Where is the desktop gaming market going?

[Lagmonster]

Every time I hit the web, I'm bombarded with claims that PC sales are in a huge slump, that sales of Apple/Google tablets and computers are overtaking Windows boxes. On the other hand, all of the non-console, non-mobile video games continue to be made for Windows. I've noticed some shift to accommodate Linux and Mac, but it still strikes me that gaming clings furiously to the PC.

So what I'm trying to figure out is, does this mean we're headed to a probable future where desktop gaming moves away from Windows as a primary platform (thus making things like SteamOS/Linux or Macs a wiser choice), or are there very good reasons why desktop gaming clings to Windows and will continue to despite what people are calling a death-spiral for that OS? I only upgrade sporadically and really don't want to invest money now in upgrading a rig that won't be supported by developers in a few years.

[White Haven]

People who keep Chicken Littling in articles and opinion pieces about the supposed 'death-spiral' of the PC market are, by and large, people with zero perspective and minimal critical thinking skills. Tablets are a new product that is not yet fully market-saturated like PCs are. As a result, you get to add the 'I do not have this and I want this' sales to the 'I had this and I want a new this' sales to get huge sales numbers. At the same time, the money to buy them has to come from somewhere, and that means a dip in PC sales until tablets reach the same kind of saturation that PCs have. That would be a concern if tablets were replacing PCs, but by and large they're slotting in comfortably alongside them as complementary products, not substitutes.

Apple computers are still massively overpriced, the Chromebooks/boxes are very very niche for people who want very little from a computer and don't want to learn Linux (not unreasonable, given the complexities therein), but still fundamentally a small slice of the market given how inexpensive basic PCs are.

Windows is still the king for a great number of compatibility-focused reasons; people use it because whatever they want will exist there and (probably) work there, unless it's designed by idiots (hi Ubisoft!) or there's something egregiously wrong with their computer itself. That by no means promises dominance forever, but it's a status quo with one hell of a lot of inertia behind it. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

[Mr Bean]

Windows is still the king for a great number of compatibility-focused reasons; people use it because whatever they want will exist there and (probably) work there, unless it's designed by idiots (hi Ubisoft!) or there's something egregiously wrong with their computer itself. That by no means promises dominance forever, but it's a status quo with one hell of a lot of inertia behind it. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

There are so many barriers to entry on the professional side it's not even funny. Oh you want to switch your manufactor over to Linux rather than Windows XP/7? Well sorry but there are 10 big expensive machines that have code running them that only runs on XP or Windows 7 and is broken enough trying to run it in a VM inside a Linux client may cause it to literally self destruct. And the medical field?

Good luck, it's a point of pride that 90% of all medical software is still XP/Windows 7 only and most of that did not become Windows 7 good until LAST year. All that work stuff bleeds into home use all the time.

Which brings us back to desktop gaming. Thanks to what Sony and Microsoft have done themselves all console development is done PC side then moved over to Dev kits for testing and tweaking then moved back to work PC side. Unless you fully don't give a shit (Ubisoft-re AC Unity) it's not hard to test a game on about six systems and get a good idea on what works and what does not.

Not to mention lets be blunt, lots of Indie studios think not of releasing an Xbox exclusive independent game but the Steam/Xbox/Ps4 indie game

[Broomstick]

People who keep Chicken Littling in articles and opinion pieces about the supposed 'death-spiral' of the PC market are, by and large, people with zero perspective and minimal critical thinking skills.

^ This.

I've been hearing "The PC is dying!" for 30 years now, it's hard to take it seriously anymore. Sure, the niche may be shrinking as an overall part of the market but if you take the number of current PC users and divide it in half that's still a substantial sized market that's worth serving.

The market may be changing, growing, or shrinking but that doesn't mean it is dying.

[TheHammer]

I happen to believe hybrid laptop/tablets are the future, such as the Surface Pro 3. People enjoy being able to take their PC on the go, but they are still going to want the power and versatility that the full fledged windows OS can offer. So we might be seeing the death of the desktop as we know it, except for some higher end gaming machines, but they are likely going to be replaced with docking stations (possibly containing an advanced graphics card themselves for gamers who want the best of both worlds).

Eventually we may see a migration where most "desktop OSes" reside in the cloud, and we lease year to year how much computing power we want, with the endpoints being almost exclusively thin clients. But for that to happen I think we'd need to see MASSIVE improvements to network infrastructures.

[Broomstick]

AND security.

One reason my household refuses to use the cloud is security. I want my stuff on a hard drive entirely under my control, or at least backup copies of everything. I don't want my possession of my stuff to be dependent on what is essentially an e-landlord. Nothing is as secure as a computer you can unplug from the internet and still continue to use.

The cloud is, in my opinion, over-hyped. Yes, it's wonderful for some things but not all.

"Rental OS" is like a rental car, or a leased car. Sure, great for some people and some situations. But some of us really do like to fully own our car and not have a constant yearly payment. Likewise, there will continue to be a market for systems that reside entirely in one's home or office. The cloud should be an option, not a mandate.

