Slashdot Mirror
Are Consoles Holding Back PC Gaming?
An anonymous reader writes "Despite all the excitement over Nvidia's upcoming Fermi GPU, there is still a distinct lack of DirectX 11 games on the market. This article points out that while the PC has returned to favor as a gaming platform, consoles are still the target for most developers, and still provide the major limitations on the technological sophistication of game graphics. Inside the Xbox 360 sits an ATI Xenos GPU, a DirectX 9c-based chip that bears similarity to the Radeon X1900 series of graphics cards (cards whose age means that they aren't even officially supported in Windows 7). Therein lies the rub. With the majority of PC games now starting life as console titles, games are still targeted at five-year-old DirectX 9 hardware."
PC Games are designed for the graphics capabilities of the gaming
consoles (The Wii is a fisher price funbox designed for non-gamers and
drunk idiots). Few are as bad as the PC version of Final Fantasy 7 but
it still happens.
But then in a few years mobile phone gaming will hold back console gaming.
Causes...
Piracy: It is much easier to pirate a PC game.
Market size: With a few exceptions (WoW etc) console gaming earns a lot more money. Not just because console games usually cost 50% more than a PC game.
Laziness: Creating a console game might get you x million sales but the extra effort required for a proper PC version (higher res textures, modability) doesn't get you that much more than a straight port.
Your target audience: Most console gamers have short attention spans and prefer flashy lights and 5 mins of intense adrenaline to a game with a story.
Thats why RPGs dont do well on consoles. (The Final Fantasy series is not RPG it is just teen angst emo crap)
TFS blames the DX9 hardware in the Xbox and while that is partly true, PC gamers tend to expect more than just flashy lights and explosions.
Games companies try to make interactive movies with bits of action thrown in but dont realise that the story parts are mostly just pathetic.
Big name actors doing voices, more cut-scenes and Quick Time Events does not make up for a lack of gameplay.
StarCraft all the way! *zerg rush* Dang it...
Someday we'll hit the human carrying capacity. And the band will just play on.
Why would you target DirectX 11, when nobody really wants to use it? PC gaming would be better off if you targeted OpenGL.
... and then they built the supercollider.
It doesn't hurt that all the interface novelty is occurring on the console front as well.
Availability is not the same as installed base. Installed base is what people have and what the game needs to perform adequately on.
That's still where the majority of PC gamers can handle things well, too. (Their hardware may be newer than the consoles, but DX9 is still the majority support, and they have higher resolutions to cover.) The real questions is if the developer is even INTERESTED in targetting higher-performance hardware with unique features, or if they mainly want to use it to be "slightly shinier" and hit better framerates.
Why are modern games being judged based on their technological prowess? How is this holding back PC games? Games produced for five year old tech still run on modern machines. So what if games are targeted towards years-old technology? Are they fun? Are people buying them? There's more to a game that shading effects and the hundreds of hours that dedicated teams put into making realistic water ripples.
Games are sold based upon gameplay and fun. In this current market, those are more easily found in the console market. I don't see that changing. //PC Gamer since 1986 ///Now happily a 100% console gamer ////Though I love to play Cave Story
DRM is.
There is no shortage of MMOGs. The category is growing, even, at an insane rate, despite (or because of?) WoW's dominance. There are only 24 hours in a day, and peeps who play MMOGs can never "beat" their game -- they are continuously rewarded for playing, constantly and forever, and pay monthly for the privilege in many cases.
Many no longer have the time or inclination to start a new, one-off PC game. I recall an interview with supposed "Diablo-Killer" Titan's Quest creators who attributed the poor sales of their well-reviewed game to the fact that their prospective player-base could not break away from their MMOGs.
...prefer game consoles. For starters, you're dealing with a uniform hardware platform. The core specs and capabilities don't change too often, only about once every 5 years or so. So if you are developing for the Xbox360, you only have to get it to work on one 360 and it should work on all. On a PC, you're encountering a vast array of hardware configurations. X CPU with Y Motherboard using Z GPU. So while you can optimize for a number of these, you can't do it for all and that leads to a certain percentage of your customer base complaining.
That and pirating console games is a bit tougher for the average consumer. Usually requires a hardware mod chip and most people don't feel they have the technical skill to install one. On the PC, piracy is pretty much fire up bittorrent, go to the piratebay, and download.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
>>Inside the Xbox 360 sits an ATI Xenos GPU, a DirectX 9c-based chip that bears similarity to the Radeon X1900 series of graphics cards (cards whose age means that they aren't even officially supported in Windows 7)
A long time ago, John Carmack once stated that if you have a static hardware platform, you can optimize for that and get about double the amount of FPS than for a "generic PC" whose components vary from owner to owner.
The difference between DX9 and DX11 is minimal from an eye-candy point of view and only now are we getting PC cards than can approximate the performance of an optimized platform like the Xbox360.
Why should devs adopt DX11? Because the last iteration of DX lasted about a year and a half before being ditched and extended/redone? Because the majority of the market doesn't have DX11 cards? Because there's no clear advantage in developing to DX11 rather than DX9c?
Why should developers shift from something they know to something that they don't know as well unless there was significant profit motive to do so? There simply isn't in this case.
The real question is: Is the rush for performance and graphics killing the fun in video games? I think so.
Does anyone really think this cycle is any different? We're pretty much at the mid-point of the console cycle: PCs are flexing their muscle (again) and developers are reluctant to design just for PCs. But, as always, more will jump back on the PC bandwagon as it becomes obvious that the PC is the place to be for graphic quality (and the market loves eye candy). Eventually the console makers will decide to release new hardware to try to coax them back, and we'll repeat this cycle again.
So what's changed?
I'm not an huge gamer, but my preference is to sit in front of my TV on my XBox 360 or Wii when playing games. In truth I couldn't give a rat's derrière about the graphics of the games I play so long as I find them compelling and fun. Then again when your business model is based solely on churning out the same game time after time and you only differentiate the games by the graphics I suppose this argument becomes reasonable.
Hey game makers, here's a clue: In the last few weeks I have played video games quite a bit due to a knee injury that's meant I can't do much else. If I think seriously about the amount of time I've spent playing video games recently, the one game that really sticks in my mind and has me itching to play it more is Bit Trip Beat on the Wii. Realistically I probably could've run that game on my 25 year old Amiga if I still had it... but damn that game's fun!
...is why games such as Grand Theft Auto IV can run beautifully on 4-5 year old PS3/360 hardware, yet require the most cutting edge hardware to run well on the PC. I had to upgrade my video card just to get it to be playable, and I was running a 3xxx series Radeon HD, while the 360's X1900 based GPU can run it no problem. Or am I jus
The more troubling aspect of this is that the ballooning budgets and team requirements for console game development pressure the hardware makers to delay research, development, and release of new consoles. Game developers aren't interested in learning a whole new system after pouring so much money into perfecting their engines and coding techniques, and publishers don't want to deal with the greater financial risk of dealing with a next-generation platform like the PS4.
So not only do consoles delay graphics advancement of PC games, in a way they delay their own advancement.
Programming resources are finite and (since the gamer gets more bang-for-his-buck) consoles enjoy greater market penetration. If you were coding where would you aim your efforts?
Why even mention the 360's use of DirectX 9 and ignore that the other systems. The other consoles all use a custom built version of OpenGL. If the PC had a version of OpenGL that was just as advanced as the PS3 and Wii then maybe the game developers wouldn't have to learn a new graphics language like DirectX just to write a decent game. But no MS forced out OpenGL and with it all the developers who don't really want to learn another langauge and are just fine learning a few custom OpenGL extensions. So the rub has nothing to do with DirectX being used to target but that OpenGL is the primary target of game developers and DirectX is meaningless to most save for the 360.
