Michael Pachter: PC Gaming has become a niche

[Eusis]

News blurb.

I've seen other news stories commenting on that analyst's words, and 1up links to Gamustra's report, but... Hmm. What do you guys think? If Microsoft is successful, that may change, but it seems true to me.

[John]

I think that while box sales are certainly down, people are becoming more content to buy a game at $50, and then continue to pay a fee to add onto that game.  Look at World of Warcraft.  It's had 6 million+ box sales, and is number 1 just about every week in sales.  That's a big number, but it's far from what Vivendi makes total on the game.  With the amount of subscribers the game has, the net from non-box sales is nearing one billion dollars a year.

It's far from dead, but the numbers aren't coming from the same places analysts have looked in the past.

[Eusis]

Hmmm. Given my brother's amount of WoW gaming compared to anything else, you're right about that.

[Leo]

I've had an outdated PC for several years, so I'm in no position to start playing high-end PC games, but that is the issue. If the PC games market is to grow, then, as the article suggests, Intel and AMD/ATI should create affordable hardware. The games are already there, so I don't believe that's the problem.

Another potential issue can be the level of difficulty of installing the game. Sometime ago, I bought Tribes 2 used, and I couldn't start it up for the life of me. There was an error, and I needed some patch, but when I tried it, even that didn't work.

[Morwan]

Look at World of Warcraft.  It's had 6 million+ box sales, and is number 1 just about every week in sales.  That's a big number, but it's far from what Vivendi makes total on the game.  With the amount of subscribers the game has, the net from non-box sales is nearing one billion dollars a year.

I would take that as an indication that PC gaming is becoming a niche, albeit for different reasons than the article suggests. MMOs require a large time commitment, something many people aren't willing to buy into. While there is potential for growth in that market, it's small compared to the rest of the gaming population.

[Hidoshi]

I think it's way too early to call anything 'niche'. Niche only applies when the market shrinks to the point that it's actually somewhat rare to find someone who owns or plays something of a kind. Shin Megami Tensei is still a niche series for instance, but it's starting to grow out from that in the West. If PC gaming's going niche, we might as well say PSP is a niche console, and not in fact a mainstream handheld. Let's face it, millions of people are still going for PCs. Otherwise SOE would be shit outta luck on most of their titles. How many people play Everquest II, Star Wars Galaxies, etc?

With things going multi-platform, yes, PC gaming may become niche, but that won't happen for years. The word probably won't be truly applicable until consoles become a bit more open-concept and let you swap out graphic cards, etc.

Analysts just like to jump the gun the minute they see a depression anywhere in the market. Look out folks, crude oil's becoming niche!