(And I've heard that all before, in slightly different form - in the late '80's there was a lot of hype about how the PC was dying and we'd all have dumb terminals connected to larger servers/networks, we'd just rent time/programs, etc. - didn't happen then. Hasn't happened since. Don't expect it to be the only option in the future, either.)

[Elheru Aran]

Tablet games thus far, AFAIK, are mostly slightly upgraded versions of smartphone games with a few exceptions like the Stargate games that came out a while ago.

PC gaming is shifting to a more multiplayer/online environment. I don't remember seeing a new game hawking extensive single-player content in quite a while (big open-world RPGs like Skyrim and such excepted). That said, it's not going anywhere fast as the PC is still pretty much one of the primary resources for accessing the Internet. Sometime in the future there might be some sort of universal console where people can combine PC, TV, and console all they like, and that might happen in, I don't know, ten years. Now? Apart from tech-geeks, no.

[TheHammer]

AND security.

One reason my household refuses to use the cloud is security. I want my stuff on a hard drive entirely under my control, or at least backup copies of everything. I don't want my possession of my stuff to be dependent on what is essentially an e-landlord. Nothing is as secure as a computer you can unplug from the internet and still continue to use.

Sure you'd have to have clear terms as far as ownership of the data. But considering Microsoft gives away free cloud storage at present, I'd presume that wouldn't be an issue for your personal stuff. Hell, you could even reverse the process and have storage on the local thin client that is accessible by your OS in the cloud. Obviously it wouldn't be for everyone regardless of which way you do it.

The cloud is, in my opinion, over-hyped. Yes, it's wonderful for some things but not all.

Yeah I agree its certainly over-hyped. I don't know why we stopped calling it "The Internet", but I guess "The Cloud" was more buzzwordy among marketing folks.

"Rental OS" is like a rental car, or a leased car. Sure, great for some people and some situations. But some of us really do like to fully own our car and not have a constant yearly payment. Likewise, there will continue to be a market for systems that reside entirely in one's home or office. The cloud should be an option, not a mandate.

That's fair enough, and certainly some people will view it that way. It really depends on how often you replace your PC. Leasing makes sense if you refresh every few years or so. If you keep your PC for 5, 6, 7 years without upgrading then it makes less sense. There is also the advantage that you'd always have an updated machine that is backed up for you, accessible from anywhere, never breaks down etc. So there are advantages to both models to suit an individual.

(And I've heard that all before, in slightly different form - in the late '80's there was a lot of hype about how the PC was dying and we'd all have dumb terminals connected to larger servers/networks, we'd just rent time/programs, etc. - didn't happen then. Hasn't happened since. Don't expect it to be the only option in the future, either.)

The reason it never happened in the 80s is because the technology and infrastructure didn't exist to do it properly. You weren't going to run a desktop over a modem. But With mature virtualization technologies, and increased bandwidth, you can actually make that notion from the 80's a reality. Office 365 for example has proven to be extremely popular, even unexpectedly so. I'm not saying it's the end all be all, but I could easily so the market flip to where full blown home PCs are the niche market, and cloud based becomes the norm especially once businesses realize the savings and productivity advantages that could be had by using Virtual desktops.

[TheHammer]

Tablet games thus far, AFAIK, are mostly slightly upgraded versions of smartphone games with a few exceptions like the Stargate games that came out a while ago.

PC gaming is shifting to a more multiplayer/online environment. I don't remember seeing a new game hawking extensive single-player content in quite a while (big open-world RPGs like Skyrim and such excepted). That said, it's not going anywhere fast as the PC is still pretty much one of the primary resources for accessing the Internet. Sometime in the future there might be some sort of universal console where people can combine PC, TV, and console all they like, and that might happen in, I don't know, ten years. Now? Apart from tech-geeks, no.

The X-Box One is the first foray into that realm. X-Box Two or whatever they call it (X-Box Ten to match Windows?) will likely do all of those things and probably do them quite well, in 3-5 years or so.

[Phillip Hone]

AND security.

One reason my household refuses to use the cloud is security. I want my stuff on a hard drive entirely under my control, or at least backup copies of everything. I don't want my possession of my stuff to be dependent on what is essentially an e-landlord. Nothing is as secure as a computer you can unplug from the internet and still continue to use.

The cloud is, in my opinion, over-hyped. Yes, it's wonderful for some things but not all.

You make a good point, but for a company, having files that everyone needs to access on one person's individual hard drive is a recipe for not having access to them at some critical moment. In the wrong circumstances, that can mean lost time, mistakes, and even lost customers.

In some offices, part of the reason people refuse to go with a cloud setup is that they have carved out a small personal empire of data and want to make it as hard as possible to access without going through them. For some occupations, there are other factors at play. Salesmen, for instance, don't like to share their information with anyone else in the company.

As for security, even if you're backing up to USB drives, you're still keeping all of your data in a single location that will get wiped out if there is a fire or some kind of disaster. If your stuff is on a cloud it usually is backed up to multiple locations in different geographic areas.

For households I'd agree with you completely.

[TheFeniX]

It's best to assume any "PC X is dying" article is either click-bait or a moron thinking he's figured something out the rest of the world hasn't. They are usually click-bait.

