Slashdot Mirror
On The Future Of PC Games At Retail
Thanks to GameSpot for their article debunking rumors that EBgames and GameStop would entirely remove PC titles from their stores in the New Year, but still painting a somewhat bleak picture regarding the PC game's strength at retail. The article cites recent GameStop SEC filings showing "...just seven percent of its total sales were PC games, compared to 64 percent of revenues coming from console games." A games analyst also commented that, while a complete denuding of PC racks was probably out of the question: "It wouldn't surprise me if there was a pretty serious cutback in shelf space though, as that demographic is really only served by a handful of games." Although EBgames' top policy-maker clearly states: "PC games are and will continue to be a very important part of our business", with such a relatively small market share, where does the PC gaming market go from here at retail?
Let's see, a quick run-down...
1. Consoles are cheaper over the long-run. A new PS2 or Xbox is cheaper than most bleeding-edge video cards.
2. You can rent and borrow console games. $5 gets you a couple of days to try/beat a game.
3. Console games are more social. You play with friends along side you. Outside LAN parties, it doesn't happen often with PC games.
That said, PC games still have some definite advantages (internet, mods) and strengths in certain games (RTS, RPGs, FPSs), but that's slipping all the time.
My $0.02.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Online.
Seriously. Shelf space is in a warehouse is probably cheaper than shelf space in a retail environment. Plus, you can choose a location for the warehouse where rent is cheapest, and still cover all the markets.
Also less shipping fees (pass the shipping charges for delivery to the person buying the game directly), not necessarily needing as much stock on-hand (expect 2-3 weeks for shipping kind of thing).
It may not be out of the question for someplace like EB to reduce their in-store stock to a minimum and have a "Find more games at www.ebgames.com!" sign above the shelves.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
I suspect that most people simply don't buy PC Games from EB or GameStop, but instead from CompUSA, BestBuy, or similar.
Why? Because they're cheaper. Almost every game will come out at one of the mall stores for $50 and be available at CompUSA, etc. the same day or a few days later for $40. And they rapidly fall to $30-35 (except for the hottest titles), while the mall stores keep them at $50.
I don't question that console gaming is more popular than PC gaming, but I don't think that's the whole picture here.
I had no idea the market share for PC games was so weak. I guess I understand it, but I still don't like the sounds of it. I own consoles now, and probably always will, but there are just some games that work best on a PC... and it'd suck to have those sort of games die out. I suppose with all the recent controversy about bad "console to PC conversions" (e.g. Insible War) it should have been more obvious. In the olden days it was all about crappy PC-to-console conversions, now it's starting to go the other way around.
I buy plenty of PC games, but most of them at discount prices a year or two after they are released. I went into EB the other day and picked up Civ 3 (with full manuals) and Civ 3 Conquests for AU$60 (about US$40).
I also got Deus Ex for AU$10, Thief 2 for AU$5 and Return To Castle Wolfenstein for AU$20.
The full-price PC games sit on the shelves for ages, but as soon as they hit the bargain bin, they sell like crazy.
I haven't paid more than AU$40 for a game in a long time, and I know a lot of people who do exactly the same thing. The games may be older, but the value for money is a lot higher.
FPS and RPGs are hell to play on a console, it just doesnt feel right without the mouse and keyboard combination. While the mouse and keyboard make for useful console addons (and are always helpful when you want a play with xbox linux), they just look 'out of place' sat in the living room under a TV
Ok well I love PC games just as much as the next guy (LAN Parties, RPG, BF1942, etc) but the end of PC Games could be a positive for Linux and a negative for Microsoft. Lets look at a big driver of PC sales... games. Driver of PC hardware... games. Why home users often use Windows vs Linux... games.
Before I get flamed about "yada yada games exist for Linux", there is only a small number of commercial Linux games and those are not available in your local Best Buy/CompUSA/GameStop/etc. Joe Blow wants to have his games run on his PC with a minimal amount of fuss. So that's why Windows is often seen on home user's PCs. Governments are moving away from Linux since they don't have a large investment in gaming where as you average home user does. That and they're sick of dealing with the security holes on Windows
The one issue that I see with the movement away from PC games to Console games is the modding community, which, as we all know, is becomming an industry unto itself. This could be mitigated with modding tools on the PC (developer mode) and network based distribution to the console.
