Analyst: PC Has Surpassed Console in Terms of Revenue

[Vigormortis]

"The big difference is that consoles are now the luxury item and PCs are the necessity. Just a few years ago the reverse was true.

This statement makes absolutely zero sense. How bad an analyst does one have to be to believe that consoles were ever a necessity, or that PC's have been nothing more than a luxury item even in the last ten years (being generous)?

I think what was meant was that PCs were viewed as the "luxury" item in terms of gaming and general media devices; primarily in infrastructure and cost; whereas consoles were the "essential" media devices.

 

[JarinArenos]

But haven't you heard? PCs are a dead platform! The dude who halved Nokia's market share said it, so it must be true!

 

[Strazdas]

"The big difference is that consoles are now the luxury item and PCs are the necessity. Just a few years ago the reverse was true."

the reverse was never true. Pcs were never the "luxury" items, maybe perhaps in commodore times.
And PC revenue has surpassed console revenue for quite a fea years now. just look at things like EA financial reports for example.

Well I'll simply take their word for it but all of my "gamer" friends play exclusively on console and none of them even own a PC. I'm the only PC gamer in the group.

how does one even live now without owning a PC? and yes, laptop is a PC too. unelss they do everything on their phone, in which case, sigh.

Well there was a period there before Valve came out with Steam when PC was getting ignored the hell out of in favour of console gaming and was really on the ropes for awhile.

you mean the time when blizzard pretty much took whole gaming market over with its PC exlusives, creating largest competetive gamer base to date? or when all those strategy studios sprang out and made a ton of money? or the period when valve didnt have steam and produced great games?
PC gaming was never on the ropes.

theres no console race, only PC master race!

console race is called "peasants". you have much to learn brother. May GabeN gide you.

Gee, and PCs are the ones where they all say digital piracy is running rampant and costing sales while consoles are very difficult to pirate and will often wreck the console if one tries, and yet PCs are STILL making more money than consoles are.

thats because piacy on conlsoles are actually higher. its just that people compare absolute numbers and there is simply much more PC gamers out there so even at lower % - more pirates in aboslutes.

Congratulations to the PC crowd. I'm sure some of the more childish of their group will become annoying with their "Master race" chest thumping when they hear the news, but anything that translates to more gamers enjoying the experience the better.

the more... observant of us have known this for couple years now actually. this is not "news" to "Master Race".

Yeah, and guess what? Pretty soon PC will be getting Haswell-E 8-core processors, DDR4 RAM and GDDR6 GPUs. PC is going to be hilariously overpowered when compared to the mighty next-gen consoles.

captcha: what for

For The Witcher 3 and Star Citizen of course!

or for soft-emulating last/current gen consoles. exclusives? nah, you got no exclusives!

Whats the hassle on the consoles thats not on pc?

mandatory updates? proprietary addons? disc requirement? anything that needs you to type in text?

 

[Vault101]

how does one even live now without owning a PC? and yes, laptop is a PC too. unelss they do everything on their phone, in which case, sigh.

Tablets? don't the windows one have pretty much full functionality?

 

[Strazdas]

Don't jump on the "hate bandwagon" herd mentality. Just because some games do micro-transactions and monthly payments badly, does not mean that they all do them badly. In fact, most of the games specifically mentioned in the article - DoTA 2, League of Legends, World of Warcraft - make very good, admirable use of these systems.

erm, DOTA 2 and LOL - sure. World of Warcraft - not really. its the only game that manages to get away with Subscription fee (fine), expansions costing money (what kind of lunacy is this? i already paid for them by paying every month) AND microtransactions (golden mounts, no thanks).

Gta5 sales might be sagging now. But I'm pretty sure it made more at this point than LoL has made total ever if its got 58.5 million players paying $1.32 a year.

arguably LOL has spend more on tournaments than GTA5 made profit. But then there are rumors that LOL is so aggressive with tournaments as to even go into loss just for that market share.

its like [i/]well know I don't really want this game but its $5 so how can I NOT try it?[/i] and more often than not it ends up unplayed along with 50 other $5 games...

but sometimes you do find a gem..

which is why i got a list of games i want to play with it and it takes more than "this looks interesting" to get on that list, and i dont buy games that are not on that list. So far only two games were bought that i later decided not to play (there are some bought but not played simply due to only having 24 hours in a day). And these two were sequels in a series that i bought as a pack and didnt enjoy as much as i thought after playing the first one (and the other two are on same engine so not like they are totally different games).

Tablets? don't the windows one have pretty much full functionality?

Tablers are still PCs (personal computers) and i would consider them closer to touchscreen laptops than phones. Yes, there are some that has ability to put SIM in, but those are rare. they are just locked down PCs with costum OS and mobile hardware. Good enough for web browsing, so yeah i guess you could consider then a replacement. To be honest personally i see no reason to buy laptop AT ALL now. if you want to have a machine to use at home - desktop is the way to go. on the go - tablet beats laptop. unless you really need to have a powerful beast with full keyboard thats portable (small market, excruciatingly costly) your better off with a tablet.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Now if we could stop the PC Master Race faffery then PC Gaming would be perfect... but hold on there for a second I have to breath in my own shit like it's a puff of fresh air. Aaahhhhhh, so good.

