312 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

I didn't mean to imply that most of the holdouts would go digital. I'm sure they will lose a lot of the holdouts when physical copies go away, maybe the majority. But at some point people who feel the way you do, or who don't have good internet, will simply not be worth having as customers.

Modifié par AlanC9, 28 avril 2012 - 08:40 .

[Emzamination]

AlanC9 wrote...

I didn't mean to imply that most of the holdouts would go digital. I'm sure they will lose a lot of the holdouts when physical copies go away, maybe the majority. But at some point people who feel the way you do, or who don't have good internet, will simply not be worth having as customers.

I agree AlanC9, consoles are where the money is.The digital computer gaming market is too unstable and largely depends on its users being able to keep an active internet connection, once thats gone...yeah but the console market relies on the distribution of physical disc making sure it will never die out.

To the person who wrote "consoles are pirating as well", Yeah thats true but the amount of pirating via computers outweighs consoles a thousand times over seeing as you have to actually have a specially modded console to benefit where as you just have to hit download with a pc.

[Gatt9]

EternalAmbiguity wrote...

I don't think things are that certain, Gatt.

1. Is not true, necessarily. There are keyboards and mice for the PS3 and 360 that could be used for games. They haven't currently, but it isn't out of reason.

2. I just don't think you can assume this. I'm certain that if you go to a gamestop and look at the console games, you'll find games that are definitely NOT intended for a large demographic.

GranTurismo or Forza Motorsport, for instance. Actual in-depth racing simulators are not very popular, yet those companies make exclusives. So I don't think a sweeping statement like this is valid.

3 is a very valid point. However, are there license restrictions on Windows? Mac? I wouldn't be surprised if there were, but i don't know.

4 is essentially 3 reworded.

To counterpoint...

1.  It's largely true.  They could release them,  but they haven't,  and given we're talking years of the 360/PS3 being on the market it's safe to say they won't.  Why,  I don't know. 

2.  I can assume this though.  You won't find any significant adventure game representation,  you won't find significant turn based games,  you won't find in-depth RPG's.  You find Fallout 3,  redone as TES: Fallout,  you'll find ME3 redone as a TPS.  Two racing games were released,  but you won't find anything like Silent Hunter,  Destroyer,  or anything but Racing.  You'll find shelves of Shooters,  Action-Adventure,  and mislabled Action-Adventure with the letters RPG on the box. 

Between the Publishers and the Platform owners,  whose only purpose is the most amount of revenue possible,  you won't find anything that they're certain isn't a potential sale to every console owner. 

I remember once reading an article,  either Brian Fargo or Tim Cain,  talking about an RPG pitch they did to MS.  The response they received was "We have RPG's covered for the next year",  rather than letting appeal decide sales,  they slot them into a schedule and great ideas get left on the floor because every X weeks they already have a (Insert genre) title scheduled.

Then there's the Live/PSN stores,  filled with copies of action games,  and berefet of other genres.

It's a very,  very,  bad buisness plan.  Rather than let consumers decide what they want to play,  it's dictated by Publishers and Platform owners,  and they're too nearsighted to realize that by only handing us the same basic game 2 dozen times a year,  they're just boring us.

3.  There's no veto power with Windows,  anyone can release anything they want.  I don't know about Mac,  but honestly,  the platform is so small it's not worth worrying about.

4.  Isn't exactly the same though.  What I mean is,  MS can flat out tell EA "No.".  It's much less likely to happen,  but it can happen.  Nintendo used to do it religiously,  when they were huge on censorship.  More specifically,  Platform owners can also tell publishers,  "We're not looking for any games in (insert genre)".

I agree AlanC9, consoles are where the money is.The digital computer gaming market is too unstable and largely depends on its users being able to keep an active internet connection, once thats gone...yeah but the console market relies on the distribution of physical disc making sure it will never die out.

I'm afraid they're not.

March 2012:  -25%
February 2012: -23%
January 2012:  -38%
December 2011:  -14%

Double digit drops each month,  including Christmas,  for console games. 

2007 - 18.85 billion
2008 - 22 billion
2009 - 19.66 billion
2010 - 18.58 billion
2011 - 17.02 billion (Of which,  CoD accounted for at least 1.2 billion alone,  likely more)

Consoles are where the losses are at.  It's no different than any other console generation,  aging hardware and repetitive experiences eventually undermine the market. 

