Slashdot Mirror
Console Games Sales Beat Out PC
ttol writes "In the Star Tribune, they write that "PC games fell 6.2 percent through the first 10 months of this year, making the first such decline ever." They go on to say that consoles will break record sales this year, and that there is a shift towards console gaming from PC. Is this due to the fact that there are now three major contenders (XBox, Playstation 2, Game Cube) and all the advanced features they offer (DVD ability on the first two etc)? I, for one, will continue with my Battlefield 1942 on my PC."
Perhaps everyone's just switching to Linux and playing games on their console?
Given that a console costs a fair bit less than even the most basic PC, and is lot easier to look after (no BSOD or GPF on a console - yet), this should be filed under 'no-brainer'...
-MT.
Console gaming is more consistant, easier to "get in the game" and now online.
A console (depending on which) will run you $150 - $200. 1/2 the price of the hottest PC video cards alone. There is no installing, no tweaking, put in the game and go. You simply cannot beat a console for ease of use. Not to say anything is wrong with PC gaming but Mom and Dad arent going to buy thier kid a $2000 PC when they can pick up a GameCube with Metroid for under $200, and it still looks *damned* good. When all ya need to worry about is 640*480 and identical hardware, life is much easier on the developer as well.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
It is dead obvious why this is happening. PC games debut at some ridiculously high price, before tanking down to 20 bucks or lower. No one wants to pay the high price, and most people wait until it is cheap(er). The price of new console games on the other hand is artificially inflated over the life of the game. Retailers risk the wrath of Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft if they dump the price too low. Everything else in the story is mostly anecdotal.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Yeah... I don't know about any of you, but it really, really has been my experience that games on the consoles are far mor polished than their PC bretheren. For instance, Metroid Prime -- it really is a polished game. If any PC game manufacturers are listening, I look at this polish and completeness the first time I boot a game up. It is a nice feeling when Retro Studios/Nintendo think about almost every possible thing and implement it in the case of Metroid Prime. In contrast, take Unreal Tournament 2003 -- I found it rather ... blah, for a lack of a better word. I found UT's original interface far more original and understandable. The original's gameplay was also simpler and somehow more fun.
Anyway, my point is, I feel that console games on the whole go through the wringer far longer than PC games do (granted they are a closed platform and suffer less variability in hardware).
or anything, but could this have anything to do with the growing popularity of peer to peer programs and broadband? Its becoming a lot easier for people to pirate games than it used to be. Also, its more worthwhile to pirate a game in this way, for example if I was pirating a movie, it might take a couple days to download, and its over in a couple hours, but if you pirate a game in this way it lasts a lot longer. Just my 2 cents.
More parents should buy their brats consoles.
Then I wouldn't have to deal with the "little Johnny was just playing this game, and he's so good with computers, but now my computer doesn't go..." calls.
Honestly, what is the attraction for gaming on a PC?
A few years ago, I might have sympathised, but now consoles can do it all! Hmmm...maybe I don't understand, not being a gamer and all...
Prisoner #655321
personally i believe its because console have been more in the public eye as a valid way to spend your entertainment time. the masses tend to like simple direct appliances. hence you get tivo lovers and the linux crew(me!) who make their own linux for that added customizability. pc gaming also tends to have a much more Addict/crazies(online game, EQ,QUake etc) view in the mass media play that attituede compared to its just a bit of fun on the console side(mario, EA sports games, GTA is an exception) so for mom and dad deciding its kinda easy, do i want an evercrack addict, or should i just keep the keys to the fammily car/gun locked up and buy a console //dad will alaso play porno manga dvds on his xbox //because he finds kazzaa too intimidating
It's not very strange that sales are shifting more and more towards console games, many games are released several months earlier for consoles, and PC gamers have to wait. No wonder people who want to play the latest games buy the console version instead.
sj 3
$!
What's the appeal of gaming on a PC? Patches. If you don't understand why I say that, then just take a look at PC Morrowind vs XBox Morrowind. Both were buggy, and while the PC version is patchable, the XBox version is not . . . Granted, console titles are still less buggy on average, but console games ARE getting buggier than they were in past years. The more complex the program, the more bugs you get. Also, PC games can support a large mod community whereas consoles really haven't caught up in that arena.
The only thing stopping me switching to console is
/can/ support a mouse and keyboard,
those horrid little thumb-wrecking controllers.
I know the newer consoles
but until it's fully integrated with games, I'll stick with my
PC thank you very much.
On the other hand, legal PC gaming requires giving a small fortune
to Microsoft and still having an unreliable flaky platform so
I'm not surprised fewer people are doing it.
- MugginsM
I am too spoiled by 1600x1200 displays. There's no way I could go back to playing games on a crappy 640x400 TV screen. Yuck. Could you imagine playing Neverwinter Nights on a freaking TV? Console games are low-class crap for Bubba Joe. I puke when I see the shitty graphics on a TV. Even HDTV isn't the same.
With the price of a decent video card being about 50% of a full fledged console... I can see why this is the case..
And now with all the internet capabilities (Xbox Live, PS2 online) It just seems inevitable.
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
and I'm a PC gamer...well, I used to be.
http://drunkgamers.com/switch0001.shtml
Although I'll admit that cost, ease of use, and superiority of games are the main reasons for the trend (like most poeple are saying), I did notice another factor that hasn't been mentioned here or in the article. If you and some friends just want to sit down (in the same room) and play a multiplayer game, do you really have a choice? How many PC games do you know of that allow more than one player on a single system at once? The consoles have that market cornered. People like playing games against their friends, and they especially like it when they can do so just sitting next to eachother on the couch.
Online multiplayer is really a different animal altogether. It will only supplement social console gaming, not replace it. Even once the consoles of the future are seemlessly online, the "controller #2" will still get a LOT of use.
All story links point to the google cache. See Merkac Dot for the full slashdot summary
"In the Star Tribune [G], they write that "PC games fell 6.2 percent through the first 10 months of this year, making the first such decline ever." They go on to say that consoles will break record sales this year, and that there is a shift towards console gaming from PC. Is this due to the fact that there are now three major contenders (XBox, Playstation 2, Game Cube) and all the advanced features they offer (DVD ability on the first two etc)? I, for one, will continue with my Battlefield 1942 on my PC."
Mirrored Link: Star Tribune
Console games are winning the sales race with PC games news freetime - travel - homezone - cars - shopping - workavenue - communities metro / region - nation / world - politics - business - sports - variety - opinion - fun & games - talk index ap business news ap finanzas technology business calendar business forum company earnings reports company press releases consumer news data bank everybody's business photos business projects 2002: economic forecast due diligence: corporations and accounting practices mall of america 10th anniversary mn tobacco settlement star tribune 100 executive compensation executive compensation --> top 25 grantmakers nonprofit 100 banking on women venture capital --> archivestories photo reprints projects contact us corrections feedback Console games are winning the sales race with PC games Steve AlexanderStar Tribune Published Dec. 11, 2002GAME11
There is a war being fought for the hearts of consumers who love games. On one side is the venerable PC, on the other side the video-game console.
The consoles are winning.
The NPD Group of Port Washington, N.Y., is expected to announce today that unit sales of PC games fell 6.2 percent through the first 10 months of this year, marking the first such decline ever.
Meanwhile, NPD projects that console video-game sales will break all sales records this year, with hardware and software sales totaling more than $10 billion, up from $9.4 billion in 2001. Of that, about $5 billion represents video-game sales. PC game sales are projected to reach only $1.4 billion, or flat with 2001, said Steve Koenig, an analyst at NPD's PC software tracking division.
"The shift to buying video games is definitely the main reason behind flagging sales of PC games," Koenig said.
Game consoles now rival PCs in the quality of game play, graphics and sound, and recently have entered online gaming, formerly available only on PCs, he said.
Consumers whose primary interest is gaming can more economically buy a $150 Nintendo GameCube or a $200 Microsoft Xbox or Sony PlayStation 2 than a PC, which costs a minimum of $500 and typically is closer to $1,000.
Video games also have benefited from the growth in the game-playing population, which is due to the aging crowd of players who cut their teeth on PC games, before the advent of improved console machines, such as Sony's first PlayStation.
Studies have shown that people of all ages play some computer games, but the bulk of the audience for both video games and PC games now is 34 and younger, said Richard Ow, another NPD analyst.
Advertising
The shift to video games has been evident in TV advertising this season. Two of the most-advertised titles -- "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell," about a stealthy spy, and "007 Nightfire," about the glitzy adventures of James Bond -- have been advertised for use on a console, not a PC.
The shift to the video-game console as the chief game-playing machine began with the fall 2000 introduction of the Sony PlayStation 2 and accelerated last fall with the availability of the Microsoft Xbox, Koenig said. Until the introduction of the PlayStation 2, PC games always were a little more sophisticated and capable, while console games generally were regarded as being for younger children, he said.
"PlayStation 2 changed things, likely forever. It began a shift over to the console form of gaming," Koenig said. "For game players, there may be some surprise that this has happened so quickly. I think maybe they expected it over a three-to four-year period."
Game developers appear to have seen the trend coming. From January through October this year, they produced 9.6 percent fewer new PC titles than they did a year ago, or 750 titles in 2002 vs. 830 in 2001, Koenig said.
"The game-console market is very hot, and so marketers of gaming software are putting their development dollars into that," he said.
Revenue from PC game sales are projected to remain virtually flat for the full year, despite the unit sales decline, because prices have increased. Some top-selling PC games sell for more than $50, a price once viewed as impregnable, according to NPD, which produces widely followed market research that is based on actual retail sales.
Consumers won't see the apparent decline of the PC game reflected at their local electronics store yet. And in the short term, the greatest impact will be felt by the console makers -- Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.
"The real winners are the console companies, because they will be getting more and more licensing fees," Koenig said. Game developers pay licensing fees to the game-console makers for the rights to produce games for a particular console. There are no comparable fees for developing PC games, he said.
PC games still here
But no one is predicting the demise of PC game-playing just yet. Koenig believes PCs are likely to hold on to their core audience of sophisticated game enthusiasts and are likely to continue their lead in online gaming because PCs are more suited to it. Meanwhile, the broader audience is likely to continue to migrate toward the video-game consoles.
"There is a generally held belief that PC games will continue to be under sales pressure from console games in 2003 and likely beyond," Koenig said. "It is painfully evident that PC developers will have to do something to attract game buyers to the PC."
Failure to do so could have a sweeping effect, Koenig said. Games long have been one of the reasons people upgraded to newer PCs, because the games often required faster chips, add-on memory, disk drives and graphics boards in order to function properly. But the absence of such reasons for consumers to upgrade their PCs could be bad news for an industry already hit by slack sales. Consumers already have found that older PCs handle most other computing tasks as well as newer, faster models.
But the future of PCs as game machines is clouded by uncertainty over what next-generation game consoles may look like, Koenig said. He believes consoles may begin to resemble PCs that are in the living room instead of in a home office.
While today's PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles can play games, DVD movies and audio CDs, future consoles also may incorporate TV accessories, such as DVD recorders and personal video recorders, which seek out and record programs by automatically browsing TV listings, he said.
"The Xbox already is half a step toward being a PC in the living room," Koenig said. "The next-generation game consoles might look more like PCs and are likely to offer a great deal of utility."
-- Steve Alexander is at alex@startribune.com.
Return to top Copyright 2002 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. Utilities Email this storyPrint this story Search News Classifieds Advertising Web More search options
Cool, but useless.
Over the last year I have seen more and more companies marketing their PC games to console gamers and producing more and more mindless console-like affairs. They've stopped trying to sell PC games to PC gamers.
