Since 2005 there has been more gaming PCs shipped (196 million) than the Wii, PS3 and 360 combined.
http://www.edge-online.com/news/study-claims-pc-market-largest
http://www.edge-online.com/news/study-claims-pc-market-largest
Study Claims PC Market is the Largest
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Study Claims PC Market is the Largest The numbers are skewed by the fact he takes virtually any home PC that could possibly play a game in 2005 and then extrapolates from that for the last 3 years. In reality most of those 196M PC's are not in use by gamers actively buying games. While most people that own a console do buy games for it.
It is true to say the potential market for games is larger however this is not translated into the real figures which show console games outselling PC games by a significant margin. This is why companies are focusing more on console games.
Darkheart
It is true to say the potential market for games is larger however this is not translated into the real figures which show console games outselling PC games by a significant margin. This is why companies are focusing more on console games.
Darkheart
There's another related article.
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/pc-gaming-hardware-market-worth-20-billion-ndash-jon-peddie-research/?biz=1
BTW I know why consoles are getting all the attention, just thought I'd post. I do think that consoles are expensive though, since they are underpowered and cost more than PC's when you figure in the cost of a HDTV to play the games as intended. It's not really like the old days where consoles were ahead of PC's in the hardware department, they get overtaken within months not years now. Just a shame that the industry is all set up leaning to consoles for games.
I Hardly look at games anymore because for the most part they are rubbish on all platforms, even if they look nice there really isn't much fun or depth to them.
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/pc-gaming-hardware-market-worth-20-billion-ndash-jon-peddie-research/?biz=1
BTW I know why consoles are getting all the attention, just thought I'd post. I do think that consoles are expensive though, since they are underpowered and cost more than PC's when you figure in the cost of a HDTV to play the games as intended. It's not really like the old days where consoles were ahead of PC's in the hardware department, they get overtaken within months not years now. Just a shame that the industry is all set up leaning to consoles for games.
I Hardly look at games anymore because for the most part they are rubbish on all platforms, even if they look nice there really isn't much fun or depth to them.
PC sales will be always the biggest as long it's the only platform which supports MMOPRGs. WoW and Lineage have probably sold more than 20 million copies.
Adrain,
The underlying technology in the console is irrelevant, it's all about what it can deliver to the user. In most cases the performance gap between consoles and PC's is now very small.
I think in a recession your more likely to see people wanting to spend once on a cheap ~£150 console than maintaining a £500-£1500 gaming rig.
Also in that report he describes a HD TV as a "serious investment", when prices are dropping down to very affordable levels (~£200-£600), which is far less than a high-end gaming PC (£500-1500).
I think Jon Peddie is dead wrong, the PC market is shrinking and will continue to shrink. If the economy falls enough we will see gaming as a sector contract as people restrict their purchases more to only necessary items and make things last.
Personally I've a fair collection of practically "untouched" games from recent years so that I could quite easily not buy another game for the next two years and it wouldn't be a problem.
Darkheart
The underlying technology in the console is irrelevant, it's all about what it can deliver to the user. In most cases the performance gap between consoles and PC's is now very small.
I think in a recession your more likely to see people wanting to spend once on a cheap ~£150 console than maintaining a £500-£1500 gaming rig.
Also in that report he describes a HD TV as a "serious investment", when prices are dropping down to very affordable levels (~£200-£600), which is far less than a high-end gaming PC (£500-1500).
I think Jon Peddie is dead wrong, the PC market is shrinking and will continue to shrink. If the economy falls enough we will see gaming as a sector contract as people restrict their purchases more to only necessary items and make things last.
Personally I've a fair collection of practically "untouched" games from recent years so that I could quite easily not buy another game for the next two years and it wouldn't be a problem.
Darkheart
Yeah I know what your saying Darkheart. It doesn't take a expensive PC to play the latest games well though. Not here in the US anyway. I personaly don't really think PC's will have a big resurgence again now that publishers have embraced consoles. And since MS have their own console there isn't much incentive for them to push PC gaming anyway. Not when it isn't likely to make a significant difference to their customer base.
I think COD: WAW blows away anything on the PC. Perhaps Crysis could look a little better but at what cost? You can get an HDTV and a 360 now for like $600.
I think COD: WAW blows away anything on the PC.
Who said it wasn't on the PC, or won't be?
http://www.callofduty.com/CoDWW
Already, a patch for the PC version:
http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/files/1133/
http://www.amazon.com/Call-Duty-World-at-War-Pc/dp/B001AWBYRA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1227162802&sr=1-3
Gears of war 2 on the other hand is rumoured to be an XBOX360 exclusive.
gears of war is a bit rubbish though. I quite like the atmosphere in the COD games except for being lead by the hand through the levels in a very linear fashion is a bit boring. If they took away the rails it would be a lot better. World at war came out a week or so ago for PC and as usualy probably looks better on the PC on a decent video card.
Yeah, I mean you can get it on the PC but I just meant the 360 version was red hot anyway. A few years ago I was comparing first gen 360 games to Battlefield 2 and my PC was looking pretty good. These days I'm not as impressed as I once was. I played Crysis last year and was impressed but then a month later I played COD4 which made Crysis look not so great especially because COD on the 360 runs at 60FPS.
COD 4 ran very well even on my PC which is pretty ancient being a 7800GS. The engine just isn't very demanding on hardware. WAW uses the same engine so will be interesting to see how it compares.