I'd even venture that any attempt to launch a new generation will ultimately fail.  Games sell consoles,  and this generation of consoles hasn't had any break out titles.  Without strong lead-in titles,  a console won't sell.  I sincerely doubt that people are going to pay $500-$600 for a new console to keep playing the same games they've been playing.  How many people are really going to be willing to shell out that much money to play Halo 7?  Call of Duty 14?  Resident Evil 7?  It's nothing like the PS2 that had Blood Omen,  Final Fantasy 7,  Metal Gear,  and other fresh series as lead-ins.  Or the 360 riding on the back of Halo and Fable.

It's the end of another console era,  I'm not sure why people keep acting like everythings just hugs & puppies all around,  months of double digit contractions aren't a sign of a market where the money is at,  it's a sign of a market where the money is leaving.

Modifié par Gatt9, 29 avril 2012 - 02:47 .

[Splindicator]

Mildiner wrote...

So it seems to me that becoming a hit and gaining widespread acclaim is about the worst thing that can happen to a game series as has apparently happened to ME much to my dismay. The only way I can see to avoid this happening in future is to go with PC exclusives since most big publishers do not consider them worthy of massive ad compaigns due to the large drop in potential customers

I use to be a pc gamer only but switched to consoles when hd started catching on. Still not as good as a high end pc but acceptable. To be honest, despite control limitations, I enjoy sitting on my couch more then at my desk now and this current game cycle has been very enjoyable. 

Having said that, I am having a hard time finding fault in your initial statement.  I'll have to go back and read the response statements but going on pure resources and artistic presentation, pc is obviously the clear choice. Unfortunately games cost too much to make for this to be a viable solution save for small teams with extremely talented and efficient artists. I would say content creation is more of a bottleneck then technology in terms of pc resources. 

Edit:  I should add, and I'm sure it's pointed out already, mass effect was a 360 exclusive for a few months before a pc version followed.   So was the success 360 or pc or both?

Modifié par Splindicator, 29 avril 2012 - 03:04 .

[Cainne Chapel]

You know Gatt, I'd imagine if there IS a new call of duty on a system it WILL drive sales.

yeah the sales are falling but thats to be expected near 6+ years into most consoles life cycles.

There's only SOO many buyers in the market and a console isn't something you need to keep RE-buying barring any issues or anything of that nature. My PS3 console from 2006 still works the same now as it did then.

As much as I love PC gaming, most of the gaming dollars are still in the console industry. That doesn't mean PC doesn't get good titles either and that is isn't a thriving venue in and of itself, but by and large companies spend $$ where there's more to be made and currently (and for the last number of years) for most games thats going to be on the console.

and while you may think there's no breakout titles on the consoles these days, i mean one could use that argument both ways as well. There's plenty of gems to be found on PS3. 360. Even the Wii and same with PC. Now are there high amounts of shovelware? of course, are there tons of clones? on all platforms yes.

But I dont foresee Consoles dying out ANY time soon. Nor do I see PCs dying out either, fortunately the market is big enough to not ONLY support MULTIPLE consoles, but multiple platforms.

As for why ME is brought into this I'll never understand... it was a 360 exclusive first and THEN ported to PC and then PS3. So any issues with it being a console game seem Moot.

[Emzamination]

Gatt9 wrote...

I agree AlanC9, consoles are where the money is.The digital computer gaming market is too unstable and largely depends on its users being able to keep an active internet connection, once thats gone...yeah but the console market relies on the distribution of physical disc making sure it will never die out.

I'm afraid they're not.

March 2012:  -25%
February 2012: -23%
January 2012:  -38%
December 2011:  -14%

Double digit drops each month,  including Christmas,  for console games. 

2007 - 18.85 billion
2008 - 22 billion
2009 - 19.66 billion
2010 - 18.58 billion
2011 - 17.02 billion (Of which,  CoD accounted for at least 1.2 billion alone,  likely more)

Consoles are where the losses are at.  It's no different than any other console generation,  aging hardware and repetitive experiences eventually undermine the market. 

