S_U_P_E_R X_P said:
Clovertown/Kentsfield wasn't an "attempt" as it worked and worked extremely well (shipping over a million units already). As I discussed 8 months ago and since, "native" means next to nothing when it comes to performance.

S_U_P_E_R X_P said:
It's not necessarily the CEO. It's what ever head honcho that decided to continue forward with the ATI buyout. I'm guessing it's a few members of the board and the CEO.


S_U_P_E_R X_P said:
That's a major difference between Intel and AMD. Intel almost always follows through with what makes business sense. It makes sense to get quad-cores out long before AMD could. They made millions if not billions because of it. And you wonder why AMD is falling apart...


S_U_P_E_R X_P said:
It's not "innovation" when a quad core already exists. This "native" rubbish AMD has been trying to sell isn't even patentable because that technology was already demonstrated with dual cores. All AMD accomplished with Barcelona is to, yet again, become Intel's bitch.


S_U_P_E_R X_P said:
Mark my words: Barcelona will never exceed 3 GHz stock on a chip. K8 just can't take it which means the whole concept of Barcelona is dead before it left the starting gate. Barcelona was intended, solely, to complete with a Netburst quad-core.


John Ingram said:
That's what those figures cover: all PCs sold for the year. Businesses probably account for more growth than homes do anyway.


John Ingram said:
I agree. Good data is always hard to come by because it involves so many entities.


John Ingram said:
I wouldn't say the quality is going down, just that things seem to be in a slump. All the good titles are in the works with 2008+ release dates. 2006 had many good games released including Hitman: Blood Money, Battlefield 2142, Sid Meier's Railroads, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Need for Speed Carbon, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Scarface: The World is Yours, Stronghold Legends, Company of Heroes, Just Cause, Flatout 2, Tomb Raider: Legend, Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II, True Crime: New York City, Rainbow Six: Lockdown, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, Jaws Unleashed, 18 Wheels of Steel: Haulin', and 25 to Life. Those are just the games (excluding expansion packs) I have played or wanted to play released in 2006. A complete (or close to) list can be seen here (almost 300 total):
http://www.3dgamers.com/games/Year2006/


John Ingram said:
Those are just two examples. Most of those I listed in that post (e.g. Battlefield, Starcraft) have sold over 1 million copies as well. The list found here isn't complete but gives an idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best_selling_computer_and...s_by_genre


John Ingram said:
Actually, it isn't. There's a lot of publishers which publish the nickel and dime stuff like Broderbund. My sister for instance loves ordering lots of like 5+ Reader Rabbit games for her kids where the game itself is free and all she has to pay for is shipping. Millions of those products are moved annually ranging from the bargain bins at Best Buy to the already included stuff when you buy a new computer. Perhaps the incline of including such software titles with OEM computers is resulting in the decline of retail sales? It's hard to tell for sure but it appears gaming overall is still strong.


John Ingram said:
If that were indeed true, there would be no publishers today for PC games.


John Ingram said:
Sounds like your mind is already made up in favor of a doomsday scenario. News flash, what you're saying has been said for almost two decades now and PC gaming is still strong. Without the PC to write those console games on and to engineer the hardware, consoles simply wouldn't exist.

Well it was Peter Molyneux of Lionhead that said that most publishers believe a PC only title cannot make money any more, hence the movve to console gaming for his company and more and more PC games either being ported to or from console not exclusively PC.

Your links also show that when looking at the highest selling games or the million selling games that excluding the Sims (its a phenomenon and has sold to non -gamers, ie people that own no other game) and Worlds of Warcraft, which operates on a different process where the numbers cannot be validated in the same way. (I have heard rumours that once you subscribe you stay on the subscribers list for the rest of the year even if you never log on again after that first time!) the best selling games are from a period prior to around 2002, with fewer and fewer as you come to modern times.

