The Trials and Perils of Returning to PC

[j1015]

Yahtzee makes excellent points in regards to why a "harcdore gamer" would go PC and hate these new batch of consoles, but anyone that predicting the demise of these consoles is a bit too much in their own world. Same applies to thinking my beloved Nintendo could come up and take the console war this gen.

Marketing matters. M$ has the most aggressive marketing campaign and they aren't focusing on us by a long shot. Teaming up with McDonald's, being the "official console of the NFL" and marketing to anyone that's ever heard the name Call of Duty means that despite it's issues they are luring(lying to) people to get them to buy the system...and it's working really well.

Sony's campaign isn't anywhere near as large, but it's still big. They teamed up with Taco Bell and have a lot of clever, funny commercials that are aimed at "casuals".

Both console makers are basically beating Nintendo at their last gen policy, MARKETING WISE, but that's an effective strategy. PC gaming doesn't have the same hype machine. It doesn't have the same "be everything to your media room" appeal, which is ironic because a proper PC is the best equipped option to be a catch all entertainment center and gaming device.

And poor Nintendo. I know they aren't going to fold anytime soon or stop making consoles like the dolts believe, but a large part of their CURRENT customer base doesn't even know the Wii U is a new system. They have done nothing to market this system which is the last in a long line of reasons why nearly all of their decision makers should be fired. All they had to do was make a system that was backward-compatible so anyone that wanted to keep playing their family Wii games could, but have traditional controllers, be comparative in power to M$ and Sony's new offerings and be easy to program and port for. We don't want half ass gimmickry. My kids leapfrog has newer technology than that tablet. (It does feel good in the hands though) Their catalog, the strong third-party support they would've had, and the money they made last gen gave them all the momentum and they blew it. Just name it Nintendo Entertainment System and they could've crushed it.

But I digress. PC gaming is back in a big way, but it will not eliminate this gen of consoles nor seriously eat into their profits. They might do it themselves, though...but that's another discussion.

 

[Church185]

snip

I was actually quoting the other guy with the "console killer" bit, but the challenge still stands. I see a lot of people preaching how much better PC is than consoles, and implying that consoles are irrelevant. Those same people never seem to mention the cost of building a PC that could beat the new consoles. To me, this is the reason I think PC gaming won't become top dog outside of gaming enthusiasts. Once PCs are cheaper AND more powerful I will certainly declare consoles dead. Until then, there will always be a market for it.

 

[Lightknight]

Pros of consoles:

1. Cheap.

When you add the cost of an HD TV, HDD extensions, extra charge for online MP, the fact that console games cost $10 more than PC versions and aren't discounted as heavily/frequently as Steam sales, the costs keep adding up.

I'd have my TV regardless. Most people have a TV.

Preowned games generally come in pretty cheaply but I certainly love my Steam account and will make no claims that I don't get my steam titles cheaper.

But this is generally a problem with how games are sold and not the consoles as machines. When steam present more competition, they'll have to adjust that area of the product. So it's not like this won't change when it needs to.


2. Plug and play. (minimal/no troubleshooting, just have to plug things in)


The flip side being that if something even minute goes wrong, you've to drag it to the store instead of being able to just look up for a fix on the 'net. And if the developer of a game fails to patch a bug (Fez, anything Bethesda on the PS3), then God help you, because there's no community-made mod to sort things out. Not to mention in general games and updates take much longer to DL and install than on a PC (XBL is much slower than Steam). Well, yes. But even the 360 only had a 24% failure rate and they were the absolute worst of the generation. The ps3 was only around 10% which is pretty good for such complicated hardware.

PCs can have a much higher failure rate and keep in mind that just because you and I can fix our PCs doesn't mean average Joe USA can. Sure, I built my first pc from scratch and it turned on the moment I hit he button, but the average user? Let me put it this way. Skyrim on the ps3 was the final step in me building my own machine. I'd always been a pc gamer in addition to console gaming but the ps3 outstripped a lot of pc gaming for a good while there. Well, the game was broken on the ps3 (and as a software tester, I accurately guessed that it was an asset bloating issue within about two days of the release and stated so publically as assets were not resetting in game. Not even dungeons). So, I built my pc over the next couple of months from good deals and was playing Skyrim on a real machine. However, at some point my video driver required an update. This update broke the game for me, creating a world with a purple sky and purple stones on the street with no texture.

