Umm DJ Yoshi, it would help if you read the title at the top of each chart.

since I can't trust you to read the stats correctly I will post them for you.

US Total Game Software Sales
2000 - $6.02 billion (219 million units)
2006 - $7.4 billion

US PC Game Software Sales
1998 - $1.8 billion
1999 - $1.9 billion
2000 - $1.78 billion (84.9 million units)
2006 - $970 million (39.4 million units)

US PC Game Online Sales
2005 - $344 million

OK NOW that we are all on the same page... How am I wrong?

Look at units moved... Am I retarded or something. How am I not getting my point across. How do I come off like I don't know what I am talking about. Please someone explain!

I bought it when it went on sale for 39.99 at circuit city... and it just seemed like playing through scripted event after scripted event. It looked nice but other then that it played pretty weak. Haven't been able to test the MP since it dosn't support 4 player split screen lan.

Did I miss something in this thread? Is there a good reason Snoop keeps bringing up numbers sold as if anyone cares?

What competition? PC Game competition? Halo was a freaking Xbox game, it looked better than anything on the PS2, Gamecube, OR Xbox when it was released.



I never had this problem. Ever. I've had 16 player games in Halo 1, and they ran just fine.



On the friendly side? **** yes. The marines have always been retards. I've never seen enemy units do stupid things though that couldn't be explained away (like them colliding with walls in the banshee while turning) that couldn't be logically explained away as a limitation of the coding, which just wasn't going to get any better.



We've had this discussion before. It might not be particularly imaginative or original, and yes, it does steal from numerous other works (Bungie's even admitted it), but that doesn't change the fact that it's fun, and interesting, and if you dig into the plot enough, you can see more beneath the surface. You, however, seem to always expect a completely original War and Peace type story in every new game you buy. As nice as that is, it just doesn't happen that often, if ever.



Thank Microsoft for that. I do believe they were ready to move on after the first game, but they left it open so they could come back at a later date, if they wanted, and continue. Microsoft pushed for a second game, which due to problems on Bungie's end, was cut short, which lead to a third game.



No, it's not a supertitle. That's something else you can thank Microsoft for. It carried the Xbox's sales, so they've ridden it's success. You can't blame them for doing that much, but like every capitalist venture, they've started to beat the dead horse. It didn't revolutionize anything, it just did it right, or in a way that was easy to comprehend and play on a console.

The ad campaigns for Halo 3 were ****ing ridiculous. Doritos, Mountain Dew, Pontiac, an ARG, a bunch of short films that were mostly mediocre, and an ad campaign that ended up having nothing at all to do with the plot of the game. It was like watching people hype up the "millennium", when nothing was really going to freaking change after it was released.

Deserved patches? The Multiplayer has ALWAYS worked. It worked in Halo. The Matchmaking system in Halo 2 was better than anything else out and has now been ripped off by how many games? Doesn't Forza use it? I know Gears does. The graphics might be sub-par in comparison to anything on the PC, but they're still damned pretty. Don't DARE say "It's just Halo 2". Go ****ing do a comparison if you honestly believe that. The differences are staggering in many places. No, it's not the hyper detailed environment Gears was. Why? Because Gears was a bunch of small rooms. Halo is huge outdoor environments. Hyper detailing a small room is easy. Hyper detailing a huge outdoor area isn't. Not without severely impacting gameplay. Halo also isn't brown, as so many games recently want to be. Something I personally really like. Saved films are awesome. I've heard people say this has been in a bunch of titles over the last few years, so it's nothing new, but I've never heard WHAT titles in particular. Regardless, being able to quickly and easily load up a recent game, and zip through a match, looking at what every player is doing and their status, cut out certain parts from films to save, and easily take a screenshot and then download it from Bungie.net moments later is very, very, very nice. Forge is another very nice feature. Being able to take any of the maps and redesign them with a few crates and shield doors is awesome. Yeah, you can't play with the geography of the level, but that doesn't mean you can't do some really cool things, and completely change the way that level plays. Someone else mentioned it earlier, and I agree... There needs to be a better way to find, at the very least, certain gametypes. For them, however, I think it's a worry of too many people migrating to one hopper, and the rest going dry. The current way keeps things rotating and fresh. Supposedly. That doesn't stop you from getting Team Slayer on Guardian six times in a row though.