EB, Gamestop, and Babbages have filled their stores with console games, joysticks, movies, action figures, magazines, and loads of other crap.
Whereas PC games used to take up 95% of the shelf space, they now take up maybe 10% of the space in the store if you're lucky.
So is it any wonder that PC games make up only 7% of total sales? People re still buying PC games, they're just not going to EB or Gamestop to GET them, because the selection is so poor.
Out here in Portland OR, EB, CompUSA and Bestbuy are all the same price when games come out and the price sticks around for a while. Halo for PC is still 45-50 bucks everywhere but Target/Walmart/Costco for example.
Let's take a game like X2: The Threat, after two weeks of messing around trying to get it at EB - I order it from gogamer, and have it the next day. Mind you it cost me a fair chunk in shipping (being the impatient Canadian gamer that I am), but I could've gotten very cheap shipping or now shipping.
Used games seem to do well on eBay, and I've gotten better deals buying and selling then I'd ever get at an EB (especially on console games).
But I think most interestingly is that of my last year's software purchases, nearly 50% of them were on-line!
- EV: Nova (on-line only)
- Bookworm (on-line only)
- X2: The Threat (on-line order of boxed game)
- many downloaded and purchased software utilities, Dameware, Translucency Pro, Mesh Surgery, Game Maker
- plus a bunch of eBay purchases (and sales)
I've purchased a few games and software titles at retail, but a lot of them were impulse buys. I think on-line sales direct from developers will take over more and more, including a lot more of downloaded titles, that you never actually receive anything in the mail for- and heck then you don't have to worry about stupid CD security programs and the developers get a lot more money.
Those are all very valid points. Additionally, there is a huge gap between hardware requirements for most working purposes (Word Processing, Spreadsheet, E-mail, Web, etc.) and for gaming purposes.
I can buy a PC for most things for around $200. Why the heck should I put hundreds of dollars more into a system just to play games that could more reliably be played with a $99 Gamecube?
vi ~/.emacs
PCs have an advantage that works against their retail sales, in that you can always go and make your own game if you feel like it. It's a LOT harder to get your hands on an SDK for a console than it is, say, for Flash or Half-Life. The software development community for PC, and the sheer NUMBER of games available for free download, is what people are always going to be attracted to on computers.
That being said, I think that's the main "problem" with retail sales. I think that people are becoming more and more content with downloading their games (legally or not) rather than buying them in the store. It's easier, cheaper, and doesn't require you to get up off of your ass. Steam is headed in the right direction. You need to charge for DOWNLOADING the game. You'll get a helluva lot of people who are willing to let the game download overnight rather than go out and buy the game. Laziness RULES!
One of the main reasons why PC games are less popular is that they are very easy to pirate. While consoles use their own media format (gamecube) or DVD (ps2,xbox), games that are shipped on regualr cd's are easier to pirate.
In order to run a pirated game on a console you'll have to limit your self to a chopped version of the game either because DVD downloads are very big or because of the lack of a DVD burner. Gamecube piracy is even less common than the other two consloes because it uses a special format speciefically designed for that console. It is currently rumored that sony and ms will also use a unique media format for their next gen consoles as well.
Besides, in order to run a pirated console game you need to buy a third party Mod Chip that will cancel your warranty the second it is installed on your console.
Even though i see piracy as the main reason for weakness of PC gaming at retail their are of course other easier to point reason:
- Consoles are cheaper than a mainstream PC
- PC's have to be upgraded regularly in order to
achieve optimal performance.
- Console games are run right out of the box - no
configuration needed.
- Console games are less buggy. Many PC games
require numerous patched until they are finally
working the way they are meant to be.
Personally i am sorry to see this decline in PC game sales. As much as like console gaming, some genres will never work on a console , not to mention the user created content that is only available on a PC.
your missed points are:
4. Stability. You don't buy a console game on its release day, and then go home and download a 1.1 patch.
5. Ease of Use. Consoles require you to merely pop in the game and go. there are never patches, drivers, installs, video/sound configs, or any of that stuff PC gamers put up with.
