| Untamoi said: @richardhutnik: I wouldn't say NPD's figures completely meaningless yet but they only count a small part of PC gaming anymore. Even NPD admits that most of the business is not made on retail anymore but they don't even estimate online revenue. NPD only counts retail revenue and that's it, even if online revenue would be several times bigger (which it already is). So even they admit that their figures are becoming worthless on PC side. |
Well, one can look at sales as an indicator. Most people end up buying games as gifts and in retail environments when they are doing holiday shopping. A hobbyist/hardcore person shops for themselves. This is not the bulk of sales, however. Maybe the PC is getting more, but I would like to have anyone show that PC game sales equal sales of consoles for games. What percentage of people do you think actually use Steam to buy games in general? Or they order online for a download?
Ok, so if we are looking at say 300% larger (want to make it larger)? That is still less than 3 billion total for PC game sales. This is less than half that of the sales in the dedicated videogame arena. One could also end up playing this game by saying, "NPD doesn't count games rented by people, or sold to video store chains", so one can get cute that way also.
Well, if one wants to measure things here, then how about looking at what KIND of games are available? Is there anything in the way of NFL Football on PCs? Oh, there is FANTASY league sports stuff. Do people want to count that?
What I do see, and has held up historically, is that once a genre can effectively be done on a consoles, it slowly withdraws itself off PCs. First it ends up going consoles and PC, then the top titles go console only. This is the cycle. It is why Madden has been withdrawn from PCs.
