Console gaming is getting just as pricey as mid level pc's and they still do less. It may only be 400 to 600 dollars for the box but then you gotta have all the 'extra' doo dads that companies like Sony and Microcrap er Microsoft leave off so they can continue to bleed money out of you like extra controllers, an extra internet connection fee (for the xbox360 users), memory cards if you want to take a game to your friends house, etc etc.
Personally I don' t think PC gaming will ever die out it'll just continue to evolve. Though hopefully they'll get back to make games fun instead of just pretty.
No they're not. Computer manufactors sell hardware at a profit, consoles are sold at a loss which is made up through software sales. also Xbox360 and PS3 equal high end pc's, not mid level pc's. PC gaming is dying at worst and turning into a very small niche genre at best. The hardware is to expensive and the features are dropping one by one. Online Multiplayer? Now avaible on Consoles. Mods? Now avaible on consoles.
ofcourse we get the old tiresome argument :"b-but I can upgrade my PC!" yeah well guess what: You're a minority. The vast majority of people are not prepared to pay up 200$ ~ 300$ every 2 years, so you're not going to be the target audience for the vast majority of game developers. Games like Bioshock, Call of Duty 4 and UT3, all considered to be some of the best looking games avaible, are easily done on consoles.
XBox 360's and PS3 = low to mid end PC's. You can't actually buy a new PC that isn't twice as powerful. No one has made anything that low spec for over 3 years now. The GFX are 2 generations old, the processors, abandonware designs that the PC market passed over in favour of the Athlon 64. The RAM is slow and substantially less than commonly found in many of todays mobile phones.
They still rock of course, but I wouldn't be getting any silly idea's about them being high powered in comparison to PC's.
I think you may have confused a comparison of the expected power of the console, 3 years before it came out with the PC's of that date and forgot to re-make comparison of what is actually on offer today.
Add to that a basic gaming PC costs less than a PS3 as does it's software and any price argument hardly holds water. As you say the console cost is subsidised by a premium on the games. It isn't cheaper for the end user, and there is simply no way any console manufacturer can compete with PC for hardware prices, their market is positively tiny by comparison.
For the record, computer manufacturers also sell their products at a loss when they are seeking to gain market share with a new product in a competative market. This is common practise in most industries. Intel do it all the time.
I think some one needs to recognise when he has been pitched a sale.
I totally agree with you in terms of the hardware. Even a PS3 has pretty meager stats on paper compared to a $600 PC.
The problem is that on a console you don't just get a little more graphical bang for your buck, you get about ten times as much. An X-box 360 game that really pushes the hardware to the limit will run on every single X-box 360. A PC game that pushes a high end PC to the limit will run like balls on at least 95% of PCs in homes.
Because of this console developers can afford to push the hardware to it's absolute limits, whereas PC developers have to be pretty cautious. And because of that, to get graphics about on par with a $400 X-box 360 or PS3 on a good TV, you need at least a $1500 PC, if not an even better one.
Don't get me wrong. Pc gaming is certainly not going anywhere. In fact I consider it nearly inevitable that eventually PCs will replace consoles, or consoles will evolve into PCs. Once BB access is universal, and you can play games that look as good as anything out on the market now through a web browser, I suspect that the current system through which games are distributed will become utterly obsolete. The line between your TV and your PC monitor is also a very artificial one. Slowly but surely it is beginning to erode.
But for the time being, consoles are much more user friendly than PCs and have graphics on par with a high end gaming PC. Yes a hardcore PC gamer can tell the difference. But to Joe Average consumer, anything from Wii on up probably looks about the same. Certainly Joe Average is not going to look at Halo III and think, "Wow, this looks like shit next to an average game on a $5000 PC." Hell, I do 95% of my gaming on the PC and I wouldn't say that.
While Halo looks excellent on the Xbox, do you remember it on the PC? How it lagged. And it never looked excellent on PC, just mediocre.
I agree that Halo looks excellent. I also feel that you should buy games for the platform they are designed for. So if you want to play Halo, an XBox is your best bet.
I also agree that developers continue even to this day to push the limits of consoles. The hardware may be static, but the software is not. There were some astounding and masterful games out on PS2 after a few years.
The same is also true of the PC. While many games manufacturers may simply rely on the machines hardware to generate more powerful games, not all do. There are also advances and refinements in code. You will see them in the technology titles. Stalker, Unreal, Quakes etc.
These titles are also able to push hardware to it's absolute limits. The games are made to make money not only on their individual sales, but also to sell the engines under lisence. They need to run the latest hardware at max, and prototype unreleased hardware on max also, because the engine they are selling has to survive in the market place of the future not just today; it must sell for the next few years to come.
As with the console market there are a litany of games that do not advance the genre, that do not make great use of the hardware also.
The difference for a console engine designer, is that he never addresses the issue of scaleability. His engine is limited. The best selling game engines, on both console and PC are all designed on PC. They are not only able to run a PC on it's maximum settings, and a wide variety of maximum settings depending on the hardware config of a PC, but they are also able to do the same with all the consoles and handhelds.
If you go to the cinema, you pay more to see the film before the home cinema crowd. If you are a PC gamer, there is an element of this too. There isn't a big migration of technology, either hardware or software moving from console to PC. This is not the place for me to start my quest for the ever more advanced game. The next leap to towards holodeck is not going to be made on the Xbox360.
Don't get me wrong, console games are often very good and I enjoy them. But I've been building and designing computers as a hobby for 25 years now, Halo doesn't really do much for me. I've already played the same gametype with different skins and more options 2 years before it came out.
In all honesty, as it good as it looks, it looks boring. I've played through and enjoyed all the Halo's, (even raved about the ending) but I would never consider buying one. It's a console game. It's for idiots. People who think 2nd best is the best. People who think out of date technology is the latest thing. People who sit on sofa's not at desks. I am a PC elitist. If Nintendo ever launched a decent home networking VR console then I will change my position on the spot. Until then.....
Beyond bad sales... The issue is coming down to... Why make PC games? Consoles can handle most of the modern graphics(and most pcs can't handle the pumping top notch games above what consoles can do anyway). Keyboards and mouses can be attached to consoles. You can browse the net on a console. You can download games and movies and patches onto consoles. And at the same time, developers have it much easier because they don't have to configure the game for 1000000 different hardware setups, you don't have people having invisible characters because of their version of windows and video card drivers. I could honestly see in 10-20 years pcs being the "programmer/developer" console, and "consoles" being the gaming/recreational "console". Because each iteration of console generation grows closer and closer to being a pc. Also have you seen any good non mmorpg pc games that are pc exclusive? I have. All 3 of them.
As soon as you start plugging extra's into your console and downloading patches for it online, developers will have to confidure it for 1000000 different hardware setups. Dur.
As soon as you use you console as a PC, it becomes one.
After listening to the Q3 2008 Electronic Arts Earnings Conference Call we have learned that Crysis has been a strong performer with sales having exceeded expectations. EA also reported Crysis reaching the platinum mark meaning over 1 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide.
I stand corrected, it's not dead just yet. With that said, it's still not on par with the console sales, considering that Crysis was arguably the most anticipated PC game of the year.
As soon as you start plugging extra's into your console and downloading patches for it online, developers will have to confidure it for 1000000 different hardware setups. Dur.
As soon as you use you console as a PC, it becomes one.
That's a very good point.
Another issue is the growing online capabilities of consoles. If it becomes the norm for console developers to skimp on testing and fix all the bugs through post-release downloadable patches, console fans will end up in the same undesirable situation as PC gamers -- never being able to buy a new game without encountering a crapload of buggy BS.
I'm sure it's inevitable, and I am NOT looking forward to it.
This has nothing to do really with mouse + keyboard vs console controller.
I just watched the video. There are 2 main factors to why in 2007 PC games sales did not produce thenumbers they were trying to attain. Each of these reason are very simple. 1. Hack/Crack of PC games. This is a HUGE problem in the PC FPS and RTS game market. It isn't so much of a problem for MMO's because the companies themselves monitor the games in real time as to cracks and keys, cheats, exploits ect. When it comes to a FPS / RTS stand alone game, any noob can wonder to their favorite bittorrent site and download + crack any of these games with-in an hours time. Why buy what you can get for free? This is the common mentality of cracker / hacker. I personally know 20 people who did not buy COD4 because they had it downloaded and cracked within the first 12 hours of release. I personally could care less about other people's piracy morality issues. I can't really get mad at an extremely smart person for being smarter than a game developer.... when the developer gets paid to prevent this from happening. Tough love buddy get better at making games and hire someone who is better at game security measures.
