Intel Predicts GTA V Will Hit PCs Soon

[Adon Cabre]

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Funny, because those "dollaar bills" skyrocketed Gabe Newell into billionaire status.

Steam made 1 billion before it was cool.

http://www.giantbomb.com/steam/3015-718/forums/steam-makes-1-billion-dollars-in-2010-pc-gaming-de-479799/

Especially since steam alone has 70 million accounts, which is more than xbox has.

Those are pretty good numbers for a year that saw console sales declining, albeit it they still generated 6x's more profit [http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/video-game-sales-down-in-2010-but-xbox-360-sets-record/], not counting software sales; so lets just put it at an even 10 Billion for Nintendo, Xbox360 & PS3 console and software profits in 2010.

70 Million accounts on Steam? Wow. That's counting virtually all hardcore and casual users. But the Xbox360 surpassed 70 Million consoles in 2012 [http://www.techradar.com/us/news/gaming/consoles/microsoft-xbox-360-bypasses-70-million-sales-milestone-1106039]; and the Playstation 3 edged that a few months later [http://gamer.blorge.com/2012/11/17/ps3-lifetime-sales-surpasses-70-million-units-fastest-selling-hd-console/].

Accounts don't really matter on consoles, since people aren't ball and chained to DRM registration. But that's the price PC users pay for cheaper Third Party Titles and glitchy Simcity exclusives.

Unless we're talking MMO figures (and many of whose subscribers rarely buy other games), STEAM doesn't really compare and the Playstation 4 hasn't exactly chased away the consumer with it's impressive specs and sexy design. Especially as it sips power.

The future is back in SONY's hands, and developers will prioritize them over PC and XboxOne.

Oh right because hardware, being metal, plastic, and physical items that costs hundreds and hundreds of dollars sold at a mark up is comparable to digital games sold for 2.50$-15$ at steam. Of course it will have a bigger number if its costs are much higher.

and its hilarious you cite NPD:

No one takes NPD seriously, not even EA anymore. NPD is an outdated relic from the 90s when everything was retail. Hell, NPD doesn't even count the hardware sales of PC parts manufacturing.

Which is UP.

http://www.techspot.com/news/53536-pc-gamers-fuel-hardware-sales-in-otherwise-stagnant-market.html

and making more money?

Activision
EA
http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=594196
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33515/EA_NPD_Data_A_Misrepresentation_Of_The_Entire_Industry.php
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/361110/ea-is-making-more-from-pc-than-ps3/
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/358977/pc-is-the-fastest-growing-platform-ea-boss/

Both say NPD is full of shit and shouldn't be used in a digital age.

All of them get most of their cash from PC.

And what does it matter if its hardcore or casual?

Consoles have casual users too that only plays COD or halo and nothing more.

and nice to know you disregard console accounts in an age of multiplayer everything.

Seriously, am I talking to someone in 1994 when NPD still mattered? NPD is as "thorough" as checking vinyl record sales and tying that to the health of the music industry.

Okay...

Really? A Publisher spurns the facts from an accredited research firm. Big surprise there. Bigger surprise that you believe them. (Seeing as how PC gamers would be the only ones to find those statements -- connect the dots, he's charming your community). Anyways, putting the digital fiasco aside, it isn't hard to track hard-copy sales from consoles.

Any research firm can do that.

[h4]Growing PC market[/h4]
Another article hinting toward this subject recently came up on the Escapist [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.830203-Research-Warns-of-Possible-Game-Industry-Crash#20239015]. I even thought to put a pre-response to this subject on the thread but I thought you understood the parameters of this problem.

Question: What is a PC gamer?

When Facebook "Farmville" enthusiasts proclaim their status as a PC gamer the actual term starts to get muddled. You realize that PC gaming, according to many online research groups, includes every online facebook games, and gambling games and MMO's the world over -- it doesn't differentiate between any of them.

