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PC Game Market 'Becoming A Niche'?
simoniker writes "Gamasutra has quizzed game analysts from Wedbush Morgan, Screen Digest and DFC Intelligence on the state of the PC game biz, with thought-provoking results. From Michael Pachter's comments: 'The PC games market is becoming a niche, substantial in size, but a niche nonetheless.' David Cole also notes: 'When I first started covering the game industry back in 1994, the general consensus was PC games would dominate the market and console systems were doomed.' What changed?" How do you think Microsoft's recent push to treat the PC as the 'fourth console' will affect things?
In the gaming industry, the platform that hosts World of Warcraft and its seven million subscribers is a niche market?
Some people look at graphics and CPU and note that consoles seem kilomteres ahead. Consider RAM--consoles will never have tons of gigabytes of space. Or hard disk space--for that matter. And despite all the cell's cores, we'll have more cores with PC's. SLI will never go into consoles as well. For the top end (yes, some gamers do have money), it's PC.
It is just another "Death is coming to the PC gaming market" article in the guise of "niche market is coming to the pc gaming market". Just ignore it.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C.S. Lewis
"In the gaming industry, the platform that hosts World of Warcraft and its seven million subscribers is a niche market?"
You do know 7 million subscribers is less than the number of copies Blizzard has sold with Diablo2 and with Starcraft right?
PC's are becoming a niche market - for MMORPG's. Everything else to this point seems better fit for a console.
The number of dollars saved from having to test and develop for endless combinations of CPU/GPU/OS/etc is enormous. That extra time/money is spent enhancing the game rather than just making it work.
With the constant push for fancier and fancier graphics, the push for new hardware keeps people from really getting into gaming on PCs. There are PC gamers, and then there's people who play old games and puzzle games. Sure, you can drop your graphics down a notch and play some of the newest games, but even then they don't often work (and often the graphics that are reduced truly affect the gameplay or ambience, making the game no longer all that fun).
We just had a super-cheesy "article" about why consoles are better, but regardless of subjectivity, it's very true that with consoles people only need to buy one thing, and then are free to play any game for that system. People aren't afraid of gaming on consoles. If Microsoft succeeds in making Vista a "stable target" for game development, with any game that's "Vista-approved" playable to high standards, then I think it could come back. But playing with a mouse/kb is limiting as well, and the gamepad market is all but extinct. If nothing major changes, then PC gaming will likely remain a niche for the forseeable future.
I swear every time this clown opens his moouth, I feel the urge to punch things.
As clueless as he always is, I'm sure he is bound to have heard of World of Warcraft, the most successful video game on any platform, ever.
Niche my ass.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
It seems like people are saying this every two hours and thirteen minutes. That's how long it took from the last story on games.slashdot, that said pretty much the exact same thing.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Until MMOs die out (not looking likely) and voice chat takes the place of MMO text chat (yes just what I want to hear the oriental gold farmer spam-yelling "GOLD LOVEBUY SIXTY FOR ONE THOUSAND" in a bad accent), you can bet that PC gaming isn't going anywhere. Or until consoles get keyboards, I suppose, but those aren't usually standard equipment even if they are available.
Blizzard is claiming 7 mil subscribers right now. They're paying them $15 a month, which is about 3-4 games a year. Plus the expansion (when it comes out) and the initial game cost. So that's 21 to 28 million "copies" sold in what, two-ish years? Those numbers approach the "sales" numbers of some of the console world's bundled video games.
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I used to be into PC gaming pretty heavily, but over time it became too expensive of a habit. To keep up with the latest games, you're forced to constantly upgrade your computer. If you don't, you end up playing the same games all the time. They only come out with a new console every 5 years or so. With console gaming, there's no tweaking, fixing drivers, etc... the games just work. The gaming experience as a whole is definitely better on a PC, it's just way more of a hassle. With a console, it's so much eaiser, and I enjoy it more because i can be on the couch in front of my 50" TV instead of sitting up at a desk looking at a much smaller monitor.
Come to Germany, look at the store shelves and try telling me PC gaming is a niche. Yeah, a niche that gets more shelf space than all consoles combined!
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I'm sure there will be a ton of replies to mention that FPS and RTS games are also still better suited for PCs, because of the controllers. However this could quickly change if the Wii's controller does the job well.
the general consensus was PC games would dominate the market and console systems were doomed."What changed?"
