Interesting read, consoles have slightly more share overall, but PC is currently GROWING!!

http://www.gamersnexus.net/news-industry/610-pc-games-revenue-outmatch-all-consoles-combined

If you're just judging by download numbers alone, it's not even close. PC's on top.

PC gaming has been "dying" for the last 20 years :rofl: I expect it to keep on dying strong for quite a long time :hehe:



RAGE and Skyrim were both leaked on XBox first, well before release day. PC version (of Skyrim) was leaked only a few days before release and still wasn't playable until it was officially released, due to the fact that the main execuable wasn't included in disc or the pre-load.

That of course says nothing about download amounts but piracy is a console problem too, even if bigger noise is made from PC piracy.

PC will always be the ultimate platform. The only reason not everyone uses one is because it's more expensive to keep an up to date PC that can run top quality games. People will just buy and xbox or a ps3 because it's a lot easier. This being said, I don't agree that Pc gaming is 'dying', I believe PC gaming is stronger than ever.

By those numbers you would be right, of course. However you're forgetting that you need a physical disk for consoles, so when pirates download 1 copy and burn it a few hundred times to sell on a market stall the numbers average out (though I believe the higher % is in favor of console piracy). Let's face it no one is buying pirated PC games these days.

I didnt vote either because i agree with the above. PC gaming is dying because in the industry is there is an increasing focus for appealing to the mass market and profiteering, rather than appealing to a more niche group who will enjoy a game tailored more towards specific interests such as a deep roleplaying experience and immersion. Case in point: The Elder Scrolls.

Pirating always has and always will occur. it can't be stopped by any level of DRM. Case in point Assassin's Creed II, where Ubisoft implemented the most draconian form of DRM possible, causing chaos for many honest purchasers including myself. It was cracked within weeks. I know this because I used it to play my copy of Assassins Creed II without a permenant online connection. Piracy is also rapidly spreading to consoles, and isn't a valid reason for a movement away from PC gaming. There were XBOX 360 torrents for Skyrim even before torrents appeared on PC.

Review copies. It's not a platform thing in this case, it's people getting their hands on one and throwing it out every time. Companies need to keep a closer eye on these things.

It's gonna happen regardless, but 99% of the time you hear "Game is leaked!" it's because someone with a review copy did it.

Agree, the game market as with any market is driven by greed, More money they make the more they want and console games is where to do it, pc games take more as they have to run on multiple setups.

what they fail to realise is the gamers age isn't just teens anymore, The average age of the gamer is now something like 28 here in the UK. A lot of the mature gamers I see in the shop are looking in the PC section and don't want to run round with a gun shooting everything that moves, They are looking for the deep games ones that have a play through of weeks not hours. call of duty and battlefeild 3 are prime examples here.. (yes I got BF3 it looked good) less that 24 hours played its completed.. can't add anything to it, can't mod it I can change the dificulty thats it. now take Skyrim, 93 hours played. I'm just about ready to move on from whiterun hold area. and I know once I do finish the quests within the game I have the option to add mods, start a new toon. restart and up the dificulty or even add some DLC with the speed I play I'm sure there could be a few out.. lol

Honestly, it's a misunderstanding of the market.

The console market is 'financially focused', and you have a captive audience.
You want a new game? you have to walk down to your local retailer and spend $x on 'dance demon 2012 edition'.

It's a captive audience, if everyone charges $900 a game, people either buy those games or don't play.

--

The PC market is dispersed:
- you play online poker? the money goes to the site.
- you play farmville or on kongregrate/armor games etc? the money goes them, or facebook or maybe there is no money.
- you play wow? (or any of the other ~dozen huge MMOs) almost all the cash goes to blizzard/vivendi.
- you play a free-to-play MMO, and spend money in the cash shop.
- you play an entirely free game.

It's not a captive audience, if all MMOs decided to charge $900 a month, people have plenty of alternatives.


But then, it's 2011 - nearly 2012. Tablets have entered the market, TV over the internet is starting to appear (again), ios/android have cut out huge chunks of the mobile marketplace...

Who knows what next year will bring? But I'm confident PC gaming isn't going anywhere, and plenty of people are making a lot of money out of it!

So you're going to ignore the fact that consoles have both piracy AND a second hand market, which is essentially just legal piracy as far as the devs are concerned?