 

[Vault101]

which is why i got a list of games i want to play with it and it takes more than "this looks interesting" to get on that list, and i dont buy games that are not on that list. So far only two games were bought that i later decided not to play (there are some bought but not played simply due to only having 24 hours in a day). And these two were sequels in a series that i bought as a pack and didnt enjoy as much as i thought after playing the first one (and the other two are on same engine so not like they are totally different games).

I'm not saying everyone does...but I swear theres probably some legit name for that type of behaviour

[quote/]
Tablers are still PCs (personal computers) and i would consider them closer to touchscreen laptops than phones. Yes, there are some that has ability to put SIM in, but those are rare. they are just locked down PCs with costum OS and mobile hardware. Good enough for web browsing, so yeah i guess you could consider then a replacement. To be honest personally i see no reason to buy laptop AT ALL now. if you want to have a machine to use at home - desktop is the way to go. on the go - tablet beats laptop. unless you really need to have a powerful beast with full keyboard thats portable (small market, excruciatingly costly) your better off with a tablet.[/quote]

study mabye? but then if youve got a tablet with a keyboard and windows 8 you'd probably be fine

 

[alj]

I would offer an analogy to the whole PC/console war...

PCs are Timelords and Consoles are Daleks. Everytime the Daleks come out with a newer, stronger model, the Timelords regenerate in to something newer, better and stronger.

How can PCs be timelords

PC games are the "master race" after all, the darleks have referred to themselves as such multiple times.

Well there is only one thing to do with them pesky consoles

EXTERMINATE!.

Jokes aside, we have gotten to the point where even a mid to low range pc or laptop can play the more interesting exclusives, people get there first taste of pc games this way then want to move to something bigger and better.

This is why i think sony and microshaft are missing a big opportunity, drop the price massively on the previous generation of consoles ( say £100 ) make current gen backwards compatible, make loads of interesting indie and cheaper titles on the older console and say hey look the games on this console are cool right want that and even more then buy a PS4/xbone.

I just don't understand why you would not want to do everything possible to let your old games be played on your current console you lose nothing and gain so much.

And with the constant firmware updates and slow downloads and product codes consoles at the moment are just crap pcs. Hell you have to input more codes on console than you do on PC, buy dlc in store on console and have to sit there for 5 mins fat fingering in 3 alphanumeric codes with a controller, buy it on pc its instantly linked with your account.

Don't even get me started with the pricing model on console, digital more expensive than retail i mean seriously?

I don't have anything against a console as a concept its very good idea but since the PS2 xbox and gamecube generation its just been f***ed up by the greedy greedy b******s that make them, not because they are stupid but because they are greedy and think you will put up with all the crap, well it make have taken a generation but people are finally fed up with dealing with your s**t.


P.S

But haven't you heard? PCs are a dead platform! The dude who halved Nokia's market share said it, so it must be true!

i just burst out laughing in the middle of my office

 

[Strazdas]

Now if we could stop the PC Master Race faffery then PC Gaming would be perfect... but hold on there for a second I have to breath in my own shit like it's a puff of fresh air. Aaahhhhhh, so good.

The real Master Race is above acting like children and usually dedicate themselves to pointing out facts rather than childish bickering. but i got to agree there are plenty of misguided people thinking they belong to master race too.

I'm not saying everyone does...but I swear theres probably some legit name for that type of behaviour

study mabye? but then if youve got a tablet with a keyboard and windows 8 you'd probably be fine

Oniomania [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oniomania] is the world you are looking for. And its not limited to games at all.

You can ply an usb/wireless keyboard into your tablet if much typing is needed. there are even some with slide out keyboards i believe.

 

[Phlogiston]

I just don't understand why you would not want to do everything possible to let your old games be played on your current console you lose nothing and gain so much.

A variety of reasons:

Firstly software emulation is very hardware intensive (it was easier to put almost a complete PS2 inside the backwards compatible PS3s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_Engine]) - the actual consoles are already a loss-leader once you consider R&D and promotional costs [http://ps4daily.com/2013/11/playstation-4-cost-to-build/] so it would be quite prohibitively expensive to then include a scaled down PS3 inside every PS4 and the box isn't powerful enough to emulate it through software.

Also due to this loss-leading business model it's not in their interests to enable second hand sales of older titles over new sales anyways - they want their cut from the license when you buy a new copy of their $60 AAA titles, not raid the second hand bins and give them nothing. Their userbase has a finite amount of time available for playing games, they don't want you to 'waste' 20+ hours playing a classic when that could be $100 of new games you're playing.

Where the backwards compatibility then becomes more murky is they can resell titles from 2+ gens ago that *can* be software emulated to your PSN or Xbox live account for download...essentially a new sale and more revenue for them as well as a version of the game that will never reach the second-hand market.

TLDR: They don't want you buying/playing second hand games, new sales are where they make their money.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

So, hopefully this means that console gamers will get shitty PC ports now.

wasnt dark souls II one?