...of all 3.3% of the market:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
Well, the wii has serious underpowered graphics. Are there more fun/original games there? Some are, but also a long line of games that is not worth it's money is published on that platform.
Same can be said for iPhone.
The real question: what will be the correct question?
Maybe the question is : how do we get the fun games to the players?
I've always been a PC fan all the way back to the original SimCity on my 286. Throughout the years I've also owned Consoles (Nintendo, Gameboy, SNES, N64, Gamecube, GBA, XBox, XBox360, Wii, etc, etc, etc). I've probably owned/built just as many gaming rigs as well.
Obviously I take gaming a little more as a hobby than just a time waster.
The one thing I have loved all this time is Multiplayer. It wasn't really possible back on the 286 unless you shared a keyboard as gaming on PC's was in its infancy. At this point in time it was easier to play multiplayer on one console with a friend.
A few years passed and the internet became a big thing. Quake for example was one of my favorites! Especially CTF online with clans. I even ran my own unsuccessful one but even so, it was a blast! Consoles couldn't touch this kind of fun! 5 on 5, 10 on 10. Just awesome!
Consoles at this time, really couldn't do this at all. XBox + Live just wasn't around yet.
Later on when XBox arrived and I got into the Live! Beta I started to see what multiplayer on consoles is like. Pretty fun! Problem for me here was that FPS games just weren't fun with a controller. I really did (and still do to a certain extent) need a keyboard/mouse combo to be a threat.
So for quite a while, I still preferred to play FPS's on a PC. However, this has changed as of late. Games that I want to play are either coming out without server support and/or mod support (Modern Warfare 2) or are simply outpacing my hardware. Combine those two and frankly, I simply don't want to upgrade my graphics card every year just to play the latest and greatest games. Especially considering that Modern Warfare 2 works just fine on my 360 and I get to play nice multiplayer battles. When it came out, my hardware was just as good as everyone elses. Sure, I have to get use to a controller, but it seems a small price to pay versus making sure my rig can handle the game (plus I run Ubuntu now).
In the end, I'm realizing that gaming on a console is just a _ton_ easier than it is on a PC. They both have the same options and generally roughly the same graphics. The only difference is the controllers.
In my mind, consoles just have the upper hand. Less cost, less hassle (juggling OS's), and the same multiplayer options. It has just become a lot more convenient over the years to play on a console.
And that's my 2 cents on the issue.
This is all about piracy. Games are harder to pirate on the consoles. If you can boot a pirate copy on a console it can often be detected when you go online. You then get banned from online play.
You can also trade in console games and get a reasonable amount of money back.
Right now, consoles are behind PC gaming and derided by some as antiquated and holding back progress.
And then, in a year or two, the next generation of consoles will slightly leapfrog the average gaming PC, the death of PC gaming will be predicted, and the new commoditized hardware will sell like crazy.
The sales surge will fund ATI and nVidia's development of the next generation of GPUs, PC gamers will provide an eager market to test the next generation hardware, and the cycle will repeat itself.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
//PC Gamer since 1986 ///Now happily a 100% console gamer ////Though I love to play Cave Story
Your example of Cave Story just illustrated another point: PCs tend to be better for games from smaller studios. Indie games on PCs are commonplace; indie games on Sony and Nintendo consoles need a jailbreak unless some major label notices the developer. See Bob's Game for an example of what Nintendo can put developers through. And the modding tools for PC games tend to be far more complete than for console games. For example, the stage editor in Super Smash Bros. Brawl is limited to just a few predetermined pieces on a grid; there's no way to add custom pieces, custom characters, or a custom soundtrack.
So, because Developers like it easy they code on the "simple to develop on" PS3? No way in hell THAT is the reason.
Also the "X thousand configurations" are a thing of the past. These days, you have DirectX and have to pay attention to ATI or NVIDIA GPU.
"Piracy" as reason is shit as well. Piracy has been around since there were games and games sold nicely back then and still do today. What does it say about piracy? Overestimated.
The simple answer is that 95% of the PC gaming market** can use DX9 while only 56% can use DX10.
* That 39% for DX9 includes 22% people with DX10 hardware using DX9 Win XP.
** Assuming Steam account holders who allow the HW survey are indicative of the relevant PC gaming market. Personally I'm inclined to assume it's not far off, at least not so far that it matters.
Is MP3 holding back the CD?
Is the LCD holding back the CRT?
- AnonyCoward
If not being able to use the latest shiny things is holding things back, then I say good. Why should I have to spend 2 grand on the latest and greatest hardware every 6 months just to play the latest fad game, when the computer I bought 2 or 3 years ago still serves perfectly well for everything else? Computers are expensive, and last I checked most of the world is dragging it's feet out of financial crisis. Additionally, we reached the 'good enough' mark a long time ago. Pushing the technical envelope for the sake of pushing has been an exercise of diminishing returns for a while now.
The Nintendo Wii in particular has proven a very important point. Hardware spec wise, it's a pile of crap. Yet it's also a wildly popular platform. Why? Affordability is a significant factor. Also it's because instead of focusing on massive polygon counts and 1600x antialiasing and whatnot other geewhizbang features, they make games that are enjoyable to play.
If I wanted high quality photorealistic graphics withe pixel perfect shading, etc, I can go outside. It's better than 1600x1200x32 bits out there.
Now get off my lawn!
your friends are probably cheating by looking at your screen to see where you are.
It's not cheating to see where your teammates are in almost any game. (See Gauntlet or Secret of Mana.) Nor is it cheating to see where your opponents are if all players are in an arena. (See Bomberman, any WWE game, or Smash Bros.)
There are games which are reasonable to play with local multiplayer
So with the rise of TVs with PC-compatible VGA and HDMI inputs, why aren't these games ported to PC?
Most computers being sold today contain crappy integrated graphics (Intel GMA etc). Only the high end expensive machines tend to come with graphics good enough to play modern 3D games on.
If you want a machine with 3D graphics capabilities, you need to either build one yourself or buy a high-end expensive machine. If you just buy your typical "house brand" PC from stores like Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot etc, you will get crappy graphics.
Whereas, for the price of a typical "gaming" PC, you could likely buy an XBOX 360 or PS3 AND 1/2 dozen games (if you buy the cheaper titles instead of the latest and greatest that is)
I played console FPS games and they suck. Glitchy VOIP, whining kids, lack of community thatnks to the loss of dedicated servers. Graphics rich, skill poor. I can't get on with console controllers and I doubt if any console player could ever cope in a map full of PC gamers. At some point (prob soon) consoles will go away. _ALL_ hardware will be 'good enough' for 99% games and people will be free to choose the best tool for the job.
sopssa, for fuck's sake, go work in the gaming industry for a while before you go making your blatantly stupid comments.
Who wants to use OpenGL? Just about every game developer! I looked at your link, and for fuck's sake, you just cited yourself. You have trouble speaking on behalf of yourself, let alone for all developers. That said, the "problems" you mention in your other post are PURE BUNK. Those who replied to you did a pretty good job tearing your "arguments" apart.
We all want to use OpenGL because it's a nicer API than Direct3D, we can develop for it on our Macs, and our games will support just about every modern gaming platform imaginable (because we aren't tied to Microsoft's platforms).
No, gamers shouldn't care whether a given game uses Direct3D or OpenGL. But when they're Mac users (like approximately 10% of all users now are), Direct3D is pretty fucking useless to them.
