Why Consoles Overwhelm PC Games At Retail

An anonymous reader writes "With the GameCube at $99 and PlayStation 2 sales still huge, people are starting to really notice the shrinkage of PC games at retail. Why? What does the future hold? An article at JoeUser.com asks that question and looks at what is likely to happen to PC games as consoles slowly take over most of the retail space for games." This piece, written by Brad Wardell, creator of Galactic Civilizations, argues: "The issue isn't whether the PC game market will die. It won't. The issue is whether PC games will be able to keep up with console games from a production values point of view."

Comments

Consoles hit the mass market better than the PCs

[Qweezle]

Look, while most homes have PCs, most of those PCs aren't able to play games very well, and so the situation that many people who are just either jumping into games for the first time or casual gamers have, is the decision to buy a $1000+ PC that can play PC games well for a while(until it is obsoleted), or a $200 console that will always be able to play games well that are designed for it(which should be for at least 4-5 more years into the future).

Thus, you see the more economical, frugal players going with consoles, and the much higher-end players going with PCs.

Not that consoles aren't made for "serious gamers", however they hit the mass market, every kind of gamer, much better than a PC, which plays high-end games for players who are more serious at gaming.

A while back I had to help a friend choose between a $600 PC and a $200 PS2 and he chose the PS2, and although skeptical of its capabilities/staying power at first, he is very happy with it today, over a year later, and he says he will continue to use it instead of upgrading his old PC for games for quite some time.

PCs Have Always had more Flexibility

[Herkum01]

One of the things I have always liked about PC games is their ability for players to expand the game. Take a look at Counter-Strike. Noone would have been able to do that with a Console based game. Enjoy D&D, play one of many player made modules that are available online, SP or MP. There are tons of games like that. I think many game makers do themselves a diservice when they don't allow players to create their own missions, or characters, anything to make the game different or fun. If NWN were to just sell improvements to the game engine and keep it compatible with current modules I would pay for it.

You cannot do the same thing with a console, you play through the adventure and that is it. You spent your 50 bucks and got 20 hours of game play, your done. Maybe you can play the whole thing over with *SHOCK* another character! How is that for flexibility from a console!

Consoles are easy to setup and get going, but they lack that ability for people to truly attach themselves to it and expand upon it.

Standardization

[zenintrude]

I mainly buy console games because, as opposed to pc games, I know they'll always work... and I know that I'll be getting the same experience (except for differing TV/sound quality) that everyone else is getting.

Re:welcome the return to normalcy

[Hedonist123]

While they may belong on the PC, many many people are still more likely to buy them on consoles, simply because they don't like the effort involved in putting a game on a computer. Driver updates, patches, most people don't ilke dealing with that. They just want to put a game in and play the game. That's why consoles are always going to be at the forefront of pop culture gaming. Us computer nerds are just a fairly large minority. Now, back to a little Day of Defeat (mods, the reason computer games really stay popular).

hed.

Re:One recent example:

[prockcore]

good example.

KotoR on the PC recommends half a gig of ram and a 128meg video card. This doesn't seem like much, but the xbox only has 64 megs of ram total (that's shared between vram and system ram), and yet kotor somehow runs just dandy on it.

Plus the PC version isn't as stable as the xbox version.. it's like they didn't do as much testing.

Which are the two main problems of the PC. Expandability, and patchability.

They won't spend as much time optimizing a PC game, since they can just demand that you get more ram/faster cpu/better video card. Whereas there's no alternative to optimizing a console game.. it's required or the game won't run.

They can get away with not testing games as much, since they can just release a patch the day after the game ships.. and more patches down the road. With a console they have to get it right, or the game will forever be flawed.