PC game sales decline for first time ever, Console sales continue to break records

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Does anyone know if Caesar III is any good?

[Jon Miller]

I know people who liked it

Jon Miller

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Asher
Fez, Fez, Fez...leave this for the big boys.


This makes no sense. Console games have outsold PC games by a good margin for at least the past five years. And now, PC games sales are shrinking and console games continue to break new records...

Really? I doubt that argument. Maybe you should check your facts.

It's all so easy when you ignore what you don't want to see. No, the Xbox does not have a Celeron, the Xbox has a P3 with 128KB of L2 cache. That's not how a Celeron is defined, in fact a Celeron is crippled in numerous ways that the P3's CPU is not.

Wow a P3. My Althon XP 1600+ is better than that. Next.

Then there's the issue of how you can "write to the metal" on the Xbox that you can't on the PC. The Xbox's graphics chip is essentially a GeForce 4 chip at 233MHz. John Carmack says you can expect twice the performance out of a fixed platform like the Xbox than you can out of an equivalent PC. The Xbox doesn't have a 1GB/s AGP bus as a bottleneck.

Wrong again. Next.

Because PC architecture is so varied, they can't do much optimization for it for each platform of PC. They can on the Xbox. For example, the PC version of Rallisport Challenge chugs along on a 2600+ Athlon XP system with a GeForce 4 Ti4600 on the PC, and it never dips below 30fps on the Xbox.

Wrong again. Next.

Wanna know why I keep saying wrong again? Because you have failed to provide evidence.

Your remarks are beyond all the idiocy of the world put together. You know PCs are way better than the inferior console machine. Stop acting like a fool and accept the facts.

Fez, that is soooooooo lame.

You need help. Some serious help.

Asher, do you use drugs?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

I like PC games to console simply because I find it easier to use a mouse and keyboard to control. Its probably just habit, but since there are so many more keys, you can have the functions spread out among different buttons.

[Sandman]

Ever since they split from computers, consoles have always been winning.

If they made a console with original strategy games and a mouse, then the PC has no more interest to me.

I particularly resent the half-finished nature of PC games. At least half the bugs in the average new PC release are due to shoddy playtesting and game balancing, not the varied and complicated innards of the PC.

But PCs do have a large back catalogue of cheap, great games, which is more than can be said for most consoles. Plus, the new releases are cheaper.

[Giancarlo]

Another reason why consoles can kiss my ass.

Vietcong:

[bogi]

Look at the amount of console games released vs. PC Games released. That is why Consoles are having better sales.


Consoles do suck though in 10 years the xbox will be emulated on the pc. I guarantee it.

[Boris Godunov]

Goddamit, Fez, you're doing it AGAIN!!!

STOP BAMING!!

On T:

I think another problem hampering PC sales (I hope, at least) is a growing backlash against the "release now, patch later" mentality in PC game companies. Console games have to release a workable finished product. So many PC games lately have been virtually unplayable out of the box and only got better after several patches. Civ3 is a perfect example, and it looks like Hearts of Iron will be another one.

However, until console games become mod-able, PC games will always have a large audience.

[Bosh]

Wanna know why I keep saying wrong again? Because you have failed to provide evidence.

Aaaaaah so the Black Hole that has comsumed a thousand suns calling a small smudge black

[Giancarlo]

Boris, I can't be bamming. That is physically impossible for somebody of my intelligence to be doing.

[Boris Godunov]

Huh? Stupid people are the best at BAMing, so of course you can do it.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Huh? Stupid people are the best at BAMing, so of course you can do it.

Well you are the one who can do it then.

[Boris Godunov]

Except that you ARE the one doing it. All you said was "Wrong" without saying why or providing a rational argument. You have to argue his points, not dismiss them.

And you are the one who is wrong in terms of PC vs. Console game sales:

http://www.geek.com/newsbeta2/geekne...0925016489.htm

"In 2001, 65.3 million PC games were sold, compared to 110 million console games. While PC game sales increased 3.6% from 2000, console game sales increased 9% in the same period."

And here's one from 2000:

http://www.gamesdomain.com/e32000/sh...140&platform=5

"Console sales are now outstripping PC game sales by 5:1.


It's no surprise that the Console game market vastly out grosses the PC software game sales by a huge margin. Last estimates were at a ratio of something akin to 4 or 5 to 1. Sony was all to glad to give us some disturbing data of the success of console systems, and the Playstation in particular. Taken from their press release, some of these facts are quiet sobering."

And 1999:

http://www.cdmag.com/articles/026/00...a_games99.html

"Sales of console video game software were $3.75 billion and accounted for 50.5 percent of the industry's total revenues. Console video game hardware and PC game software split the remaining 30.9 percent and 18.6 percent respectively."

So got any other brilliant responses, besides "wrong?"

[Lawrence of Arabia]

hahahahaha

[Asher]

Originally posted by Fez
Really? I doubt that argument. Maybe you should check your facts.

They're cited in the article, Fez.
If you want to prove them wrong, cite your own figures showing PC games outselling console games.
"I doubt that argument" doesn't work.

Wow a P3. My Althon XP 1600+ is better than that. Next.

It sure is. It also has to deal with the overhead of being a PC processor rather than a dedicated gaming machine. This makes a huge difference, believe it or not, because a ton of your CPU cycles are wasted in running a huge OS on the PC.