The only platform worth developing for, if you write a computer game, is Microsoft Windows. The only API considered worth using is DirectX. I try to avoid running Windows if I can, and DirectX is a horrid, horrid API. Factor in irresponsible coding of drivers that lead to crashes, and irresponsible coding of the game itself (called the let's ship it now and release a patch syndrome), and you have a recipe for disaster. There are just too many variables to manage, too many things that can go wrong.
Oh, and last I checked, PC's don't have Rez.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
The videogame industry is on the cusp of widespread acceptance. In a hardware generation or two consoles might be seen as being just as indispensable as a TV. On the other hand, PCs and PC games are only growing in complexity, and it seems that they will be relegated to the hardcore segment only. This is not necessarily a bad thing; developers can make the big bucks off a multi-console release, but can realize their pet projects for the "advanced" PC audience. Face it, you're not going to see Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" at the local multiplex because the mass appeal just isn't there. Likewise, most people won't find the PC game Arx Fatalis under their trees this Christmas for the same reason. That's not to say that their won't be megahits on PC anymore, just look at any Blizzard game. It's the same with movies; arthouse can cross over to mainstream: think "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
The videogame industry is going through some serious growing pains with the fracturing console market and the lower PC game sales, but it'll come out stronger and more focused at the end of it, and it will have mass appeal equivalent to the movie industry. IMHO ;-)
Massive Amounts of Pornography Found on the Internet!
Seriously, console games have always sold better than PC games. Where does this article get off stating things like "the shift to video games." When exactly did this shift take place? 10? 15 years ago?
let's see... with consoles, companies don't have to worry about piracy, and they get to develop for 1 hardware platform instead of the 1000's of different combinations of pc hardware. seems obvious to me, that eventually, most games will be developed for a console system.
And with more innovation/competition in the console market, this cycle will only continue. It's too bad if you're a big PC gamer, but you'll just be getting a taste of what Mac users have dealt with for quite some time now.
According to IGN, the main thing driving PC game sales of late is expansion packs and sequels. We'll see how long that lasts.
In 1996, I bough the Nintendo 64 console and a PC (133 MHz or so).
In 2002, I still play Nintendo 64. Guess where's my 133 MHz PC?
Console games cost about 20 - 30 more (where I live at least) than their PC version. Depending on gaming habits, playing with a PC will pay back the cost of the OS. And you don't need a separate remote controller, costing nearly as much as a console game, to play DVD videos...
If you're going to buy XBox for your console gaming, you're not going to get nowhere from that flaky platform -- I've seen crashed XBoxes on stores so often I'm certain they doesn't use a recent stable Windows release. Never seen PS2 or GC unoperational.
I'm keeping the name to myself because I don't want to get fired, but trust me.. we're a major national player.
We support several platforms in our store... PS2, PS, X-Box, Game Cube, PC, GameBoy Advance/Color, N64, and Dreamcast. Our slowest moving platform out of them all is definatly the PC. The only PC stuff that moves are MMORPGs and The Sims. Sports titles on the PC are dead. We shrank our shelf-space for PC titles to make room for the other platforms. No one is buying PC hardware from us ( video cards, sound cards, network cards, joysticks ). None of it is moving this Christmas.
Meanwhile, all the consoles are hopping. You see... everyone's tried of all the problems you get playing PC games: Graphics too slow, Windows full of bugs, hard drive full, downloading patches, need a frickin network for multiplayer, etc. It's bullshit.
OR, you can shell out $200 and get a nice console w/ DVD functionality. Open tray, insert game, close tray, and that's it! You're off and playing. Games are no more expensive. They're bug-free compared to PC games. Want multiplayer? Buy a second gamepad.
PC games are collecting social security... and picking out thier casket and plot. They're not DEAD, but they are dying fast.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
When you start having even games and sequels derived from PC games coming out (at least at first) only on console, of course things are going to drop.
FFX hasn't come out on PC, not sure it will (but hoping).
Starcraft ghost, derived from Starcraft, is coming out on console
I mean, come on people. If something is going to come out on, let's say, X-box, how hard can it be to port to PC? X-box is basically a mini almost-PC anyways, so I'm sure that it wouldn't be a huge chore.
Of course, FFX is one PS2... but I still want it on PC. Too many gaming companies are jumping the console bandwagon and leaving loyal PC fans in the dust.
If memory serves me correctly, someone had designed a bootable Linux CDROM with a live filesystem. Was posted on Slashdot. Didn't require an actual install, and several commented that this would be a great way for both a fearless test-drive of Linux and a to deploy games. Can't remember what it was called, though, and I don't think it was Knoppix...
Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid. --John Wayne
Anyone else notice the same game being made for gamecube, xbox, ps2, and pc? All being released simulatenously or very closs together? Well if this is the case then the PC is outgunned 3 systems to 1. Right now console's graphics power is beginning to be eclipsed by PC's power. PC games will peak up after Doom3 and games based off that engine and other "NextGen" engines come out.
I remember my first and last console, the Atari 2600 and its great (well, compared to the Apple ][ potentiameter joysticks) joystick.
The consoles I've played (PS2, mainly) suffer from what I'd call awful controllers. They're hard to control from a reaction standpoint. Their size and awkwardness is compounded by the games' reliance on a lot of other, small buttons that are hard to press while still controlling motion *and* actually holding the controller.
A true joystick can provide 3 axis of movement and allow you to hold onto the controller, freeing a hand to operate other buttons without conflicting with basic movement or controller handling.
Obviously based on sales alone, this isn't a major stumbling block for other people, but I know I'd like a PS2 a whole lot more if there was a controller I could wrap my hands around.
When you play a console game, you're sitting back on your couch, beanbag, what have you, probably several feet away from the TV set. PC games have you hunched over a keyboard, your face a few inches away from the monitor.
With console gaming, you seldom have to worry about the game crashing, your save game information getting corrupted, hardware/software conflicts or lagging frame rates.
Obviously console systems are easier to set up as well.
Some types of games do play better on PCs. First person shooters for one, though the GameCube and X-Box both have controllers pretty well suited to FPS style games, so that is becoming less of an issue. Strategy and hardcore RPGs tend to play better on the PC, but for other genres, like platformers and adventure games... well, do these type of games even exist for the PC?
Online... though X-Box Live is looking pretty good, it's only for broadband users, and PC gaming is far more mature. Still, this was one thing that older consoles were lacking, but no more.
Obviously, price is another factor. Though PC games do tend to be less expensive, the best selling games tend to be a bit slow to drop in price, if they ever do, and the hardware needed to play many PC games effectively is prohibitively expensive... mainstream users won't even be sure if their computers are powerful enough to run most games. A lot of people are generally happy with their computer for what they use them for, so they're not going to drop another $1000-2000 on a computer as a gaming rig, or crack open the PC case and try to install upgrades in most cases.
Another thing is that in-person multiplayer is a lot better supported by console systems. There's no fuss in having a few friends over to play a few bouts of Super Smash Brothers Melee or Mortal Kombat. Only the most serious gamers and geeks will make the effort to throw a LAN party.
Plus... it just seems like this year, there have been more quality games released for the consoles than the PC.
I bought a GameCube for all of these reasons... there are a lot of great GameCube and PS2 games that you won't ever see on a PC, and even if you did, they wouldn't be as fun unless you could find a working controller adapter (damn Kiki-Joy). I probably wouldn't buy an X-Box though, because its main selling points: cutting edge graphics, good online capability and many of its better games, are still overshadowed by the capabilities of the $1200ish PC I built myself about a year ago.
I'm definitely still going to game on my PC. For me, it just isn't an "either-or" choice. Though these days, most of my time playing is either console games, or online persistent worlds, like EverQuest and GemStone III. It would be interesting to see what the revenue generated by console and PC gaming were like, considering subscription based services MMORPGs and services like X-Box Live.
when bzflag is offered on PS2
What does this mean for the future of PC development? The demand for high end hardware has been driven largely by gamers.. if they switch to the console will that mean less demand for improved equipment and slower advancement in hardware tech?
Oooo, three major contendors. That's so very different from the last generation of consoles, when it was only Sony, Sega, and Nintendo...
As for advanced features, there are some extremely cheap DVD players on the market that sell for little more than the consoles' DVD remotes.
As for the reasons... consoles are cheap, they don't come with the endless hassles of PCs, and many more people run BSD/Linux/OS X and can no longer play Windows games on their computers.
As for why the change is happening now, who knows? Perhaps recently a new demographic that prefers consoles has been pushed into the gaming market.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It's just so much easier to play multiplayer games at someone's house that way.
Yeah, you can play mutliplayer over networks and the internet, but it's just not the same as sitting down with some friends in the same room and playing a game. How many PC games can let you all sit down at the same system and play the same game at the same time? Not many.
Yeah, there are more reasons for consoles doing well, but from what I can see, other people have brought them up.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
The advantages of console are obvious: cheaper hardware, quick to boot (no need to deal with OS menu selection, icons, etc), easy to take with you.
However, I will stick with a PC. Few of the reasons:
* Power - you simply cannot get more power on a console. The new GeForce FX will come out and allow us PC users to boost the power of our games instantly. Combine this with nVidia's Cg when it becomes used more and the difference will be noticeable in old and new games alike
* Control - I can do many things with games not possible on a consol (or not easily). Example - server, game stats, modding, program - customization. Consoles are made to work and not be touched.
* Input devices - PC's have the mouse. Console pads can work on a PC too. But the mouse is simply the best input device for games like Quake, Halflife, etc. I could not use a console stick and still get as many frags. Even if you can get the mouse for the console, the games are designed with the gamepad in mind. PC games are designed with the mouse and keyboard in mind. Much more control.
Let me know if I missed anything.
I have been playing video games nearly all of my life. I started out on consoles with Pitfall and Battle on the Atari 2600 and on PCs playing Radar Rat Race and Jupiter Lander on my Vic 20.
It's come a long way, but really, when I look at it, it hasn't changed all that much. The big problem out there isn't what hardware is superior. That point is moot, since there are so many other factors. Yes, the X-Box is faster than all others, but still dwarfed by a PC. All three systems aren't at the cutting edge, but they were never meant to be.
The difference is in the games available, and what it's running on. Even an X-Box, with it's standard hardware and Lite Win2k will run games better than an optimized Linux Box or WindowsXP Machine. Because that's what it's made to do, and that's all it's made to do. A truck pulls stuff better than a car with a big engine, because trucks are built with that utility in mind, and the entire thing is engineered towards that end (General ommission for anything with "Sport" in the name).
I probably have bought as many Console Games in the last 6 months as I have PC games. Every single one of those Console games got more playing time than the PC games. Even the great gems on the PC, Unreal 2k3 and Neverwinter Nights, got less playing time than Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I still play it.
What this is about is content, and more than that, convenience. For my PS2, I stick in a disc and I'm on my way to playing. I don't have to worry about installing, configuring, patching and loading on my GameCube. I pop in the little disc and Super Smash Bros. Melee is on the way. And the whole thing of patching isn't confined to just Windows PCs, it's on all PCs. I spent more time configuring and installing video drivers so I could play GLTron in Red Hat than I ever have trying to make a game to work on anything else.
I've had more games on consoles that just dominated my life than I ever did on a PC. Though some, like Doom2 and Quake, came close. There's also something nice about that little piece of hardware that I just have to hook up into my TV and plug in. I know it will be there for me for a while.
I know of two computer games I'm planning on buying in the next six months (Sim City 4, SW Galaxies), and about 5 console games (Metroid, Rygar, etc.) that I plan to purchase in the next couple of months. If I have a choice between console and PC on the game, 9 out of 10 it will go console, even if the graphics are better elsewhere (GTA3 for example).
