Is java falling behind in game development?

[erikd]

Hmm. i dont see that at all. I see something else-- the accessability of the PC ADDS a flood of lower grade titles to the shelves.  Take those away so they dont distract yo uand I thik the total number of AAA titles on any one paltform, PC or Console, is about the same.

Take awy from Consoles the numebr of AAA title that are ports of older PC AAA titles and I thin kthe PC proibably pulls out ahead by a tiny bit (but not a lot today. This was more true  in the past.)

What I see here is that usually the range of PC games in the shelves is as big as, say PS2, but then there's also the XBOX and GC making the space occupied by consoles in the stores about 3 times as big as the PC.
This simple observation of course doesn't say anything about the actual sales numbers ...

[jfelrod1960]

I disagree.  Even with the smaller packaging the console games come in,  the smallest console maker, which I think is Gamecube, has the fewest games amongst the console games and they take up twice as much space as the PC games.  XB is larger and let's not even talk about Playstation.  They take up just about the whole damn store.  But I'm in the southeastern US and a lot of these things depend on the market you're in.

What I see here is that usually the range of PC games in the shelves is as big as, say PS2, but then there's also the XBOX and GC making the space occupied by consoles in the stores about 3 times as big as the PC.
This simple observation of course doesn't say anything about the actual sales numbers ...

[Jeff]

Hmm. i dont see that at all. I see something else-- the accessability of the PC ADDS a flood of lower grade titles to the shelves.  Take those away so they dont distract yo uand I thik the total number of AAA titles on any one paltform, PC or Console, is about the same.

Take awy from Consoles the numebr of AAA title that are ports of older PC AAA titles and I thin kthe PC proibably pulls out ahead by a tiny bit (but not a lot today. This was more true  in the past.)

What I see here is that usually the range of PC games in the shelves is as big as, say PS2, but then there's also the XBOX and GC making the space occupied by consoles in the stores about 3 times as big as the PC.
This simple observation of course doesn't say anything about the actual sales numbers ...

And Id dispute the validty of adding 3 paltforms' shalf space together and comapring it to a single one (PC).

Keep in mind too that  in any mature retail market, shelf space has more to do with predicted selling patterns then availability of product.  The storekeep puts out what he or she expects to sell and devoets mreo space to teh ears that sell better.

That all of them are getting equal space strongly suggests that sales are more or less equal across all those platforms.

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[erikd]

Hmm. i dont see that at all. I see something else-- the accessability of the PC ADDS a flood of lower grade titles to the shelves.  Take those away so they dont distract yo uand I thik the total number of AAA titles on any one paltform, PC or Console, is about the same.

Take awy from Consoles the numebr of AAA title that are ports of older PC AAA titles and I thin kthe PC proibably pulls out ahead by a tiny bit (but not a lot today. This was more true  in the past.)

What I see here is that usually the range of PC games in the shelves is as big as, say PS2, but then there's also the XBOX and GC making the space occupied by consoles in the stores about 3 times as big as the PC.
This simple observation of course doesn't say anything about the actual sales numbers ...

And Id dispute the validty of adding 3 paltforms' shalf space together and comapring it to a single one (PC).

Keep in mind too that  in any mature retail market, shelf space has more to do with predicted selling patterns then availability of product.  The storekeep puts out what he or she expects to sell and devoets mreo space to teh ears that sell better.

That all of them are getting equal space strongly suggests that sales are more or less equal across all those platforms.

Erm, maybe I'm missing something here, but that's exactly my point.
If every platform (PC,PS2,XB,GC) get equal space, then doesn't that make the expected sales for the PC about 25% of total sales, a loss of 75% market potential?

[Jeff]

Hmm. i dont see that at all. I see something else-- the accessability of the PC ADDS a flood of lower grade titles to the shelves.  Take those away so they dont distract yo uand I thik the total number of AAA titles on any one paltform, PC or Console, is about the same.

Take awy from Consoles the numebr of AAA title that are ports of older PC AAA titles and I thin kthe PC proibably pulls out ahead by a tiny bit (but not a lot today. This was more true  in the past.)

What I see here is that usually the range of PC games in the shelves is as big as, say PS2, but then there's also the XBOX and GC making the space occupied by consoles in the stores about 3 times as big as the PC.
This simple observation of course doesn't say anything about the actual sales numbers ...

And Id dispute the validty of adding 3 paltforms' shalf space together and comapring it to a single one (PC).

Keep in mind too that  in any mature retail market, shelf space has more to do with predicted selling patterns then availability of product.  The storekeep puts out what he or she expects to sell and devoets mreo space to teh ears that sell better.

That all of them are getting equal space strongly suggests that sales are more or less equal across all those platforms.

Erm, maybe I'm missing something here, but that's exactly my point.
If every platform (PC,PS2,XB,GC) get equal space, then doesn't that make the expected sales for the PC about 25% of total sales, a loss of 75% market potential?

Sure but EVERY paltform is only 25% of the expected sales.  Thats your mistake. 
I could as easily say that PS3 is only 25%, and that writing a PS3 game means a loss of 75% of the market possability.

Also, your  leaving out Mac.  If you write a Java game you get PC, Mac and Linux. 
I don't knwo if Linux is measurable. But Mac is deceptive.

Mac is 5% to 10% of the market BUT its a vastly underserevd market so you are liekyl to sell a larger percentage OF that market then any of the others.

PC is equal to any of the paltforms today.   PC+Mac is bigger then any of the platforms today.

Fundemtnally this is the rgeat fallacy of pie charts.  They mean nothing because the oen who draws it gets to decide what pieces to cut the pie into and that makes all the difference  in the story told.

[Jeff]

The kilerl fo this whole silly % argument is Bungee.

They were a very successful studio for many years doing Mac only product.

And Mac, as we already said, is an insignificant percentage of the market.  How many Mac games
are on the shelves you are looking at?

In such a huge mass market, all one needs is a successfulniche to be quite comfortably successful.

"Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered." -- Anonymous

[jfelrod1960]

Edit:  I take it back.  There is one, and only one, way you could chnage the situation.
Write a killer AAA blockbuster hit title in Java.
One so good that Sony and Microsoft are both desperate to have it on their platform.
You do that and all the problems go away

Since PS3 will have an optional HDD, you think someone will develop a JVM for it.  Then I think what you stated will probably work.  You think?

[erikd]

Sure but EVERY paltform is only 25% of the expected sales.  Thats your mistake.

I'm well aware of that, but I don't see the mistake in that. The argument (silly or not  ) was that a java game only runs on pc and is not portable to *any* console where a C game could be ported to any platform (albeit with a lot of effort).

I'm not denying that a going for a niche market can be very lucrative but since we were talking about expensive AAA productions, I think it is a valid point from a marketing point of view, even though I fully agree it doesn't have to mean that a java game would fail because of this. It's just a consideration.