I personally just rolled back the update and it worked. But then again, I am an application tech support specialist and QA engineer. What would the average person do? What if they'd performed the driver update before the game and had no way of tracking down what change they recently made that may have caused it? To say that a PC isn't significantly less reliable in that area would be mistaken. How many threads have you seen on the internet where people just want to know whether or not their pc can play a given game?


3. Generally gauranteed support for nearly a decade at this point.


But once the generation is over and the console is bricked, say goodbye to all your online purchases. Not to mention having to rebuy old games as ports on a new platform as well if you want to play them again. That's not necessarily a given now that consoles are x86. Their excuse next generation would have to be something along the lines of magic grimlins are preventing the transfer. At least from the insanely proprietary ps3 to the x86 ps4 there's an excuse due to the extreme differences in the architecture. Make no mistake, Sony could have made another console with the same proprietary hardware that played these games but they'd have another generation of shitty ports and more expensive development costs. They made the necessary decision here and we should see the benefits of that going forward as one of the first times a console has almost guaranteed backwards compatibility if they allow it. The XBO not being able to play 360 games is a lot more questionable to me though.

Community-made patches/emulators have kept 20 year old PC games alive, and ironically, almost every single console games up to the Wii through emulation. Yes, the ability to pirate (illegally obtain games) is more present on the PC. Something I don't advocate or condone. I also pay for artwork and hotdogs when the mood strikes me.

4. Excellent living room group fun. (PCs still lag behind in multiple controllers)

Except for console developers have been steadily dropping local multiplayer support for a while now. About the ony ones that still bother are fighting games, which PC versions have as well. Huh? A ton of games generally allow at least two players during the story mode and I play multiplayer games all the time. For example, Black Ops introduced legitimate bots into local multiplayer. I get a group of four or five people to come over and we can play locally with ten players or so and it's a lot of fun. Games like Portal 2, Halo 1-4, and even Dead Space titles have easily catered to multiplayer.

You're very wrong here. Even adding one more controller for the story mode on a pc can require a herculean feat of computer management. This is absolutely one of the biggest strengths for home consoles at the moment.

5. Software optimization thanks to known/standardised hardware (the reason a 512Mb console can function like a 2Gb pc).

... while providing lower resolutions, FOV, framerate and online MP player count. As for the XBoxOne, the Windows bloat has been transferred to this generation, with about 20% of HDD space being taken up by the OS and half the cores dedicated to apps running in the background. 20% of HDD has nothing to do with performance. I'm talking about the general strength of consoles as consoles. Not specific consoles. Besides, the ps4 as a machine is clearly the winner this generation for more power, higher resolutions, and lower costs.

It's one thing to complain about frame rates, it's another thing to really be impacted by them in practice. I'm not a graphiophile and I don't make my PC output to my TV. My pc outputs to a much smaller screen where resolution honestly doesn't matter that much. Is this really something people forget? That a pc monitor is usually under 30" whereas a console "monitor" can easily be a 60" beast of a machine that itself has a low refresh rate? This is also the first wave of games for the generation, we're likely to see that improved going forward. Many ps4 games are perfectly capable the higher resolutions and the XBO should be unless there comes some other problem.

Either way, the standardized hardware allows developers to program so efficiently for a console that they can get the most out of every component. This is why the actual console specs can even be four times less than the pc minimum specs for games and yet both still function around the same. That's what's going on now anyways.


6. Relatively low piracy, this is a plus for game publishers.

Relatively high used sale games, which publishers wouldn't shut up about. Plus, with brick and mortar stores and the platform owners taking a hefty cut, revenue from each console game sold is actually lower than a digital PC sale.
Yes. But the PC environment is significantly worse where money doesn't have to exchange hands at all. At least consoles generally promise an initial sale and the online stores for the console avoid preowned as well. Take Crysis for example, their game was SOOO pirated that the company decided to never release a pc exclusive again.

Consoles have enough advantages to maintain their life expectancy.