6. Glitz. Console games are optimized to their fixed hardware. Halo on my xbox looks just like Halo on your xbox. I never have a friend tell me how awesome a ps2 game is, but find out my ps2 isn't fast enough to play it well.
7. Integrity. in online console gaming, it is possible to guarantee that no-one is cheating. Add to that the consistant matchmaking interface and features across a console, and it's no wonder that MS can successfully charge for their online service. It's miles above the average quality level of PC internet gaming.
8. Return Policy. Should a console game be found to be buggy, or even just not what it was advertised to be -- you can return it. This can not be downplayed. PC games cannot be returned in almost any case, yet console games can. Regardless of why (and we all know why) the point is that consumers will always gravitate toward the solution that is the most friendly. being able to rent, borrow, and return games is a gigantic benefit.
At the core though, consoles and their games are intentionally refined for the mass market. Very smart people spend alot of time making sure they are as refined as possible. they are more like appliances than tools. It just shouldn't be surprising to anyone that consoles are the preferred mechanism for gaming for the mass market.
PC games seem to have a market despite themselves. the hoops that fans jump through, the costs they deal with, the hassles of the menus and setup options, the limitations on the product the paying customer faces (in the name of 'copy protection') -- it shocks me daily to see how PC game fans put up with it.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I've been a Macintosh owner for years, so a dearth of software titles at retail locations is a familiar situation.
If this trend continues, PC gamers will be doing the same thing that Mac owners have been doing -- they'll get their goods online or through the few retail outlets that continue to offer them.
I doubt very seriously that PC gaming is dying because less retail shelf space may be devoted to PC games. As the Mac shows, a platform's survival is not dependent upon a single sales channel.
SDKs? How many gamers really take adavantage of those? I would be willing to bet that far less than 1% actually use the tools. Couple this with the fact that most user created content sucks major ass. This is not to say that all user created content is bad, I am simplly saying that most of the people that try and make their own mods and so forth lack the skill and or patience to make anything worthwhile.
Now as for the content, it goes without saying that some users have produced some really good additions to existing titles, Half-Life, BF1942, and many others have some professional quality stuff that has been authored by people in their spare time. I am not trying to trivialize the roles that some members of the mod community have played in sustaining the PC gaming market. I have bought half-life 3 times now, it seems that right after I lost a copy, something new would come along that made me want to play it again.
What is working against PC gaming, is the proliferation of consoles. Sure, a bazillion people own PCs and Macs but how many of those people are on the cutting edge of hardware? Among slashdot readers I would say quite a few but average Joe PC owner is probably still using that Dell they bought 4 years ago. Many of these potential customers do not posses hardware capable of even running the newest titles. On the otherhand, every console owner can play any title released for that console.
Store chains are just adapting to the situation. The PC market makes them less money, so they expand their console offerings. I don't think it is as much a case of the PC market failing, as much as it is that it isn't doing as well.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Actually, cheating on consoles is a bit of a mixed bag. If someone DOES find a cheat, the unchangeable hardware and software make the cheat unstoppable. SOCOM for the PS2 is a prime example of this-- the game has been ruined for online play by rampant cheating. And there's no way to issue a patch to fix it.
That "fixed platform" is both a blessing and a curse-- if the software/hardware isn't perfect, you've got cheats set in stone.
My local game stores (EB Games, GameStop, etc) have a small PC section, in the back, with the games lined up like books so you just see the edge. They aren't sorted by name, developer, or genre. They're just shoved up there randomly. On any slightly busy day, you can't even get back to them to browse because of the crowds.
The console games take up the front, well lit areas. They are laid out facing the customer, with decent spacing between the titles. Each console has more wall space than the PC games. Until relatively recently, even the Dreamcast had more space in some of the stores.
Even in the larger stores (Best Buy and CompUSA), the PC game section has been shrinking while the console section has been growing.
So, it's been getting much more difficult to buy PC games at these stores. So what does that do to sales? Sales go down, the stores stock less PC games, leading to lower sales, etc.