2. PC hardware pricing When Crytek made Crysis after years of development. They knew precisely what would be needed to push this game in PC hardware. Hell it's stated right on the box with MIN vs MAX requirements. To play Crysis smooth, Which I have and do, You need some pretty astounding and might I add COSTLY PC hardware parts. I have 3 PC's in my house. My computer, My wifes computer and My old faithful standby (an Alienware 2nd Gen). Without going into great depth on each of them I will break down the 3 major components needed to play a game and play it well. My personal PC - 2 8800GT's in SLi Mode, 6000+ Duel AMD, 4 Gigs RAM Plays Crysis and COD4 Flawless MAX My Wifes PC - 2 7800GT's in SLi Mode, 5800 AMD, 2 Gigs RAM Plays COD4 on High, Crysis on Low Old Standby - 1 5900 GT Ultra Overclock, 5200 AMD, 2 Gigs RAM Can't really play Either with any amount of "gameplay" factor. Now my machine is a extreme example of what is needed to play Crysis and COD4 MAX flawlessly. However most people and I need to stress this MOST people cannot afford a PC like the one on the top of this list. This PC was hand built and cost in upwards of $3200+ dollars. I would assume that the average PC gamer in 2007 is either at my wifes PC specs or somewhere between my old standby and my wifes PC. Alot of adults may be playing at specs like mine but MOST kids are not. I do not care how much money mommy and daddy have, I dont see them handing a 13 year old kid $3200 bucks and saying "here baby go build a new pc so you can play crysis with your friends." HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO SELL 1 MILLION COPIES OF CRYSIS IN 1 MONTH WHEN THERE PROBABLY ARE NOT 1 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE US WHO OWN COMPUTERS HIGH END ENOUGH TO PLAY IT. come on now Crytek use your brain some guys. So these new games being produced are targeted for users on high end gaming rigs... when most of the populace has not caught up to the "norm" of pc hardware yet. Pretty simple... Noone is going to buy your game... if they can't play it at a reasonable quality level.
I really hope this fiasco will be a wake-up call to other PC developers. I guess they're counting on massive sales in a year or two when the A. specs to run Crysis will be commonplace, and B. Crysis will be well off everyone's radar and look pretty mediocre. No wait, that would be a stupid plan...
EQ II, Ultima IX, Crysis, and any number of other games over the years have proved...writing your games for PCs of the future is stupid.
When in the name of all that is good will PC developers finally get that through their thick f-ing heads?
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
Since it would only be fair to look at both sides of the arguements: Crysis sold 1 million copies worldwide: www.maxconsole.net/
After listening to the Q3 2008 Electronic Arts Earnings Conference Call we have learned that Crysis has been a strong performer with sales having exceeded expectations. EA also reported Crysis reaching the platinum mark meaning over 1 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide.
I stand corrected, it's not dead just yet. With that said, it's still not on par with the console sales, considering that Crysis was arguably the most anticipated PC game of the year.
Not quite.
One of the big reasons not is that PC gamers have been stung before by the 'old game too advanced for average PC's' bug. Also it is a DirectX10 game and people just dont like Vista. And so it doesant do as well as it could have.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
One of the big reasons not is that PC gamers have been stung before by the 'old game too advanced for average PC's' bug. Also it is a DirectX10 game and people just dont like Vista. And so it doesant do as well as it could have.
I don't mind Vista but I ain't gonna go run out and pay $100 to upgrade my current PC to it either. If they put in on the next PC I buy, fine by me, but until that day XP works just great.
Console gaming is getting just as pricey as mid level pc's and they still do less. It may only be 400 to 600 dollars for the box but then you gotta have all the 'extra' doo dads that companies like Sony and Microcrap er Microsoft leave off so they can continue to bleed money out of you like extra controllers, an extra internet connection fee (for the xbox360 users), memory cards if you want to take a game to your friends house, etc etc.
Personally I don' t think PC gaming will ever die out it'll just continue to evolve. Though hopefully they'll get back to make games fun instead of just pretty.
No they're not. Computer manufactors sell hardware at a profit, consoles are sold at a loss which is made up through software sales. also Xbox360 and PS3 equal high end pc's, not mid level pc's. PC gaming is dying at worst and turning into a very small niche genre at best. The hardware is to expensive and the features are dropping one by one. Online Multiplayer? Now avaible on Consoles. Mods? Now avaible on consoles.
ofcourse we get the old tiresome argument :"b-but I can upgrade my PC!" yeah well guess what: You're a minority. The vast majority of people are not prepared to pay up 200$ ~ 300$ every 2 years, so you're not going to be the target audience for the vast majority of game developers. Games like Bioshock, Call of Duty 4 and UT3, all considered to be some of the best looking games avaible, are easily done on consoles.
XBox 360's and PS3 = low to mid end PC's. You can't actually buy a new PC that isn't twice as powerful. No one has made anything that low spec for over 3 years now. The GFX are 2 generations old, the processors, abandonware designs that the PC market passed over in favour of the Athlon 64. The RAM is slow and substantially less than commonly found in many of todays mobile phones.
They still rock of course, but I wouldn't be getting any silly idea's about them being high powered in comparison to PC's.
I think you may have confused a comparison of the expected power of the console, 3 years before it came out with the PC's of that date and forgot to re-make comparison of what is actually on offer today.
Add to that a basic gaming PC costs less than a PS3 as does it's software and any price argument hardly holds water. As you say the console cost is subsidised by a premium on the games. It isn't cheaper for the end user, and there is simply no way any console manufacturer can compete with PC for hardware prices, their market is positively tiny by comparison.
For the record, computer manufacturers also sell their products at a loss when they are seeking to gain market share with a new product in a competative market. This is common practise in most industries. Intel do it all the time.
I think some one needs to recognise when he has been pitched a sale.
I totally agree with you in terms of the hardware. Even a PS3 has pretty meager stats on paper compared to a $600 PC.
The problem is that on a console you don't just get a little more graphical bang for your buck, you get about ten times as much. An X-box 360 game that really pushes the hardware to the limit will run on every single X-box 360. A PC game that pushes a high end PC to the limit will run like balls on at least 95% of PCs in homes.
Because of this console developers can afford to push the hardware to it's absolute limits, whereas PC developers have to be pretty cautious. And because of that, to get graphics about on par with a $400 X-box 360 or PS3 on a good TV, you need at least a $1500 PC, if not an even better one.
Don't get me wrong. Pc gaming is certainly not going anywhere. In fact I consider it nearly inevitable that eventually PCs will replace consoles, or consoles will evolve into PCs. Once BB access is universal, and you can play games that look as good as anything out on the market now through a web browser, I suspect that the current system through which games are distributed will become utterly obsolete. The line between your TV and your PC monitor is also a very artificial one. Slowly but surely it is beginning to erode.
But for the time being, consoles are much more user friendly than PCs and have graphics on par with a high end gaming PC. Yes a hardcore PC gamer can tell the difference. But to Joe Average consumer, anything from Wii on up probably looks about the same. Certainly Joe Average is not going to look at Halo III and think, "Wow, this looks like shit next to an average game on a $5000 PC." Hell, I do 95% of my gaming on the PC and I wouldn't say that.
While Halo looks excellent on the Xbox, do you remember it on the PC? How it lagged. And it never looked excellent on PC, just mediocre.
I agree that Halo looks excellent. I also feel that you should buy games for the platform they are designed for. So if you want to play Halo, an XBox is your best bet.
I also agree that developers continue even to this day to push the limits of consoles. The hardware may be static, but the software is not. There were some astounding and masterful games out on PS2 after a few years.
The same is also true of the PC. While many games manufacturers may simply rely on the machines hardware to generate more powerful games, not all do. There are also advances and refinements in code. You will see them in the technology titles. Stalker, Unreal, Quakes etc.
These titles are also able to push hardware to it's absolute limits. The games are made to make money not only on their individual sales, but also to sell the engines under lisence. They need to run the latest hardware at max, and prototype unreleased hardware on max also, because the engine they are selling has to survive in the market place of the future not just today; it must sell for the next few years to come.
As with the console market there are a litany of games that do not advance the genre, that do not make great use of the hardware also.
The difference for a console engine designer, is that he never addresses the issue of scaleability. His engine is limited. The best selling game engines, on both console and PC are all designed on PC. They are not only able to run a PC on it's maximum settings, and a wide variety of maximum settings depending on the hardware config of a PC, but they are also able to do the same with all the consoles and handhelds.
If you go to the cinema, you pay more to see the film before the home cinema crowd. If you are a PC gamer, there is an element of this too. There isn't a big migration of technology, either hardware or software moving from console to PC. This is not the place for me to start my quest for the ever more advanced game. The next leap to towards holodeck is not going to be made on the Xbox360.
Don't get me wrong, console games are often very good and I enjoy them. But I've been building and designing computers as a hobby for 25 years now, Halo doesn't really do much for me. I've already played the same gametype with different skins and more options 2 years before it came out.