Every time a game is sold second hand, the developers make no money from that sale, it may as well just have been downloaded from a pirate website, it makes absolutely no difference to them. The fact this market is legal has meant that the numbers vastly outnumber illegal copies. This cannot happen on PC due to the CD-keys, and is ultimately the reason EA use the 'online-pass' in order to recoup some money from the lost sale.

console piracy + second hand sales >>>>> PC piracy.

its more comfortable to sit on the sofa with the pad, regular pc upgrades are needed and are expensive as [censored] and a pc has way more technical problems than a console.

so console>pc for me

I'm sorry but PC gaming will never die my friend.

1st of all the mouse and keyboard theory is way to compelling. I would NEVER play anything other then a racing game or an RPG on a console. Games like RTS or FPS require mouse and keyboard.
Which of course can be bought and used for a ps3 for example. Any good gamer will tell you, its not the same.

Multitasking. Streaming. Dual Boxing. porm

These are a few of the incentives a pc user can utilize to their 1 stop machine.

Now, sales of PS3 or Xbox surely probably do surpass that of the PC. If consoles didn't steal them, Apple did.

But PC's will never die. As the PC to North America is the equivalent to the Cell Phone in Japan. It is a trend and one that just simply wont die.

Lol. This right here is an example of people being completely misinformed.

I know people who haven't upgraded their GPU in around 3 years and are still maxing everything. The most you would need to spend to continue playing at max settings is ￡300 or so every 3-5 years (cheaper than some consoles); if you were happy to play at console settings you could go a helluva lot longer.

It's dead to me because it's a money sink, got tired of that nonsense by '09.

PC Gaming isn't dead, it's deaf. People have been saying it's dying for at least 20 years but PC Gaming itself hasn't heard this and is still going fine.

Right on the nose here...... I think that PC gaming is getting harder because of pure capitalism. It is cheaper for people to buy a console these days then a ready for games PC. Not everyone can go out for cheap and build their own, like the hardcoe PCers here always throw in peoples faces. Alot of people either don't have the skill to do it or don't know anyone who can. Simple the game companies see there are more consoles in households then PCs. Alienware= $6000 for a decent gaming PC Vs. XBOX 360= $200 to $300, who is going to win here???

I wouldn't say it is dying, but it is certainly suffering.

a lot of casuals (normal people with no interest in computers) dont have expensive stationary machines @ home, they are perfectly happy with a cheep laptop, listen to music and facebook..and then a console for gaming and social gatherings.

wow just wow

Not exactly.
DRM is there to stop or slow down reselling games.
Every publisher knows their game will be cracked within hours after release, or even before the official release if a single shop breaks streetdate.

It's the legit customers they want to control, not the people who pirate their games.

Are you kidding? Your logic is so flawed, I'm baffled, in fact I'm more baffled by the fact that you end up agreeing with me at the end, but more on that later.

Piracy is their concern because 1 copy at best is paid for, while thousands upon thousands are not, the margins in reselling are so low it would take years just to reach a fraction, and even given infinite time to do this it won't simply because by that time the game would be out-of-date.

Calling the PC a money sink in the last 5 years is just wrong. Sure it won't play everything in ultra settings, but it will play them as well as a console would.

Yet another example of someone who is completely misinformed.

Honestly, entering a debate with absolutely no knowledge on the subject you're debating is a bad move. This is one advantage many PC gamers have, as often they also own consoles, and so can give an informed comparison. The vast majority of console players do NOT have a gaming PC, and know absolutely nothing about them, meaning that comments like the above are common.

It's not flaming or discriminatory, it's truth. If you don't know what you're talking about you shouldn't say anything.

EDIT: just to illustrate a point, here is an http://www.dell.com/uk/p/alienware-desktops#!facets=40186~0~852691,70207~0~462580&p=1

..as you can see it costs nothing like what was suggested, and will max any game out currently.

PC gaming dying is a myth. What, but PC gaming, is driving all the hardware tech? Supply and demand are tied together intrinsically and without the demand for SLI/Crossfire motherboards, monsterous GPUs, and fast RAM from PC gamers, there would be no supply. Certain entities, I firmly believe, would like to see PC gaming die as they've just not broken into the hardware market, so they make no money when someone builds a gaming rig rather than buying their console.

Sure, if you had a higher end GPU from three years ago. A low to mid-range one? Good luck.