PC Gaming Alliance Releases Optimistic State of the Industry Report
Posted 03/28/09 at 03:53:24 PM by Justin Kerr
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The PC Gaming Alliance has taken some heat over the years, both from the public, and the media as to what exactly they offer. Since their inception, PC Gaming hasn’t seen any demonstrable improvements in hardware standards, DRM, or really anything of note which could be traced back to the controversial group. They do however love studies, and they have prepared new state of the industry report to further beat the PC drum. According to Jon Peddie Research, sales of PC gaming hardware is the one bright spot in an otherwise dreary technology economy.
In Terms of year over year growth worldwide:
- Enthusiast PC’s sales have grown 9%
- Performance PC’s sales have grown 19%
- Mainstream PC’s sales have grown 21%
The result of this growth is a staggeringly large PC Gaming hardware market worth an estimated 20 billion dollars in 2008, and it is expected to grow to 34 billion by 2012. The report also suggests that PC Gaming is more recession proof then consoles because of the high cost barrier to entry. When you add up the cost of an HDTV as well as the console and accessories, it’s a big setback for a single purpose device. PC’s they argue, are more versatile and represent a better investment for cash strapped consumers. Also noted was the sharp rise in gaming notebook sales as compared to desktops.
“Don’t let the retail numbers fool you,” said Ted Pollak, co-author of the report. “Enthusiast PC gamers often latch onto one or two games that offer multiplayer and stick to these titles for years. Hardware is where they spend the big bucks. The retail numbers don’t capture the casual and digitally distributed games either. Retail figures are not an accurate barometer for the health of the PC gaming industry.”
So does this report have you convinced that all is well in the PC Gaming universe, or is everyone just playing Solitaire?
How bout I put it this way
Submitted by pcwizmtl on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 5:52pm
Before I built my first cheap ass PC, all I did was play video games on consoles.
Kicked major ass let me tell you.
But, that's all I did, game. I learned nothing except game strategies and secrets and blah blah stuff you find in video games.
You know, what? Fruitless.
Ever since my first build, I got really curious about how PC's work and so on, and now, 5yrs later, I have a College Diploma and nice clientelle and make some good bucks in the IT world.
Maybe that's what one of the posters meant by "consoles are for lazy people" (not an accurate quote), consoles don't bring you anywhere.
As for PC's, they open up a whole new world, with alot of possibilities for knowledge. I accidentally found that, all because I wanted to get some decent framerates in red alert... whattayaknow.
that's personnally why I'm sold to PC's over consoles, why have one when you can have it all?
To the guy that says Upgrades and updates are a hassle
Submitted by MarioJP on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 1:36pm
i haven't upgraded and updated my drivers in a while its not really a hassle thing to do. Keep in mind consoles are a fixed hardware that really shows comparing to a pc. I personally prefer to play all my games at 1080p and what i can control of how much details i want. On a console you can't really do that. Driver updates optimizes the performance of your gpu.
How do you know if your 360/Ps3 is running at 8x MSAA?? you can't tell because only the developers know what the limits are on these proprietary hardware.
My pc monitor supports hdmi, vga, dvi. Having a big ass hdtv is not always better. 22inch is the sweetspot for me especially if your monitor is made by asus with 2ms response time with the contrast ratio 1000:1.
HDTV is designed for overall entertainment and not just for gaming like asus does. Not too mention when viewing HD content it looks great on my asus monitor. Don't need a 42" to get the best experience.
Submitted by thegamepro on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 10:29am
PC is the ONLY hardcore gaming platform out there. Don't think so, try running crysis on the PS3.
A nice way to put it is that consoles were designed for simplicity or in other words, they were designed for morons because console gamers aren't man enough to build their own rig so they just take easy way out.
I think that Halo is really cute but masterchief is no Nomad in Crysis. Just tell me what exactly I accomplished at the end of Halo 3. Halo is all downhill from here and microsoft will just milk the crap out of that franchise. A "T" rated Halo RTS is just the beginning of the downhill spiral, pretty soon there will be an "E" rated Halo "Kart" game with big-headed characters, 4-player splitscreen, and item pickups.
Consoles/PC
Submitted by maniacm0nk3y on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 8:49am
I had an Xbox 360 for 2 years. I had fun with it, but then it got boring. Once I got a new motherboard for my PC, and started playing it was like falling in love with PC gaming all over again (my PC was out 3 months). The graphics, resolution, controls, quality, everything was much better.