The best advantages consoles have are momentum, market visibility and customer loyalty. And even that can change drastically. Compare Wii and WiiU sales. That's certainly an advantage. But the idea that you can spend $400 for a 10-year, plug and play, heavily developed for, multiplayer system plays a tremendous role here. The fact that Sony holds something like 6 exclusives that were my favorite exclusives of the past generation helps them in my book too (The Last of Us, Infamous 1 and 2, Uncharted 2 and 3, Demons souls, Little Big Planet, Metal Gear Solid, Journey. Most of the remaining favorite titles were multiplatform though there were some significant indie games that have stuck with me but those have also gone the way of multiplatform (Bastion, Limbo, Minecraft). I haven't even tried Killzone or Heavy Rain yet but do have them on my shelf. I've got a 360 too but have used it almost exclusively as a Kinect party system. I really like fruit Ninja on that. But Halo 3 was terrible to me and Halo 4 is on my shortlist. I have trouble getting into the Gears of War series so I just don't know why I'd get an XBO any time soon. Especially not with TitanFall coming out on both the pc and the 360.

 

[Wntrmt]

snip

Marketing wise, it's just another thing I loathe about consoles.

I guess it must be effective, but it rubs me the wrong way.

We've all see that picture of dead-eyes Geoff sitting next to a mountain of doritos and mountain dew, and it's as hilarious as it is repulsive. I don't know why or how exactly, but the way marketing is done for consoles is just really gross to me.

 

[Lightknight]

Pros of consoles:

1. Cheap.

When you add the cost of an HD TV, HDD extensions, extra charge for online MP, the fact that console games cost $10 more than PC versions and aren't discounted as heavily/frequently as Steam sales, the costs keep adding up.

And yet we're going to ignore the costs of "upgrading" (i.e. overhauling completely) your Pc every 2.5 years. Shocking, that.

irronically thanks to the console market once you have a decent pc you hardly need to update anymore as the power needed to run the ports remains pretty static

It depends on when in the console cycle you make the pc. Right now, for example, you're facing a tremendous upgrade in just a few years now that the flood gate of progress have been reopened with a new console. In about 4 years you can likely make a decent investment that could last the rest of the cycle.

So it depends.

However, games are still made from the base up with the weakest link in mind. So when consoles start lagging behind, the game will too. PCs get the option of scaling up their textures but the game is still exactly the same under the hood with no advantage taken to make the physics and AI better with more processing.

I will add that this console generation is a significant step. 10x the previous generation if we're considering the ps3->ps4. If you looked at games like Uncharted 3 or the Last of Us, we were getting pretty darn close to "good enough" where graphics are concerned. There will be a point where hardware stops being as important and games actually have to rely more on stories when everyone has the ability to have beautiful graphics and new engines are made to churn them out easily. But 10x the previous generation? We're talking some serious stuff. For the first time in my life of gaming, I can pull a 5 year old game that was programmed for realism and not have my eyes gouged out. It used to be that only artistic designs lasted the test of time (e.g. I played Link's Awakening last night. My wife bought me a gameboy advanced because she saw my huge library of gameboy games that would never be played again otherwise. It's a weird feeling to load up a game for the first time in 20 years and to see save files I personally made that long ago), but now games like Bioshock 1 are a little rough around the edges but not nearly enough to impact the story negatively like say, Syphon Filter or Tenchu from the ps1. Even FFVII was trying to be realistic "enough" to pose a bit of a problem playing in today's graphically superior environment.

 

[Clovus]

[If you looked at games like Uncharted 3 or the Last of Us, we were getting pretty darn close to "good enough" where graphics are concerned. There will be a point where hardware stops being as important and games actually have to rely more on stories when everyone has the ability to have beautiful graphics and new engines are made to churn them out easily.

I don't agree in a "good enough" mark being hit. Games look pretty good, but they're very far away from actually looking realistic. I think there's a lot more room to grow graphics-wise than you are thinking. Stuff like lighting, reflections, large numbers of moving parts, water, etc. I still haven't seen an in-game engine that can even pull off having two characters kiss without it looking super weird. Think about how much power is needed to just have bodies in games that can be "pressed" instead of just clipping through. How about the characters in games being modeled like real humans (like Dwarf Fortress's code, but with graphics). There's all kinds of stuff. We've gotten past the point where you are going to be blown away by a game's graphics compared to a game from last year, but we're no where even close to "good enough".

Gameplay and story are really important, and definitely supercede graphics, but that doesn't change the fact that the same game/story with better graphics is a better experience. I mean, would you really consider watching 2001: A Space Odyssey on an old black-and-white SDTV the same experience as watching a remastered Blu-Ray version on a really good, large HDTV? The movie is simply better when it looks better. Now, if the movie sucks, SFX aren't going to save it.

