Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

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It's rather interesting that contrary to the popular wisdom around here, general purpose computers are still preferred over locked-down electronic appliances. This is precisely the reason why iPads, iPhones and Androids are probably going to eat into the gaming consoles market.

The biggest problem of PCs is the fast evolution of hardware. When you buy a game for PS3, you know it will work well on your PS3. And when you buy a PS3, you know you'll keep finding games for it, even in 3 years from now. And I bet there are still titles released for PS2. That's the only advantage of console gaming and is quite a big one.

The fast evolution of mobile devices is actually a disadvantage for the kind of people that buy gaming consoles in the first place.

However, console gaming has been a niche for quite some time. This is not new. The exception was Nintendo's Wii, but that was just a fluke.

I'm really surprised that people think consoles are currently a niche market for games, after an example like Call of Duty selling 8.4 million copies in the US in a month, with almost all of the copies on consoles, not PC. And if ever there was a PC-friendly genre, it's the first-person shooter.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/31995/Exclusive_Black_Ops...

I'm really surprised that people think consoles are currently a niche market for games

http://boardgames.about.com/od/monopolyfaq/f/copies_sold.htm

According to Hasbro, as of early 2008, more than 250 million copies of Monopoly have been sold worldwide. (As of early 2003, the estimate was "more than 200 million copies.") The company estimates that nearly 500 million people have played Monopoly.

Anyone want to guess how many decks of playing cards, or chess sets have been sold?

There are some very big numbers for the oldest and most classic video games as well. Take a look at the estimated numbers for Super Mario Brothers. Or the entire Mario franchise.

The problem with your article is this sentence: "digital sales via outlets such as Steam not taken into account for this total"

Digital distribution dominates on the PC now, and if your figures don't take it into account, then your figures aren't very useful.

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