From Strategyinformer.com: "There is a simmering undertone of discontent in the PC games market at the moment. Whether you beleive it to still be alive and kicking, or doomed to die a slow death, one way or another physical PC media at retail seems to be in decline.
Many of you will have noticed the dwindling presence of PC games at your local games stores if they haven't been abandoned altogether already. Publishers and retailers have conflicting opinions on why this is happening and have even resorted to accusing each other of precipitating the decline."
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
Spiders: "We're going to cut straight to the chase so you're not left wondering: After a long period without clear answers, we have received confirmation that Spiders is being liquidated.
What does it mean? This means the company as a whole no longer exists. We'll cease our functions immediately. The planned DLC will release via Nacon, and then-- well, that's it.
We're sorry that it's come to this and would like to thank each and every one of you for your support over the years.
If you have any questions or run into issues with your games, please contact Nacon directly as we'll no longer be able to reply."
Some good points. I don't think I've ever seen a PC game at a gamestop, for instance. Best Buy still has a decent selection, but it's definitely not as good as their console section. Personally, I still vastly prefer the retail version to the digital, unless price is just so much cheaper.
We've evolved past the need for physical media.
The internet and the PC is reshaping everything. Do you want to know why PC mag sales are in such deep decline ? I will tell you it's thanks to the internet, why on earth would someone pay £5 for a magazine that is at least 1 month out of date when you can get pretty much up to the minute news on the gaming industry for free on the net ?
The recent fiasco with Activision and Infinity Ward is a good example of how the Internet dominates the mags. We had nearly minute by minute accounts of what was happening. The best you will get from a magazine is a half page story that would be hopelessly out of date.
The Internet is also changing the way a lot of people shop. Even if we ignore DD services for a moment it is still a fact that nearly every game that comes out is at least 25% cheaper than buying it from an online retailer rather than a retail store. So you can buy your game cheaper and have it delivered to your door on release day or you can go the retail shop route and trudge into town, pay more and then trudge back. Hmm difficult choice there eh.
So no Retail didn't "kill the PC shelf", the PC got there first and PC gamers showed retailers we don't need them. The writing is on the wall for retail game shops though, what has happened with the PC will eventually happen with the console then where will they be ?
Console gamers 99.9999999999% of the time can only get Disc based media
PC gamers if they have a Internet connection 100% can get Digital media
Thing is I would rather digital distribution, hard drives are more reliable than discs, though some will argue that (pro tip: buy from a reliable HDD maker, seagate or western digital), and lol no cloud computing is just a bad idea, enjoy the server going down and not being able to play, or the company folding and not being able to play the game ever again.