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Pc will be the dominant gaming platform going forward.

bit_blaster

Neo Member
The so called "Majority" of those gamers are playing online games that western audiences don't even know exist (Save for a few global games like League of Legends) or are playing pirated games.
There is also game like Skyrim, Witcher 3, and GTA5 which are some of the most played games on Steam.
 
drive off 50 cent GIF
 

Rykan

Member
There is also game like Skyrim, Witcher 3, and GTA5 which are some of the most played games on Steam.
They are, but those games sell significantly better on consoles. Though comparison is difficult because consoles have had multiple versions released across multiple generation.
 

rofif

Banned
Presumably you're going to buy a few games over the course of a year, and each new game is $60 USD on top of maybe some $20 digital indie games. Add all that up and you're already on your way to a decent gaming PC, I spent only 1200 CAD on mine which is around 950 USD and I have a much wider variety of games old and new that I can run at very high performance with mods for the next 6 or more years, and when I plateau I won't have to spend as much as the first time just to replace a GPU or for increasing the RAM.
If course but games are not free on pc (but much cheaper from cdkeys)
 

Fredrik

Member
Presumably you're going to buy a few games over the course of a year, and each new game is $60 USD on top of maybe some $20 digital indie games. Add all that up and you're already on your way to a decent gaming PC, I spent only 1200 CAD on mine which is around 950 USD and I have a much wider variety of games old and new that I can run at very high performance with mods for the next 6 or more years, and when I plateau I won't have to spend as much as the first time just to replace a GPU or for increasing the RAM.
I’m not going to claim that I’m normal but I actually added up the total cost for my PC gaming and compared it to the total cost for my console gaming. I don’t pay for online gaming and crap like that, so that’s excluded, but I found that everything I had bought for my PC was in total twice what I had payed for all my consoles combined during the same time period, 2014-2021.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
I haven't read anything but the title and can tell you that we have always been dominant beyond the mid 2000's.

PC's are easier to build and more affordable (pre Covid ><).

You are in the big leagues now and much like that old diaper commercial, when you're on PC you can truly say, "I'm a big kid now"
 

PaintTinJr

Member
There are so many indications pc gaming will be the dominant gaming platform in the coming years. At the expense of consoles.

* pc is easier than ever to get into, whether you are building your own or buying a laptop.

* Huge social media presence and zeitgeist. Pc gaming has an huge presence in social media. And its growing every year. In games media it is already dominant.

* An whole generation of kids being fostered into pc gaming with minecraft, roblox, fortnite etc. They will continue to game on pc as they grow older.

* Extremely strong growth in developing countries.

* Crossgen development on console, delayed next gen adoption on an software level. It is going to make lesser pc even more valid. And in two, three years its going to be very cheap to buy an pc that vastly exceeds current consoles.

* Most if not all games, including previous exclusives available on pc. Games sell systems, pc has all of them.

Everything points to pc being the dominant platform going forward. The only hurdle is the bitcoin miners driving up gpu prices. But i dont think that will matter much in a year or two. When low end pc hardware will exceed consoles anyway.
Before Windows 11's need for 7th Gen or newer Intel CPU or Zen(IIRC) along with UEFI secure boot and TPM, and Minecraft's Java edition's 1.17 update forcing up requirements from opengl 2.1 to 4.5 I would have agreed - in my anecdotal observation of nephews/niece - that any PC potato and Minecraft Java were leading the charge to bring everyone into PC at a mainstream level - on par, or maybe better than consoles, but Microsoft pushing GaaS, and with chip shortages and system requirements being massively hiked - making lots of 2nd hand ebay PC potato options redundant for cheap entry - along with decent inflation in the games industry on software, and hardware, it looks more like a swing and a miss for the time being.

The Minecraft phenomenon and default need of a PC(and smartphone for comms) for school kids would be my bet on what's driving the majority of early gamers to see PC as a gaming platform, now, but I also suspect the reason MC java edition has stuck around - and maybe the dominant version of MC used - is because it bypasses the GaaS and keeps the entry of the game at basic PC + 1 copy of the game, along with one friend in a social group with a good machine to play and serve, or a spare machine and a bit of knowledge or parent support to get a social group MC server running.

The opengl 4.5 requirement might seem like a small bump in specs, but I suspect it presents a much bigger barrier to keep the growth going than Microsoft realise. I'm sure the reasons for windows 11 and MC java specs are good, but even small computing shops will likely be missing out on work, when a lot of window 10 PCs that can technically run windows 11 are locked out of the upgrade for security dongle and non-technical CPU generation requirements.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
I maintain most PC people are more tech enthusiasts than gamers.
I honestly see more console enthusiasts talking about new tech than PC people. Its all about those portals and SSDs and dualsense haptics and 3D audios.

