BioWare: PC gaming is in fine health

CVG: "The CEO of BioWare has told us that, contrary to numerous 'PC gaming is dying' claims, the sector's in fine health on a number of fronts.

'I think there are more people playing PC games and more dollars being spent on the PC space than ever before, but it's taking a different form,' Ray Muzyka said in a recent interview."

[VMAN_01]

I know my PC gaming will be in good health when I get a new PC in March

[Chris399]

How many titles sold over 1,000,000 retail units this year?

Few, very few.

Compare that to consoles and you'll see where the revenue is.

Eventually there will have to be a convergence between PC and Console. I'm curious to see where things are 10 years from now.

Cheers,
- C

[lelo]

Do you know the numbers of online sales for PC games? NO... we only know retail sales.

If PC gaming is that bad why are software companies still releasing games for the PC? If it was that bad, they would only release games for consoles. Almost every multiplat game arrive on the PC. Why is that?

Just look at the PC line up for 2009. It has great exclusives

[Chris399]

You mention Dragon Age, Origins. That is a RETAIL, BOXED, GAME. That is the sort of game that non-casual PC gamers are interested in. That is the sort of game that will struggle to hit 1 million sales; just like all the other non-casual games released this year.

As far as statistics, you need only to look as far as the year end NPD data. Retail PC game sales are in decline. If your appetite is for flash-based puzzles, then disregard my comment.

And as far as sales of online games go, you can't provide me with any documentation to prove substantive, non-casual growth either.

I would think that if there was a sudden "boom" in non-casual content delivery via PC downloads we would have heard about it by now.

You can hate me for saying it, but Dragon Age for the PC will probably struggle to achieve over 500K sales. When compared to the size of the "PC install base", that's really not that terrific.

PC gamers seem to think that consoles aren't cannibalizing their market, when in actuality that's being proven more and more the case with each year.

Peace,
-C

P.S. I am looking forward to Dragon Age as well! Don't know what platform I'll be picking it up on, but the game looks slick.
P.S.S. Oh, and regarding multi-plats arriving on the PC; pretty much any game made with the 360 in mind can be ported to a mid-high range PC. That said, how many copies of Mirror's Edge or Prince of Persia sold on the PC vs. Consoles? Also keep in mind, most PC games are now being made with console ports in mind; this marks the first generation where this has actually been the case. 2 of the 3 consoles are basically mid range PCs. Expect this trend to continue.

[Swarm]

DA:O Will sell fine, well over the mythical 1 mil sold. The game has a well known RPG dev, looks to be going back to the hardcore roots of RPG's, and has the Baldur's Gate lineage.

The Witcher managed to make it over 1 mil pretty easy and is still going strong.... and it is a Polish made RPG from a company very few westerners have heard of and had little advertising.

PC gaming is fine.

[evrfighter]

Sins of A Solar Empire. A new IP made with ZERO drm. and available digital distribution sold well over 500k within a few months.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

[lelo]

Yes it yes ... and waiting for their new game Dragon Age: Origins :)

[Bolts]

The same article that state the 14 % decline PC gaming in retail sales also quoted that the PC gaming industry is raking in an amazing 10 billion a year.

How much money the casual sites like Yahoo, Google and even gambling sites like Poker Stars and Full Tilt are making we'll never know. Basically the PC is pwning the casual market in ways that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo can only dream of, and it has been doing this quietly for YEARS.

[Gorgon]

Thats true, but is it Poker Stars the kind of games we core gamers are interested in? If you ignore MMOs, a few RTS and the Flash games how is the PC market doing in general? Taking into account the hundreds of millions of PCs out there I think the sales speak for themselves.

And if DD sales are so high why are most developers jumping into consoles? Epic is developing Unreal Engine 4 primarily for consoles, Crytech is going multiplatform, id's Tech 5 was developed for multiplatform deveopment, the list goes on. These developers and publishers know how much money they make. EA and others have games selling on Steam. They surely know much money they get from there. It can't be extremely high or else they wouldn't bother giving consoles their full attention first.

PCs are becoming the place for MMOs, Flash games or indy, low cost games. No one will bother making a 50 million USD game exclusive for the PC. The sales simply aren't there to justify it.