The lack of genres also has an impact. As if you had 150 sci fi RTS games and 150 fantasy RPG's released for PC, you would have 300 different titles released, but gamers would only buy two games, the best sci fi RTS and the best fantasy RPG. The hardcore gamers may buy the best and second best too, but nevertheless, in this extreme example sales will fall dramatically. As the genres shrink, a specific problem within PC gaming, not console gaming (where you can still get a Guitar Hero, for example) is this built in redundancy of games as many more just copy what has come before. After Company of Heroes, for example, many of the WWII RTS's seem very average all of a sudden, and I doubt many will sell well. This is always going to be a problem where very few genres are supported. PC Gaming did better 5+ years ago because there were many more eggs in many more baskets.

On PC a higher percentage of games sold are budget releases (in the above example, you may pay full price for Company of Heroes and then buy a couple of those 'ordinary WWII RTS's on budget six months later) , but as is well known money is not really made on budget releases. Neither is it made on those bargain bins you mentioned. And again I point out, if the only PC games being played are where someone orders 5 copies because they're free except for shipping then PC gaming will be dead.

Dead doesn't mean literally no one playing PC games. It means that it becomes practically invisible.

Like stamp collecting. No stores exist in the vast majority of towns and cities, most people wouldn't know where to buy stamps or the albums they go in, etc and would have to research it. To all intents and purposes stamp collecting is invisible, The average citizen doesn't think of it and doesn't see it in their daily life. It goes on, but it's 'dead' to them. The average citizen just does not think of it.

That's what I mean by a dead PC games market, a few hundred thousand games being sold via download and mail-order from small independent publishers. It will exist. Heck I expect the eBay retro section to grow exponentially as this happens, but it will be very specialist, not generic, competing with consoles, like it did up until a couple years ago. It will not be seen as in the same league as console gaming that is still in the public eye with game stores that carry the product and even general department stores; with reviews of games in the national and local press and specialist gaming magazines for the various formats available in local drugstores.

PC gaming is already becoming invisible. Here in the UK, last January, there was a TV show of the UK Gaming Awards. Between the award ceremonies, they had little 5 minute vignettes explaining the history of gaming. PC Gaming was not mentioned. In fact during the whole show the only time PC was mentioned was when they read out the nomination for Oblivion and said 'for PC and XBox'. That was the only time PC gaming was mentioned in the whole 90 minute show!I don't know about you, but things like that I find very scary!

John Ingram said:
Molyneux is a game designer (employee of a developing firm he jointly established), not a publisher. Lionhead Studios was purchased by Microsoft in order to get their popular titles on both XBox and Windows. Essentially, Microsoft is using Lionhead as an advertising ploy. Because XBox and Windows work on the same foundation, XBox is said to be an extension of Microsoft's Windows. Lionhead now appeals to both PC and console gamers.


John Ingram said:
That excludes C&C Renegade, 007 Nightfire, Mafia, and many more. That, I simply don't agree with.


John Ingram said:
You make so many assumptions (lots of "would's" and "will's") and I can tell you right now, most are in accurate. I know a lot of die hard Starcraft fans also own an assortment (or the whole collection) of Command & Conquer titles. They are both sci-fi but yet completely different. Another example is Close Combat compared to Company of Heroes: same genre (WWII RTS) but completely different styles of play brought about by being made over half a decade later and by different people. I think you need to try some of those games I listed and you will see just how varied they are.

John Ingram said:
If you sell ten, $5 games or you sell one, $50 game, you end up with the same amount of revenue.

The distributor which is offering that deal is the one paying for the disks.


John Ingram said:
Tell me why game design courses in colleges is booming then? There is a lot of interest and over the next decade or so as younger generations get involved in game development, things could really change.

John Ingram said:
In your opinion. Gamers don't like watching other people game so why would a gamer watch a gaming award? There is absolutely no demand. Gaming is not a spectator sport which is why it appears "invisible." On the other hand, look how much attention the press is giving it over games that cause controversy such as Grand Theft Auto.

