Why the "what are they doing to differentiate from PC"?

Every major conference I hear either Jeff, Brad, Vinny or even Dan saying that they are worried for MS or Sony because they are not making the case for why people should buy their machine instead of a PC.

Well, it sounds a bit disappointingly disingenuous coming from such experienced and down to earth guys. Havent they noticed that those two are selling more than they ever did, even without big console exclusives like Halo, Final Fantasy X, Metal Gear Solid 1, GTA III, etc?

The console consumer (clearly the most important one for the majority of 3rd party developers in terms of marketing and,disappointingly sometimes, developing) should be accounted for through a different perspective than the graphics card one or the MOBA crowd. I think MS and Sony are precisely selling so well because of not trying to cater to those consumers but to the big mass of people that have a maximum reserve price of 400 dollars for gaming and only care about a semi optimized Battlefront, The Witcher, GTA V, Fallout, etc

Halo, Metal Gear Solid 1 and GTA III are not console exclusives

when they were released?

The vast majority of press has been spouting this for a long time and your right it comes from being severely disconnected from the consumer and also reality.

Its why they all shut up about it when the ps4 and xbone came out and sold so well because it made them look like idiots, now they keep saying "well this could be the last generation" unlikely I say, if the console market disintegrates much like they seem to think it will (and in some cases almost seem desperate for it to) then the entire videogame market will collapse for the most point outside of a few key products such as MOBAs.

Big console exclusives like Final Fantasy X!

GTA 3, the first Halo, and MGS1 all have PC versions.

It's easy for us to forget that the press are (comparatively) rich Californians who can afford $1,000+ PC's and it is equally easy for the press to forget that their experiences are not normal. I'll try to find the correct source, but the average price people put into PC purchases is about $350.

They are not being malicious, just being the 1% and not believing they are.

@believer258: The ports came later, in some cases years after. So they were in fact exclusive at the time, prompting sales of the respective platform as the op was (obviously) alluding too.

at the time of release. The first 6 months is what matters for the majority of games (in terms of sales)

of course not malicious =) but being so focused on their number 1 hobby that they forget that the majority of the market just wants to sit on their couch, put the disc in and dont have to worry about tinkering tech to enhance performance. They already have to enhance performance and be ultra focused on their daily jobs. They just want to relax, have fun and immerse themselves in a story or an entertaining gameplay. Thats why the "other" conversation about framerate, aliasing and resolution is so exaggerated because the majority of consumers only care if it looks good or bad, from a standpoint of previous quality experiences

@captainthunderpants: I doubt "producer/journalist for video games website" pays comparatively more compared to most standard jobs to be honest.

Of course, I have no idea what they make and nor do I really care, but I just know that, by default, California jobs pay more than the same job in the Midwest or whatnot.

I would guess that people with PCs are probably the so-called "whales" of gaming. They have several current-gen consoles, and they probably purchase more games than they will ever actually play. They might even purchase the same game across multiple platforms. I at least know that this is true for me. While you're right in saying that people with just one current-gen console (probably the majority of gamers worldwide) will not care if a game is not optimized or if the experience is better or worse than on a PC, those with PCs may be the ones who spend the most money. I'd be interested in knowing if that's true, and if it is, then yes, console makers will also need to differentiate themselves from the PC experience in order to validate purchasing for their console to that segment of the population.

As an aside, when journalists say that this may be the last console generation, I'm pretty sure they aren't saying everyone is going to suddenly buy a PC. I think they are generally saying that technology will advance to a point that the power within your mobile device will be great enough and appealing enough to supplant consoles entirely for the majority of the gaming market, or that streaming will become fluid enough that computational power in the home will be irrelevant.

oh, I am of the opinion that "whales" like me that are really picky on things like performance are really important for the evolution of this industry in terms of quality and innovation. But expecting big corporations like MS and Sony to not care for Call of Duty and Sports and promote the hell out of those genres and spend a lot of money that could go to First party studios on that co-marketing and DLC deals for games that can run on a 400 dollar PC and the games are even cheaper is not informative of the Economics of this industry and the GB crew, alongside other outlets should know better

@kcin: They are still thinking the Steam machine will be the magic entity that swallows the whole gamingmarket. And yeh ofc. combined with the always talked about streaming and cloudcomputing.

@rethla: I don't think that's true at all, at least as far as GB is concerned. I've only heard one person say that they were interested in Steam Machines, and I think it was Vinny because he wanted to stream from his basement gaming computer to his living room.

@kcin: Yeh the GB crew aint very interested or talkative at all about anything related to PC gaming.