On the other hand, these stores are very tiny. PC games are in large, non-uniform boxes (this has been changing in recent years, but not enough) compared to the standard size of console game packaging. They can store more product more efficiently with console games vs. PC games.
The disadvantage is primarily in marketing...you can't get people to impulse buy a computer game as easily if they have to go searching for it on a website as you can if they are browsing a store rack.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
9. Lack of options. There's one thing that everyone loves/hates its options. I like how the option of playing a game at 1600x1200 at a very high refresh rate with eye candy set to max. Standard TV's, while big are still outdated. My monitor is bright, large and less eye damaging then your average 24 in TV. (To be fair the xbox does theroticly support 1080i but you could not seriously play a game like halo on that setting. the reality is its can handle 720p)
10. Controllers. They aren't the best input devices for every game. Have you tried playing a FPS on console?
11. half-decade self life's. Face it. Consoles are going to die out ever 3-5 years. That's a 300-400 dollar investment in one shot. Some systems are slowly letting you play older games, but that may or may not catch on. Current unsubstantiated rumors of the xbox2 all indicate that Microsoft's going towards a largely proprietary system then glorified pc.
12. Different systems. Hell you don't know what's going to be around in a year or so. Sega, 3DO Atari all died out leaving everyone high and dry... Plus now that games are shipped to all 3 systems which one do you get? The game cube get systematically jew'd with options that the Xbox and ps2 get (example: XIII. Of the 3 systems Xbox got xbox live support and downloadable content, ps2 got a lot of multiplayer features, and gamecube got nothing).
13. Content lockout. I don't know about you. But I know I can buy a game from Europe and know it will play on my PC here in America. Not so with consoles. Either physical or software lockouts inhibits us from buying from other regions (say Europe or Asia) in attempt to preserve profits. The only modern system i know that doesn't lock people out is the gameboy...
The secret to getting modded up is to allways say i've got karma to burn in your sig..
PC games have two problems in my eyes. The first is they are overpriced, and the second is piracy. As much as the game industry would like to jump up and down and blame piracy for their prices, it's BS.
Here is a real life example, a friend of mine went to EB to buy Jedi Acadamy (A game that came out a few months ago). He wants to play Jedi Acadamy online, even though there is a small community (maybe about 30-50 players online at a time on all of the servers put together). They told him it was $50. He asked for a used version and they told him $44. He promptly told them he was going to buy it from ebay or pirate it.
I think PC games should go the way of ITunes. Cut out the middleman and sell the games for $15 - $20 a piece. Most of the documentation that comes with games nowadays is incomplete or poor. Gamefaqs usually has better documentation than most games ship with.
A) A budget PC for net surfing and a console for gaming. Average cost of Budget PC : $500 USD. Average cost of console : Between $100-$200 USD depending on which system you get. If you want you can throw in an extra $100 to get some more games and the total comes out to be about $600-$800. Damn near some of the high end video cards, but not even a scratch on the ultra-powerful gaming PCs (which have been known to hit the $5000 mark).
B) A mid-range gaming PC for both surfing the net and gaming. Average cost of mid range PC : $2000. Lets be generous and say he gets all his games for free from his "friend". Total cost : $2000.
Simply put, unless Joe Average gets the computer bought for him or for free, hes not going to make the PC his system of choice for gaming. Now if you're pulling in a serious cash flow, $2000 isn't much, but I can tell you right now, for anyone under the age of 21, dropping $2000 for a system which you KNOW will be outdated in about 1-2 years (I say 1 since Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 will kill most off) is no easy task.
PCs don't need to be upgraded. This myth has no basis in fact or logic.
My 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System is the same system it was when I bought it. My Sears Video Computer System is the same as when my parents bought it for me. My 286-20 (after all the upgrade parts were built into a separate 386) is again the same 286-20 it was when I bought it. My Cyrix 6x86 150+ is still identical to the way it was bought. All of these systems play the same games now as they did then, and just as well.
What you can't do with a PC is use a five year old PC to play a game which requires the features of a brand new PC. But guess what... you can't play a game for a brand new console on a five year old console either!