Price has never really been a concern in the mix, since when you look at it, the only way to get games cheap is to buy them on sale. It's all about whats there. Computer games have been on the slide for a while, and the quality has been suffering. For every single great game we get, we get 5 Roller Coaster Clones, 3 Real Life Sims, and 10 Lame First Person Shooters. On a console, I had Metal Gear Solid 2, Tony Hawk 4... the list goes on a lot farther. I only get my $50 to spend once, so I've gotten a little more picky. I just happen to know where I usually get better play quality, and that's why the numbers have changed.
Yep, no great surprise, I've been running Angband on my console for more than a decade and never understood why it never took of... oh wait, you didn't mean the BSD's /dev/concole???
Ok then, I'll wait a few years till everyone runs BSD and lears to play on a real console.
Umm if any of you noticed, very recently PCs have become very popular. The problem is that people wanted bargain PCs, so they rush out and buy some $500 E-Machine and expect it to run everything they throw at it, never run out of space, never break, and run insanely fast. Well, that never happens, the comptuer runs 40% of the stuff you install, crashes every day, runs out of space in a week on morpheus (and broadband) and runs slower than dirt, and dirt's pretty slow! In comes the console, each console has standard hardware, whenever you buy a PS2 it's going to be like every other PS2 ever created (well there's extra stuff you can buy but the games run the same), any game you buy for that console will work and you ALWAYS get a decent framerate.
It also doesn't help that games have become way more advanced recently. I remember when I had a 50MHz 486 with 16 megs of ram (which was alot at the time), it wasn't fast, but it ran every game I installed on it (C&C Red Alert, Quake 2, Dark Forces, Journeyman Project, more that I can't remember). Now there are games like Doom 3 (which doesn't seem to work nicely on any hardware but it's just beta), B&W, UT 2003, all of them require a decent 3D card. Unfortunately the average computer today doesn't come with a decent 3D card, or in some cases enough RAM. So anyway, while alot of computers may have been bought recently, and alot of pretty good games have come out, people don't have the computers needed to run these games (or the money to buy one) so they get angry and go out to buy an xbox or a PS2 or whatever and 10 games for $700 (which is still cheaper than the PC required for most games to run smoothly.)
Barrier to entry.
People have mentioned Linux as a reason for PC game slumps? Are you serious? I would wager Linux's presence has no effect on PC game sales.
Speaking for myself, I prefer PC games hands down over consoles. However, if I had to buy a gift for a family member who likes games, I'd get a console. Consoles are cheaper and easy-to-use, as has been pointed out. The steps needed to play a console game out of the box vs. the PC equivalent are ridiculously simpler.
Plus, consoles are sitting-around-the-sofa-with-friends machines, wheras PC's are sitting-around-alone-in-your-underwear machines. Introducing the social element to a game (including sports) seems to always draw crowds. FPS's suck on console, but other genres are much better with a pad than with mouse and keyboard, like flight games, driving games, etc.
What console is online?
I have an alternative theory to the many proposed here: Microsoft. For their X-Box they took the best PC developers and turned them into console developers. As a result the PC platform gets less quality titles, and thus less sales.
...). Those days are long gone, and now they need those games to promote their XBox platform.
Microsoft only needed games on the Windows platform as long as they had competition from other types of personal computers (Amiga, Atari, Mac,
I think the feds are crosschecking quakecon registrations right now ;)
Because
a) Its just a console (minus the crap)
b) Its cheap and cheerful
c) Small Design
d) Its got old time enemies working together
e) Its purple
But I am not aware of any linux port to it. Has any one tried?
A few years ago I got a game called Creatures. Then Creatures 2 and Creatures 3. Played the game itself like a maniac for a few months. Then while playing C2 one creature I wanted was going to die because of genetic defects. Not sure why but I spent a month writing a plugin for the game that could monitor the game and optionally inject creatures to prevent them from dying. I also wrote a program to read the game's image files and draw the creatures from the game. Currently it's being used to put images of them in web sites. And all this information I needed was on the official site.
None of this would have been possible on a console of course. I've heard it's been ported to gameboy advance, but I never heard anybody talk about it much. It can't be the same thing. What I want in a game is first that it's good of course, and second that I can poke around when I get tired of the normal game.
If anybody is feeling curious, the latest version is available for free here, and there's a Linux version.
On the flip side, buy a computer (or components to make a PC), spend the afternoon (or day) putting it together, install OS, tweak OS, download drivers/bios updates, install game.... usually at this point there is a crash somewhere (BSOD or GPF), look for a patch to the game, look for the beta drivers that will let you play the game with your hardware.... and on and on and on.
You get the picture. I have to admit to having built a monster PC, but still playing games on my PS2. Sure the hardware on the PC is more suited to playing games, but it just is not worth the hassle of trying to get the games to run. I stated this in a letter to the editor of Maximum PC and got ripped for it.... but it is true....we are from the government - we are here to help...
I have never cared for console games, 90% of them seem to be of the twitch variety and sports. Every person I know with a console has it to play Football (American) and racing.
Neither of which do I care for.
If you want a detailed, hires RPG or FPS, the PC is still the best bet.
Another odd thing about consoles is the save feature in games... unlike the PC where you can save as often as you see fit, consoles make you reach a certain goal first. I know that this is a software preference, just pointing out another difference in culture between the two platforms.
The PC became so widespread and cheap because of its games. If consoles will prevail, one day we might find in computer shops nothing but consoles for play, sealed boxes for work, and licenses for buying the only available software software from "certified" application providers.
If somebody out there still cares about being able to program his/her own computer and to choose what software to install, please, buy something more open (PC, Mac, whatever) at any price.
To get to my games collection I had to take my PS2 to pieces and solder a daughterboard to it!
;)
I had to fiddle with the XBox just so I could read the DVD data across the LAN
these processes are not so simple
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
My first game was U5. On a PC. Soon after I started learning programming. For me it did *go* hand in hand. be creative and play.
If people by only console to their kids it will remain just that : A toy. PC have the enorm advantage that you can use them for some, anything, else.
My bet ? My generation had a lot of kido starting learning programming on PC. The next won't, Console will be widespread, and thus less and less kids will go for the IT industry.
And console don't make a kid/teen/young adult get acquinted to technology per see, as using a MW oven don't make you acquinted with Electromagnetic physic. Our Kids will be as "technology analphabete" as our aprents...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Consoles are cheap and easy PCs are more powerful but comes at expense fo you needing to know a little about them Console is obviously going to sell better its the exact same case with windows v linux linux is a better OS but windows is easyer to use (or at least is percieved to be) and thus sells better On one level i consider this a good thing if more of the mainstream gamers leave PC gaming they might take some of the shit made for mainstream games with them though of course theres the risk of them taking good games aswell also the argument that consoles have certain games earlier than PC is a pointless argument cause it goes the other way around aswell PCs have games consoles either dont get or get 6 months later
I agree completely - I love mucking around with games, modding them, creating maps, customizing etc. I have spent too much of the past four years playing Counter-Strike. As well as the advantages of a PC, there is also the fact that (correct me if I'm wrong) pretty much all innovation in the gaming industry have been courtesy of PC game designers. Actually come to think of it, Super Mario 64 (the 3D one), blew me away, but apart from that... and maybe Goldeneye on N64... ok, but still, most of the new ideas and intriguing (sp?) games immerge from the land of PC. Also (a touch off-topic, but related), it is a fact that pretty much all households that have a console will also have a pc. Why not place the money that you would spend on a console into upgrading your computer? I mean, a console has just the one function (games) and at most two (dvd and cds...) Whereas your computer can well, we all know what our pc's can do. (music, videos, games, publishing etc.)
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy
Of course if you want to buy something, turn it on and play few new games - console is probably better choice than PC. But which console give you so much possibilites (just in games!) as PC?
Here's why: On a console, I don't have to spend 3500 dollars on a PC to gain and advantage on the other players. All of the other players have the SAME hardware, and most of the time, the same controller. Oh sure you can buy a different controller then the stock one, but most I know stick with the one that came with it. Also, I don't have to worry about OS crashes, game crashes (usually), what res I need to run, what my network settings are......it's nuts. With a console, I push button, stick disk in and play. Period.
Gorkman
I don't care much for sports or racing. I also really like good graphics, and 3D simply is not up to par on that.
From what I've seen so far, none of these kinds of games seem to exist on any console; partly because the TV resolution is really limited. So does that mean that I'm stuck with the PC forever? Or are there any games that fit this profile on any of the major consoles?
I'd really like to switch. But right now, it looks like I can't.
So that leaves games as the sole reason to upgrade. To upgrade my PC to spec so that I can play most PC games these days I'll have to replace the motherboard, the CPU, the RAM, and the graphics card - that's almost everything that matters in a PC, quite costly! Or I can pass PC games by and buy brand new games for my 2-year old PlayStation, which will probably continue to serve well for some time to come.
Of course the PC does have some advantages: advanced input methods and more power, so if some absolute killer game that needed the juice came out I'd do the upgrade. Total Annihilation 2 anyone? :)
d'oh - you upgraded because it improved both games *and* work performance. Open foot insert mouth...
I like consoles as much as the next guy and the XBox itself shows a lot of promise when it comes to mixing traditional PC and arcade titles, but sticker shock is starting to get to me. I don't know if it's irked anybody else, but $50 for each and every brand new game is getting a little tedious. $50 for each and every game no matter what it is. It's a very disturbing trend IMO. Halo? Ok, no probs. $50 well spent. Whacked? There is no freaking way that title is worth $50, Live or no Live support. But it was, for the sole fact that it was new. And it's like that every game. PC games aren't like that. Would Worms Aramageddon for the PC, a signifigantly better title, have rated that much at launch? Never. I never saw the price above $40.
It's just a very disturbing trend in my eyes, one that brings home the fact and maks it super obvious that they're making all their money on the back end, not off hardware. It's enough to turn me into a late adopter and wait for the prices to hit more realistic levels, something I'm not used to. I mean, I realize early adoption comes at a price, but damn.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Console titles' sales have always been way ahead of PC titles. It often happens that a console title which got horrible reviews sells more than a PC title which has won the Interactive Academy award.
The interesting info in the article is about the decline in sales of PC titles through the 10 months of this year, as in that period many potential hits were released. If Warcraft 3, UT 2003 and countless Sims expansions didn't break the last year's sales, then maybe the industry IS in crisis.
Some times I can't help think of PC gaming as a kind of test bed for the rest of gaming.
We do seem to get most of the new tech first. First to get large scale on-line multiplayer. First to get pixle and vertex shading. Soon we'll even be the first to get a uniform lighting system in games (ALA Doom III)
As these techs become refined and developed enough to be widley accepted by the "main stream" then they move into the living room.
Until then, we PC gamers will continue to pay a premium to try out all these new techs first...
PC gaming will never die. The developers need to try out their new tricks on the pickiest of the pickey.... right? Us PC gamers are perfect for that! =)
I've always avoided buying a console as I prefer playing strategy games (XCom, Civ etc), my impression is that consoles tend to be better for 'action' games and PC's are better for strategy and simulations.
I play mostly military sims - IL2 Sturmovik, Operation Flashpoint and Ghost Recon (though it has a more cartoony feel than anything else). I have yet to see a serious combat game on any console, but I would like to. Halo was great fun because of the AI that fought with you, but I'd like to be able to control them. Of course you can't do that with a traditional console controller, or you could but it would take 15 seconds to tell a squad to go left or something. I don't know if there's a keyboard or similar accessory for XBox, but there should be one. Not standard (it would make it too much of a computer) - a 3rd party product would be fine. Playing games on a TV (even if it is only 27" - but high quality 27"!) is definitely better, and it *does* have a more social feel, if anything involving video games can.