Most importantly, more power does not just equal MOAR GRAPHICS. It can affect actual gameplay in terms of physics, AI, number of actors, etc. You're right that we're not going to see AAA games utilizing that extra power on PC if they can't get it to work on the consoles. That's why I was so disappointed that the consoles were a bit underpowered this generation - gaming as a whole will be held back for another generation.

Either way, it's great we're getting the 10x power increase. Better gaming for everyone!

 

[spwatkins]

Between the fact that I am cyberly challenged and that my job revolves around a PC I find a console more relaxing.

Besides they don't make computer monitors as big as TVs yet do they?

They do. They're called TVs. (i.e. up-to-date computers connect to up-to-date TVs with HDMI).

 

[Phrozenflame500]

So, it is possible to get Windows that cheap, but do you really expect normal consumers to go looking there? PCs will never kill off consoles if you have to jump through hoops like that to get a good price. I'll admit that SteamOS looks promising, but I don't know enough about it at this point to make a real judgement on it. If office programs or video editing software isn't compatible with it, I probably won't be using it (neither will normal consumers).

For the average consumer no. I concede that tends to be a big issue with widespread PC adoption, there tends to be a few things you need to know. But if you do know where to get all the peripherals cheaply it does become really easy.

As for SteamOS, there really isn't enough information to really say yet. I've heard mixed things on how compatible it is so it stands how well it will compete with Windows.

Battlefield 4 snip

I finally found a half-decent benchmark of BF4 <a href=http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page3.html>here. Unfortunately it's 16:10 and is a but it should give a general idea.

The 7790 would hit ~30 fps on high at 1080p w/no MSAA. The 60 or 50 with MSAA.

From what I understand PS4 runs at high but with no AA at 900, so you should be able to run it at equivalent settings, but that would be hard to test.

Ultimately I'd have to refer back to what I said earlier: 600$ PC would blow consoles out of the water, more storage, 1080p 60fps, and can do all the things a normal PC can do to boot. But under 600 and you start getting less for your money.

 

[Lightknight]

1. Nope. They are posting clips on youtube about putting together a $400,- Console Killer. (Better specs all the way)

If you follow the links to the products, you'll see three major things. First off is that the price is closer to $500 right off the bat. Second is the the hardware really isn't that good and is already outdated (weak video card, poor HDD that isn't optimized for gaming, old CPU, only 4GB of RAM). It also doesn't include keyboard/mouse, monitor, speakers/headset, DVD drive, or OS. So, yeah. You can build a machine that outpaces the PS3/360 specs for around $500. Then it'll cost more to make the machine useable.

What you need to build, however, is a machine that is comparable with the PS4. And I don't mean comparable as in 8GB, I mean a machine that is significantly more powerful than it to compensate for optimizations of hardware that gets more out of console components than it can out of a pc made of unknown components. An example would be modern pc games that require 2GB minimum on pcs but function on 512MBs on a console with 6-year-old CPUs/GPUs.

2. Yatzee actually covered this. Most things are P&P on the PC and if not a google search will help you fix whatever doesn't. It's not really that true depending on a few things. For example, if you are building your own pc then it couldn't be further from the truth. If you are buying a package then you're talking about several hundreds of dollars above the components part. Likewise, as recent as Skyrim I saw that updating my drivers broke the game. Now, I knew how to roll it back but knowing how to search for those fixes and apply them requires a significant learning curve of gamers that is in no way present in consoles. This really should be a given, it's just that pc's are becoming increasingly more like consoles in this regard thanks to standardized coding and a streamlining of pc manufacturers that left only a few big players.

3. Define support. Support for games? PC has that and even better we have Mods, some even so big that they can be counted as DLC. See Skyrim and Skywind and ofcourse my favourite Jagged Alliance 2 (Still alive after 15 years!) That games will continue to be designed specifically for that system.

FYI, as a heavy user of mods myself, I'll point to another absense of plug and play. Though that's hardly better than no mods at all.