You make a good point, but for a company, having files that everyone needs to access on one person's individual hard drive is a recipe for not having access to them at some critical moment. In the wrong circumstances, that can mean lost time, mistakes, and even lost customers.

Network drives and VPN have existed since.... forever.

As for security, even if you're backing up to USB drives, you're still keeping all of your data in a single location that will get wiped out if there is a fire or some kind of disaster. If your stuff is on a cloud it usually is backed up to multiple locations in different geographic areas.

Secure online backups have been around for a while as well. A few even double as mirrored VPN access, allowing office users to work off the local/regional server and remote users access via much higher speeds to the datacenter where the files are hosted for backup. Even older is backing up via either VPN or site-to-site T1s (or whatever your poison was) during off-hours. Hell, I worked at rural library systems that could afford to do this. Which was good because... you know, someone burned down one of their libraries.

[Broomstick]

As for security, even if you're backing up to USB drives, you're still keeping all of your data in a single location that will get wiped out if there is a fire or some kind of disaster. If your stuff is on a cloud it usually is backed up to multiple locations in different geographic areas.

For households I'd agree with you completely.

Even a household can solve that problem easily enough - periodically back up to a USB or put critical files on a disk, then put the disk somewhere else - a trusted relative or friend, safety deposit box, whatever. One at home and one at the office.

Businesses have some files that should be shared freely and are entirley appropriate for networks or clouds. Business also have confidential files that should not be shared - personnel files, tax/accounting records, proprietary information, intellectual property, etc.

All set ups have pros and cons. I welcome more alternatives and think people who believe there is a one size fits all solution to be idiots.

Way back in 2001, when I worked for Blue Cross, I remember when Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield lost everything - their offices were in the WTC and were completely obliterated on September 11. Thanks to the simple expedient of regular backups to a location across town they only truly lost 4 days of data and were back in business within a week. Not too bad, right? The entire network of Blue Cross companies sat down, analyzed how the backup and re-start worked, and sought to make it even better. I guarantee it's not EITHER cloud/network OR physical backup at different locations, it's both.

[Phillip Hone]

Agreed that one size fits all isn't a good approach for this (or anything).

You're right that there are plenty of other ways to keep data backed up. In my personal experience, however, automated backups of some type are better for most people than ones that rely on them remembering to copy stuff to a drive periodically. Is a person capable of doing this? Of course. But like most things, giving humans as little involvement as possible is safer and more effective. Broomstick, speaking as someone who posts very little but reads this forum a lot, I get the impression that you have a lot more foresight than the average person. Most people are completely undisciplined about data so a system that's hard for them to screw up is a good thing. I'm talking mostly about small business people who are frantically busy and, although very skilled in what they do, somewhat clueless about IT stuff.

Main topic:

I don't see why PCs need to be "versus" consoles. Consoles for freedom from Draconian DRM and a simpler hardware experience, PCs for more hassle and better graphics and customization of games. PC Skyrim and console Skyrim are a good example of this.

[Jub]

I don't see why PCs need to be "versus" consoles. Consoles for freedom from Draconian DRM and a simpler hardware experience, PCs for more hassle and better graphics and customization of games. PC Skyrim and console Skyrim are a good example of this.

What rock are you living under Phillip? Consoles barely offer any advantages over PCs these days.

You can't just pop in a new game and play on modern consoles so and if you're going digital download times are often slower on consoles so that's a wash. DRM is also a wash, I can pirate a single player game for a DRM free PC experience and just as many console games are moving to an always online model as PC games, not to mention that pretty much any online multiplayer game will have some form of DRM. Plus what hassle's are you talking about on PC, this isn't the 90's where you need to fiddle with drivers, you install a game, some will auto set to your hardware and others you move a couple sliders, and then you play?

Pretty much the only issue that some people will have is that they want to game on the couch and only have a desktop that they don't want to move. There are even ways to solve that if you care enough.

[Phillip Hone]

I don't see why PCs need to be "versus" consoles. Consoles for freedom from Draconian DRM and a simpler hardware experience, PCs for more hassle and better graphics and customization of games. PC Skyrim and console Skyrim are a good example of this.

What rock are you living under Phillip? Consoles barely offer any advantages over PCs these days.

You can't just pop in a new game and play on modern consoles so and if you're going digital download times are often slower on consoles so that's a wash. DRM is also a wash, I can pirate a single player game for a DRM free PC experience and just as many console games are moving to an always online model as PC games, not to mention that pretty much any online multiplayer game will have some form of DRM. Plus what hassle's are you talking about on PC, this isn't the 90's where you need to fiddle with drivers, you install a game, some will auto set to your hardware and others you move a couple sliders, and then you play?

Pretty much the only issue that some people will have is that they want to game on the couch and only have a desktop that they don't want to move. There are even ways to solve that if you care enough.

I play PC games exclusively except for the odd 360 game, some PS3. So to answer your question, the rock I'm living under is an Xbox 360.

The hassle I'm referring to is mostly fiddling around with frame rates, deciding when to upgrade hardware, how much to spend, etc. I play certain games like Company of Heroes 2 and the The Witcher that are not well optimized and involve a lot of carefully figuring out which visual elements I want and which are just not worth the stuttering. Company of Heroes 2 is especially bad because there are dramatic performance changes between patches, so the settings that worked fine one month will trash your frame rate the next.

