CAL4M1TY said: I agree with coolestguy, It's the other way around. Console gaming is becoming more expensive, but relative to the PC, it's a drop in the ocean. We are getting gorgeous games on the 360 and the PS3, even though they are not crysis levels, how much would a person spend on a PS3 and 360 compared to a person who spends on a PC to get crysis running smoothly, let alone on high settings. BTW Don't give me random figures about how much PC builds cost, because at the end of the day, you can't factor in the tv into the console costs (Because a tv can be used stand-alone), but you have to factor in monitors, mouse and keyboards, speakers (because none of them work standalone without a connection to a PC). Even then, high end towers cost more than the console alone. If anything, Consoles are eating away at the PC market, FPS (while according to some are always better on PC) have finally begun to get the controls right on the console. I would say the only two genre's that have PC still have to brag about are RTS and MMO's. RTS's may still fall the way FPS did if MS plans to bring multiple RTS's to the 360 actual works and well, personally, I don't care about MMO's.

thanks, and good post btw.

 

I forgot to mention how much more PC's cost than consoles. even if you take out the extra stuff (keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc.) and look at the cost of tower vs. console, tower will be more expensive I bet (unless the tower is total crap).

Console gaming is too profitable for it to ever die.

PC games are crumbling and anyone who doesn't think so is just plain wrong. Even PC devs who love the PC know it is happening.

coolestguyever said: okay fine games run better on PC. that doesn't mean consoles are dying. they're actually growing and based on what i know PC gaming is dying.

 PC has 30% of total estimated software revenue in US while the other 70% is consoles, but since there are 6 consoles currently, it means it's just a share of 11.6% for each console. 30% >> 11.6%

It's even wider in Europe and Asia. In Europe I'm guessing PC has around atleast 40% share, and the consoles 60%, making average of 10% per console. 40% >>> 10%

 And in Asia, it's probably PC 60% and consoles 40.  60% >>>> 6.6%

More serious, you totally missed the point it was being made in the interview. Reading comprehension fail.

Yep! Console gaming is dead. Microsoft and Sony will survive on Computers and Electronics, but Nintendo is Screwed! They're already so far in the hole! The wii selling horrible. But PC gaming is set to have a 500% increase in the next 2 hours! Then ioi will turn over control of the site to Wiiforever! This is gonna be a hell of a time!

akuma587 said: PC games are crumbling and anyone who doesn't think so is just plain wrong. Even PC devs who love the PC know it is happening.

How is it crumbling? PC has the best 2008 lineup, no console has better games coming out this year. 

PC is the most profitable gaming platform in the world too.

Developers are forced to go to consoles, but they don't exactly leave PC. Most of them are still releasing their games on PC.

Infact it's consoles that are losing even more exclusives than PC. Not only to themselves, but to PC also. Pretty much now only first-party games are exclusive on 360/PS3, while PC has Spore, Starcraft 2, Sins of a Solar Empire, Sam & Max, Empire: Total war, A Vampyre story, Storm of War: Battle of Britain, Dragon Age, Space Siege, Stalker: Clear Sky, etc.... are PC-exclusives.

Two generations ago, PS1, Saturn and N64 had their own exclusives and the developers almost never resorted to multiplatform. Now they are forced  to  not only launch on several consoles, but to PC also.

I tried PC gaming -- back in the 1980s and 1990s. If you don't have the right hardware, you can't run the software. If you upgrade, suddenly you can't play your games.

There will always be PC gaming. But there will always be consoles. And more people will prefer consoles. (I wonder what the non-Japan Asian numbers will be like a few years from now when more and more consoles are available in PC-dominated Korea).

Mike from Morgantown

I lost respect for the guy when he said that Sony and Microsoft designed their own GPUs this generation when they didnt.

ssj12 said: I lost respect for the guy when he said that Sony and Microsoft designed their own GPUs this generation when they didnt.

 He did not say that, atleast not in the interview.

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.

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.

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).


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.