Board 8 > *high fives ~54% of gamefaqs*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Indeed. It's up to the big two.

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dude you are severely underestimating google they are going to google the hell out of stuff

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Nintendo and Microsoft?

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Somebody can't add two numbers, lol.

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Correct answer is Valve. Steam is only going to continue to grow and it is the biggest video-game marketplace right now. It has more active users than XBL or PSN. Retail sales are still beating downloadable sales but it's only a matter of time before that switches. Steam is going to control such a huge amount of the market.

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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog for winning the 2011 Guru contest.

Oh yeah. If Valve was an option, I sure would have picked it.

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JJH777 posted...
Correct answer is Valve. Steam is only going to continue to grow and it is the biggest video-game marketplace right now. It has more active users than XBL or PSN. Retail sales are still beating downloadable sales but it's only a matter of time before that switches. Steam is going to control such a huge amount of the market.


Don't Steam and XBL have about the same? Both reported 40 million active users as of January.

And Sony says they have 60 million on PSN.

EDIT: Actually, Microsoft reported 50 as of January.

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I have trouble believing those numbers. There are only 65 million total 360's sold at least 5 million of those have broke. There are only 10 million 360 owners that don't use live? Especially actively. I have trouble believing there are even 50 million people that play their 360s actively.

60 million for PS3 is even more absurd since only 62 million PS3's have even been sold. There are still a lot of people who don't connect their consoles to the internet.

Then there's the fact that how many people using PSN, and XBL actually buy stuff with them? I'm sure a good chunk only use it for multiplayer and maybe some DLC every now and then. If you are considered an active steam user you have bought something through Steam since Steam is pretty much just a marketplace unlike PSN and XBL which are multi-purpose.

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Starcraft is my life, so without it I wouldn't exist. - Artosis
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog for winning the 2011 Guru contest.

For some reason when I looked at the poll options I thought you were high fiving google + apple voters before I saw the results. I'm not sure why I thought you would go that way but I'm glad you didn't

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JJH777 posted...
I have trouble believing those numbers. There are only 65 million total 360's sold at least 5 million of those have broke. There are only 10 million 360 owners that don't use live? Especially actively. I have trouble believing there are even 50 million people that play their 360s actively.

60 million for PS3 is even more absurd since only 62 million PS3's have even been sold. There are still a lot of people who don't connect their consoles to the internet.

Then there's the fact that how many people using PSN, and XBL actually buy stuff with them? I'm sure a good chunk only use it for multiplayer and maybe some DLC every now and then. If you are considered an active steam user you have bought something through Steam since Steam is pretty much just a marketplace unlike PSN and XBL which are multi-purpose.


To be fair, to be an "active" Steam member, you could have literally only bought one thing, or even just been sent something.

Hell, I have an active account and all I did was play TF2 for a free trial for one day.

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Yeah I've never bought anything over Steam and I have an account just cause it's required to register some games like Skyrim and Civ 5

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Like, I'm not denying that Steam has had a big impact. But to use number of users as some way to boast how big it is just doesn't work. At best, it only ties one of XBL and PSN (since I'm sure all three companies have a very loose definition of the term "active"), and really, it should be compared to the COMBINED total of XBL and PSN, since having both of them isn't the norm for the majority of people. And if you do that, it barely compares to its console competition at this point in time.

It'll grow, sure, and continue to have an impact. I just don't think it's fair to act like it's blowing out console competition.

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Why should it be compared to their combined numbers? I don't understand that at all. The poll is about what company is having the biggest impact.

I also really think it's fair to assume that on average people using Steam are significantly more likely to actually spend money on it than XBL/PSN. XBL and PSN are multiplayer focused with the marketplace just being another thing. People get Steam because of the marketplace.

From: Lopen | #011
Yeah I've never bought anything over Steam and I have an account just cause it's required to register some games like Skyrim and Civ 5

Buying games that require steam activation is the same as buying a game through steam. Valve is getting a cut either way.

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Starcraft is my life, so without it I wouldn't exist. - Artosis
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog for winning the 2011 Guru contest.

That's like saying buying first party Microsoft games is like getting XBL because Microsoft is getting a cut either way

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Wow man,you are so pathetic
You just totally ignore the fact the most people voted for Nintendo,which means more than your "54%" which is a combination of 2 options

You are so desperate to show you are "right" about your hate for Nintendo that you have become blind

Uh, hello? 70% voted against Nintendo, on a site HEAVILY biased in Nitnendo's favour. There's the actual food for thought for you.

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If you like Blitzball, try Captain Tsubasa II (in English) for NES!
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Derp, you could also say that about 70% voted against Sony, don't know what you're trying to get at.

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Except the site was never biased in favour of Sony.