The other "hassle" offsets a rather large advantage PC games have - mods. Have you ever modded Skyrim? Modding Skyrim to its full potential (which for me 20+ mods) requires a decent amount of work (for a video game, at least).

Also, let's talk about local multiplayer. I can only play the PC games I like with my friends when I'm lucky enough that they buy the game as well. With console games you can do MP any old time you have someone over.

edit

For DRM, I have to dispute the idea that "just as many" console games are moving in that direction. I'm not too well informed about what's going on with consoles, so if you have evidence to the contrary, I'm open to it. As mainly a PC person, I'd even welcome the news, as it justifies my PC-attachment. Is the console DRM situation really as bad a steam? Bearing in mind that I have to deal with steam ~75% of the time I play a PC game.

[Jub]

The hassle I'm referring to is mostly fiddling around with frame rates, deciding when to upgrade hardware, how much to spend, etc.

None of those are really things I consider a hassle. Deciding when to upgrade is a pretty easy decision tree; it goes something like this:

-Do the games I play still run well? If yes no need to upgrade, if no go to step two.
-Is there anything new coming out soon that will drop the price of an upgrade? If yes consider your budget and how long you need to wait. Then go to step 3.
-Do I have the money to make the upgrade at this time? If no, don't upgrade. If yes, pick the part that fixes your issue.

Not really anything hard, especially seeing as building a PC is pretty much lego. Insert part a into slot b by following some very basic instructions that come with the part you bought.

Fiddling with settings doesn't take much, especially if you don't need to hit 120Mhz or higher. Change sliders based on what you already know you can and can't live without based on other games in the same engine. Stop when you start to dip below your desired frame rate. Don't touch the settings ever again unless you upgrade or a patch breaks something.

I play certain games like Company of Heroes 2 and the The Witcher that are not well optimized and involve a lot of carefully figuring out which visual elements I want and which are just not worth the stuttering. Company of Heroes 2 is especially bad because there are dramatic performance changes between patches, so the settings that worked fine one month will trash your frame rate the next.

How bad is your PC and honestly, how much do you agonize over a slight drop in graphics quality? You make it sound like you go in tweak something play a few hours and see if you can live with the grass pop in being 4% worse. The reality is it's pretty easy to find the bottleneck these days and things like reflections, shadows, and AA are usually pretty much the go to things to turn down and if it isn't those then it's the textures. No rocket science, and most games on low pretty much just like console games anyway and for the purpose of this debate anything above console level is gravy.

The other "hassle" offsets a rather large advantage PC games have - mods. Have you ever modded Skyrim? Modding Skyrim to its full potential (which for me 20+ mods) requires a decent amount of work (for a video game, at least).

You can play vanilla and even including the time spent tweaking the settings for best graphics/performance it's pretty much just as easy to get a game running on PC as it is on console; not to even mention cheaper. If you want mods they're an option, not a thing that you must do if you're playing on a PC over a console.

Also, let's talk about local multiplayer. I can only play the PC games I like with my friends when I'm lucky enough that they buy the game as well. With console games you can do MP any old time you have someone over.

This is pretty much the only thing PC has never done well and most consoles are also doing it poorly these days as well with at most two people per console for many games. Plus, if you're that worried about friends buying the same games talk to them and see if you can convince people with similar tastes to buy a game you like so you can play with them. A game is like $60, it's not like you're asking them to drop a few grand to take a cruise with you or something.

[Joun_Lord]

I think its like White Haven alluded to earlier in the thread. Everyone owns a PC and its seems like PC hardware has been stretched to last longer, with fairly old machines still chugging along for many. Tablets, phones, and other technological what have yous that I've no understanding of are new, they are of course going to be selling better because not everyone owns them. But all the tablets and junk don't seem to be able to replace a home computer mostly because of the home part, all those gizmos are for mostly people on the go with their skateboarding shoes and yoga lifestyles.

Computers also don't seem to sell like smart phones and tablets. Everyone runs out to get the latest Fruitfone or Samsung tablet, the newest generation of home video game consoles, and biggest Tamagotchi. For computers everyone baring perhaps brand zombies tned to jsut buy a new one when they need one. Maybe the brand zombies for Apple or Alienware will have to have the latest whizzbang overpriced iMadintosh or the the greatest nose hair rendering overpriced gaming rig but I couldn't say for certain.

The mention of nose hair rendering is another point related to gaming why PCs sells are not as high. Seems like PC gaming for the masses is moving away from super-duper high tech nose hair rendering super games that requires a 16 core 2000 quid supercomputer with more fans in it then a fan store. Games that don't require alot of power or a brand new puter like Minecraft, League of Legends, and the various mobile-ish and Facebewb games all of which I'm too high and mighty and snobbish and unwilling to try anything new to play are seeming to be the games most people are playing.

Valve and GoG are making a killing selling ancient games that any computer made in the last decade could play easily. Valve's popular Source engine is a about decade old engine (with upgrades) that even more recent games made on it can be played easily on pretty old computers. Plus I think computer gaming was held back some by how long the last generation of home consoles lasted, having computer games with a massive difference in quality compared to console games would have probably been bad for business.

