The State of the Games Industry in Numbers

Gamasutra has up a pair of articles discussing the numbers from this round of the console wars. One focuses on the current frontrunner, Nintendo. Their numerical superiority is highlighted by the number of million selling titles they currently have on tap. Both the DS and Wii are carrying multiple-million sellers, with the current tally for (recently released) Diamond/Pearl sitting at 12,170,000. Meanwhile, in a lengthy article, the site fully explores the impact of console sales in numerous markets and venues, with comparisons between all three consoles (and a focus on Nintendo's sales). "PlayStation 2 titles make up the bulk of software sales in the U.S. and Europe again in 2007, as they have in previous years. The Wii's 2007 numbers equal the GameCube's in 2006, but its software growth isn't yet matching its hardware's. Microsoft's Xbox 360 has benefited largely from the Xbox's demise and the PlayStation 2 sales' slow decline. Even with the PlayStation 3 hardware's current state in Europe, its software sales in Europe are relatively low."

Release Games worth a damn on the PS3...

[GundamFan]

and I will happily buy them. I know that the games I want to play are coming to the PS3... but a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

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[Stevecrox]

What about motorstorm, Resistance fall of man, Dirt and Oblivion. I'l agree not every PS3 game is a winner (cough Sonic the hedgehog) There is also guitar heroe 3 coming out for the PS3 this month and although I haven't played it I've heard Heavenly Sword is great and apparently the new Tony Hawks will be worth a spin (out this week I believe.)

Personnally I love whats on the PS3 it took me two months to get through Motorstorm and even then I'm still playing online multiplayer with a house mate. I've just

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[GundamFan]

I guess I'm being a bit harsh... GTA4 and MGS4 are the two big ones I am looking forward to and the continual delays are getting tiresome.

I will admit that Ratchet and Clank looks good... I may pick it up this week or at least grab the demo.

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[macshit]

I guess I'm being a bit harsh... GTA4 and MGS4 are the two big ones I am looking forward to and the continual delays are getting tiresome.

I saw a promo video (running on a PS3) of MGS4 yesterday. The graphics were very nice (except for facial closeups, which looked pretty bad, like lighting was bleeding through cracks in the models or something), and the video did a good job of making the game look interesting, but the frame-rate was awful ... it was honestly like 10fps, I felt like I was watching a flip-book or something.

You'd think that even if they were having frame-rate problems with the actual game, they'd make a video look at bit smoo

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[Gogo0]

I think the problem is that a lot of people dont consider those games system-sellers.
Im sure i would enjoy playing motorstorm and tony hawk, but i dont really care about them enough to even borrow a friend's ps3, let alone buy one.

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[Ponzicar]

Oblivion is on the computer and 360 as well, so it's also just as good of a reason to buy a 360 or a decent computer. I'm expecting Metal Gear Solid 4 to be the PS3's last chance at success.

Today, I ordered an Xbox 360

[LKM]

What about motorstorm, Resistance fall of man, Dirt and Oblivion.

So you have two launch titles and two multiplatform games, one of which really should be played on a PC. You also mention Heavenly Sword, which was supposed to be the game to finally make the PS3 worth it, but at 6 hours of playtime, I just don't see it. GTA IV is probably better on the 360, and R&C looks gorgeous, but it's essentially the same damn game I've already played on the PS2.

I've bought a PS3 on launch, but I've ordered an Xb

No PC gaming mentioned

[Kohath]

It would be nice to see PC gaming included in these. It seems like PC gaming is mostly MMO-only now, with the focus of every other type of gaming (except flash-based games) moving to consoles. But it would be nice to see numbers to indicate whether this shift is real or just perceived.

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[EtoilePB]

The state of PC gaming bugs me, too. The presence on retail shelves is more or less nil, except for a few dozen copies of WoW (and every store, for some reason, has one EverQuest expansion from like six years ago.)

