What would happen if consoles disappeared and PC gaming was the only available option?

lol

If you look at poorer countries/regions you'll see that they lean more towards PC than consoles such as most of Eastern Europe, South East Asia and South America. The overwhelming majority of console gaming done in those countries is done on previous gen consoles that likely have also been modded to play pirated games. PC games are cheaper, pirating on PCs is easier and PC offers more F2P games plus people can actually use a PC for things other than gaming/entertainment unlike consoles thus justifying them more while consoles are seen as an expensive luxury.

Are you saying the poorer PC players are playing on OLD PCs\OS or playing on SuperRigged Turbo Ultramagnetic 4000 PC players brag about?

@i_p_daily: everyone had their ways.

Unfortunately it's not the case!!!

These games are already on pc -most of them, but most of pc revenue goes to f2p and the like.

If the consoles goes "poof gone" like you said, then AAA gaming will do the same, because there no way in hell to make these games with less than the third in revenue that pc provides for this segment.

Unless the hermits habits shifts drastically, won't happen in the Asian sphere...Not even sure that the shift may happen here.

@sovkhan:

You need to do some research.......

As of this july 2019 for Ubisoft "PC sales have beaten out all other gaming platforms, with the previous fiscal results showing a 36% share for PC compared to 34% with the PS4."

Activision in 2018 "34% of the company's sales came from console games, 29% from PC games, 29% from "mobile and ancillary," So with all the consoles vs PC is only a 5% difference within Activision.

@sovkhan:

"If the consoles goes "poof gone" like you said, then AAA gaming will do the same, because there no way in hell to make these games with less than the third in revenue that pc provides for this segment."

And that's why I would never take part in it. Because we would start seeing a huge dip in quality of games over time. The best ranked games would shift to boring ass f2p titles and semi-decent-but-short Indies. Besides that, maintaining a good rig to play such crap would be super expensive.

What if they're not so it doesn't matter? The same could be said for PC gaming. It was only a few years ago that the industry was worried PC gaming was on its last legs. Console gaming is doing better than ever, yet people continue to cry it's dying.

On that note, I understand that you are saying consoles improve the quality of games, but none the less this isn't something we have to worry about anytime soon.

And if PC was the only system, the revenue for those AAA titles on PC would increase because the people who played those games on the 3 consoles would instead be playing them on PC. Also without consoles, manufactures would make cheap form-factor PC's that even casuals could buy.

This is a simple hypothetical.

That's literally impossible. AAA market wouldn't go poof unless people who play those games also went Poof. He said consoles, not gamers.

There would still be a multi-billion dollar industry for gamers who like "AAA" titles and the developers would not stop making them all of a sudden.

All of that revenue from the 3 consoles would shift into PC.

Consoles going poof =/= Everyone adopting those "habits". You're not making sense. Those gamers would move to PC to play the same stuff and just increase those genre sales.

Personally and back to a non hypothetical: PC factually has the best of AAA, AA, Indy, F2P, and competitive.

Then gamers would play pc

Depends, in Asian countries going to internet cafes is the norm and the PCs there are usually at least mid range. Considering that a lot of F2P asian games in the past decade are somewhat demanding and I doubt they're old/potato PCs. In some countries such as Brazil the import taxes on consoles make them way too expensive. A couple of PC brands are manufactured in Brazil so it isn't as costly as a console to get a decent one. They sold 5.75 million PCs last year of Q2 with most being laptops and the average price being being the equivalent of $565. The PS4 at launch in Brazil costed the equivalent of $1845 and as of 2018 costs $580. It's a no brainer to prioritize buying a PC over a console, this isn't even factoring that games are imported too thus costing a lot as well. Brazil has also seen an increase in gaming PC sales.

PC is the best of both worlds.

As an old-school PC gamer, there isn't much difference between PC gaming and console gaming these days, Steam is simply another brand competing with Xbox and Playstation (and Switch.)

It's not as claimed a "free and open" platform anymore, with Steam the DRM is baked-in, with companies like Nvidia politicking behind the scenes with game devs trying to make you buy THEIR overpriced hardware and proprietary shit like PhysX.

Even Linux nowadays is riddled with backdoors to help the NSA spy on you.

