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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."
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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
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.)
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'm using my computer now as much as I used it before. But I'm playing more games with the console than I've used to play with the computer. The console has made playing games so much easier that it encourages me to play more. And at the same time, NOT playing with my computer gives me more time to do useful things with it and not to fight with driver dependencies. A win-win situation, I would say.
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.
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.
Will I retire or break 10K?
For the most part, that's true. Metroid Prime suffers from a rare, but widely reported lockup bug. I've had it happen to me once. My friend's new Bond game for the PS2 has had some weird, but rare gltches every now and then- like massive slowdowns to like 2 FPS on deathmatch levels. I had a problem with a consitent lockup on FF7 a few years back. The new LOTR games on the XBox and GBA both have their share of problems.
It isn't that it doesn't happen. It is just less frequent. I fear that the use of hard drives in consoles will make QA less off an issue, since they will be able to apply patches.
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.