Um a decent video card costs as much as an entire console... PC games with a few notable exceptions, have gone from being able to play them on almost any PC, to now only being truely playable on top of the line machines. Once you reach the pint where The point of entry for a PC game is 1GB of RAM, and a $200 video card it becomes hard to compete with a $200 - $300 console.
Blizzard has done one thing very well, WoW for example, and that's make sure their titles run on fairly low end hardware. I've heard of people playing it and enjoying it on integrated graphics. Part of it is the game itself doesn't require a ton of eyecandy, or 60fps for people to enjoy it. I'm a PC gamer myself "Battlefeild 2" fan to be specific. At this moment in time consoles still don't have anything to rival it, but I see them coming closer and closer every year. the last console I owned was an n64 and I think I played it about a month before I gave it away.
I've started playing party games something the PC just doesn't lend itself well to, so I am planning on picking up a Wii only for party games. I'm sure that once it's in my apt. I'll probably pick up games in genres that I used to play only on my PC though.
-manno
When you're working for PC, you, at the very least, have to take into account the quirks of ATI and nVidia, of Intel and AMD, and more often than not also different additional problems that might arise when manufacturer build shoddy Graphics Cards and/or MoBos around them. Or you can simply forgo any optimization for CPU/GPU and go with DX, which, in turn, means currently that you'll have to dev for DX9 and DXX.
This means that you have less time to optimize for PCs, because you have to optimize for different quirks and different supported additional goodies. Or not optimize at all.
Consoles only have one config. Plain and simple. You can spend your time optimizing for THIS config, because there simply cannot be a different one.
This does not cover progress forever, but it does give a console usually a lot more lifetime than it would have as a PC.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Show me a decent beat-em-up for a PC. Anyone? Ok, well, then show me a decent MMORPG or flight sim on a console. Well?
In a nutshell, both platforms have their benefits and shortcomings. Mostly, interesting enough, not because of their computing hardware or their capabilities, but because of their controllers. Yes, of course, there are gamepads for PCs and for some consoles there are ways to attach a mouse or steering wheel, but they are few and far between, and it's not what people are looking for when they think of "console" or "PC" games.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages, both have their "niche" games, and some kinds of games run smoothly on both (and, of course, games of that kind also exist on both platforms, e.g. shooters or RPGs).
People will buy their platform based on their preference of games. If you're into platformers and beat-em-ups, you'll most likely have a console. If MMORPGs or sims are your kind of game, you'll prolly have a PC.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't think PCs are only good for MMO's. I have 7.1 surround for my PC (cheaper than 5.1 surround for my living room, too) and I like the graphics and mouse/kb better for more than just MMOs. First-person games, of which shooters may be the best known but not the only kind, are much easier and more fun for me at my PC. In fact, I only like consoles better for having people over and playing multiplayer - all other games that I play, even if it's multiplayer, I prefer on the PC.
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I agree with most of the other comment posters in this thread - PC games are by no means a niche market - but the article headline says 'Becoming a niche', and I think that's key.
I think we're starting to see more and more developers putting their main focus behind consoles, then just doing a lazy port over to PC (Ubisoft's XIII and Beyond Good & Evil spring to mind). When this happens PC game quality suffers, and does in fact become a niche.
We're not there yet, certainly not for at least 3 or 4 more years, but I seriously doubt PC games will ever reach the 'niche' status. Especially with big money makers like WoW backing them up.
As far as pc hardware vs. console hardware, if you already have a computer, really all you need is a basic 3d graphics adaptor ($70+), if you buy the lowend $70 cards - yes expect to buy a new one next year. If you buy a $200 card, chances are you won't have to upgrade for at least a couple years - maybe more depending on the level of quality you're willing to accept. I've had my X800 Pro since it's release 2 years ago, and it handles all the new games VERY well.
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Note how piracy is not on my list. Piracy has been around for as long as software has been around. There just happens to be a new attitude that every pirated piece of software is a lost sale instead of a sale which probably would have never taken place. There is also an attitude that when consumers can break the law they will. I think this is probably a result of industry trade groups (notably the RIAA and MPAA) holding conferences about piracy and spreading propaganda. Galactic Civilizations II (which I own) has no copy protection and yet it has sold much better than a number of games with strong copy protection.