[Chris399]

You added some key points that I missed in my ramble :)

Bubbles for you!

[tda-danny]

This may be true, but how many of those hundreds of millions can play the newest games on good graphical settings? Not hundreds of millions...

Also you state:
"No one will bother making a 50 million USD game exclusive for the PC"

Um... Starcraft2, Diablo 3? I highly doubt those will struggle to sell, and have been in development for years, costing millions to make.

[Gorgon]

"This may be true, but how many of those hundreds of millions can play the newest games on good graphical settings? Not hundreds of millions..."

Certainly true, but isn't that one of the arguments PC die-hards like to throw around as a justification for a supposed extremely big PC user base? The sales on PC are quite low when compared to their console brothers when you think about how many mid to high range GPUs and CPUs are sold. Piracy certainly has a big role here, but we can't simply ignore the fact that most multiplatform games sell far better on the substantially smaller console user base. I remember an article here on N4G by a PC die-hard stating that in the last 3 years 250 MILLION gaming capable PCs had been sold and that the PC user base was huge. If that is so, where's the sales to back it up?

"Also you state:
"No one will bother making a 50 million USD game exclusive for the PC"

Um... Starcraft2, Diablo 3? I highly doubt those will struggle to sell, and have been in development for years, costing millions to make."

Neither Starcraft or Diablo 3 are 50 million USD affairs. Not even Crysis was. They are going to cost around 20 million USD in my opinion. I can be wrong though. But in any case look at what kind of games we are talking about. Startcraft is a long time PC cherished franchised and, not surprising, an RTS. As I saud before, the PC will always have the upper hand in this kind of games and is the de facto platform for such a user interface. Diablo 3 is also a long time respected PC franchise and again the controls are more PC than anything else. I can see these games selling plenty on the PC, no doubt. But the age of the big production PC exclusive FPS, RPG, etc is over. It may happen once in a while but it will be rare and it will probably end up on consoles later on.

As I said, unless you are talking about MMOs, RTS, or something like Diablo which is a long time, very loved by the comunity, PC game, the age of the big production PC exclusive is over.

[iistuii]

The pc market continues as i dont wanna play games full of jaggies at 1080. I want the full blown 1920x1200 full AA great looking games which you can only get on a pc. Don't go on about how much a pc costs, as games are my hobbie so i wanna play them at their very best.

[PwnShop]

I mean i'm getting a new desktop soon.

[TABSF]

right after all the console fanboys feel en-powered lets lay down the facts

the PC gaming market alone is worth 3 times that of sony's ps3, nintendo's wii and micrsoft's 360 put together
most software I purchased was downloads I got 31 games last year for PC 20 on steam

same with all my friends online one friend will not get it on disk only on steam

games for windows has over 150 million users
steam has just over 14 million users
xfire has more than 12 million users

PSN just has over 14 million users
XBL just has over 16 million users

Games are made on PC and the components in a console are PC components
PS3 GPU RSX is a 4 year old nvidia geforce 7900 GTX
PS3 CPU CELL was made for IBM server but purchased by sony
360 GPU is a ATI X1550 or equal to that also 4 years old
360 CPU made by IBM a PC company

games run best on PC
Far Cry 2 on PS3 is the same as running it on PC at low
Cod4 on PS3 is the same as running it on PC at low
GTA IV on PS3 is worse than PC at lowest setting

on average there is a total of 500 million hours of wow played each day from xfire game play ranking

NPD only do store retail were people that only think console is good.
most PC sales are on download sevices like steam or EADM, you said that oh it cant be that good, well EA, Ubisoft, sony online entertainment and other large game developer are all shipping to steam now why because PC is were the money it at, larger profit margins.

my GTX 285 has more processing power than 4 PS3 put together, PS3 maximum flouting point is 218 GFLOP/s and My GTX 285 can do over 1TFLOP/s

and i will finish on this consoles only do well because people don't know how good PC is or they are scared by it. i have all current gen systems besides the DS

PC owns all.

[tda-danny]

I have all the current gen systems, including your missing ds. =P
I love my PS3, but if a game comes out for PC, thats what i buy it for.