http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/200 [...] or-update/
 

Damn...
 
I don't approve of his simplistic view of what PC games are today (um, Cliffy? Shooters are BETTER on the PC). But he's right about the sales breakdown and I give him credit for being honest and saying it publicly, because I guarantee you that a lot of other developers/publishers feel the same way.

I have nothing against him (EPIC) making money, I was happy for them when GOW was a big success for EPIC and gave them the money they well deserved but its shows in UT3 that there focus was on the consoles. Rob why dont you do a movie on the state of PC games and the shift of dev to consoles, is this a trend or is it going to be the future?

"I’m not going to make f—ing ‘Cooking Mama.’ But that’s okay.”
 
I read that, and the first thing that came to mind was, bizarre image of Cliffy B's Cooking Mama.  
 
Onion Saute'-  DOMINATION!
 
 
There's also the non trivial question of consoles, and UT3.  Do you think that CliffyB and Epic understand what went right and what went wrong, with UT3 and with Gears.
 
Consider the number of good "Epic Games" type games that were released on the PC last year, to great sales.
 
He's giving indications of a development path that puts consoles first.
We'll just have to see how well that works out.

All PC players:
 
Players playing UT3 right now: 567
Players playing COD4 right now: 32,820
 
The #'s speak volumes lill cliffyB.

Obviously, Mr. Cliffy is not a Business Man.
 
Yes, consoles are more profitable right now but...
 
Rule 1: Never shut down or publicly admit something that would affect one of your potential market. The marketing department must be soooooo mad as they probably worked hard to promote its games on the PC.
 
Rule 2: 4.5 millions < 5.5 (4.5 + 1 millions). This doesn't make any sense to me. Why would you limit your sales, say 4.5 million unit, when you have the potential on having 5.5 million unit sold in both markets?
 
The best profitable way of making money on all platforms right now (and this could change) is by releasing games on consoles first and then (say 6 months later) to release them on the PC.
 
So I agree that we'll see more and more console ports but that PC gaming is only ment for Internet Explorer Flash games? This guy must have been drunk, intoxicated, drugged, or out of his mind when he made such a statement.
 
However, the question remains; is it worth the effort to do the port if your target sales are at 1 million units? If there is a profit, why not???

 
 
Well said man. Maybe they should take Infinity Awards approach COD, COD2, COD4 for PC and COD3 for consoles.

I hate that statement but unfortunately I think it's right on.  People have become plain fed up with trying to run the latest games on their aging dells with integrated graphics.  Consumer know better now.    

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=92707

Yeah it sucks that console gaming seems to be the big thing as far as money goes, I've really started to hate the limitations of console hardware and how every game, no matter how good the hardware gets, will always have slowdown issues and crap.  I'd rather buy an expensive machine that runs games perfectly than a cheap box that barely gets by.
 
Japanese developers in general don't like to develop for PC, which sucks because some of my favorite game series are from Japanese developers.  I always find it ironic that Itagaki from Team Ninja is always attracted to the most powerful hardware, but doesn't make squat for PC lol I'd kill for a PC version of Ninja Gaiden 2!

I read it as ... since they are not able to make games like the SIM type or WoW type, they just focus on what they do best and attack the GoW type market?  Hence explain why PC market is secondary to them.
 
That makes sense.  And doesn't mean that PC gaming is dead.  I often wonder how much Blizzard is making a month from the worldwide subscriptors and how much they will make on day one when another expansion is out.
 
And by the way, I think Blizzard one time attempted to venture into connsole with their Starcraft brand.  I guess console is secondary to Blizzarrd then.

 
The thing is, most figures out on PC game sales do not take into account online sales only (e.g. Steam). And maybe even more important, it does not take into account the monthly online subscription fees for MMO's.
I wonder how the picture looks like if that is rectified. I'm pretty sure that you would not see a decline in sales then. Whether it would supersede console game sales (in turnover), I'm not too sure but having more than 10 million WoW players (and that's only the most succesful MMO)) is quite an additional turnover figure ($150 million a month?)
 