What you can do with the PC, if you choose, is sometimes find parts from an older system still worthwhile to use in a new system or to upgrade one part at a time so you don't have to pay for the whole thing again with each generation of games.
Don't tell me you can play Playstation 2 games on a PSOne, or that you can play Nintendo 64 games or Gamecube games on an NES or a SuperNintendo. You can, however, slap a new (not necessarily top-of-the-line sometimes) video card or processor in a lot of motherboards and play a lot of games you couldn't before.
Depending on the particular hardware, you may or may not be able to upgrade a PC to the newest processor or the fastest video card. Most games these days don't really need either, even when the game is brand new. OF course, both do help with the majority of new games.
Also, you can't base the value of a PC on the value of a console unless you use the PC for nothing but games. Have you ever typed a report, designed a web page, done serious photo editing, or balanced your checkbook on your Xbox or Playstation?
Further more certain games come with enhancement patches on the tv. They fix game inbalances that only come to light after thousands of people have played it. Or add new features like maps, skins or levels. Or in the case of my favorite racer, grand prix legends, new drivers to support hardware that came out after the launch of the game.
But sure consoles are better and cheaper. Cheaper eh? Well lets discuss that one. Wich console did you type this post one? So you own both a console, a tv and a pc with monitor? Perhaps the same price in total as my pc geared to playing the latest games? (No I don't have tv now you mention it)
Also check in the shops for the prices of console and pc games. Over here in the netherlands pc games retail between 40 and 50 euro. Console between 60 and 70 euro. Mmm, be a bit hardcore in you playing and it adds up. Also pc games drop far sooner in price then console games.
Sure the gamecube is now dirt cheap and yes vidcards are very expensive. But if you truly calculate the cost I think pc can be a far greater deal. At least if you play the kind of games that get user modifications.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I was not always a console gamer. In fact, I hated consoles for quite some time. My passions were always FPS, RTS, RPG and massmog. the linear eastern-stylized RPGs on consoles didn't appeal to me, and the other genres weren't represented. I didn't even own a console between the SNES and my XBOX.
but i don't have the time or money to justify the kind of attention being a pc gamer requires anymore. and so i can easily see -why- console games dominate.
and that's all i'm saying. i'm not saying why consoles are better for everyone. i'm saying why consoles are better for the mass market.
why, by next year, game shelf space will be about 80/20 console to pc compared with 60/40 right now.
but to your points.
9. Options? remember, this is the benefit for the mass market consumer we're talking about. the person whose gaming budget does not support a rig that can run -last years- games at 16x12 and 30fps, let alone the latest.
the hardcore pc gamer who spends the money every 14 months to have a rig that can achieve playable speeds at the highest resolutions on the newest games will -always- have a better picture than a console gamer. but the console does a hell of alot better with the latest games than an average pc spec does, for so much cheaper.
10. i have played FPS on my console. and quite frankly i absolutely -hated- the controller for the first 90 minutes i played halo. thank goodness that game was good enough to keep me playing - because once i stopped wishing for my optical mouse and dealt with it, i got used to it in a hurry.
It doesn't even bother me anymore, and I actually -prefer- FPS on the console, mostly because of the broadband only netplay and the no cheating thing. (i mostly only play fps for the multiplayer anyway. not like a decent single player fps has come out for the pc since halflife)
that, and being able to play doom3 and halflife2 when they release on the console i bought 2 years ago is much preferable to upgrading my 1ghz + geforce3.
11. shelf-life -- how can this be a PC advantage? you update your computer for security purposes, or install a new OS to play the newest games, and your old stuff is gone. ever tried playing a dos4gw game lately?
i can turn on my SNES no problem and play super mario 3. and i do. yet i can't boot up Syndicate Wars or XCOM Apocalypse as easily, and had to jump through hoops to get XCOM UFO Defense itsel running.
and the new trend in consoles toward backward compatibility resolves this so neatly it's not a remote issue, and is a -better- pro. my $300 console lasts at least 4 years. how long does your $300 video card last? how long can you play the latest games on a computer you bought 4 years ago?
I got my xbox and my 1ghz pc around the same time. guess which one plays the newest games at an acceptable speed?
