Jon Peddie Research explains PC gaming versus console

[shio]

mrstickball said:

shio said:

1. There may not be many big countries that are PC-dominated, but there are dozens of PC-centric european countries, which added up will make a hefty sum.

2. Casual console games do sell through a longer period (and nintendo games), but "hardcore" games don't. You think Halo 3 is going to keep selling for years? I have not seen it in any chart for ages. Where is 360 COD4? 360 Bioshock? The PC version of Bioshock still appears here and there, while COD4 was one of the top selling PC games last quarter. As a rule, PC games are almost NEVER frontloaded.

3. I'm not sure what you mean. FYI COD5 came out yesterday on Steam, so it's not surprising to see it well placed.

According to PCGA, last year the PC's DD market was 66% the size of the Retail market. Soon DD will catch Retail, if it hasn't already.

1. According to Mr. Peddie's research, said PC-centric European (both East and West) countries make up less revenue than the United States does. And last I checked, the US is a far more console-heavy nation. So what does that make European sales, then?

2. Ever heard of a game called Halo 2? It's still the #1 selling Xbox game, and is for sale on the X360 too as an Xbox Original - So it's still selling for 4 years. H3 is still selling 20,000+ units per WEEK at $50 each. What older games would you like to cite that have tremendous sales? Valve games? They're selling for $9.99 a pop at Steam - It's doubtful that even if they are selling awesomely (and I can assume they are), that it's much in comparison to a major retail game selling a similar number of games at 2-3 times the price.

That is hardware revenue, not the best indicative. They are definitely making some decent sales. For example, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. sold 1 million copies in ex-soviet countries, and The Witcher broke 100k in just 2 months in Poland, a single eastern european country.

Interesting tidbit: the most emerging markets are the Eastern Europe and Central Asia - both totally dominated by PC.

Halo 2 can barely be compared to PC games. Fallout 1, an 11 year old game, can still be found in stores and is available in several online services like GameTap and GOG.com. In the last 12 months I bought brand new copies of Grim Fandango(10yr old), Curse of the Monkey Island (11yr), Full Throttle(13yr) and Sam & Max: Hit the Road (15 years old!). I also bought Myst Collection, which is includes the entire Myst series.

I am also going to buy Half-Life 1 on Steam, which is currently only $0.98 !!! Half-Life's 10 years birthday deal

Halo 3 is "only" 1 year old - Almost every PC game is still selling at that stage. You may criticise old PC games for selling so cheap, but that only means that they are still being sold, unlike most console games that stop selling after a few months or year.