PCG Article PC is the most 'dominant' it's been

[ZedClampet]

Thought this deserved its own thread.

PC is the most 'dominant' it's been this decade as two-thirds of devs say they're targeting the platform

Well, naturally.

www.pcgamer.com

When asked to select every platform their current projects were in development for, 66% of the over 3,000 devs surveyed by GDC selected PC, far and away ahead of the next most-popular platform: PS5 at 35%. GDC calls the humble personal computer "the dominant platform"...

All bow to the master platform.

According to Google Bard (often as accurate as throwing darts with your eyes closed), PC game sales surpassed both Playstation and Xbox sales by over $20 billion.

The PC version of games sometimes sells more copies than Playstation and Xbox combined.

Not only is PC gaming more affordable and cost effective than console gaming in the long-term (thanks to games usually working forever instead of needing to be rebought every time you get a new PC, deep discounts on games, bundles and servers being free--you have to pay a monthly fee for both Xbox and Playstation), but PC also has a few more games than console.

Playstation 5 games: 650 (est)
Steam games released in 2022: 12,000 (est)

 

[Colif]

technically, programming for an Xbox is the same as a PC so how much cross over is there?

 

[ZedClampet]

technically, programming for an Xbox is the same as a PC so how much cross over is there?

I don't know, but if 100 games come out every year for Xbox and 12,000 games come out every year on PC, then that 66 percent versus 35 percent from the survey is not even close. And based on my going through the games every month, many/most of them look like real games. I mean, I obviously haven't played them, or even looked at nearly all of them, but just based on the looks of the ones I do look at, most appear to be genuine efforts at producing good games.

 

[Zloth]

Another business article from another site:

Infographic shows how the PC has fared against other platforms over 50+ years of gaming

Visual Capitalist's infographic of the video games market since 1970 highlights how much the industry has grown and evolved over the years. From 1971 when arcades made...

www.techspot.com

The second graph in this article makes me wonder if PC gaming is benefitting more than the other platforms from mobile gamers "stepping up" to PC games. Some of that is the stack-nature of the graph, though.

 

[Brian Boru]

mobile gamers "stepping up" to PC games

Seems an odd 'step' to me. Surely console is the intermediate step between mobile and PC?

I suppose mobile—that's phone & handheld, right?—is eating console's lunch, so maybe there's not much point going to console. But the change to PC is still pretty big.

Great chart tho, and love the top image too!

 

[Colif]

12000 games. lots of games doesn't necessarily mean good. I see retro consoles advertised with 100k games and you just know there are a lot of clones there.

Those 1000 on Xbox could have been cream of crop or not - (I don't have any stake in this, just saying). there is more cross over between PC and Xbox than there is PS5... and it would make sense to want your game on as many platforms as possible, and if making for Xbox isn't a big jump, why not.

I don't care who is winning, Its not really a race. Nintendo just goes along as if nothing changed.

 

[Zloth]

I suppose mobile—that's phone & handheld, right?—is eating console's lunch, so maybe there's not much point going to console. But the change to PC is still pretty big.

Well, the change from mobile games to Cyberpunk or Control certainly is a big one. What about changing from mobile to DOTA 2 or Counter Strike 2? Both of those games are 10+ years old now. Nearly all functioning PCs can play them. Lots of the mobile games have PC editions, too. If a mobile player's phone breaks, they can get their fix on their old PC. Then maybe they decide that having a screen bigger than your hand is kinda nice, and they stick around.

 

[Brian Boru]

I don't care who is winning, Its not really a race

It is a race in a way, for the priority attention of devs and pubs. They will dev for and market to the bigger platforms, so it helps us have better quality games if PC is on top. We've had plenty of headlines about lousy PC ports during the 10s—I still shudder at Far Cry 3's UI.