I'd even venture that any attempt to launch a new generation will ultimately fail.  Games sell consoles,  and this generation of consoles hasn't had any break out titles.  Without strong lead-in titles,  a console won't sell.  I sincerely doubt that people are going to pay $500-$600 for a new console to keep playing the same games they've been playing.  How many people are really going to be willing to shell out that much money to play Halo 7?  Call of Duty 14?  Resident Evil 7?  It's nothing like the PS2 that had Blood Omen,  Final Fantasy 7,  Metal Gear,  and other fresh series as lead-ins.  Or the 360 riding on the back of Halo and Fable.

It's the end of another console era,  I'm not sure why people keep acting like everythings just hugs & puppies all around,  months of double digit contractions aren't a sign of a market where the money is at,  it's a sign of a market where the money is leaving.

And where Exactly did you pull those Estimates?

[AlanC9]

Gatt9 wrote...
2.  I can assume this though.  You won't find any significant adventure game representation,

Wait a sec... aren't L.A. Noire and Heavy Rain adventure games?

[Cainne Chapel]

Well Alan... to be fair, he also doesn't believe there to be indepth RPGs on consoles either.

Sure they're few and far between but one could say the same for In depth PC RPGs as of late too.

also what constitutes as an indepth RPG? and we open up a whole 'nother can of worms there.

and for that manner whats an adventure game and action-adventure game difference?

Last real adventure games I remember are the old Lucasarts ones... and its been YEARS. Of course Telltale has been releasing good games that follow in that tradition on consoles and PC (Back to the future, Walking Dead) etc.

[DonYourAviators]

The Razman wrote...

DonYourAviators wrote...

The Razman wrote...

DonYourAviators wrote...

The Razman wrote...

Mildiner wrote...

The Razman wrote...

There is a small problem with your hypothesis.

The Witcher 2 is terrible.

My hypothesis does not depend upon the Witcher 2 being any good, it was simply an example.

But for the record, I quite liked it and I might like it even more with the 10GB of free additional content I've just be given.

It does, kind of though. The Witcher 2 releasing free stuff and all of that is only possible because the devs are disregarding the whole issue which your premise is based on. They can afford to be PC exclusive and to release free stuff because they have a very profitable side-business giving them financial security (GOG.com). Just like Valve can afford to not release new games until they're exactly how they want them because with Steam running the way it is they never have to worry about the money.

PC exclusives are not only financially unsound, but your premise that we would see benefits as a result is flawed for that reason. The people who are showing benefits by being PC exclusive have other means of income supporting their business.

The problem with your argument here and elsewhere is that your opinion is often wrong.

Which is why you were able to formulate such a well-thought out and verbose rebuttal to it?

<_<

I just don't care to put my time into a lost cause that has no ambition to listen or learn. Hopefully you can understand.

You took the time to search out a thread that had dropped off the first page, to write a response to a message that was posted about 10 pages back ... so your time doesn't appear to be that precious.

Ahhhh, trolls. They're things of beauty.

Nah... I clicked on my big red avatar to the left of the page and took a look at what I had posted previously. It took about ten seconds from logging in to seeing you were still going in here.

Common sense would then be to assume I took a day or so to reply because because I wasn't the one wasting hours by sitting in a thread spouting nonsense.

[Lord Phoebus]

BobSmith101 wrote...
Generation after this one maybe. But by going digital in the next few years your going to limit who you can sell to. MS will do almost anything to avoid putting a blu ray into their machine , but that effectively gives anyone else the whole of the casual market on a plate.

No they'll do it this generation, they've already been setting up the infrastructure for it with XBox Live.  I'm not saying they'll go digital only, but they will make it an option.  For MS and Sony, they can charge the same amount as a physical copy, but because the merchant doesn't get a cut, they can take what the merchant makes on the sale.  Steam takes less profit than a physical store does, meaning that the publisher/dev get a bigger cut of the profit from a digital sale.  However because of the stranglehold MS and Sony have on their platform, they wouldn't have to give any of the extra profit to the publisher/dev and would probably double their profit on a digital sale vs. a physical.

You can already download full games on PSN , but it takes longer to do that than to drive to local supermarket and buy the thing. It's not any cheaper either in most cases.

Depending on where you live, digital can be cheaper, I'm a Canadian and buying digitial saves me about 10-15 dollars per purchase. While downloading can take more time that going to store, it requires less effort.  You start the download manager, and it runs in the background so you can do other work while it downloads, even play games.  Most of the time I make a purchase at night, lock my PC and go to bed, in the morning the game is ready to install.  No gettng dressed, no driving to the store with the associated cost in gasoline, no waiting in lines and no getting there and finding out they're sold out. 

