Being a mad UT fanboy, this news has got me a little worried. Seems that in the month of November, only 39,995 units of Unreal Tournament 3 for the PC were sold in the US. The expected number of units to be shifted was 70,000 so to only move half that number is not a good sign.
Crysis on the other hand, which was expected to move just over 68,000 units, ended up with over 86,000 units being shifted. Of course all of these numbers pale in comparison to the console sales, so hopefully with the release of UT3 on the PS3 a few days ago, and a 360 release sometime next year, the sales for UT3 will be a lot larger. Christmas could also help to push UT3 PC sales up.
Being a PC enthusiast and gamer for many years, it is both annoying and saddening to see PC sales drying up, while the console sales continue to grow. It is annoying because it feeds more fuel to the rabid console fanboys who always claim the death of PC gaming every time the newest generation of consoles arrive.
While it has been proven that PC gaming won’t suddenly die because of a new generation of supposed "next-gen" consoles (the only next-gen console in my mind is the Wii), PC gaming is gradually "dying" out as more and more people find it a lot easier to buy a console and have all of your online gaming brought together in one spot (Xbox Live and PSN).
I mentioned it was saddening, and I do mean that. I have so many fond memories of playing Doom, Simcity 2000 and of course the epic that is, Commander Keen! From about the age of 5 or 6 I was constantly playing these games and so many more on my family PC. Sure I’d play consoles every now and then, but never for a very long time.
Even though I would get bored pretty quickly on a NES, I could easily play SimCity 2000 for hours on end. As I got older I started to pick which computer parts we should get when we upgraded, and after a few years I was pretty much in charge of any upgrades to the computer (except for paying) and it just became this fantastic hobby. It certainly is sad to sit and watch each year as the sales for PCs drop and drop and drop.
But enough of that. Ever since UT99 came out, there has been a very strong community that has been very supportive of each other and of Epic, and some of the maps and modifications that have come out have been amazing (Infiltration anyone?). Hopefully the same will happen with UT3 and more people will start to notice this stellar title and hopefully buy a few (million) copies.
[via PlanetUnreal]