Sort of? Textures are noticeably cleaner on PC, better cloth physics and some lighting too. But some won't forgive it for not letting them change controller bindings or that a third person action game (from a japanese company at that) is still more developed with a controller in mind than a keyboard and mouse. Keyboard binds are customizable though.

Others are just mad that it doesn't have the dynamic lighting of their alpha build that totally broke the game whenever they tried to implement it into the full game. Even then, the visual end result is almost identically replicated if you turn down gamma and turn up contrast.

You forgot all of the blatant lying From did. The game still has console button prompts even when using mouse and keyboard. They just patched this morning a crash glitch that was preventing a large number of people using hdmi cables to launch the game. There is horrible input delay due to poor mouse and keyboard programming, and Steam's VAC ban system is unjustly preventing many people from accessing the online features even though they had no indiscretions within DSII. We got promised a game made for PC but we got another poorly designed console port that was a mess at launch.

 

[alj]

TLDR: They don't want you buying/playing second hand games, new sales are where they make their money.

Who said anything about second hand ? Put them on the store for download.

 

[Phlogiston]

TLDR: They don't want you buying/playing second hand games, new sales are where they make their money.

Who said anything about second hand ? Put them on the store for download.

I'd hoped that since it was a response to you, that you'd look at more than the TLDR...although perhaps it was a little too concise.

Firstly software emulation is very hardware intensive (it was easier to put almost a complete PS2 inside the backwards compatible PS3s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_Engine]) - the actual consoles are already a loss-leader once you consider R&D and promotional costs [http://ps4daily.com/2013/11/playstation-4-cost-to-build/] so it would be quite prohibitively expensive to then include a scaled down PS3 inside every PS4 and the box isn't powerful enough to emulate it through software.

Also I already mentioned the fact they can resell older titles which are possible to be software emulated on PSN/Xbox live

Where the backwards compatibility then becomes more murky is they can resell titles from 2+ gens ago that *can* be software emulated to your PSN or Xbox live account for download...essentially a new sale and more revenue for them as well as a version of the game that will never reach the second-hand market.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Gotta +1 this, there are a few games right off the top of my head I wouldn't have gotten if not for getting them in a steam sale (Crusader kings II, Mount and blade: Warband, x:com enemy unknown)

I got PS+ for free. A 14 month sub because of the 2 month bonus and decided to renew for $45 at Costco - so I payed $45 for 26 months of PS+ for your reference.

Games that I wouldn't have played if not for PS+ (free games with sub fee only within last 13 months that I've played and thus have not payed one brown penny as of yet):
- XCom: Enemy Unknown
- Kingdoms of Amalur
- Spec Ops: The Line
- Saints Row 3
- Sleeping Dogs
- Lone Survivor: Director's Cut
- Castle of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse
- Batman: Arkham City
- Remember Me
- DMC: Devil May Cry
- Borderlands 2
- Grid 2
- Ico HD
- Galaga Legions
- Deus Ex: HR
- Darksiders
- Uncharted 3
- LBP Karting
- Malicious
- Megaman 9 and 10
- Super Street Fighter 4
- The Cave
- Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny (PSP)
- Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (PSP)


And I could get Bishock Infinite if I wanted - but don't really care.


All these people who talk of Steam sales and how Consoles have none obviously have never been on PSN. Almost all of the digital games I've purchased (not the PS+ rentals) were on sale - many of them for $1. Sales are changed weekly and there are also "Flash Sales" at holidays/ special events.

Oh I wasn't trying to down talk PSN or anything, when my ps3 still worked it was quickly catching up to steam at the time and off your judgement it has surpassed it now. That's a solid list (actually a few of those I negated to mention in my own, I just gave a few examples at the time but spec ops the line would definitely be a part of it too) and some strong PS exclusives to boot.

However, without steam and the way it had its massive sales starting 4-5 years ago (can't remember for sure), do you think PSN and many other distributors would be having sales the way they do now? I think steam was a big force in influencing that role in video game economics, and most of the good deals these days aren't actually through steam usually on the pc (It's been quite a while since I've not bought a steam key from a different site).

Some people prefer PC/ Steam/ DD/ customization;
Others prefer consoles/ physical copies/ less complication

True, consoles do have its advantages, especially in your situation with the family, it's nice having a dedicated gaming platform that isn't the pc.

 

[Spartan448]

You really cannot beat a PC in terms of gaming ability. Nearly every game in existence can be played on a PC, by either a port or emulator if the need arises. PCs are much better at handling games and offer much more variety of customization at an overall lower pricepoint, and as computers are becoming easier and easier to build (I believe one company is planning on releasing a desktop tower where setting up your own configuration is LITERALLY as easy as plugging things into ports), it is more than viable to build your own desktop for the same pricepoint as an X-Box or PlayStation, with greater power behind it.

There is really no downside to PC gaming. A platform that is infinitely open with no restrictions is the perfect lifeblood for the games industry. I'm always encouraged to hear the platform is still doing well.