Quote Originally Posted by _C-a-e-r-i-t-h_ View Post
A poll of Steam users is not representative of the world at large. It is representative of Steam users who opted to take the survey. 90% of Steam users purchased Portal 2. Does that mean only 10% of the world hasn't played it?

Steam and FFXIV are different markets.

Most of the world is still on XP. Most people upgrade their computers on a 5-year cycle. Windows 7 came out in 2009, so XP still has 3 more years before it's archaic.

S-E does need to enable DX10-11 support eventually, but DX9 is still plenty sufficient for graphics-based games (Witcher 2) in the hands of a capable developer. First priority though should be maybe finding a capable developer to handle the optimization.



Agreed.
Heres the thing, people who play ffxiv dont only play ffxiv, and they dont only play JRPGs.

The steam community is absolutly huge, sometimes I find myself just looking on steam at what there is and if I had the money I would have bought loads because it is easier than going to the shop to get em.

Also anyone that needs a high spec PC upgrades on a 3 year cycle, if it was on a 5 year cycle after the 4th you would not beable to play any games new games.

The only people that buy on a 5 year cycle is average users that just browse the web and other things that dont need a highly spec'd PC. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp this site shows a monthly break down of the OS market share, while XP has 40% of the market, 7 has 35% and if you look at it closer for 2011 only 7 has taken 5% of the market off XP, so by the end of 2011 if the trend continues windows 7 (and therefore DX10/11) will be the market leader.

Looking at this information SE would be stupid not to upgrade to DX10/11 before the end of the year when win 7 will be leading the OS market.

And I know you are going to say this doesnt represent the share of people that play ffxiv, but it shows the OS market trends and what SE need to be thinking about is potential players, not the people that play now