EA is a huge corporation that does more than COD sales. It's involved in all of those other game genres I listed above, with consumers who have no idea what Crysis 3 or SimCity is. Yet you lump them all together when no online gaming site subscribes to this idea.

(That EA fiscal report also highlights cellphone and tablet game sales. Strange.)

[h4]Console Software Sales[/h4]

Myth #1: PC sales will match or triumph the console.

Really? Do you visit this site often? Or watch the news?

In less than ONE WEEK, Grand Theft Auto V just sold over One billion dollars in hardcopy and digital downloads on the xbox360 and PS3 consoles. Apparently, when all of those COD and Halo players unite, they can set a WORLDWIDE MEDIA SALES records.

The PC community wouldn't even come close -- and that's beside the fact that 35+% of said community would have pirated it. (And yes, I've seen the report indicating that pirating is not so extensive. Then along came Gentlemen! [http://www.joystiq.com/2013/08/24/indie-game-gentlemen-was-bought-144-times-pirated-over-50-000/]).

I swear, of all the times to put up that erroneous claim of PC rising superiority, it has never been so flawed and disproved as it has been this last week. Aside from the fact that Intel will begin their campaign of subtly jabbing away at the console industry because of AMD's successful contract; but you might buy their arguments any-how.

Just read between the lines.

consoles sway this industry in ways the PC community couldn't imagine​

 

[Jadak]

Source?

http://wccftech.com/gta-v-xbox-360-ps3-leaked-torrents-heavily-pirated-prior-launch/

I personally saw about 850 seeders and about 500 leachers on one torrent a couple weeks ago. However the largest I can find right now has fluctuated between 1-200 seeders over the past week... scratch that, it is down to less than 100. No, I did not pirate it, I do not even own a 360/PS3 anymore. Also am I allowed to name the site in this instance?

P.S. I cannot comment upon how many of those who download also seeded (I could not find an actual study" but even if it is as generous as 1-10 that is still a sizable amount.

Well, no.. It really isn't, not relative to the sales figures the game is getting. A few hundred seeds here, a few thousands there. Even if those figures are a 10th of pirated copies, GTA 5 has sold what, 15 million copies as of almost 2 weeks ago? Sure, the lost sales would still add up to a decent chunk of change, but as a percentage of the total it is nothing, and personally I don't feel PC sales would boast the same ratios.

 

[Agayek]

The PC community wouldn't even come close -- and that's beside the fact that 35+% of said community would have pirated it. (And yes, I've seen the report indicating that pirating is not so extensive. Then along came Gentlemen! [http://www.joystiq.com/2013/08/24/indie-game-gentlemen-was-bought-144-times-pirated-over-50-000/]).

I don't really care about this debate, but I feel the need to point out that your example here is a really bad one for the argument you're trying to make. It's an Android game, not PC, so using it as evidence of rampant PC piracy is fallacious at best and blatantly dishonest at worst. It's kinda like saying PC players are pirates because GTAV was leaked (and therefore pirated) heavily days before release.

And yes, the NPD's sales figures really are completely full of shit and are utterly useless, for PC games at the minimum. They have outright said that they don't track digital sales, and the vast majority of PC game sales are digital nowadays. That means any argument using their figures to prove anything related to the PC game market is inherently inaccurate.

 

[Omega500]

That'd be nice. I've never not loved a Rock star game, but this shit really tests my patience.

I know right if they just say yeah we are making it for PC or nar not gonna happen.
When they say they are i'll wait but if they were just come out and say nope. I'll go buy it for my ps3.

 

[Saulkar]

Well, no.. It really isn't

I will concede but your choice of words, due to the fact that text is tone agnostic, are rather off putting taken at face value.

 

[Adon Cabre]

The PC community wouldn't even come close -- and that's beside the fact that 35+% of said community would have pirated it. (And yes, I've seen the report indicating that pirating is not so extensive. Then along came Gentlemen! [http://www.joystiq.com/2013/08/24/indie-game-gentlemen-was-bought-144-times-pirated-over-50-000/]).

