Sorry.
The 360 is the industry leader in 3rd party software sales, which is what drives the industry. I know the Wii has sold more consoles, but half of them are sitting unused on someone's dresser with a copy of Wii Sports and nothing else. As for exclusives driving platform sales you are of course right... other things do as well, hype and marketing for instance. The PS3 had a better year than the 360 exclusive wise yet the 360 still outsold it due in part to its rep as the cool console to have right now.
Its not just rep. The 360 wins big in multiplayer. The online service is far more mature than the PS3. It also has enough of the same games as the PS3, as well as many exclusives either to itself or itself + PC. In any case, it is a very compelling competitor to the PC now that the RROD is supposedly fixed. It has games, graphics, multimedia capabilities, multiplayer. I'm in college and I see more and more people with a mac and an xbox or a laptop and an xbox.
MMOs are tremendously popular, even ones other than WoW are still selling a lot of copies and then making money every month. The Old Republic and Star Trek Online will both make a lot of money. MMOs are hard to do on consoles not just for interface issues but also because consoles are closed systems and MMOs almost need open ones. Star Trek, Conan, Champions and more were all supposed to go to Xbox and never did because Microsoft will not open up the system in the ways needed for an MMO to work. I am sure they will figure that out eventually, you're right, but it may take a while.
Im not sure if there are any real competitors to WoW. Warhammer was suppose to have been successful but evidently not. WoW is 5 years old and benefits 1 company alone. It doesnt help the platform as a whole, nor does it push the technology envelope. Its like background noise, its always there.
RTS is a niche? I guess, though CnC and Dawn of War and of course Starcraft rack up some great sales numbers. Company of Heroes as well. Just because it's niche though means nothing to me, I like it and there are AAA big name RTS exclusives on the PC, it counts.
CnC3 ironically racked up alot more sales on the 360 it would appear. Dawn of War was successful for the small budget and development time, though I doubt it was a run away hit. Company of Heroes took weeks to reach 1 million sold (or is shipped?). For how revolutionary and polished it is, comparable console games would reach that in days. Starcraft is like the super mario 3 of RTS games, but even then, it took them 9 years to sell 4 million copies. MW2 beat that in 48 hours. Lastly, its blizzard. Blizzard can milk the same game for a decade and nobody will say boo. Good for them, but that doesnt reflect the rest of the industry nor does it help it. They are an outlier. Sort of how video cards nowadays can run anything at ridiculous resolutions - except Crysis.
http://www.playnoevil.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/1252-Starcraft-Total-Sales-How-long-is-the-Long-Tail.html
This is true and I would never say otherwise, but your arguement had to do with exclusives and the lack of them meaning doom for the platform. That has nothing to do with what is ported where. The end point is that every game that can be ported is ported, generally speaking, and if a lack of exclusives means the death of a platform then they're all dying.
Not doom, sign of decline. It is an indicator of where developer priorities are. The 360 and PS3 have comparable graphics, but even their best is still a head below the best PC has to offer. But if developers only need to meet the bar for consoles, then PC is further relegated to an "alternative" rather than a step up. Over the last 1-2 years, graphics have not gotten tremendously better. The 4800s were a smash hit because they offered high performance at affordable prices, but one main for this was because requirements plateaued. Companies were using the same engines over and over again and nobody was pushing the envelope. Even the Crysis guys are makine a console version with the Cryengine 3 (which I hear is worse).
Hopefully DX11 will change this, but I firmly believe that technology drives the platform as much as games do. Its no surprise that almost every member of that silly alliance is a hardware company.
I don't know what those links are supposed to tell me, registered Gamespot users are not exactly a scientific sample. No one really knows what platform Left 4 Dead sold more on, Steam does not release sales numbers and Steam is a massive part of game sales on the PC. Every story that talks about PC sales declining seems to ignore that massive monkey in the room.
Users and hours is a pretty fair indicator of popularity wouldn't you say? And why dont digital venues release numbers? Their lack of transparency certainly makes me a little suspicious as to the health of the industry.
Yeah, the lack of a confirmed PC port on that game is a little odd, but they have hinted they might do one. In any case they go where the money is, they want to branch out. Nothing wrong with that as long as they keep supporting the PC, which I am sure they will. Relic has said repeatedly they will support the PC until its no longer possible.
I hope there is a PC port too, we shall see. Relic has a great track record, but for a thus-far RTS company, I expected no less.
There aren't that many though, 2 games on the 360, neither of which is really that important. ODST seems to have been a minor hit that no one still talks about and Forza 3 is good but so is Need for Speed Shift and iRacing and a bunch of other racing games also on PC. Neither is essential. If you are the type of person who needs every hit game then I guess you need a 360 for those two games, but then you would also need a PC for it's exclusives. I don't see your point here, every platform has them in very limited and easy to ignore numbers, but if you NEED them then you NEED that platform, but it's the same for PC.