Also the wide range of PC hardware can be an advantage for those games that scale to meet the hardware's capabilities. IL2 Sturmovik is a great example of this: you can turn the detail down on a low-end machine and play it smoothly, but if you have lots of memory and a fast CPU and video card, you can turn everything up and it'll look much better than any flight simulator on a console would 'cause the hardware is just better.
And I didn't even own a console untill 2001!
Probably about 6 years ago I was given a Matrox Mystique Video Card for christmas - the latest and greatest there was. It's magical stuff supported the three games that came with it (MechWarrior 2, and two others I can't remember), but nothing else that I could find / cared about.
Within 6 months it was already too slow for the latest junk that didn't support it's special chipset (which was every new game, the standard never caught on).
So I stopped playing games simply because I couldn't run them. Period.
Then about three years ago I finally had a job, and bought the latest and greatest video card, top of the line ATI-All-in-Wonder-Rage-128-PRO. Supported almost everything, so I looked into some of the latest game, but within I think three months a new breed of games came out, and it was again too slow. I had the Rage chipset, they needed the Rage2 chipset for optimal performance. Little did I know that I bought the Rage chipset on the ass-end of its existence
Thank God for consoles. I bought the PS2 summer of 2001 pretty much just for GT3, and it still runs just fine. No upgrades, no new chipset standards every few months.... Couldn't be happier. Games are fun again, and I never have to worry as to whether or not the hardware will drive the latest games.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
Consoles have that social advantage that PC's just don't have... 2 to 4 people or more can play against each other on the same screen - on the sofa with their feet on the coffee table no less - and talk smack about each others mothers all night long. You can't do that on the PC.
Even LAN parties seem dorkish and antisocial in comparison.
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There's not really much of a "war" per say going on between PC games and consoles. It's like saying that there's a war going on between fans of rap music and fans of rock music, it's two different audiences that even sometimes listen to both. It's not like anyone is going to stop producing rock music because (ugh) rap is more popular. Usually when a game enjoys large amounts of success on one platform they bring it over to the other one (ie. Final Fantasy 7 and Tony Hawk to PC, Ghost Recon to consoles)
PC games are geared towards a more intellegent, connected, hardcore gamer, focusing on genere's like RTSs, MMORPGs, and online shooters (many of which have adopted Counter-Strike's turn based system over "run and gun"). Could you picture Warcraft III having nearly as much success as it did on a PS2? America's Army? Ghost Recon? Neverwinter Nights? These games require a more mature, dedicated gamer, willing to invest large amounts of time into their video game addiction. Often times that is why the PC gaming experience is also so rewarding.
You have console gamers: dropped $150 on a cool new console, picked up GTA: Vice City or Madden 2002, they want to chill out for a night, not invest hours into creating a cool new scenario, role play as a dungeon master, devise real life military tactics only to wait 10 minutes to shoot maybe 1 person, or have a 2 hour game of Warcraft. They want to see Tommy Vercetti use swear words and shoot people.
It's a totally different market, geared towards different types gamers. The reason console games outsell PC games is simply because there's a lot more casual gamers out there. However, as long as there's always intellegent gamers out there, there will always be a market for intellegent games.
"In a Democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve." -Winston Churchill
... is that the PC market has not seen a Big, Bad and Ugly Game for years. PC market is very specific and sensible to certain specific games that demand a lot more than one can afford. Remember Doom? Remember the Quake series? Back when they came up, no console could ever hold up such beasts. And most PCs were quickly upgraded to fit the current game. The PC market highly depends on such bleeding edge games to live. Besides, these are games that frequently give birth to tweaks, features, hacks and lots of art. Doom is unbeatable till now by the number of ports, maps and features. Quake was the base for several popular games like Half-life series. Quake2 nearly reached the feat of becoming a basis for virtual worlds. Unfortunately, the market went down on Quake3 and Wolfenstein... They were not so breathtaking like their predecessors.
The only way to see the PC market reviving is to see another tide like those seen on Doom and Quake2 times. Something that is so wild and bleeding-edge, that people will forget for months what a console is, and return to frenzy upgrades and hacks. Frankly I have doubt that Doom3 would fit on such thing. But who knows?..
Consoles are selling more games because of the simple fact that copying console games is very difficult compared to PC games. That compared to the fact that people playing console games don't know how easy it is to log on to the internet and download the game.
One problem is that we have exactly had a flood of games that just make you go "Hot Damn Jim!" Yeah there have been some GREAT games this year, Neverwinter Nights, UT2003, so on so forth. Add to that the mentioned issue of there being 3 consoles. Then, there is everyone's fear of an economy that isn't doing great but isn't dying and slipping into a depression as you would think to listen to the news. Plus, PC hardware is kind of uncertain right now, what to buy as far as the best I mean. There are alot of factors playing into this.
Derek Greene
...because pretty much everybody I know (at least below 50) has got a PC of sorts. But I also know quite a few that want to "free up" the PC so they get a console for the kids to use with the TV instead. Or if they're the right kind, so that they can play games while the kids use the PC ;->. Not to mention people with a PC that still really really want a console only game.
What still doesn't go over well with me is the 640x480 resolution, it doesn't sound bad but I sure like running unreal in 1280x960. Now, if there were HDTVs, HDTV consoles and HDTV games, that would be a different story. But there aren't. And if there were, they'd probably be priced like a PC or more anyway.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
All in the favor of banning them, say "Hey"!
So here it is; We can finally kill some time on Linux:
1. Choose the console of your LIKING : Atari, NeoGeo, Xbox, PS1, PS2, N64, Gamecube and so on.
2. Without spending as single buck, go and download the Linux emulator for your console.
3. Get a linux-supported joystick and plug it into the back of your soundcard, and wait for another slashdot article on joystick support in linux, if you have trouble.
4. To play a game, goto the emulator's site and check if the game is supported, if not wait post a few suggestions and wait for 4 months.
5. If the game is supported, buy the game for 49 bucks anywhere, or download the ROM (illegal, mind you - NO COMMENTS)
TO FINALLY PLAY,
1. Start your emulator,
2. Put the CD into the drive
3. Open the ROM file or image.
THAT's IT.
I play PS1 games on linux pretty fine with a cool joystick and surround sound, in full screen at 1280x1024!
...Mars bars are more popular than Ginseng, and Microsoft have decided to start charging for software.
I'm confused - the article and many comments here seem to give the impression that the PC was king of the block, but this report shows that it's now starting to lose.
The PC has been losing to consoles for a long time. I'm talking years and years. Console game sales have beaten the hell out of PC games for a long time. Some of the most successful console games sell millions of copies - Games like Donkey Kong Country etc sold in excess of 5 million units world wide. A million selling console game is doing pretty well - a million selling PC game is extremely rare. Super Mario Bros 3 sold over 7 million copies in the US alone. Nintendo sole about 9 million copies of Mario 64, 7 million copies of GoldenEye, and about 6 million copies of Zelda 64. I can't think of many/any PC games that approach those sales levels. And remember those are N64 games, and the N64 did not do nearly as well as the Playstation. I remember reading that a million copies of Starcraft (for PC) had been sold in Korea alone, and that was a stunning figure for anyone involved in PC game development/distribution.
As for advertising, I've always thought that adverts for console games have always been much more dominant than those for PC, especially on TV/at the cinema - but maybe this is specific to the UK?
In short, what's the fuss? Console games have always been more profitable/better selling, and it's not like it's news. PC game sales have been declining significantly for at least two years - that's certainly the message developers get from publishers, who are increasingly looking for PS2 games above anything else.
2p.
Tim
Until they develop a controller that can replace the mouse, the console will never completely push the PC out of the market.
You can't get the aiming you get with a mouse, using a hand held controller. Not to mention that most mice come with two, three or even four buttons.
Add a keyboard to this mix and there is no way the console even rates close.
...is everyone has a computer and it is Good Enough. Also, having a console in a home frees up the computer for other people. Consoles work well with two or more people - computers are generally designed for a single person.
I think the single most important reason why console game do well is exactly the single most important reason why cellphones do well: They are easy to use. Switch it on, press a couple of buttons and off you go. No matter how much easier computers have become they are still very difficult to use when compared to gadgets.
I think both microsoft and sony will attempt to make their consoles more and more capable in that they will go online, do surfing, mail, messaging etc without the user having to wait eons for the programme to load. They might even start integrating stuff like office (XBOX version) eventually. If it still works like a gadget people will use it and like it.
Another factor in gaming is that there are extremely few really innovative games. Most follow well known genres because the publishers are afraid of taking risks.
I propose that at this point, if you buy a $1000 computer, That computer will run every program you need, and do absolutely everything we need computers to do, apart from playing games (ok, lets leave out video editing and 3d modelling, very small percentage of computer users actually do this kind of stuff). The extra money that you will spend to be able to play video games will more than cover the cost of the console. The price of a state of the art video card can swallow the price of a new console. And you have to upgrade your video card at about the same pace as your console anyway. With a couple improvements to the console, such as creating some type of control equivalent to keyboard and mouse. (I propose trackball and keypad(about 20 keys would do), no table required, major advantage to gaming at your TV), The consoles could provide all the thrill and none of the hassle of PC gaming. As for mods and patches, could be downloaded via highspeed, or direct dialup to a specific server, check for updates, and download automatically.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Im paying the ass raping equivilent of 79.99 USD (49.99 GBP!) for games over in the UK!
Prices in U.S. dollars are typically quoted before adding sales tax, which typically runs around 6 percent. Europe, on the other hand, often includes sales taxes in the quoted price of goods, and sales taxes can run as high as 20 percent (France) or higher. Thus, your game may actually cost 64 USD (40 GBP) before taxes. That sounds about right; Warcraft 3 cost 60 USD at Best Buy when I first saw it on the shelf.
(At least Blizzard didn't go completely greedy and pull a "Pokemon", making four separate editions of the game that each contain the single-player for only one race.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Mario World and all the other kiddie games
A significant fraction of people who have enough free time to spend a significant amount of time and money on video games are people who have not graduated from high school. Thus, kiddie games make money.
Even if you leave out the fact that most children can save up their allowance and afford a console but not a PC, most of the PC titles available nowadays are first-person shooters, real-time tactical sims, or massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Most FPS games are rated M for graphic violence; stores will card buyers, and many parents will shy away. Most RTS games require more concentration than the average elementary or middle school age player can handle; kids won't want them. Most MMORPG games are rated M for signing a contract and paying real money every month; kids can't buy them.
Oh man, the console games just blow the PC games away in terms of depth and playability...
If you intended this as sarcasm, then you probably haven't played many good console games. Have you played Super Mario Sunshine? But have you actually played it, or are you answering based on your preconceptions of what a "Mario" game is like? There's more depth in Sunshine than in some of the more mindless FPS games.
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I think the loss of computers that boot into BASIC
Line-numbered BASIC? Ecch. The overuse of GOTO constructs in programs for old 8-bit BASIC interpreters has been known to stunt the growth of a sense of structure in some programmers who started out on such a system. Luckily for me, I used Logo (Lisp without the parentheses and with a plotting library) before BASIC.
will lead to far fewer kids picking up programming for fun.