In terms of DirectX 11, we don't want to use it because OpenGL is better for our needs. DirectX 11 doesn't support Macs, it doesn't support the PS2 or the PS3, it doesn't support the Wii, and it doesn't support most mobile devices.
It must be easier to target a console. It's one platform, one set of hardware(you don't have to worry about everyone having the latests and greatest video card), consoles have a standard set of inputs, the only thing that might be different is screen resolutions across different types of tvs. Oh and lets not forget much less piracy(it's a lot harder to casually copy and crack a game on an xbox as compared to a pc). And after you make your money on the console, release it on the PC to see what happens. And I can only imagine that more people are console gamers these days as oppose to PC gamers.
DX11 has enjoyed a far faster adoption rate than any DX version before it. Anyone who says that technological progress doesn't allow for better games is likely to only be thinking about graphics. Graphical fidelity alone increases immersion and therefore drives up the entertainment factor, but better hardware also allows for more advanced AI, Physics and events to place on a larger scale. The PC as a platform is superior to consoles in every single way imaginable.
People have just become lazy, gaming now takes place on the couch as a seat in front of a desk is too much like hard work.
No. Piracy is holding back PC gaming. PC sales are ridiculous low for most single-player, non-casual, PC games. Game publishers are doing the natural thing; focusing on consoles where the problem of piracy is much, much smaller.
IMHO the industry should be commended that it, unlike some other industries, fight piracy by changing it's way of doing business instead of choosing the path of litigation and legislation.
Console game developers don't have ballooning budgets and team requirements because they're on a console.
Sony and Nintendo appear to require a minimum business size for console game developers. A micro-ISV that tries to meet these will in fact experience these "ballooning budgets and team requirements". Perhaps ironically, the company that Slashdot users associate with closed source is also the most open console maker, with the XNA Creators Club.
Even now stores aren't exactly selling computers with 4-Gig of ram, a high-end directx 11 card, and the Quad-core processor power enough to run these absurd requirements. Look at starwas force unleashed. I can disable one of my cores and it won't play at all past the main menu like they are checking for dual core or something. i call Shanagans.
Programming resources are finite and (since the gamer gets more bang-for-his-buck) consoles enjoy greater market penetration. If you were coding where would you aim your efforts?
Probably PCs, because Sony and Nintendo don't want to deal with micro-ISVs. I get more bang for my buck from actually developing the software than from trying to satisfy business overhead requirements such as "Home offices are not considered secure locations." And then I get further bang from my buck by porting to Mac OS X for two reasons: the game market there isn't as crowded, and more affluent Mac owners tend to buy more proprietary software.
There are much bigger issues than graphics in this "Console/PC" debate. The really big issues are things like user interface and game controls. Take Oblivion for example- that game's interface was significantly altered to accommodate console play, which made it a sub-optimal for the PC: an overly simplistic UI and relatively poor use of screen real estate.
PC gamers expect a lot more from their games- private servers, LAN play, mods, etc.; and as the Modern Warfare 2 debacle showed us, game companies are showing less & less love for the PC. There's tons more money (and less hassle) to be make on the consoles. That's a MUCH bigger hurdle than "Console graphics are the holding PCs back!"
What's really interesting to me is how MMOGs haven't really made it to the console. I think that's because of the console's revenue model, which really only supports "throwaway" games with a very short life span. You'd think a subscription-style game would have amazing appeal for console game-makers, but where are the games?
I think you're exagerating the amount of configurations developers deal with. Motherboard version is largely irrelevant. X CPU, well, if the software is designed to scale on the amount of cores, then the only concern is if the CPU is fast enough to execute what you need it to. Well, its the same with single threaded games but I would hazard a guess that most AAA games are capable of scaling. As for videocards, its largely about what feature set it has, and many of them share the same feature set, within similar performance brackets. So its more like they are looking at groups of videocards rather than each individual one.
Since PC games tend to have a set of options you can fiddle with, if the game doesn't run smoothly at one of the presets usually you can adjust it to perform better on your particular machine. Not all games do this but you can safely blame the developer/publisher for this.
As for modding consoles, people who don't know how exactly can easily get it done at a local modding store. I think its fair to say that if you are aware your console can be modded to play burned games then it is likely you are aware you can pay someone to do it.
There are still people making good storyline games. Look at Mass Effect 2. It has a great story but terrable graphics. But it's still a great game.
Yes, games are being held back by consoles. PC games used to push the edge of the envelope, not they simply follow the consoles. It's getting particularly bad, with many games designed for consoles and then poorly ported to PC. It wouldn't be so bad if the studios would at least make an effort to port them properly. I've come across all of these problems in many games over the past few years:
- Poorly designed menu systems that do not support mice (keyboard/gamepad only)
- Poorly designed keyboard maps that don't follow established PC standards, which leads to the next item
- Inability to remap or customize keyboard controls
- Games which do not support standard PC peripherals (e.g. some PC games only support console gamepads. I don't own an Xbox so don't force me to buy a damn Xbox gamepad to play your game). Same for driving wheels/pedals.
- Games with severely limited graphics options. These are a must to tailor the game experience to the hardware and performance expectations.
- Games with crippled graphics effects (limited draw distances, low-res textures, artificially limited environments, etc)
- Games with poor savegame support, or only support checkpoints
- Games being launched on consoles, with PC ports following very late afterward (sometimes 6-12 months later or never)
I could go on and on. Literally, there are very few games I've purchased in the last 5 years which do not have at least one or two of the above problems, with a few managing to tick nearly all of the above. I blame the cross-platform game development environments which basically force the game design onto consoles with PC's being treated as second class citizens. It's not likely to change either, as consoles are very popular and many game studios see them as a more profitable market.
I don't hate consoles, they are fine for what they do and I happen to own 2 (Wii and PS2), but the games I play on consoles are vastly different than the games I play on PC. I want my PC games to push the envelop of technology, sadly this seems to be against the trend.
But when Internet got around and LAN parties started to become more common, there wasn't really need for such anymore.
One of the use cases that I'm talking about is a fortnightly play date, a birthday party, or an annual family reunion. These cases tend to involve a lot of gamers in one place, and not all of them are willing to dismantle the home PC and bring it.
But since I like these strategy games and games where enemies not knowing where you are is important thing
Have three players and one machine? Play 3 on 3 against bots. Your teammates can and should know where you are.
But when we sit down for a beer or quick game, my consoles work just well for that.
Consoles tend to lack mods and indie games. If I want to develop games designed for people who "sit down for a beer or quick game", and I don't have the separate office and prior commercial titles that console makers like Sony and Nintendo demand, which platform should I target? Or should I just move to a bigger city and try to get hired by an established studio?
Playing some recent PS3 titles, they are way out infront of anything even a high end PC can manage, it's clear to me the Xbox is not only holding back PC gaming, it's also holding back PS3 gaming.
It's also gimping PC and PS3 network gaming, by forcing developers to use P2P systems rather than the usual PS3 and PC Dedicated server setups (COD MW2 is a recent example of this).
The sooner the bodged abortion that is the XBox dies, the sooner we can all move on from the XBox disaster.
My PC is already 3.5 years old and it still runs every game I bought incuding most recent titles just fine (at the default settings.) There was never a time when I had an older gaming PC.
What would DX 11 add to the gameplay exactly anyway?
Sega & Sonic All-Star Racing has local multiplayer on both consoles and PC and it uses split-screen
Thank you; that's very much what I was looking for. I'm glad that at least Sega has recognized gaming HTPCs. Now why don't others? Where's a sequel to Atomic Bomberman after thirteen years? Where's a platform fighter like Power Stone or Smash Bros.?