I assume where we have new consoles now there will be a jump in PC hardware requirements for PC games.

[TheFeniX]

I don't see why PCs need to be "versus" consoles. Consoles for freedom from Draconian DRM and a simpler hardware experience, PCs for more hassle and better graphics and customization of games. PC Skyrim and console Skyrim are a good example of this.

The genres got smashed together, that's why they compete. Consoles have their own version of DRM: a closed system and the concept of exclusives, combined with matchmaking systems, rather than dedicated servers. That said, had Microsoft got their way, consoles would have lost their one real advantage: the ability to trade in used games. But since they're switching to a mostly digital distribution anyways, the problem is probably going to resolve itself. It likely won't be long until disks contain only large assets and "updates" once you install will actually give you access to the executables. This will also help fight console game piracy, which actually is a thing for console. It's just, no one talks about it.

The hassle I'm referring to is mostly fiddling around with frame rates, deciding when to upgrade hardware, how much to spend, etc. I play certain games like Company of Heroes 2 and the The Witcher that are not well optimized and involve a lot of carefully figuring out which visual elements I want and which are just not worth the stuttering. Company of Heroes 2 is especially bad because there are dramatic performance changes between patches, so the settings that worked fine one month will trash your frame rate the next.

This is not the issue it used to be. I suffer frame-rate drop on FFXIV on the PC because I'm running at max everything. Perhaps on PS4 it wouldn't have.... nope, PS4 version has frame-rate drops in large engagements. The difference is that I can choose how hard to run a game on PC, whether through in-game settings or drivers settings.

And with console gaming pushing 30FPS and upscaled 720-900p, it's not exactly rocket-science to explain why you need more hardware to run the same game on PC.

The other "hassle" offsets a rather large advantage PC games have - mods. Have you ever modded Skyrim? Modding Skyrim to its full potential (which for me 20+ mods) requires a decent amount of work (for a video game, at least).

Mods are a disadvantage? What the fuck? If anything, they are a huge boon to the player as they expand content. It builds community loyalty for the developer. That said, only 14% of Skyrim copies sold on PC. That Beth included mod support at all is amazing, however their actual development process is about the same, they just cut some of the tools down for the end-user, so it's not like they killed themselves to get the tools out there. 20+ mods is a lot of work? Yeesh. Either way, you can always just run vanilla. PC doesn't force you to install them and Steam Workshop makes it easy if you can't be bothered with a mod manager or doing it manually.

That however isn't really the point. The point is PC players have options, consoles players do not.

Also, let's talk about local multiplayer. I can only play the PC games I like with my friends when I'm lucky enough that they buy the game as well. With console games you can do MP any old time you have someone over.

Only the Wii and WiiU really offer this experience anymore. That and sports games. Split-screen has always been terrible. We just put up with it because the idea of playing an FPS on the same screen was just too fucking cool to complain about in Goldeneye or Halo.

Computers also don't seem to sell like smart phones and tablets. Everyone runs out to get the latest Fruitfone or Samsung tablet, the newest generation of home video game consoles, and biggest Tamagotchi. For computers everyone baring perhaps brand zombies tned to jsut buy a new one when they need one. Maybe the brand zombies for Apple or Alienware will have to have the latest whizzbang overpriced iMadintosh or the the greatest nose hair rendering overpriced gaming rig but I couldn't say for certain.

That's because there isn't anyone selling a $600 PC for $0-$200 because you signed a 2-year contract with a phone company and/or started up a "Family plan."

The mention of nose hair rendering is another point related to gaming why PCs sells are not as high. Seems like PC gaming for the masses is moving away from super-duper high tech nose hair rendering super games that requires a 16 core 2000 quid supercomputer with more fans in it then a fan store. Games that don't require alot of power or a brand new puter like Minecraft, League of Legends, and the various mobile-ish and Facebewb games all of which I'm too high and mighty and snobbish and unwilling to try anything new to play are seeming to be the games most people are playing.

Because PC now has to compete with Console hardware which is woe-fully underpowered for this generation. The last-time "hardware melting" games were actually the focus of the industry was 15-years-ago. Even then, you could play the Orange Box and games like Counter-Strike because they were heavily CPU dependent and supported DirectX with little issue. What also helped was when Intel integrated cards became capable of actually performing some lifting on the hardware end around like... mid-2000s or so. Developers could now expect a PC to have some kind of reliable graphics acceleration.

I assume where we have new consoles now there will be a jump in PC hardware requirements for PC games.

Ha... I wish. Witcher 3 is like that only game coming out in the near future that might require some cash be spent. Everyone else is too busy developing for outdated console hardware, then porting to PC in the laziest way possible.

[Phillip Hone]

I don't see why PCs need to be "versus" consoles. Consoles for freedom from Draconian DRM and a simpler hardware experience, PCs for more hassle and better graphics and customization of games. PC Skyrim and console Skyrim are a good example of this.