What about computers that boot into a terminal and have perl and gcc available?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I think PC game sales are declining because PC games lost their only redeeming quality -- better game play. Also, the problem is that with consoles, people were/are mesmerized by pretty graphics and PC game designers thought they had to have equal or better graphics than the consoles. Well, that meant that the overall quality of the game went down because they were focusing too much time and energy on the graphics instead of the game play. I have bought fewer games cumulative since I was a freshman in high school (class of '95) than I did any single year before I started high school. The reason -- the games just suck! I still play most the games I bought before then -- Ultima I-IV (never was a big fan of any of the ones after IV), Pirates!, the original Civilization (although I have bought most of the newer versions as well), and others like these that have focused more on forcing you to have good strategical and analytical skills, not good reflexes.
Then again, I may just be part of a dying breed of computer gamers.
Examples of Games that have been lost to consoles (or delayed because of them):
I do see a trend with people coming in the shop and buying games though, it is definately the more intellegent people buying PC games in general, as a result the market has tried to capitalise on this by releasing 'intellegent' (read sometimes boring) games for the PC, whereas your typical console owner goes for violence or motorsport, generally Wrestling or Driving games.
Manufacturers also alter games on different platforms, for example the new James Bond game, Nightfire was a multiplatform release, except the PC version misses out all the Driving levels, I happen to like driving games on the PC!
It isn't helped by the publishers and stores as well, they get far higher profit from a Console game (another £10-14) than they do from a PC game.
Manufacturers like the Console because it is an easily controllable market, once people have made an investment in the hardware everyone has to pay their prices for games, or they can't play it, there are barriers to entry into the console market, with expensive development kits being needed from Sony/Nintendo/Micro$oft before they are able to get started preventing easy, cheap game production.
Whenever people come into the store after a particular game and it's available on the PC I always try and sell the PC version because it's cheaper and for the mostpart better (better graphics, sound etc.) and if people definately want a console I try and steer them away from the XBOX (microsoft has made too much money and monopolised too many markets already!)
Also, Games Prices - People over in the US may complain about $29.99 per game, try £29.99, which is equal to around $44.98! (taking £1 = $1.50, I don't know the exact exchange rate) When are companies going to stop ripping the UK off!
Well, that's my general rant about the state of the UK games market over with.
The Honus should be on the OS manufacturers to make fairly consistent hardware (like macs) that could be garaunteed, then the game could just be booted from CD without worrying about the OS getting in the way (much like the XBOX does with embedded Win2k on each game)
Also, if you get offered a reward card in store and don't want to pay £2, I agree you shouldn't have to, but we get B**locked if we don't try and sell them, so please don't complain to us. Write an email to the head office and complain, also I wouldn't have one if I didn't work there, I don't like giving away marketing info to the company either, but seeing as they log employee sales anyway, I may as well have some points.
many games are released several months earlier for consoles, and PC gamers have to wait.
If the game is out on Game Boy Advance, and you can accept (or, like me, prefer) the 2D and limited 3D graphics that GBA games have, you can buy a GBA game, connect your GBA to your PC with an MBV2 cable, dump the cartridge, and enjoy it in VisualBoyAdvance.
Note: Just because I mentioned an emulator doesn't mean I'm advocating piracy. Rather, I'm advocating fair-use format-shifting as recognized by the US Supreme Court in Sony v. Universal and RIAA v. Diamond.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I prefer to play games on my PC rather than my Xbox or PS2. The reason being that the graphics are usually better and I like the keyboard/mouse combo. My real sticking point is that despite current sound cards being able to dump a Dolby Digital 5.1 stream and interpret a DD5.1 stream from a DVD. Most sound cards cannot encode DTS or DD5.1 in REAL TIME. I have to rely on 4 discrete analog channels instead of 6 positional speakers. When will Creative Labs get their act together?
More specifically the N64 is a ~95Mhz 64-bit RISC core [dunno which series] with 4MB of ram.
MIPS R4K series, 93.7 MHz. Reality Coprocessor, 62 MHz.
When is the last time any gaming PC had 4MB of ram?
You forget that all of the RAM in the N64 can be used as heap and stack. The code and static data sit on a cartridge that's much faster to access than a rotating disk. A developer who had worked on CD consoles was quoted in a console gaming magazine as having compared the N64's cartridge to an 8 MB disk cache.
You forget further that console operating systems are much smaller than PC operating systems and don't have virus checkers, instant messengers, web browsers built into file managers (both Konqueror and Explorer are guilty), or SMB servers running in the background and eating RAM.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Not to mention the fact that I can STILL play PS-1 games on my PS-2.
I found Mechwarrior 3 when going through some boxes the other day and decided to install it on my Windows 2000 "gaming box", wouldn't even install. I got a dialog box telling me that I needed Windows 95 to play the game.
PC's are notorious for not maintaing backwards compatibility. Kudos to Sony (It's the weekend right? We like them on the weekends.) for not abandoning a huge catalog of games.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Good article from the StarTribune.
From the PC standpoint this is very bad. More and more there is less and less reason to upgrade to new and more powerful systems. If there is a smaller upper end to the market then there will be no pressure on mainstream companies to build upper end systems, so we will be in a scramble to commoditize the middle range and low range systems. Nothing new about this news, but it is a powerful long-term trend.
Might be good news for Linux however...
High power computers are cheaper and cheaper every day
They're not down to $200; only the Walmart.com Microtel PCs are that cheap, and their video isn't exactly up to par for running the latest PC games. If a kid wants a new game player for Christmas, it's a lot cheaper for the parent to buy a $200 console than a $600 PC and a monitor.
Will I retire or break 10K?
There are more console games that are making me say "Hot Damn Jim!" than there are PC games.
Oh boy, UT2003. Wow plays just like UT except with prettier eye candy and it costs $40 more.
Now, Mechassault on the XBox! Cool, a mech game that looks better than the latest Mech game released for the PC. "Steel Batallions", what's that? I need a special $150 controlloer for it that includes foot controls and a eject button? That's cool! Exepensive but cool!
Let me get this straight, if I beat the GameBoy Advance version of Metroid Fusion, I can link it to the GameCube version of Metroid Prime and get another power suit to play with? Cool!
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
online play is what will keep pc gaming going
If the parents don't want to pay per month for online MMORPG play, and the games that can be played online without a subscription (FPS and RTS) are either too gory or too complex for the average 13-year-old, the 13-year-old will play Smash Bros. Melee instead.
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One of the most common complaints about linux is that you cant play games on it. If gaming shifts to consoles instead of PC maybe the PC can be left to do what it is good at, work as a multipurpose tool to do work.
I dont think internet and such will be a blast on a telly just yet. Why would i want a console needing constand upgrades and error corrections and such? I love consoles because i slap a cd in and it just works.
HTTP/1.1 400
Are you able to play a lot of games on Linux?
There are over 1,000 Game Boy games published in the United States. Just buy one, put it in a cart reader, copy it to your PC, and emulate it. Cart readers are easy to find for the GBA, harder for the classic Game Boy and Game Boy Color. I will admit that the right controller does make a difference.
Will I retire or break 10K?
on PC you can play games from 1980s to 2002
You can't play games from 1981 to 1995 on a computer that primarily boots to a Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional operating system or a Microsoft Windows XP operating system without emulation or virtualization, because 1. NT operating systems have poor support for DOS apps, and 2. those DOS games that do work with NT may run too fast to be playable.
on PC you can use a lot of freeware/shareware games, Free Software is also much closer to PC than consoles
Same on GBA. Have you played Tetanus On Drugs for GBA?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I remember reading that a million copies of Starcraft (for PC) had been sold in Korea alone
Korea? How many of those million copies of Starcraft were legitimate under Berne Convention copyright law?
Will I retire or break 10K?
>
What a silly statement this is. Consoles have been a major industry since 1980 when the Atari VCS took off.
There was a time before the crash when just about every household with kids had a VCS. I'd call that mainstream acceptance to me. They certainly were more likely to have a console than a PC back then.
If anything, PC game sales should be higher because of the PC's increased mainstream acceptance... It was the PC that used to be relegated just to geeks but is now increasingly a home appliance. PCs also still have internet play mastered (i.e. MMORPGs, FPSs, and RTS) while consoles are barely managing to catch up.
I think the reason the game industry has grown since then has been the changing demographic. The kids of the 2600 generation, by and large, have not given up videogames, and a whole new generation or two have taken their place. So the medium in general has become less relegated to the kid demographic. But even if it were still just kids it would still be a pretty big market.
I do think anytime you buy a PC game you have to worry in the back of your mind how well it's going to run on your system, and since many of us are still hanging onto machinces 2-3 years old which serve well enough for internet and home office apps, we're not on the bleeding edge of game technology anymore. Our PCs might even be weaker or about on the same level as an XBox. (Mine is a 700mhz Athlon so I'm in that category.) This might explain the apparent dropoff. With a console purchase you are assured the game is going to run as advertised.
Since nintendo 64, everyone knows that console games outsold pc games by a factor of 5 or more.
DUH, consoles are for gaming, pc are for working, internet, and SOME use them for gaming.
DUH, PC costs way more than 200$ of the consoles (at least a decent one for gaming does)
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
You can't get the aiming you get with a mouse, using a hand held controller.
Not all games are traditional first-person shooters. Console games such as Goldeneye and Super Mario Sunshine are designed to make aiming with an analog joystick relatively easy.
Add a keyboard to this mix and there is no way the console even rates close.
I'll play you in emulated Super Street Fighter II, with you on the keyboard and mouse and me on an LPT-converted Super NES joypad.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I always figured that the X-Box was Bill Gate's master plan, in order to save the PC industry. With constant upgrades being needed in order to play newer and newer games, it was safer to try and separate gaming from PC's, and make it exclusive to consoles. It makes future versions of Windows or any other OS's look alot brighter. That's why the X-Box had such insanely high features, such as a processor nearly 3x stronger than the PS2. Anywho, I can see a future where consoles let you play games, and your pc is used almost exclusively for work (ie-Excel, Word, Photoshop, etc) and internet, with a few games to keep you entertained. But as I posted elsewhere, I can also see consoles evolving into more of a full entertainment system, with features that can be readily made available through your house, including the ability to turn on a vcr/dvd recorder/digital recorder in another room of the house, or sending out a phone call, or suddenly using your TV to go online and check out /.
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
A Hammer (for instance;) plus GeForce FX plus AGP 8x plus ~1 GB RAM plus fully digital display is a quantum leap beyond any current console. Once the hardware is delivered, and software arrives to exploit it (don't expect much delay) gamers will once again flock to the best platform.
It also helps that PC stability and ease of use is increasing. Now all we need are mass ports of these games to Linux! :-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Consoles are for games. Get it strizzait why doncha?
This is going to sound real odd, but I used to be an avid PC gamer...since the c64, but I now own 3 consoles and rarely even use my PC anymore. What is odd about this is that I feel like I've 'outgrown' PC style gameplay, and now prefer kiddie-style GameCube and PS2 games.
The main reason? I can't play PC games on the couch with my girlfriend. Back when I lived in a dorm, and being social was unavoidable, I could get away with playing counterstrike 4 hours a day. But today, the last thing I want to do when I get off work is to hunch over YET ANOTHER computer keyboard and play games either by myself or with random idiots on the internet.
I want to relax on the couch. I want to play a game where my girlfriend and anyone else who happens to stop by can join in. I can think of dozens of console games that meet this criteria, but not really any PC games.
To me, having fun with friends will beat out stunning, immersive 60fps fragfests anyday. And, no, I don't like making friends online.
Console games retain their value much better than PC games. Look on Ebay at any game that came out last year and you can find it for less than half of what it cost.
Now try the same thing for some PS2 and XBox games. For many, the price may only drop 5 to 10 bucks.