I agree that consoles are holding back the pc gaming. Mid-high end PC's are usual always more "powerfull" (in raw processing power i mean) than consoles, and have the (dis)Adventage to be upgradable.
But personaly i prefer to play on a console and not having to upgrade the GPU/CPU/etc in my pc every 6 mounths.
Visual and audio effects are not the moust important factor on a game. Just look at the Wii games.
XNA
It's far from perfect, but it might do.
People are just now realizing this? My PC has a video card I bought just over 2 years ago and it still runs pretty much all games out there today with good FPS and high res.
Piracy on the PC has steered gaming developers towards consoles and, until a newer generation of more powerful consoles come out I don't think I will need to upgrade my PC's GPU.
Unless the piracy problem on the PC can be solved somehow, which I doubt will anytime soon.
Isn't it obvious?? It's a little harder For most people to pir8 console games. PERIOD. Let's be honest.
Nonsense.
You are welcome on my lawn.
what are the Consoles kickbacks in there locked in app stores?
I think some big boys like ea like the lock in and that can back carp games and keep the small boys out.
This is why apple better not have a mac app store that forces people to pay a fee just to make free apps and takes a %30 cut of payed ones and has censorship.
This used to be much more true when DirectX wasn't artificially limited to the OS version. You just downloaded your new DirectX version and went to town when you bought a new video card.
DirectX 10 became a "Vista exclusive", despite the fact that unofficial ports made it work on Windows XP without much muss or fuss. It was an artificial limitation. So, in order to upgrade from DirectX 9 to DirectX 10, you had to buy a new video card and a new OS. Even some Microsoft games artificially limited detail to make the game seem better on 10 than on 9. Of course, a few clever hackers exposed this as well. DirectX 11 is and update to DirectX 10 and similarly incompatible with Windows XP.
This bs has left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. Couple that with the absolutely absurd Digital Restrictions Management in some PC games and the taste is downright sour. (Related note: Honestly, if you knowingly buy an Ubisoft game at this point, you're an idiot... their games are basically useless because of DRM now.)
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
The stupid publishers are so busy making PC gaming inconvenient (and even dangerous) with draconian DRM that people are learning quickly that the only safe way to play video games is by putting them in a sandbox. Namely, the console.
It is so stupid that I'm starting to believe that this is not by accident. They want you to buy the more limited console game instead of the PC version.
So if you are developing for the Xbox360, you only have to get it to work on one 360 and it should work on all.
Try telling that to Fallout 3 owners...
Games made for consoles, must have smaller maps than the PC version. The games that are created for both platforms use the small size. Also, since the pad is a poor control method, the console games stuff like inventory and skills are limited. Tons of games have a limit of 4 skills, just because the pad use the 4 directions of the digital pad to select these skills. With the PC you would normally use 9 or more.
But not all "streamlining" or all "dumbing down" is bad. Making this for more people, not just the experts and vets, is good, making this easy to use is good. AND the PC will never lost the deep of gameplay that the console people can't ever dream off. So the PC will have the best of the console, and the best of his heritage.
You just have to avoid games born on the console, because these are shallow, dumb and boring, and with lame mechanics like Quick Time Events and Savepoints.
-Woof woof woof!
Desktops are obsolete and laptops aren't powerful enough to run the games. That keeps me from PC gaming. There's no way I can be bothered or justify the expense of setting up a desktop just for gaming, and I already have a laptop for everything else.
The only way it could work is if my HTPC became a gaming PC too. However that would interfere with its HTPC duties, it would require a more powerful box and hence no 10W idling (and possibly even be noisy, ouch!) and I'd be playing on the TV which negates most of the advantages of PC gaming in the first place.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Could you tell us what you have done in your life or what 3D Software you've written that makes you opinion worth something?
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Wow. That could of been the best game of all time. What an epic fail.
Better hardware doesn't necessarily mean better graphics, it's how you use them. I can point out a ton of generic D&D/Tolkien looking games and many others with completely unimaginative art direction that look like they came straight out of 90s CD-ROM cutscenes. Games like Metroid Prime, No More Heroes, 3D Dot Game Heroes, Dragon Quest, Cave Story, etc, succeed graphically due to their art direction and not how many effects they can cram in there.
Even then, there are fantastic looking console games such as Gran Turismo that while trying to look realistic, also benefit from their direction. All the hardware in the world won't mean much unless you have the inspiration and focus to use it well.
Twinstiq, game news
Will PC gamers ever stop being whiney bitches and wake up to the fact there is more to life? I guess not.
When you program a console you know exactly what hardware is available so you can create a "budget" for polygons which uses it 100%.
On a PC you have to program for 20 different levels of hardware capability and try to scale the graphics up/down accordingly. It never really works properly and programmers hate doing it.
There's also the issue of drivers. On a console you know what the drivers are and what bugs are present. On a PC you have no idea.
The stability/predictability of a console's environment is what gives it the edge over a PC, not raw processing power.
No sig today...
So I own both an XBox 360 and a PC. The PC has a GeForce 295GTX, Intel 980X, Intel 160GB SSD, and 12GB corsair dominator ram. Even with this configuration,
PC GAMES AREN'T ANY MORE FUN
Although I do appreciate the increased frame rates, textures, and random cool effects, it's still the same butt-kiss 3D that I've been seeing for the past 5 years, just more detailed.
The only thing game changing nowadays are games with destructible environments. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is the most recent example. However that's still not enough. People's facial expressions and skin still looks plastic and fake. Too many hard lines everywhere. Explosions of something that generates millions of shrapnel particles still take too much CPU. I can still see the effects of draw distance, etc.
Given this, and the need to develop a game, then PCs should take second seat to consoles, and if and only if there's enough of a justified budget should a port be written. Maybe in 5 years things will be different, but by then consoles will have had a hardware refresh, and PCs will be back at square 0 trying to compete.
Love how the story summary omits completely that Ati hardware for DirectX 11 exists now and has for months. nVidia gets treated like its the only player that matters?? Oh but Ati gets mentioned with 5 year old hardware... The article has a point but is surrounded by astroturfing.
Shh.
If you want to know why PC gaming died, then look no further then Id and Blizzard (With WoW). They killed PC gaming.
Gone are the adventures, the strategy titles (and I am talking here about more then the build-que RTS), the flight sims, the RPG's etc. 99% of what Microprose once produced is no longer made.
First game the FPS and every game had to go in that direction and then came the MMO that showed you could make it really big.
In a way, I find most PC games to be almost the same as each other. Maybe that is just me getting old but there used to be more variety. Where is the Ufo: Enemy Unknown (X-com for uncivilized people)?
yes, you see some tiny independent studios coming back with titles that try to be different, but to be honest Sam & Max was NEVER the best adventure for me. A funny one, but endless episodes of them is NOT the revival of the adventure genre.
I could blame piracy perhaps, except I haven't pirated a game in a long time... simply because there is so little out there. I used to buy 2-3 games a month. Now, maybe 2-3 per year.
And consoles hold little appeal for me. Yes I do think they are holding back gaming. if you look at Red dead redemption, that looks somewhat intresting, but you can also very clearly see the limitations that are brought to the game by 512mb of total memory.
But this has happened before. Consoles have always had this cycle. During development of the console console-fans shout about how powerful their systems are going to be, then as they get near launch the PC has passed them by (how powerful was your PC when the x-box launched) and continues to get more powerful all the time. Really, who of you had a graphics card with 512mb at least when the 360/PS3 launched? And how much main memory? How much faster was your HD? You can see how true this is with cross-over games where the PC version always uses higher rez textures. Gosh, I wonder how that is possible.
But this has happened before and it didn't kill PC gaming. What killed PC gaming is more and more titles becoming carbon copies of each other with little room for "being different".
