from last thread





Heres what pete hines told me about sales on consoles : @KenjiSenpai I actually don't know what the number is. I haven't looked. But if I had to guess, 90% probably isn't far off.


they have no reasons to lie to us. and to add to that just today i went to a conference by one of the co-foundator of Behavior Interactive (A2M) and the numbers where pretty close. they had to stop making pc games and now they dropped the game WET 2 because AAA dont make money. also, they are saying that they had to change the type of games they were making and that the crash of 2008 did in fact affect the industry unlike alot of people think. now they have to rely on facebook games and micro-transaction games or they wont make it.

WET 2 got dropped because WET 1 svcked, not because no one buys PC games.

Edit: There is no way in hell OB only sold 500,000 copies on PC. I think you have your facts wrong.

Consoles are way more mainstream these days for gaming. I don't know why this is a big deal though, bethesda obviously hasn't forgotten about PC (creation kit).

"90 percent of our audience is on the consoles"

The keyword here is audience. I don't know the exact numbers but in total, there are 80+ million console users(xbox 360+PS3). Todd Howard apparently sees every one of them as possible customers. And he is right, they qualify minimum required hardware for all the implications. With a PC game, realistically you can mention at most 20 million customer base for AAA titles. So 80-90 percent of their audience is really on consoles. Let's say only 5:1 will buy: 16 million on consoles and 4 million on PC. That's actually 80 percent if my math is correct. If Skyrim gets 8 million on PC then PC gamers would be getting better treatment for TES6.

PS. That's the only logical explanation I can get. Don't shoot me.
PPS. Actually, 8 million units on each console is unrealistic seeing even GoW can only get 5 million on X360. 10 million combined is more realistic. And Skyrim may get 5 million on PC alone. That warrants equal treatment right, and that's what PC gamers are getting: equal treatment... Nothing less, nothing more. Oh, resolutions will be higher. :toughninja:

Todd said 90% of their audience is on the consoles and Pete tweeted today "that's probably not far off".

"NPD reports that Oblivion represented approximately 13% of all PC game sales in the first week of its release, more than four times the sales volume of the next best selling title. (The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the highly-regarded predecessor to Oblivion, remains one of the top 25 best selling PC games nearly four years after its release, according to NPD)."

This is comparing OB to other PC games. It doesn't say that 13% of OB sales are on PC. This is also for "the first week of it's release". Your're not using the numbers right. I bet you the PC has more then 13% of OB's sales. That doesn't mean it has the majority though.

^This.

I do like Vtastek's explanation of the 10%.

In any case, whatever the % of sales for Oblivion corresponded to PC copies is not the best way to estimate Skyrim PC sales in 2011 because the market is so different today.

The PC sales numbers for fantasy RPGs released during 2011 are much more relevant.

The Witcher 2 - first game sold 1.2m PC physical copies - will be interesting to see how the sequel does

Dragon Age II - 235k PC physical copies during first 4 weeks (roughly 20-25% total units sold)

If anybody, I think Bethesda knows how many games were sold, and for what systems.

While I would certainly enjoy playing on a PC, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody said 90% of gamers can't afford a $800 PC,

How is having only 10% of game sales on PC going to affect the games that are being made, quality-wise?

more like $400 these days but ya. If PC gaming wasn't worth it Beth wouldn't even bother making mod tools or even the game.

Saying that the PC is less profitable then either console or even grouped for a dev/pub is debatable. The majority of Online games such as BF series charge for servers cost to run ranked to EA $10-15 a month of each ranked server (about 4k right now across all BF games) makes $40k a month even after the game is released

They don't build that for PC players though. They build that to make the game. All they do for us (and don't get my wrong, I appreciate it) is package it and put it up for download.

It's not just price. It's the lack of constant upkeep and the simplicity that appeals to people who buy consoles.

Seems PC users really got their feelings hurt by this dose of reality.

why would our feelings be hurt?

ya :hubbahubba: if minority means we get games with excellent new features that has never been in a previous games as found in this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfi9bJVF89Q I want to stay the minority.

lol, and most people who bought DA2 on console took it back!

Whilst it does seem to be lower than usual no matter how you cut it, "our audience" probably includes the Fallout franchise, and possibly even published Bethesda titles. As for the Elder Scrolls series, I'd say it was predominantly a PC gamer's franchise even after Morrowind's Xbox release. It wasn't until the GotY and later Oblivion that we began to see substantial console sales.

They've only showed total NPD sales, which does not include digital sales which would be about 70% of all oblivion sales mainly because everytime it goes on sale on steam it sales like hotcakes, and is one of the most owned games.

The majority of the gaming population has a console- whether they got it to play FPS or they didn't have the money to invest in a game-ready computer. There is a significant number of PC buyers for TES, so I'm not sure if those numbers are right. But for an average multi-platform game, 90% console sounds about right.

I would believe 10% if that means retail purchase. Steam proabably wasn't included...
Thats the only reason I can see for "10% on PC"

I dunno, but the outright disbelief of the numbers, with the developers backing it up is funny.

Hell the fact that people who are totally casual gamers (cod, halo, ea sports) want to get skyrim on the PC simply because EVEN THEY have heard about how much better the PC version of ES games are because of the inclusion of mods.

Oh you PC gamers. How your insecurities slay me.
It's funny how you're provided proof from 2 different sources, one being Bethesda themselves, and you still don't believe it. Hahahaha. Pride is funny.

These numbers aren't to be believed at all. The OP doesn't know how much sold on the PC and then he reads OB was 13% of the PC market for one week, and assumes it means that only 13% of OB's sales where on PC. The source isn't even talking about Xbox or PS3, and it doesn't say how much it sold. Just so you know 13% of the entire PC market is MASSIVE, because of all the classics and Indie games there are way more games on PC, and to have a game get 13% of all those sales is a lot. It's something that only blockbusters can do. They sold way more then 500,000 copies on PC, 500,000 is considered a failure in the gaming world, OB is one of the top selling PC games of all time, 500,000 sales wouldn't get them close to that list. The source talking about "target audience" also should be ignored. When businesses say "target audience" they aren't referring to the people they commonly sell too, there referring to everyone that can buy their games. There are way more console gamers out there, so it's obvious that their "target audience" would be mostly console gamers. That doesn't mean that PC copies aren't selling or PC gaming is dead, it means theres more potential for new costumers on consoles.

OB was before digital distributioin really took off too. I also am skeptical of the 500k number. I don't really care though. As long as it comes out for PC I'm happy.