I think the popularity of console games also shows that people are sick of computer game companies putting out unfinished software. I am sick of having to download 20 megs worth of updates just to keep my game from crashing.
I do still play computer games like Icewind Dale II and Unreal 2003, but I have really gotten used to some of the great titles on the PS2.
People (consumers) want quality and value, and you just can't get that if you buy a lot of comptuer games.
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
- The two "new" consoles have been out a year now, and now have more than one game worth buying (especially GameCube), so it makes sense that they would be selling. There's only so much holiday buying money to go around, so the fact that the PC is down by only 6% is surprising.
- One of the things that PC's do well is Internet Multiplayer. All three consoles require you to purchase something (even Xbox which had it "built in" already) to get online. When you can play a game online, you'll play it more.
- For that matter, the PC has the MMORPG, something the consoles have only flirted with so far. Pehaps EverQuest isn't moving as many boxes as they used to but the 200,000 people paying $12.99 per month to play mean that the game is still making money. For that matter, when you have a game like an MMORPG that requires a large time investment and a monthly bill, you're less likely to go out and buy more games (which is why I don't touch 'em).
- PC games can be modified and extended. Check out Neverwinter Nights which you can pretty much play forever, especially online. Plus there's all the FPS modifications.
- By that logic, NWN debuted with a $60 price tag - makes sense, given the replay value. PC games are sometimes more expensive, which is hurting their sales.
- True, it's possible to pirate console games, but it's uncommon. Few if any fool with mod chips or have DVD burners (Joe Public, not Joe Slashot). PC game piracy is much more common.
- Finally, consoles don't need intelligence. Anyone can pop in a disc and fire up a game. PC games require installation, fiddling, and while people like me love this, Joe Public hates it.
Now I just got a GameCube and Metroid Prime, so I can swing both ways on this issue, but I do prefer PC games. However, console games will always have the apple of the public's eye.Schnapple
So instead you'll stick with the carpal tunnel and slow reaction you get from the mouse and keyboard?
I would have to disagree. PC hardware is just more powerful, that's all.
I've purchased a SoundBlaster "X-Gamer" sound card before, and had conflicts with some games that required a patch or driver update. If there is a soundcard out there that is more suited for games, please let me know.
I've had so many PC games crash out of the box with a standard, supported hardware configuration. These are with quality name brand components (Abit, nVidia, Creative, etc), not some E-Machine
PCs are not as well suited for games, because of inconsistent hardware platforms. Even top of the line machines are going to have problems with many games.
For $150, I can get a PS2 that will perfectly play (probably) thousands of titles. That is why I would argue that consoles are better suited for games. That's what they are designed for.
A PC is designed to do pretty much anything, and games are just a small subset of that.
Nobody is going to see this post, because I posted it way late. However, I think everyone who posted is missing something very key here. It has nothing to do with cost of games, ease of use, etc. There is only one factor. Games.
Look at what games have come out for PC in the past year that are must buy amazing games. Warcraft 3? Civ 3 (was that even this year?). I'm having trouble of thinking of more. There just weren't any amazing pc games this year.
The thing is that there aren't enough people who want to play UT2K3 who will go buy new crazy fast computers. It's not that amazing of a game.
Everyone can still get buy with their 2 year old boxen and Half-Life. Half-Life was the last word in PC gaming. All the games that are popular for the PC are half-life and its mods. It's been that way since counter-strike. Now there's natural selection. Nobody needs to buy new computers or new games, because they already have HL, which is still getting patched to this day.
The next time you will see people buy pc games will be Master of Orion 3, Counterstrike 2, and Doom 3. The genres in which the PC really rocks are lacking innovation desperately. The simulation, the rts, the fps. None of these genres have seen anything new or amazing.
Now, as for the consoles they have a zillion new must have games coming out like crazy. Metroid, Metroid, Mario, Mario, Shinobi, Kingdom Hearts, FF... so many! Because the genres where the console rules are being innovated. Metroid Prime is quite possibly the most beautiful game I have ever seen. And people say the upcoming zelda game is BETTER! Is that possible?
When PC game makers start to innovate and come out with something truly new and amazing, then we'll see their sales go back up.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
RESOLUTION
-Until HDTV is widespread and consoles are rebuilt to compensate, why would I take a giant leap backward by lowering my gaming experience to a television screen?
PORTABILITY
-I can run high-end 3d games on my Mac Powerbook G4. I can run them in the backseat of a car, on an airplane, or in bed. Why would I want to tie myself to a television screen?
[[Insert Sophomoric Movie Quote Here]]
A synopsis of the PC vs. console debate can be found here
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
To answer your question Kisrael, I started with ASM (to udnerstand how the beast functionned inside) then learned pascal (2.0 ?) later. Basic ? Never used it until I was in school, and really, It was only for 6 monthes until the school switched to pascal.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
so why don't they use DVDs
Order a computer from Dell or Gateway, and the basic configuration will come with a CD-ROM drive. Most users who upgrade their optical drive will opt for a CD burner rather than a DVD-ROM drive or an expensive DVD/CD-RW combo drive. Thus, a large portion of your audience does not have a DVD-ROM drive. Thus, any PC program that comes on DVD has to come on a set of CDs as well (Riven, Diablo 2, etc). There's a reason why Windows XP came on a CD rather than a DVD, and why Microsoft told AOL to shove it when AOL couldn't slim down the AOL client distribution to fit in the few megabytes that Microsoft had allocated for AOL on the CD.
So I'm sitting at an AthlonXP starting a game I'm going to play in 1280x1024 with AA and watching the intro-movie (if there is one) in 320x240 bink.
If you were playing on a console, you'd get 320x480i due to the limitations of NTSC television, which isn't much better than 320x240. Either that, or do like many games do (especially on N64 and GCN) and run the intro movie in the game engine.
Besides, some games' intro movies just frustrate me. They introduce a character in such a manner that I assume he's probably the main character, and then they kill him at the very end of the movie *cough*Descent 2*cough*. Actually, that'd be a funny way of copy protecting a game: if you detect that you're running on an unauthorized system, don't allow skipping the intro movie and then display "Game Over" after the intro movie when the "hero" has died.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Markets are flexbile. What's to prevent the PC games from improving quality control, cutting cost of developement, and reducing shelf price. It's not inherent to PC games that they be buggy and overcost. Sure some companies will go under, but just as many startups will replace them, who think they have the solutions.
-ddn
I know that I bought less games in 2002, because most of the major releases that I want to buy haven't been shipped yet. I'd love go out to the store and buy Rainbow Six 3, Simcity 4, and Doom 3 right now, but they're not going to be shipped until 2003.
That, plus the lack of any absolute "must buy" games being released this year, has cut down on my number of game purchases. Sure, Unreal Tournament 2003 and No One Lives Forever 2 were good, but they certainly weren't as ground-breaking as the original releases of those games.
But you still have a computer don't you. It's just better and backwards compatible. You can still play the games you bought for your 133 MHz PC on your new one but you have to keep the old N64 around.
The problem:
Why would I buy a high end gaming PC when a $200 console has as much power and I can sit on my couch and play on my big screen?
People see that the $200 consoles are better at gaming than the $1500 PC that's in the other room. Since PC's are generally lasting much longer now (450 mhz P2 are still fine for word processing and web browsing) and until recently the PC wasn't noticably better than an XBox or PS2 there isn't much reason for people to invest in a new gaming computer. That is changing.
Why it won't last:
The console's have a huge advantage in times of great change. The X-Box was released and instantly they had a game platform that was more powerful than 99% of the PC's out there. Most of the people that I know that have PC's don't spend a lot to configure them to play games, they just play games because they can. Since the expensive 3D chipsets aren't necessary for general purpose computing most people don't have them.
The computer's rapid advances have also made it really difficult for both game development and game playing. I think as the 3D accelerater world starts to stabalize and high end functionality starts to become cheap, the PC will regain it's gaming legs and take back that market share from the consoles and then some.
Eventually even the P2 450's will need to be replaced. High end 3D functionality will come with it. For $100 you can now buy a 3D card that is many times the speed of the X-Box chipset. Pair that with the new P4 + DDR's that are out and you have a nice cheap high power PC with much better graphics than either of the high end consoles.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
It's not easy to save games (I only recently heard that it was even possible to)
The console controls are wacky (has anyone ever heard of Flight Simulator or other similar games, for a console?)
Your choices in console games are 10,000 mutations of Tekken or Super Ultra Mario Brothers;
Multiplayer games consist of split-screen action (who needs cheats when you always know exactly where your opponent is?)
Does Counterstrike exist on a console? no.
Can you write amateur game mods for console games? no.
Got flight simulation games? no.
On the bright side, you guys finally did manage to swing "Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind" for the X-Box. That's a long leap ahead from Super Duper Mario Brothers.
Okay... here's what I just picked up from Dell a couple of weeks ago for a computer at the office.
I paid $714 shipped. Note that it came with a crappy video card. (Well, crappy if you want to use it to play games. We, of course, didn't.)
Go with XP Home instead of Pro (you don't need Pro unless you're running a domain or multiple processors) and you get $100 or so of that price to upgrade to a great video card.
Honestly, I think the people who are saying that PCs are $2000 haven't bought a computer in a while. It's now more cost-effective to buy a Dell, with all of its goodies like onsite warranties, than it is to build it yourself.
You're right -- most people would rather go to Dell than build it themselves. I used to build all my own PCs, but it's no longer worth it. The days of the $2000 PC are over. The days of the over-$1000 PC are rapidly approaching an end.
My boyfriend just picked up a 20.1" flat panel (yes, the equivalent of a 22" CRT) from Dell for $800 shipped. You want a $2000 PC? Get that plus a $1000 PC.
(No, damnit, I don't work for Dell, but I'm sold on their onsite service plan, and they build quality PCs that are affordable. Also, I use GotApex to find the best deals at Dell [and others]. No, I don't work for them either.
I remember when you used to have to type something in a DOS window to make your game run and I wondered why I was loading all the Windows GUI B.S. just to run a game.
Good opportunity for some good hackers to do something to make PC gaming a better experience for all...
to even get into perl or GCC right from the strat you need a PC that runs Linux into the command line.
Or a CD that installs ActivePerl and a simple C++ IDE from autorun. Sell those for $9.95 at Wal*Mart in a box marked "make your own video games for your PC!"
but GCC, that is a compiled language and the act of a simple compile while being easy, can be confuing after wards, not to mention haveing to learn all the options and how to link multiple files, how to create a make file, etc.
When I was first starting out on GCC, I used RHIDE. Only later did I learn makefiles. If it was easy enough for me when I was in high school... But then, I was doing Applesoft BASIC + 6502 assembly language when I was in middle school.
frankly, I think python is the new basic
Tell me about it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Actually the "old" types of TV (front & rear projection, CRT) usually have 1080 lines, but interlaced (aka they updated only every second line per frame). The other competing standard is 720p - 720 lines progerssive (aka they update every line).
Plasma screens are naturally progressive, so they usually go for a bit lower resolutions than the full 1080. Note that the HDTV definition goes all the way up to 1080p, but I don't think anyone is actually using it.
Oh and by comparison a DVD has a resolution of 720x480 (max).
Kjella.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Undoubtedly, some are going to blame the file sharing networks for this. In case they come after me, I want you all to know that I am innocent. I get all my games for free because they are Free software!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
1- Consoles do not run Windows, and are therefore much more stable.
2- A console does not need a $350+ video card upgrade every 12 months to run the current batch of games.
3- Console games are not regularly released in a beta state by broke game companies that need sales to finish the code and release a giant patch.
4- The more time we spend parked 12" away from a monitor at work, the more we value gaming ten feet away on the La-Z-Boy.
