Some of you guys here concentrate on one problem but neglect the others. I'll try to elaborate on a multitude of reasons why PC game sales have been dwindling not just this year, but a general trend for 3-5 years now.
1. Piracy, you guys obviously talked about this, so I'll be brief. I think it plays a role, but I'm not sure How big. Unless someone like the Call of Duty director give out numbers, we can't speculate how much of an impact it would make. I can't possible see it more than half the sales, which even if Call of Duty 4 sales were doubled, it is no where near the million or more sales of yesteryear and what Call of Duty is getting on the 360. Plus, games that are heavily online like Call of Duty, should have a easy way of eliminating members with pirated cd keys and cracks. It's harder for games like Crysis, which has a poor online play, and most will be content with the single player.
2. Cost of PC. Someone tried to post cost of a cheat HTPC and I'm not sure if that is accurate or not (30 bucks for Ram, even on newegg, the cheapest is 35 bucks and that's for crap ram), but that doesn't account for the second problem of PC and that is. The need for constant Upgrade is the problem. Look at Crysis, tons of people didn't buy it because they felt it's useless buying it now if it will not run properly or look good with their recent upgrades. Others were prompt to go and get that Sli 8800 GT or Ultra, double that Ram, and go for that Quad Core and motherboard upgrade. Thus is the problem Why buy a 3-400 dollar CPU, 250 for a single GT, 500 for Sli, more for the the Ultra, plus cost of motherboard, RAM all for a single game. Fast foreward 2 years, and you'll likely have to do that all over again. Regular people are tired of that. I see people try to say, for every generation people are getting dumber and thus why they are picking the consoles. It's time to get over this. In fact, if anyone is dumb, it's the people spending a G every few years.
3. It's not all about bleeding edge. Why the need to upgrade all the time. I always hear PC games talk about how they'll always be superior to Consoles. While True, but Who cares??? Obviously not the buyers. Can we get Great games that focus on gameplay, story and so forth. Can we get a lot of variation in games not just War, Strategy, Sims. For example, What is the best Selling Console out, The Wii. Not exactly bleeding edge. What was the gamespot, Ign, and Gametrailers game of the year, oh yeah Super Mario Galaxy, not exactly bleeding edge, or a war game. What was the best selling game of last year, Halo 3, not even close to the best graphical game on the 360. Look What Guitar Hero and Rock Band is doing, none are graphical games, and it's a different take in what a game is. expand your horizons and things might be different (i know guitar hero is also on the PC so no need to respond). Ever seen a Japanese style RPG game on the PC, exactly, not all RPGs have to be online MMOs or offline Western Oblivion style. How about a Fighting game on the PC, say, tekken, virtua fighter, Soul Calibur, I know fighters aren't what they use to be but the option is there in the consoles. This will be better elaborated in the next session.
4. What advantages does PC now have over console??? In the past, it was the ability to play online, in the age when PS1, Saturn, N64 didn't have such things, playing an Unreal Tournament in 99 had huge advantages that consoles couldnt' touch. There were the graphics, but now, Graphic upgrades are giving diminishing returns and aren't as important anymore. Sound??? consoles now have uncompressed PCM and other advance sound that even PC games can't touch if a director decide to include it. Even if not, your talking about equals now. Speaking of online, it now has come down to PCs may be able to support 24-32 people online, and often console are stuck with 16. But as you can see from Resistance, Consoles, at least the PS3 has shown the ability to break that barrier. and Resistance 2 is aiming for 60. This leaves things like easier patches, easier downloadable content and mods as the only PC advantage, Oh what, PS3's Unreal has support for that, damn. See where I'm getting at, though it still is easier from an overall stand point on the PC, the advatages are much less now than in years past. These few advantages are not worth the extra cost, the incompatablities and so forth that you must deal with on the PC.
5. Couch vs. Dest. Plain and simple, you get a group of friends over, you guys can sit back and play Madden to death, or sit back and play 100 matches of Virtua Fighter, or sit back and do the campagin mode together on Gears of War, or sit back play a Super Mario Galaxy game. PCs, your stuck with just the monitor. And I already heard it, PCs can now connect to that big screen HDTVs, first off, not everyone has a big Screen HDTV, ie.. someone may have a 40 inch TV but it was an older CRT or rear projection, there are a lot of Wii owners that don't have HDTVs. Second, in the typical setup, the PC isn't connected to the HDTV. PCs are in a corner, or in a PC room/computer room, or in the kids room, it's not in the living room where the Big HDTV is. College kids may have an easier ability to do it since everything is in the same room, but even that is annoying. Disconneting everything, move it where the TV is located, connect it JUST so you can play on the big TV. I know when I was in college, my computer was in one corner, I used it for the internet, games, and also a place to do school work and study, the TV was in a separate place, usually opposite the bed so I can watch it while in bed. I lived 4 years in an on campus Apartment, so there also was a living room that the 4 separate roomates shared. This will often be where the big 4, 5, 10 group of people play the games. Well, It's much easier just unplug and plug a console, than it is to upluge the speakers, the monitor, the case, the mouse, keyboard, and any other peripheral stuff that a PC is with. So while a PC can be connected to an HDTV, the majority of setups make it difficult and thus it still will be a Console advantage. Just like how Consoles dwindled the PC advantages over the years, maybe in 3, 4, 5 years or so, that advatage will dwindle for the consoles as well, until this another advantage for the consoles.
6. Other than Steam, PCs don't have a great way of keeping you in constant contact with your friends. something that XBOX live and to a lesser extent, the PSN network allows you to do. I know my friend personally said, if he were to get DMC4, he would on the 360 because if he was playing it, he would still want to know when his friends are on to maybe switch to Madden, or Call of Duty if he saw they were playing it. Again, convienient.
In fact that is it. Consoles are just more convienient for the population. People mention bringing PC games down to 25 bucks, but since when have games on average been that cheap. It wasn't in the NES days, it wasn't in the 16 bit days, it wasn't in the PS1, PS2, or this current generation days. games were always 39-49 (mostly 49 in the PS1 and PS2 days) and now 59. pLus, that doesn't account for why sales for these 59.99 Halos, call of duties are doing so well on the consoles, when PC game prices are cheaper. People say oh, the publishers are greedy. Yeah ok, underprice your game, when we are still in an age when a lot of developers and publishers go under or get absorbed by larger enterprises because the cost of making games is so great. That is just STUPID. a game like Call of duty 4 will give you hundreds of time more entertainment hours than a Movie would, so why price it at the cost of a new movie.
I'm not stupid like some others and state that PC gaming will die. That will never happen, but the days that PC gaming from a diversity of products, and from exclusive product, and from sales to be anywhere close to consoles is LONNNNNNNG GONNNNNNNNE. Consoles now essentially are PCs, just without the cost, the headaches of incompatability, or the Tiny screen.
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