I think it's difficult to call an industry in decline when one company (Blizzard) spent $50 million creating a product (World of Warcraft) that brings in a $1 billion a year in revenue. Revenue != Profit, but I strongly doubt that they have less than a 20% profit margin.
What I find funny is that every time I hear a report that "PC is a smaller gaming market than consoles", they are comparing the PC gaming market to all the current-gen consoles combined. That's hardly fair, since consoles are completely incompatable with each other and shouldn't be lumped into the same market.
Now, compare the PC market to just the XBox 360 market, or to just the PS2 market...and suddenly it's not a niche at all. It's an alternative.
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Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
That said, I beleive the PC Game Market has always been a niche. Yes, including the Sims despite the huge market penetration (that's more an exception rather than the rule)
And now the current king of the hill is WoW. Even with the millions of subscribers, how many people outside of WoW know anything about it? You spit out terms like MC, dots, nef, raid mob, AQ40 and melting faces (TM), nobody outside of wow will have a clue of what you are talking about. Wouldn't you call that a niche?
I beleive PC gaming in itself is an incredibly geeky thing, complete with their own tight knit geeky community. You have the FPS gaming community that know of every fps under the sun. You have the MMORPG gaming community that's played everything from muds to UO to WoW to beta testing warhammer online. You have the modding community that loves to mess around with the internals of whatever game they are interested in, whether it be the Sims or Oblivion.
Geeks are all about the niche, whether it be Trekkies or Gamers or Browncoats - you can't really say that about your average game console owners. Almost everybody has heard of Mario, and Madden - and they have a good idea of what people are talking about. Can you say the same about MMOs, roguelikes and RTS games (argueably the 3 most popular genres in PC gaming)? or Trekkies? or Browncoats? or D20?
Except for servers, for all generations of PCs, PC games were the major driver for increased PC processor speed and video display requirements. New versions of Windows helped cause the increase in processor speed and memory requirements, but new versions of Windows were introduced must less often than games were introduced. Most PCs and video cards released in the past 5 years will run Windows 2000 or XP and normal user applications just fine, and there has been no reason to upgrade hardware -- unless you wanted to play recent games on the PC. If PC gaming becomes a niche market, the main reason for upgrading and replacing home PCs will be gone. Video and audio on PCs has caused dramatic increases in hard drive space, but I doubt that it will ever be as big of a reason for hardware upgrades that PC games had been.
Any reason Slashdot keeps posting these headlines? I know console game makers and non-online pc game makers are bitter and all, but WHY is there two of these...stories being posted withing a day's time? I am sorry people don't want to pay for half assed games that require 200$ video cards to play, and I am sorry people aren't interested in shitty copy protection that game companies keep shoving out, and I'm triple sorry that people want more from a game then 30 hours of gameplay with realistic boring graphics and cgi movies.
I am even more sorry that WoW doesn't have to worry about piracy and are making more money then you (bitter game devs). I mean what the hell? Just make better games, console or pc, and people might play them. When I see these stories, all I see is sour grapes with Blizzard written on them, being eaten by crap game companies like EA.
Yes, consoles are often cheaper than a decent video card. But there's a reason for that: a massive lack of quality.
My NES is still working, over 20 years later. It's slightly scuffed, and the cartridges don't always work the first time. But with a small degree of effort, the system is more than usable. Back then, they built consoles to last.
My PS2s, on the other hand, have been nothing but a complete failure. One of the controller ports of the first one I had stopped working. I'm not sure why, as it didn't suffer from any trauma. A PS2 for playing multiplayer games when the second controller port isn't functional.
The second PS2 I got worked a bit longer, but eventually it just stopped reading the discs. At that point, I sold the few games that I had and purchased an Xbox.
The Xbox, what a piece of shit that was. The disc lid broke off a month after getting it. It just clean broke while closing it. Thankfully, I was able to glue it back on with some success. Then the power button sort of broke. It'd take three or four presses to get it to work. Finally it just up and died one day. I didn't bother get another one after that.
I don't abuse my gaming consoles. They're not in a dusty or harmful environment. They sit next to my NES and VCR (both of which have worked perfectly for decades) on the media rack.
The only reason I can see for the newer ones breaking so often is a complete lack of quality. To keep costs reasonable, the manufacturers are forced to use the shittiest parts possible. And the end result is that it works fine for a short time, but eventually some component goes and it can't be fixed.
