That was not is opinion, rather stupid responses from other.

He is right in everything here, except that an 30% sales as download sounds far to low to me.
Could be as high as 50%, one thing limiting it would be fans who wanted the box.
I also think Skyrim has sold well on pc the months after release to. Some people was slow, other probably migrated from consoles because of mods and performance.

Some things changed from Oblivion, then Oblivion was released it required an good gaming pc, Skyrim runs on anything with an dedicated graphic card like an 800$ laptop.
Many who played Oblivion on consoles wanted Skyrim with mods.
Far less piracy than Oblivion: multiple reasons, first can not use the workshop with an illegal version, neither skse as I understand, it is needed for more advanced mods, less need to download an pirate as an "demo" to see if they could run the game, you can get if without going to an store.

Did Bethesda confirmed already the exact release date of Dragonborn?

I mean, it's January 2013, but did they mentioned which day?

No they haven't - all they've said is "early 2013," whatever that means.

The only thing that boggles my mind is why in the hell does Microsoft compete with their own bloody product? I'm not buying a friggin Xbox just to get a game with inferior graphics and performance early, yet they would get more sales if I could buy it for my Windows system.

January isn't even confirmed. "Early 2013" is all we've been told.

Yeah, I blundered right into a sarcasm trap with that response.

On 100k peak Portal 2 versus 270k peak Skyrim, we can derive a ratio of sales 2.2 (the obvious ratio is 2.7, but we're being safe).

Even assuming Portal 2 sold only two million (hint: it probably did 3-5 since it was a high-profile Valve game), we arrive at PC sales for Skyrim of 4.4M, which is equal to PS3's market share and closer in line with "many million."



No royalties from PC game sales, no control over the market (PC gamers refused to buy Gears and Halo 2 when they tried charging for p2p multiplayer), and no ability to http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Left-4-Dead-2-Cold-Stream/8598aa7b-c47a-4e5a-b473-aba466439c55 like they do on 360.

They does not, everybody has pc anyway. Also they does not get any cut in pc game sales, notice how pc games are cheaper, the difference is mainly MS or Sony's cut.

Great post zin, great post. I had to laugh as it went over peoples heads and so potent with sarcasm that it didnt go off on peoples meters. Well done

Also fantastic post. We keep seeing the RETAIL sales and quite honestly most people dont by a box version of it dosent come with any goodies. Trust me, when skyrim was released I didnt stand out in front of Gamestop for a couple hours in the freezing cold. Nope had it preordered and when it was available it automatically started to download onto my PC.

The absense of steams sales figures and trust me I know why they are not available to public and the reasons nehind it I rather it kept that way, but because of those sales absence from retail sales charts, its gives a different picture than what actually is.

Thank God for steam sales. I can support valve since they receive a percentage on what I spend, I get the product, and Bethesda gets less money legally from me

No its "early 2013" which could be anywhere 1st quarter. I have a feeling all this xbawkz exclusivity was before all the Steam/PC users were accounted for. So it may have been a bit short sighted but they may be stuck with their decision now.

Pretty much what Zinthros said. They don't get any money from sales on Windows, so they do this to try and maximise profit for the 360.

Although if I'm honest, every time Microsoft does something like this, I wish more and more I could stop supporting them by buying their operating system.

They don't really directly compete - most XBox owners probably have a PC in their homes as well. They just don't use the PC to play games, for whatever reason (prefer playing with the controller on the couch with a big screen, the PC doesn't have the hardware to play the games they want to play, etc.). But that PC in the corner very likely has a copy of Windows installed, anyway.

How does Bethesda get less? They get significantly more money from PC digital sales (since you preordered that was $60). They don't have distribution, packaging, disc printing, console company royalties, etc costs. Even if Beth self-publishes they still make more off PC sales. That said, I'm thrilled about being able to buy the DLC on sale instead of full price. Way I see it Microsoft already partially paid for my DLC . Got DG+HF 50% off I think in the Autumn sale?



I already did. My university has MSDN AA, so I have like four Windows 7 pro product keys laying around that I didn't (directly) pay a cent for. Two from my dual enrollment college and two from my current uni. I just wish we got MS Office for free too, but $80 will do. I get every new version of Visual Studio free too, which is nice.

