Looks really good. Really happy about this

I don't see consoles dying. They are extremely appealing to the (large) market segment that doesn't care *HOW* a piece of electronic equipment works, as long as it works. PC's, by contrast, are typically somewhere between intimidating and infuriating to that same market segment, attitudes which don't really lend themselves to using PC's for leisure activities.

You are not comparing apples to apples. Why look at number of PCs sold vs. number of consoles (your second article) when the entire argument is about sales of GAMES.

In the second article you link to for instance, while the body cites only 254,000 Xbox 360s sold, it also lists 296,000 copies of Call of Duty 4 for the 360 in the same period. Sure, there can be more PCs sold in February than consoles. That doesn't mean that PC is selling more GAMES.


Steam refuses to release its full sales numbers, so they have not been factored into industry statistics. 15 million USERS isn't 15 million SALES, and 15 million sales over a year is not that many.

Compare like things. For all of 2007, PC games sales from retail dropped from $970 million to $910 million... and barely registered in the over $18 BILLION dollar industry that is video games. See:
WWW Link

and
WWW Link


PCs DID manage a huge (sarcasm) 14% of total revenue generated by video games last year:
WWW Link

but almost 1/3 of that was just World of Warcraft.


The amount of money flowing into the games industry is rising. But the amount of profit generated by PC game companies (aside from a few success stories) is falling, especially profit from the big titles aimed at hardcore gamer types.


Ben Cousins, senior producer of Battlefield Heros was quoted last month as saying:


BUT are there hundreds of millions of high-end hard core gamer PCs??

NOOOOOOO!

It is hard to get exact statistics on the numbers of hardcore game computers because everyone has a different set of numbers and standards they use to define such things. But you can use Frogboy's approach and just look at the sales of video cards:


There is a bright future for PC games. Just not for what the current PC developer is making now - games catered for the very small number of hardcore gamers with "gaming rigs". Producing big budget games for these people has led to an economic death spiral of many PC game developers, which is one reason why the industry is consolidating, as a few big companies control buying up most of the smaller developers.

I've been following the industry side of this for years, and my interest is professional, I'm not being a fanboy of consoles. I'm concerned about my investments in PC entertainment and where the money comes from for that market in the future. I'm very, VERY concerned about the profits of 90% of the PC game developers out there. How long does it take to make a game? How many millions must be invested up front? What is the real return on that investment going to be?

Overall, its becoming more and more clear that the PC game industry needs to move away from catering to hardcore gamers if it wants to survive economically. That is just the business reality.

There is hope. Blizzard does well. Stardock does well. There are smart people in the industry that are begining to realize that business as usual leads to layoffs and closed doors. PC gamers might not want to hear that. But saying that steam has a bunch of users doesn't mean that PC gaming is healthy, or that most PC developers are turning a profit.

~ Wyndstar

LOL. And George Bush thinks the US doesn't torture and is winning in Iraq. The capacity for self deception cannot be underestimated. As an old time PC gamer I really wish you were right. The console market (and I do some gaming on the PS3, though it is primarily used as a Blue-ray player) is killing the PC market. And economic numbers may be the least of it; the console influence is also having a great negative impact on the quality of the games that do get published. Aside from some niche games like GC2 and and low selling indie projects, the bulk of the PC games (and almost all the high profile titles) are shooters and RTS (of course, some of these are quite good--Bioshock was teriffic). But my favorite genres--traditional RPGs and TBS--are almost extinct. Yes, so-called RPGs exist, but they are mainly Diablo action clones with some minimal RPG flavor. Would an old-time fan of Ultima, Wizardry, or M&M recognize Dungeon Siege or Titan Quest as RPGs? Even Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls series has evolved from a traditional RPG to a console-centric action game with some RPG trappings. (BTW, I am very apprehensive as to what they will do to the venerable Fallout series in their upcoming Fallout 3--probably great graphics, a boring Oblivion-like story, and a lot of button mashing). Even Firaxis is about to release a dumbed down version of Civilization for the consoles. Though I have my doubts that the console crowd wants their minds taxed even with Civ-lite, should it be successful--and bring in a lot more money than the PC Civ games--how do you think Firaxis is going to apportion its development resources in the the future? Yes there are some exceptions to the rule--a good example, obviously, is the surprising success SOASE. Although it is not as 4X oriented as SD might lead you to beleieve, it is still a pretty good game and head and shoulders above the standard RTS. However, despite some successes like sins, the PC game market is inexorably deteriorating.

The sims just topped 100 million sales which is the second largest of any franchise (right after mario).

Those who talk about the death of pc gaming are usually referring to RPGs or FPS. I don't think there is a single person who believes MMOs, RTS or simulation games are for consoles. Do you believe starcraft, sins of a solar empire, Dawn of War, etc would be put onto a console in a reasonable fashion? I can point to other games which are more simulations such as flight simulators. How about those that aren't really RTS, but are realtime wargames such as harpoon? Then we have games such as X-com or Combat mission. PC games favor a higher learning curve and more dedication than console games. It is their strength and their weakness. I think we can also point to flash games as counting as pc gaming. Graphics don't make a good game they only get you past the first 20-30 minutes before you care about game play and storyline.

That said is consoles now have usb, hard drives and network connectivity. For all intents and purposes they could be used as PCs (linux running on playstations for example).

OK Folks once and for all….. I am 51 years young been playing games on the PC since before Doom – I Own more than 1400 software titles. Look at it like it is: PC’s run most of our world – BUT consoles have been around for as long as we have had computers – back then we called them ‘dumb terminals’ – nothing but a controller and a screen. PC’s do many things and PC’s outsell all consoles combined.  

Its a nutty debate perpetuated by a race to throw out the next useless statistic. There will always be "consoles", there will always be "PC's". In twenty years time there will be "??". Who the hell cares.

Marketers always work from the age old principle "The best idea in the world is the one the other guy Thinks they thought of first". As this Planet is full of lemmings who dont think for themselves, its a marketing Heaven.

If you like the game, play it, if you dont, then dont. If a viewing platform is garbage it will die. If its a great viewing platform, it will move onwards and upwards. End of story, who cares what a game is on.

Thank God for the Stardock's of this world who set a long term strategic objective and stick with it, instead of following the herd every time. I want consistency and quality in games, I could care less about being seen to be using the latest and greatest. Life's too short ....

Regards
Zy