And you can't blame consoles for the dead of flightsims because the flightsims didn't migrate, nor did the market die. just companies didn't want to make them anymore. They rather pushed out another FPS.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
IMO games were largely held back by the majority of gamers being on XP, which is limited to DX9. Once enough users move to a more up to date Windows OS, there will be more incentive to move to a newer API. There no other reason not to use DX11. Console programming is not similar to DX9 programming, so using DX11 instead of DX9 is fine. In terms of hardware, the consoles do provide more than a standard DX9 experience. The 360 has a tesselator (though simpler than DX11's one) and the PS3 has the Cell, which can be used for advanced effects. Sure, you have to write separate code for them all, but you have to do this anyway if you want to take advantage of the hardware.
Many developers do like the advanced hardware and would like to use it (and do), so I don't think things will turn really badly for the PC unless there's a serious decline in PC sales.
XP is still out there, quite a lot of it
Almost everyone got a console beside the PC some got several different consoles
Windows is loosing terrain and Microsoft is loosing importance
Apple OS X i gaining terrain quite qickly and whoever catches that wave will be the next billionaire
Software support is expensive on Windows, your customers are calling you when Windows throws an error at them
You need high end, expensive display adapter if you want good quality and performance out of DirectX, you will pay less for a console and may get better quality and performance and it will be on a bigger screen
Googles Android and Intels & Nokias MeeGo will grow, both platforms got big companies behind them and OpenSolaris may also become an interesting target
Well, I've read plenty of articles about how the relentless drive for polygon count and shiny lighting models has held back other parts of game development (such as enemies that don't walk around with neon "Kill Me" signs on their backs), maybe the industry *should* concentrate on something else for a while.
Somewhat offtopic, but a lot of people have been posting comments equating TFS's question to "is PC gaming dying?" Last year, when the overall gaming market declined, PC gaming revenues increased by 19% worldwide (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62729). PC Gaming is definitely not dying.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Right, PC evolution is such a continuous process, most gamers probably don't have DX11.
What would put DX11 into the mainstream fast is a major new console that supports it. Being one of these cheap dudes that always buys a generation behind, I am just now upgrading from a PS2 to a XBox 360. It's not as significant upgrade as I'd like; I'm disappointed there aren't (hardly) any 1080p 60fps games XBox 360 or PS3. This matters to me because I play splitscreen games with my kids, sitting about 3 feet from a 46" screen.
The XBox 360 and PS3 are getting way behind current tech, it's time for a new console. If not an entirely new generation, then just a new XBox or PS3 rev supporting more modern hardware, and games that autodetect whether the new features and resolution is available. Supporting two levels of capability wouldn't be unmanageable. And PC gamers would benefit because the market for DX11 would be much bigger.
Last time I looked at a bunch of trackers for number of seeders and leechers, consoles where were piracy was at these days.
Om, nomnomnom...
All console games now are just first person shooters, same as on PC. Consoles used to be where the innovative games came from, now we are lucky to get one original game per generation.
It's pretty obvious to anyone who knows what they're talking about that apart from wow and flash games, pc gaming is dead and buried.
Despite the best efforts of an army of talented modders and level designers, the big firms are for various reasons not interested in the pc platform anymore. Consoles are an uncomplicated way to sell uninspired bilge to the masses.
Right, because PC game developers have to write a separate version of their engine for each combination of CPU and RAM quantity that they want to support.
A lot of PC games do in fact use separate rendering pipelines for Intel GMA, for cards designed to run DirectX 9, for cards designed to run DirectX 10, and for cards designed to run DirectX 11. I seem to remember that Unreal Tournament had separate texture packs for small and large VRAM.
Mac is also only using Unix underpinnings, it has plenty of other APIs that a game may be using - e.g. Cocoa and OpenCL.
Which should ease a port to Linux because Linux has parts of Cocoa. Or what am I missing?
Cross platform support is not relevant when speaking of consoles. They are proprietary hardware. In the Case of PC's, the cross platform aspect is between OS's not between systems containing entirely different hardware.
of course consoles are holding back pc games; consoles are where the money is at.
but the x360 isnt just some dx9.0c workhorse, it can do dx10 and dx11 stuff too, like dynamic shaders and tessellation.
While the graphics rendering will be easier to port, everything else will require non-trivial coding and more importantly non-trivial testing.
As I understand it, a video game consists of graphics, sound, input, networking, physics, and AI. SDL handles most of the sound and input, networking is BSD sockets all around (even Windows sockets are based on BSD), and physics and AI don't differ per platform unless you're trying to support both platforms that use managed code like XNA and Android and non-managed platforms like iPhone, Mac, and Wii.
How is targeting 2 or 3 consoles (Wii is usually left out of the loop for games worth mentioning) more difficult than targeting enormous different combinations of PC hardware?
There are three major combinations of PC hardware: x86 CPU and NVIDIA GPU, x86 CPU and ATI GPU, and x86 CPU and Intel "Graphics My Ass" which is left out of the loop alongside Wii.
And still waiting for one to be released for the PC. (Huge Godzilla fetish, like my SW fetish but I've bought enough shitty SW games to cure that one).
I would be lying if I said this was the core reason for my waning interest in gaming, but it definitely ranks in the top 3 reasons. Nothing like buying a $300 console to find out the flavor of game you want to play is exclusive for another console. I already have plenty of $$$ invested in my computers, and they make me money, don't need more expensive toys that don't do anything for me besides time wasting.
My #1 reason I stopped buying/playing games? DRM and mandatory online activation. My vote($$$) is "no, thank you". I wouldn't even consider buying "Godzilla: Best of The Best of the Best Of All Time: Arena" made exclusively for the PC platform if it hobbles/punishes the legitimate users. *we all know how the pirates are put out by it.
My third reason? My brother has dozens of Xbox games and has had 5 red rings of death in 3 years. After dealing with MS and getting his unit back (prolonged absence, shipping costs, Indian phone reps, etc) the replacement rr'd within 3 weeks(FAIL). He sued MS in small claims, won and had judgment thrown out b/c MS failed to respond and apparently they are exempt if they're not represented/no-show???(FAIL). He now buys a replacement, swaps the case panels, etc and returns the previous dead one(FTW!). Hasn't had one in a year now, maybe his multi-thousand $$$ investment is finally fixed? I would hope so, but...
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Right-on.
Piracy is killing PC gaming like home taping killed the music industry.
That is: Not really a problem, but a great whipping-boy argument when you run out of other excuses.
Nintendo should be bankrupt if piracy was the single biggest problem facing the computer game industry. DS games are ridiculously easy to pirate. Strange then, that bona fide DS games seem to fly off the shelves at any price.
Erm, developers have to code for those 'set of options you can fiddle with'.
Don't let the simplicity of the interface which which you adjust those options fool you into thinking the code behind it is similarly simple. Usually, the more simple the interface, the harder the developer had to work to make it so.
I thought that about motherboards too until I had a couple times that I traced the root of problems to be a particular revision of a particular motherboard where the northbridge chip set (or southbridge, I can't remember which), played hell with sound card or something. I don't remember the specifics, but only that I had two games that just would not work. Everything else worked fine and it would play on my other system (not well because it was older). I went on an array of forums and saw everyone else with this particular motherboard revision had the same exact problem. It took a firmware patch from the vender's website buried 5 layers deep to fix it.