The 360 has legs for all the reasons I mentioned earlier, but the PS3 is clearly picking up steam thanks to its exclusives. But the superior multiplayer is what carries MW2 and MW2 is what helped carried the 360.
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/21675/November-NPD-Sales-Numbers-Hold-a-Surprise/
bears mentioning that Modern Warfare 2 was, for all intents and purposes, marketed as an Xbox 360 title, while Assassin's Creed 2 bore heavy PlayStation branding.
And thats another thing. MW2 is a juggernaut and one of the defining games of this year. Yet despite the original's roots in the PC, the sequel shifted to the consoles. The menus have that half-baked console look, and the lack of eyefinity support is also disheartening, especially when a modder managed to achieve it alone. I can go on about dedicated servers, but that just makes my blood boil.
And that has always been the case, there is no one company that runs the PC, it's an open platform. There has never been a game exclusive to the PC because of any other reason than it was not easy or possible to also put it on console. As consoles can do more genres we will lose more exclusives, that's just a fact, you're right.
Still, as I said, consoles are not brimming over with exclusives either, and the PC is still the best way to play every game released on multiple platforms. That will never change.
This is only relatively recent. Before the 360 and the PS3, there were tons of games exclusive to the PC.
As for being the best way, that gap is closing too. Enough for most people to replace the PC with the 360 or enough to find it hard to justify the extra money a PC demands. Not to mention the yearly upgrades to maintain that lead.
Exclusives are not the life blood of consoles, but they do put consoles in people's homes. But once the console is purchased, it makes it more appealing for people to buy games for it that are otherwise available on the PC. It gets the foot in the door. I dont see why this cant be argued for PCs as well. While everyone has a computer, most do not have a "gaming" computer.
Well the PC has always been a niche market, more or less. I grew up on Guybrush Threepwood, Roger Wilco and Doom's space marine but almost every other person I have ever met grew up on Mario and Sonic. PC has never been the focus of the mainstream industry in the way consoles have been and with more and more mainstream gamers that is more and more the case. I guess if you go to gametrailers and kotaku you might think we are small and insignificant and DOOM DOOM DOOM, but those are sites tailored to mainsteam gamers.
In short, there is nothing wrong with being a niche. I was playing Left 4 Dead mods all night and wrapped up with a little Samorost 2, console gamers can do neither of those things. I am proud to be a niche.
I dont think PC was always a niche. I grew up on starcraft and CS - and mario - but I always saw PC as the console with something new and exciting around the corner. It was the only platform that wasnt "kiddy stuff". I was a kid so I dont know the market shares, but as many of my friends gamed on a PC as they did on a console as far as I can remember.
Well this just shows the PC has many strenghts, which is a good thing. On one hand it is the premium experience for those with the money and computer skills, on the other hand it is the only open platform for gaming which allows for lots of small companies and indie groups to make games on it. It is also by far the most robust digital delivery platform which offers publishers large and small a chance to sell games directly to consumers and not have to fight for shelf space with AAA titles. PC has a lot going for it which is why in the face of the other platforms' massive mainstream successes it is still going strong. Take pride in that!
The consoles all have their own "indie game channel" such as xbox arcade, which are growing in popularity and maturity. While the PC is the most robust delivery system, I doubt they really "sell" those games. Theres piracy obviously, which is much easier on small indie games than big games. Alot of superb small games dont even have protection like world of goo, which was PC only and got gamespot's 08 "best game nobody played" award. Small games also dont have multiplayer, which is often a compelling reason to purchase a game for real.
Going strong? How do we know? The industry release no individual numbers. According to the gaming alliance's 08 report, worldwide PC software revenue was 12.7 billion (including digital) with a 18% growth. According to the NPD's report of console software sales in ONLY the US, the total was 11 billion with a 26% growth. It takes the revenue of the entire world to match one country.
Well I don't really consider Eyefinity to be that essential, but I am sure it will be supported. In any case I don't know if I would say PC is declining, more not expanding. There's no reason to be bleak though, at least not yet. In the future things might get worse but that is a long ways off... right now I have too many awesome PC games to play and not enough time to do it. There's a new awesome PC game released every couple weeks it seems like and of the massive GotY contenders this year I think Uncharted 2 is the only one not on PC. Publishers have said they are dropping Wii support and such but they still support the PC, Dead Space sold like crap on the Wii and was a failure but we're still getting Dead Space 2 on the PC.
We have a lot to be thankful for and a platform still cranking out the hits. I don't understand the doom and gloom attitude.
Again, I dont think I am being doom & gloom. If consoles are expanding and PC is not, then it is only a matter of time before consoles begin to eat into PC (if it hasnt happened already). If developers prioritize PC less and less, the first features to go will be the premium features like eyefinity. Yes, you may think it is not essential, but wait till you try it yourself. One of the main reasons I was always dedicated to PC was because PC blew away the competition back in the day, and I have only felt that rush again now. And although eyefinity support certainly does not dictate PC's future, it is particularly relevant for this forum.
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