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Forums - Gaming - I honestly believe gaming PCs are becoming niche market

Conina on 06 July 2014
deskpro2k3 said:

it is niche in terms of the type of games people play on it. the only kind of games i play on pc is mmo games, the rest is on consoles. things are changing though, because now consoles are getting mmo games.

Only playing MMO games on PC games is your own personal preference. There are many other types of games for PC and other people have other preferences.

Or how do you explain that Ubisofts platform with the highest revenue share (24%) is actually the PC? They don't have popular MMOs or popular casual games for PC (not even Just Dance), so the PC-revenue has to be mainly from Assassin's Creed 3 + 4, Far Cry 3 + Blood Dragon and Splinter Cell: Blacklist.

For other third party developers like EA and Activision the PC-revenue is also an important pillar of their revenue. Only looking at sold retail versions gives a very distorted picture, most sales on PC are digital.



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Raze on 06 July 2014

I feel the opposite of the OP.

Steam has unified PC gaming under one virtual roof, I can keep my network of online friends in the know of what I'm playing, find out about what games they are playing, go to the Greenlight section and check out new indie games on the horizon, and purchase new games from the comfort of my home, all while being informed directly on Steam of games on sale and other promotions.

If you went to Gamestop to asssess PC gaming, then yes, few people are making "boxed versions", and Gamestop doesn't have the rack space to support much of them anyhow. In the PC world, digital distribution has taken over the majority of sales, so it's not as cut and dry as console games, which are tracked by UPCs.

I found one of my favorite games of all time, State of Decay,  simply by a promotional sale on Steam.  Most of the games that would interest me that would come to a console, I can also get on Steam. I got COD: Ghosts for 40% off on a 2 day sale on steam, where the console versions were more than double what I paid.



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Arkaign on 06 July 2014

Divinity original sin is one hell of a PC exclusive. And of course there are tons of awesome console exclusives. I'm an all platform gamer. I'm not the only one, I think PC gaming is growing thanks to midrange cards and steam getting better all the time. A $399 PC with a 750ti plays most games 1080p/high details at 30fps. Bargain. Ditto consoles though you spend $$ in different areas.



ErwinMoC on 06 July 2014
zero129 said:
ErwinMoC said:
zero129 said:
No one wants to try to dispute my theory (Well its not even really a theory since it is how things are going imo) about how consoles will die and become a service for your smart phones/smart tv/pc etc etc??.
I mean all them people that think PC gaming is going to die before console gaming must have something to say about it right??.


Because you really want an answer... 

Streaming is shit.

Bye.

The is already lots of places that can stream very good i imagine in 10-15 years time it will be much better so really thats not an answer


Yes  itis, also streaming will never be better then local. 



prayformojo on 06 July 2014
daredevil.shark said:

Disclaimer: This thread represents my opinion. The main purpose of this thread is to express my opinion gaming PCs future. By gaming PCs I mean PCs that are meant for gaming. PCs that are used in office or home doesnt fall in this category. Please dont take the thread off topic.

Gaming PCs are something special. These PCs represents users taste in harware and reflects his personality. These PCs are meant for one thing and one thing only. Make the game beautiful. Play is smoothly.

But I think gaming PCs are turning more niche and niche every day. They are not dying. And given their customization options they will survive no matter what odds comes to them. But their progress might come to a stall. Why?

1. The games that push gaming PCs are usually so called AAA games. Love it or hate it but these AAA games breaks the barrier of virtual world which is not possible for many indie games. But AAA games and PC market doesn’t seem a perfect match.

2. AAA games require huge sales with $60 mark to make it profitable. But in PC gaming arena this is less frequent than console games. They are many AAA PC successful games but their number is less than console counterparts.

3. In PC gaming people are delighted with the sale of an AAA game at $10. And why they shouldn’t? It’s a great offer. But from a developers perspective this is not a good sign. They want as many games sold at $60 not in $10.

4. Plus piracy is another reason why these AAA games don’t get money. Piracy in PC is much bigger than console counterpart. If piracy reduced to 20% in PC then their revenue would be 5-10 times bigger than consoles revenue.

5. GPU manufacturers will be in dilemma in future. As the costs of making GPU will keep rising in future. Unless there is somne alternative cheap ways they might face the option to make less variants.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=185680

6. PC gaming is bigger than console gaming. But majority of that revenue comes from MMO and MOBA games. And these games don’t push visual benchmarks. They don’t push it because they want to make it playable as many gamers they can. So in the end these so called AAA games will push PC graphics.

