Possible cure for so-called "consolitis"

Grickit

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Playing on consoles is not a disease. It's a cure. The symptoms the disease it fixes (I will satirically call it PCitis):

The industry's obsession with Piracy
Having to upgrade/buy new machines every two years
90% of the market not being able to play games on decent looking graphics settings
Lack of standardization
Giving people have excuses to stay on buggy, exploitable, outrageously expensive, sub-par operating systems simply because they have more games
 

dududf

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I've only purchased 1 60 dollar pc game, and I will not buy anymore. I made an exception for starcraft 2, but games like crysis, homefront e.t.c. will never, ever, ever....ever...ever see my money. Increasing it higher would just make me laugh in your face and go play some great games from a few years ago that are selling for 5 bucks on steam.
 

Raijha

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Personally I've never understood the whole concept of fanyboyism or console wars.

There are great games and benefits to most of the consoles. If you have the means, limiting yourself to one platform or another just because it has a name you like just seems silly. I personally have a semi decent gaming pc (can play pretty much everything on the market now, although I might have to upgrade for Skyrim) a 360, a PS3, a DS and a PSP. Each system has its own benefits and downsides.

The PC I usually use for epic rpg with a heavy modding community, single player FPS and most RTS stuff, also blizz stuff

The 360 is mostly for great co-op games and basically anything exclusive or non-exclusive. (generally I will get or play a game on 360 rather then PS3, but part of that is just more of my friends have 360's and we share games a lot)

And my PS3 is for the blu-ray, the easier to use and more intuitive streaming functions, the PS1 classics and PS2 games and the about (currently) 15 exclusive games I wanted to play. Also free online.

OFC the DS and PSP both have good games on them as well. Mostly I have access to games for each system by borrowing from friends, steam, and rentals.

I have access to literally thousands of games I can play with friends, on the road, at home, alone, where ever and when ever I want....because I play with an open mind and don't succumb to the whole theory of this platform is better then that one so I'll never ever touch it ever.

ETA re-reading that I may have come across trying to sound superior or condescending. I just want to make sure people realize that isn't my intent, I just wanted to share my opinion on the whole pc/xbox/playstation thing
 

timeadept

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binvjoh said:
Don't give them such ideas.

There's no objective proof that the PC experience is superior, though I prefer it myself as well, and it should not require any aditional charge.

One thing I wouldn't mind, though, is if they charged the same ammount for PC and console titles. Nowdays new PC games are usually about 10 euro cheaper, as price I'd happily pay for menus and HUDs actually designed for the mouse and keyboard.
I would fork over a bit extra as well if developers spent more time on PC ports so that they have sensible (for the PC) controls. I've passed up a couple games that i heard had sloppy PC ports, Bullet Storm was the most recent one.

Oh yeah, I also do not currently own a console and am quite comfortable playing only on my PC.
 

RA92

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Grickit said:
Playing on consoles is not a disease. It's a cure. The symptoms the disease it fixes (I will satirically call it PCitis):
Okay, lets see what ya got here...

The industry's obsession with Piracy

Well, what will happen is that all the pirates will jump on the console platforms, and console piracy will rise further. As if the used game sales market, chip modding and firmware hacking wasn't hectic enough for the console manufacturers...
Having to upgrade/buy new machines every two years

We recoup that loss by by buying cheaper games from Steam, thank you. Also by not paying for our internet twice over by signing up on XBL.
90% of the market not being able to play games on decent looking graphics settings
Care to provide a source?
Lack of standardization
We currently have a very healthy market due to the competition between ATI and Nvidia, who are constantly pushing hardware capabilities. If gaming technology depended upon the long console cycles, technology would've stagnated.

And before you go talking about how graphics don't matter any more because visuals can't improve much further etc, remember, Crysis 2 has much smaller maps than Crysis 1's open-world environment, and accommodates half the total players in MP (16, as opposed to Crysis 1's 32) purely because of the hardware limitations of the consoles. So hardware limitations do hinder gameplay.

Giving people have excuses to stay on buggy, exploitable, outrageously expensive, sub-par operating systems simply because they have more games
What OS are you talking about? I installed Windows 7 back in 2009, and it has yet to crash. It's also <url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10444561-245.html>more secure than a Mac.