In all honesty, as it good as it looks, it looks boring. I've played through and enjoyed all the Halo's, (even raved about the ending) but I would never consider buying one. It's a console game. It's for idiots. People who think 2nd best is the best. People who think out of date technology is the latest thing. People who sit on sofa's not at desks. I am a PC elitist. If Nintendo ever launched a decent home networking VR console then I will change my position on the spot. Until then.....
I think we are basically in agreement. I certainly would not hold Halo up as the paragon of FPS goodness that many would. They are solid games, but a bit overhyped. The Orange Box, for example, absolutely thrashes all three Halo's imo (as an example). Your point about how poopy Halo ran on the PC also reinforces the point about the advantage of a stable hardware platform with a large installed base from the standpoint of a developer. Of course even if it ran perfeectly, Halo would just be a mediocre to slightly better than average shooter in PC space.
My only point is that the difference in graphics quality between a high end X-box 360 game or a PS3 game just isn't that noticable to anyone but a hardcore PC enthusiast. It's certainly not several hundreds or thousands of dollars noticeable. For the vast majority of gamers, 2nd best is fine if it costs 1/5 as much and is ten times as easy to use.
But agreed, if you must have the absolute best, PC gaming is always where it will be at.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
LOL the constant quotes are getting a bit LONG... but I will agree with most of what has been said so far.
And 1 poster brought up another good point on the PC angle, Most REAL pc gamers refuse to go to the memory hog, overhyped, buggy as hell windows vista, which really hurts sales also, as games like Crysis and Lord of the Rings Online have options for DX10 but useless without vista.
Actually it could quite safely be said that Vista was responsible for last years lacklustre load of decent games.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Vista isn't that bad. It has some great features. If they fix the bugs and problems, it'll be a great OS.
Now granted 32 bit sucks, but if you didn't think 32 bit was going to suck, you probably should just buy an X-Box. Trying to impliment a 64 bit OS on a 32 to bit system is doomed to failure.
Summary: 64 bit>32 bit, vista has problems, but its not horrible, and DX10 has some great features.
Oh yeah, and Crysis was considered a success by EA. They are planning two more Crysis titles, and have already licensed the engine for new games.
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
Vista isn't that bad. It has some great features. If they fix the bugs and problems, it'll be a great OS.
Now granted 32 bit sucks, but if you didn't think 32 bit was going to suck, you probably should just buy an X-Box. Trying to impliment a 64 bit OS on a 32 to bit system is doomed to failure.
Summary: 64 bit>32 bit, vista has problems, but its not horrible, and DX10 has some great features.
Oh yeah, and Crysis was considered a success by EA. They are planning two more Crysis titles, and have already licensed the engine for new games.
All you say may be true but The PERCEPTION is that Vista is still bugged and unreliable to gamers.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
PC Gaming isn't dead.. Actually no where near, but the problem is, is that when these developers make games and show their screenshots at max detail, the PC gamer always EXPECTS the graphics to look exactly like that when they play. Problem is, in order to get it to look that great you have to rebuild a whole new 1k+ pc.. And mind you, these PC games get bigger and better yearly so that 1k+ pc will have to see more money every year in order to stay on top of the "screenshot" looks..
This is where a console shines... On a console, you get the "new-age" graphics and nowadays much much more (video playback, internet and web surfing, voice chat messengers etc..) for a much much lower price as well as usually in console world you will only NEED to upgrade when the next gen systems come out, which is on average about 3 years..
I actuallly prefer PC gaming to consoles.. I am in much more control I feel over things.. I can tone down things that I dont feel are important for perfomance increases, I can rebind keys I can use my precision guided crosshair to pick and point out enemies without the need for an "auto-lock"... It's just a much better deal for me.. And since i'm a "medium" settings kind of guy, I usally only been having to upgrade about every 3 years like any console user has.. Oh, and plus, I have been PC Gaming back when the commodore 64 was the home pc of choice (and im not that old at all)..
But seriously, they need to standardize the pc gaming area... It's way to confusing for new comers and when they ask for help the only people they get answers from are the people who spent 4k on their computers all telling them to "Make one like mine!"... Which probably scares them away...
I totally agree with you in terms of the hardware. Even a PS3 has pretty meager stats on paper compared to a $600 PC. The problem is that on a console you don't just get a little more graphical bang for your buck, you get about ten times as much. An X-box 360 game that really pushes the hardware to the limit will run on every single X-box 360. A PC game that pushes a high end PC to the limit will run like balls on at least 95% of PCs in homes. Because of this console developers can afford to push the hardware to it's absolute limits, whereas PC developers have to be pretty cautious. And because of that, to get graphics about on par with a $400 X-box 360 or PS3 on a good TV, you need at least a $1500 PC, if not an even better one. Don't get me wrong. Pc gaming is certainly not going anywhere. In fact I consider it nearly inevitable that eventually PCs will replace consoles, or consoles will evolve into PCs. Once BB access is universal, and you can play games that look as good as anything out on the market now through a web browser, I suspect that the current system through which games are distributed will become utterly obsolete. The line between your TV and your PC monitor is also a very artificial one. Slowly but surely it is beginning to erode. But for the time being, consoles are much more user friendly than PCs and have graphics on par with a high end gaming PC. Yes a hardcore PC gamer can tell the difference. But to Joe Average consumer, anything from Wii on up probably looks about the same. Certainly Joe Average is not going to look at Halo III and think, "Wow, this looks like shit next to an average game on a $5000 PC." Hell, I do 95% of my gaming on the PC and I wouldn't say that.
I'm gonna have to disagree with many points here. PCs haven't gotten more expensive, they've gotten cheaper. If you've been PC gaming since the early days of PCs, you know that buying a name brand top of the line desk top computer back in the early ninties, ran you $2-3000 bucks! These days, you can build a quad core, duel 8800GT, 4g of memory system for around $1200 (not counting the monitor.) And that machine will BLOW AWAY any $600 PS3.
I don't think you can see other folks wishlists on Newegg.com but I just put together the following system
Antec 550w Black Case
ASUS P5N-T Quad-Core PCIE 2.0 Mobo
BFG Tech 8800GTS 512 OC Video Card
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 Processor
OCZ Platinum 2g DDR2 1066 Memory
Sound Blaster Audigy SE Sound Card
Western Digital SATA 3g/s 500mb Hard Drive
Lite-On 50x DvD Burner
Total Price - $1234.92
Now that doesn't include shipping, but if your upgrading. You may well already have a case, sound card, (or decide to use the onboard sound, though it's not where near as good,) hard-drive, cd/dvd drive/burner, etc. That'd drop the price down to about $950. For that price you could add on another BFG Tech 6600GTS 512 and bring it back up to the previous cost. This also assumes you already have a monitor.
So yea, you can build a very powerful machine for under $1500 easily, and I bought all high quality parts. You could cheap out on a few things and drop your price another $100-200 if you really needed to.
Now, you could go and spend $500 on a console. But you'd have to put up with games that push the console but have bad framerate problems (it seams every Xbox360 game that has come out in the last 6 months, has looked very good, but has chugged the framerates at certain points. Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, and more.) That means games are ALREADY hitting the consoles cap capabilities, and thats with some cheap cop-outs to improve performance. Shooters with a field of view of like 50 degrees. A limit to 8 or 16 player multiplayer, some areas with textures that are REALLY bad because consoles have very limited texture budgets, and really really poor AI half the time.
But it doesn't end there. You buy that $400 Xbox360 Pro and your stuck with it, with the above issues, already, and theres still 2-3 years left in the cycle. But you also are not left with a console you can use right out of the box and fully utilize all it's features. You've got things like;
Xbox Live yearly cost (on top of your existing broadband costs) - $50 a year
Games - $65-80 depending on edition (hell Halo 3 had a $130 edition.) Console games cant be modded, there multiplayer is static, new content very often costs more money and have a FAR more limited play cycle then PC games.
Extra Xbox360 Wireless Controller - $60
Wireless Network Adapter - $99 (assuming you don't want a 30' cable strewn through your livingroom.)
Wireless Headset - $60
Now thats just what your gonna likely want. Theres more if you want the best experience.
HDMI Conversion Kit - $90 (assuming you want to play high-def, HDMI is almost a must anymore, far less ugly cords hanging down your walls. Not to mention a far better signal to noise ratio.)
Xbox360 120g Hard Drive - $180 (tell me that aint pathetic lol. Everyone knows you're probly gonna fill your tiny 20g faster then you'd expect. ESPECIALLY if your playing RPGs.)
Xbox360 512mb Memory Card - $60 (if you plan on taking your games to friends house, this is a must.)
Theres even more if you play games like Rock Band with friends, etc.
