PC Games On the Rebound

Via The Escapist, an article on the New York Times website discussing the rebirth of the PC games industry. The piece talks about the bright-looking future for titles on the PC, citing the platform's ease and speed of development and Microsoft's 'Games for Windows' initiative as points in its favour. Mass-market PC maker adoption of the hardcore gaming market is also discussed, with financials being the main thrust of the article. That focus is a double edged sword, given the obvious comparison to console games: "The upsurge comes after some recent reversals. Over all, retail sales of PC-based games in the United States exceeded $970 million in 2006, an increase of about 1 percent of sales the previous year of $953 million, which represented about a 14 percent drop from $1.1 billion in 2004. By contrast, according to the NPD Group, retail sales for console games in 2006 were $4.8 billion; another $1.7 billion was spent on games for hand-held devices like Sony's PlayStation Portable."

Comments

Re:I dare to disagree

[deinol]

No results found for desaster.

Did you mean disaster (in dictionary)?

Re:"Games for Windows" = MS Monopoly push

[radish]

However, what it REALLY is, is Microsoft using their complete dominance of the PC game market to extend that dominance to the console

That doesn't make sense to me. How does Windows as a gaming platform (which I rarely use) affect what I do with my 360? Why would the GfW program encourage people to buy a 360? Please - explain how MS intend to use their Windows market position to "extend that dominance to the console"?

The end result will be to get PC Gamers to pay extra for content they get for free now, just like console players are doing on X-Box Live.

So hang on, are they using GfW to take over the console space or Xbox to take over the PC space? Which is it? As for the "paying for extra content they get for free now" - which content exactly? I have to say from my limited Windows gaming experience I don't recall getting much free content other than patches. Want new levels? Buy an expansion pack, or the new version of the game. You see the same thing on XBL (e.g. recent Oblivion expansion). What you also see are small micro-payment upgrades, like additional characters, tracks, whatever. In my experience you generally don't see these at all on the PC as online purchasing is still pretty rare (Steam is fixing that) and distributing a retail box for a couple of new character models is not worthwhile.

A requirement for a game to be branded a "Game for Windows" is that it is compatible with an X-Box 360 Controller. Need I say more? They're pushing for all PC games to also be X-Box 360 Games.

Well first off, compatibility with the 360 controller is not a firm requirement, the way they word it implies that if you support any controllers, the 360 one should be one of them - but if you don't, no problem. Secondly, yes - of course they want to encourage games to come out on both platforms - why not? As a publisher I'd see that as very attractive, a larger potential audience for not much additional dev cost.

If the PC Game is also an X-Box game, then it can use X-Box Live. If it can use X-Box Live, they can figure out a way to release content for it in micro-payments, and nickel and dime us to death on games that we used to get updated content for free on.
Ahhh....back to that mysterious PC-only free content. Do elaborate...

Considering the fact that Sony and Nintendo are incapable of competing with Microsoft on this initiative... I'm really surprised no one at the Justice Department has taken notice. It's blatant leveraging of a monopoly if you ask me. I don't see how it's legal.

Well judging by sales figures Nintendo (and to a lesser extent Sony) seem to be doing a pretty good job of competing on their own terms. Couldn't Sony launch a rival "Sony Games for Windows" brand which requires PS3 network compatibility? Of course they could. Couldn't Nintendo launch a PC version of the Wii controller? And add a way of generating a Friend code for your PC? Of course they could. They could even make it cross platform and grab the nascent Linux gaming market share (ha!).

I really can't comprehend how this is a monopoly issue. My purchase (or otherwise) of a Microsoft games console has NOTHING to do with whether I have a PC running Windows or not. There's virtually no functionality on one which is linked to the other (just some media playback stuff). All that's happening is that they're adding some features to one platform which used to be exclusive to another. So I can now use Xbox Live from a PC, great - nothing says I HAVE to and nothing says I need (or would even benefit from) an Xbox to do it.