That's why I'm sticking to PCs. I figure the newer consoles won't even be half as good as the last generation, which was quite a shitty generation compared to those before. At least with my PC I can control the quality of the hardware that is used, and can easily swap out broken components with minimal hassle. Unless the console makers do something remarkable to improve their quality control, I will never buy a console again.
Grandmother likes playing Word Racer for free on Yahoo. Grandmother wouldn't buy a console if her life depended on it.
MMORPGs are just a fraction of all the kinds of games played on PCs. Teaching games for little kids. Casual games on Pogo. High-end shooters that have real-money tournaments. If it needs a keyboard and a mouse, it's not gonna be on a console -- and certain games do and always will.
This idiotic discussion comes up every damn time we get a new generation of consoles. It's not true and it will never be true. Neither the PC nor consoles can push each other out of the market BECAUSE THEY SERVE DIFFERENT MARKETS.
I piss off bigots.
I call "dup"
/ 1134222
See:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/11
WoW has 7,000,000 active subscribers.
That's roughly $100M every single month. That's $1.2B per year.
And since it's subscriptions revenue, it's ALL going to Blizzard/Vivendi unlike revenue from copies sold, where the publisher/developer has to give a cut to the retailers and others involved in selling the game.
Mario might've sold 40 million copies. At $30 a pop that's about the same amount of money WoW makes in a year. At $40 a pop, 15 months worth of revenue. At $50 a pop 20 months.
I'd love to have a position at Blizzard that receives performance based bonuses. I think I'd be driving several of my dream cars by now.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
The parent never said smaller, just quieter. You can't use the same metrics because it is a different kind of market. The PC games market has a broader base than the console market, but when you're just comparing AAA titles, it looks smaller. And most AAA titles (read: sequels) aren't worth a shit anyway, so who cares?
I own a PC and game with it because it fits my style and has a better control scheme for the games I like to play (RTS, RPG). Then there's MMOs, web puzzle games, and a host of others that I have access to also. The console is only beginning to approach this, and is arguably a poorer solution for it.
You basically brought up two points that argue for a "niche":
PC Gaming requires specialized hardware. In 1994, it really didn't. That golden age lasted from when the Amiga and Atari ST stopped being valid platforms to when the first 3D accelerator cards came out. 3D accelerators are huge money, but they segmented the market: those computers with gaming graphics capability, and those without. So now, you have to buy a computer specifically for gaming.
The huge price spread in the PC games market has also been a curse. Ever since I started paying attention (ca. 1988), game developers have always had the sweetest hardware, and seem to develop for something that runs acceptably on top-level systems. Now more than ever, we have a huge shear between "Dev Systems" and what most people have in their house. You've got a dual-core Controe, a couple of Radeon 1900XTXs in SLI, a couple of 10,000 RPM SATAs in RAID 0, 2 GB of TerrorRAM, an X-Fire sound card, big-ass monitor, and all that. I have a laptop with a single 60 gig 5400 RPM drive, Radeon 9600, and a 3.0 Ghz Pentium 4D to keep me warm at nights. You can develop games, and play them. I can't buy them -- it's simply not worth it.
So all these PCs are pushed towards "Casual Games". "Casual Games" is now the catch-all for anything that doesn't require top-o'-line specs.
Now, a console dweeb buys into a system with a known lifespan, and a reasonable price. The games cost, but everone knows what they're getting.
So what's left for PCs, besides "Casual Games"? As you said, World of Warcraft. PCs are by far better for socializing than any console. Simulations are also great, since simulation geeks tend to follow a different arc than console gamers: they buy little software, and more interesting hardware (well, some do).
Personally, I've never owned console, and am not tempted by the current crop. Well, if I had a TV, I might consider the Wii, just to see if it really is as fun as it looks.
A niche market is a market nonetheless. Tell me, would you rather be the 10th country radio station in a region where 80% of the people prefer country music to rock, or the only rock station?
Also remember this. Extrapolation is what the man did who walked off of the cliff, because the ground had been flat so far.
Interesting water cooler conversation, but not much else.
Which pretty much sums up the console versus PC debate. But that's not what this article was about.
They asked three industry analysts, three questions:
- Is the PC Game industry being marginalized?
- Are consoles an alternative to Piracy?
- Will Microsoft help PC Gaming? Will Vista help PC gaming?