Meanwhile PC players are talking about some creepy shadow they saw on gm_construct.
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Their main business is PlayStation, they will continue having PC as a secondary platform for at least several years where they will throw there only a handful ports of several games old games per years. They may do some exception with a F2P MP game specially if focused to Asia, or maybe if this old port also gets a PS5 remaster/remake.


They haven't lost of Japan. All known Japanese 3rd party publishers and devs had at least one PS4 exclusive. Regarding hardware sales, they are supply constrained and focus their sales on the the biggest console markets of the world, and Japan is no longer one of them, so they send little SKUs there.PS5 is the fastest selling console ever worldwide and don't sell way more due to chips shortage, so they focus their units in their best selling markets: EU and NA.

In addition to this, their consoles are the low side of their console sales curve life cycle (the start or the end of the cygle) while Switch has been on the top of its curve (middle of the life cycle), so Switch has been temporally on top for a few years. In the next couple of years we'll see how Switch sales decrease every year around the world, while the PS5 ones rise as normal part of their life cycle sales curve.

Regarding software, for Sony now over 70% (depending on the quarter almost 80%) of the game game sales are digital. So the top 30 physical game sales ranking it's starting to become not relevant, specially for a contry that has been migrating from consoles to portables and specially mobile and no longer represents a top market for the console market.


Sony and the console game publishers will continue focusing on console and will continue having PC as secondary platform beacuse it's a smaller market for AAA game sales. PC is different because gaming isn't one of the biggest markets and their main business is on Windows or subs, so they want to migrate their gaming part to Windows and subs. Regarding PS Now, they have been reworking it and soon they will announce it for mobile and tv.

As I shown you before with factual data, PC is growing less than console, has grown less in the last decade and is expected to continue growing less than console and specially mobile.

Their main business is Playstation 'at the moment'. Previously its their sole business. We went from 'Playstation only' to 'Playstation 1st'. The trend going on will lead to 'PC 1st' followed by 'PC only' after they stop making game console.

I wouldn't say all known, those are mere token support, while their main effort are on the Switch and PC now. Not that surprising of course, considering Nintendo Switch is selling drastically well there (and worldwide), and the top selling home console games are only on Nintendo Switch. A brand new console failing to sell more than an aging old console isn't normal, especially considering that Nintendo is practicing artificial scarcity. The Japan Studio closure is a strong testament that they are surrendering Japan to Nintendo, mobile and PC, as they lick their wound. Maybe they will re attempt to reclaim the territory but it seems it will mean only 1 or 2 titles in the top selling chart at best. Nintendo games dominating the top selling chart from here on is the new norm in Japan, while PC continue to slay the digital market worldwide thanks to viral hits like Naraka or Phasmophobia, esports and others. At the same time, Sony's stressing over the ever increasing budget for their AAA games for their main audience on the next gen consoles. Their audience has forced them to implement an upgrade route for Horizon Forbidden West from PS4 to PS5. All the more reason they will have to port their games to PC

Multiple platform games are more common now, as more and more console developers are starting to release their games to PC. This is in addition to the games and developers who are only on PC and Switch due to the lower barrier of entry. All while Steam breaks their highest concurrent players record in recent time.
 

Athreous

Member
Sadly, Smartphones will... Look at how much money these mobile games are doing... Why would you invest 300m making a PC game, when you can use 10% of that money to dev a top tier Mobile game that revenues a lot more?
 

dano1

A Sheep
huh?

I’m glad they’re making money but I don’t know anyone that plays on there phone or iPad for FPSs. I’ve tried it but definitely not playing on a tiny screen. World championships I don’t see being done on mobile??
 

bit_blaster

Neo Member
They are, but those games sell significantly better on consoles. Though comparison is difficult because consoles have had multiple versions released across multiple generation.
Except they're not better graphically and they don't have as much or at all mod support
 

bit_blaster

Neo Member
Sadly, Smartphones will... Look at how much money these mobile games are doing... Why would you invest 300m making a PC game, when you can use 10% of that money to dev a top tier Mobile game that revenues a lot more?
Mobile only sells a lot because most of the games are either free or cheap, they appeal to casuals who aren't into gaming as much or at all, and they have bigger outreach being on a phone which in today's world is more of a necessity than a luxury.

Mobile is a lot closer to being its own genre than it is part of gaming altogether, this is why it usually fails when game developers try to court hardcore gamers into playing on mobile whether its ports of old JRPGs from Square or Blizzard making a new Diablo exclusively for Mobile. I think Nintendo profits more from 20+ million copies of Zelda sold than people playing Mario Run for free.
 