You have to realize that comparing PC to console gaming is sort of like comparing Windows to Linux. The fundamentals are all the same, the only difference is which you prefer. Because XBox bridges the gap between consoles and PCs, ports from console to PC or the other way around have been more frequent (e.g. Halo, True Crime, Fable, etc.). This doesn't mean the death of PC gaming, it means a broader audience for very little additional expense which in turn means more profits.


Any way you shake it, PC gaming will be around for a long time yet.

Ford, all I will say, if it gives me any credence, is that I own and have played every single PC title you mentioned in your last post. When I bought Command and Conquer I didn't know about Starcraft or Company of Heroes, etc as they had not been released. But if they had all been released in the same year with the same editorial coverage and the same review scores I probably wouldn't have bought them all. Time is a factor and using examples of games that came out with gaps of up to 5 years between them do not count!

And it's not about the viewership or who watches award shows. It was the fact that within the show a total of 20 minutes was given over to the history of gaming and the PC was not mentioned as part of that! Heck the Commodore 64 was, but the PC wasn't! That is not good news whatever way you look at it.
.

But this year there are a lot of significant titles be released, like Command&Conquer 3, StarCraft 2, Crysis and Unreal Tournament III (althought UT3 maybe released in 2008).

Starcraft 2 is also due in 2008 I believe.

It's never about what games are due out, it's about how many copies they sell and whether that income satisfies the publisher.so that they release future PC titles. When you look at how few PC only titles are released nowadays, that is not a good sign. The number of exclusives tells you how strong a format is. Lots of PC only games tells you PC gaming is doing okay. Fewer means it isn't. Given that Crysis is a VISTA promoter you might almost argue that is coming out on a 'different format'!

Crysis runs also on Win XP, you only need Vista if you want to play Crysis w/ DirectX 10.

Also Vista games use the same ahrdware arcitecture as XP games, so you can also argue, that it is the same platform.

I HOPE your right about Crysis, but I THINK you're wrong.

Ok, since when did rumors extracted from sources of varying repute suddenly become propaganda? AMD has officially said almost nothing about their new CPU, and there are very few hard facts out there. Give it time. We don't really have any particularly good info about what AMD will do with their new architecture.

Well Sander, I have to disagree with alot of Stuff, Despite the CPU being at a Clock Disadvantage, Its possible it may topple what Intel Has, It seems the Multicorewar has become just a Repeat of Single Core Speed. I remember Intel Bounding back with their CPUs that ran lowerclocks than AMDs best and Topple them. I also recall Up until the Core 2 that Intel was suffering from Netburstitis.

Julian Innerhofer said:

I think your points are a bit outdated.

I agree that most users don't buy high end systems. I would add that most users don't buy low end systems either. The majority buy middle range systems. At this point, Intel dominates both the middle and high end CPU markets. The low end systems are a toss up as I see it for price and performance, with Intel having the advantage of an upgrade path with their low end, where AMD does not at this time.

As a system builder, one of our primary concerns is the ability to ugrade. The constraint for upgrading always lies with the motherboard. There is no upgrade path to buying a A64 motherboard and CPU at this time. So our base systems now include P35 motherboards and C2D (speed of which is up to the customer). Granted, there are a ton of system builders still building and trying to sell Semprons/Celerons, and I think most of them are struggling to survive, let alone make a profit. By the same token, no DIYer in their right mind would build a system right now with A64 with upgrading in mind.

Both P4 and Celeron are being phased out by Intel. Our Intel supplier now lists 1 Celeron D (BX80552356) and no P4s. So any Celerons or P4s that you buy at this time are old stock and no longer being manufactured.

Intel's bottom of the line CPUs are now the C2D E-2*** series, and very competetive with anything AMD has for price and performance. E-6*** is the current middle range Intel CPU. Penryn and Xeon will supply the high end CPUs of the near future.

I also see no difference in pricing for a basic A64 motherboard to a basic C2D motherboard.