They all seem to agree that spending on PC games will experience decline. Yet none of them seem to reliably explain why. One of them completely fudged all three of the questions.The Realities of Online Digital Media
iTunes. People were "obtaining" mp3's back in 1996. But it wasn't until last year that a storefront was erected, with the necessary legal and contractual agreements, to actually go and purchase a piece of digital music online. Media organizations are among the most stolidly conservative entities in the business world, the reason is because they are shit-scared. Why? Well, it's like how Esther Dyson put it : "The gatekeepers...which are dependant on putting content into inefficient containers...are going to lose."
Big game companies are no different than other big media, having built their entire businesses around the processes and tools that made their products yesterday. New stuff (ie innovation), makes them nervous. Which is why we don't see a lot of radical entertainment coming into mainstream gaming.
Contrary to doomsayers, I've noticed that there is a literal explosion in gaming (particularly online), in which the PC is the central delivery platform. MMOGs. Simple, easy-to-run downloadable casual games. Browser-based games. Digital distribution (from Game Tunnel to Manifesto to Steam and everything in between). The consoles can not do any of these things (they will one day, but right now they're not stealing anyones cake when speaking about online games).
Even WoW has greatly expanded the online gaming market to include people who have literally never played a game online before in their lives. The trend is now unstoppable. Where are they going to go when the lustre of Epic grinding has faded away? They'll try new games. What about the casual gamers (meaning, your grandma)? Is the ad revenue generated by casual gaming portal sites added into the spreadsheets of the PC gaming industry?
Note that not one of the above examples spells monetary goodness for retail stores. But that's the nature of digital media - the suppliers who put stuff on shelves are eventually going to lose and will smartly move to service-based and value-added outlets.
Not Piracy, it's Standardization
Yes modded consoles really stop piracy. Prepare for DEATH when the latest consoles get hacked.
Consoles are less about piracy than they are about a standardized implementation base, which reduces the headaches of supporting a divergent hardware base. This is where the console is vastly superior to the PC. This is where costs are lowered in the release phase of a game (meaning, technical support and patching), and filtered back into the development phase of the game.
Vista
Perhaps, Microsoft will help PC gaming. A greater emphasis on the OS-level can do nothing but achieve this. I don't think the XNA-XBLA route will be particularly significant for AAA, but the casual space should benefit.
A good reason that Microsoft just recently pushed XBLA + XNA for indies is because they control the tools, the media and the channel. They can afford to grab the mindshare because they'll profit from it any way you slice it up. More developers mean more games. More games mean more consoles. It's win-win for them.
Six years ago people were ringing the bell for the PC's demise. Three years ago, yet again. Two...One...oh whoops, the PC is still here. It's all about the games, and how we want to play them. Right now, consoles and PCs seem to make their respective audiences very happy.
Fanatics may be in short supply, and the market for new games, console or otherwise may be drying up, but that does not mean people are losing interest in games.
What I really want is the "Captain Keene" and "Leasure Suit Larry" series on my phone. Then I would give up PC gaming forever. Lets face it, the originals worked fine in 320x240 resolution, just like my phone.
Anyone sell a phone with EGA resolution? ... (Thought not).
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So by the time PC gaming is dead, Linux will be ready for the desktop...
What a coincidence!
First off, neither consoles nor PCs (for gaming) are going away. There are billions of dollars on both sides that want to keep the best gaming experience on their platform.
I, for one, would appreciate any developer's motivation to develop for SDL/cross OS gaming. As a PC, mac (mostly retro), and occasional console gamer (have a gamecube and xbox, don't shoot!), I feel that DirectX should be abandoned. Coupled with Vista, it looks to me like just another way for Microsoft to push around yet another market. I value PC gaming on the (dwindling?) merits of its gameplay. I still play CS, and haven't got into many other FPSes since. I played CS for so long because of the game mechanics, and the quality of the experience. Note: I don't just jump into any old CS server. I know damn well some servers can be garbage. I play with people I've played with for quite some time, which heightens the competitiveness, as well as the social value.
I don't, however, value graphics as much as you'd say the average PC gamer does. I've played on the low-spec side of the hardware curve since day 1. As long as the game doesn't drag along, I'll keep playing. I dropped Battlefield 2 like you wouldn't believe. BF2 is the prime example of where I fear PC gaming is going. Bloated games made to sell more expensive hardware. Sure, the maps are huge, which would require plenty of muscle, but loading times and the overall lack of polish are the killer.
