| Borkachev said: Spore isn't PC-exclusive, although the PC version will be the definitive one. The only other big title on that list is Starcraft 2. You could come up with a more impressive list of upcoming exclusives than that for any console you want to name. |
What?? Dude:
Spore - It is PC exclusive, with other platforms getting completely different versions. This might be the biggest game of the year.
Dragon Age - Bioware PC Exclusive and Baldur's Gate spiritual sequel.
Sins of a Solar Empire - First game ever to merge 4X and RTS successfully. 89% on Gamerankings.com
Starcraft 2 - Self-explanatory
Sam & Max: Season 2 - One of the most lovable duos in Gaming history, followup of Season 1( 88% )
Empire: Total War - New entry of one of the greatest Strategy franchises ever. Last entry was Rome: Total War, which got an average of 92% and was named by PC Gamer (UK) as All time 5th best PC game, and by IGN as 4th Best PC Game of all Time. It is the best RTS ever after Starcraft. I'm surprised you never heard of the franchise.
A Vampyre Story - A highly anticipated Adventure, being developed by people who have worked at Monkey Island series and Lucas Arts. Everything shown so far has not failed expectations.
Gray Matter - Adventure written by Jane Jensen, author of the Gabriel Knight series. This game proves that the Adventure genre is rising again.
Storm of war: Battle of Britain - By Maddox, creators of the best Flight Sim of the last decade, IL-2 Sturmovik (91%), they are going to blow everyone away with their new game.
Space Siege - ARPG from Gas Powered Games, developers of Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander.
Demigod - RPG/RTS from Gas powered games again, deeply influenced by Warcraft 2's DOTA.
WoW: Wraht of Lich King - self-explanatory
Warhammer Online - The first MMO that really looks like threatening WoW's monopoly.
Stalker: Clear Sky - prequel of Shadow of Chernobyl, and without Ubisoft's time constraint, they will have time to optimize the game (which was the main problem of the first game)
There are alot more exclusives, but I think these are the most important ones.
| Borkachev said: Now, PC gaming isn't dying. It's shrinking, though, and becoming even more specialized -- and it was already pretty damn specialized to begin with. The future of PC gaming is basically the 3 or 4 genres PCs really excel at, with occasional ports of things like Grand Theft Auto. There's always going to be a PC games market, and a lot of the people who play the "PC genres" are happy to keep doing so. In fact, I've noticed they're often violently opposed to anything else. |
It's not shrinking at all, only the retail market has decreased. As a whole PC gaming has been increasing non-stop through online business. World of Warcraft alone is 20% bigger than the entire US PC retail market. 20%!! And that's still not counting the other 6 million paying MMO subscribers and advertisement income from the smaller games, and ignoring DD services like Steam, Direc2Drive, Gametap, etc...
There was a study that estimated PC did 2.7 billion dollars in the US last year, which means 66% of the entire revenue comes from digital distribution. It is also expected of a revenue of 3.1 billion in 2008.
| Borkachev said: As for consoles dying (and I'm addressing the OP interview now), well, that's just ludicrous. I'd say "idiotic," but I'm not sure this Alex St. John guy actually believes what he's saying or if he's just trying to hype up his product. I'm calling it now: not only are consoles going to continue to thrive, but so will consoles with bleeding-edge technology. There's always going to be a huge demand for graphically-intense living room gaming, and as long as there is, there'll be products to meet it. Do you suppose all those $2000 TVs people are buying are for decor? Even if the bulk of the money from now on is in Wii-style gaming, the market can easily support a high-end competitor -- and probably two. (I'm not sure if it's possible for Sony to break even at this point, but they could easily have turned a profit this gen by investing in more cost-efficient technology. Their lack of profitability had little to do with the style of gaming they're pursuing). |
Way to lose the point. He was saying that since videogaming is reaching the visual plateau where the graphics will be so close to each other, that the hardware will lose it's importance. Like, 5 years from now, if you buy a $800 PC it won't be as graphically apart from the $1500 PC as it is now.
| Borkachev said: And if it's about community, that puts the console out of business. Because why the hell does Wal-Mart want to sell a money-losing loss leader device, when all the valuable content will be tied to online services and subscriptions and downloadable stuff? So for all the talk about downloadable content on the console, the console depends on the retail channel for that market to be valuable, and the retailer, if they don't get a cut of that, is going to say why the hell am I trying to sell these consoles at a loss for? Is this the crux of his argument? Because if it is, someone should probably tell him that retailers don't lose money on games consoles. The manufacturers do. |
Again, you missed the point. According to him, since the hardware won't be much differentiable, the set up of a persistent online community could indeed pull away alot of costumers. That is already happening this gen with Xbox 360 and PS3.
The Xbox Live was able to get a following of people from the first Xbox, and many of them switched over to Xbox 360 instead of Wii/PS3 because of it. That is his point. An online community will help you carry over the costumers without being restricted by hardware (since the hardware won't be as important in the future)
Sony is starting the same as Microsoft, with PSN and Home, the creation of an online community, and digital distribution.
Now, the crux of this argument. Setting an online community and digital distribution for more profit will also tie more and more the console to online business and digital distribution. And by doing so, you will have exclusive content and sales being cut out off retailers. Retailers will lose privileges, they will lose sales. Which is what is happening to PC. Microsoft is already planning digital distribution of movies and such; and Sony is going to add shops and advertisement on Home.
The biggest problem is that then the consoles would have to face PC which is near free of piracy when it comes to digital distribution. Then what would the point be in releasing digitally a game when you can just digitally distribute it on PC, a much more profitable platform online?
That's the gist of it, I don't entirely agree with him, but I thought his opinion interesting. I'm surprised that not even one VGchartz member got the point though
makes me a saaaad panda