4. No they don't, only limiting factors are; Can the game support it, do you have enough USB ports for the controllers It requires a bit more than that. For example, another monitor. Input and output settings. It depends. Most PC games are not made with local same machine lan at all. Would you really disagree with that? The "Can the game suppor it" can be a pretty damn big jump. I stated that most games aren't made for that, so saying "can the game support it" is kind of a laugh. It'd be like me saying most cups can't hold certain types of acid and then you pointing out that certain types of cups can. Yes... both are right.

5. That was true with the previous gens this gen... They are already lagging behind in every aspect. Perhaps you misunderstand me. Optimizations are derrived from every part of the console being known to the developers. They're able to code in a way that relies on exactly what the machine is capable of. You can't do this with PCs because of the nearly infinite combinations of video card to CPU to RAM to anything else. This is why something like Skyrim has a minimum recommendation of 2GB of RAM and more current video cards/processors while still runnable on consoles that only have 512MBs of RAM and ancient CPUs/GPUs.

This form of optimization will never go away unless PCs become more like consoles where known components are concerned.

As for lagging behind. The average pc is still at 4GB. 64Bit OS are a relatively new thing were adoption rates of it are concerned. What do you think it actually lagging? Yeah, the consoles aren't equivalent to $1,500 machines where pure hardware is concerned. But they aren't meant to be. We saw Sony try to do that a bit with the PS3 and going so high as $600 saw the juggernaut fall in market share immediately.

6. True, there is less piracy on consoles but publishers actually get less money compared to PC as they have to pay for toolsets, certificates and the share that the console's creators take.Do you have any numbers to back this up? I don't think anyone really knows how much publishers make from PC overall vs how much they make from consoles. It can't be that good with companies like GTA V's creators with holding the pc version for several months to encourage console purchases instead. I'd say you're misinformed here but I'm willing to be enlightened if you know something I don't.

 

[Lightknight]

[If you looked at games like Uncharted 3 or the Last of Us, we were getting pretty darn close to "good enough" where graphics are concerned. There will be a point where hardware stops being as important and games actually have to rely more on stories when everyone has the ability to have beautiful graphics and new engines are made to churn them out easily.

I don't agree in a "good enough" mark being hit. Games look pretty good, but they're very far away from actually looking realistic.

"Pretty darn close" should not be confused with the "mark being hit". The thing is, close or not, those last few inches are FAR more difficult to cross than the preceding miles traveled. What I hope this generation uses the hardware increase for is improvements in physics more than everything else. How objects interact with eachother from a particle level to overall textures and hardness.

For example, I love the work Phymec does with physics engines:

<youtube=FIPu9_OGFgc>

Getting to a mark where graphics are perfect will take decades. Getting good enough is where things are believeable/accurate enough so that your brain isn't constantly telling you that something is wrong. Our brains calculate all the physics of objects automatically based on past experiences. Things that are slightly off will often stick out like a sore thumb. Get past that and we have a "good enough" scenario where reaching perfection is more optional than necessary.

Better A.I. and pathing would be another thing I'd like to see more of. In the new ps4 console, we have 10x the ability we had in the ps3. Think about the games we saw this past generation towards the end and consider what 10x really means. It's better than you may think and we won't really see that for a couple of years. Either way, even if we had machines that were 1,000,000x we wouldn't see games taking advantage of it for years. Just because there are computers that have four titans strapped in doesn't mean our consoles have to be there now. Consoles move the bar foward and 10x is a respectable number considering where we came from. The future is bright and may always include consoles if the companies are able to adapt.

 

[Church185]

For the average consumer no. I concede that tends to be a big issue with widespread PC adoption, there tends to be a few things you need to know. But if you do know where to get all the peripherals cheaply it does become really easy.

As for SteamOS, there really isn't enough information to really say yet. I've heard mixed things on how compatible it is so it stands how well it will compete with Windows.

I finally found a half-decent benchmark of BF4 <a href=http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page3.html>here. Unfortunately it's 16:10 and is a but it should give a general idea.

The 7790 would hit ~30 fps on high at 1080p w/no MSAA. The 60 or 50 with MSAA.

From what I understand PS4 runs at high but with no AA at 900, so you should be able to run it at equivalent settings, but that would be hard to test.

Ultimately I'd have to refer back to what I said earlier: 600$ PC would blow consoles out of the water, more storage, 1080p 60fps, and can do all the things a normal PC can do to boot. But under 600 and you start getting less for your money.