I'd really like to see AMD do more than survive as competition is great for both the industry and the end user. It was nice seeing the 'little guy' on top for a bit too, although I'd argue that AMD has always been crap for multi-tasking. But the fact is that AMD has some serious catching up to do if they are going to continue providing competition.

Julian Innerhofer said:

I was referring to the Barcelona architecture.

John Ingram said:
The list of games I was referring to are the ones released in 2006. The year in which you say gaming is in decline.

People like more of the same. That's why expansion backs are wildly successful. You may only buy the best of a genre but that only speaks for yourself. In one year, I acquire many TPS, RTS, and FPS games and enjoy every single one of them for their plot and different approaches to the same genre. The only relevance time has is how much the genre evolves (usually due to better technology).


John Ingram said:
Shows always try to appeal to an audience and clearly, that show was appealing to the console audience only. No history is ever complete without the mention of Doom, SimCity, and Command & Conquer. Those games launched the FPS, simulation, and RTS genres single handily.

John Ingram said:
That used to be true but now that XBox and Windows are a very similar platform, it only makes sense to release on both. Some games use engines which were designed for almost all popular platforms (e.g. PlayStation 3, GameCube, XBox, XBox 360, PC, PlayStation Portable) so why not release it on all and milk it for all it's worth? Publisher's care about what platforms will get the biggest audience. For instance, releasing a fighter game on PC or an RTS on consoles is simply a mistake. Games like GUN which is a TPS appeal to large number of people on every platform.

If your going to compare AMD and Intel you should also factor in the price. Now it's being a while since I've checked out the difference in performance but on price the AMD AM2 6000 chip and the Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 are the same (both at the £115 mark). Anyone know which chip is better? It should be remembered regardless of who has the best performance AMD has always had the best price.

As for PC gaming dying out, over 8 million players on world of warcraft (somewhat sad but still true) seems to say it's not. Also microsoft have a vested interest in seeing PC gaming continue and I don't see them letting the market collapse on them.

sounds faintly familiar to any amd/intel marketing battles of the past 10 years, and anyway as your own write up says amd allegedly used out of date benchmarks, are you too not at risk of being accused of the same in assuming that the benchmarks of the new 2ghz chip arriving later this year being better than current the 2.6ghz benchmarks. Can you find out these benchmarks since they underpin your summations.

In my opinion the trend will be for energy efficiency anyway, its about time this was brought further into the debate

What does it matter that 8 million have subscribed to WoW (with no knowledge of how many are actually playing it still!) if the boxed/retail PC market is dying.

Using your example, I suppose one highly rated TV show on one channel would be enough for the TV industry. Or one blockbuster movie a year would keep the movie business going?!

Chris Dawson said:

Yeah the 6000+ is better but if you OC your E6420 like a good boy you spank the s**t out of the 6000+ and it becomes obsolete.

Most people who are considering a high performance PC are going to be OC'ing anyway.

Wow ... Sander finally put something up again on the front page !!!

Jumping on the same bandwagon as the rest of the armchair tech hacks tho ... nothing new there.

I think the posts though are quite enlightening.

No mention of power saving functionality on the Barcelona chips ... which will be a big difference I feel.

As we move forward this century efficiency will be a big factor.

Barcelona has awesome FP power and efficiency ... that's what we need for big server farms.

Whether or not this translates into a good gaming box well ... maybe Intel will keep the lead on single chip systems.

That's my prediction at least.

John Ingram said:

The article was written almost two years ago. In any case, that's a s**tload of money for a game that costs no more than one million to develop and maintain. Blizzard posted $1.5 billion dollar revenue in 2006 which, if you recall, ATI was only posting $2.2 billion revenue before it was acquired by AMD. Blizzard is extremely strong right now and really have been since Starcraft was released.

John Ingram said:
e.g. CSI alone put CBS on top of the drama charts, Soprano's put HBO on the weekly schedule, SimCity allowed Maxis to expand in to many fields of gaming (including publishing, and so on. There are make or break times in reality.