KAL2006

Banned
I think it's harder and harder to justify PC now. One of the big limitation of console games being 30fps for majority of games seems to be gone with developers including performance modes for all there games. Also Sony and Microsoft have made playing games more puck up and play with instant loading with SSD. I literally can choose a mission on the home screen for Spiderman and be inside a open world within seconds. Also price is a huge factor, yes developers have bumped the price of next gen games to $70, but the big digital sales I gotta say nearly rival Steam these days. We can't also discount physical games if you bought a Disk version of a console, I still buy, borrow, sell and trade games. Finally these consoles are already huge a PC is even bigger. And a quivulent power to build a PC is more expensive, and the power envelope is higher so your electricity costs will be higher, in many countries like where I'm living in electricity prices keep surging so having a PC that runs more wattage than a console isn't good for your electricity bill.
 

yurinka

Member
Their main business is Playstation 'at the moment'. Previously its their sole business. We went from 'Playstation only' to 'Playstation 1st'. The trend going on will lead to 'PC 1st' followed by 'PC only' after they stop making game console.
It will be continue being their main market. PC is a smaller market (in particular the AAA one) than consoles and they will only port there a few old games, it won't be their main market. Even if they would publish all their games and they would do it day one it would continue being a minor market for them.

There are zero reasons to think Sony would never go to a "PC first" strategy and obviously even less a "PC only" strategy. It doesn't make sense at all. The main revenue source for Sony is the 30% they get from publishing 3rd party games on their console, and they have zero reasons to change their strategy when they are breaking gaming history records on generating revenue, selling consoles and selling games for them. They are growing and the console market is growing, it would be really retarded to leave that to focus instead on a smaller market than the current one they dominate.

PC is the 3rd gaming market after mobile and consoles. Sony is only interested on it to get extra revenue source for their own games, that are becoming too expensive to make, and to get new fans to sell them consoles where they can play the new Sony games. Plus to grow in some countries where consoles aren't big and are focused instead on mobile and PC, so that they can't dominate with console alone.

A brand new console failing to sell more than an aging old console isn't normal, especially considering that Nintendo is practicing artificial scarcity.
100% of the consoles ever released have this sales curve: start with a few years with low sales (where PS5 and Series are right now), then they start growing until they are during a few years in a peak (Switch is at the end of this peak) and then their yearly sales start to go down year after year in their sunset tail (where PS4 and XBO are).

Some reach this peak later or sooner, some have a taller or wider peak, but all have this sales curve. So it's perfectly normal to have a console that is on its peak (Switch) to be selling more than consoles that recently debuted or are sunseting (PS and Xbox).

Artificial scarcity is a fanboy conspiracy theory concept that doesn't exist: Switch is available in the stores worldwide, if it doesn't sell more is because there isn't more demand.

The Japan Studio closure is a strong testament that they are surrendering Japan to Nintendo, mobile and PC, as they lick their wound. Maybe they will re attempt to reclaim the territory but it seems it will mean only 1 or 2 titles in the top selling chart at best. Nintendo games dominating the top selling chart from here on is the new norm in Japan, while PC continue to slay the digital market worldwide thanks to viral hits like Naraka or Phasmophobia, esports and others. At the same time, Sony's stressing over the ever increasing budget for their AAA games for their main audience on the next gen consoles. Their audience has forced them to implement an upgrade route for Horizon Forbidden West from PS4 to PS5. All the more reason they will have to port their games to PC
Japan Studio didn't close, they got restructured and changed their leadership. They will continue developing Japanese internal 1st party games under the Team Asobi leadership and they will continue publishing Japanese 2nd party games (like Death Stranding Director's Cut) but now their Japanese XDEV studio instead of being under Japan Studio will be under the global XDEV team. After restructuring, they are now hiring for both these teams, and for their Japanese 1st party team Polyphony Digital.

And are working to get more partnerships with Japanese studios (like the recent deal with Kadowaka) because in addition to bet on 1st and 2nd party, Sony invests hard on Japanese 3rd party excluives: almost every known Japanese 3rd party publisher and dev made at least one PS4 console exclusive. Jim Ryan said they PS5 will have more exclusives than any of their previous consoles, and since most of their excluives are 3rd party, it means they will have more than 3rd party exclusive than before. So it's fair to think they will continue betting hard on Japanese exclusives, as we seen with recent releases of people like Square or ARC System Works to name a few.