I don't really care about this debate, but I feel the need to point out that your example here is a really bad one for the argument you're trying to make. It's an Android game, not PC, so using it as evidence of rampant PC piracy is fallacious at best and blatantly dishonest at worst. It's kinda like saying PC players are pirates because GTAV was leaked (and therefore pirated) heavily days before release.

And yes, the NPD's sales figures really are completely full of shit and are utterly useless, for PC games at the minimum. They have outright said that they don't track digital sales, and the vast majority of PC game sales are digital nowadays. That means any argument using their figures to prove anything related to the PC game market is inherently inaccurate.

And all I'm saying is that the digital sales on the PC are being grossly overstated because the PC community -- with the exception of a major console title launch like Grand Theft Auto V -- practically controls the traffic on most gaming sites.

And we all want to hear affirmation.

You say that PC digital sales figures aren't clear, and you're right. ORIGIN and EA are lumping all facets of online gaming revenue together on purpose; but that doesn't mean PC digital sales on Assassin's Creed 3 were even half of the 5+ million hardcopies moved by the Playstation 3.

Everyone assumes PC sales-figures must be equal because of how cheaply they bundle them. But just because the Internet feels big doesn't mean that it is.

 

[Agayek]

And all I'm saying is that the digital sales on the PC are being grossly overstated because the PC community -- with the exception of a major console title launch like Grand Theft Auto V -- practically controls the traffic on most gaming sites.

And we all want to hear affirmation.

You say that PC digital sales figures aren't clear, and you're right. ORIGIN and EA are lumping all facets of online gaming revenue together on purpose; but that doesn't mean PC digital sales on Assassin's Creed 3 were even half of the 5+ million hardcopies moved by the Playstation 3.

Everyone assumes PC sales-figures must be equal because of how cheaply they bundle them. But just because the Internet feels big doesn't mean that it is.

What the hell are you talking about? I never said anything about any of that. All I said is that you can't use NPD sales figures to gauge the true size of the PC market. Retail sales of PC games are all but non-existent now, with maybe one or two shelves in the back corner of a GameStop or Walmart, and so you kinda have to rely on the reports of Valve, EA, etc to gauge the size of the PC market. They're the only ones with the sales data, for better or worse.

When comparing them though, it's pretty obvious that, in publishers' minds at least, consoles, by far, sell more AAA games than PC does. How much of that thinking is driven by the NPD figures and a crippling fear of the big scary PC piracy craze that's overstated by several orders of magnitude by pretty much every publisher and developer in the industry is up for debate, but all you have to do is look at the business models to see that it's true. That does raise the question, though, of whether or not that would remain true if the AAA publishers treated the PC the same way they do consoles.

Personally, I doubt it. AAA gaming is unlikely to ever achieve the same numbers in the PC space as on consoles, if only because the general public has been trained for decades that gaming is primarily a console-driven hobby. It'd be interesting to see one of the major publishers actually embrace the PC as a platform though and go the way of CDPR.

 

[zumbledum]

I still do not understand why Rockstar insist on making these games initially exclusive for consoles.

a short history on exclusives. console producer wants to sell consoles, knows best way to do it is to have exclusive content so consumers have to use their console to play, console producers takes huge sacks of cash/ pays for the entire development/offers other incentives to buy the exclusive.

its not developers that want exclusives , its not publishers. its the console makers that force the situation

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I wish it was true as you say Intel, but "7-8 months later" is not really soon now is it. Rockstar seems to like it to release it when barely any interest in that game then blames the pirates for low sales.

I will play it regardless when it will come out. I just got Heartstone Beta invite so that will keep me occupied for the next coming months. That and some other games that come out in the end of Octomber.

 

[Saulkar]

console producers takes huge sacks of cash/ pays for the entire development/offers other incentives to buy the exclusive.