12. different systems -- only applies at the end of a console's life cycle. the beauty of consoles is not only do you get 3-5 years out of $300, but at the end of it, when something better comes out - you can buy into it for the same price. You can always boot up your old system and play it. You can always boot up your new system and play it. A stark contrast to PC gaming where the cost of maintaining a 'frozen in time' PC to play an old game is so much higher.
13. Content lockout. My DVD player has content lockout via region coding and it doesn't upset me so much. I don't make it a habit of buying out-of-region discs, and if i did, it seems to me it'd be smarter for the -manufacturer- to change his region coding than ask his customers to.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I think this conversation is running too much in terms of the present. Obviously, as long as the PC is used for internet and office work there will remain a market for PC games, but with the trend of progressively more powerful consoles I think eventually the two will come together in one machine - eliminating both the PC and the independent console. Once consoles acquire larger harddrives, the graphics capability of the system (including future VR integration) is going to make office users want to use the same technology to give presentations and maniuplate data (3D databasing). Once this happens I think the two will begin to come together for an all-around family computer/gaming system.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Once you have a service which is the single-sign-on point, you see that you can ban cheaters. You also get an audit log of everything and can require updates to games before letting people online. Beyond that, you can also require that the consoles which connect aren't modified to play edited game data (look around for the infamous Super Enzo Ferrari from PGR2 which lifts off the ground when it accelerates).
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
"And you damn well better hope that it's stable and bug free. Because if it isn't -- well, too bad. You can't patch. Xbox changes this for Live games, but not for the majority of games."
:) I don't see how the colour depth sucks, since the only console I've seen anything like banding on is the PS2 -- and that's only on some textures that were downsampled to fit in the PS2's tiny vram. I still think that Final Fantasy X-2 is a sexy looking game, far more sexy looking than any PC game I've played in memory. Advantage: Console.
:) By the time I start to need to think about backups of it, I see that I can download one off the internet (like all my NES games I play via emulator now, rather than plugging my cartridges into my NES). Still an advantage: Console.
;) Unfortunately, I didn't like it and got rid of it towards FFX-2 which has a much more fun battle system. Yea, it was full new-release price, but I'll get more than 40 hours of play out of it (like KOTOR, which was my part-time job for a few weeks this summer). I don't recally very many PC games that came out and were worth a damn this year, especially not compared to the flood of awesome console games. Advantage: Console.
Since most of the games are stable and fine, I don't have to sweat the few that are broken. Rental stores let me know ahead of time that a game is broken for a very small fee. I can't rent PC games, and I certainly can't return them if they require a patch -- because everyone has patches on their games! Advantage: Console.
"And it still looks far, far worse than a PC game. You don't have the resolution, you don't have the polygon draw, or the fill rate of even a cheap PC video card. Resolution is a huge issue..."
640x480 is what you see on the TV. If you have HDTV, it's progressive scan (ala your monitor). I don't know about you, but I usually end up playing at that resolution anyways just to keep a steady framerate in 3D games. The graphics chips in the Xbox and GameCube are GeForce 3.5 and Radeon8500ish respectively, and do have a pretty decent fill rate. Enough for filling your TV up nicely
"Xbox Live isn't hacked yet, but if you think it won't ever be then you're living in a dream world."
Yes, but since it is a money operation for Microsoft, I think you're living in a dream world if you think that Microsoft won't address the situation.
"Sure, it's the same thing in the PC world, but to try and list this as an "advantage" is complete and utter BS."
I think it's an advantage. I never have to worry or wonder if the disc I have from the store will be read by my console, because the console has a standardized format. PC CD games all use different anti-piracy techniques, which break in various ways and just end up messing up your normal customers. I just plain don't worry about that on any of my console games
"If you buy a console when it's brand new then it's about $500 with a memory card and second controller. Each game is $40 or $50 and doesn't drop in price for months or years."