And do you propose that I shift my web development, 3D modelling, word processing etc to consoles? How does that work?

Besides that, I'm running emulators of the Sega Genesis, SNES, PS1, PS2, Wii, NDS and a couple of other platforms, something your console manufacturers lock you out from doing. And a console will probably burst into flames trying to run Shogun 2.

I would also miss the modding community and companies like GSC and Frictional Games, who can't afford expensive unique console dev kits.

Simple fact is, there is nothing consoles can do that I can't do with my PC. And I do it without any restrictions. All you have is a couple of exclusives. Really not a game changer...
 

kortin

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I prefer console games when it comes to graphics. Mostly because I don't want to spend $100 for a new graphics card every time I buy a new generation game so I can run the game at the highest quality. <-- Exaggeration. Even still, i bought a new game the other day and wasn't able to run it at the highest graphic quality because my graphics card wasn't powerful enough.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my computer and gaming on it, but I don't rely on my computer when I want to play a game with the absolute best graphic quality. This is because I don't want to spend money to keep my machine up to date.
 

Waaghpowa

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Apr 13, 2010
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Raiyan 1.0 said:
Grickit said:
Playing on consoles is not a disease. It's a cure. The symptoms the disease it fixes (I will satirically call it PCitis):
Okay, lets see what ya got here...

The industry's obsession with Piracy

Well, what will happen is that all the pirates will jump on the console platforms, and console piracy will rise further. As if the used game sales market, chip modding and firmware hacking wasn't hectic enough for the console manufacturers...
Having to upgrade/buy new machines every two years

We recoup that loss by by buying cheaper games from Steam, thank you. Also by not paying for our internet twice over by signing up on XBL.
90% of the market not being able to play games on decent looking graphics settings
Care to provide a source?
Lack of standardization
We currently have a very healthy market due to the competition between ATI and Nvidia, who are constantly pushing hardware capabilities. If gaming technology depended upon the long console cycles, technology would've stagnated.

And before you go talking about how graphics don't matter any more because visuals can't improve much further etc, remember, Crysis 2 has much smaller maps than Crysis 1's open-world environment, and accommodates half the total players in MP (16, as opposed to Crysis 1's 32) purely because of the hardware limitations of the consoles. So hardware limitations do hinder gameplay.

Giving people have excuses to stay on buggy, exploitable, outrageously expensive, sub-par operating systems simply because they have more games
What OS are you talking about? I installed Windows 7 back in 2009, and it has yet to crash. It's also <url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10444561-245.html>more secure than a Mac.

And do you propose that I shift my web development, 3D modelling, word processing etc to consoles? How does that work?

Besides that, I'm running emulators of the Sega Genesis, SNES, PS1, PS2, Wii, NDS and a couple of other platforms, something your console manufacturers lock you out from doing. And a console will probably burst into flames trying to run Shogun 2.

I would also miss the modding community and companies like GSC and Frictional Games, who can't afford expensive unique console dev kits.

Simple fact is, there is nothing consoles can do that I can't do with my PC. And I do it without any restrictions. All you have is a couple of exclusives. Really not a game changer...
/win, nice to see someone know what they're talking about rather than spouting ignorant crap.
 

Popido

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lacktheknack said:
allinwonder said:
Hubilub said:
Wait, so let me get this straight:

Console games are more profitable than PC games.

So your solution would be to increase the price of PC games.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Oh and my solution is providing developers incentives to make multiplat games better on PC.

In the end, it is capitalism, right?
Sadly, piracy breaks the capitalism model, because it's a ton of people acquiring your product without you gaining any money. And I feel safe bringing up piracy here, because this would MASSIVELY increase piracy numbers.
Actually when you add piracy into consideration (and console competition), the profit incomings might go up. That is if they stop the war-on-piracy and truly make quality games.

Increasing the price while strickening the piracy policy would cause a rebellion.
 
