Console gaming finally overtaken PC gaming

[Farid]

1/3 of the PC gamers NEVER give a $/€/£ for a game (It's in french but here's the source).

Facts like that talks louder than words about the situation of PC gaming(And no, piracy on consoles is not playing on the same league, in case you'd ask ).

This also explain case such as DX: Insible War (IIRC, for instance, the PS2 version of DX did more money than its PC counterpart), Thief 3, Unreal Engine 3 being created with Next Gen consoles in mind, etc...
Only a few, a very few really manage to do money on PC (Blizzard, etc..).

 

[Sonic]

Everyone in th is thread is bringing up very good ports.

ERP, you are right, it is hard for a PC game to sell 250,000 copies let alone 100k less than that.

Piracy on the PC is a major problem because it is so accessible. With broabdand connections piracy has been made that much easier. Then again that's in the US.

Piracy on consoles is a much bigger problem outside of the American and European markets. I have no clue on how the situation is in Japan but in other places it is very rampant. When you can buy a game for as little as $2 then I would say that's eating a lot of sales from the industry.

Then you have MS making the Xbox. I have friends who have modded their Xbox's and all they do is go and rent games and rip them straight to their hard drive. It's incredible how blind MS was when it came to this aspect of their console,.

 

[Farid]

I have no clue on how the situation is in Japan but in other places it is very rampant.

Almost inexistant.
The little problems they have with piracy is mainly HK counterfeit games. BTW the japanese anti-piracy ad campaign from the ACCS (a japanese copyright enforcement association) used a sad Pikachu, with a text saying something along the lines of "Pikachu is anxious, when you use or buy pirate copies, you make pikachu sad, he feels bad electricity running throught his veins".

 

[BigGamer X]

Hahaha why don't u look at top of the line tittles. after all thats what u did with ps2.


doom3 54.99
half life 2 49.99
rome total war 49.99
warhammer 49.99
tribes vengence 49.99
everquest 2 49.99



There are many games that fall off the radar that are put out on the ps2 at launch for 20$ .


I also like how you add in expansion packs like uo which is the 8th expansion pack for the game. Or everquest platnimum Why didn't u include everquest 2 collectors at 90$ ? or half life 2 collectors at 64.99 ?

I bought my Doom 3 at Walmart for 44.95, they musta had a sale!

 

[pc999]

Take for example SCT and think how many copys it sell on PC and on consoles vs the price of both, then made the averange for all games.

This should answer your question.

 

[phat]

phat, your post is not indicative of pricing in the console industry nor in the PC games sector. You're using a very heavy bias to support your argument.

I find these accusations of bias quite surprising since all I did was grab the lists of new and future releases directly off EB. It's a random, instantaneous snapshot. I'm pretty sure if someone were to add up the totality of PC games and PS2 games, the price difference would be even greater.

I'm also surprised that it isn't evident to everyone that PC games are typically cheaper than console games since when I switched from PC gaming to console gaming, I was quite offended by the ridiculous prices of console games (and yet bought them anyway...). I mean, console games are a semi-controlled market, which is much better able to impose a higher pricing structure than the free market that PC games are. Maybe the difference isn't as great in the US... Console gamers in other parts of the world are usually worse off than their American brethren.

Phat

 

[Cryect]

Nah pricing differences in the US are evident between consoles and PC games. For top notch games on consoles need to wait almost a year before seeing a price drop (non must buys on the otherhand drop after a couple months). Whereas there is too many great PC games that after only a few months are down to $20. NOLF2 and System Shock 2 are just a couple games I can think of off the top my head I bought for $20 only a few months after they came out. As a result I've gotten into the habit of waiting on most PC games before I buy them (makes computer upgrades cheaper and in general its nice enjoying last years great games for dirt cheap prices)

Surprised no one posted a link to this article http://curmudgeongamer.com/article.php?story=20040616003216720

 

[Fox5]

While this is largely true, the big difference is the number of PC games that sell the "250K" units vs the number of console games that sell "500K". Where the numbers just note some abitrary Profit level.

Actually not as many console games as you would think reach 500k units . I would say more than 70% of console games fail to hit 500k. Hell fail to hit 250k .

I can release say jvd vs the ninja's . Spend the money developing the game. Sell a 100k units. Then release for a very low price 4 more expansion packs which are nothing but fan based maps and patches and sell another 200k units combined on that.

Not to mention that decent pc games have a shelf life of 5 years . Counter strike is still selling for 30$ . Quake 3 is still going for 20$ . COnsole games have no where near the life

The big console games do, look at halo or super mario 64, or final fantasy 7.
Cheap console games(player's choice or otherwise) seem to last quite a while.
Most pc games don't have the shelf life of quake 3 or counterstrike either.

BTW, I've found that a lot of new gamecube games have been releasing for $40, as did dreamcast games when it was in its final days. I think the 1st party titles on ps2(and maybe xbox) may do this as well, but most of gamecube's worthwhile games are 1st party, and this also makes the 3rd party titles have to underprice nintendo.