Since then, I've never discounted that motherboards can play a role in performance.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
PC games would benefit from having higher detail, more models, and less loading screems in games. I really hate having to enter rooms and watch a loading screen. The odd thing is that, Direct X11 is irrelevant to making better PC games. Though graphics don't make great games, they just make great games better, or hide truly shitty games with glitter. When I saw Half Life 2 use physics, I saw a whole new era of gaming. Yet, I haven't seen any games use it besides making people die realistically.
Windows XP is still huge and can't use anything above DX9 and a lot of PC gamers are now the sort that don't get a hard-on over having the latest video card. A lot of people that bought into that trap moved onto the Xbox 360 because their favourite games come out there first. So you want to cater to most PC gamers then you can't go for the bleeding edge.
thats what really how consoles are holding back pc gaming.
non-reconfigurable controls, removal of features that cant be mapped to a gamepad with a limited number of buttons and joysticks, no concept of a mouse at all.
just observe the interaction menus in mass effect 2. they are designed to be operated by a stick, not a mouse or keys. End result is that one start to wonder if one really hit the selection one want, and the number of options displayed at a time is limited.
deus ex 1 had a grid inventory, skill improvement, multiple ammo pr weapon. deus ex 2 had a single ammo pool for the whole armory, maybe 10 slots of inventory total, no skills.
this focus on graphics hardware is poison for computer gaming in general, as it puts form over function.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
An excellent rebuttal except for two minor points:
* GP is AC so we don't know who they are.
* If we don't know who they are then we can't be sure they're not John Carmack.
* John Carmack has developed plenty of stuff in OpenGL, and still favours it.
I know that's technically three points but I haven't achieved much with my life or written any 3D software, so I need the extra point in order for my opinion to count.
How about reading the post you're about to reply to before replying?
It's not consoles killing PC gaming. It's DRM.
At least that's why I don't buy many PC games. That and the fact that I'd prefer a native Linux version, but theres lots of computers I wouldn't mind dual booting to play.
The Internet has given stupid people the resources of intelligent people.
It's not consoles that're holding games back. It's Windows 7. All the hard-core gamers I know are still running XP on their gaming rigs because of the hit they get to frame rates running Windows 7. These are the people who care about a 5fps difference even when they're getting over 60fps. The game companies know these people are their core audience, and if they put out a game these people can't run on their rigs that game won't sell well. Those rigs run XP, XP won't do higher than DirectX 9c, so the game companies target DX9c. It'll run on the hard-core gamers' rigs, it'll run on the average consumer's Windows 7 machine, so there's no sense in supporting DX10 or DX11. The only games I've seen that require DX10 or DX11 come from Microsoft itself.
they would completely KILL pc gaming. i've heard the following excuses from developers as to why they won't do it:
1. the single player game would have to be rebalanced for mouse/keyboards (in other words things would have to move faster cuz you don't fumble around like you do with a controller).
2. inconsistencies in mouse/keyboard hardware and performance.
3. balancing issues with multi-player. (they aren't kidding here).
All of these issues are just excuses and could be easily overcome. How much FASTER could these companies companies develop games if they only had to target specific blackbox hardware? I can't even imagine the millions they would save.
You'll have trouble measuring a real performance difference between OpenGL and Direct3D (which isn't surprising since both APIs are simply ways to queue up commands in buffers for the graphics card to execute)
Since Direct3D 9.0, both OpenGL and Direct3D are very equivalent in terms of features and ease of use. Neither is "more suited" to either games or serious use.
For long term projects OpenGL has been much more suited to "industrial" apps simply because it's a lot more stable. If you'd started a project ten years ago using Direct3D you'd have had to rewrite the graphics code three or four times by now. With OpenGL the ten-year-old code would still compile/run, no problem. This long-term stability has a downside in that OpenGL has a lot of accumulated cruft - functions which serve no real purpose these days or have better alternatives.
OpenGL ES is a cleaned-up, modern OpenGL which would be perfect for games but for some reason it's never really been pushed on desktop machines (which is a pity IMHO).
Direct3D is a teeny bit lower level when it comes to things like memory management (e.g. for fine control over where geometry/texture data goes) whereas OpenGL just says "leave it to the driver". This gives Direct3D a slight advantage for games.
The main reason Direct3D is used for games though is because Microsoft spends lots of money wining and dining the CEOs of games companies and making pretty presentations to the developers.
No sig today...
How about considering that I might have been replying to the general sentiment expressed by the sarcasm, not the specific details?
Or PS3 owners.
Or (from what I hear) PC owners.
The cake is a pie
Sony and Nintendo appear to require a minimum business size for console game developers.
I don't know about Nintendo, but either the minimum business size for sony is some where around 10 employees, or else "That Game Company" is sending Sony some inflated numbers and Sony is not checking. So sure it might be hard for a single developer to get their product on the PS3, but then again that could be because you are going to have a hard time find a single developer who's is capable at both technical, artistic and marketing skills, to be able to make product to the quality level that Sony would prefer (and no that is not a knock on solo independent developers).
PCs are still popular for MMO games, but outside of that the consoles make more sense to target. They are optimized for gaming (even the relatively low-end Wii), simpler to manage, and more importantly there are many more consoles sold to gamers than there are high-end gaming systems.
Also a factor is that you know what the hardware specs are for a particular console device. If you make it for PCs you have to ensure that it performs adequately no matter what - the user may have a crappy virus-infested PC but if the game he bought doesn't perform the way it does on his buddy's Xbox 360 then the game publisher sucks. If it doesn't run great on Windows 7 (but OK on XP) the publisher sucks. If it has issues with Norton (and what doesn't) then the game sucks.
If you publish for a console you've got less than cutting-edge hardware, but you know what you're in for there. And you can be pretty sure that if it works on your dev console it'll work for the end-user, too.
The PC game may not be dead, but it's not what it used to be and I think fewer and fewer games will target PCs (and I may be a Mac guy, but they'll have even fewer games there). The future of gaming at this point is consoles and handhelds.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Cross platform support is not relevant when speaking of consoles. They are proprietary hardware. In the Case of PC's, the cross platform aspect is between OS's not between systems containing entirely different hardware.
That isn't totally true. If you want to be able to port your games to another platform, then your game engine is going to need an abstraction layer, with a specific low-level implementation for each console. Games companies often do this, because they don't necessarily want to find themselves being limited to one platform. There will always be work to do in porting a game, but if your engine can be made in way that it accounts for the most common points, then you have already saved yourself a whole bunch of work.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Programming resources are finite and (since the gamer gets more bang-for-his-buck) consoles enjoy greater market penetration. If you were coding where would you aim your efforts?
The other advantages that consoles have are zero install (just pop in the disk and go) and a fixed target. PC, no matter the OS they are running, tend to be a moving target and a whole bunch of unknowns on any given installation. These are are by no means unsolvable, but I am not aware of any company that has provided a solution to this problem. I sometimes wonder whether a special gaming VM would provide some sort of benefit on a PC?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I'm guessing you're about 13 years old ...
In real life there's more to 3D than games and gee-whizz.
No sig today...
Console = 5 years old PC hardware with locked options.
Yes and no. In reality this an Apples vs Oranges argument, since on the one hand you have specialised hardware design to do one task well, and on the other you have generic hardware to do most things well enough. As to the locked options, this is actually beneficial for games developers since they can focus on a single platform configuration and this makes it much easier to find the bugs. You are also not paying the same amount for a console either. A console generally tops out at around $400 USD, ignoring extra controllers, whereas you are usually spending $1000+ for your gaming PC.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Obviously, the point is that they don't have to code them for each seperate card. There is a point at which they can generalize.