Jan 27, 2011
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allinwonder said:
PC gamers all advocate that gaming on PC is a premium experience (relative to console). So let's charge premium price for a premium experience. Charge more for high quality PC exclusives.
Aaaaand then the PC gamers would whine about "it's not fair we need to pay more than console gamers!", and as a result piracy would become even more popular, causing those companies to lose even more sales, making the whole premium idea worthless.
 

lacktheknack

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Popido said:
lacktheknack said:
allinwonder said:
Hubilub said:
Wait, so let me get this straight:

Console games are more profitable than PC games.

So your solution would be to increase the price of PC games.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Oh and my solution is providing developers incentives to make multiplat games better on PC.

In the end, it is capitalism, right?
Sadly, piracy breaks the capitalism model, because it's a ton of people acquiring your product without you gaining any money. And I feel safe bringing up piracy here, because this would MASSIVELY increase piracy numbers.
Actually when you add piracy into consideration (and console competition), the profit incomings might go up. That is if they stop the war-on-piracy and truly make quality games.

Increasing the price while strickening the piracy policy would cause a rebellion.
No, it really wouldn't. There wasn't a rebellion when gas prices sky-rocketed, and that's certainly more important than video games.
 

justnotcricket

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Apr 24, 2008
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allinwonder said:
But developing for PC obviously is more costly (both financially and intellectually), because of high demand from PC gamers, complexities and graphic etc.
Wait, what? I'd be interested to see how you'd like to justify this. I am genuinely curious as to how you think developing for PC is 'obviously' and 'intellectually' more demanding. Clarification please, because it sounds like a cheap shot at console gamers to me.

The breathtakingly blatant PC elitism of your post aside, I don't think charging more for a PC game on the basis that it is inherently better than a console game is going to fly, even with other 'die hard' PC fans. In fact, I think they'd resent the fact that they were being charged more for a gaming experience that is just as good to them as a console game is to a console gamer, especially if the game was made by a developer/publisher that was making the same game for both console and PC.

And before anyone breaks out the flamethrowers, I play games on PS3, DS and my PC, and although the old girl isn't quite up to the latest releases, I discovered recently that I could play Civ 5 on the lowest settings =) I don't particularly see that PC gaming gives any more 'premium' an experience than console gaming. It totally depends on what kind of games you like. I wouldn't play a Civ game (or any RTS, for that matter) on a console, but I prefer playing 3rd person action games on my PS3. And so on.
 

Waaghpowa

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Apr 13, 2010
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I personally think we should worry about making quality games before we start paying more for them.
 

Popido

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lacktheknack said:
Popido said:
lacktheknack said:
allinwonder said:
Hubilub said:
Wait, so let me get this straight:

Console games are more profitable than PC games.

So your solution would be to increase the price of PC games.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Oh and my solution is providing developers incentives to make multiplat games better on PC.

In the end, it is capitalism, right?
Sadly, piracy breaks the capitalism model, because it's a ton of people acquiring your product without you gaining any money. And I feel safe bringing up piracy here, because this would MASSIVELY increase piracy numbers.
Actually when you add piracy into consideration (and console competition), the profit incomings might go up. That is if they stop the war-on-piracy and truly make quality games.

Increasing the price while strickening the piracy policy would cause a rebellion.
No, it really wouldn't. There wasn't a rebellion when gas prices sky-rocketed, and that's certainly more important than video games.
Okay, I probably should rephrase that as "rebellion" *wink* *wink*. More people pirating, etc. *wink*

Well, Im still gonna say that there is currently a huge demand for quality atm, that isnt met by AAA-titles. I find it pathetic how some of the todays major titles lose to a free working group of moders in quality...
 

dfcrackhead

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allinwonder said:
(Disclaimer: I am a die hard PC gamer)
So there is a big fuss recently about "consolitis". I found this argument quite often:

"People need to understand that games development is a business and for any business to survive it needs to sell to as many people as possible."

Seems correct, right? Wrong. Why BMW, Mercedes, Porsche survive so good without selling to as many people as possible? I mean, they obviously cater to a different crowd than, say, Toyota or Honda, but they are still doing quite well.

So why there is only "consolitis", no "Hondalitis", etc? Well, the problem is, it is an industrial norm that PC games and console games sell for the same price (bar $10 MS/Sony royalties). Developers/publishers make same amount of money from PC games and console games. But developing for PC obviously is more costly (both financially and intellectually), because of high demand from PC gamers, complexities and graphic etc.