From the PC community and journalists i get the impression everyone thinks that the steam machine is the one thing thats gonna win over all the consoleplayers to the PC side. It kinda is a PC even though it aint marketed as one.

Really? I have seen and heard the exact opposite, it's hard to find anyone who is legitimately excited about Steam Machines or thinks they are going to be some kind of revolution.

@mb: Well it may be just the swedish PC gaming community then i dont really follow any international PC journalism.

@mb: Yeah, for good reason. "Look, Alienware put a steam logo on their X51 micro itx machine! And it's running a slow version of linux that can only play 4% of all the available games! But it can stream, just like any other PC with a regular steam client installed, running on any OS! REVOLUTIONARY!"

The only people I've seen seriously excited about it are confused linux people, and only ones who haven't actually tried installing and using it.

Next weekend I'll do an install of the latest version again to see if it's caught up with Ubuntu and the steam client finally, last time I tried steam os was 15-20% slower on the same hardware running Metro Last light.

@amafi: Well not that you are wrong but lets at least wait until its finished and released before you review and condemn it in such a harsh maner :)

Edit: Your description also fits perfectly with any Apple product btw and they are doing fine :)

@the_last_starfighter: Would be interesting to see what sources they're using. As far as I know none of the digital stores release sales numbers and that's the vast majority of pc sales, and I imagine a quickly growing part of console sales as well.

yea the consensus ive heard is around the old addage of "if you try to make everyone happy you'll end up making no one happy"

and I think their right

@the_last_starfighter said:

well, thats kinda biased because we are talking about completely different install bases

Living in California also costs a lot more than living in the Midwest though.

@the_last_starfighter said:

If those stats are close to accurate (which I have no reason to believe) I would wager a huge chunk of that PC money goes into LoL, Dota 2, F2P MMOs and other whale oriented businesses.

If that were the trend in games I'm actually interested in, companies like WB would be focusing resources on what would clearly be the money making platform and making the PC the place to play their games instead of shitting out 2 bad PC ports in a row.

PS: note how they're showing revenue for 2015. Weird oracles those guys you got that graph from. Real, professional, reliable data.

If you own all of the relevant consoles and a nice gaming PC like the GB crew does, I imagine there's a certain amount of disconnect from people who do all of their gaming stuff on one console meant to last 5-10 years.

and while we are at it, the graph should also show mobile/tablet

and a ratio that shows in 1 game per consumer how much % wise is revenue and how much is cost due to piracy

I'll never understand the outright animosity there is in certain places towards PC gaming. Some people complain about the "Master Race" rhetoric, but console games prove time and time again that they can easily be as bad as anyone else.

To each their own, I guess.

I agree that there are ways about the way consoles are presented - convenient, futureproof (to an extent), unobtrusive, inexpensive (ish) - that allow them to retain a huge market - especially considering the market for gaming PCs probably overlaps with the console market to an extent.

I think maybe the question gets asked because from a business standpoint, you do have to ask those questions; what happens if suddenly our entire market sit down and decide that they would get more bang for their buck with a pc. It's especially important here because the segment of the market most likely to do that kind of thinking and analysis over their purchases is probably the section typically thought of as evangalists for the technology - people who hoover up info about games and tech.

I think it's more a what if than a when kind of question though?

@joeyravn: People are people. Weather you are discussing new graphic cards or how many Ps your console has it doesnt change that.

But that would demand of us to start on the same point of utility to the consumer. Commodity is the big factor here (if we do not talk about money). And not many people prefer Big Picture mode from my reasonable PC streaming to the couch TV like I do.

Haha, I knew that graph would mix things up a bit :P

I would also love to hear what their sources are and I'm sure it's fairly biased. I do think the graph does a good job of showcasing the growing PC gaming market though, something not to forget in discussions like this.

At the beginning of this gen I switched to a PC for the first time, I'll never go back to consoles but I still like to hear the answer to that question "What are they doing different from PC?" it's an interesting one in that PC's offer so much in terms of modability, lower prices on software (presale for the new and broken Batman game was going for $30 on G2A) high end graphics and peripherals like flight sticks and track-ir. What DO you do to make your game stand out on consoles as well?

