Have console games eclipsed the PC game market?

[SpellAndShield]

It sure does seem so; point in case, the DA2 demo was released the other day and more than 75% of the people who downloaded it were Xbox or PS3 people. Also, over at Bioware forums there is a war being waged between so-called 'RPG old school' people (PC) and 'young teenage button mashers' (console) with the RPG people claiming that Bioware has sold out. I am far from an expert on this but it seems to be that consoles are where the money is and PC people (myself included) should be happy to ge anything at all.

[Herculine]

This may be true in the case of DA2, but I don't think it's true for gaming as a whole.

 

Console games are directed mostly toward a very specific target audience: individuals too young to have jobs yet or to buy their own computers, so their gaming experience is limited to what they can talk their parents into buying for them.

 

Personal computers are a prolific presence in our world and a part of our everyday lives, so I can't imagine PC gaming ever being totally eclipsed by consoles. The battle will rage on, this is certain, but neither side will ever truly win.

 

In the case of DA2 however, I just really don't know what the developers must be thinking.

[brokenergy]

DA2 console and PC version is developed simultaneously, the devs have said it many times. I don't see anything in the game that is "consolized". The graphics have nothing to do with the consoles but the engine itself. Also, you can issue commands and refer back to auto-attack by the radial menu in the final version of the consoles.

 

With that said, some "old-school RPGs" who complain and make up stuff on "how old games where complex" or "there was more depth in older games". I think their glasses are a little foggy because they weren't complex but frustrating and many skills are overlapping or useless. TES is a great example of skills that are useless and overlap, remember athletics and acrobatics? Sometimes, people's nostalgia of past games clouds them and they don't see that in today's games, things such as iso-view and overlapping combat system are useless when we are striving for realism in games. Ultimately, games should be fun, not back breaking. People should enjoy a game, instead of reading 300 page manuals and figuring out what this thing does and that. As an old-school RPGer, I believe that we should move the mechanics along and bring people into gaming, there is nothing wrong with that.

[JimboUK]

Depends on what type of games, take them all into account and the PC is by far the largest platform. People forget about the browser, flash, facebook and MMO games that many millions of people play every day. Sadly for "Proper" games consoles are where the money is and that's who Bioware are developing for, they pay lip service to PC gamers, nothing more.

[brokenergy]

You do know that ME was first a console game before expanded to PC right? And that BioWare has done that before with Kotor and JE? Games are for everyone, whether console or PC.