DIG, I don't see how they make no $$ off PC sales? Other devs made plenty, Witcher and Witcher 2 sold tonnes of units. Bethesda completely skips the cost of manufacturing and boxing games on the Steam platform so even if they lose 30% to Valve they make 70% on each sale (unless releasing it somehow to Valve loses them the same 30% as boxing and making games)...somehow I doubt that. At this point I'm past caring, I'll get DB when it comes out I'm just a bit disappointed I won't be able to fully enjoy it while I have a bunch of free time over the holidays.

Also remember we PC players were already given that line once before on this very same game. Same month and everything. Last December, they told us ck would be available for skyrim "early 2012" and we received the ck late febuary.

Im of the impression since we have already heard this line before in the same month last year on the very same game, im thinking late febuary or march. Not January.

Emphasis on the *+*. The Creation Kit also came out "early next year" which as it turns out means "March" at Bethesda.

They sell the dlc by downloadable content. They dont spend money on using dixks or packaging anymore. When they sell the dlc to xbox users at 20 buck and lets say xbox gets 30%. They make give or take 12 or 13 bucks off each dlc sold. The PC users who wait for sales get it at 5 or 10 dollars. Since valve didnt have any money in making a product and get money just by putting it up to be downloaded and dont spend money on making or shipping physical copys their 30% cut pure profit. Where as when we buy it from steam sales Bethesda only gets 3 dollars or 6 dollars depending on which sale. Waiting for the sales, we halve or 3 fourths what Bethesda would have gotten if we buy it day 1 and still get the same product the people who spent 20.

Well, you could always go to a Linux distro, or buy a Mac.

Thing is, though, Linux is always going to be a niche market for consumers because "Linux is hard, let's go to the mall!" This is way over-exaggerated with some of the newer Linux distros, but It still does take more tech know-how to get one set up, and to run most games, you have to use Windows emulation techniques in your setup.

Mac, of course, has the "overpriced cool for the elitist hipster set" image, plus game offerings for OSX are very limited. Like with Linux, you can set it up to run Windows based games (Boot Camp, WINE, etc.), but again, that requires more tinkering than most people are willing to do.

And then on top of that, Windows has pretty much thoroughly penetrated the business market. On many major networks, some sort of Linux is being used to actually run the various servers and do all the heavy lifting with keeping the network operating, but it's doing its thing in the background; the users don't see it. All they see is the Windows PC right in front of them. So naturally, when it comes to an OS for the home computer, most of them are going to go with what they know and are comfortable with - Windows.

Long story short - while more people than ever before are trying other options besides Windows, it's still going to be a long time before its dominance on the market is broken.

I was referring to Microsoft.

So now Bethesda are willingly screwing over PC users... I've lost all respect for them at this point.

It makes no sense for them to hold off releasing something that is ready, it would mean more custom in the long run if they released it at the same time. Although I suspect a backhanded agreement with Microsoft.

Another copy of skyrim bites the dust. Opening Far Cry 3 now. @&$& you and your early next year BS

well one thing keeps me sane. Is that knowing some modder put there will take the files of a telvanni tower and make a mod for us to grow our own tower anywhere in skyrim. Plus a mod to take skyrims music out and replace it with morrowinds music.

This was probably mostly Steams fault, they wanted/ had to wait with the CK until the workshop integration was done.
The dlc delay for PC is an business deal.

It's certainly more than a "backhanded agreement" - it's a fully legal contractual obligation. And it's nothing new; these kind of single-platform exclusivity deals have been around since the days of the NES, if not earlier. They obviously work for the developers and the console makers, too. Otherwise they wouldn't keep signing them.

Bethesda has really screwed up the communications and PR end of this, with their long periods of silence only broken by vague and often insulting statements, missed promised delivery dates, etc. They've been so inept that sometimes I wonder if they're not intentionally trying to hack off their fan base for some mysterious reason. I mean, they couldn't do much worse if they did try.

But the exclusivity deal is already over so surely they can't make another agreement after the fact. But I agree that they're doing a great job of alienating PC and PS3 users. Personally if I played it on PS3 they would never get another penny out of me.