I'll stay where the games I like are. I don't like how closed down consoles are for the games that could stand to be modded, but for highly structured online games like racers, It makes perfect sense to keep the consumer out of the hardware and software.
PC gaming is becoming niche. More so every passing year.
A)
Like others have mentionned, PC gaming USED TO be easy to install and play. Doom, for example, didn't require huge computers when it was released. Now games are starting to require at minimum 1 gig of ram and a top end video card with a very specific processor (Pentium or AMD, forget the rest). Also forget laptops since some games don't work well under laptop-based video cards.
Now it's a hassle just to get most games to run.
B)
In the mid-90s, you had numerous RPGs coming for PC, as well as numerous FPS, RTS, adventure games, sim games, racing games, flight sims and even the occasional beat 'em up (even if they wern't up to par with console games, it still got Battle Arena Toshinden 1&2, One must fall, a couple of Street Fighters and Mortal Kombats.
Nowadays, we get tons of The Sims copy cats, RTS are fewer in number every year, racing and sports games are on the decline, adventure games become rarer, flight sims are now almost inexistant beside the few surviving franchises. Only the almighty FPS seems to still exist as it was on PC.
C) (most important)
MMO games. You have that "newer" genre exploding on PC. Does this single type of game enough to justify PC gaming as a whole? You have a few games that work really well and that reflects the ENTIRE problem with PC gaming.
Yes WoW have millions of adepts. Guild Wars have a good amount too. City of Heroes and Villains get up a fair share too.
Those few games that work really well grab around 90% of the cash that can be made on PC by developpers. That leaves about 10% of the market to the "others", all genre mixed-up.
So you get a few developpers which were "lucky" enough to score the big one that sold millions of copies. If you're part of the vast majority of developpers that wern't that lucky, you start to lose profits on each game you make until you find out that consoles have bigger markets and more profit potential even if you don't create the next console "Halo" or "Final Fantasy" game.
Console games are just less of a risk for developpers than PC games.
So PC games focus more on MMO, FPS and the occasional RTS for players that have huge specs for their computers that are DEDICATED to gaming.
To me, this is indeed becomming niche.
One major difference between the PC segment and the console segment is that console makers have an incentive to promote their platform. The PC gaming platform has no advocate spending $$speech$$ and tracking ROI.
Come to think of it, if I wanted to promote my console, it would help immensely if the PC platform were declared a "niche."
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Another interesting difference between the PC platform and a console platform is a dictated controller. A platform company can design and mandate a new controller while PC games must write to a the controllers (mouse, keyboard, joystick) that the marketplace has accepted. It's a real case of the Cathedral v the tragic commons.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
For me, the problem is I used to budget about $100 - $125 for a new graphics card upgrade every couple years. I can't do that now, as the improvement in performance in that price range is negligible. In fact, what really stung me a few years ago was when I made the leap from a Geforce 2 to a similarly priced Geforce 4, only to discover the card performance was severely crippled.
Couple years after that, I made the plunge and got an ATI 9800 Pro. Wasn't cheap! But guess what? I'm now of the opinion that if I'm going to spend two to three hundred, I might as well get a whole new console.
With consoles slowly turning into PCs themselves, especially in terms of cost, I don't see how the PC gaming market will become marginalized. At some point consoles will become so expensive that people will get more value just spending a few hundred more on a decent PC. This is already the case in most of Europe and parts of Asia.
In the meantime, despite all the nonsense "experts" like to claim the market isn't going to change at all. The market is going to continue as it has the past 10-15 years. Every so often the claim is made that PC gaming is dying and time and again we see it thriving as strongly as ever.
One important advantage PCs have is that it is still perceived by the average consumer to be an educational tool. There are a good number of educational games available for PCs whereas there are essentially none for the consoles. There, of course, are other obvious advantages, the internet, being able to do research online, chat with friends, etc.
This means that many parents will be buying a PC for their children. The PC already has a foot firmly in the door. It's only natural that when the time comes to invest in some games they're going to be looking at PC games first. $40 to $50 on a PC game is far more attractive than $60 for a console game in addition to the purchase of the console itself. Many of these kinds of consumers could care less whether their PCs run current games at the highest detail levels at 60fps.
Also, despite the overwhelming popularity of a few genres on PCs, FPS, RTS and RPGs there's a wide range of games available for PCs. People are going nuts over the supposed innovative gaming coming for the Wii, how the console will attract hordes of casual gamers. The PC has already accomplished this!