Sony game sales are between 70 and 80% digital sales, and their main markets are first Europe and second NA. This means the top 30 of physical games in Japan isn't something representative or meaningful of how are they performing selling games. Over 1600 million games have been sold until now for PS4 worldwide (and countring), versus over 600 for Switch. And because the best performing GaaS games like FIFA or GTA Online are on PS and not in Switch, or the biggest GaaS that are available on both like Fortnite have a bigger installbase on PS, there's also a ton of money more from DLC and microtransactions generated on PS vs on Switch.
 
I had gaming pcs before both were built by various shops in the city. Everything was fine until I started having blue screens that no pc repair shop could fix. After spending hundreds of dollars in the repair shop and not getting it fixed. I gave up on traditional pc gaming.

Its so expensive buying all the parts. I do think i just had bad luck, so i have a full gaming pc in the cloud with an gtx 1080. That way if anything goes wrong, its their hardware so they are the ones who foot the cost of repairs.
 

Sybrix

Member
For me it doesn’t get better than PC

The variety alone is second to no console and never will be

PC is always the forerunner in tech, if your looking for the future of consoles, consult PC gaming 5 years prior to the launch of a new console

Also… cheaper games, am I bollocks paying £70 for a game
 
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tusharngf

Member
i stopped playing on consoles now because of cinematic 30fps experience. I cant stand 30fps experience at all. PC allows more FPS and better graphics plus online is free. I would say steam is the best digital store at this moment.
 

Rykan

Member
Except they're not better graphically and they don't have as much or at all mod support
That is completely irrelevant. We're discussing sales and popularity because that's what this whole topic is about.

than people playing Mario Run for free.

Mario run isn't free. It has like 1 or two demo levels and the rest is locked behind a 10$ purchase. If you want to make a comparison, go ahead and google how much money Fire Emblem Heroes makes.
 
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LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
I maintain most PC people are more tech enthusiasts than gamers.
I agree. I happen to fall on both but love the inner workings.

I wouldn't be an enthusiast if I didn't keep on going for the best rigs every year or two.

But the love for gaming is there just in a more mature business manner.
 

rofif

Banned
For me it doesn’t get better than PC

The variety alone is second to no console and never will be

PC is always the forerunner in tech, if your looking for the future of consoles, consult PC gaming 5 years prior to the launch of a new console

Also… cheaper games, am I bollocks paying £70 for a game
Oh yeah these consoles are so far behind. We sure had rtx 2080, ray tracing, mainstream 4k and integrated ssd 5 years ago.
I have 3080 pc now on 2021 and these new consoles still have some advantages like direct ssd access, integrated 3d in PS5 or dualsense integrated features. Get real.

Of course pc performance os better but it's brute money force
 
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Bryank75

Banned
Oh yeah these consoles are so far behind. We sure had rtx 2080, ray tracing, mainstream 4k and integrated ssd 5 years ago.
I have 3080 pc now on 2021 and these new consoles still have some advantages like direct ssd access, integrated 3d in PS5 or dualsense integrated features. Get real.

Of course pc performance os better but it's brute money force

Why we need a PS5 pro.... get some incredible performance for about 1K.
If they can do what they are doing at 400 dollars (500 disc)....imagine what they can do for a pro!
 

rofif

Banned
Why we need a PS5 pro.... get some incredible performance for about 1K.
If they can do what they are doing at 400 dollars (500 disc)....imagine what they can do for a pro!
True! But also I kind wish we had no pro consoles this time... Or at least not soon
 

anothertech

Member
I'm a Lucky dude that got both a 3090 in his PC and a ps5 digital.

I did the PC tv thing for a couple years. This year I switched back to console on tv and PC at a proper gaming desk.

I can tell you with confidence, PC gaming on the couch is a dumpster fire experience compared to console on the couch.

PC should stay at the computer desk where it belongs.
 

bit_blaster

Neo Member
That is completely irrelevant. We're discussing sales and popularity because that's what this whole topic is about.



Mario run isn't free. It has like 1 or two demo levels and the rest is locked behind a 10$ purchase. If you want to make a comparison, go ahead and google how much money Fire Emblem Heroes makes.
misread the first comment, my bad.

As for the second, Mario Run was freemium, but then Nintendo charged full price which lead to the sales diving. Nintendo's mobile games overall are vastly under performing the competition, there are already reports of them leaving the market altogether. This is because their primary audience is on console.
 
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ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
It will be continue being their main market. PC is a smaller market (in particular the AAA one) than consoles and they will only port there a few old games, it won't be their main market. Even if they would publish all their games and they would do it day one it would continue being a minor market for them.