The genres got smashed together, that's why they compete. Consoles have their own version of DRM: a closed system and the concept of exclusives, combined with matchmaking systems, rather than dedicated servers. That said, had Microsoft got their way, consoles would have lost their one real advantage: the ability to trade in used games. But since they're switching to a mostly digital distribution anyways, the problem is probably going to resolve itself. It likely won't be long until disks contain only large assets and "updates" once you install will actually give you access to the executables. This will also help fight console game piracy, which actually is a thing for console. It's just, no one talks about it.

Yeah, I would agree. That's why I'm sticking with PC games and not buying the new Xbox. All I meant was, there's an (increasingly less convincing) case to be made for the greater control that consoles give you over your content compared PC games that use steam. Valve has actually used steam to take content out of old games. Maybe consoles are slowly going the same way, but even though this may change, there's no way right now Microsoft can delete songs from Xbox 360 games unless they break in your house and scratch the disk.

The hassle I'm referring to is mostly fiddling around with frame rates, deciding when to upgrade hardware, how much to spend, etc. I play certain games like Company of Heroes 2 and the The Witcher that are not well optimized and involve a lot of carefully figuring out which visual elements I want and which are just not worth the stuttering. Company of Heroes 2 is especially bad because there are dramatic performance changes between patches, so the settings that worked fine one month will trash your frame rate the next.

This is not the issue it used to be. I suffer frame-rate drop on FFXIV on the PC because I'm running at max everything. Perhaps on PS4 it wouldn't have.... nope, PS4 version has frame-rate drops in large engagements. The difference is that I can choose how hard to run a game on PC, whether through in-game settings or drivers settings.

And with console gaming pushing 30FPS and upscaled 720-900p, it's not exactly rocket-science to explain why you need more hardware to run the same game on PC.

It's still a huge problem with certain games. CoH2, for instance, has problems with certain graphics cards. It's the developer's fault, but you still have to deal with it.

The other "hassle" offsets a rather large advantage PC games have - mods. Have you ever modded Skyrim? Modding Skyrim to its full potential (which for me 20+ mods) requires a decent amount of work (for a video game, at least).

Mods are a disadvantage? What the fuck? If anything, they are a huge boon to the player as they expand content. It builds community loyalty for the developer. That said, only 14% of Skyrim copies sold on PC. That Beth included mod support at all is amazing, however their actual development process is about the same, they just cut some of the tools down for the end-user, so it's not like they killed themselves to get the tools out there. 20+ mods is a lot of work? Yeesh. Either way, you can always just run vanilla. PC doesn't force you to install them and Steam Workshop makes it easy if you can't be bothered with a mod manager or doing it manually.

Yes, mods are a huge advantage, but they're an advantage that comes with a small price - an hour or two of work. Whether or not 20 mods is a lot of work to install depends on what you're installing. I play with extensive overhaul mods that still don't cover all the things I want to change, and resolving compatibility issues with different mods CAN get complicated, depending on what you want.

You can always just run vanilla with PC Skyrim, but why even bother with the PC version if you aren't going to mod it? It looks just as shitty as the console versions without graphics mods, and if you don't mod the UI, you're stuck with a console UI as well.

That however isn't really the point. The point is PC players have options, consoles players do not.

Yeah, but PC out of the box Skyrim is in much worse shape than out of the box console Skyrim, just for interface.

The hassle I'm referring to is mostly fiddling around with frame rates, deciding when to upgrade hardware, how much to spend, etc.

None of those are really things I consider a hassle. Deciding when to upgrade is a pretty easy decision tree; it goes something like this:

-Do the games I play still run well? If yes no need to upgrade, if no go to step two.
-Is there anything new coming out soon that will drop the price of an upgrade? If yes consider your budget and how long you need to wait. Then go to step 3.
-Do I have the money to make the upgrade at this time? If no, don't upgrade. If yes, pick the part that fixes your issue.

Not really anything hard, especially seeing as building a PC is pretty much lego. Insert part a into slot b by following some very basic instructions that come with the part you bought.

Yes, but not everyone has unlimited money to spend on upgrades, so yeah, some times it's a little tricky to decide "do I want to run this game with an extra 10 FPS, or should I save money and use the graphics card I have now?"

Fiddling with settings doesn't take much, especially if you don't need to hit 120Mhz or higher. Change sliders based on what you already know you can and can't live without based on other games in the same engine. Stop when you start to dip below your desired frame rate. Don't touch the settings ever again unless you upgrade or a patch breaks something.

Nope. In Company of Heroes 2, a new patch (that steam forces you to install) can radically change the performance of the game and require you to lower your settings. Yes, it's still easy to bump settings down when this happens. I still don't like it.

How bad is your PC and honestly, how much do you agonize over a slight drop in graphics quality? You make it sound like you go in tweak something play a few hours and see if you can live with the grass pop in being 4% worse. The reality is it's pretty easy to find the bottleneck these days and things like reflections, shadows, and AA are usually pretty much the go to things to turn down and if it isn't those then it's the textures. No rocket science, and most games on low pretty much just like console games anyway and for the purpose of this debate anything above console level is gravy.

