pc game sales have been trending upwards because there hasn't been a new high end consoles since 2006. the wii u just came out and you already see an explosion in console games sales! once the ps4 and xbox 720 come out gamers will shift their purchases toward consoles. it happens every time.
There is
not and explosion of console sales--software or hardware--surrounding the Wii U. It's already being threatened as a flop because the console is selling so poorly, and there are no real games for it.
Check out the top software sales for this past week (globally). There's only 2 Wii U games in the entire top 50. One of which is packaged with the console. So I don't buy for a second that consoles are driving sales through the roof in recent months. The reason is probably because the Wii U is kind of a poorly marketted underpowered "next-gen" console.
Look at the hardware sales. It hasn't even passed the PS Vita in sales numbers, a system that is widely considered a failure. Just look up sales numbers for the Wii U, it's not pretty.
you already see very few games developed solely for the pc and that trend will continue so long as microsoft continues to wall off its environment making it even harder for independent devs (the future of pc gaming) to develop and have their titles released at a low cost. valve knows this. they have already laid the groundwork for an easy way to get your new game out there (greenlight) and have been actively developing steam for linux and getting some of their older titles out there for linux. that is the future of pc gaming.
How is Windows walled off for Indie Dev's? As far as I can see there is a huge Indie Dev presence on Windows, and it's part of the reason why PC Gaming is thriving. I think you're misreading Valves intentions. Valve more than anything loves creating markets. When they started Steam digital distribution was not a feasible thing, and they now are the biggest and most valuable digital distribution platform on the internet. I've seen interviews where Gabe Newell cites analysts telling him in meetings that expanding Steam to Russia and China was suicide because there was "no market" due to piracy, and explaining that they have continually turned a profit in these territories. Linux is no different, there's a whole host of gamers that use Linux, or want to use Linux, but simply can't because nobody supports it. This could really force Microsoft to abandon dragging Windows and by extention the PC into a tablet-centric universe.
look at all the bloat in the huge game houses like EA. they keep consolidated. THQ had to sell off its game houses. Everyone has been complaining about the major drop in quality of UBIsoft games.
They are publically traded companies. They are held accountable to the stock holders, which means their hands are tied for the most part. If CoD sells $1B every year, they would be crazy not to keep making them. Ubisoft has always been a publisher drowning in crap, but they are actually one of the companies turning it around--Watch Dogs looks great, Far Cry 3 was awesome, the new Rayman looks awesome, and even AC3 wasn't too bad. THQ went under because they were making interesting but mediocre games and spending an arm and a leg to do it. I loved their Warhammer games, and SR3 was amazing, but outside of that they had almost nothing of quality--but still paid insanely to produce games.
The ones that are surviving are the ones directly linked to the console creators. microsoft, sony, ninentdo all have several of their own game dev studios pumping out games that are raking in the big bucks. at the same time they have all rolled out their own content delivery platform to rival what steam has done for the PC.
That is entirely not true. For
Nintendo only 1st Party games sell. Mario anything will sell a crapload, but Sony and Microsoft aren't the only people making money. Activision is making a ton of money off Call of Duty, EA made decent money on Mass Effect and BF3, 2K Games is always doing fine and Borderlands 2 was a huge success, Zenimax had a lot of success with Skyrim and associated DLC--and keep in mind, these are just Publishers. The studios and publishers that are going under for the most part had underlying problems. Usually paying way too much to make games that just aren't that good.
On top of that, the digital distribution on consoles is garbage. PSN is a pile of crap, I'll admit that. Xbox Live is okay, but when you're paying monthly just to use the service you're essentially overpaying for every aspect of the service. If Steam charged monthly nobody would use it--okay, maybe they would, but nobody compares when it comes to Steam Sales.
these are dark days but as gabe pointed out, we have a way out of it. a free and open platform is the future for pc gaming. adapt or die.
When exactly did he point that out? Everything I've read has him pretty optimistic about the future of the PC as a platform, to the extent of him expanding PC presence to the living room with small cost-effective HTPC's. Free and Open is ideal, but that's what PC Gamers are all about. Steam is DRM, I'll admit that, but it also offers more tools and better functionality than any other platform out there. Things like Steam Workshop and Steam Green Light are leading to amazing things in the world of PC Gaming, what does Xbox Live or PSN have by comparison?
Yeah um sure. Steam will have a Windows 8 app soon.