One interesting question is "30 dollars or 60 for Batman but it will be a bigger burden for you to go to the most comfortable couch and biggest screen in the house and you are not really sure if your machine is optimized to run the game, even with the possibility of high end graphics and peripherals like flight sticks and track-ir"? All that stuff are opportunity costs that add up to the 30 dollar mark. Yes, PC gaming has grown tremendously, due in part to more tech savy consumers and its ubiquity as a must have machine in the house, and also Valve has helped a lot. Notwithstanding, bearing in mind the discrepancy in install bases it should be expected for the PC market to be way way way bigger than the console one, and the way 3rd party behaves shows that those opportunity costs to the consumer still matter in a big way. That arcade-home console biological feeling during the transition is still very present in the way, for example, people still use retail or pre-order games without knowing if they do not suck

I think the question of "is this the last console generation ever?" is a very real one because PC gaming is getting easier, and more affordable, than ever. It's hard to understand before you make the leap from consoles, but after you do you realise you were missing out on a hell of a lot of great games. The up-front cost is a hell of a lot steeper than a console, but you can get far more games far, far cheaper over time. Additionally your machine will always be far more powerful than any console for the whole lifespan of that console, even if you never choose to upgrade

In the end the PC market is growing at a rapid pace, and another aspect of consoles needing to differentiate themselves is that they're basically underwhelming, highly specialised PC's at this point anyway.

I simply do not agree that PC gaming is becoming so easy and approachable that it will supplant console gaming. It just isn't true.

You buy a console, you turn it on. You don't set any settings, you don't get the drivers, you don't choose the right peripheral for you, you don't do any research. This standardization and ease of use is the reason that most gamers who are even aware of how PC gaming works (which is probably many times fewer than proponents of this theory think) are still sticking with consoles. The theoretical reasons that PC gaming is better than console gaming are many and are very strong, but are PCs easier to use? Absolutely not. Are they less expensive than before? Proportional to console prices, no, not really. Do they work properly less often than consoles? Inarguably and by a massive margin, yes. PC gaming is more expensive, more difficult to do, requires much more individualized problem solving and user know-how, and sometimes they just don't work properly no matter what.

Additionally, consoles as underpowered PCs is a way of seeing consoles that only those with enough technical knowledge are capable of. The gaming community suffers from lacking empathy for those who don't know as much as them. "Why do people preorder???" "Why do people buy the same CoD over and over???" "Why do people do X when Y is the obviously right thing???" Because "people" don't know as much as them and don't really care. This is also why even enthusiast-level video game fans don't care that consoles are underpowered PCs.

Is PC gaming easier than it was 10 or 15 years ago? Yes. Is it easy ENOUGH? No. It necessitates and, generally, benefits from the modularity that sets it apart from consoles, but that modularity is also what keeps console gamers from buying into it in the first place. People want to open the box, plug it in, and turn it on. They don't want to fiddle, period.

This is coming from a 15-year PC gamer who is very willing to admit that PC gaming is a fucking pain in the ass sometimes.

If anyone is talking about a console-less future, they are not talking about a PC-only future. They are talking about a future of cloud programming or mobile gaming.

@pyrodactyl said:

@the_last_starfighter said:

If those stats are close to accurate (which I have no reason to believe) I would wager a huge chunk of that PC money goes into LoL, Dota 2, F2P MMOs and other whale oriented businesses.

If that were the trend in games I'm actually interested in, companies like WB would be focusing resources on what would clearly be the money making platform and making the PC the place to play their games instead of shitting out 2 bad PC ports in a row.

PS: note how they're showing revenue for 2015. Weird oracles those guys you got that graph from. Real, professional, reliable data.

This graph comes from an NVIDIA conference call in 2011.

http://techgage.com/article/nvidia_talks_pc_gaming_trends/

a lot of it is a "vocal minority" kinda thing. PC games also seems to be more picky about "inconsequential" things than a console gamer would. they are tweakers (game settings not drugs) at least thats the sterotype.

@kcin said:

@pyrodactyl said:

@the_last_starfighter said:

If those stats are close to accurate (which I have no reason to believe) I would wager a huge chunk of that PC money goes into LoL, Dota 2, F2P MMOs and other whale oriented businesses.

If that were the trend in games I'm actually interested in, companies like WB would be focusing resources on what would clearly be the money making platform and making the PC the place to play their games instead of shitting out 2 bad PC ports in a row.

PS: note how they're showing revenue for 2015. Weird oracles those guys you got that graph from. Real, professional, reliable data.

This graph comes from an NVIDIA conference call in 2011.

http://techgage.com/article/nvidia_talks_pc_gaming_trends/

Then let me reiterate my first point: If those stats are close to accurate (which I have no reason to believe) I would wager a huge chunk of that PC money goes into LoL, Dota 2, F2P MMOs and other whale oriented businesses so WHO CARES?

