PCGA: Twice as many "Gaming" PCs sold than consoles combined in 2009

[vallorn]

trouble is. while there may be more gaming Pcs being sold, that dosnt necessarily mean that thier being used for gaming.

also most PC releases nowadays are ported from consoles (ala MW2) and some devs just see PC gaming as a pit that you throw money into. the someone copies the pit and distributes it to everyone for free.

Spoiler: Obligitory (PC gameing is dieing!!!) picture

 

[SonicWaffle]

-SNIP-

I just wrote a whole post explaining this to you, but my fucking PC crashed and I lost it all. Basically, if you still can't understand my point, go to the PCGA website and read the 'about us' section. It gives a pretty concise explanation of how they're fudging the data to make PC gaming look more prevalent than it is, and why they're doing it. Enjoy.

 

[AcacianLeaves]

Sorry back to the drawing board with ya, 3D/Design Cards are actually not the same as Gaming GPU's, nice try though.

Well then it's a good thing they didn't include sales of Quadro, FirePro, or FireGL in their data, isn't it? Wait, we actually don't know what they included in their data and we aren't allowed to ask about it. For all you know these were a big part of their calculated sales.

i was referring to your post track record and how they all at one point to another bash pc gaming and talk about technical difficulties that could have been easily avoided.

So...because I don't game exclusively on the PC and occasionally point out that compatibility issues and user-end troubleshooting are a disadvantage of PC gaming - I'm on an anti-PC crusade?

 

[tsb247]

trouble is. while there may be more gaming Pcs being sold, that dosnt necessarily mean that thier being used for gaming.

also most PC releases nowadays are ported from consoles (ala MW2) and some devs just see PC gaming as a pit that you throw money into. the someone copies the pit and distributes it to everyone for free.

Spoiler: Obligitory (PC gameing is dieing!!!) picture

I would love to see that trend end. I HATE console ports as they have none of the options of 'normal' PC games, and are generally far more shallow than they should be for a PC game.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

There's no definitive way to know, but ultimately it's unimportant. PC gaming's not dying, it's not even "unhealthy" as some people might put it.

Hear hear!

As long as people keep developing good games for the PC (and arguably superior mutli-platform games like Dragon Age), then what does it matter?

good stuff, then people can go back to stop destroying each other over who has which platform and just enjoy what they habe =]

 

[MatParker116]

Really it's better to look at ATI/NVIDIA sales directly although lots of sales are upgrades for existing gamers not new gamers buying their first card.

Not exactly, since a card does not really tell you anything about the gaming habits of a person other than they need a certain spec to play a certain game. In fact;

You'd be much better looking at how many people use Steam (and the fact there's always ~2 million people on whenever I log on), or download and retail sales combined of PC games.

We have a winner! You want to track the status of PC gaming as an industry? Track the sales of PC games. Simple as that.

In case you hadn't noticed the thread is solely about hardware sales not about gaming habits (software sales)

"They're also predicting that by 2014, 322 million computers with graphics cards will be sold annually."

Sale numbers of graphics card are a good indicator of how many people owning gaming hardware suitable for gaming

as for sales 1.2 billion USD anually for a single game speaks for itself.

Are those sales figures or subscription revenue?

 

[runequester]

The number of gaming computers is not terribly relevant when PC owners generally refuse to pay for their games.

How many developers other than blizzard and other MMO guys are actually left doing PC games primary. ID and Epic have both jumped that ship sadly

 

[RJ Dalton]

Also, bread is lethal because 100% of the people who eat it will die.

 

[MGlBlaze]

They're seriously equating "Gaming PC" With "PC that has a dedicated graphics card"? Don't they know that there are plenty of 'minimal' or 'entry level' cards that still won't play games on remotely high settings? There's more to a gaming PC than the graphics card, too. RAM and CPU speed, the motherboard and storage media all need to be up to scratch too, including a decent PSU to provide power for all of those components.

Also it's not a huge surprise anyway; the consoles have been out for a while so sales would be relatively low for them anyway.

 

[Treblaine]

The PC Gaming Alliance, a group of companies who between them created large proportion of irritants in PC gaming these days, have issued a press release [http://www.game-newswire.com/index.php/the-news/232.html], claiming that there was twice as many "gaming PCs" sold last year than PS2s, PS3s, Xbox 360s and Wiis combined. Which might seem impressive, until you realise they seem to be equating "gaming PCs" with "PCs with a discrete graphics card". If you know anything about graphics cards, you'll know that having a graphics card is no guarentee that you'll be playing games well (although all of them will beat having no graphics card any day of the week). They're also predicting that by 2014, 322 million computers with graphics cards will be sold annually.