Now how do I know this? Cause my daughter is a gamer like her dad lol. She's also a bit of a tom-boy at 13. She's got all that and more for her Xbox360 plus about a dozen games over the past 2 years or so. Not even counting the games we've easily spent $1000 on her Xbox. Some she bought herself (she's got a weekend job,) some she's recieved on christmas, birthdays etc. Others rewards for things like getting A's in school. Course she grew up with PC games. So she spends a fair bit of her 'gaming' time playing WoW or Rollercoster Tycoon on her mothers computer lol. And she sometimes uses mine when I get a sweet new game. Though my games usually involve lots of things exploding and such, she's not so much into them lol.
As to needing a $1500 PC to play games better then a console. Please. I'm on a AMD 3500+, 1.5g Crucial PC333, XFX 7900GS 256, ASUS 939 board and I can blow away many console games on my PC. Oblivion? Don't get me started, paralax map mod, fix those distant textures, improved faces mod, and it looks far better then the console version. Crysis, of course PC only. But contrary to popular opinion, you don't need a liquid cooled Quad-Core, duel 8x video card to run the game in medium settings. I have my settings to medium (with things like Paralax mapping set high, and vilumetric clouds low) and I get about 25fps in fights, and 30+ when I'm just wandering. Today, this system would cost about $500. I do have a very nice $350 22" monitor to go with it, and can run in resolutions beyond 'HD'. Hell I have a friend who runs his games in like 2500x1400 or something like that. It's insane. His computer isn't even as good as mine, accept the video card lol.
So yea, this whole 'consoles are way cheaper and you need a $2000 computer to even keep up, and spend another $500 every other month to keep up to date' line that I hear from every other console gamer, it's a load of bull. Before consoles were even capable of a decent 3d game, you had to spend $2500 on a name-brand system that could even play Doom without shuddering in fights. I didn't hear people complaining then. And I didn't hear people complain when the latest consoles were introduced and cost $600 or more. But no.. the PC is the expensive platform. Course.. you get so much more capability with that cost.
The next cycle of consoles are almost guaranteed to cost $800-1000, and the companies will still be loosing money big time. They'll practically be full fledged 'gaming PC's by that point.
And thats EXACTLY what needs to happen... BARGAIN priced gaming pc's that are ALREADY out together for the average joe who doesnt know shit about computers... Im not talking about that overpriced alienware BS.. Im talkin the real deal median.. something that ALOT of people can afford to buy and will be pleased with the performance.. And it would need to have multiple cores so windows can run on its on seperate core AWAY from the game, so it could play like a console and we can FINALLY use ALL of the pc's resources to the fullest..
These days, you can build a quad core, duel 8800GT, 4g of memory system for around $1200 (not counting the monitor.) And that machine will BLOW AWAY any $600 PS3.
I think this where your basic premise is wrong. You are comparing a 1200 PC to the most expensive console that has ever been released. It's a silly comparison for a couple of reasons.
First of all, most consumers won't even pay $600 for a gaming machine. Sales of PS3 didn't go anywhere until they came out with a $400 model, it was getting it's ass kicked by the cheaper X-box 360 until then. And both of those are getting their asses kicked by the $250 Wii even as we speak (which has the worst graphics of the three!).
And yes on paper your $1200 computer blows away a 250-500 dollar (at current prices) console. But when you get right down to it, most peaple (i.e., not hardcore gaming enthusiasts like you and me) would probably not notice the difference in graphical quality between Halo III on the 360 and and something high end like Crysis, much less an average PC game. They would think that both systems had "kickass graphics" and leave it there.
It sold over a million units in December despite having graphics that look abysmal to a serious gamer. Hell, my friends that don't game think my PS2 has astounding graphics. They are surprised when I tell them that it sucks compared to the current gen consoles.
It's also not a good comparisons because most consumers want a gaming system for which installation consists of taking it out of a box and plugging it it, and maintanence consists of occasional dusting. They also really enjoy gaming from their couch.
I'm not trying to discount all of your points. Consoles are indeed more expensiove than many peaple think when you factor in extra controllers and all that jazz. And the popular perception that you need a $5000 PC to play games is certainly off. Mine is three years old and only cost me $1000 to begin with. It does just fine. Crysis would probably make it explode, but I can max out most of the settings in LotRO which is less than a year old. So no, you don't have to spend thousands to be a PC gamer.
I'm mainly pointing out that most peaple don't look at things the same way that a hardcore PC gamer does.
Case in point: how much better than Halo III or Gears of War does Crysis really look? Does it look enough better that it's worth assmbling a system by hand using parts from Newegg? Does it look enough better that it's worth gaming at a desk on a system that costs at least $500 more than a console? To a PC gamer, "Hell yes!" To Joe Average consumer "Hell no, are you on crack?"
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
And thats EXACTLY what needs to happen... BARGAIN priced gaming pc's that are ALREADY out together for the average joe who doesnt know shit about computers... Im not talking about that overpriced alienware BS.. Im talkin the real deal median.. something that ALOT of people can afford to buy and will be pleased with the performance.. And it would need to have multiple cores so windows can run on its on seperate core AWAY from the game, so it could play like a console and we can FINALLY use ALL of the pc's resources to the fullest..
I agree completely.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
The idea that consoles are killing PC gaming confuses me as much as the idea that World of WarCraft is killing MMOs. I understand that console gaming is more popular, but that should be irrelevant.
Are there, in fact, fewer people buying PC games today than there were ten years ago, or are there just more people buying console games?
That is a very important distinction to make, rather than simply comparing the sales of the two against each other.
Favorites: EQ, EVE | Playing: None. Mostly VR and strategy | Anticipating: CU, Pantheon
I totally agree with you in terms of the hardware. Even a PS3 has pretty meager stats on paper compared to a $600 PC. The problem is that on a console you don't just get a little more graphical bang for your buck, you get about ten times as much. An X-box 360 game that really pushes the hardware to the limit will run on every single X-box 360. A PC game that pushes a high end PC to the limit will run like balls on at least 95% of PCs in homes. Because of this console developers can afford to push the hardware to it's absolute limits, whereas PC developers have to be pretty cautious. And because of that, to get graphics about on par with a $400 X-box 360 or PS3 on a good TV, you need at least a $1500 PC, if not an even better one. Don't get me wrong. Pc gaming is certainly not going anywhere. In fact I consider it nearly inevitable that eventually PCs will replace consoles, or consoles will evolve into PCs. Once BB access is universal, and you can play games that look as good as anything out on the market now through a web browser, I suspect that the current system through which games are distributed will become utterly obsolete. The line between your TV and your PC monitor is also a very artificial one. Slowly but surely it is beginning to erode. But for the time being, consoles are much more user friendly than PCs and have graphics on par with a high end gaming PC. Yes a hardcore PC gamer can tell the difference. But to Joe Average consumer, anything from Wii on up probably looks about the same. Certainly Joe Average is not going to look at Halo III and think, "Wow, this looks like shit next to an average game on a $5000 PC." Hell, I do 95% of my gaming on the PC and I wouldn't say that.
I'm gonna have to disagree with many points here. PCs haven't gotten more expensive, they've gotten cheaper. If you've been PC gaming since the early days of PCs, you know that buying a name brand top of the line desk top computer back in the early ninties, ran you $2-3000 bucks! These days, you can build a quad core, duel 8800GT, 4g of memory system for around $1200 (not counting the monitor.) And that machine will BLOW AWAY any $600 PS3.
I don't think you can see other folks wishlists on Newegg.com but I just put together the following system
Antec 550w Black Case
ASUS P5N-T Quad-Core PCIE 2.0 Mobo
BFG Tech 8800GTS 512 OC Video Card
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 Processor
OCZ Platinum 2g DDR2 1066 Memory
Sound Blaster Audigy SE Sound Card
Western Digital SATA 3g/s 500mb Hard Drive
Lite-On 50x DvD Burner
Total Price - $1234.92
Now that doesn't include shipping, but if your upgrading. You may well already have a case, sound card, (or decide to use the onboard sound, though it's not where near as good,) hard-drive, cd/dvd drive/burner, etc. That'd drop the price down to about $950. For that price you could add on another BFG Tech 6600GTS 512 and bring it back up to the previous cost. This also assumes you already have a monitor.
So yea, you can build a very powerful machine for under $1500 easily, and I bought all high quality parts. You could cheap out on a few things and drop your price another $100-200 if you really needed to.
Now, you could go and spend $500 on a console. But you'd have to put up with games that push the console but have bad framerate problems (it seams every Xbox360 game that has come out in the last 6 months, has looked very good, but has chugged the framerates at certain points. Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, and more.) That means games are ALREADY hitting the consoles cap capabilities, and thats with some cheap cop-outs to improve performance. Shooters with a field of view of like 50 degrees. A limit to 8 or 16 player multiplayer, some areas with textures that are REALLY bad because consoles have very limited texture budgets, and really really poor AI half the time.