I am aware that console manufacturers pay developers/publishers but what you are saying is that a console developer is willing to pay a major portion/all of a game's development if the developer or publisher makes it an exclusive? If so, how often is this an exclusive case? Here, give me a moment to elaborate cause I may butcher what I am about to say.

Like, is it possible that a developer or publisher chooses a lump sum of money from a console manufacturer that may in fact be less than what could be earned if it was not made an exclusive but is earned all at once vs over time. If this is in fact a reality (I do not know) has its short term nature ever backfired?

 

[Arkaijn]

Coolshop.dk says may, they've been right before

 

[Anachronism]

Interesting, sure, but how about that Red Dead Redemption port we're all waiting on, Rockstar?

Please?

 

[zumbledum]

console producers takes huge sacks of cash/ pays for the entire development/offers other incentives to buy the exclusive.

I am aware that console manufacturers pay developers/publishers but what you are saying is that a console developer is willing to pay a major portion/all of a game's development if the developer or publisher makes it an exclusive? If so, how often is this an exclusive case? Here, give me a moment to elaborate cause I may butcher what I am about to say.

Like, is it possible that a developer or publisher chooses a lump sum of money from a console manufacturer that may in fact be less than what could be earned if it was not made an exclusive but is earned all at once vs over time. If this is in fact a reality (I do not know) has its short term nature ever backfired?

we rarely get specifics. Bayonetta 2 we do know nintendo funded and thats how they got that exclusive.
what the deal is will vary from situation but if we look at GTA V , and we start thinking how many people worked on it , how much they get paid, add in the costs of offices, hardware and all the other sundries. its a huge amount of cash to come up with 4+ years before a payday. if MS or sony walked int eh door and said hey how about we finance this games development at a low rate and defer payment till its released. thats going to make things a lot easier.

given the speculative nature of this type of business im sure its backfired or worked out badly for one partner a lot of times.

When George Lucas was setting up the contract for Star wars the guy on the other side of the table didnt think there would be any market for star wars merchandise. so he let George keep all rights to merchandise. and ofc over the years thats made many times more than the films ever did.

 

[Adon Cabre]

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NPD doesn't track digital.

Its a digital age. "prestigious" or not its USELESS in the modern age. Only the most bias fanboy would justify using NPD anymore. No publisher cares what NPD has to say anymore because if NPD was correct, then activision would be dirt poor right now.

Oh wait, its not. Because NPD's titles are worthless. Just like its data on the modern world.

and 1 billion? That translates to 15 million sales.

15 million. On a 60$ game. Front loaded to be the fastest at 1 billion. Other games make 1 billion dollars, the only difference is that GTA V wanted to front load the sales to be a record holder.

By that logic, anything higher than 15 million sales means its as big as big can be:

Oh wait nintendo and minecraft hold that prestigious title. And any big mobile game ever. The only difference is that the sales of GTA V are front loaded with hype. So i guess you heard it here first:

Everything is dead because GTA V can't match the combined force of mobile gaming. I guess rockstar better be mobile only to get that huge slice of pie.

See how bad that idea is? by saying "oh they made one billion so they don't want more? so no more platforms?" Companies exist to make money always, and mobile blows console gaming away. Going by sales and profits, console gaming can't keep up so why would rockstar bother under that same logic?

Tetris on phones sold 100 million. That is 6.5 GTA V launches. On phones. So don't say "its where the money is" because its a bold faced lie.

and piracy? Really? You are talking about piracy?

GUESS WHAT: CONSOLES HAVE PIRACY AND USED GAME SALES. PC piracy would have no bearing on the level of piracy console has with piracy and used game sales. And yes, used sales are piracy because they give nothing back.

Gamestop alone has 2 billion in profit. Most of their profit is used game sales. Gamestop makes twice what GTA V made in a day. 2 billion worth of damage to an industry. don't come here and say consoles don't have money pouring out of its neck too, because it does.


And there you go again with that elitist "hardcore" argument that was ridiculed out of the mainstream spectrum months ago.

A gamer is a gamer, get fucking used to it.

