<strong>You say that you havent upgraded in years! Thats exactly why you want gamers on a Mac! What have you done for apple lately? </strong><hr></blockquote>
I said I haven't upgrade individual components in years. I've got TiBook that I bought in March.
Sorry you see me as hostile. I'm really not in general. I'm just tired of gamers who think they are the be-all and end-all of a platform's mainstream acceptance. They are not. Just because I've also got the stats to prove they are not as big as they think they are and I'm throwing them up here doesn't make me hostile. I've not attacked anyone personally (yet , just kidding).
Just because I've also got the stats to prove they are not as big as they think they are and I'm throwing them up here doesn't make me hostile. I've not attacked anyone personally (yet , just kidding).</strong><hr></blockquote>
Showing that PC games are a 1.75 billion dollar a year industry hardly makes a convincing statement that games are unimportant. You call PC gamers stupid teenagers, yet you claim to own a GameCube. I'd love to know what makes GameCube owners so much more mature than people who like to play on their PCs.
Playstation 2 came out on Christmas season of 2000, but initially there was a drought as you may well remember. Most consoles and games were sold in the year 2001, which was also the release year for Xbox and GameCube. It's only natural that console game sales increased and PC games saw a slight drop, this hardly constitutes a trend. It takes 2 to 3 years to develop a top-notch PC game, especially if you're developing a next-generation engine like most of the PC games that are due out soon are based on. The industry goes in cycles. The game industry overall is expected to grow to 5 times its current size in the next few years. PC games will be part of that growth.
If 3D graphics were only for teenagers and childish adults who neglect their families as some people here seem to think, Nvidia wouldn't be in the position they are now. Geforce class cards became common and Ghz+ chips became ubiquitous just recently. 3D graphics on the PC have just begun to gain momentum. When Playstation 2 came out, it was more powerful as a graphics platform than most PCs but when Xbox came out this year, PCs were already way ahead of it, even though Xbox is the most powerful console ever released. If you're looking for a trend that'll continue, this is it.
Every title that comes out on the Xbox that is not subsidized heavily by Microsoft to be an exclusive title, will also come out for the PC. Which means it'll eventually get ported to the Mac. I could go on forever, but I won't. Just keep your condescending "adult" attitude to yourself, that's all. Some people like to have fast computers with high-end 3D graphics, and those people are the ones that are willing to spend the most money on computers, it seems. Otherwise, why would Nvidia & ATI be spending millions of dollars every year trying to develop all this technology? Why would Matrox be forced into coming out with a gaming card (even if it wasn't very successful) when they were already regarded by most to have the best 2D image and dual-display quality. Why would 3D Labs, the king of high-end workstation 3D, decide to come down into the consumer space and produce a gaming card? Oh I know, for teenage boys and middle aged men who can't manage the reality & responsibilities of real life & real relationships, and push away the people who love them & depend on them.
Would it be fair to assume that PC gamers would drive even 5% of PC hardware sales. My past experience selling in a big box electronics store would tell me that at least for retail sales the percentages are at least that high.
If so it could then be argued that they have more of an impact $-wize than us macheads.
What point does it accomplish to call gamers immature or geeky when they seem to have lots of money to spend.
If apple had better hardware they would grab a slice of that money, and wouldn't that be a good thing for all of us.
I never said stupid teenage boys. Again, I'm not disputing the facts, but you seem to be. You keep forgetting that the console market didn't really have 3 world-class systems until December of last year. That's only 8 months ago. The impact of these systems will be felt this year, not in last year's numbers.
And you say that PC gamers are the ones who are willing to spend the most money, but the originator of this thread said Apple's stupid for not having a low-priced expandable system. So, which is it? Are gamers high-falutin', credit card wielding free-wheelers when it comes to their computers or are they people who avoid the Mac because they can't afford one?
Again, I'm not saying there's no need for a low-priced tower. I would love there to be one. But I think that the PC gamer will eventually give way to the console gamer. It's only a matter of time. (And the numbers, again, reflect that. If they don't, explain the pattern, in a way that actually uses logic rather than "But, but, but, the consoles were all new last year." because they weren't until the end of the year.)
Well said timortis. Its a well known fact that the children in the average family have alot to say when it comes down to choosing computer. And the children aint going to pick the best quarkexpress machine...
I wonder what all the "adult" people does with their computers? What makes them so upset when we "childish" people want speed unlimited? If they are so happy with the current machines then what are they doing on this forum? What so good with being adult anyways? I sounds to me like being "adult" means alot of limitations. Im 26years old and extreemly childish. Im using the exteeeemly childish 3D application Lightwave.