Ending words: Gaming PCs will never go obsolete. They will keep doing some amazing things. But their progress might face a downward trend.


Haven't gaming PC's ALWAYS been "niche"? I mean, when has it overtaken console gaming as far as mainstream adoption? 



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outlawauron on 06 July 2014
Scoobes said:
outlawauron said:
Tamron said:
outlawauron said:

From the fact that user surveys of hardware show that their rigs are worse than current gen consoles. I wouldn't call those gaming PCs.

Also,  if your 2010 built rig cant handle current games unless you crank the settings to low for it to run,  i put it to you that your rig wasnt high end when you built it anyway. 

Let me guess,  mid range amd cpu,  mid range gpu? 

Nah. It's i7 running 3.2GHz and I have 5800 series ATI. CPU was over $300 and GPU was over $200 when I purchased it from Newegg.

Unless you've got <4GB of RAM or are running dual monitors/ higher than 1080P resolution, you should have no trouble equalling the current gen consoles. 

I've got 6GB of RAM running dual monitors (should be 12GB, but I've got a bad RAM slot). My main monitor is 1920x1200. I'm able to run things decently at low/medium (i.e. plenty of framerate drops but it's manageable).

I very rarely actually play games at 1200p because I can't run it well at all. Usually go for 1050, which is the next lowest 16:10 resolution.



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outlawauron on 06 July 2014
Lusche said:
outlawauron said:
Tamron said:

Also,  if your 2010 built rig cant handle current games unless you crank the settings to low for it to run,  i put it to you that your rig wasnt high end when you built it anyway. 

Let me guess,  mid range amd cpu,  mid range gpu? 

Nah. It's i7 running 3.2GHz and I have 5800 series ATI. CPU was over $300 and GPU was over $200 when I purchased it from Newegg.


strange, I had an i7 2.8ghz@3.8ghz and ati 5770 with asrock mb and 4gb ram for around 500bucks also in the beginning of 2010.
it could play most/all current gen games @1080p with medium/high settings.
maybe some hw/driver issues ?

giftet it to my mother because her pc was dead and got a new one for 550bucks ?beginning last year? which could play watchdogs@1080p ultra

 

but I also think pc gaming is not in it greatiest shape right now.
they also starting to charge console game prices for pc games and the ports are almost as bad as the wiiu ports were.
but calling mmorpg, mobas, rts, simulation niche is maybe a bit too much.

I'd love to know what you're playing, because even stuff like DOTA 2 doesn't run well at the highest settings.



"We'll toss the dice however they fall,
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall,
Then follow young Mat whenever he calls,
To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

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episteme on 06 July 2014

Well, desktop PC's dedicated mainly to gaming are already niche, but PC gaming in general is growing.

There are 150 Euro processors with integrated graphics that are powerful enough to run Battlefield 4 @1080p 30FPS with medium settings.

And you don't need AAA budgets to push graphical boundaries on PC.




Shinobi-san on 06 July 2014
BenVTrigger said:
All evidence points to the exact opposite of this.

Litteraly every quantifiable, factual information. Steam users all time high, high end GPUs up, games like Watch Dogs selling tons of units.


Steam users and growth rate is at an all time high almost exclusively because of Dota 2...otherwise i would assume their growth is pretty average. And dota 2 does not require a gaming PC but simply a decent laptop or home pc with onboard graphics.

I would also caution against correlating high end GPU's sales with the growth of gaming PCs - with a function to game. Theres a hell of a lot of enthusiast PC owners who dont game at all. In fact the most popular tech youtube channel (i think its the most popular) was started by a guy who does not game but is very interested in GPU's.

In any case i agree with you and would say that Gaming PC's are becomming less of a niche unlike what OP says...but i dont think the evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.



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Lusche on 06 July 2014
outlawauron said:

I'd love to know what you're playing, because even stuff like DOTA 2 doesn't run well at the highest settings.


idk dota2 on high was possible (i don't think it had 100+fps on highest settings more likely to dip below 60fps), played more lol and there i could play highest settings with 100+ fps
i think the most demanding game I tried on my old pc was crysis 3 with 1080p@medium. high was dipping down below 30fps.

if you are content with 1080p30fps which looks most of the times better than on ps360 than my pc was more than capable of.