Why aren't all video games released on PCs?

It's just something I thought of. A PC is capable of processing the fastest loading times and best graphics, not to mention allowing any controller input, assuming the USB component enables it.

The 2 most common excuses are piracy and "no fanbase for this game on PC"...somehow they expect for a fanbase to develop on PC BEFORE they release the game on PC.I don't get it.

There is also the fact that developing for the PC market is a hassle, because you have to optimize the game for a thousand different system configurations, as opposed to just the one stardard hardware of a console.

Then consoles wouldn't exist

@chad_devore: Because God hates hermits.

Some games are console exclusive, made by a party owned by the console manufacturer, they might get some extra sales releasing the game on PC but possibly hurt there own platform by doing so, not worth the risk

business mainly.

some games are made by the console manufacturer (so you will not see zelda, mario (except teaches typing) or uncharted on a PC in an official capacity.).

sometimes games are also bought. so tomb raider is not coming to the PC because MS bought the rights.

there is also a perception that some games just dont sell on PC. some of these can be true...some of these can also be untested (JRPGs for example...turns out there is a market for them on the PC. its not as big as consoles but its big enough to be worth a port).

from a technical standpoint there is no reason why these games cant be on the PC. its just business.

@chad_devore: the thing is that not all the games are designed to cater the PC's customizable powers.sure you may want to kill your gs account for saying that you need a certain software to play all of the games from A-Z on a PC...cripes,not even I have the urge to play them all in one place,that's why we have diversity in storage and machines to fit the game's capabiliy...does a game look playable if...say it's a WiiU,and it needs more than a single screen to play,surely that's not gonna be easy,because we only have one screen observed at a time.

In the end, the PC is not at all patented for gaming purposes,unless you have the big vault o' diamond to buy the parts. Now you have to confess you want to play these games on a forbidden "emulator" then for what reason you would want to destroy the consoles? Shame on you,if you are soapboxing in a mass like in E3 saying these...the mass will definitely report to the event security to arrest you for tarnishing a good gamer's identity. I wouldn't have done that if I were there,instead I mind my own business,to either support consoles or just leave the others on my further proper judgement. That's it.

This is happening less and less now though. Excluding specific consoles exclusives such as Naughty Dog games. PC is now getting games such as WWE2k15 which was the first time ever.

^^THIS^^

The specifications /configuration i believe is very high and has a lot of life for a console than the PC, hence games more developed on console than PC.

I can't think of a feasible reason

- User base support issue? The PC has the largest user base in comparison to consoles, as long as your game is well optimized and you treat PC gamers with the same respect as you do console gamers then they will support your game and you will get revenue, treating PC gamers like criminals and throwing shit at them will obviously not get you fan support.

- Piracy? please, PC gamers aren't stupid, we know that if we want more of your product we would pay for it, piracy has no effect on sales what so ever, if your game is shit then people aren't gonna buy it, its that simple, and not releasing it on the platform will hurt your actual costumers, and making them console exclusive as a counter measure is also stupid, if a pirate is to cheap to spend money on the game at their available platform what makes you think they are gonna spend MORE money on another platform and spend even more money just to get to your game? there millions of other games on the PC they could be spending their money on you know, so no matter how you spin it piracy has an extremely minimal and insignificant effect on the sales of games

- Technical issues? yeah sure if you are a lazy ****, any PC (given the sufficient hardware level) can dish out anything a console can do a better, there is NO game on a console that can't run on a PC and if optimization is difficult then take your time, don't go all ubisoft and care only about some dumb dead line and wind up releasing a broken game, otherwise people will not want to spend money on it.

The only reason I can think of is perhaps sales of consoles, the big 3 want people to buy their consoles and thats why they do exclusives, timed exclusive and dlc exclusive deals, none of which benefits the gamers, only sony MS and nintendo, imo I think exclusives shouldn't exist, people should be free to purchase whatever product they want without big companies holding certain content hostage just to strike on their competitors.

I say market mostly. I mean, console is the market share of some people and they preserve it with exclusivity.

Than come the time it need to be port to pc. And this could take month imo.

Maybe porting some games to the PC is a massive pain in the ass and the developers just can't do it without proper funding which may or may not be given to them? There's also exclusivity deals which is now becoming a common practice.

@chad_devore: Licensing. You know those "Only on PlayStation" and such.

A really big one for me is ease of use. Sometimes i'm so fucking tired of having to mess around with settings to get the game running properly, also the PS4 controller isn't officially supported on windows, so you'll have to turn to third party developers, and even then you'll have to get a bluetooth connector to get it running wirelessly.

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The PS4 and Xbox One are just underpowered PCs. Porting a game from them to PC is nothing because developing a game for an x86 architecture means that you've already developed the game for PC.

Also, since when have developers ever optimized games for every system configuration? That has never happened and will never happen.

It's fine to not want to tweak settings, but what's the alternative that consoles provide? You can't tweak anything, so you're forced to stick with the performance level that the game achieves, which is pretty damn awful these days. Take Bloodborne, you're getting 30 fps at most and frequent, really annoying dips. I'd much rather deal with the minor annoyance that is tweaking settings to get the level of performance you want than I would want to deal with poor performance and no way to fix it. To me, no amount of bells and whistles like fog or shadows or texture resolution or foliage density can even begin to compare to 60 fps and 1080p (at minimum). I like being able to turn everything off to get that level of performance, if it's necessary.

I use a 360 controller on my PC, BTW. I like it way, way better than the PS4 controller. PS4 controller has terrible start / select style buttons and that annoying touch button dominates the controller way too much. I definitely prefered the PS3 controller as well.

That's not the point. The point is that a standard unified hardware is much easier to optimize for, while any PC developer who wants to continue working in this fields needs to make reasonably sure that most people with an adequate PC will be able to run the game without issues, or they will never hear the end of it, and that process takes time and money.

So corporations can bait console sales, keep people in the walled garden and farm them with overpriced mediocrity.