While you may say "please step away from your Slashdot reality distortion field" in relation to DRM, Ubisoft's piss-poor DRM implementation has made a lot of people swear off their games on PC. Assassin's Creed 2 much? All the major game sites covered when Ubisoft's DRM server went down and no one could play it. So that shiny Ubisoft game you bought for your PC will only work when your internet connection is up and Ubisoft's DRM servers are reachable... even though you're not playing the game online. And this after the first one was bad ui, bad drm, bad port and had the same issues.
All of this is well outside the Slashdot reality distortion field and starting to clue people in that you don't actually own a DRMed game. You rent it. And you play it with the temporary permission of the publisher... which they can take away at a whim... or can be taken away by a simple network issue.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Oh they'll play a role but the developers usually don't have to worry about it. Like you said, the vendor distributed a firmware patch to fix it, so it was an issue with the motherboard and not the game.
I'm a game developer. The only good point you make is that using OpenGL makes Mac ports a bit cheaper. The rest of your rant is bullshit, and if you're actually a gamedev (which I doubt) you should know better than to make such silly claims. There's a hell of a lot more to porting to a new platform than porting the graphics subsystem (and porting between DX and GL is trivial compared to what you have to do to squeeze stuff like physics onto console architectures).
We all want to use OpenGL because it's a nicer API than Direct3D
Hah! Bullshit. OpenGL might become a nicer API if Khronos ever gets their heads out of their asses and stops pandering to the CAD crowd. Until then it's an annoying mass of gotchas. Seriously, the backwards compatibility provisions in OpenGL make every Windows release look like a clean break from the prior version.
we can develop for it on our Macs, and our games will support just about every modern gaming platform imaginable (because we aren't tied to Microsoft's platforms).
Mac I'll grant you. What are these other modern gaming platforms? Seriously, what are they? Linux? Unless you mean all the mobile devices using OpenGL ES, but you need to rewrite significant portions of your engine and redo almost all of your art to get a reasonable experience on those, and a DX -> GL ES port is trivial when you're already doing all of that.
DirectX 11 doesn't support Macs, it doesn't support the PS2 or the PS3, it doesn't support the Wii, and it doesn't support most mobile devices.
Again, I'll grant you the Mac. What the fuck are you smoking as far as the rest goes? OpenGL doesn't magically give you free (or even meaningfully cheaper) ports to any of those platforms either:
PS2: No OpenGL here. Just a DMA controller and some hardware registers. The entire create/bind/release metaphor that both GL and DX are based around does not exist. The shading unit can't even express all of the common blend modes, and you have to do ridiculous gymnastics to fit textures into the tiny amount of video RAM you get. You should know this if you've ever worked with a PS2.
PS3: You're an idiot if you're using the GL library directly on the PS3. There's a reason Sony gives direct access to the hardware - if you care about performance you won't be using the wrapper libraries. But again, you'll be rewriting a bunch of your engine to get AI, physics, and other stuff running on the SPUs anyway and a graphics port from either DX or GL is fucking trivial next to that.
XBOX and XBOX 360: DirectX-ish API, so OpenGL gets you nothing here. Even if you start with a DX game you're still porting a bunch of code if you did anything worth mention since there are still fairly significant architectural differences between it and PC. About all you get out of the similarity is a good idea of what entry points will likely be named.
GameCube/Wii: Calling what those platforms expose "OpenGL" is just silly. The structural similarities between the libraries you get and OpenGL are trivial when compared with the mountains of restrictions, special cases, and other odd differences you'll be dealing with. And again, you're going to be rewriting a bunch of your engine to the execution environment so a 5% more direct graphics port saves you fuck all once you tack on the art changes and another QA cycle.
Mobile devices: we already covered the mobile devices. Have you actually worked on one? You should know better than to imply that you get magic free porting to them if you just use OpenGL. There's a hell of a lot more to a usable mobile port than flipping some defines and recompiling with GCC.
Seriously, the starting graphics API is fucking irrelevant to any serious porting effort. GL and DX have near identical capabilities, identical object lifetime management, trivially mappable entry points and trivially mappable state bits, and near identical performance and synchronization behaviors. Porting between the two is trivial compared all the other work a proper port requires.
This article points out that while the PC has returned to favor as a gaming platform, consoles are still the target for most developers, and still provide the major limitations on the technological sophistication of game graphics.
All I can say is: good. A couple of the reasons PC games blow are the constant hardware churn and the emphasis on graphics and not gameplay.
John Carmack has a /. account and no need to post as an AC.
Honestly. One of the biggest gripes I have with PC games is this constant need to perform expensive hardware upgrades simply to run the games on the default settings.
I haven't upgraded my video card in three years now, and I run most new games decently. In my opinion, it should stay this way. A few years ago, it was impossible to play new games with three year old hardware.
If more and more people can play good games on "old" computers, why stand in their way with this rubbish race for the new shader tech etc.
Better graphics might improve a game, but the pace is just ridiculous. A piece of hardware needs to last more than 3-4 years.
Microsoft controls direct x.
Microsoft controls windows.
Microsoft controls xbox.
If the xbox does not have a direct x 11 implementation and developers are writing for what is compatible with windows and the xbox, then the problem is a microsoft problem, correct?
The title should read "Is Microsoft's Inability to get DirectX11 working on a Xbox holding back PC Gaming"?
Graphics do not equal compelling gameplay. Gameplay is paramount. See Cave Story.
Consoles deliver a reliable experience. You do not have to update three drivers and toggle video card settings in the vague hopes it will alleviate an uneven play experience, which is more fundamental to enjoying a game than how good it looks when running at normal speed. A good PC experience is equivalent to a well-made console title. The difference being you usually have to work for a good PC experience, whereas console titles are either well-made (God of War 3), or poor (Orange Box, PS3).
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that only amateurs really care that much about which API they're using. The professionals are too busy figuring digging through the weird special cases you need to make anything work.
Amazingly enough Fallout 3 seems to be least buggy on the PS3...though with Fallout 3, least buggy is not much of an accomplishment. Fun game though.
When long time pc developers say it is a problem you should listen to them
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/09/id-software-ceo-piracy-pushed-us-multiplatform/
If you compare piracy stats for a multiplat release you'll see the rates are much higher for the pc version. I'm not talking a 10 or 20 percent difference but more like 1000%. This doesn't bode well for the pc when the pc version of a multiplat usually sells the worse. It's no secret in the gaming industry that the pc is the platform of choice for pirates.
I gather you didn't play any of the DLC! "The Pitt" was only playable for me if I shut the game entirely down every half hour.
The cake is a pie
Most avid PC gamers I know own both a PC and a console of some description. As most games now releassed on the PC have been developed and released for a console often months ahead of the PC release and these gamers have already forked out once for a title, and just like the music industry a few years back, we DO NOT want to pay multiple times for the same media for use on different platforms. This is what is killing the industry caz seriously who want to pay for the same title with slightly better graphics and some annoying DRM when they can just buy the console version and 'plug and play' without having to dive through 30 flaming hoops while doing backflips and balancing a ball on our nose.
Consoles are not holding gaming back, crap players that cant handle quake1 style fps are holding gaming back.
PC gaming used to be a lot more fun when it was about.....well.....fun and not benchmarks.
I for one welcome our new console overlords. PC gamers take themselves too seriously. You can see this in their constant dismissal of consoles. Games are about having fun so go cry to your mom if you're upset about game developers not caring about your renderstation 5000.
PC gamers don't put up the cash unless it is an MMO but they still seem to think that games like Crysis should built even if most of the people playing the game didn't pay for it. They forget that gaming is a business and the people with $200 video cards are pretty lousy customers. They're like the guy who expects luxury level service at every restaurant but stiffs the waiter most of the time for stupid reasons that he comes up with to rationalize being a cheapskate.