PC games have always sold less than console games so it's not a recent thing, but to me, the 6% loss doesn't come as surprising. PC games just suck now. I used to be a die-hard PC game enthusiast in the hey-day of adventure games and RPGs, but now everything that comes out is a hack and slash MMORPG or an FPS game. The last PC game I really got into was the Sims and that was during the first few weeks it came out. Meanwhile, I've been starting to play a few console games these days since it seems they're just getting better. I've been playing Metroid Prime on my GC and Splinter Cell on the XBox, both games being a lot better than anything I've seen on the PC in recent months. I even played GTA3 on the PC for awhile but even that originated on the PS2.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
pc game sales fell because:
1: MS is buying up developers like mad.
2: their intent is to kill pc gaming in its entirety
3: they lose money on xbox sales (what's a few million dollars every month when your goal is platform domination?)
4: MS is keeping most of it's pc games from being released on pc until after the holidays (in most cases, a few years) *cough*HALO*cough*
the term 'xbox exclusive' has always been bad news for true pc gamers. sure pc game sales are down especially when the game you want is only on xbox.
Lest ye not forget ps2. it was never in direct competition with pc games. most pc gamers I know also own a ps2.
"your gamers are starving. Let them play xbox!" -anonymous 17th century queen
They're using their grammar skills there.
I believe it is because people have learned how to create a decent first person shooter. The control problems have pretty much been solved. Golden eye was the first good one, but for the new generation halo, time splitters 2, metroid prime, unreal championship etc.... they are good fps games.
It is good that they cannot release patches for console games. This means they will have to complete the product before releasing it, which is a rarity in the PC world.
this year just because the quality is not there. A port of of a tired console view locked 1st person shooter, or another old RTS just doesn't do it for me. The console audience has A MUCH LOWER expectation of a game, in replayability and life-span. In fact Metroid Prime is the ONLY console based game that has even interested me in a looong while, but some moron decided that being locked to a single platform was a good selling point for it ?!?!? I realize that the console is becoming the development platform of choicve but that means the games are scaling down to console requirements and the rest of us just deal with it :( If CDV would actually support their game, Divine Divinity is a great RPG, but it is quest broken and buggy now and CDV/Laran are totally non-responsive to support issues. UT 2003 was a tired rehash of a previous game that lacked any of the 'FUN' factor of the previous versions. Heck there are still WAY more UT servers than UT2K3, and not likely to change.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
"I, for one, will continue with my Battlefield 1942 on my PC"
Just because Mario Party and BF1942 both are "video games" doesn't mean they have anything in common.
No more than Chess and Crainium. If this read "tons of people are having Crainium parties, but I, for one, am going to stick with Chess" people would find it silly you're comparing those two board games.
Personally I enjoy playing Hockey (sport), it's a game, but I also enjoy playing Warhammer 40,000 (table top), Counter Strike (PC), Gran Tourismo 3(PS2), Grand Theft Auto 4(PS2), Metroid Prime (GC), Mario Party 4(GC), Pokemon (GBA), Impossible Creatures (PC), Poker (cards), Samurai Shodown II(NeoGeo) to name just a few.
Some genres the PC is better suited to, mainly RTS and FPS, but guess what, most of the world doesn't want to play Elite games like this! My wife and I have another couple over and we can stick in Mario Party and play with people who don't play video games! Even if I owned four modern computers and had a LAN setup we wouldn't be able to have a game of BF1942!
The learning curve for BF1942, xxxCraft, etc is far too steep. Mario Party takes about 10 seconds per game at most, and there are really only half a dozen fundementally unique games (the rest are all variations). It is simply fun.
They have fun playing it, then they go buy a GameCube for just $125US with the rebate. Sure computers are less expensive these days, but for gaming you'll have to spend that much on the video card alone! A GameCube is cheap enough to be an impulse buy.
So stop comparing games just because they are called games. They are completely different forms of entertainment *for different people*.
Its not that people are stoppping playing BF1942 because Metroid Prime is a good FPS and they like the console platform more. It's that they like Tony Hawk, Mario Party, and Grand Theft Auto 4 which are exclusive console games. Different games/genres for different people...
My wife and I have had other couples over for dinner and games. Even if I had four modern computers and a LAN set up would we play four player game of WarcraftIII or Team Fortress? No way! Sometime the other husband is also a geek and would like that, but our wives are never going to enjoy the steep learning curve of popular PC games.
So we play charades, pictionary, crainium, boulderdash, etc. And Mario Party 4.
Even if I had four perfectly configured $2000 PCs with a Athlon 2800+ and ATI 9700 Pro in each we wouldn't touch them.
Mario Party has a learning curve of about 10 seconds. Everybody can play it. And it is *fun*.
Sure I won't ever spend 2500hours playing it so I can become a level 50 wizard like I would in everquest, but more people would rather have a couple minutes of fun with Mario Party than dedicating that much of their life so they can own a video game castle and magical video game armour. (Actually I think the only reason people spend that much time in EQ isn't for the "game" part of it, it is for the social aspect and a side effect of that is you eventually become a level 50 character)
And guess what? After having an awesome time playing Mario Party quite often other couples have gone out and bought GameCubes! At only $125 (less than a GF4 or 9500!) now the GC is cheap enough for people to do that. And of course they buy a couple games with the system. This is why console games sales are up. Anybody can own a console. They are cheap enough for every parents to give one to their children for Christmas and all you do is plug in the controllers and disc and go. Easy access for everybody.
A console lasts ~six years. About every five years a new console is introduced (Magnavox Odessey in 1972, Atari 2600=1977, NES 1984, SNES 1989, PS1 1994, PS2 2000, PS3 rumored for 2005)
:)
A PC is going to last you three years before it is obsolete.
A console costs $299-$99 depending on when you buy it. A game worthy PC costs $799-$1999 depending on how much you want to spend.
Now go figure why more people have consoles
Also, the most popular PC game of all time is the Sims. Rollar Coaster Tycoon was up there too. Do they use any fancy vertex programs, fragment programs, etc?
Most people are looking for fun and PCs are too expensive.
People act as if this is some sort of new phenomenon - the fact is depending on what numbers you count (whether you include hardware and accessories, whether you count worldwide or just US, etc.) the console game industry is anywhere from five to twelve times the size of the PC game industry. That doesn't happen overnight - in fact, I'd bet it's been that way since the days of the Atari 2600. The 2600 sold 28 million units over its lifetime, mostly in the US - does anyone really think 28 million people had PC's (especially for gaming purposes) in this country in, say, 1982? I sure don't. I don't think PC's reached that sort of penetration until the mid 1990's.
There was a time after the video game crash of 1984 when I would guess the PC game industry probably eclipsed the console game industry for a couple of years. But ever since the debut of the NES in 1985 console gaming has been gaining momentum again, and it's only accelerating as the PC game industry slowly dries up.
PC gaming has become very hit driven, and that's really screwed up the economics of it. A lot of people (especially here) think of PC gaming as some sort of panacea of free ideas where any average joe can break in with a brand new concept and make money, but despite the tighter control by manufacturers that actually better describes the console industry than the PC game industry. PC gaming has become little more than MMORPG's, real-time strategy, first-person shooters, and The Sims. It's become extremely tough for the little guy to break into the market. Meanwhile, console developers have better distribution and co-marketing with manufacturers. It's a lot easier for new concepts to gain traction (though the console industry is still very genre-oriented, it's not quite as hit-driven as the PC game industry. It's very easy for a decent game to make money without breaking the top 20). Most console games are games you'd never see on the PC because nobody'd ever take a chance on them, whereas most of the better PC games do appear on consoles.
People have been talking about convergence for a long time, but it seems to me that what we're really seeing is divergence. Instead of using one PC for all sorts of productivity and entertainment applications, we're using many devices for specialized applications. People just seem to like gaming on consoles better than on PC's, and eventually games on PC will probably be pretty few and far between. The PC itself is being redefined and will probably end up more limited in scope than what we've traditionally used them for in the past (despite this "media center" BS that MS is trying to push through) - I'm guessing the laptop form factor will eventually take over as the default PC configuration in the home, which will limit gaming upgrade options even further. No big loss; game consoles are cheap and powerful and there's no real drawback to using one over a PC for gaming.
Sure, BF1942 appeals to you and me, but not to most people enough to buy a good PC, get broadband, etc.
Look at a typical PC gamer. They're often kind of geeky and own only a couple games. They'll speend a year playing Everquest. The only FPS they'll play for two years is Counter Strike. The only RTS they'll play is Starcraft. And usually they only play one of those three games. They'll be REALLY good at their own games, but that is all they ever buy.
Look at a console gamer's library. Typically this is any teenager and now a days many adults. They'll have a football game or three, a hockey game, a wrestling game, a couple fighting games, a couple driving games, a couple platform games, a couple RPGs, etc.
A PC RPG fan will get stuck in Diablo forever, while a console player will beat FFn then buy FFn+1 and Grandia and Mario Party. A PC FPS fan will play BF1942 online for months while a console FPS fan will play Metroid Prime and Halo and then buy Gran Tourismo and Grand Theft Auto.
It's not hard to figure out why console sales are up and PC sales are down. Console games are fun and have an end. PC games are designed to be played for much longer. Console owners end up owning much more games and a diverse selection of games.
Business they are losing to the consoles experimenting the MMORPGs. I still prefer PC MMORPGs, but final fantasy XI does look pretty tempting.
Just wondering if anyone else feels that there is a great chasm where previously there where some really challenging, fun and entertaining RPG's out there (chrono cross, legend of mana etc.) It seems to me that 3d games are just flat in the storyline and puzzle area.
Am I missing something?
P.S. I love your show.
Since Micrsoft is trying to kill off gaming on the PC in favor of their DRM-friendly XBox, this could be a great opportunity for game developers to further their efforts in making games for the Linux platform.
Microsoft puts less effort into gaming in their PC software; soon windows no longer a viable gaming platform; people still want to play games on their PC's.
If they're told they have to buy another piece of hardware (an Xbox) to play their favorite games, why not suggest Linux?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
PC:
1. Turn on PC.
2. Wait a min or two for bootup.
3. Start game, wait for it to load.
4. Tweak settings, redefine keys etc..
5. Start game.
6. Quit game, download patch and install.
7. Start game.
8. Quit game.
9. Download new 3D card drivers.
10. Start game.
11. Quit game.
12. Buy new 3D card.
etc..
Console:
1. Turn on console.
2. Insert disc.
3. Wait for it to load.
4. Change settings to suit.
5. Start game.
6. Play.
Yes, I can go out and buy a $1000 PC or a $200 XBox, but 10-16 console games, extra controllers, adapters, memory cards, etc. later, both systems cost the same.
Aside from the aforementioned 'special edition' packages, PC games tend to be less expensive. Great playable demos are readily available, and America's Army (an awesome FPS) is free in it's entirety.
Not that I advocate such things, but if the average technical ability of joe-gamer wasn't in the toilet, somebody would realize that (with very little effort) there are plenty of [cough]free[cough] games out there as well.
I think given the trend of pc games, this is the obvious outcome. You can't expect people to spend 2000$ every 6 months to upgrade their hardware...
Uh... consoles sales beat out the PC *EVERY* year.
Slow reaction? What game are you playing that allows for a faster reaction time than a keyboard/mouse setup. Maybe there is something wrong with the way you are playing the came, how you the controls set up, or something.
*** Caution: Rant Below ***
The only game genre (new games that is, this does not include side scrollers like Mario Bros or all those old RPG's like Secret of Mana) that actually works better on a console than a PC are fighting games (in effect because the game controllers are adapted from arcade setups, which the fighting games are all derived from).
