I feel like the PC gaming community is continuing to increase every year. I know more and more former console only people building or purchasing gaming PC's. Most of them site the disappointing latest gen consoles, as well as Steam sales as reasoning. I think that the current gen consoles with their pay to play online requirements, lackluster hardware, and mediocre games, have pushed a lot of people over the edge to PC gaming. Hopefully, an increasing amount of PC gamers will encourage better quality development for PC games, the reduction of shitty console ports etc.
Developers do whatever publisher tells them to do, publishers care only about money . So sometimes devs have downgrade pc graphics so the difference is not as big. Often pc versions have silly limitations because games engines are optimised for consoles so no multiple gpu support or 30 fps locks are in place.If pc was dominating the market situation might have been different. I have a feeling that devs/ publishers are trying to squeeze extra few millions $ from pc owners with as little effort as possible, doing pc port during final months of development, or even hire 3rd party to do quick conversion for pc. As long as consoles give most of the profits to major devs/ publishers there is no chance for the situation to change for triple A games.Might take many years for the situation to change if pc market keeps gaining the ground
And I can see why. More and more games and gettings remakes, remasters and complete overhauls for PC exclusively. I just bought Sonic & All Star racing transformed for pc, I must say that I am impressed to find such game on pc.
About the hardware side of things, it so much easier now than 6-7 years ago. Hardware is much more standard and you can find quality stuff at good price. New pc builders can find a lot of information on youtube and build themsemlves.
i think it has a lot to do with what kids watch on Youtube, most of their favorites are people like pewdiepie, my little nephews love him, most of the Youtubers play pc games and the kids want to play the same games, minecraft only got huge with kids after they released it on the xbox360 and this aint gonna happen with all games. this combined with games like Lol which are now getting coverage on espn all adds to people wanting to play more PC games.
PC game sales have been going up for a while. I know we exceeded all three consoles combined for 2014. Still waiting to see if we managed it again in 2015.
Its gaining users but income per sold copy might be lower , pc users buy games during steam sales so profit per sold copy is lower than console copy.Also if vr was reasonably cheap and hardware was affordable pc market could gain a lot of users .Of course it all depends on people trying to sell you a horse armor hehe.
Another factor is that consoles just CAN'T keep up from a price to power perspective, and I think most console gamers are finally starting to accept that. I haven't really seen any performance arguments lately. I've only seen two types of console gamers recently, and those are the ignorant fanboys (who are usually younger kids or just dipshits, and pretty rare) and the people who just don't care to build and maintain a PC (which as someone who works nine hours, followed by three hours of school every weekday, I understand).
When the consoles first came out you could build an equally-priced desktop that would perform as well as a console (assuming you already have a copy of Windows). Maybe not run everything on 1080p at 60FPS, but consoles were still barely getting 30FPS at only 720p. The price of consoles has gone down (especially the Xbox One), but so has that same PC hardware because it's a few years old now.
I think people are also getting fed up with having to pay money just to use an online service, especially when both the Xbox and PS4 are plagued with server issues.
Steam Big Picture does a pretty good job at creating a console experience. Console gamers sometimes argue that they just wants to sit back on the couch and play some games; well you can do that on PC too. The only difference is to turn the power on for the computer you'd have to hit the power button on the computer instead of turning it on with your controller. I'm sure there's some sort of remote start, but that's more money you'd have to spend for something a console can already do.
About the only notable advantage consoles still have going for them is you don't have to build them, which sure you can get pre-built gaming PC's, but then they're going to be considerably more expensive than a console.
The biggest thing going is Consoles and PC's using the x86 architecture. Before Games were written for VLIW and then ported to the PC. Also the largest console maker (Microsoft) could use its OS monopoly to encourage console gaming. I remember going into a Gamestop store and asking "where are the PC games". PC gaming is dead was the reply. I hate console gaming but if you checkout the console troubleshooting forum you will see their biggest advantage. They always work. No BSOD's or driver issues. VLIW stagnated and AMD and Intel has pushed x86 far beyond what anyone suspected was achievable. It will be good for both patforms. If your a PC Gamer you are no longer factionless. :)
Shitty publisher will continue to tell devs to do whatever they want the dev to do. Indie developed titles will be the ones we should hope to slap those AAA publisher hard.
As for PC gaining ground, I have really conflicted view. As several articles had pointed out, Esport titles notably LoL, Dota 2, CSGO and other MOBAs/ARTS boost the figure a lot. The problem is that most players of these titles will not care or even play other games, in fact, I know people whose gaming life is on one of those games. Some even play only Dota and never heard of any other games, not even Call of Duty. They cannot stand story driven or anything not competitive.
While they play on PC, do they have a significant impact or influence? I don't think so.
But they don't always work. The previous generation of consoles was plagued with overheating issues, more-so on the the early 360 models than the PS3, but basically everyone I knew who had a first gen 360 got the red ring within a couple years of buying it. I bought two first-gen PS3's (refurbished) that both had graphics issues, which from what I've read was caused by crappy soldering and made worse by overheating, even after being "fixed".
I've owned both the Xbox One and the PS4 and had issues with both of them. Not as extreme as the red ring of death, but issues with stuttering, freezing altogether, or refusing to start or shut down properly. Sure, they're not hard to fix, usually just unplug, plug back in, hold down some weird combination of buttons to reset it or whatever and it's good, but the argument that consoles always work is just completely false. And I know I'm not the only person it's happened too because, like with most problems with new electronics, I Googled how to fix them and big surprise, a whole slew of other people who are having the same issue.
I never had any issues with my original Xbox, GameCube, N64, Genesis, PS2, or the Wii that I still have, but the current and previous generation of consoles just aren't as reliable. That argument is out the window and has been since the 360/PS3.
If you were being sarcastic just ignore this, it's hard to tell over text.