On the other hand, Steam and GameTap keep, well, picking up steam -- and I wonder if those services are even registering. If I play Overlord on my PC through GameTap, I didn't buy it. But it's still making money and I'm still enjoying it. And the charts don't ahve much to say about that. ;)

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[Shados]

There's also one (probably unpopular) thing to consider... Piracy. on PC, I'd be guessing piracy is relatively extreme, at least for games where the main appeal is NOT online (thus why PC gaming is becoming all MMOs, with a touch of FPSs and RTSs). Single player games seem to be suicide, except for the select few "star" AAA games like Oblivion and such.

If you look at the patterns of the industry, it has a bit of that tendency, even on consoles, unless the console is several times more popular than the alter

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[imasu]

Bought Orange Box yet?

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[Kohath]

It's not out for PS3 yet, so no. I have 3 AAA games (R&C, Heavenly Sword, GRAW2) I haven't had time to even try yet. Warhawk still needs me to play it all the time. Plus CoD4 comes out next week. The Orange Box is due for PS3 December 11, so maybe it'll be an xmas vacation game if I decide to play it instead of Uncharted.

I could buy it for PC, but I don't need to play "update my graphics drivers, check compatibility lists on sound card drivers, why did it crash, my HD is full, etc, etc". I like the

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[Kohath]

yeah and have a gay shitty fps experience with a douchebag controller. Fuck you consumer whore. Eat shit and die.

Are you a happy person? Does not being a "consumer whore" make you happy? Do any of your attitudes make you happy? Maybe try something more positive. Be in favor of something instead of just against things. Encourage people to do what's right for them instead of hating them for choosing differently than you.

Just a suggestion -- because haters aren't happy.

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[webmaster404]

The problem with PC gaming, is that nothing is fully equal. First you've got the base game, that costs you like say $40 and assuming you can run the game fine on wine (that way we don't have to include the price for all the MS stuff) you can run it slowly on your current system (say a 1.8 GHZ processor, 1 GB of RAM and a base NVidia graphics card) but now to upgrade it you can spend $70 for more RAM, and $100 for a better graphics card and your looking at a $210 game and when a Wii costs $250 and games cost

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[Chosen Reject]

to upgrade it you can spend $70 for more RAM, and $100 for a better graphics card and your looking at a $210 game and when a Wii costs $250 and games cost $50

And then 3-4 years later you have to upgrade your system again to play a different game while the Wii will be supported for around 5-6 years.

This is actually one are where PC games can shine, though. First off, if all you are doing is upgrading your RAM or GPU then you have 100% backwards compatibility. But in 5-6 years a new game for a console wi

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[edwdig]

Seriously, the big difference between consoles and PCs is the number of people who can play on a given system, the ease of setup, and the types of games.

The big difference is console hardware is a fixed platform with VERY strict quality control on the software, whereas the PC is a complete free for all. On a console, you don't have to worry if the game will work or not. On a PC, you're almost guaranteed to have driver issues or some other incompatibility at some point.

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[grumbel]

### But cost has nothing to do with it.

In the past it was normal to upgrade a PC every few years, since office, internet and stuff required a new computer every now an then. The thing is, this has changed quite a few years ago. PCs today are fast enough for basically all normal uses, there no longer is any need or benefit from upgrading except when the hardware itself breaks down. Which is the reason why my current PC is 5+ years old and I have another one which now is a good 7 years old which I still use o

From Zero to Playtime in a few Seconds

[LKM]

I don't think cost and performance are what differentiates PC and console gaming. For me, I hardly ever play PC games if I can avoid it. The reason? After a long day of staring at the screen, I just want to go home, plunk down in my sofa, push the button on the remote, take the gamepad, and start playing. I don't want to install stuff. I don't want to worry about drivers. I don't want to check system requirements. I don't want to quit my mail application to free up RAM. I don't want to worry about incompati

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[Targon]

People seem to miss a very basic concept behind gaming on the PC and the costs involved. When it comes down to it, you have your base computer(the non-gamer portion of the price) that gets used for things other than playing games. Then you have the extra cost to make it into a gaming computer, which is what SHOULD be compared to the price of consoles.

So, let's take a look at the prices out there...

$550-$600 for the base computer, the hard drive(non-RAID setup), integrated video, 2 gigs of memory.

