Steam hit a new record for concurrent users this past weekend at 11.6 million. That's almost as many people online as even own an Xbox One. Steam has 125 million active users. It has a bigger player base and more people playing online than all current consoles combined. And it's just one service. Yep, PC gaming is totally dying guys. Time to pack it in and buy a console. http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Thing is, if those figures are representative of an active and cash paying market then why aren't PC games dominating the market? Why are PC versions of some high profiles games - e.g GTA V - seemingly given low priority? I don't think PC gaming is dead by any means - if anything, it's as wide ranging as ever. But I don't think it's as successful as those figures suggest.
Also you have to figure in the non-steam partnered communities. 2 huge markets are not tied to steam. EA's Origin and Blizzard. Ubi also fragmented themselves with some uplay only codes but you can still get steam versions from them. League of Legends is currently the most popular game in the world and is not tied to Steam.
A major release will get some play for a few months, but players fall back to the classics quickly. I've made enough bargain bin purchases to know it gets difficult to find servers for an old game unless it's called CounterStrike. Makes the <$5 deals less slick if it's predominately multiplayer.
I have almost 100 hours in csgo. It's not source but it's still addictive and fun, and it's easier than ever to jump into a match because the matchmaking works so well. People spend a lot of money on skins, keys to open crates, and operations. People drop $300 on rare knives all the time. Don't let the low starting price fool you. Valve is raking in money hand over fist from csgo.
Except they are dominating. League of Legends is the most popular video game on the planet Earth. Nothing comes close. It's not on consoles. Wow is still very popular just not as much as in the past. Steam has a massive following, especially csgo and Dota2. CS is the most popular online shooter of all time. LoL, WoW, csgo, and Dota 2 are all cash cows that rake in money. Way more money than any consoles games are making. The profits from those four games are in the billions every year I'm sure. Ubisoft recently released sales figures showing that the main competition for the PS4 is the PC, not the Xbox One, and they are very close in sales. And that's just for Ubisoft games, which have kind of a lousy reputation on PC but people still buy them in huge numbers. It's actually console gaming that looks like it's dying. Xbox One sales figures are so bad I'll be amazed if MS releases another console. Wii U isn't selling at all. PS4 sales are mediocre at best. It's selling, but it's no PS2, that's for sure. This may very well be the last generation we see consoles from MS and Nintendo if something doesn't change. MS has also been talking seriously about bringing Xbox exclusive series like Halo and Gears over to the PC, because no one owns an Xbox One.
This is very true, but it about balances out with their other titles. Apart from diablo 3 and starcraft 2 being their other active titles, blizzard also has hearthstone and heroes of the storm in their current lineup. and soon enough, Overwatch will be ready on battle.net So basically they'll have all the current super popular genres covered. World of Warcraft - supreme commander mmorpg Diablo - multiplayer action rpg Starcraft 2 - multiplayer RTS Hearthstone - F2P card game with microtransactions Heroes of the Storm - F2P MOBA with microtransactions Overwatch - ?? pay model tf2 clone Really makes you curious what the total amount of players online playing would look like if you throw Origin and Battle.net on the list.
PS4 sales mediocre? It was the fastest selling console ever a while back. Not sure if that's changed now as the PS2 was a monster but that's hardly mediocre. I read an interesting post on PC game sales on steam a little while back. Some guy had analysed them. I'll see if I can find it another time. Seemed to suggest there was a hardcore of whales on there and a lot of casual use.
Yep, throw battle.net, uplay, and origin in there with Steam, and PC gaming absolutely dwarfs the consoles. And Steam and Battlenet are pretty huge all on their own. I'm actually seriously concerned that this may be the last generation for standalone home consoles with how badly MS and Nintendo are doing and with how much the PC is dominating. Sony may limp along. But the PS is the one bright spot in a company that's otherwise crumbling. Heck, I've never seen Counter-strike so popular as it is right now, and I played it back in what was once considered its prime. A huge number of the new players are people who got fed up with the CoD franchise and ditched it in favor of CS. Who the fuck even plays Call of Duty anymore? lol That shit is for posers.
It's actually hilarious that this happened as its all out of the blue. Its just a regular weekend. Holidays haven't even started yet.. no new pc releases. Fallout 4 will probably cannibalize skyrim's numbers and shoot up under tf2 (or possibly overtake) when it launches.
Wow, I didn't realize PS4 only sold 22M worldwide since launch... PS2 did that in the USA alone in the same time frame. It's a good thing they discontinued it, it probably would've cannibalized PS4 like it did with PS3. Emotion Engine wins by Fatality.
Xbox One: 13.9 M Wii U: 10.3 M This is a seriously weak console generation. By comparison PS2: 157M It makes sense now why nVidia decided to pass on making hardware for these consoles, especially with how well their cards are doing and the way PC gaming is dominating. Why make low margin hardware for systems no one is buying when you have no trouble selling high-end video cards for a premium price?
Not sure what you guys are talking about, PS4 was ahead of Wii until recently, it has still sold more than PS2 in total months available:
Ah... I mixed up the PS2 release date by a year. Also forgot about what a beast the Wii was! In any case, PS4 is about to get pummeled in Y3 unless Sony manages a 100% increase in sales in the next 12 months.
The Wii was only a beast initially. It fizzled out quickly and didn't sell any games. Somewhere around 2009 or 2010 the casuals moved over en masse to smartphones and then tablets and forgot about the wii. Nintendo is now in a bad place. The Wii U is doing much worse than the Gamecube, which is saying something because the GC was a flop. The GC sold most systems in the three years between the end of 2001 when it launched and 2004 and hit ~22M. The Wii U is at the three year mark now and has sold less than half that. Nintendo is going to end up like Sega if they don't turn things around. The Wii U is their worst selling home console ever. Its sales are similar to the Dreamcast.
The weak spot for Steam is that it relies so heavily on individual games that people obsess over and play for years and years. DOTA 2 has been the biggest player on Steam for quite awhile now. Consoles have a faster turnaround in terms of people wanting to play new games and spend more money.
CSGO has overtaken Dota2 in popularity. Both games have microtransactions, so they continue making Valve money. People seem to prefer games that have long term value over the yearly cash grab shit on consoles. A big part of CS's return to massive popularity seems to be that people are getting fed up with the greedy shovelware cash grab CoD and Battlefield sequels. They'd rather spend time and money on a game that will still be relevant years from now than waste time on something no one will be playing in six months. CoD is a franchise in massive sales decline: Taken altogether: casuals, females, and kids jumped ship long ago to iphone, ipad, and facebook. Dudebros aren't buying Call of Duty. The hardcore crowd is all on PC now. The Wii U and Xbox One are two of the worst selling consoles ever. PS4 is the one bright spot for a company that looks like it could go bankrupt any day, and it will never hit PS2 numbers. AMD is making the hardware for these systems and also looks like it could go bankrupt any day now. Console gaming is what we should be worried about dying. I'm especially worried about Nintendo. They can't keep on like this. MS will probably just go back to putting its weight behind PC gaming like in the 90s, which will just make the PC even stronger. These struggling console companies could really help their situations by putting their games on steam where there's a large user base to actually buy them. Halo, Mario, Metroid, and Zelda would have a warm reception and sell better on Steam than they ever would on Wii U or Xbox One.