But it doesn't end there. You buy that $400 Xbox360 Pro and your stuck with it, with the above issues, already, and theres still 2-3 years left in the cycle. But you also are not left with a console you can use right out of the box and fully utilize all it's features. You've got things like;
Xbox Live yearly cost (on top of your existing broadband costs) - $50 a year
Games - $65-80 depending on edition (hell Halo 3 had a $130 edition.) Console games cant be modded, there multiplayer is static, new content very often costs more money and have a FAR more limited play cycle then PC games.
Extra Xbox360 Wireless Controller - $60
Wireless Network Adapter - $99 (assuming you don't want a 30' cable strewn through your livingroom.)
Wireless Headset - $60
Now thats just what your gonna likely want. Theres more if you want the best experience.
HDMI Conversion Kit - $90 (assuming you want to play high-def, HDMI is almost a must anymore, far less ugly cords hanging down your walls. Not to mention a far better signal to noise ratio.)
Xbox360 120g Hard Drive - $180 (tell me that aint pathetic lol. Everyone knows you're probly gonna fill your tiny 20g faster then you'd expect. ESPECIALLY if your playing RPGs.)
Xbox360 512mb Memory Card - $60 (if you plan on taking your games to friends house, this is a must.)
Theres even more if you play games like Rock Band with friends, etc.
Now how do I know this? Cause my daughter is a gamer like her dad lol. She's also a bit of a tom-boy at 13. She's got all that and more for her Xbox360 plus about a dozen games over the past 2 years or so. Not even counting the games we've easily spent $1000 on her Xbox. Some she bought herself (she's got a weekend job,) some she's recieved on christmas, birthdays etc. Others rewards for things like getting A's in school. Course she grew up with PC games. So she spends a fair bit of her 'gaming' time playing WoW or Rollercoster Tycoon on her mothers computer lol. And she sometimes uses mine when I get a sweet new game. Though my games usually involve lots of things exploding and such, she's not so much into them lol.
As to needing a $1500 PC to play games better then a console. Please. I'm on a AMD 3500+, 1.5g Crucial PC333, XFX 7900GS 256, ASUS 939 board and I can blow away many console games on my PC. Oblivion? Don't get me started, paralax map mod, fix those distant textures, improved faces mod, and it looks far better then the console version. Crysis, of course PC only. But contrary to popular opinion, you don't need a liquid cooled Quad-Core, duel 8x video card to run the game in medium settings. I have my settings to medium (with things like Paralax mapping set high, and vilumetric clouds low) and I get about 25fps in fights, and 30+ when I'm just wandering. Today, this system would cost about $500. I do have a very nice $350 22" monitor to go with it, and can run in resolutions beyond 'HD'. Hell I have a friend who runs his games in like 2500x1400 or something like that. It's insane. His computer isn't even as good as mine, accept the video card lol.
So yea, this whole 'consoles are way cheaper and you need a $2000 computer to even keep up, and spend another $500 every other month to keep up to date' line that I hear from every other console gamer, it's a load of bull. Before consoles were even capable of a decent 3d game, you had to spend $2500 on a name-brand system that could even play Doom without shuddering in fights. I didn't hear people complaining then. And I didn't hear people complain when the latest consoles were introduced and cost $600 or more. But no.. the PC is the expensive platform. Course.. you get so much more capability with that cost.
The next cycle of consoles are almost guaranteed to cost $800-1000, and the companies will still be loosing money big time. They'll practically be full fledged 'gaming PC's by that point.
yikes you went for a top of the line machine.
save some money by getting an e8400 - a lot cheaper than the Q6600and the same performance, overclocks like a mad mother to the point where it easily beats the Q6600. Saves like $70
8800 GTS 512 - save 50 bucks by getting an 8800 GT. Difference in performance is less than 10% but saves $60
Don't need a soundcard, a lot of P35 motherboards have excellent on board sound that don't take up much cpu. Not sure what current day sound cards cost but I'm guessing a savings of $150 - $200
DDR2 1066 memory - NO POINT AT ALL! Difference between DDR2 800 and DDR2 1066 in terms of actual application performance is about 3% at most. Def not worth it unless you're a hardcore overclocker. DDR2 800 mhz memory is dirt cheap now and gives excellent performance.
Comments
No they're not. Computer manufactors sell hardware at a profit, consoles are sold at a loss which is made up through software sales. also Xbox360 and PS3 equal high end pc's, not mid level pc's. PC gaming is dying at worst and turning into a very small niche genre at best. The hardware is to expensive and the features are dropping one by one. Online Multiplayer? Now avaible on Consoles. Mods? Now avaible on consoles.
ofcourse we get the old tiresome argument :"b-but I can upgrade my PC!" yeah well guess what: You're a minority. The vast majority of people are not prepared to pay up 200$ ~ 300$ every 2 years, so you're not going to be the target audience for the vast majority of game developers. Games like Bioshock, Call of Duty 4 and UT3, all considered to be some of the best looking games avaible, are easily done on consoles.
XBox 360's and PS3 = low to mid end PC's. You can't actually buy a new PC that isn't twice as powerful. No one has made anything that low spec for over 3 years now. The GFX are 2 generations old, the processors, abandonware designs that the PC market passed over in favour of the Athlon 64. The RAM is slow and substantially less than commonly found in many of todays mobile phones.
They still rock of course, but I wouldn't be getting any silly idea's about them being high powered in comparison to PC's.
I think you may have confused a comparison of the expected power of the console, 3 years before it came out with the PC's of that date and forgot to re-make comparison of what is actually on offer today.
Add to that a basic gaming PC costs less than a PS3 as does it's software and any price argument hardly holds water. As you say the console cost is subsidised by a premium on the games. It isn't cheaper for the end user, and there is simply no way any console manufacturer can compete with PC for hardware prices, their market is positively tiny by comparison.
For the record, computer manufacturers also sell their products at a loss when they are seeking to gain market share with a new product in a competative market. This is common practise in most industries. Intel do it all the time.
I think some one needs to recognise when he has been pitched a sale.
I totally agree with you in terms of the hardware. Even a PS3 has pretty meager stats on paper compared to a $600 PC.
The problem is that on a console you don't just get a little more graphical bang for your buck, you get about ten times as much. An X-box 360 game that really pushes the hardware to the limit will run on every single X-box 360. A PC game that pushes a high end PC to the limit will run like balls on at least 95% of PCs in homes.
Because of this console developers can afford to push the hardware to it's absolute limits, whereas PC developers have to be pretty cautious. And because of that, to get graphics about on par with a $400 X-box 360 or PS3 on a good TV, you need at least a $1500 PC, if not an even better one.
Don't get me wrong. Pc gaming is certainly not going anywhere. In fact I consider it nearly inevitable that eventually PCs will replace consoles, or consoles will evolve into PCs. Once BB access is universal, and you can play games that look as good as anything out on the market now through a web browser, I suspect that the current system through which games are distributed will become utterly obsolete. The line between your TV and your PC monitor is also a very artificial one. Slowly but surely it is beginning to erode.
But for the time being, consoles are much more user friendly than PCs and have graphics on par with a high end gaming PC. Yes a hardcore PC gamer can tell the difference. But to Joe Average consumer, anything from Wii on up probably looks about the same. Certainly Joe Average is not going to look at Halo III and think, "Wow, this looks like shit next to an average game on a $5000 PC." Hell, I do 95% of my gaming on the PC and I wouldn't say that.
While Halo looks excellent on the Xbox, do you remember it on the PC? How it lagged. And it never looked excellent on PC, just mediocre.
I agree that Halo looks excellent. I also feel that you should buy games for the platform they are designed for. So if you want to play Halo, an XBox is your best bet.
I also agree that developers continue even to this day to push the limits of consoles. The hardware may be static, but the software is not. There were some astounding and masterful games out on PS2 after a few years.
The same is also true of the PC. While many games manufacturers may simply rely on the machines hardware to generate more powerful games, not all do. There are also advances and refinements in code. You will see them in the technology titles. Stalker, Unreal, Quakes etc.
These titles are also able to push hardware to it's absolute limits. The games are made to make money not only on their individual sales, but also to sell the engines under lisence. They need to run the latest hardware at max, and prototype unreleased hardware on max also, because the engine they are selling has to survive in the market place of the future not just today; it must sell for the next few years to come.
As with the console market there are a litany of games that do not advance the genre, that do not make great use of the hardware also.
The difference for a console engine designer, is that he never addresses the issue of scaleability. His engine is limited. The best selling game engines, on both console and PC are all designed on PC. They are not only able to run a PC on it's maximum settings, and a wide variety of maximum settings depending on the hardware config of a PC, but they are also able to do the same with all the consoles and handhelds.