You're right, Oblivion and Bioshock in particular, got far too little notice because of Halo 3, and are both extremely good titles. I agree you with you in alot of places, but you also seem to be acting completely ignorant in others.

Who knows. But it obviously hasn't occured to him that the PC market isn't shrinking, it's just growing very slowly, or at a standstill, while console games are enjoying tremendous growth. Not to mention probably taking some PC gamers as well.

That'd get you the same graph.

It could also go down a bit, because there haven't been as many GOOD PC titles over the last few years as console titles?

That's completely unfounded and probably full of crap. I don't watch the PC market anymore.

Regardless, he's the only one that thinks PC gaming is dying.

phoenix I said the market over 8 years in retail sales has lost 1 billion dollars. Now I am not saying it is dieing, it will never die, Nvidia just got named Forbes top company for 2007! Nvidia caters to whom??? PC GAMERS!

And if you play UT3, the menu and many other things seem streamlined most likely because it is now going to make its sales on Console as opposed to being brought to PC first and then streamlining for Console. It's just a change of how things are getting done in the gaming world. PC gaming is NOT the market it used to be. It has shrunk rapidly in under a decade where console gaming continues to rise. I am no economics major but I would say that is what experts would call "not good".

You said that the PC gaming industry is dwindling - which, according to your own statistics, is not the case: it has shrunk, but is now growing.

XBox and company are more accessible, and it's likely that they will continue to remain as accessible unless this trend of price increases continues, at which point the cost difference between becomes moo, like a cow's opinion. However, simply because consoles are booming right now doesn't mean that the PC game is in any way, shape, or form on a downward slope.

In an economy which is suffering from a small recession, the cheaper solution is often the more viable one. The last truly great and successful title to come out for the PC was Morrowind: Oblivion, I would wager. Certainly, there have been good titles for the PC to come out since then, but nothing revolutionary. Plus, it doesn't help that you've got issues with Punkbuster in games like COD4, which only makes the console gaming market even more appealing.

I think it should also be pointed out that consoles are becoming more like PCs, to the point where it's beginning to be difficult to make the distinction.

See also: PS3 and linux.

...What? Orange Box, Supcom, and Crysis. Each of which have been revolutionary, awesome, and sold fairly well.

Don't forget World in Conflict... did anyone here besides me love that game. It is the most solid rtt ever made. I never got to play supcom, but I have heard as much praise as I have heard problems...

and wolfy, i said that PC gaming is in a low area, the sales turn out in 06 could be a good sign but with PS3 and wii getting better holds in the market over 07 I doubt that helped the PC. All I stated originally that PC gaming sales are not close to what they used to be and is becoming a niche market as more people move over to consoles or just play mmo's which don't help sales figures. Yoshi told me I was wrong I backed it up yet somehow I am still wrong because noone here can ever admit they were possibly wrong. jeez.

FOR THE LAST ****ING TIME NOBODY GIVES A FLYING ONE ABOUT YOUR ****ING COMPUTER.



Yes.

Orange Box sold well, and believe me, as a Half-Life 2 fanboy, I loved every minute of it. The additions to physics - collapse of the bridge and rails, specifically - left me with a need for a change of pants. Episode 2 and TF2 are beautiful games - but nothing revolutionary. Portal is definitely a new bump on the frontier of PC gaming, but, having played it, the "wow" factor is kinda...over.

According to Google, Crysis isn't doing so well. It may be revolutionary, but it still hasn't enjoyed the wide-spread success of a game as relatively revolutionary as Oblivion.

I haven't been tracking the RTS field and, consequently, know nothing about Supreme Commander.

No, you said it was dwindling:



It's rare, but I do occasionally do my research to prevent myself from looking like an idiot.

was that real? that outburst in all caps? penis envy?

