Xbox One Exclusives Go To PC

[Dogg Thang]

That's good. Nice to see it still being viable.

[Neon Ignition]

I imagine the advances in tech slowing down and storefronts like Steam removing the installation issues of old have helped things along. I think SNK attributed PC sales to helping them stay afloat

[Asura]

Are PC games lucrative at all? I would have thought with the crazy Steam sales that they may sell in big numbers eventually but not actually make that much money. No idea about any actual figures though - total speculation on my part.

More console games than ever are released on PC so presumably the answer is yes.

It's actually a murky picture.

Firstly, ignore stuff like World of Warcraft, Team Fortress 2 or Call of Duty, because they pretty much write their own rules.

Generally, console gaming is far more lucrative on a per-user/per-copy basis, partially because you're more likely to sell copies at full price - especially boxed. However, a big part of releasing console games on PC is that with Steam, they have a very long shelf life. You can still buy some games on Steam now that came onto the service very early in its life, and people still do buy these games in the sales - whereas on console, you're unlikely to make money with them.

This may change, gradually, as the console audience matures and people in general become more au fait with digital purchases (this is rapidly happening).

When it comes down to it, most console games are released on PC because they're developed on PC. No matter how exclusive a title is, it starts life as a PC game up until a point in its development.

So yeah, it depends very heavily on the game, whether it relies on DLC, the pricepoint...

[Brad]

Depends which platform is generating decent profits though, i would hazard a guess and say the console division is a lot more profitable than the pc games division for MS themselves.

I reckon PC gaming is very profitable for Valve. Less so for MS because they're rubbish at it but perhaps they see the money there and are thinking that should be ours!

[EvilBoris]

Are PC games lucrative at all? I would have thought with the crazy Steam sales that they may sell in big numbers eventually but not actually make that much money. No idea about any actual figures though - total speculation on my part.

Valve takes a Minimum of 30% of the total sale price of every single item sold on steam. Literally money for nothing. The exact same model that Apple/Google use with their app stores.

This is why the Steam sales have become a thing, because it's actually a way of stimulating transactions. Steam don't have to worry about margins on the product they sell, because it's sold totally ad hoc. This has driven a particular kind of consumer behavior , pushing PC prices down and down to the breaking point.
MS having their own store serves 2 purposes. It means they don't have to given away 30-40% of the profit they make on a PC game in a market that is almost exclusively digital and it does mean that they can also get a part of the money for nothing action should a game happen to generate revenue on their platform.
I think it's far less about control and more about just not having a part of a huge revenue stream that they are a major industry player within.

In regards to how successful a game is on PC:
The average game on Steam sells 32,000 copies. That ain't much. Even if you took an indie game with a budget of say ?2million would need to charge ?81 per unit if that was the kind of volume you were expecting...

There is a much wider aspect to PC gaming, that passes most of us by, but again it is where the big money is... Free to play. The Asian and Russian PC markets are insane. League of Legends has made $1billion in Microtransactions for 2015 alone, there are numerous other non-western MMOs and MOBAs that rake it in also.
That is where the big PC money is ...the casuals.

This is why MS keeps creating these F2P variations of their large franchises, Russia got the Free to Play Halo Online and they've recently announced Forza Apex for the rest of the world.

[Team Andromeda]

More console games than ever are released on PC so presumably the answer is yes.

I wound't go quite that far and tbh I don't see the big fuss . They are different systems meant for different users . It never hurt or took away from PC's when the likes of Half-Life, Quake, Duke ect all made the jump to consoles and do not see the big fuss when console games (even console exclusives) make the jump to PC. Never bothered me at all when SEGA were ported Saturn and DC games to the PC;

Given that most games are developed on the PC, Its just seems a ease and painless way to make easy money. Its more of a BIG deal when console exclusives make the jump to a rival console , that is a game changer imo

[Family Fry]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...elopment-on-pc

Meanwhile Epic turn on their former ally MS by attacking Microsofts PC platform plans

Didn't take them long to jump back onboard.

Phil Spencer: UWP is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, and can be supported by any store. Broad range of tools.

Tim Sweeney's reply.

I like the sound of this, and look forward to thorough technical details on UWP's planned openness at //build.

[Digfox]

I did some further reading tonight and in answer to my own question, of course Microsoft?s published games are being sold exclusively through their own store. I hadn?t fully understood what UWA meant or were...doh!