There are zero reasons to think Sony would never go to a "PC first" strategy and obviously even less a "PC only" strategy. It doesn't make sense at all. The main revenue source for Sony is the 30% they get from publishing 3rd party games on their console, and they have zero reasons to change their strategy when they are breaking gaming history records on generating revenue, selling consoles and selling games for them. They are growing and the console market is growing, it would be really retarded to leave that to focus instead on a smaller market than the current one they dominate.

PC is the 3rd gaming market after mobile and consoles. Sony is only interested on it to get extra revenue source for their own games, that are becoming too expensive to make, and to get new fans to sell them consoles where they can play the new Sony games. Plus to grow in some countries where consoles aren't big and are focused instead on mobile and PC, so that they can't dominate with console alone.


100% of the consoles ever released have this sales curve: start with a few years with low sales (where PS5 and Series are right now), then they start growing until they are during a few years in a peak (Switch is at the end of this peak) and then their yearly sales start to go down year after year in their sunset tail (where PS4 and XBO are).

Some reach this peak later or sooner, some have a taller or wider peak, but all have this sales curve. So it's perfectly normal to have a console that is on its peak (Switch) to be selling more than consoles that recently debuted or are sunseting (PS and Xbox).

Artificial scarcity is a fanboy conspiracy theory concept that doesn't exist: Switch is available in the stores worldwide, if it doesn't sell more is because there isn't more demand.


Japan Studio didn't close, they got restructured and changed their leadership. They will continue developing Japanese internal 1st party games under the Team Asobi leadership and they will continue publishing Japanese 2nd party games (like Death Stranding Director's Cut) but now their Japanese XDEV studio instead of being under Japan Studio will be under the global XDEV team. After restructuring, they are now hiring for both these teams, and for their Japanese 1st party team Polyphony Digital.

And are working to get more partnerships with Japanese studios (like the recent deal with Kadowaka) because in addition to bet on 1st and 2nd party, Sony invests hard on Japanese 3rd party excluives: almost every known Japanese 3rd party publisher and dev made at least one PS4 console exclusive. Jim Ryan said they PS5 will have more exclusives than any of their previous consoles, and since most of their excluives are 3rd party, it means they will have more than 3rd party exclusive than before. So it's fair to think they will continue betting hard on Japanese exclusives, as we seen with recent releases of people like Square or ARC System Works to name a few.

Sony game sales are between 70 and 80% digital sales, and their main markets are first Europe and second NA. This means the top 30 of physical games in Japan isn't something representative or meaningful of how are they performing selling games. Over 1600 million games have been sold until now for PS4 worldwide (and countring), versus over 600 for Switch. And because the best performing GaaS games like FIFA or GTA Online are on PS and not in Switch, or the biggest GaaS that are available on both like Fortnite have a bigger installbase on PS, there's also a ton of money more from DLC and microtransactions generated on PS vs on Switch.

I will say the trend will continue. The ship has reversed, and there’s really no going back here. There is a reason why next gen consoles are turning into PC-like. The devs are less willing to create console exclusives now without moneyhatting, and Sony couldn’t afford to moneyhat each and every titles over, so the next gen consoles are designed to become even more similar to PCs. This is to facilitate them to port their console games over, and to help devs to make multiplatform games including PC. Instead of moneyhatting for full exclusive, Sony can allow them to release on PC too in return for lesser moneyhat money. In a sense, PC reaped the benefits without any moneyhat. Street Fighter V is just one example.

All indications are pointing to the burst for high end AAA titles bubble, and Sony is pretty much forced to try every method to nickle and dime the console fanbase, like increasing the PS+ price, charging for $70 for new games, limiting new games on new consoles to only the latest expensive controllers, among others. They can’t afford to scale down the scope for budget purpose, because Playstation players wouldnt have it. They are accustom to high end gaming (which is why indies or smaller games tend to not sell well on Playstation compare to PC or Switch). It comes a point in time where they’ll look to PC. Even with the 30% cut, it is likely they will see profits because they are saving bunch of money like hardware manufacturing among others. Heck I wouldn’t be surprise if they make a Playstation Launcher while selling their games on Steam like what Xbox is doing. And Epic promising a money bag is only going to sweeten the deal for them to shift focus to PC.

“Restructuring” is just a nicer word to closing down the Japan Studio except for a skeleton team, and I wouldn’t say Jim Ryan words are trusting. What transpired certainly doesn’t mirror what he said. Just because they invested in some stuffs in Japan doesn’t mean they will bear fruit, just like those efforts like Vita Heaven, especially considering that players has embraced PC and Switch and unlikely to procure yet another console hardware. They tried but the Vita buckled under the 3DS. once it is dead its near impossible to revive it.

The reality is they pulled away from Japan (and Asia to a certain), and they are trying to use PC as a trojan house to re-establish Playstation there now in a different form.
 
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