Remedy blames “very competitive window” for Wake figures, insists IP has “legs”

macronia said:
July 12, 2010 at 8:44 pm
i think we will see alan wake on PC .. i can sense that
but later

It’s inevitable isn’t it. 5+ years of development and only to get back 145K sales in a month is more than disastrous for MS/Remedy.

Gekidami said:
The publishers remain EA, Ubi, Act and others. And whilst the distributors dont publish their sales figures the publishers often tell us how many one of their games has sold across all platforms. Theres no reason they’d leave DD figures out of their PR and out of their profit reports.

But, you’re just pushing generalisations there. How can you say the above if there is no evidence what-so-ever to back up your claims?

All you’re doing is pissing in the wind!…

@52 I’m pretty sure you realize you’ve gone off the tracks by now.

Quite naturally the publishers keep track of who is selling their games, and their numbers quite unequivocally, without any need of enterpretation show that consoles are outselling the PC by about 5 to 1.

The digital distributors might not release their own internal figures to the public, but the spreadsheets of the businesses providing them with their product are indisputable.

DeSpiritusBellum said:
July 12, 2010 at 9:21 pm
@52 I’m pretty sure you realize you’ve gone off the tracks by now.

Quite naturally the publishers keep track of who is selling their games, and their numbers quite unequivocally, without any need of enterpretation show that consoles are outselling the PC by about 5 to 1.

Again you’re just pushing generalisations. Where is your evidence to back up your claims? 5 to 1? Did you just pull that figure out of your ass!

What you’re saying is nothing more than pure and utter gobshite.

@53 Like i said, DD distributors not releasing their figures is healthier for the PC fanboys more then anything else. Unfortunately for them its a flimsy shield to hide behind.

Gekidami said:
July 12, 2010 at 9:30 pm
@53 Like i said, DD distributors not releasing their figures is healthier for the PC fanboys more then anything else. Unfortunalty for them its a flimsy shield to hide behind.

I’m still waiting for this evidence of yours?! Don’t generalise about a topic if you can’t back it up with solid facts.

It just makes you look like an incompetent asshole!

@54 Well, my idea of fun isn’t to sit around looking at earnings reports, but I’ll humor you.

Here’s Electronic Arts earnings report per Q4 2010:

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=443622

As you can quite clearly see, the total revenues gained from consoles over the last year is 3,39 billion dollars versus the PC sales of 940 million dollars. That’s a ratio of 4 to 1 in favor of the console market, and that’s not counting the handheld consoles, or indeed the mobile market.

If you want further documentation you can just check out the earnings reports of other publishers yourself. Like I said, it’s no mystery, everything is quite transparently reported.

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/steam-unable-to-share-sales-data

If publishers were doing that bad on the platform then they wouldn’t release their games. Simple as. This isn’t the case though as the competition is healthy on the platform.

By the way, your document above gives sales for every platform combined. Not specifically PC. Did you even look at it. Try again!

“Digital distribution sales figures belong to publishers, according to Valve, allaying hopes for global digital distribution sales charts.”

Did you even read what was written? Thats just saying why we wont see a DD chart, but actually confirms that publishers have the DD sales figures.

@58 You might want to look a bit closer. Check out the section clearly labeled “Platform Net Revenues”. You’ll see they account seperately for every single platform.

And that link says nothing except that digital distributors want to keep quiet about what they’re making, and what the publishers are selling.

The publishers don’t get to choose whether they want to hide their income or not, they’re required by law as a company to account for everything they earn and lose quite meticulously.

And you’re right, PC games are still making money, and PC gaming isn’t going to die as long as that’s the case, but consider the fact that most publishers who make 4 billion in revenues only ever see about 900 million of those in raw profits if they’re lucky, and then consider the fact that the PC has the lowest share of that profit anywhere but MMOs, and it’s not hard to see why consoles are getting a lot of attention.

@59

Yeah, but they DON’T release them to the public like NPD, Chart Track, hence why nobody knows the specific number of digital download sales on the platform.

Are you getting this?

Either you’re trying to use strawman arguments, or you need to go back and read this from the start. No body ever said that distributors did publish their sales figures. but that the games publishers did in their financial reports and when they announced how much a game had sold across all platforms.

@61 I don’t think you quite understand. Steam might be able to hide what they’re making for themselves, but they still have to report it to EA, who in turn add those numbers to their revenues in their quarterly earnings reports. Ultimately, a sale on Steam counts as much as a sale in retail. It’s all added to the report.

Thus you get a subtotal view of what’s being sold on the PC, whether it’s through retail or digital. The numbers simply aren’t attributed to the the various distributors.

@63

Jesus, talk about communication breakdown. You aren’t getting this. Period.

@64 You keep telling yourself that.

Ultimately all PC sales are tracked by the publishers. You don’t need Steam or anyone else to get a hold of them, just grab a neatly made out earnings report. As a public company, they’re required by law to make those available.

It’s all there in black and white, unless you want to keep pretending they’re not. Hint hint.

Now, looking closer at that same earnings report you see that PC is 17% of net revenue, compared to 360′s 28%, PS3′s 19% and Wii’s 16%. Releasing the same game on 360 and PC are nearly identical platforms, so theres no way they’ll ever STOP releasing on PC as long as it brings in as much as an individual console and cheaper to port to than PS3 or Wii.

tl;dr: your a moran, shut up

@66 That wasn’t the argument at all. PC gaming is going to be supported as long as it makes money, as I said above – Which it does.

The question was whether the PC market is as attractive to publishers as the console market.

Having looked around, just to shut this down, the numbers over the last reported fiscal year for four major publishers look like this (PSP/DS/Mobiles excluded):

Ubisoft (Reporting in percentages):
Consoles: 62% of revenues
PC: 11% of revenues

5,7 times more revenue.

Activision (MMO income excluded):
Consoles: 1,45 billion
PC: 108 million

13,5 times more revenue

Take Two:
Consoles: 1,63 billion
PC: 120 million

13,5 times more revenue

Electronic Arts:
Consoles: 2,2 billion
PC: 689 million

3,2 times more revenue

@67 Not really fair to put both the 360 & ps3 as consoles and count their revenue against one single system.
Also not all games are made for pc either, look at Take Two and red dead redemption. It’s not hard to buff the console revenue when you add games that isnt released for pc.

^Its the PC crowd that calls this “Console Vs. PC”. And anyway, considering the PC’s install base it is actually quite fair.