The PC has become an ubiquitous platform. Who doesn't have a computer? From flash to indie to commercial games there's a wide variety of gaming content out there, and a lot of it is free. Most people I know who are only mildly interested in games will never spend even $200 on a gaming console. They might see a compelling game on one of the consoles, but its quickly forgotten. They sure arent going to rush out and spend a few hundred dollars in order to play it. However, they will spend $20 on a whim if they see something they like for the PC.
If anything, I forsee the console becoming a niche market in the distant future. Consoles are entering a point of diminishing returns. They're getting too complicated and expensive to justify their purchase of a technically superior and more practical PC. I predict that at some point PCs will become so transparent in use that they'll be intuitive enough so serve as easy replacements for gaming consoles.
This is almost completely irrelevant. Two points:
1) Most PC genres (let alone games) don't ever do that well on consoles, the obvious exception being FPSs and MMORPGs
2) The most popular console games are those that were NOT born on the PC
If Mario Bros is a huge console hit, then gets ported over to the PC sometime later and no one really cares enough to buy it, how is that worth bringing into an argument as to why consoles are better than PCs? It's the same twisted logic you've used.
And sandbox GTA-style games.
And third-person survival horror games.
And action/adventure games (not many of those on PC popular anymore).
And third-person stealth/action games.
And 3D platformers.
And Japanese RPGs.
I could go on and on...
As for the same time or slightly earlier comment, can you back this sweeping generalization up? I can't recall Burnout or Tekken being released at the same time or earlier on PCs...
This debate wouldn't be always be so bad if either side didn't keep misrepresenting the other side so incorrectly.
Yes, this is a "me too, I agree" post, but the reason why non-WoW PC gaming is perceived to be niche is because the games are too much about expensive, high-end hardware that needs to be upgraded relatively (compared to consoles) frequent to actually make playing a game worthwhile (since the game's only worthwhile features are its graphics). The Sims, WoW, and CS are HUGE hits and they are that way because their experience is not based on having an amazing setup to appreciate the game. It's about the gameplay, communal experience, commitment, etc. But what's the big deal in PC gaming now? Crysis, yet another FPS, and that's gonna require a WHOLE NEW OS just to play the damn game the way it was designed.
I kind of want to be like "duh." PC gamers bring up good points about not needing to run top of the line anything to have fun playing games, but that doesn't change the fact that if you're, lets say, an average gamer with a modest income, you will get much a much better looking (and more importantly: smoother looking) frame rate on new games for far less money, even if I were to buy a PS3.
Additionally, installing, playing new pc games and worrying about hardware is pretty much just as much a pain in the butt as it was ten years ago. World of Warcraft's been out for however long, and still people run into seemingly unsolvable hardware glitches, (that may be more user glitches than hardware, but that's neither here nor there.)
The other big problem is just sort of an economic problem. If the US economy goes into a recession and the average gamer's budget for gaming shrinks below a certain period, consoles simply have to dominate. If someone only has $300 to expend and they have to choose between saving it and a PSP, well, most gamers will probably choose the PSP. And given that the PC gaming market has these obvious vulnerabilities to the overall market, there's simply not as much going into it in order to generate large amounts of hype for various titles or developers.
In the past 18 months we've seen a whole lot more innovation for console gaming, esp. the DS and Wii, games like Guitar Hero, etc., and that's because publishers are willing to take a chance that they wouldn't otherwise take with PC gaming, specifically because it's a niche market.
It's impossible for a platform with a base that large to be considered a niche. What PC gaming is is a collection of niches supplemented by big-name FPSes, RTSes, and casual games. People go to the PC to create games with a small audience because PCs are cheaper to develop and distribute for, and the keyboard-and-mouse setup allow for a wider variety of control configurations than the console controllers do. There's no way you're going to see grognard war games, 4X strategy games, or Myst-like adventure games (just to name a few examples) gain a significant presence on consoles the way things are now.
Rob
I must of been too busy playing FPS, RTS, and MMO's to realize that PC gaming is now a niche market.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Seriously...a lot of people consider gaming a niche market in general. Now PC's are a niche market compared to consoles?
