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Console Games Sales Beat Out PC
ttol writes "In the Star Tribune, they write that "PC games fell 6.2 percent through the first 10 months of this year, making the first such decline ever." They go on to say that consoles will break record sales this year, and that there is a shift towards console gaming from PC. Is this due to the fact that there are now three major contenders (XBox, Playstation 2, Game Cube) and all the advanced features they offer (DVD ability on the first two etc)? I, for one, will continue with my Battlefield 1942 on my PC."
or anything, but could this have anything to do with the growing popularity of peer to peer programs and broadband? Its becoming a lot easier for people to pirate games than it used to be. Also, its more worthwhile to pirate a game in this way, for example if I was pirating a movie, it might take a couple days to download, and its over in a couple hours, but if you pirate a game in this way it lasts a lot longer. Just my 2 cents.
Whats the attraction for PC gaming? MOD'S. Delightful user modifications that sometimes end up better than the original game. This is the whole reason I game on my PC and just have a playstation 1 that just attracts dust. Sure consoles may support them sometime in the future, but you'll likely need a comp to make them anyways.
FIFA 2003, PC: $39.99, PS2/XBOX/GC: $49.99.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, PC: $29.99, PS2/XBOX/GC: $49.99.
The Two Towers, PC $29.99, PS2/XBOX/GC: $49.99
Though, I'm quite sure you're right about PC games getting more expensive. On the other hand, PC games don't have to pay license fees to Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo.
all ya need to worry about is 640*480 and identical hardware
Some TVs have 1080i (high-resolution). Others support widescreen (available on some games). Some games are available on multiple platforms. You have to get it right the first time, because you can't release patches later. If your game pushes too many polygons, you can't simply increase the minimum requirements. There is a plethora of input devices and such available on the market for each console. You can't develop games on the same hardware that they run on. There are various display formats available depending on your region (NTSC, PAL, etc).
So yeah, there's a little more to worry about than just 640x480 and assuming everyone's running an identical setup.
What the hell's wrong with you...
I keep asking myself that. Here's my biggest problem -- you have to *hold* most console controllers in addition to actually using them. A joystick can just sit on my desk/lap/arm of my chair and I can work it without having to hold it as well.
Not only that, but what other controller for any other machine in the history of mechanization has such a dinky physical range of motion? Gearshifts, flight sticks, yokes, pedals, levers, even elevator buttons, mice and keyboards all have real, physical travel and motion. A PS2 controller's buttons are squishy and the movement stick has less travel than my keyboard.
My ideal controller would look something like a joystick -- large shaft with 4 buttons accessable by the thumb, and a trigger accessable by the index finger. It'd have a curved handle with twist action on the sides (for leftie/rightie) with 8 buttons (2 rows of 4) that could be used with the other hand. That gives you 3 axis with the main stick, a fourth with the handle, and 13 distinct buttons.
Maybe I'm just old.
Of course if you want to buy something, turn it on and play few new games - console is probably better choice than PC. But which console give you so much possibilites (just in games!) as PC?
'You can't develop on the same hardware that they run on'??? Where are you getting that from?
Technically it might not be the same hardware (it's a devkit), but functionally it's 100% the same. During the entire development period you will be on this machine, you will not 'suddenly' have way to many polygons. You always know how your game will work on exactly the hardware it will be run on.
TVs supporting 1080i or widescreen are only relevant if a game chooses to support that (in which case they introduce just a single extra testing sceneria.)
Consoles really are that simple from a development and compatibility standpoint, which is certainly a good thing.
Buh? What on EARTH are you talking about? NWN Will run INCREDIBLY on a $1000 PC. It's been a while since you priced components, hm?
ECS K7S5A Motherboard - ~$50
Athlon XP 1800+ - ~$80
GeForce 4 TI4200 - ~$150
512MB (quality) DDR RAM - ~$150
HD - ~$100
CD-ROM - ~$20
Case - ~$50
Speakers - ~$30
$630, not including monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and this system will run basically anything you throw at it. (I have basically the exact same system, with PC133 instead of the DDR RAM, and I can run any game I've run across in 1600X1200 full detail)
-- Dr. Eldarion --
And I didn't even own a console untill 2001!
Probably about 6 years ago I was given a Matrox Mystique Video Card for christmas - the latest and greatest there was. It's magical stuff supported the three games that came with it (MechWarrior 2, and two others I can't remember), but nothing else that I could find / cared about.
Within 6 months it was already too slow for the latest junk that didn't support it's special chipset (which was every new game, the standard never caught on).
So I stopped playing games simply because I couldn't run them. Period.
Then about three years ago I finally had a job, and bought the latest and greatest video card, top of the line ATI-All-in-Wonder-Rage-128-PRO. Supported almost everything, so I looked into some of the latest game, but within I think three months a new breed of games came out, and it was again too slow. I had the Rage chipset, they needed the Rage2 chipset for optimal performance. Little did I know that I bought the Rage chipset on the ass-end of its existence
Thank God for consoles. I bought the PS2 summer of 2001 pretty much just for GT3, and it still runs just fine. No upgrades, no new chipset standards every few months.... Couldn't be happier. Games are fun again, and I never have to worry as to whether or not the hardware will drive the latest games.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
The PS2 and 'cube have no hard drive to let games mess with other games, but that's not the case for the xbox. The lord of the rings title was shipped with a game-freezing bug.
Here's my favorite part:
No word yet on whether Microsoft will send free games to new Xbox owners with less than three other games.
I've never seen a XBox anywhere with a Blue Screen of Death. In fact, I'm not sure it can blue screen. It does have a green error screen normally realted to disc errors, though.
I've seen PS2s and GCs do the same thing. I've bought PC games that were scratched out of the box and failed to install, too. I've also seen PCs, PSOnes, Dreamcasts, and even DVD players overheat.
Your statement, while funny, is really just FUD. The XBox isn't any more crash-prone than any of the other consoles. It's certainly less crash prone than any computer system being used for games, and that includes both Linux and Mac systems. (Mac fanatics, yes, I've seen your precious Macs crash.)
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
on PC you can play games from 1980s to 2002
You can't play games from 1981 to 1995 on a computer that primarily boots to a Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional operating system or a Microsoft Windows XP operating system without emulation or virtualization, because 1. NT operating systems have poor support for DOS apps, and 2. those DOS games that do work with NT may run too fast to be playable.
on PC you can use a lot of freeware/shareware games, Free Software is also much closer to PC than consoles
Same on GBA. Have you played Tetanus On Drugs for GBA?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I know that I bought less games in 2002, because most of the major releases that I want to buy haven't been shipped yet. I'd love go out to the store and buy Rainbow Six 3, Simcity 4, and Doom 3 right now, but they're not going to be shipped until 2003.
That, plus the lack of any absolute "must buy" games being released this year, has cut down on my number of game purchases. Sure, Unreal Tournament 2003 and No One Lives Forever 2 were good, but they certainly weren't as ground-breaking as the original releases of those games.