If a casual gamer isn't a gamer, than COD and Halo fans aren't gamers. Anyone who is a fan of nintendo is a casual gamer. The sims is a casual franchise. Hell, even elder scrolls now be considered casual because of how games now are borrowing ideas from casual games.

Pick up and play. No real time investment requirement.

Casual games have been around for a while. It makes up a lot of gaming history. Like it or not, a lot of gaming's "history" is casual.

And I just love how you try to use strawmen by twisting my words.

YOU said PC gaming makes awful profits.

YOU said that console gaming was where the money is.

I proved that wrong. Steam makes billions, and Gabe Newell a billioniare. NPD is worthless in the modern age. Mobile overtook console in profits long ago.

All you are trying to do is trying to justify not putting games on PC because of some bogeymen you invented. A market just as big as either PS3 and xbox, and steam only has a portion of the market down. And yet you try to lump both consoles together and cry about me lumping people together.

[h4]Was that an Argument, or a Rage Post?[/h4]

This is so nonsensical. Tetris? Mobile gaming? What the hell? You're so loud you can't hear yourself writing; but there it is -- you blew my post out the water.

1. Cross platform software sells far more on the consoles than on PC. This has yet to be proven wrong.

2. I never said that PC digital downloads don't make a rich profit. I said they aren't close to generating console revenue.

3. What you and the PC community like to do is throw out figures that lump MMO's, internet gambling, Facebook games and Steam accounts -- all of that into one user base. That's called inflating statistics.

You keep speculating about Rockstar, I'm just stating the facts.

Here are the 7 World Records that Grand Theft Auto V a console exclusive, has set thus far: [http://mashable.com/2013/10/08/guinness-gta-v-guinness-records/]

[li]Best-selling action-adventure video game in 24 hours[/li]

[li]Best-selling video game in 24 hours[/li]

[li]Fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion[/li]

[li]Fastest video game to gross $1 billion[/li]

[li]Highest grossing video game in 24 hours[/li]

[li]Highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours[/li]

[li]Most viewed trailer for an action-adventure video game[/li]

So how important is a PC port, again? Anyways, it's probably coming maybe next year.

 

[Psychobabble]

Well for me even if this does get a PC release I'm going to stand on principle and not buy it. I'll give Rockstar my money when they decide to treat we PC gamers, where the game franchise got it's fucking start, better than second class citizens.

Personally I'm content to continue leech play it at one of my friends houses and not give these guys a penny. Want my money? Treat me like you think my business is worth bothering with.

 

[Adon Cabre]

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[h4]Was that an Argument, or a Rage Post?[/h4]

This is so nonsensical. Tetris? Mobile gaming? What the hell? You're so loud you can't hear yourself writing; but there it is -- you blew my post out the water.

1. Cross platform software sells far more on the consoles than on PC. This has yet to be proven wrong.

2. I never said that PC digital downloads don't make a rich profit. I said they aren't close to generating console revenue.

3. What you and the PC community like to do is throw out figures that lump MMO's, internet gambling, Facebook games and Steam accounts -- all of that into one user base. That's called inflating statistics.

You keep speculating about Rockstar, I'm just stating the facts.

Here are the 7 World Records that Grand Theft Auto V a console exclusive, has set thus far: [http://mashable.com/2013/10/08/guinness-gta-v-guinness-records/]

[li]Best-selling action-adventure video game in 24 hours[/li]

[li]Best-selling video game in 24 hours[/li]

[li]Fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion[/li]

[li]Fastest video game to gross $1 billion[/li]

[li]Highest grossing video game in 24 hours[/li]

[li]Highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours[/li]

[li]Most viewed trailer for an action-adventure video game[/li]

So how important is a PC port, again? Anyways, it's probably coming maybe next year.

All of them:

fastest selling.

Do you even know what fast means?

You complete something in less time than others. But the finish line is on the same distance. 1 billion is not some magic number, many games make 1 billion dollars.