<strong>I never said stupid teenage boys. Again, I'm not disputing the facts, but you seem to be. You keep forgetting that the console market didn't really have 3 world-class systems until December of last year. That's only 8 months ago. The impact of these systems will be felt this year, not in last year's numbers.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think you're wrong about this point. Most gamers knew of the XBox, GameCube and PS2 a year or more before they were released. There was definitely a slow down of sales of the previous generation of hardware, including PC hardware, because everyone knew what was coming next. They waited and bought.
This especially had an effect on the PC because everyone knew that Nvidia was making the graphics chips for the XBox and that it would eventually make its way into a PC, and it was 2-3 generations ahead of what was available at the time.
Gamers find the money to buy an expensive system, they just don't do it all at once (unless it's a console.) They want an expandable box for obvious reasons. They will ultimately pump lots of dollars into hardware cycles. I think the problem is Apple wouldn't see all of those dollars since they don't sell CPU or Graphic Card upgrades. Apple likes to have your money up front, and a guarantee that you'll come back to them for more.
I think one thing that needs to be made very, very clear is that gamers DO NOT drive the PC market. At all. The reason the PC market is so large is because every company has them. The company I work for has over 3000 PCs. You think even one of them is being used for gaming? And we're just one company. No, gamers make up a very small, tiny percentage of PC owners. To clarify, by "gamers" I mean people who have a powerful PC bought or built with gaming in mind. I don't know anybody - not one single person - who has a "gaming" PC, even though I know people who play games on their PCs. More often than not, the PC is the family computer. You can play games on it, but the PC wasn't purchased specifically for gaming... and therefore isn't likely to be constantly upgraded, which is what companies like nVidia and ATi depend on.
As far as the Mac and gaming... well, all rumors point to nVidia and Apple working together on something cool. Hopefully the nForce 2 will show up in the towers Steve-o will announce next month. Optimistic yes, but a possibility nonetheless. At the very least the nForce 2 will show up for the Mac in some form, and probably not too far off, either. Combined with a faster FSB and faster RAM (HyperTransport or RIO likely), that should do the trick as far as gaming on the Mac is concerned.
Oh, and in case anybody cares... Nintendo did make a keyboard for the GameCube, I saw it at E3. It's for games like Phantasy Star Online, so you can talk to people while playing.
Actually torifile, my original reason for starting the thread was as a reaction to all the negativity generated post MWNY, and the discontent people were expressing. I was trying to argue that Apple could go a long way to quell some of this discontent by providing a (relatively) cheap expandable box using the same component technology as in the e/iMac, and pricing it accordingly. They could market these to gamers (not hardcore, 'cause frankly we haven't yet the software library to attract those from the wintel world), or others who do not need or want the power of dual proc system, but would like to play a decent game (with all the eye candy on), and maybe have an extra PCI slot for something like an audio card. I don't think this is too much to ask, and I know Apple can deliver this kind of a machine TODAY, and with little engineering cost! They do not need to reinvent the wheel here!
As it is, Apple is charging its customers through the nose, for this extra little expandability. And my gut tells me, that this is the real reason for all the pent-up hostility towards Apple. (I thought MWNY was great).
Gaming drives development of powerful and affordable PC hardware:
The avarage hard-core gaming system runs arround $2000 w/o display. And those are upgraded almost annually updated - especially GPU-wise.
At work, we have a couple of thousend systems, but most of them are Pentium IIs or Pentium IIIs at the most, only very few (including myself) got a Pentium IV - but never in high-end configurations (my P IV has SDR-SDRAM, an old Matrox card etc.).
Web-Design, word-processing, spread-sheeting and doing business presentations does not require the latest and fastest - large corporations usually don't even use the latest software (Office 97 on NT in our case) because of supporting reasons.
And after years only the lucky few get new systems - the rest gets the old ones passed down to them.
Corporations usually have buying cycles of three years - not including software.
Gamers driving hardware development started in the early nineties with the famous Wing Commander series which was always requiering the bleeding edge hardware. Today it's the first person shooters, e.g. the upcoming DOOM 3 and Unreal Tournament 2003.
<strong>I think one thing that needs to be made very, very clear is that gamers DO NOT drive the PC market. At all. The reason the PC market is so large is because every company has them. The company I work for has over 3000 PCs. You think even one of them is being used for gaming? And we're just one company. No, gamers make up a very small, tiny percentage of PC owners. To clarify, by "gamers" I mean people who have a powerful PC bought or built with gaming in mind. I don't know anybody - not one single person - who has a "gaming" PC, even though I know people who play games on their PCs. More often than not, the PC is the family computer. You can play games on it, but the PC wasn't purchased specifically for gaming... and therefore isn't likely to be constantly upgraded, which is what companies like nVidia and ATi depend on.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Let's make something ELSE really, REALLY clear. Apple's potential market doesn't include those 3000 PCs you're talking about, or millions of others just like it. Not yet, and not for a while.