My PC is fine. It's more complicated than that. In CoH2, an entire match can change depending on whether or not you reacted to a 1.2 second grenade timer or not. There are different elements on the field every time. Sometimes you might not see much in the way of smoke, other times there will be tons of smoke in play, for instance, and it can be hard to predict what effect this will have on performance.

The other "hassle" offsets a rather large advantage PC games have - mods. Have you ever modded Skyrim? Modding Skyrim to its full potential (which for me 20+ mods) requires a decent amount of work (for a video game, at least).

You can play vanilla and even including the time spent tweaking the settings for best graphics/performance it's pretty much just as easy to get a game running on PC as it is on console; not to even mention cheaper. If you want mods they're an option, not a thing that you must do if you're playing on a PC over a console.

This is pretty much the only thing PC has never done well and most consoles are also doing it poorly these days as well with at most two people per console for many games. Plus, if you're that worried about friends buying the same games talk to them and see if you can convince people with similar tastes to buy a game you like so you can play with them. A game is like $60, it's not like you're asking them to drop a few grand to take a cruise with you or something.

Yes, this works sometimes, but for some people, $60 on a game they might not play that much could be a bad decision.

[TheFeniX]

Yeah, I would agree. That's why I'm sticking with PC games and not buying the new Xbox. All I meant was, there's an (increasingly less convincing) case to be made for the greater control that consoles give you over your content compared PC games that use steam. Valve has actually used steam to take content out of old games. Maybe consoles are slowly going the same way, but even though this may change, there's no way right now Microsoft can delete songs from Xbox 360 games unless they break in your house and scratch the disk.

Delete? No. Dummy out through required updates? Definitely.

And Steam isn't the only method of obtaining PC games. GOG and hardcopies are still a thing, even if Steam is doing everything possible to kill hardcopies, like they did with Skyrim.

It's still a huge problem with certain games. CoH2, for instance, has problems with certain graphics cards. It's the developer's fault, but you still have to deal with it.

It's becoming an increasing problem with console games as well.

Yes, mods are a huge advantage, but they're an advantage that comes with a small price - an hour or two of work. Whether or not 20 mods is a lot of work to install depends on what you're installing. I play with extensive overhaul mods that still don't cover all the things I want to change, and resolving compatibility issues with different mods CAN get complicated, depending on what you want.

Honda Civics are like the most modable cars out there, at least they were when I kept up with it. Is that a disadvantage? Do you HAVE to mod a Civic if you buy one?

You can always just run vanilla with PC Skyrim, but why even bother with the PC version if you aren't going to mod it? It looks just as shitty as the console versions without graphics mods, and if you don't mod the UI, you're stuck with a console UI as well.

That's because the UI is designed around a controller, not a KB/M. Also, resolution.

Yeah, but PC out of the box Skyrim is in much worse shape than out of the box console Skyrim, just for interface.

Not true. For just one example, the PC version of Skyrim will break 30FPS. This is why, while I enjoyed the game on 360 for years, Left 4 Dead plays much smoother and better on PC.

[2000AD]

Can't remember where I read it but I'm pretty sure that I heard somewhere that up until recently the main source of sales tracking in the US didn't include digital downloads, so they were seeing physical sales (Gamestop, Walmart, etc) drop but they weren't showing any data on how much was picked up by the rise of digital. Also IIRC Valve doesn't publicly release any sort of hard sales data for Steam which kinda hampers getting actual numbers for digital.

[Phillip Hone]

Yeah, I would agree. That's why I'm sticking with PC games and not buying the new Xbox. All I meant was, there's an (increasingly less convincing) case to be made for the greater control that consoles give you over your content compared PC games that use steam. Valve has actually used steam to take content out of old games. Maybe consoles are slowly going the same way, but even though this may change, there's no way right now Microsoft can delete songs from Xbox 360 games unless they break in your house and scratch the disk.

Delete? No. Dummy out through required updates? Definitely.

And Steam isn't the only method of obtaining PC games. GOG and hardcopies are still a thing, even if Steam is doing everything possible to kill hardcopies, like they did with Skyrim.

Believe me, if I could buy all my games from GOG or just normal hard copies, I'd do that. Steam might not be the only method for PC games in general, but it's the only method for playing most of the games for which I own a gaming PC in the first place (Total War, COH, Skyrim, etc). And 360s never need to be plugged into the internet in order to run (unlike Steam) so you always are ultimately in control. Also, is there an example of that actually happening? I'll concede this if there is, but there's a world of difference between Microsoft having the capability to erase content and Valve using Steam to actually erase content.

It's still a huge problem with certain games. CoH2, for instance, has problems with certain graphics cards. It's the developer's fault, but you still have to deal with it.

It's becoming an increasing problem with console games as well.

Yes, mods are a huge advantage, but they're an advantage that comes with a small price - an hour or two of work. Whether or not 20 mods is a lot of work to install depends on what you're installing. I play with extensive overhaul mods that still don't cover all the things I want to change, and resolving compatibility issues with different mods CAN get complicated, depending on what you want.

Honda Civics are like the most modable cars out there, at least they were when I kept up with it. Is that a disadvantage? Do you HAVE to mod a Civic if you buy one?

