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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?
When the XBox came out, I figured that it would be killed by the PC, not the other way around.
Microsoft might not be too popular around here, but they sure aren't stupid or lacking in business sense, either way.
Rob
Is that it's essentially PC hardware. Heck, it uses the DirectX API. So what's my problem? Why not port games to PC since it's almost exactly the same. Answer: MS pays developers to develop for X-Box exclusively (think Halo).
While I wouldn't mind buying a PC X-Box kit (I'm not calling it an emulator since it wouldn't be emulating anything), I feel stupid maintaining two x86 PCs just because his Billness decided that's the way it should be. (Everyone talks about the extra X-box features, but really the feature set is dumbed down PC interface).
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
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-
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.
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Since this latest generation of consoles came out, I have a GameCube that collects large amount of dust, and my friend's Xbox would be collecting dust if I was still borrowing it from him. One reason I simply hate consoles is controllers are usually much to annoying to mess with, keyboard and mouse is usually better for any game in my perspective, but GREATLY excelling in the first person shooter genre. Another reason consoles are not preferred by me is the lack of options most games have: Sensitivity, complete customization of controls, etc. Playing a first person shooter where you turn around at 1/3rd of the rate that you can on the PC by twitching your mouse just slightly gets on my nerves. It makes games basically "If he comes up behind you you're dead." Anyway, enough rambling and I'm sleep deprived so if none of this makes sense don't kill me.
the Political Inquirer
There can be absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the X-Box has been pretty successful at muscling into the PC games market. Halo, Deus Ex 2, KOTOR and Thief 3 would all have been PC exclusives in the past. What I can't make my mind up over is whether this is a good thing.
At first glance, the arguments for it being a bad thing are pretty damned strong. Deus Ex 2 was clearly crippled by the limitations imposed by console hardware. Halo is also widely believed to be "not the game it could have been", had it not been transformed into a console-first game. Console games have a reputation (among PC gamers) for being shallow button-mashing fests.
However, if you look at the issue with more of an open mind, there are some more positive aspects to this. KOTOR rocked... I've played it through twice and I can't see any way in which having the X-Box release harmed the game. Having an X-Box release no doubt increases the sales of these games dramatically, increasing the incentive for developers.
As I grow older, I find I care less and less about the factors that used to tie me to PC gaming. It's nice to be able to just stick the disk in the drive and play a game... no install procedure, no driver updates, no worrying over whether I need an upgrade. The issue of playing fpses on a console controller no longer really bothers me. A lot of my PC-fps playing friends say "that must suck, because you can't... like... turn around instantly". This kind of misses the point that a decent console fps will be engineered so that you don't need to and, in multiplayer, you're playing against people on a level playing field.
I don't think the current X-Box is going to make much more progress against the PC gaming market. I suspect (although I may be wrong) that titles like Farcry are, at last, pushing PC games beyond the technical capabilities of the current consoles. However, when the next-gen consoles arrive, PC gaming could be in very deep trouble indeed.
I am one of the people out there who switched from PC gaming to console gaming (see my link).
The PS2 and Gamecube would not have made me switch. People repeatedly say 'the Xbox has a lot of the same games as the PC, there are no real exclusives'. Fine, right. That shows that they are going for a similar crowd. I can play first person shooters on my Xbox, which was about 60% of what I played on the PC. There are also the racing/sports/3rd person shooters and now I'm set.
The Gamecube and PS2 don't target the same audience. I wouldn't buy a Gamecube if they were only ONE buck, because it doesn't have the games I want to play.
So for me, and a few of my friends, the Xbox is the one that stopped me from buying any PC games in the past 18 months. Instead I've bought about 35 games for my Xbox. I do have a friend who is a die-hard PC gamer- and he says he will stay that way forever...even though I harass him constantly to buy an Xbox. In the past 4 years I think he has purchased 2 or 3 games for the PC. I think you would find that the number of games purchased by the average Xbox gamer is much, much higher than the number of games purchased by the average PC gamer. And buying games, translates to support.
Of course, he used to COPY my games. I had a similar 20+ per year game buying habit on the PC, and he would copy my games. But his copying does not put money in the pockets of the developers, who would be willing to make more games for the system.
I tell him that if he wants the developers to support him (make more games) he needs to support THEM (buy more games). But he figures someone else ou there will do the buying...sadly, this is why the content providers are pushing for more and more DRM.
No reason to lie.
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.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
Translation: better for the genres I prefer.
Which is fine. But would you play Mario Sunshine or Wind Waker and think "Boy, I wish I could control this with a mouse and arrow keys"?
When the way to keep up with your hobby is to spend your time and money upgrading Windows, downloading new drivers, rebooting constantly, buying new sticks of RAM, buying new video cards, replacing HDs, watching games install, dealing with Windows security, rebooting some more, dealing with games that don't work and can't be returned, OR buy 1 game console w/ memory card and 1 game disc for it, and play...
You begin to see that it's just the matter that PC gaming is expensive in time and money. When you stop using your PC for gaming, you'll find it'll take a good 4 years before your computer is "too slow" and you upgrade for a fraction of the cost. Plus your computer's suddenly a lot more reliable because you can use an OS which has fewer games but more stability, like Mac OS X or a Linux flavour.
I'll put it another way: my swiss army knife isn't as good at some things as a butcher knife, and if cutting meat was something I'd want to do a lot, a butcher knife would be the way to go for me. A console's just a better, more concentrated way to game!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
When I want to sit down and play a game for five minutes and stop, I turn on my Xbox and play some SSX or Sega Soccer Slam.
When I want a game that immerses me, I open my laptop and play NwN for hours and hours.