I liked the 360, but it was getting old in the tooth. Not much to do but play games and watch movies. After that it's buying a new game, beating it, then waiting for the next best thing. You can't lengthen your purchase that much without buying more for it. Xbox Live downloadables are pretty ridiculous in my opinions. They force you to pay for things...even though most game devs want to allow them to be free of charge. PCs have plenty of mods to extend the playability free-of-charge.
What a lot of people are forgetting is the graphical prowess, the settings, scalability of PCs and consoles. Yes, you will need to buy a pretty decent rig, let's say $1500 (that's how much mine was, Core i7) for a PC that could play titles like Crysis or Fallout 3 at a decent FPS at high resolutions-but often times the graphics settings are scaled down on consoles because of hardware limitiations, AND the FPS IS CAPPED AT 30FPS-AND this is at a resolution of 1024x768 or somewhere close to *720P*. A farcry from TRUE HD. To go into the 1080P/i bracket you would be spending much more or close to the amount of a decent PC rig that performs much better. You can't really compare PCs against consoles on the basis of this. You CAN get a pretty cheap rig to play the games you can on consoles at those similiar settings. But that is where it ends. (Another thing is not every game is capped, but most are-CoD4 anyone?).
If you truly are a PC enthusiast or want to play on PCs, you need to be dedicated to your cause. If you manage budget with price/performance on your parts you can get a system that can last far longer then consoles. The only thing you would have to do is replace the GPU in maybe 3 years or so, and look in the midrange bracket to stay in the loop. It's easy to find deals so sometimes your lucky and get high-end parts.
I hope I made myself clear in any way. I'm not a fanboy, I'm just laying down what I believe is a decent compariso, and what experience has taught me.
Submitted by MeTo on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 7:38am
I forgot the hassel of buying a game comming home install it and it "Will not work". Now you have to download new video drivers,sound card drivers,mother bord drivers,then you get it to work. Then you start playing the game and it runs at 15 fps all jerky so you have to lower the resoulation to get it to play 30 fps but it looks like crap. Now it's off to best buy for a new video card and don't forget you will also need a new power supply. Get my point I grew tired of the constant hardware upgrade hassels. Buy a console plug in the power,plugin the HDMI,plug in the ethernet and you are playing.
I bought an 8800 GTX in
Submitted by horzo on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 8:19am
I bought an 8800 GTX in August 2007, and can honestly say that (with the exception of Crysis, which is badly optimized) I have yet to find a game that doesn't run well on my rig at 1680 x 1050 with effects cranked. Driver problems? No. Upgrades to random parts? No.
I expect I'll need to buy a new card in maybe another year. If major upgrades every three years is too much for you, well sorry. It's the price of a superior platform.
If playing games on a closed box with a sh*tty controller is your vision of greatness, then rock on.
Submitted by MeTo on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 9:00am
Is that 1680x1050 on a 42" lcd or a 22" lcd? Try split screen 2 player PC gameing with a friend on a 22" screen your friend can sit on your lap. My liveing room has plenty of good seats and 42" lcd is not 2 foot from my face.
there is nothing stopping
Submitted by johnny3144 on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 11:08am
there is nothing stopping you to hook your PC onto a 42inch LCD TV... DVI to HDMI cable are 6 dollars....
Submitted by tehR0XX0Rz on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 4:48am
Oh, I forgot Grand Theft Auto IV. Please, run that one on your $500 supper-l33t ninja-powered PC.
Submitted by johnny3144 on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 11:02am
1. GTA 4 is poorly ported to PC, lots of performance issue.not the fault of PC, just badly ported
2. even if it's poorly ported, it will still run on my 500 dollar PC! Look down.
Submitted by tehR0XX0Rz on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 4:43am
In the day, there were these incredible smacktards who would brag they were getting unreal performance in the latest game, even with unreasonable hardware, because they were—as we were being lead to believe—l33t computer demi-god ninjas. I see they are still around:
"This card will run all of these games that are out now with flying colors"
"if you want a computer that can play games to the same standard as
consoles, 500 dollar should cover it. i did it, with 430 CAD(that's
around 350USD)"a AMD 3600+ X2 and a 4670 would be definately on par, if not surpass any console out there."
Funny thing about console games: they're actually designed to run on existing hardware. PC games, on the other hand, are getting lost in a elitist and marketing-driven tech war, often designed for technology two and three years down the road. It's becoming commonplace to take a new game home and find it plays poorly on the very expensive rig you built last week. Doom 3, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and Crysis are high-profile titles that exemplify the problem perfectly.