PC gamers all advocate that gaming on PC is a premium experience (relative to console). So let's charge premium price for a premium experience. Charge more for high quality PC exclusives. Like BMW and Mercedes charge more for their cars than Toyota and Honda's.

Before you call me an idiot, I tell there are already developers out their doing that. See: Blizzard. Blizzard deliver high quality PC exclusives. But they always charge "outrageous" price for their games. Long before even video games on consoles were $50, they charge #60 for their games (Diablo 2, Warcraft 3 for sure; I heard they also charge $60 for Starcraft back then). Even today, the MSRP of Diablo 2 + XPack is still $40. An almost 10 year old game! But if I hadn't bought it, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

OK, that's just my 2 cents.
The extra cost for PC gaming is maintaining a good gaming PC, I just lost the mobo and possibly my hard drive as well, so I gots nothing more than cruddy laptop gaming until I can raise about $300-400
 

lacktheknack

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Popido said:
lacktheknack said:
Popido said:
lacktheknack said:
allinwonder said:
Hubilub said:
Wait, so let me get this straight:

Console games are more profitable than PC games.

So your solution would be to increase the price of PC games.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Oh and my solution is providing developers incentives to make multiplat games better on PC.

In the end, it is capitalism, right?
Sadly, piracy breaks the capitalism model, because it's a ton of people acquiring your product without you gaining any money. And I feel safe bringing up piracy here, because this would MASSIVELY increase piracy numbers.
Actually when you add piracy into consideration (and console competition), the profit incomings might go up. That is if they stop the war-on-piracy and truly make quality games.

Increasing the price while strickening the piracy policy would cause a rebellion.
No, it really wouldn't. There wasn't a rebellion when gas prices sky-rocketed, and that's certainly more important than video games.
Okay, I probably should rephrase that as "rebellion" *wink* *wink*. More people pirating, etc. *wink*

Well, Im still gonna say that there is currently a huge demand for quality atm, that isnt met by AAA-titles. I find it pathetic how some of the todays major titles lose to a free working group of moders in quality...
Dah, my subtle implications detector is dead today. Sorry. >_<
 

Zantos

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Jan 5, 2011
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I transferred from PC gaming to console gaming for three reasons. Firstly, constant expensive hardware updates (Fuck you nvidia, and ATI). Secondly (and not really a reason) i still see no discernable difference between games I play on console and on PC (I don't play RTS). Thirdly i can stick it in my bag and take it to a party, which is my number one use of several consoles atm.

Bottom line: They charge so much because they can, it's something that affects every market. It's how it works. There's no reason why PC gaming is better or a more premium experience except personal opinion.
 

Zyst

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zehydra said:
Zyst said:
That's incredibly stupid. Also, BMW and Porsche to mention some sell more because it's an actual item that denotes status (read: douchebag), and helps you get laid. I dare you to try to pick up ANYONE by saying your games are all on PC.
that's not the only reason people by Porsches.
That was an incredibly productive comment. But hell, I'll bite.

Tell me one case where the person who has a Porsche didn't buy it because:

1.- He's a douchebag.
2.- He's going through a mid-life crisis and thinks it will help him be cool again (Get laid).
3.- She's daddy's little girl.
 

zehydra

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Zyst said:
zehydra said:
Zyst said:
That's incredibly stupid. Also, BMW and Porsche to mention some sell more because it's an actual item that denotes status (read: douchebag), and helps you get laid. I dare you to try to pick up ANYONE by saying your games are all on PC.
that's not the only reason people by Porsches.
sarcasm detected - sentence eliminated

Tell me one case where the person who has a Porsche didn't buy it because:

1.- He's a douchebag.
2.- He's going through a mid-life crisis and thinks it will help him be cool again (Get laid).
3.- She's daddy's little girl.
He's a car enthusiast. He like nice cars, the same way guitarists like nice guitars and gamers enjoy fancy games. It's fun to drive something nice and powerful.
 

Sikachu

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binvjoh said:
There's no objective proof that the PC experience is superior, though I prefer it myself as well, and it should not require any aditional charge.
There's no objective proof of anything, the OP was just stating his opinion.