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sony/microsoft. the U is going to be closer to the gamecube than the wii, apple already crushed the tablet market so nintendo is just a me too thing this time, and valve is limited mostly to PC gaming and people love the disadvantages that come with consoles for some reason

From: Liquid Wiind | #019
the U

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JJH777 posted...
Why should it be compared to their combined numbers? I don't understand that at all. The poll is about what company is having the biggest impact.


Because XBL and PSN are in direct competition for the same market. Steam has no competition. You have to assume that, were one of Xbox or Playstation to not exist, the opposite would have much more people. Steam has to beat the console competition in general to be "bigger," not just one company. I'm not referring to the poll, anyway. I'm referring to you saying Steam is bigger than XBL and PSN.

EDIT: And, yeah

Buying games that require steam activation is the same as buying a game through steam. Valve is getting a cut either way.


THAT makes no sense, if anything.

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From: StealThisSheen | #021
Because XBL and PSN are in direct competition for the same market. Steam has no competition. You have to assume that, were one of Xbox or Playstation to not exist, the opposite would have much more people. Steam has to beat the console competition in general to be "bigger," not just one company. I'm not referring to the poll, anyway. I'm referring to you saying Steam is bigger than XBL and PSN.

Steam is competing with the retail PC market and other DD services. Even for PC gaming digital distribution makes up less than 50% of the market. Steam is bigger than either of them. Obviously it isn't bigger than both of them but that doesn't matter.

THAT makes no sense, if anything.

How does it make no sense? The games are treated the exact same way every steamworks game purchase is the same as if you bought it retail. You'll have to download steam and log it in at least once a month.

From: Lopen | #014
That's like saying buying first party Microsoft games is like getting XBL because Microsoft is getting a cut either way

It has nothing to do with XBL so no but Microsoft does benefit from it so for this poll specifically it would have to be taken into account.

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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog for winning the 2011 Guru contest.

From: StealThisSheen | Posted: 3/2/2012 5:40:07 PM | #021
Steam has no competition.

Origin! >___>

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Yeah, Sony has 60 million PSN users, just not 60 million unique users. Almost everyone I know has at least two accounts that has connected online, to the PSN store, at least once. Usually one NA account, and one JPN account. Hell, Europeans might even have 3, their Euro one, their NA one, and their JPN one.

Some people also make a separate account just for gamesharing, so yeah, 60 million users for PSN isn't all that far fetched.

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Or you can be Christian Weston Chandler and have like, a PSN account for every country.

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From: JJH777 | #022
It has nothing to do with XBL so no but Microsoft does benefit from it so for this poll specifically it would have to be taken into account.

My whole point is that if you're ranting about how used the Steam service is it doesn't really fly to include people that are indoctrinated into it as evidence that it's widely used.

For another example, it'd be like if they packaged 3 free months of XBL with 360s and counting these people as subscribers even if they don't renew. Microsoft is still getting money because the 360s are made by them, but it's not really the same thing.

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I don't think digital will be overtaking retail anytime soon. It'll continue to grow for sure, but there are a lot of people who just need that physical copy. Hell, 42% of this site would be willing to pay a little more for a game, if it meant having a physical copy.

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Nintendo and Microsoft eh? I would have gone with Nintendo and Sony but, maybe Microsoft has something...

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Huh if we are only taking into account the gaming portions of XBL and PSN Steam might actually be as big as them combined. Not as many users but money wise. Steam made almost $1 billion in revenue in 2010:
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2011/02/04/steam_revenue_nearly_hits_1_billion

XBL did about the same:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0228/technology-gabe-newell-videogames-valve-online-mayhem_3.html
but that is taking into account movies, music, tv shows, things like netflix and their subscription fee.

PSN makes about $500 million:
http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/27/the-cost-of-sonys-playstation-network-outage-24-billion-or-20-million/

Then there's the fact that according to lots of analysts Steam basically doubled over 2011 while XBL and PSN would have no reason to grow that much.

At the very least it is close and Steam definitely blows either one of them out of the water.

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Starcraft is my life, so without it I wouldn't exist. - Artosis
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog for winning the 2011 Guru contest.

I don't see how you can say Steam blew Microsoft out of the water. Games cost more on average on Steam, because on consoles people are much more likely to buy a retail copy when they can, leaving stuff like XBLA games. And you can't just NOT count the other stuff XBL offers. You can if going STRICTLY by the poll, but that's not what the discussion is about. You're arguing Steam is bigger/blows them out of the water, and it doesn't.

EDIT: Especially since the top selling games on Steam were all games that sold at or near retail value for a good chunk of time. Especially Call of Duty.

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SEP Nash, Smelling Like the Vault since 1996
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