Hardware manufacturers and the media capitalize on growing frustration and desperation to run high-profile titles with acceptable settings by pimping PCs that cost as much as a compact automobile and multiple, high-dollar video cards.
Imaginative trolls aside, no one is going to build a $500 PC to play Crysis maxed out.
The PC Gaming Alliance is nothing more than a cheap spin factory. The industry has deep-running flaws no one wants to admit. How many PC gaming mags has died in the past few years? Ever notice how thin the remaining title has become? There's a freakin' reason for it, and it's not because the market is doing better thann ever.
The only thing that's recession-proof is some people's imagination.
What the heck is with the
Submitted by atomaweapon on Sat, 03/28/2009 - 7:07pm
What the heck is with the console snobbery? To the dude who thinks "consoles are for lazy minded people" - what kind of asshole minded jerk off statement is that?
Consoles have their place in the gaming world just like pc gaming does. When's the last time you and a buddy could sit down at your pc and play a two player game? When's the last time you saw bad ass CG intros like that of final fantasy of Heavenly Sword? I can't think of any game within the last few years that can rival the cinematic games that come out on my ps3.
And I'm not hating on PC gaming because I am also an avid PC gamer. I'd challege you to find someone who didn't start gaming on nintendo then graduate to PC gaming. There are good games for both, so don't be such a douchebag.
Submitted by johnny3144 on Sat, 03/28/2009 - 8:15pm
i don't think CGs on final fantasy or heavenly sword is really a pro for consoles. sony just happen to made a deal with the developers to make it console exclusive. there isn't anything stopping it to be played on PC.
however, i do agree consoles makes kickass party entertainment. i think it's time for developers to make split screen on PC... or even better, dual monitor for multiplayers! something for the PCGA to work on :)
if the PCGA can make practical method to bring local multiplayer on PC, i will admit they are useful :p
Submitted by MarioJP on Sat, 03/28/2009 - 6:55pm
This is a interesting report because i find myself not only playing games on my pc more but also using it as a multimedia needs. Hulu,Myspace videos and episodes,youtube,net flix. Added bonus is i can minimize my game and do a quick email or quick im reply without having to exit the game and when i am done i just go back to the game.
Key thing here is pc's are serious multitasking platform. Also hardware to build a kick ass gaming rig is really cheap. For example a 4870 1gb GDDR5 now cost like a budget card but without the "budget performance
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801
This card will run all of these games that are out now with flying colors i have a asus 1080P 21.5" monitor.
I Currently have a 3870 512 which i have been using for 1 year and 3 months and still going. But as a pc gamer and pc enthusiast i love new technology so soon i will be replacing my card.
Submitted by BruceB on Sat, 03/28/2009 - 6:33pm
I hate console interfaces with a capital H. Consoles are for lazy minded people who dont understand machines.
I love the proggres of technology and love building my own. I am in control of my own machine. I dont like out of the box proprietary crap. I can buy my parts readily. And also to respond to an earlier comment,games on a good PC are way better than a dumb box.
+1 I built a HTPC, and it
Submitted by yogurt80 on Sat, 03/28/2009 - 4:51pm
+1
I built a HTPC, and it does everything but the laundry and dishes.
Granted the average gamer
Submitted by I Jedi on Sat, 03/28/2009 - 2:57pm
Granted the average gamer who only sticks to games, watches movies, and plays music would be mostly attracted to said console systems out there. However, the computer offers a much more wider range of options for PC gamers. For example, PC gamers are more able to edit, modify, and in some cases, almost entirely recreate entire virtual worlds. E.g. HL2: DM, CS:S, etc, etc. Whilst the Xbox has some games, such as Halo 3, where you can add, modify, and do a couple neat things in game, but nothing on the scale that the PC gaming side has to offer.
Generally speaking, a lot of PC gamers I know spend a lot of time learning about server side scripting for game servers, learning web scripting, like phpBB, and other things that most gamers on the PC use to connect and talk. I don't know if I can say the same for console based gamers... Where everything is spoon fed to them, like Bungie's own ability to create a clan personal site within minutes.
To wrap this all up. Not only does the average PC gamer gain more experience with web coding, server managment, but they also have a much more wider access to user-created content than consoles can currently offer. Not only does a PC gamer have more fun, in my opinion, but they also learn about things along the way.
Worth the investment? We think so.
Submitted by MeTo on Sat, 03/28/2009 - 2:06pm
"When you add up the cost of an HDTV as well as the console and accessories, it’s a big setback for a single purpose device."
1st if people buy a console they probley allready have a big screen TV.
2nd consoles are not I repeat not a single purpose device.