The question 'Are PC games lucrative at all?' is a loaded one because of course they are and the PC gaming scene is so expansive and diverse that you have a wide range of successful games in every single corner or genre imaginable. I took the wording to mean are 'traditional' console retail releases worth selling on PC.

Generally, console gaming is far more lucrative on a per-user/per-copy basis, partially because you're more likely to sell copies at full price - especially boxed.

I think this is changing. Although it's impossible to get detailed sales figures clues are pointing to the PC accounting for more and more of multiplatform games sales.

http://gamerant.com/the-witcher-3-sa...-consoles-125/
https://www.vg247.com/2015/07/10/ubi...xbox-one-lags/

Of course Steam and more digital storefronts have helped PC sales increased, but I do wonder if stagnant/declining console sales is also a contributing factor.

Valve takes a Minimum of 30% of the total sale price of every single item sold on steam. Literally money for nothing. The exact same model that Apple/Google use with their app stores.

This is why the Steam sales have become a thing, because it's actually a way of stimulating transactions. Steam don't have to worry about margins on the product they sell, because it's sold totally ad hoc. This has driven a particular kind of consumer behavior , pushing PC prices down and down to the breaking point.
MS having their own store serves 2 purposes. It means they don't have to given away 30-40% of the profit they make on a PC game in a market that is almost exclusively digital and it does mean that they can also get a part of the money for nothing action should a game happen to generate revenue on their platform.
I think it's far less about control and more about just not having a part of a huge revenue stream that they are a major industry player within.

In regards to how successful a game is on PC:
The average game on Steam sells 32,000 copies. That ain't much. Even if you took an indie game with a budget of say ?2million would need to charge ?81 per unit if that was the kind of volume you were expecting...

There is a much wider aspect to PC gaming, that passes most of us by, but again it is where the big money is... Free to play. The Asian and Russian PC markets are insane. League of Legends has made $1billion in Microtransactions for 2015 alone, there are numerous other non-western MMOs and MOBAs that rake it in also.
That is where the big PC money is ...the casuals.

This is why MS keeps creating these F2P variations of their large franchises, Russia got the Free to Play Halo Online and they've recently announced Forza Apex for the rest of the world.

A few things sprang to mind reading this:

1. Don't forget Sony, Nintendo and MS take the same or similar cut of PSN, eShop and Live. But as you point out if you can build your own storefront then you essentially cut these cost out even if you introduce new ones.
2. That Steam statistic will include such a large range that even those thousand of 19p and cheap games offset the numbers. It's very likely PSN and Live have low numbers for some games. As per above I think the PC as a percentage of a particular game sales is more interesting.
3. Whilst definitely happening sooner and more prominent on PC, I think f2p is permeating all formats. There is a growing library of f2p games on console and games that are mixing in micro-transactions on all formats. So there are regional PC markets and global phenomenon like League of Legends but there are and have been many 'non-f2p' successes on PC as well.

[EvilBoris]

The 2 most high profile Titles of Late, the Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 had about 30% of their total sales come from PC. Those franchises have always had a huge PC following, so I think they are the exception rather than the rule, I'd be interested to see what % of sales for a PC game comes from other large franchises , your Fifa, Assassin's Creeds and CODs, I'd expect it to be much lower.

[Asura]

I think this is changing. Although it's impossible to get detailed sales figures clues are pointing to the PC accounting for more and more of multiplatform games sales.

Yeah; my post wasn't really definitive - I was just trying to say that it's quite a complex picture, depending heavily on the title in question.

[Digfox]

The 2 most high profile Titles of Late, the Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 had about 30% of their total sales come from PC. Those franchises have always had a huge PC following, so I think they are the exception rather than the rule, I'd be interested to see what % of sales for a PC game comes from other large franchises , your Fifa, Assassin's Creeds and CODs, I'd expect it to be much lower.

I would be reasonably comfortable to hazard a guess that the PC versions of most multiplatform games are now trading blows with their console counterparts (volume wise). And possibly in some cases even selling more units than the Xbox One version. If that's the case then that's a big change in the patterns we have historically seen. Fifa would be one example though where I'm not sure PC sales would be close. Up until recently the PC version has long been behind in feature and development compared to the console games.

[Neon Ignition]

http://gearnuke.com/xbox-one-scalebound-forza-horizon-3-pc/

A rumour that Horizon 3 is PC bound. If this pans out, going forward, does that just leave Halo? Maybe Crackdown 3?