A dying breed

"The analysts at PWC also think that the PC game market will continue to shrink. In fact, PC game sales are projected to decline from $771 million in 2004 to $655 million in 2009. There is one region, though, where PC games are expected to grow: Latin America. PWC says that limited competition from the new technologies of online and wireless games will enable PC games to flourish there."

from: http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?article_id=10753&filter=

ok, well about 100 million. good thing i did my follow-up research
 
Man, I've been hearing this for literally decades, and the market just keeps growing. Seems like most of the presuppositions are that people will go from PCs to consoles, but the console guys are obviosly targeting *new* markets and are not trying to steal away PC gamers- just look at the new Nintendo thingamabob (no way a PC gamer wld want to play "swat the fly with your nunchuk controller" games) and the HUGE number of sports and fighting titles (never a PC-friendly genre due to controller issues) on the consoles and you'll see what I mean. There's so much room to grow that it's stupid.

Besides, PCs will always be the preferred gaming "platform" for serious gamers because of their mod-ability and their advanced graphics. Maybe when a console comes out that can hook to the same internet as my PC, has a hard drive and can be upgraded (gee... sounds like a PC to me) then we'll see this sort of decline, but not until then I don't predict.
 
I somehow dont think the PC is dying just yet. take a look: Rome: total war and its expansion, Warhammer 40k Dawn of war and its expansion, Half life 2, Sin epasodes, FEAR, and countless others.....nope, the whole PC gaming is dead thing is quite a ways off for now
 
you need to rise above the victory to see the find you purpose to find your victory and then and only then will the victory be unhollow hehe :gingerbre and the gingerbread man (& gingerbread ladys) will all be free
:gingerbre :gingerbre :gingerbre
 
I don't believe the PC platform is dying. What I do see is more and more marketing for the consoles. I think that the profit margins made on the console software are substantially higher than that of pc software. Most of us who play pcs regularly are a little cheap. While the costs of the pc games seems to be staying about the same or going down, the console games are going through the roof. I was at Fry's the other day and walked the gaming isles (cant go there without checking all the new stuff out), i picked up Ground Control 2 for the pc on sale i think it was 19.99. I was looking at xbox games and they have multiple titles for 59.99. Wow. Note that I am an avid gamer, I own 3 pcs, x box, ps2, gamecube, and still have my atari that I play pitfall and pac-man on. The majority of my time gaming though is always spent on the pc. For a few reasons, namely I can update the game instantly if the need arises. Support is always online (though they may not know how to help you), and the fact that I build and upgrade my own systems help. No I don't think we pcers are a dying breed, I just think we are aging and being less vocal. Now we spend our money letting our kids get the high $ console games (so they leave us alone on our pcs). Like someone else said earlier, all it will take is a killer pc release and our true numbers will show themselves.
 
PC people cheap? Seems to me it's the opposit- I help run a game swap site, and the PC gamers all tend to be the people with cash- they have to be to afford a rig that can, say, play F.E.A.R at 1600x1200 with 4X AA and anisotropic filtering on a 20.1" LCD. Of course, people willing to wait 6-18 months can play older titles or upgrade with last year's tech for pennies on the dollar, but that's still usually a bigger cash outlay than $200 for a console that will run games for 3-5 years or longer.

Of course, with consloes getitng pricier (the 360 is really stupidly overpriced on release IMHO) and PC power coming down at nearly the same rate, the line's blurring, but then again, so is the difference between consoles and PCs- the 360 is really just a simplified, standardized set-top PC after all.

Console strength = Installed user base of millions on a standardized platform, which SHOULD lead to reduced proiduction costs, as one game only has to work on one set of systems specs. This assumed benefit is trumped, however, by:

Console drawbacks = Developers have to pay HUGE premiums to the console manufacturers for SDKs and the rights to develop for that platform.

PC strengh = No royalties for development. Anyone can build or license a graphics engine and SDK, and then just publish. Takes advantage of bleeding-edge technology and is often times ENCOURAGED or even monetarily supported by hardware makers- Doom III for example, was really more of a tech demo showing what was possible on high-end video cards than anything else (God knows it wasn't a great GAME).

PC Drawbacks = Diverse user base- PC users play on everything from 486's to the latest P4 and AMD chipsets. Advances like WinXP and DirectX have smoothed the way, but development and expecially SUPPPORT costs for PC games are astronomically higher due to non-standaridization.

Both suffer from retail issues- expensive shelf space, massive advertising and PR costs, etc. Both PC and some consoles promise on-line delivery (ex: Steam for PC and some fledgling game delivery channels for consoles that leverage their broadband connectivity) that might one day help mitigate cost, however if history and an analysis of the music industry and things like iTunes are any indication, all publishers will do is pocket the money they see from the cost savings they get from not having to burn CDs and buy retail shelf space, and we lowly users will simply pay the same we always have for new titles. Both also suffer from "Hollywood-itis", where budgets get larger and larger to meet the ever-growing expectations of the audience. Players always want more... More FX, more realistic physics, more levels, more, better-looking graphics, more lifelike AI, more music tracks form actual famous recording artists, more, more, more...

As budgets break MILLIONS of dollars, venture capitailst-types that put up the enormous sums of cash won't risk their investlement on new game types or innovation- everything becomes "Quake XXIII" or "Mario 2010"- names that are guarandeed to sell X-number of units with a predictable return on investment rather than games that might do something different and be wildly innovative and fun, but which "only" will sell a few thousand copies.
 
Most of you have no idea who I am. Well scratch that none of you other than asylum know who I am, but let me just answer all of your quandaries now. The number of PC games isn't going down nor will it ever go down. Now the number that stores carry will continue to fall as long as these soccer mom's are willing to buy a $400 system for their 8 year old that can't spell their name but can whoop your ass in some Halo. All stores know that $60 is better than $50. Therefore the number of PC games will dwindle until consoles fall off the face of the earth or PC games rise in price. The best friend for a PC buff is the internet. There is an amazing site called Bizrate.com you can look at all of the new PC games and order them there. You can have them shipped to your home or to a store near you. This site is absolutely amazing.
 
Yeah, Steve's got an excellent point. Now that broadband is the norm amongst Internet connections, digital distribution is shaping up to be huge. I think the only thing consumers will demand on that front is the ability to make a hard copy of the game (i.e., burn it to disc). I've heard complaints from more than one person about having to reinstall a game by goining through the entire STEAM process again.
 
Well lets look at the reasons why things like steam is around. Probally the no. 1 reason steam is there is to cut out Piracy. Which it was somewhat successful ( Although I see ton's of HL2 copys floating around the internet). Also a helpful feature of steam is that if that copy of Half Life or Counter Strike is missing ( or scratched hell up like mine is) you can just download the game, you don't have to keep up with you copies of games.
 
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