprise that PC gaming is losing popularity. Computers are very expensive (particularly in Australia) even if your buying just a half-decent one. E.g. An Xbox 360 costs $650 dollars maybe an extra 50 for a memory card. Whereas a prebuilt standard computer will cost about a thousand (not shopping arund that is) and that's without even a gaming graphics card.

 

[Data4]

http://www.gamershell.com/articles/884.html

Old, yet still so damn relevant.

Couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, that piece has signature material.

-D4

 

[Levski 1912]

http://www.gamershell.com/articles/884.html

Old, yet still so damn relevant.

Couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, that piece has signature material.

-D4

Thank you, I'll be here all week, try the veal.

 

[bryce777]

Console Piracy exists as well you know. I only know one person who actually buys all their Xbox games legally, everyone else pirates most of them.

I don;t want to sound like an idiot, but getting a PC that can run game is a fairly complicated business if (like me) you know absolutely nothing about it. Compare having to search around for a decent graphics card, upgrading the motherboard getting the correct drives, increasing your RAM etc. with walking to a shop coughing up a bit of money and then taking it home. It's much easier to get a console, they have far more games, the games are garantueed to run at max settings and every game on the console will run without any upgrades.

There is a fairly significant advantage to getting a console so it's no surprise that PC gaming is losing popularity. Computers are very expensive (particularly in Australia) even if your buying just a half-decent one. E.g. An Xbox 360 costs $650 dollars maybe an extra 50 for a memory card. Whereas a prebuilt standard computer will cost about a thousand (not shopping arund that is) and that's without even a gaming graphics card.

One thing that really annoys me is the high requirements a lot of games have. If your machine is 6 months out of date, you're out of luck for a lot of these games, let alone as far as running on the highest settings go.

Having the high settings be high is good, but an average machine should also be able to play the game tolerably - witht he way directx works if you don't have a card that supports version x you are just skullfucked.

 

[DemonKing]

People have been singing the PCs are dead song for years now, but I don't buy it - PC software is evolving with Digital Distribution becoming more and more common. Helll - you know if EA is jumping on that bandwagon then it is pretty much mainstream.

The NPD figures don't include things like Half-Life 2 purchased via Steam, for example, which I imagine would certainly tick the sales numbers up a million units or so at a minimum. Remember that Nvidia and ATI rely on PC gamers to generate a lot of their income and they're not exactly showing any signs of abandoning the market, given that they're still updating their cards every 6 months or less.

I think the issue is not that PC gaming is dying, but rather that some genres, fondly remembered by a lot of us here, are heading that way. Adventure games and quality single-player CRPGs being most noteable.

Of course, it will only take one company to bring out a monster hit in one of these categories before we're flooded with them again.

 

[FrancoTAU]

I also keep hoping as the average age of gamers rises every year that this will increase the demand for... ya know... intelligent games. I think there's already a significant amount of 20-30 something year old gamers, but no one seems to be catering to them

 

[Seven]

Well, I do order almost everything I get online. i wonder how many other people do the same?

Mostly, it's because I hate compusa and they have an increasingly poor selection.

I would imagine pc gamers might buy online more often because they are probably more savvy in general and lots of consolers either don't have credit cards or else their parents buy them for them at walmart.

It's interesting that you mention this because I do the same thing as do most gamers that I know--In most cases (even with the cost of S&H) it's cheaper and I don't have to be seen going into a gaming store.

 

[Kairal]

Well I'm sure PC gamers import more owing to annoying zone restrictions on consoles. BTW does anyone know why they have zone restrictions?

 

[Drakron]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_lockout

Edit:

PS3 region free?... well fuck the Xbox 360 and hello those PS one and PS2 games never released in europe.

 

[Dhruin]

Taking out handheld sales figures is as stupid as taking out sales in foreign markets (which happens alot to try and "prove points"). It's all a piece of the pie.

It's not stupid when you are responding to "in 2005 console games market was approximately 7 times as large as PC games market" -- when it isn't -- and "console games will grow from about $6.23 bil to $8.3 bil", when they weren't $6.3B to start...or did that go over your head in your haste to prove a point?

Of course handhelds are part of the gaming pie but when talking about console vs PC sales, don't include consoles plus handhelds plus pork bellies plus whatever takes your fancy.

 

[FrancoTAU]

The point about handheld gaming is that is that there's probably not much a negative affect on your time spent playing on the PC or consoles if you happen to own/play a handheld while commuting or waiting around at a doctor's office. OTOH, if you're currently playing Xbox than that's directly at the expense of your PC gaming.

 

[SanguinePenguin]

I haven't had any troubleshooting problems since Morrowind. Nor have I ever spent more than three ours trying to install something since Wing Commander

Personally, I love both my consoles and my PC. I really don't see how anyone can lambast one or the other for being intellectually inferior. I mean take a look at all the PC fanboys bragging about building their PC and then wondering why they're encountering strange errors, not knowing they messed up a step. Too many attempt to do things involving PCs that they shouldn't because they don't completely understand what they're doing.

So much on the PC nowadays is just a bunch of vapid technical wizardry. Take a look at FEAR and Doom 3. Sure they look better than console stuff but they're devoid of heart and genuine emotion, not to mention they're boring pieces of crap. They're nothing compare to artistic greatness of the MGS series, the Rockstar games, Shadow the Colossus, Resident Evil 4, and Killer 7.

 

[obediah]

Of course handhelds are part of the gaming pie but when talking about console vs PC sales, don't include consoles plus handhelds plus pork bellies plus whatever takes your fancy.

