I couldn't agree more drl21, and I'd bid you up if it weren't for my bidding being suspended (Apparenly bidding down 3 legitimately useless posts from the same person is a crime).
Where revenue is useful, is determining future movement in the industry and directly influences marketing and sales efforts/decisions in quarters to come. Simply to say more people have PCs only increases the potential market as you pointed out- but gives no indication as to why people are not buying games on PC.
Truth is, to the avg. consumer there are many reasons to not buy games on PC:
*Draconian and faulty copy protection *more reliable performance from dedicated chipsets *state of the art technology costs more than equivalent consoles.
I know all of the above will keep me from purchasing Diablo3....having not been too crazy about Diablo one and two, you can count out my PC as a potential licensee. If it were on PS3 I might at least buy it for posterity.
So, the question is how many others feel like I do, and conversely how many others actually liked Diablo 1&2 will not buy because of current PC gaming market conditions? How many of the last 6-8 million that bought diablo 2 will not buy diablo 3 for whatever reason? The folly is to assume that everyone and then some will buy the successive title.
This is an example why sales growth over the course of a series (1, 2...3 etc) is not linear, but a bell curve.
2
I couldn't agree more drl21, and I'd bid you up if it weren't for my bidding being suspended (Apparenly bidding down 3 legitimately useless posts from the same person is a crime).
Where revenue is useful, is determining future movement in the industry and directly influences marketing and sales efforts/decisions in quarters to come. Simply to say more people have PCs only increases the potential market as you pointed out- but gives no indication as to why people are not buying games on PC.
Truth is, to the avg. consumer there are many reasons to not buy games on PC:
*Draconian and faulty copy protection
*more reliable performance from dedicated chipsets
*state of the art technology costs more than equivalent consoles.
I know all of the above will keep me from purchasing Diablo3....having not been too crazy about Diablo one and two, you can count out my PC as a potential licensee. If it were on PS3 I might at least buy it for posterity.
So, the question is how many others feel like I do, and conversely how many others actually liked Diablo 1&2 will not buy because of current PC gaming market conditions? How many of the last 6-8 million that bought diablo 2 will not buy diablo 3 for whatever reason? The folly is to assume that everyone and then some will buy the successive title.
This is an example why sales growth over the course of a series (1, 2...3 etc) is not linear, but a bell curve.
But I've digressed. Sorry folks!