We're talking about Apple's POTENTIAL market, and a significant $$$ of that market are people that play games, buy games, and upgrade to play and buy new games.
Out of family buyers, the iMac is a great choice for a great many number of them, but there is a higher end home user that would be more likely to jump over to the Mac if a lower end tower were available. Why? Lower cost of entry combined with the ability to play DOOM III when it comes out next year.
Again, it's a tough call for Apple. Selling this tower will increase Apple's market share, but at a cost. They will sell fewer high end computers because of it, and the market that buys them will not upgrade quite as often. But if Apple had 10% of the market, how many more companies would make mo-better software? More.
That's part of the cycle to increase Apple's market share, and games are a big part of that.
Comments
<strong>You say that you havent upgraded in years! Thats exactly why you want gamers on a Mac! What have you done for apple lately? </strong><hr></blockquote>
I said I haven't upgrade individual components in years. I've got TiBook that I bought in March.
Sorry you see me as hostile. I'm really not in general. I'm just tired of gamers who think they are the be-all and end-all of a platform's mainstream acceptance. They are not. Just because I've also got the stats to prove they are not as big as they think they are and I'm throwing them up here doesn't make me hostile. I've not attacked anyone personally (yet
<strong>
Just because I've also got the stats to prove they are not as big as they think they are and I'm throwing them up here doesn't make me hostile. I've not attacked anyone personally (yet
Showing that PC games are a 1.75 billion dollar a year industry hardly makes a convincing statement that games are unimportant. You call PC gamers stupid teenagers, yet you claim to own a GameCube. I'd love to know what makes GameCube owners so much more mature than people who like to play on their PCs.
Playstation 2 came out on Christmas season of 2000, but initially there was a drought as you may well remember. Most consoles and games were sold in the year 2001, which was also the release year for Xbox and GameCube. It's only natural that console game sales increased and PC games saw a slight drop, this hardly constitutes a trend. It takes 2 to 3 years to develop a top-notch PC game, especially if you're developing a next-generation engine like most of the PC games that are due out soon are based on. The industry goes in cycles. The game industry overall is expected to grow to 5 times its current size in the next few years. PC games will be part of that growth.
If 3D graphics were only for teenagers and childish adults who neglect their families as some people here seem to think, Nvidia wouldn't be in the position they are now. Geforce class cards became common and Ghz+ chips became ubiquitous just recently. 3D graphics on the PC have just begun to gain momentum. When Playstation 2 came out, it was more powerful as a graphics platform than most PCs but when Xbox came out this year, PCs were already way ahead of it, even though Xbox is the most powerful console ever released. If you're looking for a trend that'll continue, this is it.
Every title that comes out on the Xbox that is not subsidized heavily by Microsoft to be an exclusive title, will also come out for the PC. Which means it'll eventually get ported to the Mac. I could go on forever, but I won't. Just keep your condescending "adult" attitude to yourself, that's all. Some people like to have fast computers with high-end 3D graphics, and those people are the ones that are willing to spend the most money on computers, it seems. Otherwise, why would Nvidia & ATI be spending millions of dollars every year trying to develop all this technology? Why would Matrox be forced into coming out with a gaming card (even if it wasn't very successful) when they were already regarded by most to have the best 2D image and dual-display quality. Why would 3D Labs, the king of high-end workstation 3D, decide to come down into the consumer space and produce a gaming card? Oh I know, for teenage boys and middle aged men who can't manage the reality & responsibilities of real life & real relationships, and push away the people who love them & depend on them.
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
Would it be fair to assume that PC gamers would drive even 5% of PC hardware sales. My past experience selling in a big box electronics store would tell me that at least for retail sales the percentages are at least that high.
If so it could then be argued that they have more of an impact $-wize than us macheads.
What point does it accomplish to call gamers immature or geeky when they seem to have lots of money to spend.
If apple had better hardware they would grab a slice of that money, and wouldn't that be a good thing for all of us.
And you say that PC gamers are the ones who are willing to spend the most money, but the originator of this thread said Apple's stupid for not having a low-priced expandable system. So, which is it? Are gamers high-falutin', credit card wielding free-wheelers when it comes to their computers or are they people who avoid the Mac because they can't afford one?
