JPR predicts PC gaming hardware will reach $27 Billion in 2010
According to Jon Peddie Research, PC gaming hardware will reach $27 Billion in 2010 and the results are (of course) better than previously expected. The worldwide PC gaming hardware market (which includes PC systems, accessories, and upgrades) is forecasted to gain $1.2 billion for 2009, which is a 5.9% increase versus 2008 (from $20.07 to $21.26 billion). The increase is due to higher than anticipated consumer demand for enthusiast, performance, and mainstream hardware - strongly influenced by the ability to play video games.
Due to what JPR says, significant growth across all major markets in the worldwide PC gaming hardware sector are expected to climb 30 percent in 2010. Senior Video Game Industry Analyst at JPR, Ted Pollak, credits this growth to a number of key factors:
“The largest influence on the high forecasted growth rate is due to purchasing delays for systems and upgrades in 2008/2009 as consumers circled the wagons and took a conservative position on discretionary spending. A recovering economy, processing advancements, and higher quality gaming offerings will all contribute to a healthy year for PC gaming hardware in 2010.”
“The PC gaming market continues to be the high growth, and technological leader for home entertainment. With Windows 7 and DirectX 11, advanced and exciting physics, and stereovision capabilities, the PC platform is far and away the most advanced,” noted Jon Peddie President of Jon Peddie Research. “And, the PC has the added advantage that when not used for gaming, it can be used for more practical purposes, and/or as a media center.”
The data comes from the Worldwide PC Gaming Hardware Market report series by Jon Peddie Research. It comes in three very expensive flavors: Enthusiast, Performance, and Mainstream versions, with each version selling for $5,000 and the set of three for $12,000. Find out more about it by visiting www.jonpeddie.com.
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PC Gaming Alliance adds five new members
The PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) is not dead folks, it’s just very, very quiet. The non-profit consortium created to promote the PC Gaming Industry and be the authoritative voice of PC Gaming worldwide broke its silence today to announce that it has added new member companies to its fold - eight of them to be precise. The new members joining today are BFG Technologies, Bigfoot Networks, Flextronics, GameStop, GameTap, Gas Powered Games, Howie’s Game Shack and InstantAction.
“We welcome these new members to the PCGA, a rapidly growing organization where companies of all types can come together to expand and improve the PC gaming ecosystem,” said Randy Stude, PCGA president and Intel director, Gaming Program Office.
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Paradox to use Stardock’s GOO
Stardock announced that publishing partner Paradox Interactive has adopted Stardock’s Game Object Obfuscation (better known as GOO) to protect Paradox PC game titles from piracy. Beginning with the Paradox title Majesty 2 and continuing on with other titles for both retail and electronic software sales, Paradox will wrap the games in GOO.
Announced by Stardock earlier this year at the Game Developers Conference, GOO is a new technology that developers can use to protect their game executable. When a protected game is run for the first-time, the player simply needs to enter in their email address and serial number. Once validated, the game can be played normally and typically never needs to connect to the Internet account.
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Eight Virtues in a Duffel Bag: The Richard Garriott Interview, Part II
In part II of our interview with Ultima series creator Richard Garriott we talk more about the “rooms full of killing children,” the dark nature of The Black Gate, creative ways to kill Lord British, fan mail, and the possibility of a new Ultima game from Garriott in the future. Read it after the break, and check out Part I if you haven’t already done so.
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Terminator Salvation Video
I honestly don’t know if the game based on the new Christian Bale flick Terminator: Salvation, is going to suck or not. All of the Terminator video games that have been thus far are yawn inducing nonsense. I’ll wait for more details on the game, but this video from G4 is as good a starting point as any to get to form a general opinion. Check it out:
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Valve vs. Activision: Cyber Cafe Wars
In buying Vivendi Universal Games, Activision got Blizzard, Sierra, VU Games, a number of development studios, several prominent game franchises and an old lawsuit. That lawsuit was supposedly settled in arbitration between Sierra and Valve. Enter Activision. The world’s biggest game publishers has decided that it doesn’t want to pay the price tag of the lawsuit and has taken Valve back to court to fight it.
What lawsuit? You may remember that Valve and Sierra once had a cozy relationship; the company published many of its biggest and best titles and both companies made lots of cash. One thing Sierra did not have the rights to mess around with were Valve’s games licensing business with Cyber Cafe’s. This lead to a 2002 cybercafé licensing dispute between Valve and Sierra, which in turn lead to a lawsuit.
Valve prevailed and both companies agreed to abide by arbitration. The result being a judgment of $2,391,932. But Activision decided to pay the company only $1,967,796. Why? Because Activision alleges that Valve was over-paid $424,136 in the last few years. So the fight will continue for a little while longer while they hash this out.
You can understand why Valve uses Steam to do most of its business and handles all of its licensing deals in-house.
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Eight Virtues in a Duffel Bag: The Richard Garriott Interview
Richard Garriott, who is now spending more time thinking about space travel than virtual worlds, was kind enough to spend some time talking with us about the darker side of the Ultima series of role-playing games. This interview is a companion piece to The Black Gate Murders, an alternate playthrough of Ultima VII: The Black Gate that involves killing everyone in the game.
In Part I of our interview, the creator of Ultima reveals some little-known facts about Ultima VII, the origins of a room full of crazy children that caused a memorable family feud, and his feelings on selling Origin to EA so many years ago.
The games we're pulling together in this feature won't appear on any of those best-of lists and get confused looks when you mention them in conversation. Just because time has forgotten these titles, though, doesn't mean you should forget them, too.
According to Jon Peddie Research, PC gaming hardware will reach $27 Billion in 2010 and the results are (of course) better than previously expected. The worldwide PC gaming hardware market (which includes PC systems, accessories, and upgrades) is forecasted to gain $1.2 billion for 2009, which is a 5.9% increase versus 2008 (from $20.07 to $21.26 billion). The increase is due to higher than anticipated consumer demand for enthusiast, performance, and mainstream hardware - strongly influenced by the ability to play video games.