I'd say TF2 is more revolutionary than Oblivion. Oblivion was Morrowind Lite with better graphics--less things to do, less sidequests, less area to explore...I never saw what was revolutionary about it.

But it was DAMN fun regardless.

you want to play semantics and really its just immature, since this is a public forum where I am not a journalist, i was making broad statements about PC gaming and you want to get technical and be lame about it. i mean for the love of god how am i causing so much strife informing you the SORRY STATE of pc gaming? Inflation aside and we are no longer in a recession, nothing makes up for a billion dollars lost retail.

...it's not a case of semantics to take what you wrote, interpret it correctly, and then point out that you don't remember what you wrote. You're getting your panties in a twist because of your improper word usage.

It doesn't take a journalist to convey their point in a coherent manner. I'm a software engineer and I think I do a sufficient job of it - and I'm willing to bet the that greater part of Massassi is capable of doing this, and they themselves are not journalists. A competency of the use of words does not equate to a mastery of them.

This, however, would be a case of semantics:

[quote=Dj Yoshi]I'd say TF2 is more revolutionary than Oblivion.[/quote]

In this case, we would be debating the qualifiers and meaning of "revolutionary". Hence, a debate of semantics.

So he's immature for wanting to be, yknow, correct and not lumped in with morons like you?

He's our resident Tony Snow.

why do you have say I am a moron? I haven't called anyone names....

hope you had fun playing thesaurus in your head making your post sound all fancy... i was impressed wolfy

Then dont call him immature for bringing up "semantics."

You said dwindling.

Unless it's immature to tell you that you're not properly informed.

A-durrr whadd'em biiiiiig wurd... wher'd ah git ma grenades at?

until i did technical research like those theesa npd retail sales i never knew that 06 was a better year then 05... but reguardless this has gone to far and I was just trying to let well yoshi know that the PC market was not what it once was. but due to the fact i wrote dwindling i guess everything i said there after is wrong. amiright?

I say wait until the 2007 numbers are out before you attempt to make any sort of rash judgment.

Well, given that Yoshi's counter-response to your post of "the PC market is dwindling" was "no, it's not", and your response to every one one of his arguments was "you're wrong, I'm right" and not "I shouldn't have said 'dwindling', but the PC market has taken a rather serious blow while the console gaming market continues to surge", yes, it does make your arguments following the original post wrong.

Beyond that, your argument continued on the premise that the PC market is shrinking. Even when Yoshi said that the PC market is not dwindling, you didn't correct him and say, "I didn't mean dwindling and shouldn't have said it; sorry".

If you're going to use words you don't mean to use in an argument, don't be upset when people interpret what you say, not what you mean. Especially when the proof you provide proves otherwise.

this thread delivers. I count about 4 different arguments going on at once.

I'd quote it for truth, but it'd just be silly.

Best part is none of them have spiraled out of control yet.

One isn't so much an argument as me expressing my dislike.

The theatre mode in Halo 3 is pretty awesome too, I love capturing my deaths:

I want more replies to my post

And Phoenix, everything you said is true, it's just that my statements were intentionally sweeping.

Oh, and this:

Is the reason I'm going to get Halo 3 for the PC. Death cam mode is simply one of the greatest features in anything ever.

About a few things... Do the numbers that guy posted include things like electronic delivery (steam), casual games from all the independents like popcap and other online sources, subscription revenue from all mmogs like lotr online and WoW? Also, you said nvidia caters to pc gamers... um no. Don't they supply the graphics cards in the xbox as well? Also, they sell chipsets for motherboards and provide zillions of lower-cost graphics cards for run-of-the-mill pcs and laptops.

Yeah, I was going to post that earlier: MMO Subscriptions alone make the PC market eons above the console market.

And if we were comparing "units sold," I think enough parts for PCs have been purchased to beat all the consoles combined.

Lastly, the number of titles that come out for the PC needs to be taken into consideration. There are untrackable numbers in shareware and downloadable pay-to-play games that play a part, too. I'm sure the PC market has slowed down, but I'm willing to bet it's still got many legs up on the proprietary macs of gaming.

Pfft they had that camera feature in Driver back in 98.