No. Maybe "disadvantage" was the wrong word choice. What I mean was, I really like mods, to the point where I might spend part of an afternoon not even really playing Skyrim but rather just downloading and testing out different mods. For some people that option might not be worth much or anything.

You can always just run vanilla with PC Skyrim, but why even bother with the PC version if you aren't going to mod it? It looks just as shitty as the console versions without graphics mods, and if you don't mod the UI, you're stuck with a console UI as well.

That's because the UI is designed around a controller, not a KB/M. Also, resolution.

Resolution is a good point. I know that the UI is designed around a controller - that's kinda the point. And I know that 360 controllers work on PCs but I have no reason to buy one besides Skyrim having a shitty interface.

Yeah, but PC out of the box Skyrim is in much worse shape than out of the box console Skyrim, just for interface.

Not true. For just one example, the PC version of Skyrim will break 30FPS. This is why, while I enjoyed the game on 360 for years, Left 4 Dead plays much smoother and better on PC.

[/quote]

Fair enough.

[Jub]

And 360s never need to be plugged into the internet in order to run (unlike Steam) so you always are ultimately in control.

You can run steam just fine offline if you don't want to play multi-player games.

No. Maybe "disadvantage" was the wrong word choice. What I mean was, I really like mods, to the point where I might spend part of an afternoon not even really playing Skyrim but rather just downloading and testing out different mods. For some people that option might not be worth much or anything.

Then those people play Vanilla on PC and still get a better gaming experience than they would have on the 360. Then if they want mods later, they can find them.

Resolution is a good point. I know that the UI is designed around a controller - that's kinda the point. And I know that 360 controllers work on PCs but I have no reason to buy one besides Skyrim having a shitty interface.

PC gaming is about options, I keep a 360 controller and a joystick around just in case I want to play a game using one of those options. I don't strictly need them, but they're nice to have.

[TheFeniX]

Believe me, if I could buy all my games from GOG or just normal hard copies, I'd do that. Steam might not be the only method for PC games in general, but it's the only method for playing most of the games for which I own a gaming PC in the first place (Total War, COH, Skyrim, etc). And 360s never need to be plugged into the internet in order to run (unlike Steam) so you always are ultimately in control.

I'm pretty sure there's more than a few 360 games, especially later in the console's life, that required firmware updates to run. But I can't think of any examples of MS or Sony dummying out content after the fact through updates. My point was that they can do it. I don't know about Steam's auto-update not working though. I specifically have Skyrim set to not update due to SKSE, and I've never had the game not play after an update was released (and I was waiting for SKSE to be updated). Then again, I mostly play online games, so updates are kind of a big deal.

Also, is there an example of that actually happening? I'll concede this if there is, but there's a world of difference between Microsoft having the capability to erase content and Valve using Steam to actually erase content.

Or being forced to delete content. I don't know specifics, but this could definitely be a "holy shit, we can do that!?" watershed moment as the music industry attempts to double-dip like they always do. Honestly, with Sony in the picture...... well they aren't adverse to fucking customers hard and Microsoft already tried to flat-out kill the used market and the offline market with the Xbone, hitting the breaks only because of the overwhelmingly negative response they got. The online part would have stayed if the military hadn't become involved since even MS isn't crazy enough to paint themselves as against the troops. The console itself still requires a large update, just to unlock offline mode. This update is probably what also allows it to run without Kinect.

I'm not saying what Steam is doing is cool. But it's just one distribution system for games, even if it is xboxhuge. The fact is: if MS decides to fuck you, there's nothing to be done if you've already bought into the hardware (other than shelve it). However, I can (and do) miss out on good games because I boycott shitty companies. There are outs though: I'll have a chance to play Titanfall because my insanity does not apply to my wife's gaming.

No. Maybe "disadvantage" was the wrong word choice. What I mean was, I really like mods, to the point where I might spend part of an afternoon not even really playing Skyrim but rather just downloading and testing out different mods. For some people that option might not be worth much or anything.

Beth giving your OCD an outlet isn't a negative. Should I be pissed for Nintendo making 250 (or whatever) Gold Skultulas to kill in Zelda: OoT and my inner-psychosis forced me to find them all? The fact is, I would have abandoned Skyrim years ago (like I did with Fallout 3 on 360) after beating it and doing most (if not all) the extremely limited content the game has. With mods, it's my go-to game during gaming downtime (what I call the time no one is online and I should be spending time with my wife). Beating on the game with a hammer to fight off CTDs is a small price to pay for that longevity.

[Zaune]

What about the sales figures for PC components? Because it seems to me that we're coming up against the upper limit to Moore's Law in a way that nobody really expected; developments in hardware have overtaken our ability to fully utilise them. CPU specs are a non-issue outside of very specialised applications; most processors made in the last five years are 'good enough' for even the Triple-A end of the gaming market, and for business and general-purpose home users you can get away with even less powerful kit.

The upshot of which is that hardware life-cycles are going to get much longer; it's actually conceivable that even a really dedicated FPS fan with money to burn will find themselves only replacing a whole PC every decade or so. Or even longer if the backlash against the trend for pushing visual spectacle at the expense of innovative gameplay gets strong enough to meaningfully hurt sales.