I don't know what these people are puting in there tea.
On my PS3 I can surf the internet,play games,watch Blue ray movies,DVD movies,play music. $400.00
On my xbox 360 i can play games,watch DVD movies,watch netflix movies,play music. $200.00
On my Wii I can surf the internet,play games $249.00
On my game computer i can play games,the internet,play music,DVD movies. $1000.00
With the money you save when you buy a console you can buy a lot of games & movies.
Did i forget to mention in our bad economy console machines and games are selling like hot cakes.
Submitted by johnny3144 on Sat, 03/28/2009 - 6:08pm
i just gotta ask... where you got 1000 dollar computer from? if you gonna compare them, then do it right. don't use PC hardware price from few year ago comparing to the console price today.
if you want a computer that can play games to the same standard as consoles, 500 dollar should cover it. i did it, with 430 CAD(that's around 350USD)
a AMD 3600+ X2 and a 4670 would be definately on par, if not surpass any console out there.
so for 500 dollar, you got a computer that can edit video, play video(DVD, flash videos, digital stored media), play music, play games, actually store lots medias(320gb vs 40GB offered on standard PS3, and do much much more. if you still gonna argue PS3 can replace a PC, write your response with your console and time yourself.
consoles are really popular because
a) most people don't understand PC games can look and play much better than games on console.
b) OEMs sell really really shitty entry level gaming rig.
Submitted by MeTo on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 7:54am
Tell me what $500.00 PC will play 3D games at 1080p on a 42" LCD. It ain't gona happen. Nuff said.
Submitted by johnny3144 on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 11:29am
here, i will give you a actual list of parts...
CPU:
AMD 3600+ X2(i overclocked the one i built with the motherboard below to 2.35ghz) - $55.99
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=013046&cid=CPU.907
Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 $74.99
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=020491&cid=MB.350
Case:
Cooler Master Elite 334 Black Mid Tower Case $49.99
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=022122&cid=CS.664
PSU:
cooler master eXtreme power 500W $50.49
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171031
RAM:
OCZ (OCZ2P800R22GK) DDR2 PC2-6400 800MHz Platinum XTC Revision 2GB $24.99 after rebate
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=010870&cid=RAM.346.307
Hard drive:
Seagate Barracuda 7200 SATA 3.0Gb/s 80GB 8M(since we are doing a direct comparson, i will use 80GB, which more than most console have anyways) $42.99
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=008762&cid=HD.443.877
GPU:
Powercolor AX4870 512MD5 $192 after rebate
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131140
OR
EVGA GTX 260 $215 after rebate
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130370
total with 4870 = $491.44 CAD(note it's not USD)
total with GTX 260 = $514.44 CAD(note it's not USD)
1 U.S. dollar = 1.23719962 Canadian dollars
in your words, "nuff said"
EDIT: oh i forgot ODD, add 30 CAD to the price above, and it's still well under 500 USD
so with GTX 260, the total comes down to $440USD. take the extra 60 dollar left to upgrade your CPU or motherboard or something. if you really don't have a mouse and keyboard somewhere in your house(hard to believe).... go buy yourself a 5 dollar mouse and a 5 dollar keyboard.
Submitted by sasquatch42 on Sun, 03/29/2009 - 9:02am
Athlon X2 7750, $65
GTS250, $150
decent AM2 mobo, $75
2GB DDR2 RAM, $25
everything else (PSU,HDD,ODD,Case) can be easily covered by your $175 still in your budget if you spend wisely
Submitted by shellpc on Sat, 03/28/2009 - 2:49pm
On a pc you can also rip your music collection. Edit your photos and home movies. Record tv shows and movies similar to a TiVo. Do word processing and other productivity duties. Check email. Run or even write your own software for whatever need you may have. The pc is a better deal even if you don't use it to its full potential.
There's also alot more mods and custom content for pcs than consoles and pcs can be upgraded, which not only makes them last longer than a console, but saves you money down the line as you don't have to buy a completely new box every time you upgrade.
Plus a tv is something to consider if you don't have one. I haven't owned a tv in years and the last one I did own was nearly 10 years old so it definitely wasn't an HDTV.
Submitted by Rob86 on Sat, 03/28/2009 - 3:21pm
I have to agree, on a pc there is so much more that can be customized, not to mention the fact that the graphics have a lot more settings then a console and the games tend look nicer. Plus you can always upgrade instead of buying a whole new unit. Consoles have a purpose but they are much more streamlined then a pc is. I'm also very partial to the controls on the pc I have never liked the controllers that consoles use.
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