If you go to the cinema, you pay more to see the film before the home cinema crowd. If you are a PC gamer, there is an element of this too. There isn't a big migration of technology, either hardware or software moving from console to PC. This is not the place for me to start my quest for the ever more advanced game. The next leap to towards holodeck is not going to be made on the Xbox360.
Don't get me wrong, console games are often very good and I enjoy them. But I've been building and designing computers as a hobby for 25 years now, Halo doesn't really do much for me. I've already played the same gametype with different skins and more options 2 years before it came out.
In all honesty, as it good as it looks, it looks boring. I've played through and enjoyed all the Halo's, (even raved about the ending) but I would never consider buying one. It's a console game. It's for idiots. People who think 2nd best is the best. People who think out of date technology is the latest thing. People who sit on sofa's not at desks. I am a PC elitist. If Nintendo ever launched a decent home networking VR console then I will change my position on the spot. Until then.....
As soon as you use you console as a PC, it becomes one.
Since it would only be fair to look at both sides of the arguements:
Crysis sold 1 million copies worldwide:
www.maxconsole.net/
After listening to the Q3 2008 Electronic Arts Earnings Conference Call we have learned that Crysis has been a strong performer with sales having exceeded expectations. EA also reported Crysis reaching the platinum mark meaning over 1 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide.
I stand corrected, it's not dead just yet. With that said, it's still not on par with the console sales, considering that Crysis was arguably the most anticipated PC game of the year.
Another issue is the growing online capabilities of consoles. If it becomes the norm for console developers to skimp on testing and fix all the bugs through post-release downloadable patches, console fans will end up in the same undesirable situation as PC gamers -- never being able to buy a new game without encountering a crapload of buggy BS.
I'm sure it's inevitable, and I am NOT looking forward to it.
I really hope this fiasco will be a wake-up call to other PC developers. I guess they're counting on massive sales in a year or two when the A. specs to run Crysis will be commonplace, and B. Crysis will be well off everyone's radar and look pretty mediocre. No wait, that would be a stupid plan...
EQ II, Ultima IX, Crysis, and any number of other games over the years have proved...writing your games for PCs of the future is stupid.
When in the name of all that is good will PC developers finally get that through their thick f-ing heads?
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
One of the big reasons not is that PC gamers have been stung before by the 'old game too advanced for average PC's' bug. Also it is a DirectX10 game and people just dont like Vista. And so it doesant do as well as it could have.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
I don't mind Vista but I ain't gonna go run out and pay $100 to upgrade my current PC to it either. If they put in on the next PC I buy, fine by me, but until that day XP works just great.
No they're not. Computer manufactors sell hardware at a profit, consoles are sold at a loss which is made up through software sales. also Xbox360 and PS3 equal high end pc's, not mid level pc's. PC gaming is dying at worst and turning into a very small niche genre at best. The hardware is to expensive and the features are dropping one by one. Online Multiplayer? Now avaible on Consoles. Mods? Now avaible on consoles.
ofcourse we get the old tiresome argument :"b-but I can upgrade my PC!" yeah well guess what: You're a minority. The vast majority of people are not prepared to pay up 200$ ~ 300$ every 2 years, so you're not going to be the target audience for the vast majority of game developers. Games like Bioshock, Call of Duty 4 and UT3, all considered to be some of the best looking games avaible, are easily done on consoles.
XBox 360's and PS3 = low to mid end PC's. You can't actually buy a new PC that isn't twice as powerful. No one has made anything that low spec for over 3 years now. The GFX are 2 generations old, the processors, abandonware designs that the PC market passed over in favour of the Athlon 64. The RAM is slow and substantially less than commonly found in many of todays mobile phones.
They still rock of course, but I wouldn't be getting any silly idea's about them being high powered in comparison to PC's.
I think you may have confused a comparison of the expected power of the console, 3 years before it came out with the PC's of that date and forgot to re-make comparison of what is actually on offer today.
Add to that a basic gaming PC costs less than a PS3 as does it's software and any price argument hardly holds water. As you say the console cost is subsidised by a premium on the games. It isn't cheaper for the end user, and there is simply no way any console manufacturer can compete with PC for hardware prices, their market is positively tiny by comparison.
For the record, computer manufacturers also sell their products at a loss when they are seeking to gain market share with a new product in a competative market. This is common practise in most industries. Intel do it all the time.
I think some one needs to recognise when he has been pitched a sale.
I totally agree with you in terms of the hardware. Even a PS3 has pretty meager stats on paper compared to a $600 PC.
The problem is that on a console you don't just get a little more graphical bang for your buck, you get about ten times as much. An X-box 360 game that really pushes the hardware to the limit will run on every single X-box 360. A PC game that pushes a high end PC to the limit will run like balls on at least 95% of PCs in homes.
Because of this console developers can afford to push the hardware to it's absolute limits, whereas PC developers have to be pretty cautious. And because of that, to get graphics about on par with a $400 X-box 360 or PS3 on a good TV, you need at least a $1500 PC, if not an even better one.
Don't get me wrong. Pc gaming is certainly not going anywhere. In fact I consider it nearly inevitable that eventually PCs will replace consoles, or consoles will evolve into PCs. Once BB access is universal, and you can play games that look as good as anything out on the market now through a web browser, I suspect that the current system through which games are distributed will become utterly obsolete. The line between your TV and your PC monitor is also a very artificial one. Slowly but surely it is beginning to erode.
But for the time being, consoles are much more user friendly than PCs and have graphics on par with a high end gaming PC. Yes a hardcore PC gamer can tell the difference. But to Joe Average consumer, anything from Wii on up probably looks about the same. Certainly Joe Average is not going to look at Halo III and think, "Wow, this looks like shit next to an average game on a $5000 PC." Hell, I do 95% of my gaming on the PC and I wouldn't say that.
While Halo looks excellent on the Xbox, do you remember it on the PC? How it lagged. And it never looked excellent on PC, just mediocre.
I agree that Halo looks excellent. I also feel that you should buy games for the platform they are designed for. So if you want to play Halo, an XBox is your best bet.
I also agree that developers continue even to this day to push the limits of consoles. The hardware may be static, but the software is not. There were some astounding and masterful games out on PS2 after a few years.
The same is also true of the PC. While many games manufacturers may simply rely on the machines hardware to generate more powerful games, not all do. There are also advances and refinements in code. You will see them in the technology titles. Stalker, Unreal, Quakes etc.
These titles are also able to push hardware to it's absolute limits. The games are made to make money not only on their individual sales, but also to sell the engines under lisence. They need to run the latest hardware at max, and prototype unreleased hardware on max also, because the engine they are selling has to survive in the market place of the future not just today; it must sell for the next few years to come.
As with the console market there are a litany of games that do not advance the genre, that do not make great use of the hardware also.
The difference for a console engine designer, is that he never addresses the issue of scaleability. His engine is limited. The best selling game engines, on both console and PC are all designed on PC. They are not only able to run a PC on it's maximum settings, and a wide variety of maximum settings depending on the hardware config of a PC, but they are also able to do the same with all the consoles and handhelds.
If you go to the cinema, you pay more to see the film before the home cinema crowd. If you are a PC gamer, there is an element of this too. There isn't a big migration of technology, either hardware or software moving from console to PC. This is not the place for me to start my quest for the ever more advanced game. The next leap to towards holodeck is not going to be made on the Xbox360.
Don't get me wrong, console games are often very good and I enjoy them. But I've been building and designing computers as a hobby for 25 years now, Halo doesn't really do much for me. I've already played the same gametype with different skins and more options 2 years before it came out.
In all honesty, as it good as it looks, it looks boring. I've played through and enjoyed all the Halo's, (even raved about the ending) but I would never consider buying one. It's a console game. It's for idiots. People who think 2nd best is the best. People who think out of date technology is the latest thing. People who sit on sofa's not at desks. I am a PC elitist. If Nintendo ever launched a decent home networking VR console then I will change my position on the spot. Until then.....
I think we are basically in agreement. I certainly would not hold Halo up as the paragon of FPS goodness that many would. They are solid games, but a bit overhyped. The Orange Box, for example, absolutely thrashes all three Halo's imo (as an example). Your point about how poopy Halo ran on the PC also reinforces the point about the advantage of a stable hardware platform with a large installed base from the standpoint of a developer. Of course even if it ran perfeectly, Halo would just be a mediocre to slightly better than average shooter in PC space.
My only point is that the difference in graphics quality between a high end X-box 360 game or a PS3 game just isn't that noticable to anyone but a hardcore PC enthusiast. It's certainly not several hundreds or thousands of dollars noticeable. For the vast majority of gamers, 2nd best is fine if it costs 1/5 as much and is ten times as easy to use.