[Dude_in_the_Room]

*Troll comment removed*

Modifié par Selene Moonsong, 29 avril 2012 - 02:10 .

[Mildiner]

Splindicator wrote...
Edit:  I should add, and I'm sure it's pointed out already, mass effect was a 360 exclusive for a few months before a pc version followed.   So was the success 360 or pc or both?

Thanks Splindicator, that is a very interesting question.

I would say that if it had only ever been a PC exclusive the Mass Effect franchise would be no-where near as well known as it is now. Coupled to that would be my assumption that if ME was PC only EA would not have been interested in it. I don't like EA but you can't argue with the money and resources they bring to the table (even if it comes with deadlines and stupid policy decisions).

I have noticed that this thread has expanded to talk about how viable exclusives are to the market and the age old PC vs Console stuff, but my intial post was really only about whether PC exclusives are a safer bet for an individual, if they exist. The wider question of whether they are practical or a good thing for the industry wasn't implied (even though it is perfectly valid in hindsight).

However, flaming aside, it has made for some interesting reading and the current star rating would imply that at least some people think there have been some decent points made so far.

Splindicator wrote...
I use to be a pc gamer only but switched to consoles when hd started
catching on. Still not as good as a high end pc but acceptable. To be
honest, despite control limitations, I enjoy sitting on my couch more
then at my desk now and this current game cycle has been very
enjoyable.

Having said that, I am having a hard time finding fault in your initial
statement.  I'll have to go back and read the response statements but
going on pure resources and artistic presentation, pc is obviously the
clear choice. Unfortunately games cost too much to make for this to be a
viable solution save for small teams with extremely talented and
efficient artists. I would say content creation is more of a bottleneck
then technology in terms of pc resources. 

I have to agree there.

My brother has the best of both worlds. He's set up his gaming rig so it connects to his 42" HD TV and has a wireless mouse and keyboard which he uses while sitting on the sofa. EDIT: As you can imagine, he's a real babe magnet.

I, however, am older and have a wife who doesn't want towers, wires and peripherals all over the living room. I have bought myself a nice desk chair though and I console myself with the thought that that sitting 10 inches from a 21" screen is proportionally larger than sitting 10 feet from a 42" screen.

Modifié par Mildiner, 29 avril 2012 - 09:33 .

[Lord Phoebus]

Mildiner wrote...

Splindicator wrote...
I use to be a pc gamer only but switched to consoles when hd started
catching on. Still not as good as a high end pc but acceptable. To be
honest, despite control limitations, I enjoy sitting on my couch more
then at my desk now and this current game cycle has been very
enjoyable.

Having said that, I am having a hard time finding fault in your initial
statement.  I'll have to go back and read the response statements but
going on pure resources and artistic presentation, pc is obviously the
clear choice. Unfortunately games cost too much to make for this to be a
viable solution save for small teams with extremely talented and
efficient artists. I would say content creation is more of a bottleneck
then technology in terms of pc resources. 

I have to agree there.

My brother has the best of both worlds. He's set up his gaming rig so it connects to his 42" HD TV and has a wireless mouse and keyboard which he uses while sitting on the sofa. EDIT: As you can imagine, he's a real babe magnet.

I, however, am older and have a wife who doesn't want towers, wires and peripherals all over the living room. I have bought myself a nice desk chair though and I console myself with the thought that that sitting 10 inches from a 21" screen is proportionally larger than sitting 10 feet from a 42" screen.

Yeah, there's nothing stopping you from connecting your PC to your TV.  I'll admit a gamepad is easier to use on a couch than a mouse, though there isn't anything stopping you from using a gamepad with a PC either.   Whether your PC is in the same room as your PC or not depends on your set up and budget, there are wireless HD signal boosters that would let your PC sit in the basement and use the TV upstairs as a monitor (last time I looked at them they were pretty expensive though).  If your TV is on the main floor and your PC is in the basement (and your basement is unfinished), you can fish an HDMI cable and USB wire through the wall to the CoAx box and create an HDMI connection to your PC and a USB hub for a wireless mouse and keyboard at the CoAx port.