There are exceptions to this on Xbox, like Morrowind (also on PC) and the upcoming Fable; and vice versa on PC, with Flash games and the venerable Solitare. But I think for the most part, they offer different experiences, and can and will continue to co-exist...
honnold.org - sometimes-rock band, all the time awesome forum
It should be noted that consoles in general have a higher market share than high-end gaming rigs. So it's much more enticing to release your game for a console. Not so much that all the talent is being used to up on the XBox persay, but just that developers aren't willing to spend the effort on their PC releases.
.ini settings from the XBox for Pete's sake ! (and were clearly labelled so) It didn't require a top-notch developer to clear this up -- a $5/hr QA trainer and 15 minutes of effort would have done a LOT.
Deus Ex II was a perfect example of this. The abysmal PC release interface was obviously built for the XBox controller, just as level design was for the XBox architecture. But the part that really killed the PC version was the complete and utter lack of effort to make it anything less than a port. v1.0 included
Of course, the crappy sales figures for the PC version then led to the circular conclusion that it's not worth developing for the PC.
--LordPixie
Yeah, it's true that MS gaming division isn't making them money, but their bread-and-butter, MS-Office and MS-Windows make so much dough that they pay the losses of every losing division and still rake in over a billion dollars without even mentioning their other profitable divisions. I don't think MS has anything to worry about, except maybe the PC drying up as a gaming market. I have my doubts about that, as well, because graphics technology continues to be pushed on the PC side, which eventually influences consoles. Consoles have the plus of standardized hardware, so it's easier to write for them, but you don't get "cutting edge" graphics, except maybe on the console's release.
:(
MS has hurt PC gaming, by buying many PC developers and moving them exclusively to XBox dev (then porting to PC with a different developer later). The FASA (Mechwarrior) and Bungie (Halo) teams are prime examples. Basically, they've moved the PC game to play second fiddle to the XBox game, but adding all the missing features later. In many ways this works out good for MS, because the XBox is basically a standardized PC, which means many less configuration problems and simplified debugging (meaning shorter release schedule and thus less investment), so they can shovel the cost of PC hardware debugging to a third party developer. Unfortunately, it also means late releases on the PC and controls that either don't work, or are so dumbed down the game is either too easy or too hard
The reason is exactly what many people point to as being the cause of it's supposed death. Two quick reasons. The first is portability. Consoles have finally reached a point where the price point and power can match that of low cost PCs. A game on a high end console can look an awful lot like the PC. Splinter Cell on the Xbox is almost the same as the PC. I see the next generation of consoles being able to port their games over the PC much easier than ever before. The second is that 2005 will have a gap for console users. The PC will have several new graphic engines out featuring several new games. Consoles have a bit of a lag waiting for the new hardware to show up. PC games will be able to take advantage of the gamer and be able to really "wow" them.
What you are seeing is the beginning of the PC and console merging into one unit. Microsoft holds a huge advantage in this area having the dominant OS. Already there are rumors of a Xbox Next PC which combines the next generation Xbox with a PC. Isn't this the logical evolution of gaming? Within five years, it's more likely that consoles will merge into PCs, rather than PC gaming dying off. The gaming community could see exclusive titles for the Sony Playstation PC or the Nintendo GamePC, but with universal PC titles being able to play on all of them.
It's not so much that the PC market is dwindling per se, such that the console market is GROWING AT A MASSIVE SCALE. In fact, it's already enormous. And it's not because the consoles are stealing gamers away from the PC, it's because the consoles are tapping into a demographic that would never even touch a PC. It has to do both with the types of games as well as the economics ($200 for a console vs. $1500 for a PC) and ergonomics (would you rather play NFL Street on your couch in front of the big screen tv, or at your desk in front of a 19" monitor?)
So, put yourself in microsoft's shoes 5 years ago. Consoles are booming, PC sales are flat, and you don't make any money from licensing. If you ask me, Microsoft did what they did because they had to. The writing is on the wall for PC gaming. Microsoft didn't kill it by making the Xbox. If anything, the PS2 is more to blame for the state of PC games.
Yes, Microsoft could have put their xbox marketing money (half a billion) into promoting PC gaming. But do you really think this would grow the market such that Microsoft would get that money back? Keep in mind that when you buy a PC game, Microsoft gets NOTHING. Microsoft only get's money when a gamer decides to purchase a copy of windows XP.
If microsoft had done all the things you mention, I propose that it would barely make a dent in the growth of the consoles. So why not try to take a piece of the console pie as well?
1 - X-Box is similar, but not yet structly portable in terms of code. The plan is to make Next Box and PC development easily trasnposable. This will be an excellent thing for developers and gamers both.
2 - X-Box development is still nigh impossible fomr a start-ups persepctive. You simply cannot get the dev kit as a start-up. PC development is the way into the marketplace.
3 - The more sophisticated PC Games get, the more expensive they are to make. A Triple A is 12-20 million $$ in dev costs. That is a HUGE gamble to take on a genre where barely 1 in 20 titles is successful. Think about it. As a console game you cover your bets and greatly reduce the chances of becoming the next Daikatana.
4 - MMORPGS, not the XBox, killed the PC RPG market. The glut of MMORPGS has killed development in a major category of PC development. This will sort itself out in 2 years with a massive die off. The market simply cannot support the number of MMORPGS in development. Several devs and publishers are going to lose BIG.
5 - It's a Mature Console Market: During a mature console market, the emphasis is always on maximizing software return on the platform while the PC beings to move seriously ahead and the tech gap becomes massive. Relax. Next year the generation AFTER Doom3 and HL2 will be on the horizon. 2 million polygon models - real time.
6- Next Gen is Coming: Games like Unreal 3 and Dragon Age are going to be making the consoles look like gameboys. No serious game will suggest otherwise. Relax. It's a product cycle.
.Robert