But agreed, if you must have the absolute best, PC gaming is always where it will be at.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
LOL the constant quotes are getting a bit LONG... but I will agree with most of what has been said so far.
And 1 poster brought up another good point on the PC angle, Most REAL pc gamers refuse to go to the memory hog, overhyped, buggy as hell windows vista, which really hurts sales also, as games like Crysis and Lord of the Rings Online have options for DX10 but useless without vista.
Vista Blows.
qft
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
qft
Yeebo knows vista blows to, he just doesn't want to admit it.Anyone who says vista isn't a pile of steamy dog poo... must be on bill gates christmas card list.
qft
Yeebo knows vista blows to, he just doesn't want to admit it.Anyone who says vista isn't a pile of steamy dog poo... must be on bill gates christmas card list.
do you know what qft means?
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
Actually it could quite safely be said that Vista was responsible for last years lacklustre load of decent games.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Vista isn't that bad. It has some great features. If they fix the bugs and problems, it'll be a great OS.
Now granted 32 bit sucks, but if you didn't think 32 bit was going to suck, you probably should just buy an X-Box. Trying to impliment a 64 bit OS on a 32 to bit system is doomed to failure.
Summary: 64 bit>32 bit, vista has problems, but its not horrible, and DX10 has some great features.
Oh yeah, and Crysis was considered a success by EA. They are planning two more Crysis titles, and have already licensed the engine for new games.
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson
All you say may be true but The PERCEPTION is that Vista is still bugged and unreliable to gamers.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
qft
Yeebo knows vista blows to, he just doesn't want to admit it.Anyone who says vista isn't a pile of steamy dog poo... must be on bill gates christmas card list.
LoL! I meant "quoted for truth" actually. Had no idea it sometimes also means "quit f-ing talking."
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
PC Gaming isn't dead.. Actually no where near, but the problem is, is that when these developers make games and show their screenshots at max detail, the PC gamer always EXPECTS the graphics to look exactly like that when they play. Problem is, in order to get it to look that great you have to rebuild a whole new 1k+ pc.. And mind you, these PC games get bigger and better yearly so that 1k+ pc will have to see more money every year in order to stay on top of the "screenshot" looks..
This is where a console shines... On a console, you get the "new-age" graphics and nowadays much much more (video playback, internet and web surfing, voice chat messengers etc..) for a much much lower price as well as usually in console world you will only NEED to upgrade when the next gen systems come out, which is on average about 3 years..
I actuallly prefer PC gaming to consoles.. I am in much more control I feel over things.. I can tone down things that I dont feel are important for perfomance increases, I can rebind keys I can use my precision guided crosshair to pick and point out enemies without the need for an "auto-lock"... It's just a much better deal for me.. And since i'm a "medium" settings kind of guy, I usally only been having to upgrade about every 3 years like any console user has.. Oh, and plus, I have been PC Gaming back when the commodore 64 was the home pc of choice (and im not that old at all)..
But seriously, they need to standardize the pc gaming area... It's way to confusing for new comers and when they ask for help the only people they get answers from are the people who spent 4k on their computers all telling them to "Make one like mine!"... Which probably scares them away...
I'm gonna have to disagree with many points here. PCs haven't gotten more expensive, they've gotten cheaper. If you've been PC gaming since the early days of PCs, you know that buying a name brand top of the line desk top computer back in the early ninties, ran you $2-3000 bucks! These days, you can build a quad core, duel 8800GT, 4g of memory system for around $1200 (not counting the monitor.) And that machine will BLOW AWAY any $600 PS3.
I don't think you can see other folks wishlists on Newegg.com but I just put together the following system
Antec 550w Black Case
ASUS P5N-T Quad-Core PCIE 2.0 Mobo
BFG Tech 8800GTS 512 OC Video Card
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 Processor
OCZ Platinum 2g DDR2 1066 Memory
Sound Blaster Audigy SE Sound Card
Western Digital SATA 3g/s 500mb Hard Drive
Lite-On 50x DvD Burner
Total Price - $1234.92
Now that doesn't include shipping, but if your upgrading. You may well already have a case, sound card, (or decide to use the onboard sound, though it's not where near as good,) hard-drive, cd/dvd drive/burner, etc. That'd drop the price down to about $950. For that price you could add on another BFG Tech 6600GTS 512 and bring it back up to the previous cost. This also assumes you already have a monitor.
So yea, you can build a very powerful machine for under $1500 easily, and I bought all high quality parts. You could cheap out on a few things and drop your price another $100-200 if you really needed to.
Now, you could go and spend $500 on a console. But you'd have to put up with games that push the console but have bad framerate problems (it seams every Xbox360 game that has come out in the last 6 months, has looked very good, but has chugged the framerates at certain points. Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, and more.) That means games are ALREADY hitting the consoles cap capabilities, and thats with some cheap cop-outs to improve performance. Shooters with a field of view of like 50 degrees. A limit to 8 or 16 player multiplayer, some areas with textures that are REALLY bad because consoles have very limited texture budgets, and really really poor AI half the time.
But it doesn't end there. You buy that $400 Xbox360 Pro and your stuck with it, with the above issues, already, and theres still 2-3 years left in the cycle. But you also are not left with a console you can use right out of the box and fully utilize all it's features. You've got things like;
Xbox Live yearly cost (on top of your existing broadband costs) - $50 a year
Games - $65-80 depending on edition (hell Halo 3 had a $130 edition.) Console games cant be modded, there multiplayer is static, new content very often costs more money and have a FAR more limited play cycle then PC games.
Extra Xbox360 Wireless Controller - $60
Wireless Network Adapter - $99 (assuming you don't want a 30' cable strewn through your livingroom.)
Wireless Headset - $60
Now thats just what your gonna likely want. Theres more if you want the best experience.
HDMI Conversion Kit - $90 (assuming you want to play high-def, HDMI is almost a must anymore, far less ugly cords hanging down your walls. Not to mention a far better signal to noise ratio.)
Xbox360 120g Hard Drive - $180 (tell me that aint pathetic lol. Everyone knows you're probly gonna fill your tiny 20g faster then you'd expect. ESPECIALLY if your playing RPGs.)
Xbox360 512mb Memory Card - $60 (if you plan on taking your games to friends house, this is a must.)
Theres even more if you play games like Rock Band with friends, etc.
Now how do I know this? Cause my daughter is a gamer like her dad lol. She's also a bit of a tom-boy at 13. She's got all that and more for her Xbox360 plus about a dozen games over the past 2 years or so. Not even counting the games we've easily spent $1000 on her Xbox. Some she bought herself (she's got a weekend job,) some she's recieved on christmas, birthdays etc. Others rewards for things like getting A's in school. Course she grew up with PC games. So she spends a fair bit of her 'gaming' time playing WoW or Rollercoster Tycoon on her mothers computer lol. And she sometimes uses mine when I get a sweet new game. Though my games usually involve lots of things exploding and such, she's not so much into them lol.
As to needing a $1500 PC to play games better then a console. Please. I'm on a AMD 3500+, 1.5g Crucial PC333, XFX 7900GS 256, ASUS 939 board and I can blow away many console games on my PC. Oblivion? Don't get me started, paralax map mod, fix those distant textures, improved faces mod, and it looks far better then the console version. Crysis, of course PC only. But contrary to popular opinion, you don't need a liquid cooled Quad-Core, duel 8x video card to run the game in medium settings. I have my settings to medium (with things like Paralax mapping set high, and vilumetric clouds low) and I get about 25fps in fights, and 30+ when I'm just wandering. Today, this system would cost about $500. I do have a very nice $350 22" monitor to go with it, and can run in resolutions beyond 'HD'. Hell I have a friend who runs his games in like 2500x1400 or something like that. It's insane. His computer isn't even as good as mine, accept the video card lol.
So yea, this whole 'consoles are way cheaper and you need a $2000 computer to even keep up, and spend another $500 every other month to keep up to date' line that I hear from every other console gamer, it's a load of bull. Before consoles were even capable of a decent 3d game, you had to spend $2500 on a name-brand system that could even play Doom without shuddering in fights. I didn't hear people complaining then. And I didn't hear people complain when the latest consoles were introduced and cost $600 or more. But no.. the PC is the expensive platform. Course.. you get so much more capability with that cost.
The next cycle of consoles are almost guaranteed to cost $800-1000, and the companies will still be loosing money big time. They'll practically be full fledged 'gaming PC's by that point.
And thats EXACTLY what needs to happen... BARGAIN priced gaming pc's that are ALREADY out together for the average joe who doesnt know shit about computers... Im not talking about that overpriced alienware BS.. Im talkin the real deal median.. something that ALOT of people can afford to buy and will be pleased with the performance.. And it would need to have multiple cores so windows can run on its on seperate core AWAY from the game, so it could play like a console and we can FINALLY use ALL of the pc's resources to the fullest..
