08-08-2008, 10:18 AM
from the duh dept:
Quote:
Tom's Hardware, the site that coached me through cobbling together my first homebrew rig over a decade ago, quizzed John Carmack yesterday on why id Software has its sights trained on consoles with its upcoming shooter Rage.
"The ground truth," replies Carmack, "is just that the sales numbers on the PC are not what they used to be and are not what they are on the consoles."
You can almost set your watch by what id Software gets up to when it comes to PC gaming, though Doom 3's 3.5 million record sales (for id Software, anyway) are fractional compared to franchises like Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, and all of Nintendo's sundry Pokemon and Mario games.
PC gaming looks increasingly asymmetric of late. It's a platform with an install base hundreds of million strong, reduced to less than a handful of gaming bestsellers in recent years: The Sims (70 million), Lineage 2 (14 million), and World of Warcraft (13.5 million).
But after those, sales drop dramatically. Age of Empires sold some 3 million copies, but Age of Empires 3 only sold 2.5 million. Half-Life sold 8 million but Half-Life 2 only sold 4 million. Even The Sims 2's extremely respectable 20 million in sales plus expansions are a shadow of its predecessor's.
And where today's console majors like Halo 3 and Gears of War are hitting figures like 8.1 million and 4.7 million respectively, critically-acclaimed PC games like Crysis and Civilization IV are only selling 1.5 million and 3 million respectively. If you look at the top 20 all-time PC games in terms of sales, they're all either The Sims, one of the big MMOs, or games like Diablo, StarCraft, Myst, and Populous -- entries from another era.
Carmack says it's hard to second guess what the reasons for the decline in PC sales are.
Certainly, piracy is a contributor to that. I also think a lot of the people that bought PC games have bought consoles and are happy with them. We still think the PC is a market worth supporting, but we're not making decision around the PC. It's probably more of the junior partner in the cross-platform strategy, although obviously, our day-to-day development is predominately on the PC.
So will Doom 4 be console-exclusive?
Says Carmack: "I would be stunned if we did not do Doom 4 for the PC...it would just be wrong."
In the meantime, I guess we're just waiting for the number crunchers to get their arms around online PC game sales, so we can put claims that PC gaming's unsung triumphs are happening direct-digital through the crucible.
"The ground truth," replies Carmack, "is just that the sales numbers on the PC are not what they used to be and are not what they are on the consoles."
You can almost set your watch by what id Software gets up to when it comes to PC gaming, though Doom 3's 3.5 million record sales (for id Software, anyway) are fractional compared to franchises like Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, and all of Nintendo's sundry Pokemon and Mario games.
PC gaming looks increasingly asymmetric of late. It's a platform with an install base hundreds of million strong, reduced to less than a handful of gaming bestsellers in recent years: The Sims (70 million), Lineage 2 (14 million), and World of Warcraft (13.5 million).
But after those, sales drop dramatically. Age of Empires sold some 3 million copies, but Age of Empires 3 only sold 2.5 million. Half-Life sold 8 million but Half-Life 2 only sold 4 million. Even The Sims 2's extremely respectable 20 million in sales plus expansions are a shadow of its predecessor's.
And where today's console majors like Halo 3 and Gears of War are hitting figures like 8.1 million and 4.7 million respectively, critically-acclaimed PC games like Crysis and Civilization IV are only selling 1.5 million and 3 million respectively. If you look at the top 20 all-time PC games in terms of sales, they're all either The Sims, one of the big MMOs, or games like Diablo, StarCraft, Myst, and Populous -- entries from another era.
Carmack says it's hard to second guess what the reasons for the decline in PC sales are.
Certainly, piracy is a contributor to that. I also think a lot of the people that bought PC games have bought consoles and are happy with them. We still think the PC is a market worth supporting, but we're not making decision around the PC. It's probably more of the junior partner in the cross-platform strategy, although obviously, our day-to-day development is predominately on the PC.
So will Doom 4 be console-exclusive?
Says Carmack: "I would be stunned if we did not do Doom 4 for the PC...it would just be wrong."
In the meantime, I guess we're just waiting for the number crunchers to get their arms around online PC game sales, so we can put claims that PC gaming's unsung triumphs are happening direct-digital through the crucible.