I think Jeff has been really clear in the past when asked about this. Giantbomb caters to a subset of the gaming community, specifically the more hardcore variety. This site does not cater to the "big mass of people that only care about a semi optimized Battlefront, The Witcher, GTA V, Fallout." As a result, they assume that their audience wants to know which platform offers the best experience for a particular game, with cost being a secondary concern. Once they provide that information, users of this site are free to decide whether the superior experience is worth the money. I think that is a totally legitimate approach.

Particularly given that they are in the business of selling subscriptions to watch 30 minute to 3 hour videos of them playing random, often old and often obscure games online. The "big mass" isn't going to pay a subscription fee to watch a group of people that they don't know play obscure games for 3 hours.

@pyrodactyl: They're actually projections from NV from 2011 so basically guess work from four years ago. But you are right all the current info that states PC gaming makes such and such always includes MOBAs and tries to pass that off as useful info against the still current console dominance on big titles.

@pyrodactyl said:

@kcin said:

@pyrodactyl said:

@the_last_starfighter said:

If those stats are close to accurate (which I have no reason to believe) I would wager a huge chunk of that PC money goes into LoL, Dota 2, F2P MMOs and other whale oriented businesses.

If that were the trend in games I'm actually interested in, companies like WB would be focusing resources on what would clearly be the money making platform and making the PC the place to play their games instead of shitting out 2 bad PC ports in a row.

PS: note how they're showing revenue for 2015. Weird oracles those guys you got that graph from. Real, professional, reliable data.

This graph comes from an NVIDIA conference call in 2011.

http://techgage.com/article/nvidia_talks_pc_gaming_trends/

Then let me reiterate my first point: If those stats are close to accurate (which I have no reason to believe) I would wager a huge chunk of that PC money goes into LoL, Dota 2, F2P MMOs and other whale oriented businesses so WHO CARES?

Uh, probably the businessmen behind games? And the majority market share of gamers who play those games? That money isn't all coming from a minority of gamers, that's for sure. LoL alone has more players per day than there are PS4s in the world. Think about that.

@kcin: People with PC's are not whales. They don't have endless money to spend on games. Most PC gamer that I know don't own a console, they just own a PC. I use a PC cause I work in IT and because it's cheaper and more convenient for me to game that way. I buy all my games in steam sales for 75% off and I get to buy a huge variety of games for a pittance. I upgrade every 5 years or so and spend 300 - 400 but I save that in sales over those years. And while I have my PC hooked up to my TV, I also hav eit connected to a monitor in the sitting room. That way my missus can watch TV shows, I can game and we can still spend time together.

@arabes: You just described yourself, not PC gamers. Do you mean that people with PCs are not ALWAYS whales? I would happily agree with that. The small number of existing whales is part of the definition of the concept in the first place. That doesn't invalidate the idea that whales in gaming are often PC gamrrs, though.

100% but the reason whales are PC gamers is because the type of free to play experiences that offer things like paid boosts, etc are firmly rooted in the PC as a platform. Free to play games are still in their infancy on the console market, there are literally countless offerings on PC but you'll find only a handful on console, last gen included.

@belegorm: I do not understand this statement of this being the final console generation, seeing how the ps4 could very well pass ps2 numbers by the end of its lifetime. We live in a world where a majority of gamers buy a console just to play annualized franchises like CoD and NBA; these are the sorts of people that would never consider purchasing a PC.

@cfilipec: This is a weird conversation and I think your over thinking statements like these. The GB guys and journalists in general often speak in genralities and this specific statement I think is more catered to the people who are as deep into this shit as they are. I consider myself one of those people even though I only own a PC and the last gen consoles. It doesn't matter how well consoles are selling that's a completely different conversation. I see no need to own a console, there is nothing there for me that I care about that I can't get from my PC. Consoles haven't made their case for me.

They also haven't made the case for themselves yet. No matter how well they are actually selling the better question is how much use are they getting by the people that own them? I'll wager that the people that have gamming PC's spend more time actually playing games then the current console base does. And generally having a better experience doing it. That's a problem... If it's true I don't actually know. The point is consoles need more exclusives that people who haven't switched yet care about and give them a reason to to trade in what they are comfortable with for new exciting stuff.

@bollard: How many of those players for LoL own a PC and how many of them just own a free RIOT account and play down at the local cyber cafe after work or school?

@kcin: When I read your first line 'I would guess that people with PCs are probably the so-called "whales" of gaming.' I thought you meant that all PC gamers were big spenders.