Or if you buy a console about 2-3 years into its life cycle when the console is about 220$ CDN, with many greatest hits games at 30$ as well as budget titles around the same point... along with the fact that all the fancy new games coming out are starting to actually push your console hardware to the limit. Don't be a foolish early adopter -- just buy a little later. The price dropping isn't a big deal, either. FFX came out late last year -- a year I've been busy with all the re-released Resident Evils on GameCube, a few more games I've added to my Dreamcast selection, Xbox Live! games, and litterally hundreds of games purchased for under 40$ CDN. By the time it went Greatest Hits, was about when I had time to play it anyways
"Oh, and the games probably won't be playable on the next generation console"
Fine by me. I have plenty of consoles (13), as well as emulators for
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
"The game cube get systematically jew'd"
eat shit you racist fuck
Come on, enough with the "PC gaming is dying" comments, these are just as absurd as the "BSD is dying" trolls.
Yes, I do understand that the PC game market isn't as good as it use to, but it is a long way from being dead. As some people here pointed out, there are lots of good reasons as to why some of us prefer to play PC games, just as there are for why some perfer to play console games.
As long as games bring in money, the company will support the games that bring in the money. PSOv2 notwithstanding, the lack of payment was why the Sega Dreamcast online stuff shut down. I don't see Microsoft retiring a service that continues to generate profit.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The best thing about this story is that it strips away all pretense and just says "Let's have a console vs PC flamewar on Slashdot".
As far as I know, console games have always outsold PC games. But PC games have continued to thrive anyway. If you're a developer, it doesn't matter which has the higher percentage market share, it just matters whether or not you can make money off of it.
My understanding is that it goes in cycles too. We're nearing the midpoint of this generation of consoles so we should be seeing an increase in PC games marketshare over the next three years until the next generation of consoles comes out and starts eating up marketshare again.
There are things that consoles do well, there are things that PCs do well and there are places were they overlap. None of this matters. What matters are the games. There are great games available for all of these systems. Carry on.
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
I recently purchased an ATI radeon 9800 pro. I cannot tell you how aweful the out-of-box experience was. On the other hand I had a friend who purchased a geforce 5900 and he struggled nearly as bad.
Without a doubt, we fiddle around with drivers all the time and consider each other experts if not damn close to nirvana. Probably the only person better is the programmer who wrote the drivers.
I cannot tell you the ridiculous amount of troubleshooting we went through to get some of the most common games to stablilize so they don't crash: battlefield 1942, rtcw enemy territory, call of duty, delta force BHD. I must have bookmarked a thousand forums, and made a hundred tweaks to the driver features in the process.
It would be a miracle if the pc gaming industry exist 10 years from now at the rate consoles are progressing.
If there are only two people in the game, labour's probably going to be very light. If you're running a big, dynamic server farm, having one node run that particular daemon's not that big of a deal.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Far about the last 9 months I have only been able to find the game I was actually looking for about 1 in 5 times, as the area for PC games in GAME has shrunk so much. (GAME bought EB in the UK a while ago for non UK people.) So I end up buying something else which I don't really want, since I'll be back the following week, and I can then exchange it for the one I actually want. (10 day no quibble exchange/refund.) I have still not been able to find Homeworld 2 in the shop since it came out, and the first time I went in it was in the official top 10 chart, and wasn't in stock.
I could order it specially, but if I'm going to do that I might as well get it online. And this is probably why PC game sales are dropping in those shops. CD/DVD shops like HMV tend to have a better selection than the pure game shops, which probably doesn't help either.
My friends and I are turning 30 this year (or next) and we are and have been die-hard PC gamers. We own consoles, but none of us has as many console titles as we do PC titles, and none of us devote as much time to consoles as we do to the PC. My nephews are in their pre-teens, teens or early 20s, and they don't even OWN computers. However, they have scads of console games. My wife plays console titles more than she plays PC titles, and most of what we own for the consoles appeals mostly to her. I'm not sure of the actual demographics, but as a 30 year old with a family and a house, my gaming budget is limited. My teen-age nephew's budget, however, is almost 100% expendable. He can spend at LEAST 3x the cash on console titles as I can spend on PC titles (which is almost fair, considering both A-list PC titles and pretty much ALL console titles are priced about the same). Between the two of us, on a chart, the console graph trumps the PC graph in purchases.