madphilb on 22/12/2003 at 16:33
Quote:
Originally posted by Fat Thief Don't worry M$ will own linux in a couple of years and then your decision will be a lot easier. You'll also need windows media player with drm to watch any video off the net or to watch a dvd you just bought.
This I have to dis-agree with. That is what Microsoft would like to happen, but unless every PC users out there rolls over for Microsoft, it won't happen. And I think that as "Trusted Computing" comes more to the fore-front we'll see people jumping ship as well.
The bottom line with any of this, don't use those things, use QuickTime if nothing else, but don't give into MS's hype.
On the flip side, if there is enough of a demand for it, Linux versions of existing games will start to crop up... then again, I bought my XBox to play most of the games I wanted (things that just would not run on my PC) which leaves RTS games and Logic/Puzzle games as the main staple of my PC's diet (and the occassional older style PC RPG... Fallout, Arcanum, IceWind Dale, etc)
PHIL
David on 8/1/2004 at 17:57
It should be pointed out that those figures in the above post are meaningless as far as DX:IW is concerned. The reason? They are taken from Elspa sales data, which is a british company reporting on british sales. DX:IW has not been released in the UK yet.
Dwango on 8/1/2004 at 21:40
Sorry bout that. I do believe you are right. Darn, anyone have the US figures yet?
jstnomega on 9/1/2004 at 00:51
FWIW, a mayhaps meaningless factoid. Not sure what it originally retailed at - $50? - but two weeks ago already, GoGamer was selling the PC ver for $35.
Dwango on 9/1/2004 at 17:07
To make up for my fopaw, here is the link to the NPD site that records US sales numbers:
(
http://www.npdfunworld.com) NPD Funworld
This is the site which GameSpot uses for its numbers reports. They have sales figures up to November, so nothing useful yet.
Muzman on 23/1/2004 at 21:38
Some actual figures would be nice, but they don't just give those out. There's a massive drop off after the top five. A game can make a tidy living and not crack the top 20.
Did Thief ever chart?
Garrettwannabe on 28/1/2004 at 17:31
This was very interesting info about PC Games sales being
down by 14% while console software was
up the exact amount (14%). Maybe sometime soon the PC Gaming software section in stores will be just a lil section in the corner. Although, the
decline of console sales by 27% is very interesting as well.
Quote:
Video games see 2003 slump
Software sales were on the rise, but game machine sales suffer.
January 26, 2004: 11:24 AM EST
By Chris Morris, CNN/Money staff writer
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Aging game machines and the lack of a substantial price cut took their toll on the video game industry in 2003 as sales slipped 4 percent from 2002 totals to $11.2 billion.
PC games took the biggest hit, according to The NPD Group, which tracks the industry's sales. Stung by the delay of key titles such as "Half-Life 2" and "Doom 3", 2003 sales came in at $1.2 billion, a 14 percent drop from 2002's figures. Software for home video game consoles climbed 14 percent.
While software sales were slightly higher, consumers shied away from buying Sony's (SNE: Research, Estimates) PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's (MSFT: Research, Estimates) Xbox, as both companies stuck by their higher price points through the holiday season. (Nintendo, which lowered prices on its GameCube, saw a sales spike toward the end of the year.) Console hardware overall sales were down 27 percent.
Nintendo scored big with its popular Game Boy handheld system, however. NPD reported portable hardware volume was up 54 percent from $490 million in 2002 to $750 million in 2003. A good deal of that increase can be credited to the company's introduction of the GBA sp, which offered a long-demanded internal light to the system. 2004 will likely see another sizable increase in this category as Sony unveils its portablePSP system in May.
Though Sony and Microsoft are expected to announce price cuts before the end of May, NPD analysts said they do not expect 2004 sales to be as strong as 2003.
"Since a majority of the industry's growth comes from software sales, and because there are plenty of highly anticipated software titles across all platforms in 2004, we are expecting to see impressive sales figures," said Richard Ow, senior video games analyst for The NPD Group. "However, with the continued price gouging of both hardware and software categories, the industry's sales will be hard pressed to surpass 2003 through the remainder of the current hardware platform's life cycles." (
http://money.cnn.com/2004/01/26/technology/gamesales/index.htm?cnn=yes) Here's the link btw....
scglass on 29/1/2004 at 23:45
Quote:
Originally posted by Garrettwannabe ...
decline of console sales by 27%....
Perhaps consoles are reaching market saturation?