I think this where your basic premise is wrong. You are comparing a 1200 PC to the most expensive console that has ever been released. It's a silly comparison for a couple of reasons.
First of all, most consumers won't even pay $600 for a gaming machine. Sales of PS3 didn't go anywhere until they came out with a $400 model, it was getting it's ass kicked by the cheaper X-box 360 until then. And both of those are getting their asses kicked by the $250 Wii even as we speak (which has the worst graphics of the three!).
And yes on paper your $1200 computer blows away a 250-500 dollar (at current prices) console. But when you get right down to it, most peaple (i.e., not hardcore gaming enthusiasts like you and me) would probably not notice the difference in graphical quality between Halo III on the 360 and and something high end like Crysis, much less an average PC game. They would think that both systems had "kickass graphics" and leave it there.
Need proof? Look at sales of PS2 over Christmass:
www.dingorue.com/2008/01/17/npd-december-2007/
It sold over a million units in December despite having graphics that look abysmal to a serious gamer. Hell, my friends that don't game think my PS2 has astounding graphics. They are surprised when I tell them that it sucks compared to the current gen consoles.
It's also not a good comparisons because most consumers want a gaming system for which installation consists of taking it out of a box and plugging it it, and maintanence consists of occasional dusting. They also really enjoy gaming from their couch.
I'm not trying to discount all of your points. Consoles are indeed more expensiove than many peaple think when you factor in extra controllers and all that jazz. And the popular perception that you need a $5000 PC to play games is certainly off. Mine is three years old and only cost me $1000 to begin with. It does just fine. Crysis would probably make it explode, but I can max out most of the settings in LotRO which is less than a year old. So no, you don't have to spend thousands to be a PC gamer.
I'm mainly pointing out that most peaple don't look at things the same way that a hardcore PC gamer does.
Case in point: how much better than Halo III or Gears of War does Crysis really look? Does it look enough better that it's worth assmbling a system by hand using parts from Newegg? Does it look enough better that it's worth gaming at a desk on a system that costs at least $500 more than a console? To a PC gamer, "Hell yes!" To Joe Average consumer "Hell no, are you on crack?"
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
I agree completely.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
The idea that consoles are killing PC gaming confuses me as much as the idea that World of WarCraft is killing MMOs. I understand that console gaming is more popular, but that should be irrelevant.
Are there, in fact, fewer people buying PC games today than there were ten years ago, or are there just more people buying console games?
That is a very important distinction to make, rather than simply comparing the sales of the two against each other.
I'm gonna have to disagree with many points here. PCs haven't gotten more expensive, they've gotten cheaper. If you've been PC gaming since the early days of PCs, you know that buying a name brand top of the line desk top computer back in the early ninties, ran you $2-3000 bucks! These days, you can build a quad core, duel 8800GT, 4g of memory system for around $1200 (not counting the monitor.) And that machine will BLOW AWAY any $600 PS3.
I don't think you can see other folks wishlists on Newegg.com but I just put together the following system
Antec 550w Black Case
ASUS P5N-T Quad-Core PCIE 2.0 Mobo
BFG Tech 8800GTS 512 OC Video Card
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 Processor
OCZ Platinum 2g DDR2 1066 Memory
Sound Blaster Audigy SE Sound Card
Western Digital SATA 3g/s 500mb Hard Drive
Lite-On 50x DvD Burner
Total Price - $1234.92
Now that doesn't include shipping, but if your upgrading. You may well already have a case, sound card, (or decide to use the onboard sound, though it's not where near as good,) hard-drive, cd/dvd drive/burner, etc. That'd drop the price down to about $950. For that price you could add on another BFG Tech 6600GTS 512 and bring it back up to the previous cost. This also assumes you already have a monitor.
So yea, you can build a very powerful machine for under $1500 easily, and I bought all high quality parts. You could cheap out on a few things and drop your price another $100-200 if you really needed to.
Now, you could go and spend $500 on a console. But you'd have to put up with games that push the console but have bad framerate problems (it seams every Xbox360 game that has come out in the last 6 months, has looked very good, but has chugged the framerates at certain points. Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, and more.) That means games are ALREADY hitting the consoles cap capabilities, and thats with some cheap cop-outs to improve performance. Shooters with a field of view of like 50 degrees. A limit to 8 or 16 player multiplayer, some areas with textures that are REALLY bad because consoles have very limited texture budgets, and really really poor AI half the time.
But it doesn't end there. You buy that $400 Xbox360 Pro and your stuck with it, with the above issues, already, and theres still 2-3 years left in the cycle. But you also are not left with a console you can use right out of the box and fully utilize all it's features. You've got things like;
Xbox Live yearly cost (on top of your existing broadband costs) - $50 a year
Games - $65-80 depending on edition (hell Halo 3 had a $130 edition.) Console games cant be modded, there multiplayer is static, new content very often costs more money and have a FAR more limited play cycle then PC games.
Extra Xbox360 Wireless Controller - $60
Wireless Network Adapter - $99 (assuming you don't want a 30' cable strewn through your livingroom.)
Wireless Headset - $60
Now thats just what your gonna likely want. Theres more if you want the best experience.
HDMI Conversion Kit - $90 (assuming you want to play high-def, HDMI is almost a must anymore, far less ugly cords hanging down your walls. Not to mention a far better signal to noise ratio.)
Xbox360 120g Hard Drive - $180 (tell me that aint pathetic lol. Everyone knows you're probly gonna fill your tiny 20g faster then you'd expect. ESPECIALLY if your playing RPGs.)
Xbox360 512mb Memory Card - $60 (if you plan on taking your games to friends house, this is a must.)
Theres even more if you play games like Rock Band with friends, etc.
Now how do I know this? Cause my daughter is a gamer like her dad lol. She's also a bit of a tom-boy at 13. She's got all that and more for her Xbox360 plus about a dozen games over the past 2 years or so. Not even counting the games we've easily spent $1000 on her Xbox. Some she bought herself (she's got a weekend job,) some she's recieved on christmas, birthdays etc. Others rewards for things like getting A's in school. Course she grew up with PC games. So she spends a fair bit of her 'gaming' time playing WoW or Rollercoster Tycoon on her mothers computer lol. And she sometimes uses mine when I get a sweet new game. Though my games usually involve lots of things exploding and such, she's not so much into them lol.
As to needing a $1500 PC to play games better then a console. Please. I'm on a AMD 3500+, 1.5g Crucial PC333, XFX 7900GS 256, ASUS 939 board and I can blow away many console games on my PC. Oblivion? Don't get me started, paralax map mod, fix those distant textures, improved faces mod, and it looks far better then the console version. Crysis, of course PC only. But contrary to popular opinion, you don't need a liquid cooled Quad-Core, duel 8x video card to run the game in medium settings. I have my settings to medium (with things like Paralax mapping set high, and vilumetric clouds low) and I get about 25fps in fights, and 30+ when I'm just wandering. Today, this system would cost about $500. I do have a very nice $350 22" monitor to go with it, and can run in resolutions beyond 'HD'. Hell I have a friend who runs his games in like 2500x1400 or something like that. It's insane. His computer isn't even as good as mine, accept the video card lol.
So yea, this whole 'consoles are way cheaper and you need a $2000 computer to even keep up, and spend another $500 every other month to keep up to date' line that I hear from every other console gamer, it's a load of bull. Before consoles were even capable of a decent 3d game, you had to spend $2500 on a name-brand system that could even play Doom without shuddering in fights. I didn't hear people complaining then. And I didn't hear people complain when the latest consoles were introduced and cost $600 or more. But no.. the PC is the expensive platform. Course.. you get so much more capability with that cost.
The next cycle of consoles are almost guaranteed to cost $800-1000, and the companies will still be loosing money big time. They'll practically be full fledged 'gaming PC's by that point.
yikes you went for a top of the line machine.
save some money by getting an e8400 - a lot cheaper than the Q6600and the same performance, overclocks like a mad mother to the point where it easily beats the Q6600. Saves like $70
8800 GTS 512 - save 50 bucks by getting an 8800 GT. Difference in performance is less than 10% but saves $60
Don't need a soundcard, a lot of P35 motherboards have excellent on board sound that don't take up much cpu. Not sure what current day sound cards cost but I'm guessing a savings of $150 - $200
DDR2 1066 memory - NO POINT AT ALL! Difference between DDR2 800 and DDR2 1066 in terms of actual application performance is about 3% at most. Def not worth it unless you're a hardcore overclocker. DDR2 800 mhz memory is dirt cheap now and gives excellent performance.