"PC" nowadays is just another flavor of consoles, with a bit more hardware independence but not really, you're still locked in to giant companies like Microsoft for Windows, Intel, AMD and Nvidia.

The real old-school PC gaming included piracy because we wanted everything to be open-source and free, we didn't want giant companies controlling everything as they do now.

But since they do, then that battle is already lost and you might as well go with the flow and not pretend like PC gaming is the shining light of freedom and openness, because it's not anymore.

Even PC-gamers are not the intellectual erudite crowd, but simply another flavor of rabid fanboy defending their shiny box, defending massive corporations to which they've invested their entertainment dollars.

Bottom line? There is no "eternal platform." Everything changes and dies. The only thing you have is whatever machine that's right in front of you for the next 2 or 5 or 10 years. Could be a Platstation or a Tablet or a PC. It really doesn't matter beyond your /immediate/ enjoyment and entertainment. Companies will try to lock you in and wall you off, will make you feel like you are "invested" in their "ecosystem."

With PC gaming that "investment" is largely the up-front hardware costs, with consoles the investment is having a large library of physical games, that's how they keep you in their ecosystem, by making it too painful to leave.

Online gaming would be more of a mess.

DRM ftw

Prices for ever PC part would go up

Physical disc would cost more

The sense of seclusion will forever be lost because now people will always need borrow your gaming PC to write a essay ,

Or do something important on a desktop version of a website

Same three os mac , windows , linux

If you produce music and videos on the side 1tb or even no longer sounds good.

Thank god for consoles

@zaryia:

You don't get it do ya???

These games are already on pc, but the bulk of money is coming from the consoles in the said segment!!!

So the consoles won't disappear as long as money poured in that segment is more than twice as large as the amount poured by the pc gamers in the same segment!!!

@nepu7supastar7:

Exactly my point, but some have a hell of a short sight to figure this out.

And you call me a troll geez.

Look at little Fedor, trying to hide while he attempts to throw some shade lol.

Stay pillaging on the high seas there my fragile friend :)

Fear lol.

I just don't like people who think they are better than everyone else, aka hermits. And if I love gaming on console why do I have to change?

Hermits think they are trying to educate gamers when they're just annoying gamers with their BS. So hermits can take their "master race" motto and go jump in the 1440p/120fps on ultra lake :)

Have a nice day :)

Yeah. There's barely any PC players in the world.

Anyway, people who love games would get a PC. People who can do without games (or those who act like PC killed their mother and vowed to themselves to never PC game) would do without.

Just wondering. You like Forza, right? Would it really be more fun for you to quit gaming altoghether instead of still playing Forza, on your TV, with a controller, in your sofa - just because you know the game is running off a PC?

If all consoles were to go extinct, then I'll just focus on buying a better Laptop to play my games on and I'm not all familiar with desktops PC, but at least Laptops will never go away, so there's that.

Yeah, while Forza is my favourite franchise I lived life before it came along and I would after.

I've been gaming for over 30yrs, franchises come & go and life keeps moving forward. I have other hobbies, kids, etc to share my time with and gaming seems to get less & less time each year anyway.

Another thing I also forgot to mention earlier in this thread to dav was the annoying shit of looking at minimum/maximum settings for games, changing components every few years etc. Buying a consoles means to me, just put the disc in (wait for the fucking thing to download on my console shit) then play the game, choose the difficulty and away I go.

Also if i'm on my couch with a controller in my hand what's the point of PC anyway if they're trying to emulate console gaming???

So your reasoning for abandoning gaming altogether is that fiddle with settings is annoying and you don't want to change PC parts? To me, those are small and odd reasons to abandon the whole hobby, but fair enough. If you value your comfortability that much, I understand.

PC isn't "trying to emulate consoles". PC just allows you to play however the **** you want. Including like consoles. The point? Well, playing games with better graphics, controls and options is always nice. You can also use a PC for much more than just games.

I'm just gonna come and say that I do alot more on my PC then just gaming. I do edit stuff on the sides and upload vids just for fun and make a little buck here and their, it's why my CPU Ryzen 2700X really works wonders for me. I like to use a controller such as my Xbox Elite and some ways, I treat my PC like a console but only getting much better gameplay. fiddling with settings is annoying? I fiddle settings on consoles too, seriously, how's that annoying?