If memory serves, Nvidia had a chipset in the Xbox, but ATI has a chipset in the 360.

That was one of the problems behind backwards compatibility as well, I think.

You'd love Call of Duty 4, then. Every time you die in multiplayer, it shows the last 5 seconds of what your killer saw before you died - so you learn what stupid crap you did to get yourself killed.

I think nvidia has established themselves around pc gamers. They never would have took off was it not for t&l and it's drastic improvement over 3dfx&co. Even though they make mobo's low end graphics and other things, there companies driving factory is gpu innovations and marketing. They don't even make there own cards... even though nvidia is currently residing inside a ps3 and had there troubles with lawsuits over xbox (main reason xbox support dropped so fast, so they didn't have to deal with nvidia).

Steam won't release it's sales figures, if you read the article I posted earlier alot those questions would be answered.

In 2005 somehow 344million sales were online, a third of retail. My argument is Steam and the online deliver services weren't in full swing til the release of HL2 when everyone saw how viable of option it was (my HL2 is through steam). So that would be somewhere around 03-04 when it picked up main stream. Before that I can't think of many downloadable titles. The PC market has alot of negative factors, the monogamy that WoW presents, the more expensive hardware and now FORCED vista switch for some newer titles and there almight DX10 capabilities. Consoles are presenting themselves as more then gimmicky things under the TV, they have media, internet, usb, storage. All things a PC was known by itself for.

If are counting all the MMO subs that blizzard (now activision.....) rakes in. That is great for that title. But WoW dosn't fall under the casual games category. Crysis, UT3, Orange Box are all casual games. No price to pay after its bought, no incentives to the maker to keep upgrading the title. That hurts the rest who aren't dedicated to a specific game. I am not saying all MMO players are junkie's or anything but there fanbase is quite different from the average FPS gamer. Catering the market all to one genre won't help the platform as a whole and is by no means eons above the state of console gaming with all of its options available.

You have the console market now having downloadable titles/software/media themselves which isn't counted in retail (how much money do you think XBL made... I gaurantee that would further the gap between PC and console.)

So it is troubling for me at least to that this could be the beginning of the end of the best era for PC gamers...

Casual games are flash games. In what way are you subcategorizing WoW so that you don't have to reflect its income in the console vs. pc debate?

And consoles are becoming even MORE novel as they become closer and closer to PCs. The idea of purchasing a 600 dollar machine that will be out of date in 2 years, where a 2000 dollar PC can be upgraded with micro upgrades here and there for ultimately more power than you'll ever get over a period of a console's lifespan makes that 600 dollars seem awful pricey.

Consoles have been and will always err on the side of toys. Dare I sound like an uppity art major, I think PC gaming is high gaming. That doesn't NEGATE or even look lowly upon console gaming, it simply puts them in different levels of quality, development, and support. I don't think I've ever played a console game that had the same level of polish, foresight, or development as a competing PC comparison. Playing console ports on the PC is always telling, and rarely as clean as a PC platform title. (The least suffering are games that are simultaneously released on the PC and consoles, but even then Bioshock probably would have been a deeper experience had it been a PC exclusive, or more developed for the PC. The opposite can be seen for Oblivion, which feels dumbed down on the console)

Ultimately, I think that PC gaming doesn't need the rapid sales, high market, and exploding advertising. It's above all that in many respects, and ends up being more of a hobby or experience than a "game."

WoW is subcatergorized by on major factor. Where the money goes for the online sub you pay every month for. It's not divided the same way regular retail game sales are and won't help in the long run. It is just making someone really rich. That is why I like Epic's strategy, developing good engines to coincide with their video games.

Consoles can be bought in toystores, it dosn't mean that now the average gamer is 30 years of age and the average videogame buyer is 37. Even though PC dosn't have the kiddyness of consoles, consoles certainly have the attention of older people. Another thing to weigh in on. How many 7-13 year olds make up the video game market... how many are capable of installing, updating, patching, using a keyboard and mouse config.

Quite a few to the question of patching and updating, considering many games and other software handle it automatically.