And that's all I was ever trying to prove. There is no doubt in my mind that PC is the stronger platform. The fact that it is multifunctional and backwards compatible is just icing on the cake. But, as long as you can get a cheaper, no fuss console that is capable of playing decent games, there will always be a large market for it. As a gaming enthusiast, I'm currently building a PC to compliment my current game collection (PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, Vita, Xbox, 360, 3DS, Wii U) and I've found out that it's not for everyone.

I realize a lot of people don't have the money to own everything, but I don't get why we fight over how others enjoy the hobby.

 

[Ed.]

Pros of consoles:

1. Cheap.
2. Plug and play. (minimal/no troubleshooting, just have to plug things in)
3. Generally gauranteed support for nearly a decade at this point.
4. Excellent living room group fun. (PCs still lag behind in multiple controllers)
5. Software optimization thanks to known/standardised hardware (the reason a 512Mb console can function like a 2Gb pc).
6. Relatively low piracy, this is a plus for game publishers.

Consoles have enough advantages to maintain their life expectancy. They may get more competition with PCs being released for living room entertainment but these would only be more consoles to compete rather than necessarily a replacement.

It's important to consider that consoles are the steam box for the living room. We just don't like how closed they are while developers do.

The issue being that 1 and 2 are no longer true and haven't been for some time, Nintendo get this Sony and m$ don't.

 

[RA92]

]And yet we're going to ignore the costs of "upgrading" (i.e. overhauling completely) your Pc every 2.5 years. Shocking, that.

I'm still rocking my 4+ year old rig. My quad core runs things just fine, as does my HD5830. All I added over the years were extra RAM. Sure, I sometimes have to turn things down a bit, but it runs AAA games just fine.

I guess I have to thank this gen's extra-life span.

Pros of consoles:

1. Cheap.

When you add the cost of an HD TV, HDD extensions, extra charge for online MP, the fact that console games cost $10 more than PC versions and aren't discounted as heavily/frequently as Steam sales, the costs keep adding up.

I'd have my TV regardless. Most people have a TV.


Most kids already have a computer (iPads might be trendy, but it's hard to do your homework on it). And yet people insist on adding the cost of PC peripherals, casings, OS, etc when considering a PC build.

I don't have an HD TV, which is a requirement for current gen consoles (I prefer boxsets, earphones, and my nice monitor).


But this is generally a problem with how games are sold and not the consoles as machines. When steam present more competition, they'll have to adjust that area of the product. So it's not like this won't change when it needs to.

Console manufacturers have a monopoly on their respective consoles' online services. They have no incentive to change. Forget XBL's $50,000 cost for a single patch - isn't Sony adding mandatory subscription costs? They're far from being competitive with the likes of Steam or GOG.




But once the generation is over and the console is bricked, say goodbye to all your online purchases. Not to mention having to rebuy old games as ports on a new platform as well if you want to play them again. That's not necessarily a given now that consoles are x86. Their excuse next generation would have to be something along the lines of magic grimlins are preventing the transfer. At least from the insanely proprietary ps3 to the x86 ps4 there's an excuse due to the extreme differences in the architecture. Make no mistake, Sony could have made another console with the same proprietary hardware that played these games but they'd have another generation of shitty ports and more expensive development costs. They made the necessary decision here and we should see the benefits of that going forward as one of the first times a console has almost guaranteed backwards compatibility if they allow it. The XBO not being able to play 360 games is a lot more questionable to me though.

At the end of the day, you're still at the manufacturer's mercy. There's a very real chance they wouldn't pass up the chance of being able to monetize on older games by making people redownload them. Consoles are all about artificial restrictions. If MS tried to pull any of that shit on the PC, everyone would have a chance to boycott it.

Community-made patches/emulators have kept 20 year old PC games alive, and ironically, almost every single console games up to the Wii through emulation. Yes, the ability to pirate (illegally obtain games) is more present on the PC. Something I don't advocate or condone. I also pay for artwork and hotdogs when the mood strikes me.


I resent your presumptuousness. If you look at my first post in this thread, you'll see me mention my friend's PS2. Well, after it's DVD drive went bust, the only way he can play his huge collection is through his PC now. And he uses his own PS2's BIOS he backed up before, so it's not even illegal.

And there are perfectly legal sites like Classic Gaming Network which host hundreds of abandonware games. And if you want proper support, there's GOG.