The real problem with this is that fighting games are the single most derrivative and boring games. Good fricking God, how many times can you play the same damn game over and over and over and over again? Please don't even try to tell me that the subtle differences in Tekken/StreetFight/whatthefuckever makes that one completely different from the others. I've seen the vast majority of these games, either in an arcade or on a console, and all look the same, except for slight differences in character design and different special moves (look in this game I can rip the guys face off, but in this one my pixelated chick spins around so you can see her underwear, yay).
Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that I really really hate fighting games.
Of course, I do realize that this rant could (almost) be applied to any genre, especially fps. However, I suggest you go play the original Mortal Combat and the lastest and greatest fighting game, then go play, say, Quake and then Battlefield 1942, and see if it still seems the same. The fact of the matter is, IMHO (and really, this is all merely my opinion), B1942 shows clear advances and improvements, where all the new fighting games have done is to upgrade the eye candy (and of course give the female characters, if possible, even skimpier costumes). If you want to see T&A watch skinemax or go to a strip club.
- Beowulf Smith
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. - Gen George S Patton
And don't underestimate PC phobia. Countless users are simply intimidated by PCs and find it terribly hard to conceive of relaxing in their presence with a game more sophisticated than Solitaire. Others who aren't intimidated bear the scars of a long dysfunctional association with Microsoft. The console overcomes such fear and distaste, providing a device to which computerphobes can relate to with a minimum of concern.
Just as an aside, I've never really enjoyed the core line of Mario games all that much. Mario Kart was okay, but it isn't *that* good. A huge number of people seem to absolutely love them.
They just don't seem to measure up to some of Nintendo's other offerings, like the Metroid or Zelda series.
May we never see th
There will, for the forseeable future, be separate console and computer markets.
consoles:
* simple, easy, good for Joe Average
* efficiently built -- you can make 'em cheap
* good game-playing controllers
computers:
* Much more flexible -- there's only a small market for people that really like tweaking/playing with the guts of their games, but it'll always be there
* Good general-purpose input peripherals. The mouse is still utterly unbeaten by console controllers -- Halo's weakest point, for instance, is *easily* the controller and the dreadfully slow turn rate.
* Currently better network connections. I expect this will change rapidly -- A cable ISP would *much* rather service idiot-proof boxes that people only use to do low-bandwidth gaming than a service swamped by Kazaa users.
* Much better resolution. This is likely to stay around for some time -- TV monitor resolutions suck, and suck badly. I particularly hate split-screen console games, with only 200 pixels or so vertically.
May we never see th
I remember World of Xeen running about $75 for the Mac, and a couple of the "interactive movie" titles in the days when "multimedia" was a big deal running upwards of $60.
I utterly agree about the late adopter model. Buy a game later and you get better prices, a better community, a game with the bugs fixed...
May we never see th
Are you using it to post this? Do you have it set up as a router in the closet? Did you give it to your daughter to fool around with? Did you donate it to a school?
It would be nice if these statistics were in units sold instead of dollars. New PC games tend to be less than new console games. Also, does this include used games being sold in retail stores?
Movies are also measured in dollars made instead of tickets sold. As ticket prices go up it is easier for future movies to make more than past movies. If they gave us statistics in ticket numbers then we would have a clear comparison.
thus spake generic tard #923040
If you dont mind waiting a bit, you can still enjoy pc gaming on a budget.
.My current rig is a athlon 1G with a radeon 7500 and seems to play any of 1-2 year old games that I bought...
/AC
I've will never buy the "latest" pc gear or the "latest" game. I usually buy a not so new mobo + processor + memory + not so new gfx card + whatever for less than £300 (in the uk). Then I buy games in the budget series, usually 2 or 3 games for £10.
So, if I account for the price of new games (£30
each), this is still much cheaper that any console
In terms of gfx, the problem that I find in newer games is that if you want to enjoy better gfx, you still have to have a very expensive pc, and you have to end up to run your new game in much lower res. I would rather run an older game at max settings.
So what do you suggest to make programming more accessible to kids? Replace Windows with a BASIC shell on all new PCs?
Give them a smalltalk environment. Squeak smalltalk is an excellent implementation of an environment that was designed for teaching kids how to program, while still being a great environment in which adults can program.
-- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
MS seeks to kill the PC gaming industry and move all gamers over to a model where gaming is done on the console. The console lends itself to an environment where people like MS have greater control over what you can do with your games. I really hope they are successful here because it will be the end of MS. Sony will continue to dominate the console market. Once MS realizes they are in a battle they can't win, it will be too late. Once the gaming industry transitions to this model, that will be one less thing people have to use Windows for. We all win with this model, not the least of which winners are the gamers. Console games are nowhere near as flexible as PC games when it comes to customizing your titles and downloading "skins" for your Sims, but console gaming is definitely proven to be less problematic for people who just want to push buttons on a controller...
Most of my mates have a PS2 situated under the telly in the living room. They play together with their girlfriends and their friends too (girls even play ISS!!!)...on the other hand, I play complex adventures, strategy games and RPGs, I program, surf the web, compile the Linux kernel etc in my office/bedroom!!!
What I want to say is that most people are not computer hobbyists, they just want to have a 10 minute to 1-hour pre-dinner fun with some video game!!! some others, like you and me, spend endless hours configuring their PC to play the latest and greatest games!!! unfortunately, we are a minority, so it is natural for people to go for the consoles instead of some PC.
It does not worry me though, because the PC experience is much much greater than any console game. PC games can take you months to complete, and then there is the multiplayer experience like Unreal Tournament or Everquest.
First, we have the XBox, which runs off the Win2K kernel (can hardly be called Windows, but it started out as Windows), and the Dreamcast, which ran Windows CS, and despite WinCE being a terrible OS, I've never seen a Dreamcast crash.
I see a lot of people discussing about user-friendlyness, and discussing hardware, but isn't the real issue piracy? I estimate that about 50% of the games played at home on a pc are illegal copies - why? Because it's easy on pc. Here in europe - I can get an illegal copy of almost all games weeks or months before they are available in stores...
What do you do then? Right - most of you would go for the copied version and decide to buy the game later.. (that's what I usually do when I like the game)
It really isn't that hard to get - for kids at school - there's always a boy with "connections" that can deliver you a nice cd - or collegues at work - or maybe you have some connections yourself...
Now there are different things that can happen when you start playing a game and it becomes available in stores afterwards
1 - you saw enough of the game - it bores you at the time it's available in stores
2 - it's single player only - finisched it already - no need to buy the game
3 - You tested the game, and it wasn't what you expected it to be - basicly it sucks
4 - it's a game you like to play now and then - but certainly not worth what they are asking in the shops
5 - you like the game - you play it a lot - decide to buy it
6 - you need a cdkey to play online so you buy it.
Owkay - now that's it I think... So games are bought because:
- They have a large community around it - people feel themselfs obligated to buy the game (then the game needs to be really good)
- You need a cdkey to play online and that's what you want
- You can't get any illegal copies
Piracy on pc's for home usage has become very widespread, at least as far as I can see, that's it. For consoles - it is much harder to get illegal copies. For XBox and PS2 - you need a modchip. On PS2 - this is relatively simple compared to what there has to be done on an XBox - but still - hardware has to be modified - BIG step - void the warranty. Then you need a copy of a game - both PS2 and XBox are DVD - most of them don't even know that it's possible to copy a PS2/Xbox game - and I havn't seen any copies of Gamecube games around (since they need a special smaller format of DVD's - I think this will be almost impossible)
Also, basicly - what you want when you buy a console is - off course - to play games. So what do you do? You buy them
Another aspect here is that kids console games as a present for christmas/b'day/... while for a PC - this is usually not the case. The kids may see it as a "game machine" - but the parents and family usually see it more as an "educational" tool. Not something to play games on. Much less PC games are given as presents than console games - kids need to buy them theirselfs - and what do they do when they can get it for free? Certainly not spend their money on it - that can be used for other purposes - and kids in this time may have more money than ever before - this is still not that much that they suddenly can miss $50 or the equivalent.
The best PC games are free.
Play Command HQ online
Now let's discuss the steps one would follow to play a user mod for your favorite game.
PC:
Your steps + give or take a few.
Download mod and install.
Maybe tweak the mod.
Play.
Console:
You are either SOL and can't do this OR
you get to subscribe to some premium service that only allows you to download approved (and one would hope, pre-tested) mods. Furthermore, you will start paying at some point for the privilege of downloading a specific mod. Of course, that's not true right now, but it will be.
Add to this the fact that RTS and FPS games are essentially unplayable without a keyboard and mouse (which consoles haven't done yet and probably won't). Even when that gets fixed, there are fundamental loss of control issues inherent in consoles.
Actually, I think PCs will remain important in gaming too. PCs will probably always be the first place where cutting edge gaming ideas get implemented first. After all, PC users are more tolerant of problems, steep hardware requirements, etc. It only makes sense to piss off the smaller market segment first in order to prove out the ideas that will ultimately get used on the larger (console) market.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
It was reported by (I think) Gamespy that Electronics Boutique sold/rung up (including pre-orders) I think 300,000 copies of Vice City on the day of release. Where I work, it's flying off the shelves almost as fast as it's coming in, and it's coming in in droves. Console games are crazy popular, especially around Christmas; I sell easily four dozen console games for every PC game I sell, no question. It just doesn't compare.
--Dan
The main reason I'm only playing consoles now is retrogaming in the future: from time to time I like to play my old games.
I just plain hate tuning DOS each time to be able to play whatever DOS game I'd like to play (I just had to build an extra PC only for playing old DOS games). When I realized that this isn't any better with Windows years ago I switched from PC + console to console only.
If I want to play Super Mario Bros. 1, I just take the module and put it in my NES, et voila everything works with no hassle. That's the main reason for playing consoles, IMHO: it just plain works, at optimal speed too.
Besides, the games are different on consoles and PC (even between different consoles): you find more interesting puzzle games on consoles than on PC, IMHO, while there are more ego-shooters avaible on the PC. If you like jump'n'runs you need a console, if you want to play online games a PC is the weapon of choice.
Geez man.. And you JUST did this? Where have you been living these past 5 years?
Copy protection makes all the difference. You can't download a game from the internet to a console like you can on a PC and the feature set has finally lured consumers away from the power they had with general purpose computers.
It's not just the kiddies who like Mario. I just bought a GameCube bundle with Mario Sunshine, and I am seriously hooked.
I want platform games. Good luck finding them on PCs--or, for that matter, on Xbox (with a few exceptions, most of which I've bought). I don't want the games where you walk around shooting things. I don't want a game with controls more complicated than my car's. I just wanna run and jump and bounce on turtles. I spend all day in the real world being a grownup; in the evenings, give me a game that makes me smile.
After installing the new PC version and being annoyed by sound problems etc. I decided to get a PS2 (I needed a new DVD player, so I felt I could finally justify getting one :-) ). I got the Harry Potter game for the PS2, and it plays wonderful. I have to agree with the parent post, the PC version looks pretty slapped together compared to the PS2 version. I noticed some of the music and a few of the graphics are the same, but the PS2 version offers waaaaay more gameplay and much better/smoother graphics. My 900mhz PC running windows 2000 should pummel the PS2 hardware-wise, but alas this appears to not be the case. On the upside, I can now look forward to removing windows 2000 and devoting my PC solely to work :-)
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I have a dog; I named him Stay. So when I'd go to call him, I'd say, "Here,
Stay, here..." but he got wise to that. Now when I call him he ignores me
and just keeps on typing.
-- Steven Wright
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