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"PC is decimating console, just through price" - Romero
- Thread starter Poetic.Injustice
- Start date
Can confirm that. People seem to think the people from poorer country will remain poor and being pirate forever. I live in Indonesia and from my experience, young gen (gamer gen) are started to have money to spend on games. A lot of people started with F2P like Dota or LoL then move to another titles.
Heck, one of my pirate friend spent $80 on Dota2 item, then he saw Skyrim LE for $13 during sale, thought it was cheap and bought it. Dota2 being F2P is really genius move for Valve. It introduce a lot of people to Steam and its sales.
You mean aggregate data? Publishers don't normally disclose detailed sales data outside of what is legally required or unless it is part of an overall outlook they want to promote. A few independent developers have disclosed pre and post discount figures, data for 'Fez', 'Cook, Serve, Delicious' and certain Valve titles seem to indicate that net profit increases substantially over normal sales figures with deep discounts.
It works both ways. Sales of your game die off and than years later they pick up because the game is much cheaper. Console games don't sell all that well after 6 months to a year after release. Because there is no backwards compatibility and terrible sales. With PC a dev can still make money on their game like 5-10 years after releasing game because they get exposure for $5 (or even cheaper) during summer/winter sales.
PC gaming is the best.
This GIF is hilarious... a masterpiece.
To be fair, it's not like new consoles come out every year, or that last-gen game sales grind to a halt with the release of the next-gen.
I know about that data. But it's kind of normal that a game that was out for 1/2 years at $20 will sell more in March for $5 than in February for $20. It also doesn't show a theoretical sales number for a game that launches at $20 and stays there for a year, with the users knowing that it won't be on sale in a few months (Summer/Winter sale).
As I said, pretty much nobody has the data or the manpower to extrapolate from that data. Of course, since it's become a custom to participate in the Steam sales, everybody will do it. Is it good for the industry? I have no idea, but there's no coming back from this trend and the industry will be shaped around it.
Captain Tuttle
Member
Incredible.
PC gaming is the best.
I'm finally in the market for a new PC and haven't been this excited about gaming on one in years
derExperte
Member
Where are you getting your numbers from? Because they're very wrong. See here for what a 750Ti combined with an overclocked 4770K uses (under load is the 3rd graph and the numbers are for the whole system!): http://www.computerbase.de/2014-02/nvidia-geforce-gtx-750-ti-maxwell-test/9/
So ~165W overall. Would be lower with an i3.
And here are the consoles' stats:
BruiserBear
Banned
If you look back a few years from now the actual percentage of games that are going to recieve XB1/PS4 ports is going to be very small.
Also, people who understand the tech changes in these new consoles understand exactly why they weren't backwards compatible. Their architecture is completely different.
PC gaming is the best.
Oh god oh man
There, fixed it a bit for you with the same level of subtlety you used.
fluffydelusions
Member
PC gaming is the best.
lol
useyourfist
Member
Why is it wrong to group all consoles when pc vs console sales are being brought up? As if this is wrong then shouldn't it be more appropriate to also divide pc up by something like graphics card?
cookie-monster
Member
lol?
useyourfist
Member
Lol you noticed the sarcasm then! I do love these type of threads haha. Edit- Though in fairness I do think it needs to be considered that basically everyone has a pc of sorts
Honestly I thought it was a serious post until you said that it wasn't. I have actually seen a similar post like this a while back except he was being serious about it
And Im on PS4 mostly playing F2P games...some even match me up against PC players.
useyourfist
Member
Really haha, gotta love gaf. I couldn't care less about pc vs consoles I find the arguments in threads like these funny. I should of added a sarcasm spoiler! I just wish I had enough spare money to build an awesome rig to go with my consoles (can't give up my Sony exclusives) , may have to start saving for an Occulus cv1 capable rig though.
Sentenza
Member
It's wrong for several reasons:
- different consoles don't run on the same version of a software, they need each one a specific port.
- different companies are profiting over different versions. It's not like sales of a PC version go in one direction and sales of Playstation/Xbox/Wii branded machines go uniformly in another one as a unique block of revenues. They are all distinct segments of the market.
- it's a dishonest way to downplay any relevance of the PC as an individual platform. Putting the PC alone against all consoles is literally equivalent to putting the PS4 version against PC, XB1/XB360, Wii and Wii U and then claiming its market share is trivial "compared to the other ones". You can do it, but it doesn't make much sense, as "the other ones" aren't an unique entity.
What's even more ridiculous is that people hardly compare the market share as a whole, but -as you can look in this very thread reading arguments by users like maneil99- they usually love to (conveniently) compare sales for a single title.
The problem with this approach is how it tends to highlight just big performers (possibly just the ones that do well on consoles, as the other ones don't matter because of reasons) and ignore that, for instance, on PC you also have hundreds of "minor" titles reaching profitability that hardy sell on consoles, WHEN they have a console version at all.
