Is The Xbox The Cause Of The PC Gamer's Downfall?

Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial discussing whether the Xbox has grabbed much of the development effort and talent from the PC gaming scene, with the author arguing: "From what I've been able to gather, there just isn't much interest in PC games unless as an afterthought to a console release. Deus Ex 2 and Thief III are superb examples of this mindset." He continues of the Xbox: "Its introduction has clearly robbed a lot of the resources that used to be dedicated to making PC entertainment. This is fine if you're willing to buy an Xbox and support Microsoft directly that way. It's not fine if you're a PC gamer that wants what the PC can offer specifically, and not some watered down version of what you've come to expect from a company." Do you agree?

Comments

Worked for me...

[roll_w.it]

Sure I'm supporting Microsoft by buying an X-box, however, it means that I don't have to have a separate windows partition to play the few games that I do play.

Hopefully the next round of pc-gaming will come about on a Non-MS Platform -grin-

OMG

[Apreche]

Ok, I've said it before and I'll say it again. The cause of the PC Games downfall is well known.

Because of the differences in controls and displays some game genres are better on the PC and some game genres are better on consoles. Anything with lots of information on the screen like a Civilization or a Master of Orion, RTS games like Warcraft 3 and first person shooters are all PC genres. Games like platformers, fighting games and such are all console genres. A big screen and a gamepad are perfect for these. Some games work well on either, like puzzle games.

The reason that PC gaming is going down the tubes is that there is no innovation in the genres which are good to play on the PC. FPS and RTS are pretty much stuck in a rut. Each new game is the same as all the others. Sure there are better graphics and sound, but eye candy does not a hit game make. Think about it, there are only 2, TWO pc games coming out that people are anticipating. Doom3 and HL2. The reason they are anticipated is because they promise innovation is a dormant genre. But look over in the console arena, what do you see? What's that? Nintendo with its GBA hookups and FF:CC? XboX Live? I see new things there! It's not the same old game its always been.

Sure, there are more reasons than one why the PC is going downhill as a gaming platform. All the cheapass commodity games stocking up at Wal-Mart are no help. But then again, you see the same sorts of things coming out for the PS2 and GBA. The primary reason for PC gaming being in a rut is the lack of innovation in PC genres and the extensive innovation in console genres.

Some people I tell this to try to argue that there is PC innovation and I'm wrong. If this is you then consider this. Why is Counter-Strike the most popular online game ever after all these years? When it came out it was revolutionary. Real weapons, team based objective gameplay that wasn't CTF. And staying dead until the next round. This did not exist then. And since CS came out, no game has made such great leaps into making new gameplay as to unseat CS. Nothing. If one of them did, then CS wouldn't still be the most popular game. Tribes 2 and NS both came close, but they both suffered the same 2 problems. 1) Gameplay too complex to jump right in. 2) The devs killed the game off unintentionally.

So until HL2 and Doom3 come out my video game money is still going to Nintendo.

Of course.

[GodHead]

And it will get "worse" for PC gamers. What are the big advantages of a PC game over a console? Display resolution, processing power, input devices. Well for the first two - HDTV isn't far off and next gen consoles will run rings around all but the highest-end PC's. As for input - check how many people are playing FFxi on their PS2 with USB keyboards.

So, yeah. Consoles will be the main focus of the big game publishers and devs.

But I do see a silver lining. Smaller game companies and homebrew games will get more play time as PC gamers tire of ports of console games. I also believe that game publishers will promote open-sourceing of games on the PC and encourage mod communities to attempt the sucesses of half-life.

Re:It's funny

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Microsoft is taking business away from the PC industry that's given them hundreds of billions of dollars to a console market on which they have yet to make a single dime. It is too soon to praise the virtues of their business sense yet.

One wonders what the gaming market today would look like if Microsoft has spent the billions they invested in Xbox into making PC gaming vastly better than game cube or PS2 could offer. Suppose they had launched a "Windows XP Live" service, and invessted in/bribed game developers into using it. Or if they had worked to make installing PC games as easy as playing an Xbox games--by encouraging the PC market to make a transition to DVD-ROM faster, or perhaps creating some sort of DirectX Virtual Machine. Suppose they invested money in DirectX 9 games, which would be far and away vastly better than anything today's consoles can offer, but doesn't really do much today because who the hell cares about pc games when Microsoft is willing to bleed money on the XBox?

And if they had done all that,and then perhaps integrated Tivo-like features into the OS, and even made it simple to view movies downloaded from the internet on your television (as if MS would fail to brush the MPAA aside like a gnat if they so felt it expedient to do so), and even co-opted the Apple route of writing consumer-level tools for editing music and video -- then that would have been it. Microsoft would have owned our living rooms,and no one could be happier.

Basically, Microsoft has given up The World, so that they can be fighting neck and neck with lowly Nintendo scavenging for the scraps left over by Sony.