Let me break it down slowly for all these game "journalists". There are certain types of games that are better on PCs. These tend to be games that require more complexity than what you can play with a controller. I would not want to play Civ IV on a console controller, for example. These games are very popular. As long as there are people who are willing to buy these games, there will be making games for the PC. I don't care if it is more complicated to make games for the PC than a console. If there is profit to be had, there will be companies there providing that product. Neither PC or console gaming will die in forseeable future. Nor is one going to become a "niche" market. Certain types of games will be developed on the platform they are best suited for and people will buy them.
You may have a personal opinion how one is better than the other...but your personal opinion does not matter. There are plenty of people on both sides of the fence or who straddle it that will buy these games. PC gaming is fine.
Part of me can't help to think this whole thing is silly though. What do they think consoles are? Some strange and totally different piece of hardware? No, it's just a computer that has standard hardware. Really, everything is PC gaming...just need to slap a usable OS, some office products, and e-mail on there and there really isn't much of a difference. Really, we are just one step away of combining console and PC gaming and having a system that can act as a PC, DVR, gaming system, home environment control, etc etc.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
So what if Sony puts a flash enabled web browser in the PS3? Grandmother doesn't own a PS3 and never will. Now, do you want the advertising dollars that you can get for her impressions, or don't you? If you, then you'd better support the machine she owns, a PC. And even if you don't, SOMEbody will.
There's no point in putting a keyboard on a console. The console doesn't sit on desk. You could put a keyboard on a Playstation 2, but how many people did?
I piss off bigots.
Maybe you should stop considering the ColecoVision as the "next generation" of consoles.
Really, I have never noticed the dropping framerates you mention on any console. On the PS2, a game like GTA: San Andreas will never exhibit such behavior, even when using cheats that allow dozens of rockets to be concurrently fired and exploding. That's in addition to vehicles that may be moving, blowing up, and so forth.
Likewise, the Xbox doesn't exhibit such behavior. The Xbox 360 doesn't. The GameCube doesn't. If you did encounter a game that ran slowly like that, it was probably because you got the disc dirty, and many of the sectors needed to be read multiple times before a successful read finally took place. You should always care for you discs by placing them into a protective plastic case, or at least a paper CD envelope.
How many times have we seen complaints on Slashdot from those having to do tech support for relatives? Maybe grandma doesn't yet have a PS3 but just wait, people will buy them or recommend for their tech-ignorant relatives if they can be used as an internet appliance.
You wanna know how a keyboard works for a console that doesn't sit on a desk? The keyboard sits on the lap or on a "TV tray" the mouse if optical doesn't need a pad and can use a couch cushion, armrest, anything. Lots of people have keyboards attached to PS2's, online gamers mostly. FFXI and EQOA need it, it's used in lobby chat in many online games, it's supported by FPS's and certain other games (like RPG Maker 2 and 3)
The only reason educational software sells at all is because parents look at the alternatives and think that the educational games are somehow better. Children don't typically want to learn. Buying a game isn't going to change that. Educational games are boring.
Those who played Carmen Sandiego or the ripoff Mario is Missing aren't going to remember anything from it. I suppose the nerds like me will, but that's about it.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I mean, it must be a niche if EVERY GAME I AND EVERYONE ELSE I KNOW plays is on the computer. With everything from stepmania, urban terror, civilization, chess, EVERY NINTENDO 64 GAME, EVERY NINTENDO GAME, EVERY PLAYSTATION GAME, EVERY SUPER NINTENDO GAME, EVERY GENESIS GAME, AND LOADS of old DOS games, windows games, and of course all the best FPS, driving simulators, flight simulators, MySpace (kind of a game?), and Hot or Not on a 12 foot projected screen (1024x768 ~ $500), I don't know anybody who's really lacking anything in the game department. Especially as the ps2 and gamecube emulators continually evolve. The console is dead to anyone with half a brain or less of a budget. Granted the market of 13-20 year old n00bs who don't see the potential/lack the experience to setup a good computer game system is huge, but this next generation is already getting better at this stuff, especially as prices drop.
Save your money and buy a projector. It's way more fun playing mario kart 64 on an enormous screen than playing double dash on a regular TV.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
The first reason why the classic video games industry may be in trouble is that kind of reasoning. How this can be? The world, China and India included, turn around PC today and Internet. This is the only real network platform. The PC sales are increasing and the price of units is decreasing. I need to buy three consoles if I want to play with my three friends on the network. Go back to your niche mister the analysis, you are a dangerous endangered species. Let's play, create and share with the whole world, on PC.