To turn

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[grumbel]

### Then you have the extra cost to make it into a gaming computer

Which in a lot of cases means throwing the old computer away and buying a new one from scratch. You can't upgrade a PC ad infinitum, since your power supply will ran out of power, your mainboard won't handle the CPU, your new mainboard won't like the old RAM and all that stuff.

### As for why people think that PC gaming is almost dead, it is because the only games many people look at are the action game market,

What other market should they loo

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[Targon]

You seem to have missed my point. If you take a new computer(dual core processor, 2 gigs of system memory), and the rest of the components in your average $600 PC, you can consider that the non-gamer components of a computer. This means that the only parts that should be considered the "gamer components" will be the video card, perhaps one or two gigs of additional memory, and possibly a video card.

Now, until game consoles come with dual GPU video, if you want to compare costs between a PC with a gamer

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[grumbel]

### If you take a new computer(dual core processor, 2 gigs of system memory), and the rest of the components in your average $600 PC

My point is that I don't need a new computer. A five year old one will work fine today and be good enough for non-gaming uses. But you can't just install a new graphics card in that one or a new CPU, since mainboard and powersupply just won't handle it. So if I want gaming I have to buy a completly new computer, there is no 'non-gaming use', since that is already covered by the

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[Targon]

People talk about the difference between a normal PC and a gaming computer. That being the case, while you CAN upgrade an older 5-year-old computer, I go from a fairly modern computer(1-2 years old, not 5). There is also a big difference between the people who buy a clearance special(the $350-$400 range) and those who buy a new computer in the $550-$600.

It is expected that if you buy a computer that starts off as a cheap piece of garbage that it will cost more just to bring it up to the standards of the

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[solar_blitz]

MMORPGs are becoming the downfall of PC gaming. Originally PC games - even the most expansive and open-ended titles - would last for 100-150 hours worth of gameplay. Afterwards a new game would have to be purchased. MMORPGs can go on indefinitely past 100, 200, 300 hours of gameplay. It could go on until the next big MMORPG emerges. And so many resources are dedicated to MMORPG development that developers barely have the means to make any other game for the PC. But I doubt there's a lot of incentive to deve

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[LilBlackDemon]

An interesting point, but not only do MMORPGs last forever, but they also take time away from other games. If you only have one or two hours a day to play a game, and you play an MMO, you no longer need to buy other games.

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[Sigma 7]

MMORPGs are becoming the downfall of PC gaming. Originally PC games - even the most expansive and open-ended titles - would last for 100-150 hours worth of gameplay.

Citation? (Not that I don't believe you, but some of those expansive titles may last 100 hours for the wrong reason. Telengard, for example, had extra-long transition time between movements as it rendered the dungeon - and you couldn't short-circuit it properly with an emulator since it has a "auto-pass" timer. )

While I do feel that the older games may have that amount of playability, it can be distored by nostalgia - back then, you spent more time on a specific game since it was unlikely you had a large

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[grumbel]

I think you missed his point. He is not saying that old games lasted 150h, but that even the *longest* of the old games had eventuell an end around the 150h mark. MMORPGs on the other side don't have an end ever and thus the user no need to buy a new game.

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[PingSpike]

There's always OpenGL, that works on windows XP and Vista...among other things. Of course, a lot of developers have put all of their eggs in the direct3D basket and now they're crying foul that microsoft broke the unwritten rule that all new versions would work at least on the last MS OS or two.

Time will tell if the disgruntled development houses will grin and bear it, eat the cost of developing for directx9 and directx10 or if they'll take a second look at OpenGL for a one stop source. In the past direct3d

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[Creepy]

DX10 compatibility is only officially Vista only - the Alky [fallingleafsystems.com] project is working on XP compatibility.

So far, DX10 has been less than satisfying for me, however - it doesn't look that much better than DX9, tends to be crash prone (I crash about every 20 minutes in The Witcher and about 30 minutes in Hellgate even with the MS hotfix and latest drivers, but that's better than every 2 minutes without the hotfix). The Crysis demo has not crashed on me in DX10 after the hotfix, however, and gets good performance