And honestly, what would you rather have? Games being lost forever because of publisher/developer not bothering to archive them or put them up for sale on sites like GOG(see the state of System Shock), or people sharing games over P2P that have been off the shelf for a decade?






Either way, the standardized hardware allows developers to program so efficiently for a console that they can get the most out of every component. This is why the actual console specs can even be four times less than the pc minimum specs for games and yet both still function around the same. That's what's going on now anyways.



Not anymore. Both XBoxOne's OS now require 3GB worth of system memory, while the PS4 OS requires 3.5GB. That's more than Win7. And the fact that XBoxOne and PS4 now have OS taking up 1/4 and 1/5 of HDD space respectively (once again more than my Win7 installation) does speak heaps of how 'lean' their OS are, and that console users will have to 'upgrade' their consoles with HDD extensions very soon. Meanwhile, the PC is hopefully getting the AMD Mantle.

And trying to eke out more power from underpowered consoles means more development time and thus more cost.

Take Crysis for example, their game was SOOO pirated that the company decided to never release a pc exclusive again.

Crysis and it's MP expansion, despite being a new IP, sold 4 million+ copies on the PC. They went multiplatform because that's a more economically sound decision. Oh, and by the way, the sequels each actually sold less than the original PC exclusive.

And what did Crytek blame that on? Yep. Used game sales.

And you speak as if console games don't get pirated. GoW 3 and Reach leaked into the torrents 2 months before release.

The fact that Sony holds something like 6 exclusives that were my favorite exclusives of the past generation helps them in my book too (The Last of Us, Infamous 1 and 2, Uncharted 2 and 3, Demons souls, Little Big Planet, Metal Gear Solid, Journey.

I'll agree that Sony has some really good studios under their belt, but the PS4 lauch lost half it's appeal to me when it became the first Playstation to launch without a Wipeout game (RIP Psygnosis/Liverpool!).

But, at the end of the day, consoles are losing their exclusives day by day because of rising costs. MGS jumped to the 360 as well last gen, and MGS5 will be on the PC as well (Konami was hiring PC devs for it last year). Same with the Souls series. Capcom and Sega has been doing a lot of ports. I doubt the PS4 will have as many exclusives as the PS1/2 era did. For me, personally, it's not viable to get an entire console for a handful of exclusives.

As for issues with PC vs console maintenance, I'll concede that point, though I think it's a worry that day by day people are becoming more technologically illiterate with the burgeoning of iOS-like walled-gardens.

Also, I don't know why I'm posting this.

<youtube=7cXuWBMZfi8&feature=player_embedded>

 

[Church185]

Most kids already have a computer (iPads might be trendy, but it's hard to do your homework on it). And yet people insist on adding the cost of PC peripherals, casings, OS, etc when considering a PC build.

Most kids have a laptop. It isn't unreasonable to expect to add in the cost of peripherals, casing, OS, etc when tower computers are kind of a rarity in homes anymore. I wouldn't however force you to take the monitor cost into account because most people either have a TV or a monitor (like yourself).

Console manufacturers have a monopoly on their respective consoles' online services. They have no incentive to change. Forget XBL's $50,000 cost for a single patch - isn't Sony adding mandatory subscription costs? They're far from being competitive with the likes of Steam or GOG.

I'll concede that XBL isn't competitive with services like Steam or GOG, but PSN is making strides. Today I purchased Spelunky for two consoles for $3.75. Each month they add 5+ games to the instant game collection for the $4.17/month I'm paying for online. It sucks that fee is now required, but at least they reward you for it, unlike XBL.

 

[Doug]

Sooo... basically what you're saying is, "Console gaming is dead."

Man, how things change, eh?

Somewhat ironic really; but I don't think he actually meant that - possibly "Console gaming is dying because of the stupid fools that are running it".

That said, I think the WiiU actually has things more or less right - it focuses on gaming, has a unique interface that PC games are unlikely to ever support. If the XBox and PS4 where smart and focused on gaming and being strong in the area's they are good at, they wouldn't be the butt of so many critics complaints.

I just get the feeling that more people are going to switch to PC as this generation of consoles rolls on; or at least the iPad/Android tablet.

But we'll see.

