PCs Losing Out as a Gaming Platform?

Snibor Eoj writes "The Boston Globe Online has an article by Hiawatha Bray discussing the state of gaming on PCs and consoles. He points out that PC users now suffer the same fate as Mac users have for years, that of waiting for a great game that's already out on another platform. Consoles continue to gain market share, and software companies are noticing that and writing more and earlier for consoles than for PCs."

Comments

FPS's...

[cornjchob]

Anyone here want to sit in front of a T.V. and play Quake III Arena with horrible resolution with a game pade?

Enough said.

As long as there are first-person shooters and need for high-resolution, sharp graphics, computers will reign.

Re:FPS's...

[Camulus]

This used to be a valid argument. However, the X-box is nothing more then a compact computer. Nvidia specifically designed the card for the box. Think about it. A decent video card (for gaming) is going to be around $100-$150, then a good sound card $75 (Audigy), you get the idea. An X-box is $199. Factor in, actually having to install the software, driver conflicts, computer lock ups, and the idea of just putting a disk in a machine and it "just working", as Mac puts it, is very appealing to the average American. The way the market is going, it is leaning towards the cheaply replacable throwaway consoles, esp now because they are going to start having the perks of PC's, broadband multiplayer, VOIP, etc (not to mention they have Suse 8 running on an X-Box now). Yeah, so for Joe Blow it makes a lot more sense to buy a $199 X-Box that he can replace with about $200-$300 hundred dollar unit in 3-4 years rather then a $1500 gaming machine. Don't get me wrong. I am a PC gamer right now. I like PC gaming. I like being able to tweak stuff. I like Mods. Mods are what keep me playing gaming. However, given time most gaming will probably be on consoles. It just makes sense to most people. I just hope there will be mods available.

Bleh

[Wheaty18]

Consoles are great for some genres of games (such as FF-style RPG's, Sports games, party games etc), but when it comes to FPS, RTS or MMOG give me a PC any day of the week. How anyone can stand playing an FPS with a controller is beyond me. Consoles are generally a generation BEHIND by the time they are released, whereas you can get the latest and greatest graphics on a PC.

Also, who wants to pay an internet connection fee PLUS a subscription fee (for XBox Live! or Sony Online) when they can just pay the internet fee and play the game for free over the net on a PC?

Doubt it

[Geeyzus]

There are certain things that consoles currently can not do, or don't do well. MMORPGs like Everquest are much better served with PC controls, like a full size keyboard, and DSL or cable modem. First person shooters... can you say, mouse-look? As well as the use of several keyboard keys for things like strafing, etc. RTS games would be a joke without the use of a keyboard... good RTS players use all of the keyboard shortcuts.

At the same time, obviously, there are some things consoles do very, very well. Sports titles, platform games, action/fighting games. These will almost always do best on the consoles.

I suppose the point is that while some games cross over successfully (GTA3), most games are better suited for one location or the other, PC or console. Neither the PCs or consoles will disappear in the gaming world.

Mark

Re:well, sure

[egomaniac]

First, consoles currently run in 640x480 (4x the resolution you quote), generally with antialiasing.

Secondly, go take a look at Star Fox Adventures for the GameCube. Tell me how many PC games look as good. I might be willing to give you Doom 3, but A) it's not out yet, and B) it requires a damn expensive machine to look that good.

console vs. pc

[techstar25]

For the price of a good PC video card, I can get a Playstation 2(w/ cpu, mobo, RAM, video and audio, dvd player, controller, etc.). I'll stick with the consoles.

Astounding...

[leshert]

Its amazing how a Slashdot story about a newspaper article comes to the exact opposite conclusion that the original article does.

Did the submitter read the article past the headline?

Bad News for PC & Chip Makers

[rlp]

This is bad news for PC makers, as well as Intel and AMD. I've read numerous articles stating that the market for high-end machines in the home is driven by gaming. With consumers buying game consoles, there will be far less motivation to upgrade. Typically, the high-end systems carry the biggest profit margins for PC & chip makers.

Console sales will not compensate for this. The big three consoles are sold at a loss. Sony uses a proprietary CPU, Nintendo uses an IBM PowerPC chip. Only Microsoft's Xbox uses an Intel chip - in this case a low end 733 Mhz PIII - a fairly low margin chip.

Re:there is an underlying trend

[TheAwfulTruth]

Yes, but modding a game is far simpler and yeilds results far superior than writing a game from scratch. It allows people to do much much more than they ever could in the past. That's his point.

The pros do more, the amatures do more, the users get more. It's good all around.

I'll tell you what's dead. Arcades. Brand new games look exactly the same as they did 15 years ago when they stopped development on the hardware and the gaming concepts. DDR is the single exception to that rule in the last decade. If you want to talk about something dying, talk about something that is REALLY dying!