This does not change the fact that console sales have skyrocketed in comparison, obviously.

Or could it just be that the Economy sucks and people have less money to spend on a good computer and are just buying consoles

blog+MTV, well that's about all I need to know.

Well, the US economy has seen better days but it will recover withing the next two years. That being said, I don't think it has a sufficient impact on why consoles are currently blooming compared to the PC slump.

Part 1
There are two ways of looking at the issue:

Publishers' limitations: mostly concentrate on consoles because the revenue is quite better and here, we are not talking about having twice as much but make it 300-500%+ better revenues than publishing on the PC platform. The main issue here is that some publishers believe that it is better for them to publish only on consoles.

Gamers limitations: are leaning more towards the consoles lately for many reasons; the uniform way of gaming which is always simple, user-friendly and practicle. I'm going to stretch and say that it is cheaper to game on consoles as well (although this could be subject to debate). Console gamers are not subject to Securom and such or aren't affected by them for the least. On the other hand, most people already have PCs...but are they good enough for gaming? How much money would you have to spend to make it a gaming rig. Gaming in HD1080p or better is the beauty of PC Gaming but it also comes with a nice price tag.

Part 2
What's best for who?

Publishers: Lots of publishers prefer high profitability of consoles. Some publishers are willing to risk it and not only concentrate on consoles but on multiple platforms. Multi-platform sells are in theory higher and therefore bigger but much more risks are involved. Cross-platform sells might affect one profitable platform and therefore be excluded from the list, etc.

Gamers: Lets face it, consoles are overall cheaper, convenient and much more user-friendly than the PC. The PC offers much better visuals and to some extend better gameplay. Online gaming is, for the most part, better on the PC. That being said, it usually makes more sense for the average gamer to play on consoles. The enthousiasts on the other hand, won't mind paying an extra few hundreds (sometime thoulsands) of dollars to play their games on Very High settings with max AA and Extreme resolutions.

Personally, I'm a PC gamer and I'll support PC Gaming for as long as it makes sense *to me*...but the way it's heading right now, PC gaming will constitute of console ports which will only offer the same but for the PC. So, if PC Gaming doesn't pickup in a year or two, I'm switching to the next gen consoles which I suppose will be in about 2 years.

The main thing I will miss is modding pc games.  modding communities etc. add so much more to games for the PC.   On console this is unavailable(cant count the times on any games forums where a console user of the same game would come on and ask "how do I install mods?".  I wouldnt have touched oblivion after the first run through on the console, with mods on the pc I still play it.  So if games completely die out on the PC, I just may leave gaming behind altogether.  I dont think they will ever "die" heck it may even rebound.  right now there arent a whole lot of games out for console or pc im interested in, and the ones I am interested in are on the PC, so it hasnt become a big deal to me yet.  It would be less of a transition for me if I can succesfully use a keyboard and mouse on a console.

I am personally offended since the "Next-Gen" consoles basically stole the great technology from PCs. Had it not been for the push in PC gaming that we have had in the past decade the consoles would still be like the N64.
 
This is funny as well since UT, one of the best FPS of all time, got its start on the PC. It was the PC gamers who made it a big hit and allowed "Epic" to expand it to other platforms.
 
I will never give up PC gaming. And companies such as Vavle(HL2, Portal, TF2, CS:S) obviously never will either as all of their games are built the ground up for PC and then ported to consoles.
 
I just wounder if he is pissed that there are no plans for Crysis to go on the consoles?

*edit
 
i agree that pc gaming is failing. no one has a good enough pc to play new games anymore. Old 'hardcore' pc gamers keep with it. Its just too bad really. he is right its now the age of the console

Please realize that Cliffy B was not dissing PC gaming exactly...he was dissing the fact that publishers have little reason to publish specifically for the pc when they can make much more money making console games.