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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."
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.
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
$!
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.
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 ;-)
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.)
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.
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...
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
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?
No, I doubt I could imagine playing NWN on a TV. But I play it at 1024x768. On the other hand, I could never imagine seeing Metroid on anything other than my TV screen. It's all about which way you're looking for.
Resolution does not equal good graphics. Final Fantasy X was one of the most beautiful looking games I've seen, on that TV. Crappy graphics are crappy graphics at any resolution.
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
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.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
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?..
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
...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
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.
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.
Will I retire or break 10K?
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?
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.
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
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
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
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?
Erm, console games can also be a lot less bug-prone because of the extremely limited target platform -- that is, people aren't swapping out video subsystems, audio hardware, et al, on consoles very often. In addition, that console isn't running random buggy freeware cursor utilities at the same time, nor is there much of a risk of the user corrupting the configuration by tweaking or deleting "useless" files.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
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
One thing that really astonishes me is that there are virtually no PC games on DVD and I can't but wonder why. Every publisher is crying about piracy but they ignore one of the more effective methods to stop it;
so why don't they use DVDs and fill them with movies and extras? Of course you can crack the game but there's a difference between simply throwing clonecd at a game cd or getting a cracked version with no videos and stuff and imho that's the main reason why there is substantially less "casual" game copying (meaning not commercial piracy) in the console world
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.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
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
That is why efforts like garagegames.com are worthwhile.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Consoles are for games. Get it strizzait why doncha?
- 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
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]]
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
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.
How about the mouse?
PS2 has two USB ports.
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.
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
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.
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 ?
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.
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
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?
You don't need a high end gaming machine! Even a cheap PC you could build for $400 with a Athlon XP 1500+, 40 gig hd, geforce 3 ti500, and 512 megs of ddr would be able to very nicely play any game in existence right now, and under much higher rez than a console.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
Uh... consoles sales beat out the PC *EVERY* year.
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?
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.
Flamebait, huh? Wow, I must have struck a nerve with the Bubba Joe crowd. :)
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!
But running e.g counterstrike at 1600x1200 is merely an exercise in jerking off among the hardware lovers, and serves no real purpose that isn't fulfilled at 800x600.
Amen! Playability and replayability have NOTHING to do with graphics resolution, unless the graphics themselves interfere with the gameplay. Now read the corollary to that: Graphics resolution can not improve the playability, it can only interfere with it.
Now let's take this one step further, so far this is only about graphics resolution. I submit that graphics "dimensionality" (2D vs. 3D) is also part of the discussion. A game should not be rendered in 3D unless the 3D aspect enhances playability. End of story. Requiring, developing for, and supporting a 3D engine is far too expensive a proposition for games that don't need it.
I'll take a game with a well designed game UI over a 3D game with lower playability any day. Want an example: Age of Empires 2 vs. Warcraft III. I'm still pissed that I bought Warcraft III. My only complaint about AOE2 is that I didn't buy it when it first came out. I only bought it after being disappointed with WCIII. I hadn't realized what I'd been missing.
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.
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
The Dreamcast did not run Windows CE. It was capable of running it, and several early game titles used it (The games come with the OS they boot to. No reason to keep a static OS on a console with a 5+ year life.), but the system itself did not run Windows.