Even if you agree with my sceptical tone, those are big numbers. Also, in b4 "PC gaming is dying" pic [http://tcpm.mrlazyinc.com/files/images/games/general/brief_history_pc_games.jpg]

Err, but ANY discrete graphics card from this side of 2006 is going to be more powerful than what Xbox 360 can do. And both Sony and Microsoft have stated they see their systems "life-span" stretching right through to 2015/2016 so PC's horse-power advantage is only going to get larger.

People don't need discrete graphics cards any more for almost anything other than gaming. Integrated graphics cards can handle HD-video decoding, so that discrete graphics card is not a forced purchase.

The fact that people don't actually USE the hardware they have paid for... well that just shows the problem with market capitalisation which I think is changing with services like Steam and increasing hardware utilisation of browser-based games.

How long till you can launch a PC game from a browser that is as plugged into your hardware as a game like Crysis yet as easy to access as all the other browser based games? THAT is when thigs will really change. Cut-scenes stream in as a live HD-feed, maps and data is streamed in as needed and saved if necessary.

 

[AcacianLeaves]

Sorry back to the drawing board with ya, 3D/Design Cards are actually not the same as Gaming GPU's, nice try though.

Well then it's a good thing they didn't include sales of Quadro, FirePro, or FireGL in their data, isn't it? Wait, we actually don't know what they included in their data and we aren't allowed to ask about it. For all you know these were a big part of their calculated sales.

Good thing for whom? Had they added them in, it would've been vastly higher hardware sales.

That's kind of the point I was trying to make. This data is totally irrelevant because they don't let us know what the data consists of, where it was gathered, how it was gathered, or any specifics at all. The only thing they say is, "according to us, PC games make eleventy bajillion dollars a year!"

Also you can potentially use a typical gaming card for 3D design, it just wouldn't work as well as a dedicated design card. My point being that you could count cards like the Quadpro if it was part of your agenda to make the sales look greater than they actually are. I agree that it wouldn't be an accurate representation of 'gaming PCs'.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Really it's better to look at ATI/NVIDIA sales directly although lots of sales are upgrades for existing gamers not new gamers buying their first card.

Not exactly, since a card does not really tell you anything about the gaming habits of a person other than they need a certain spec to play a certain game. In fact;

You'd be much better looking at how many people use Steam (and the fact there's always ~2 million people on whenever I log on), or download and retail sales combined of PC games.

We have a winner! You want to track the status of PC gaming as an industry? Track the sales of PC games. Simple as that.

In case you hadn't noticed the thread is solely about hardware sales not about gaming habits (software sales)

"They're also predicting that by 2014, 322 million computers with graphics cards will be sold annually."

Sale numbers of graphics card are a good indicator of how many people owning gaming hardware suitable for gaming

as for sales 1.2 billion USD anually for a single game speaks for itself.

Are those sales figures or subscription revenue?

Most of it is subscription but its the total worth of the IP and so includes yearly unit sales/in game mounts and merchandise like the collectors Beerstein they sell
Subsciption is about 120 million USD per month, compare that to movies and thats like a movie studio releasing Iron Man every month

 

[AcacianLeaves]

Ok so I'm really failing to see your point, without high-end design cards (not used for gaming) added in, PC's more than doubled the hardware sales of all consoles combined last year. With them added in, it would be even more.

I'm saying that we don't know that they are not added in, because the data is not open to us. It is entirely up to the discretion of the PCGA what they feel qualifies as "PCs shipped in 2009 that can largely be associated with PC gaming as a key usage scenario".

What's amusing, is you're questioning where they get their data. It's AMD, Nvidia, Microsoft, Intel, Epic, Sony DADC, and Razer. Who better to have the hardware sales statistics...than the companies who make gaming parts? And honestly, who would have them other than these companies?

The fact that the PCGA doesn't include ATI isn't a problem? EVGA? Sapphire? Asus? XFX? Gigabyte? HIS? You know, companies that actually manufacture gaming cards?

Either way, you're simply questioning everything, because you hate to admit something that should be so easily understandable as to be sad.

This isn't a report, it's a press release about the findings of a report available only to members of an organization whose sole purpose is to promote the business of PC gaming. You're damn right I'm asking questions.