In short, the fact that there are (arguably) less "monster sellers" on PC is typically counter-weighted by the fact that there are a lot more sustainable niches and profitable mid-tier products.
But GAF doesn't love to talk about them, apparently, if not to dismiss them as non-relevant.
EDIT: Aaand apparently your post was a joke. it's becoming hard to tell the difference these days.
Red Mage
Member
If F2P is what qualifies as winning, I want to be a loser.
They use a different basis for the systems. It's easier to program for / port to.
They use a different basis for the systems. It's easier to program for / port to.
Sentenza
Member
Yeah, I agree. F2P is obviously doing fine, and he's probably right about how in the long term developers and publishers will learn how to do it better if they want to survive a competitive environment, but I just don't believe it will ever be the alpha and omega of the market.
If anything, even just because as that would happen, others would go to fill the gap and satisfy the demand from people who want single player games with the traditional pay-upfront-and-be-done-with-it financial model.
SkeptiMism
Member
That comes off as pretty ignorant, no offence.
I mean like, there are plenty of reasons to be a console only gamer and there's nothing wrong with being a console only gamer (though I'd still say that even if you have only a cheap laptop you already have access to countless good PC games and you could find plenty of things to like there), but there's an incredible amount of variety on games on PC. Saying "keep your mobas" comes off as very ignorant even as a hyperbole. The problem (anecdotal opinion) for many console gamers when they say they're not interested in PC games is that they don't know even half of eben the more well known games and what they offer. Unless you have some really niche taste, there'd probably be tons of games on PC that you'd enjoy.
Manmademan
Member
There was no drop in 2013.
What's happening is that console games are seeing larger shifts toward digital distribution, which is not tracked by NPD.
With the estimates for digital sales that they DO have, NPD estimates total content growth at 1%- and they have no access to any data at all from PSN or Live. MS and Sony don't publicize it.
PC Gaming.
Always dying since 1995.
And after all those years people still think about this kind of stuff. I have an old rig (recently bought a new one) that has Phenom II X4 3.5 ghz, a Radeon HD6850, 4 GB of RAM, and 2 1 TB hard drives non-RAID and the last game I played on that rig was Watch Dogs on High Settings which not only did it look better than the console versions it ran better. I build this rig 6 years ago and still runs a ton of new games at higher settings that look better than consoles and the cost for it was around 700 dollars did not make any upgrades on it except add another hard drive because I edit films and requires tons of storage.
So no, you do not need 2000 dollars for a "good" PC, it does not need upgrades every 6 months, new releases are better priced Steam isn't the only one that provides affordable sales.
Always dying since 1995.
And after all those years people still think about this kind of stuff. I have an old rig (recently bought a new one) that has Phenom II X4 3.5 ghz, a Radeon HD6850, 4 GB of RAM, and 2 1 TB hard drives non-RAID and the last game I played on that rig was Watch Dogs on High Settings which not only did it look better than the console versions it ran better. I build this rig 6 years ago and still runs a ton of new games at higher settings that look better than consoles and the cost for it was around 700 dollars did not make any upgrades on it except add another hard drive because I edit films and requires tons of storage.
So no, you do not need 2000 dollars for a "good" PC, it does not need upgrades every 6 months, new releases are better priced Steam isn't the only one that provides affordable sales.
Azure Wolf
Banned
Totally untrue.
I built my current PC in 2010, with an i5 760 and 8GB ram and a GTX460 it wasn't even a high end system then, and it was reasonably priced.
Since then I've put a GTX680 in it that I've had loads of use out of these past 2 years. Now that same system built in 2010 is going to provide better quality than PS4 or Xbox1 can for the entirety of the current gen.
I've saved £1000's on getting games through Steam too, games that I get to keep and play whenever I want unlike non backwards compatible consoles.
The idea that PC gaming is expensive is becoming a fallacy, as it's arguably better value over time if you're smart about upgrades and software purchases.
PC gaming is the best.
Perfection!
useyourfist
Member
It really is hard to tell, and it's because of the stupid need of some to blindly defend their side in the pc vs console argument. It was sort of the point I was trying to make lol. But thanks for your response as it's spot on, though I wonder if the ongoing battle between nvida and amd will complicate these arguments even further. As their negotiations for exclusive features etc is looking like ms vs Sony in a way.
PastorOfMuppets
Banned
I love it when somebody famous (or famous in a games industry sense) says something like this and all the fanboys on NeoGaf start trying to spin it like Republicans and Democrats do for political campaigns.
I would love to see the reaction here if Bill Gates came out and just said flat out that Xbox sucks, just to see the world burn.
I would love to see the reaction here if Bill Gates came out and just said flat out that Xbox sucks, just to see the world burn.