Again, I'm not saying there's no need for a low-priced tower. I would love there to be one. But I think that the PC gamer will eventually give way to the console gamer. It's only a matter of time. (And the numbers, again, reflect that. If they don't, explain the pattern, in a way that actually uses logic rather than "But, but, but, the consoles were all new last year." because they weren't until the end of the year.)
I wonder what all the "adult" people does with their computers? What makes them so upset when we "childish" people want speed unlimited? If they are so happy with the current machines then what are they doing on this forum? What so good with being adult anyways? I sounds to me like being "adult" means alot of limitations. Im 26years old and extreemly childish. Im using the exteeeemly childish 3D application Lightwave.
<strong>I never said stupid teenage boys.
I think you're wrong about this point. Most gamers knew of the XBox, GameCube and PS2 a year or more before they were released. There was definitely a slow down of sales of the previous generation of hardware, including PC hardware, because everyone knew what was coming next. They waited and bought.
This especially had an effect on the PC because everyone knew that Nvidia was making the graphics chips for the XBox and that it would eventually make its way into a PC, and it was 2-3 generations ahead of what was available at the time.
Gamers find the money to buy an expensive system, they just don't do it all at once (unless it's a console.) They want an expandable box for obvious reasons. They will ultimately pump lots of dollars into hardware cycles. I think the problem is Apple wouldn't see all of those dollars since they don't sell CPU or Graphic Card upgrades. Apple likes to have your money up front, and a guarantee that you'll come back to them for more.
As far as the Mac and gaming... well, all rumors point to nVidia and Apple working together on something cool. Hopefully the nForce 2 will show up in the towers Steve-o will announce next month. Optimistic yes, but a possibility nonetheless. At the very least the nForce 2 will show up for the Mac in some form, and probably not too far off, either. Combined with a faster FSB and faster RAM (HyperTransport or RIO likely), that should do the trick as far as gaming on the Mac is concerned.
Oh, and in case anybody cares... Nintendo did make a keyboard for the GameCube, I saw it at E3. It's for games like Phantasy Star Online, so you can talk to people while playing.
As it is, Apple is charging its customers through the nose, for this extra little expandability. And my gut tells me, that this is the real reason for all the pent-up hostility towards Apple. (I thought MWNY was great).
mika
[ 07-20-2002: Message edited by: PC^KILLA ]</p>
Gaming drives development of powerful and affordable PC hardware:
The avarage hard-core gaming system runs arround $2000 w/o display. And those are upgraded almost annually updated - especially GPU-wise.
At work, we have a couple of thousend systems, but most of them are Pentium IIs or Pentium IIIs at the most, only very few (including myself) got a Pentium IV - but never in high-end configurations (my P IV has SDR-SDRAM, an old Matrox card etc.).
Web-Design, word-processing, spread-sheeting and doing business presentations does not require the latest and fastest - large corporations usually don't even use the latest software (Office 97 on NT in our case) because of supporting reasons.
And after years only the lucky few get new systems - the rest gets the old ones passed down to them.
Corporations usually have buying cycles of three years - not including software.
Gamers driving hardware development started in the early nineties with the famous Wing Commander series which was always requiering the bleeding edge hardware. Today it's the first person shooters, e.g. the upcoming DOOM 3 and Unreal Tournament 2003.
<strong>I think one thing that needs to be made very, very clear is that gamers DO NOT drive the PC market. At all. The reason the PC market is so large is because every company has them. The company I work for has over 3000 PCs. You think even one of them is being used for gaming? And we're just one company. No, gamers make up a very small, tiny percentage of PC owners. To clarify, by "gamers" I mean people who have a powerful PC bought or built with gaming in mind. I don't know anybody - not one single person - who has a "gaming" PC, even though I know people who play games on their PCs. More often than not, the PC is the family computer. You can play games on it, but the PC wasn't purchased specifically for gaming... and therefore isn't likely to be constantly upgraded, which is what companies like nVidia and ATi depend on.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Let's make something ELSE really, REALLY clear. Apple's potential market doesn't include those 3000 PCs you're talking about, or millions of others just like it. Not yet, and not for a while.
We're talking about Apple's POTENTIAL market, and a significant $$$ of that market are people that play games, buy games, and upgrade to play and buy new games.
Out of family buyers, the iMac is a great choice for a great many number of them, but there is a higher end home user that would be more likely to jump over to the Mac if a lower end tower were available. Why? Lower cost of entry combined with the ability to play DOOM III when it comes out next year.
Again, it's a tough call for Apple. Selling this tower will increase Apple's market share, but at a cost. They will sell fewer high end computers because of it, and the market that buys them will not upgrade quite as often. But if Apple had 10% of the market, how many more companies would make mo-better software? More.
That's part of the cycle to increase Apple's market share, and games are a big part of that.