The sales are front loaded. that's all it means. That everyone bought it at launch instead of being spaced out like a normal game.

And yet its hilarious you keep saying "they got 1 billion dollars! they don't need anymore!"

companies want more money. Investors want more money. They want to see the chart to continue to climb. 1 billion isn't a magic number to investors. They don't want "fast" they want more money.

If it was a choice between fastest to 1 billion dollars and 100 billion in sales, companies and investors would always choose 100 billion sales.

and its nice to know you are still inflating your statistics, then complaining about me "inflating" mine. console profits are broken down between two very different platforms. lumping xbox and ps3 together is exactly, as you put it, be like putting casual gamers and hardcore gamers. xbox has a much different gamer culture than ps3. xbox's marketing has always been the average "dude bro" gamer of the west or the average western consumer who wants a living room box, and playstation always works the niche titles and japanese games.

It doesn't matter, but you say it is. So somehow different types of gamers are bad if they aren't hardcore... until you do it.

Want some facts?

The porting costs between consoles make publishers cry and say games were failures. On all consoles. ubisoft, square enix, Codemasters, and others. We lost THQ recently for christ sake. Yet the two biggest publishers say they get most of their cash from PC games.

console exclusives fail to meet sales expectations time after time unless its highly established studios. This generation has seen exclusive after exclusive fail to get the big bucks you claim they do.

So where is this "consoles rule?" The way I see it games are called failures regardless.

because frankly unless you are rockstar or a manufacturer or publisher owned developer consoles will disappoint you. Consoles haven't been a magic money making machine for over 8 years. 8. years. You argue that one exception is the entire world. It isn't.

Rockstar isn't console gaming. It can't hold up the market that has been slumping for a while.

You say money matters until it doesn't matter and gamer numbers do. You keep moving goal posts, and inflating numbers. Stop it.

You act like 15 million is some high number for 3 platforms that all have 70+ million users. Out of consoles alone, if you lump them together, only 15 million units moved in a market of 140 million gamers. How are you going to spin "higher numbers" if they don't buy anything? In fact, people use xbox and PS3 as movie, internet, and netflix machines. Especially xbox.

How do we know all these consoles are for actual gaming? When a lot of people use them just for basic non gaming stuff? That is also stat inflation. Not that you would admit it.

You act like 1 billion is some big number that only GTA gets, except that a lot of big AAAs get a billion. The only reason GTA V is different is because it did it fast with front loaded sales.

And speculating? On what? The PC verison of GTA? That's not speculation if you have the evidence right in your face.

https://www.google.com/search?q=cinema+blend+GTA+V+pc&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a#q=cinema+blend+GTA+V+pc&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&tbm=nws

People broke open the game and found this out. This isn't speculation anymore. The only reason you are here is to try to pass off GTA V as some "victory" over PC gaming by throwing out false, bullshit, and dishonest stats. That's the only thing you are doing. To kick up more console war arguments.

If you cared about facts, you wouldn't be using NPD or any of your other sources. So don't try to spin this as "fact saying."

[HEADING=3]Yeah, 1 Billion is so overrated[/HEADING]

It's amusing to watch you downplay a 1 billion dollar record. (I skipped all those paragraphs.) But I guess one could make any argument the minute they start drinking EA's cool-aid. It's so easy to read you. We ridicule the suits until they affirm us.

"Oh, he's the CEO, he should know the numbers. He would never exaggerate." (This sums up your argument.)

The truth is you won't find a single source on the web where PC digital downloads out-gained or came close to the Playstation or Xbox on a LAUNCH title.

(And read closer next time... I never said Grand Theft Auto V wasn't coming out on PC. I said that Rockstar's delay could push it back to late 2014.)

But you just don't understand what kind of companies Ubisoft, EA and Activision are, which is why you can't comprehend the facets of online gaming or the truth behind the statement that the PC is out-gaining the console industry. You don't understand how to generate revenue on the web.

You haven't educated yourself nearly enough to debate about this subject.​