Truth be told, these console makers are really trying hard to be PC wannabes and I can tell you now I don't like it! Consoles were supposed to be different from PC and that's how it should be now but at least Nintendo don't follow this trend unlike Sony/MS, the Switch is way different compare to a PC and that's the way I like it. PC is all about how you want it to be and nothing more/less.

One more thing to say. Gaming is my passion, my favorite hobby and yes Daily, I play games, not brag about raw graphics and I prefer better framerates to better graphics myself :)

And if there was no consoles those sales would swap over to PC....

Have you never taken any economics courses lol? Or hell even 3rd grade math lol.

Dude that's the hypothetical. We are imagining if they magically went poof. How do you still not grasp the concept of this thread.

@i_p_daily: You're so vain, and fragile.

Focus on anime and music as a hobby.

Either become a full PC gamer if there are games on the platform that appeals to my tastes, play with my existing console games, or leave the hobby and find another one to occupy my free time. One of the three options I can choose.

It would kill gaming. We would be stuck with steam and it's super inflated prices. For example i can get borderlands 3 on epic for 69 bucks. With steam its 99.

On my console games are a lot cheaper.

Suddenly? No market could adapt that fast. Companies would need to claim bankruptcy, and the tremors across other markets would be ridiculous. Transitionally? All game development would move toward PC.

@peterroberts123456: You said you'd be stuck with Steam, but quoted an Epic store price. The Epic store would still exist.

@Litchie: nah there's more, i just didn't feel like typing all my reasons.

Digital is another big reason, but i couldn't be bothered going into it as most know how much i hate digital.

@fedor: Hermits = vain, and you're the fragile one little hermy :)

@i_p_daily: Naw im good, I got what I wanted out of this thread. :)

I didn't know you wanted to be schooled, but hey you got it congrats :)

You come back now you hear lol.

I can respect that. I agree we like what we like.

I think I’d just mobile game or go to my huge backlog of previous consoles. PC gaming is a hassle, and I say that as a PC owner.

That's not even the truth as nearly every single game that comes out automatically sets whatever your PC can handle. The only ones that might have trouble with that are small indie games, which we all know i_p doesn't play.

He answered he was referring to old potatoes.

Not necessarily. And you need to keep the mainstream playing or the money is gone and the industry suffers.

A gamer is only a gamer as long as they play games.

I've played too many good games from no-name studios and crowd-funding campaigns. To the point where I think if the mainstream market collapses and the big money goes away, I'll still be a happy gamer playing good games.

Most of the mainstream industry is more concerned with taking advantage of gamers than they are of making good games anyway.

You may well be. But the choices would be much less. And costs would increase.

I think that without consoles, there just wouldn't be a AAA gaming market. There would still be games, but they wouldn't be mainstream, and it would be something for enthusiasts.

I'm really not sure to be honest. Consoles are more comfortable for me personally.

I love Steam and my current PC does the job but...I'd probably take a long break from games and then come back to it if & when I'm ready to invest in a gaming PC.

@PurpleMan5000: I agree.

Some of the replies from console fanboys are funny. Consoles are already dumbed down and limited PCs. Transitioning to PC is so easy. You can hook up a PC to a TV and play games with a controller. Yet, people claim they would stop gaming. Seriously, GTFO with that bullshit.

So what you're saying is PC is trying to be consoles with using a controller and tv, you hermits keep saying this, so if that's the case then there's no need for a PC.

I would just re-buy old consoles (go retro) then go the PC route, I would still have enough games to last me a lifetime.

Imagine the piracy rates if everyone only had the option to play on PC, imagine the game prices with digital being the only purchase option, sounds horrible.

Payed online would also be a thing because if everyone from console who's used to paying online jumped to PC, well someone would then someone would come up with a pay wall for online PC gaming, and then real hermits would have to pay up of go without MP LOL.

@i_p_daily: LOL. PC isn't trying to be like consoles because it is already the ultimate gaming platform. Gaming is only one aspect of what a PC can do and it already does that better than consoles.

Your points are shit. Piracy, game prices for all digital, payed online? LOL

Seriously man, you struggle. At least put some effort and come up with some valid points.