That politiking has the potential of fucking things up. What would be catastrophic though is if one company killed the other's gpu business.
Macmanus
Member
Miyamoto telling Nintendo to suck his dick and going PC exclusive would be the megaton you're looking for.
CosmicQueso
Member
Businesses don't keep doing something like Steam sales and flash sales on the consoles out of custom.
If publisher participation with deep discount sales keeps increasing it is because they have been deemed profitable and beneficial.
Plenty of people at plenty of pubs and devs and 1st parties have the data, have done the math, and keep participating more. There's your answer.
ThePowerofX
Banned
He's articulated the pro argument well enough. But what about the contrary position? Comparing both approaches directly, the general performance and graphical fidelity of console games improve over time; whereas a maturating PC (assembled at the same point in time) remains frozen and, worse, left to stutter.
A perpetually 'faster system' does not come free. If money were not an issue, I would happily pick Romero's approach each time. 'PC slowing down? Simply bang in a new graphics card. Problem sorted.' But in the real worldya know, the one where most people resideI'm content to journey along with Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo (PS4 this generation) and trust the developers who recognise value in this approach.
That's exactly how I feel. He made some interesting arguments but I'm pretty confident about my choice.
Objectively Bad Opinion
Member
The graphical fidelity of games released on PC don't improve over time?
For the most part, PC ports of console games are still going to perform better than their console counterparts when running at console-equivalent graphical settings anyway. This whole thing seems kind of like a non-issue to me though, since if you actually care about graphics and/or performance on such a level, then the console games aren't going to hold up to your standards anyway.
And PC-exclusive titles are almost always made to be able to run well on older systems since that's a chunk of the market you can't afford to ignore. The types of games that need expensive hardware to perform well are typically just shoddily ported multiplat titles that haven't been given proper optimization, like The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
And PC-exclusive titles are almost always made to be able to run well on older systems since that's a chunk of the market you can't afford to ignore. The types of games that need expensive hardware to perform well are typically just shoddily ported multiplat titles that haven't been given proper optimization, like The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
bemusedchunk
Banned
This.
My latest PC thats hooked up to my tv and I just run Big Picture on was around $600. This was also about 2 years ago - and it's still ticking along just fine.
Denton
Member
You can be happy in the knowledge that it will never happen, because there will always be demand for singleplayer games, and F2P does not really work for singleplayer games.
petran79
Banned
20 years ago a PC that could run Doom 1 or Doom 2 decently, with sound card too and not speaker sound, would cost at least 1500 $. 2500-3000 $ by todays standards, if you add inflation. Also you had to pay the same price again in less than 5 years if you wanted to keep up with the technology.
few years later Playstation 1 used a high end 3D graphics card that had no equivalent on PC, till the arrival of Voodo.
now you can do the same on a 500 $ PC.
back then PC targeted a different audience, the ones that were willing to invest money.
hence there were so many PC vendors back then.
those modchip manufacturers made millions during the PS1 era....
few years later Playstation 1 used a high end 3D graphics card that had no equivalent on PC, till the arrival of Voodo.
now you can do the same on a 500 $ PC.
back then PC targeted a different audience, the ones that were willing to invest money.
hence there were so many PC vendors back then.
those modchip manufacturers made millions during the PS1 era....
OsirisBlack
Banned
The F2P model is generally abused by the developers that use it. Several Facebook and PC games that encourage this model are strictly pay to win or even pay to spin if talking about FB. Mobas handle it a bit better in my opinion offering voice packs, god/champion packs and skins that do little to assist you in winning. But even they are falling prey to the pay to win scheme, booster packs in smite to give you an advantage when leveling is just one example. The day more big studios go F2P for other genres of games is going to be one sad day.
A metroid game from nintendo where your missiles cost $10 for 20 missiles or you could spend 6 hours in some grind fest to get two. Or Battlefield or Cod where you could pay money up front to get weapons instead of grindi...... oh wait we're almost there aren't we?
Crimsonclaw111
Member
A sale at $5 is better than no sale. And a $5 sale is better than a used $40 purchase at Gamestop for developers.
What I meant by custom is that if 90% of the pubs discount their games in a sale, you pretty much have to do it too, no matter what the data says. And it's your answer, as you just said "they do it, so it must be good", which is a non-answer.
DOWN
Banned
It's not anti-consumer. You already own the system that is meant to play those games.
And it's like .5% of games released get ports. Not that much more got even emulated in PS3 store.
It's not some sort of epidemic where they kill your PS2 and steal the games.
And when that system does (and it will, considering the overall build quality of previous gen) not to worry - we will stream it to you for a fee! Once we get around to porting it to our server infrastructure that is
PC gaming is the best.
Amazing! Do we actually have a successor to Suhnilegend?
SneakyStephan
Banned
You'd be surprised, people try in every thread like this