Yeah, because portable gaming is as close to console gaming as pork futures. Come one, portables are little consoles with screens built it. The portable games are console games in at least spirit, and in growing numbers they are literally console games from previous generations. By analogy if I buy a game for my laptop, it doesn't count for PC sales?

Handhelds are made by console companies, and sold to console gamers. Handheld games come from console developers.

Now if your question was is living room gaming dieing? Or is mobile gaming the future? Then counting consoles and handhelds together would be bad.

For looking at trends in console vs pc gaming handhelds are an important component of the console side, just as games bought for laptops are for the PC side.

 

[HardCode]

I play cellphone games while taking a dump at work. Does that count?

 

[With Gusto]

It's not stupid

Yes it is.

... when you are responding to "in 2005 console games market was approximately 7 times as large as PC games market" -- when it isn't -- and "console games will grow from about $6.23 bil to $8.3 bil", when they weren't $6.3B to start...or did that go over your head in your haste to prove a point?

Of course handhelds are part of the gaming pie but when talking about console vs PC sales, don't include consoles plus handhelds plus pork bellies plus whatever takes your fancy.

Sorry, I wasn't aware that the meat industry was tied into gaming. I did hear rumors about Super Mario Ham Slicer a while back, but thought it was just a joke. Thanks for showing me the error of my ways.

In case you weren't aware, there are millions of handheld systems setting in homes across the world. They are essentially mini-consoles. They're also insanely popular, and I don't mean just to divert your time while setting in a doctor's office. Most people go out of their way to play handheld systems now much like they do for... get this... consoles! When I'm setting here bored I could either roam the post-nuclear wasteland of Fallout on my PC, play a match of Virtua Fighter on the PS2, or head online for a race in Mario Kart DS using my handheld Nintendo DS. Earlier this month I wanted to buy a new game, and I chose Mario Kart DS over Age of Empires III.

Now, are you telling me that handheld console systems shouldn't be included when talking about video game sales among consoles and PC's? Okay, if you want to play like that we should also disregard sales of games that were bought to be played on a laptop, a Mac, Linux, systems with 256 megs of RAM or less, systems with lower-end video cards, systems with Intel Celeron processors, sytems with.... yada yada yada


Anyways, I'm lost on what all this has to do with roleplaying games. Is someone saying that a larger console market is diminishing the roleplaying genre?

 

[Dhruin]

I didn't ask a question - I was pointing out that some of the conclusions were incorrect. There's crosstalk between every platform but I don't accept a handheld is exactly the same as an Xbox. A developer looking to develop a project for the Xbox 360 isn't operating in the space as the NDS or even PSP.

Oh - I have the handheld sales or I wouldn't have been able to subtract them from the console toal - but thanks for offering that background.

Edit: Try reading again - I didn't exclude handhelds from talk about video game sales - I excluded them in a direct comparison of console vs PC.

 

[With Gusto]

... and that's what I'm respectfully disagreeing with. To look at this as a console versus pc war (for whatever reason) you must take into account the handheld market, which is a significant part of the console market. They're increasingly become more and more related and integrated with each other (connections between the GBA and GameCube, future connections between the PSP and PS3... multi-platform developments such as Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicals on the GameCube will be coming to the DS, GTA: Liberty City Stories on the PSP will make its way to the PS2, King Kong and Tony Hawk on everything from the Xbox 360 to the PS2 to the DS... to name a few).

Handhelds are a significant part of the console market. If you're so well-versed in this matter that should be common knowledge. You can't just "cut them out".

 

[FrancoTAU]

Because owning a handheld console doesn't subtract from your Home Video Game time/purchaes!

I wouldn't want 6 new PC games for Christmas since i'd never have the time to play them. However, if i got 3 for the PC and 3 for a PSP i'd be thrilled. Now i have some shit to do during my trainride to work. OTOH, if i owned a XBox, a PC and a PSP my breakdown would still be that i'd want 3 PSP games and now only 2 PC games and 1 Xboxs. Why's that you say? Because at the end of the day i only have the time to play 3 games at home during the coming weeks. If i didn't have a PSP, guess what? I still wouldn't have a need for more than 3 "in home" games. No matter how many fucking PSP games i have, it still doesn't affect what the fuck i play at home. Understand?

 

[With Gusto]

I understand your situation, but apparently you don't understand that the majority of the fucking market doesn't act that way.

 

[Chefe]

Consoles suck.

 

[FrancoTAU]

I understand your situation, but apparently you don't understand that the majority of the fucking market doesn't act that way.

Okay, so how does it work? Your previous posts make no sense to what Dhurin or I are trying to say. You're trying to compare apples and oranges when we're trying to compare apples to apples. Sure, they're both fruit but that's where their similarities end.

 

[Dhruin]

... and that's what I'm respectfully disagreeing with. To look at this as a console versus pc war (for whatever reason) you must take into account the handheld market, which is a significant part of the console market. They're increasingly become more and more related and integrated with each other (connections between the GBA and GameCube, future connections between the PSP and PS3... multi-platform developments such as Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicals on the GameCube will be coming to the DS, GTA: Liberty City Stories on the PSP will make its way to the PS2, King Kong and Tony Hawk on everything from the Xbox 360 to the PS2 to the DS... to name a few).

Handhelds are a significant part of the console market. If you're so well-versed in this matter that should be common knowledge. You can't just "cut them out".

...and that's why your answers are respectfully wrong. I broadly agree with your comments here...but I'm not making a statement about gaming as a whole or even a perceived console vs PC war. I was specifically responding on Drain's original post and addressing some potentially misleading numbers - nothing more.