EDIT:

Pros of consoles:

1. Cheap.
2. Plug and play. (minimal/no troubleshooting, just have to plug things in)
3. Generally gauranteed support for nearly a decade at this point.
4. Excellent living room group fun. (PCs still lag behind in multiple controllers)
5. Software optimization thanks to known/standardised hardware (the reason a 512Mb console can function like a 2Gb pc).
6. Relatively low piracy, this is a plus for game publishers.

Consoles have enough advantages to maintain their life expectancy. They may get more competition with PCs being released for living room entertainment but these would only be more consoles to compete rather than necessarily a replacement.

It's important to consider that consoles are the steam box for the living room. We just don't like how closed they are while developers do.

1) The console is cheaper that a full spec PC, but I bet you'd manage to get a good gaming PC for the same cash. Addition, the games seem to cost significantly more.
2) Was true, ain't anymore (as Yahtzee pointed out in his OP)
3) Not unique to consoles, and in some cases inferior to PC - games from more than a decade ago can still work (admittedly, you may need to use DosBox or something, but GOG.com does at least do all that for you in its game installers).
4) True; PCs aren't as good as living room gaming machines at the present (I wonder if Valve's Steam box might solve that, but I haven't heard anything about that yet).
5) Technically true; however, it doesn't seem to help the developers - the number of broken games requiring huge patches to fix/improve performance in the Xbox360/PS3 generation was very large. Developers generally develop for both XBox and PS3 and have to waste extra time optimizing for both, and fixing bugs specific to each platform. This is a problem on the PC too, but frankly, its because developers have a habit of releasing very poor quality PC ports; that said, the community can often fix the issues due to greater control over the machine's operations.
6) Not a benefit for the end user really, but I'll allow the fact that lower piracy == publishers might like it better and release more on it. That said, I doubt it's as clear cut as the industry constantly tries to convince everyone.

I agree that the new consoles will keep themselves afloat for at least this generation as there is inertia in the gaming population to stick with your choosen platform, but I think as consoles get worse at being gaming machines for the end user while PC's, phones, and tablets just get better, we'll see the gaming consoles as we know them fall by the wayside. The WiiU though might actually have keep enough of the good qualities of the gaming console to survive though.

 

[weirdee]

What? I paid 8£ for just cause 2 on the 360 last week! I need a better PC. Still, grapple hooking every little buggering thing to a barrel of explosive fuel never loses its charm
Faith is lost in consoling now. Apart from nintendo, which most ppl i know still don't seem to understand. Fucktards they are. Ahem

meanwhile, on the PC, just cause 2 multiplayer mod has been officially endorsed on steam workshop, and is free to download for everybody.

 

[Foolery]

Never thought much of hardcore PC gamers. Talking about how consoles will be abolished. If the ultimate gaming experience is on PC, then why does almost every popular multiplatform title there is, usually sell the most units on consoles? Ease of access. Simplicity. 2.1 million PS4's have been sold. Why the hell would developers make the PC market a priority when multiplatform games on consoles constantly outsell the platform? Because games look better on there? Nope. They will follow the money, and a lot of the money to be made isn't on PC for most developers. Before anyone gets upset, I say this as something who owns and built a new rig this year. It's a great platform but isn't the be-all, end-all, and still has more hassle/tinkering/internet reliance than the new consoles.

 

[synobal]

What? I paid 8£ for just cause 2 on the 360 last week! I need a better PC. Still, grapple hooking every little buggering thing to a barrel of explosive fuel never loses its charm
Faith is lost in consoling now. Apart from nintendo, which most ppl i know still don't seem to understand. Fucktards they are. Ahem

meanwhile, on the PC, just cause 2 multiplayer mod has been officially endorsed on steam workshop, and is free to download for everybody.

shhhh don't tell them man. The don't know about stuff like this man, they just think we put in games and play them like they do.

 

[Strelok]

~Sniped for clear signs of Stockholm syndrome~

So you are saying that making you pay for the privilege of playing online is ok cause they gave you "free" games, is that what I am to believe? You know that you cannot keep these games correct? If you don't keep paying them, the play online fee the games cannot be installed. It's a free rental not free games.

 

[Sanunes]

My personal belief is that it might cost more to get started with a good PC, but over time the costs of ownership are less. For the yearly fee for online access isn't there and most games don't have the annoying cost of paying the console maker their fees. The benefit of a console is its cheaper to start with, but will have higher ownership costs. So just pick the platform that meets your needs better.