Wrong again. Next.

Wrong again. Next.

Wanna know why I keep saying wrong again? Because you have failed to provide evidence.

Fez...How do you want me to provide evidence?
This is something I know about -- it's my field. It's something you've proven yourself time and time again to know next to nothing about.

Your remarks are beyond all the idiocy of the world put together. You know PCs are way better than the inferior console machine. Stop acting like a fool and accept the facts.

You seriously act like you're in third grade, Fez.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Fez
Another reason why consoles can kiss my ass.

Vietcong:

Vietcong looks like a good game, and I'll probably get a copy of it, but there are far more console games coming out soon that I'd want over Vietcong.

Just a personal preference.

And Vietcong won't sell very well. It's just not a mass market game.

And read between the lines on its platform availability
http://www.vietcong-game.com/us/faq.html#7

Will there be versions of the game for other platforms?

The game will initially ship for the PC.

[Asher]

And as for fixed platforms like Xbox being far more than you give them credit for, I'll quote some from John Carmack on the matter since I know where to find those quotes easily:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=38207&cid=4091362

The NV20 back end has more work in it than any other, with two different cases for the lighting interaction, but on the X-Box I would probably create additional special cases to optimize some of the other possible permutations.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=38207&cid=4091191

The X-Box GPU is more of a GF4 than a GF3, but a modern PC is generally much higher end than an X-Box.

However, you can usually count on getting twice the performance out of an absolutely fixed platform if you put a little work into it. There are lots of tradeoffs that need to balance between the different cards on a general purpose platform -- things that I don't do with vertex programs because it would make the older cards even slower, avoiding special casing that would be too difficult to test across all platforms (and driver revs), and double buffering of vertex data to abstract across VAR and vertex objects, for instance.

etc

[monolith94]

Just so long as I get to play my Tron 2.0, Doom 3, And finish off the Deus Ex trilogy… I really don't care!

[ixnay]

PC Games

Console Games

Can't we all just get along? Each has its strengths, and each has excellent games best suited for their formats.

[dudemanjack]

It seems you get alot more for your money with consoles.

The ONLY reason for me to get a new computer now would be to play games. My current PC does everything else perfectly. I sure am not paying $700-800 on a PC that isn't even top-notch when I can pay $200 for an XBOX that comes with 2 free games (granted I don't choose them, but they are still free). I'll be buying myself an XBOX, thank you very much. (2 more days!)

PC's still have the best controls for RTS and other strategy games though. What they also have cornered is the MMORPG's. I can't see any of those going to the consoles in the near future, if at all.

[Imran Siddiqui]

At least half the bugs in the average new PC release are due to shoddy playtesting and game balancing, not the varied and complicated innards of the PC.

Yeah, but when there are bugs on console games (the X-box version of Morrowind comes to mind) it is almost impossible to fix them!

[Asher]

The only times there are major bugs in console games is when it's being developed by a wonderfully incompetent devteam like Bethadasa(sp) or rushed out the door by an anal developer.

That said, console games are (by far) less buggy than PC games, since there's far less hardware combinations to anticipate.

[Drake Tungsten]

I pity all these anti-console zealots, for they shall never know the glory that is The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. May Miyamoto-san bathe us in his benificent light for ever and ever. Amen.

[reds4ever]

in the UK a XBox costs approx £150, try playing Morrowind on a £150 PC.

[monkspider]

I agree Ix. I love both PC and console games. As a whole, I probably play more console games than PC, but my favorite games of all time are all PC games (Civ, EU, Panzer General).
I have actually been almost chained to my PC since Hearts of Iron came out.

[Dis]

I can care less which is better. In fact I hope more people go to consoles. I prefer to play my games with mature people. Neverwinter Nights would be horrible if I was playing with 13 year old punks (or older people that act like 13 year old punks).

The fact is adult games are only on PC's. You will never find games like Fallout on consoles. Until that happens I will stick with PC's.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Dissident
You will never find games like Fallout on consoles. Until that happens I will stick with PC's.

And why not?
Games like Baldur's Gate are already on consoles. And what's more, the console versions significantly outsold the PC versions...

I'll also never understand the "stick to" argument.

People seem to thinke consoles and PCs are mutually exclusive.

[Dis]

Just because it outsold the PC version means nothing.

Britney Spears outsells everyone. Is she the best singer out there?

I can't imaging the console version of Baldurs gate comes even close to the PC version.

[Asher]

It's a different style of game.

I actually prefer the console style BG to the PC, but that's a personal preference again...

And I wasn't saying that those that sell more are better, I just used it to counter your "you'll never find" argument. Console games sell better than PC counterparts 99% of the time, which is why it's a pretty sure thing games like Fallout will eventually end up on a console in some form or another...

[Giancarlo]

Okay, I will give you this. But how much longer until Consoles basically revert back to PC's? They are basically PCs anyways, without the added features and only for games.

Consoles can kiss my ass, because their games suck. Period. You cannot make a case because PCs are vastly superior. What you have tried saying is false and propaganda.

I will concede one point. Windows is a memory hog and probably slows down performance significantly. That is why I now have a copy of SuSe Linux in my room... should I install it? Linux could make the promise of the vastly superior PC a damn good reality... but will any games run on it? Only if Linux were to, it would seriously leave the console completely out in the cold.