Does Nintendo's requirements on size extend to their shop channel? If so, they can't be that high, 2D Boy describe themselves as a two person studio, and they only have 4 people listed in the credits for World of Goo, yet they have been rather successful with their WiiWare version.
For geeks there is Maemo... Android is just a JVM on top of a linux kernel, Maemo is a full debian-based linux distro, if you haven't you really got to try the Nokia N900 for a few hours!
Does Nintendo's requirements on size extend to their shop channel?
Yes. According to warioworld.com, home-based businesses are no more eligible for WiiWare than they would be for Wii Game Disc.
2D Boy describe themselves as a two person studio, and they only have 4 people listed in the credits for World of Goo
Without a dedicated business office, 2D Boy had to pretty much cheat Nintendo in order to get a devkit: the developers allegedly worked on the port in a Starbucks shop.
yeah i'm just about sick to death of shitty console->PC ports from Lazy developers who can't be bothered propperly coding games for PC.
"WAH no USB gamepad support for Colin McRae Dirt2"!?
I am old enough to have owned an Atari 2600 and what we would now call "PCs" were so expensive back then that most people couldn't afford them. "PC games" at the time were far superior to anything available on the consoles of the day. Flight Simulators are an example that comes immediately to mind. While technology may have moved on little has changed: Console games are still much harder pirate and distribute than "computer games". Even back in the 80s it was trivial for the average geeky 13 year old to copy and distribute software using the flavor-of the-day disk-copying utility, which was itself also pirated. This was for all intents and purposes utterly impossible to do with game cartridges which often cost about $60 each which was a lot. Every single game that I had for the Commodore 64 at the time was both pirated and in every way far superior to anything available on the consoles of the time. The lack of split screen and/or simultaneous multiplayer functionality and controllers on PC games is simply a marketing strategy intended to keep consoles popular. For the average consumer the only advantages to consoles is their portability and that they are far easier for dimwitted knuckleheads to setup: just plug them in and start playing. The only group who benefits from consoles are the manufacturers. By only releasing games on consoles manufacturers can not only lock down the software, but the hardware and peripherals as well. They get to own the consumer. If game publishers release their games for use on PCs they not only run the risk of their games being easier to pirate but they also forgo the opportunity to fleece consumers by forcing them to purchase their hardware and peripherals. Anyone who thinks that consoles are "better" than PCs have simply fallen for marketing lies.
1. Location - typically connected where the majority of people gather, family / living room. How many people set up their gaming rigs right where every one can physically gather around. PCs are off in their own little world.
2. Initial Setup - consoles are typically a one shot deal. Hook it up, and your good to go. PC... you want the latest and greatest super game... constantly requires upgrading your hardware to get it to work. Driver incompatibility? I have to call who to get help? What... All that to play tetris??? What! (you get the gist)
3. Cost - Console, sub $500. Gaming PC - $1k or more
4. Image of users - Console gamers (everyone) vs PC gamers (pimpley faced nerds who can't get a date)
That's just my opinion... I could be wrong
I used to be an avid PC gamer, but now I have two PS3's. I don't have to worry about the PS3 games installing some spyware / DRM activation junk on my system. I don't have to worry about going to NVidia's or ATI's website to download 100+Mb of drivers each time the latest or greatest coming out. I don't have to contend with Games for Windows constantly updating Live with dialog prompts that are often hidden by the fullscreen game. I don't have to log into Live or PSN so that I can save my games. I can actually resell my game when I am done with it. I will admit that the PS3's graphics do not compete with a quad core CPU and dual core graphics card, but then again it does not sound like a jet engine dissipating 500 watts of heat when the action picks up.
TFTFY.
I hate swapping out CD's, for all my single player games I have no CD cracks so I can play whatever I like without having to handle the CD's. I could never do that with a console. Nor could I create backup ISO images and store them on my hard drive.
I have a back catalogue of PC games going back to 1989. I'm not necessarily anti-console, I'm pro PC but I also have Nintendo games going back to 1992, I can get all my old DOS and Win 9x games, save for a few to work on my modern gaming rig but my old SNES carts wont work in my Wii. I have a Wii rather then a Xbox360 or PS3 because they are trying so hard to be gaming PC's but still being inferior to a basic A$1000 gaming PC in terms of graphics and control schemes. The reliance on control pads is one of the greatest weaknesses of a console. With a PC I have the KB and mouse but I can also use a Joystick, steering wheel or Xbox gamepad.
Going back to the no CD thing, digital distribution services like Steam and Impulse which seem perfect for consoles are never used due the vendor's (Sony, MS) reluctance to permit the user to swap out the hard drive to allow 4-8 GB games to be downloaded, that and the vendor maintains a complete monopoly on distribution (every PS3 or Xbox disk sold must pay a license fee to Sony/Microsoft, which is why a PC port is always cheaper then a Console game).
Eventually the focus gaming with gravitate back to the PC (it never really left, despite all their complaining, no-one is willing to abandon the PC), this will happen in the next generation of consoles as Nintendo have proven that the money is in the casual audience for consoles (your own comments confirm this, less mucking about, more uniformity, these are the words of a casual gamer). Mircosoft took note and created Natal, Sony is now releasing "Playstation Move" (arguably the stupidest name ever for a control scheme, written on my Microsoft "Type" keyboard). It is highly likely the next gen will be more Wii clones as Microsoft have only just gotten into the black this year and Sony is losing money hand over fist due to the fact that both of these companies make the hardware at a loss and depend on X number of game sales to make up the shortfall.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Doing games got quite more expensive on this generation than on the last one,and also pixel shaders appeared from the F* nowhere.
So i think the main problem is just that the developers just CAN'T do a game better than the so called Xbox 360/PS3 games because they don't know how or have the artist budget to do so.
Hell, i dont think they re even exploring the consoles right, as you can see from that uber high budget games from sony like Killzone 2.
Afaik there is no game that has a motion blur like that yet on the pc, and i think the pc is more than capable of doing that.
Yep, my current save is in the Pitt in the GOTY edition. (I originally started playing on the Collectors Edition) And yes it's got issues, though it got better the further I played into it. It's much better now that I've finished the Arena bit and got my stuff back. When I first went in, it was as you said, but now it's not. Which is very strange. I ought to ps3-boot-game-os (currently running Linux on my PS3) and get back to working on The Pitt.
If you're only talking about games that target DirectX, then of course it's going to be an increasingly small field. OpenGL works everywhere.
Furries make the internet go.
I mean seriously, game are, well... games. Not exactly the most important thing in the world.
Besides that, which games are the most fun? Which hold your attention for the longest? Ones with innovative gameplay. I don't think the difference between a DX9 and DX11 graphics card matters for practical purposes. What exactly do people want to do on the XBox or PS3 that they can't, graphics wise? Nothing, that's what. Sure, maybe if they had a newer card, they could get x * 1.2 textures or polygons, or 100 frames per second instead of 60, but that doesn't really change much realistically. The design of the game is much more important than such a minor difference in hardware. The fact that mobile games are taking off proves that fact as much as anything else. Not to mention that very undemanding games like DDR have been very popular for long periods of time.
for the love of god moderate this post up!!!
Let's see - supply, demand, substitute good, blablablablaba . . . .
Yes.
Consoles are not holding PC-gaming back. PCs are holding PC gaming back. The truth is, this far into the current generation of consoles, they still provide better gaming technology than what MOST of the PCs currently being used have. While /. users might have awesome rigs with multi-core processors and the latest graphic cards, the HUGE majority of pc owners do not. They have laptops, they have affordable Dell systems, they have computers they bought more than 3 or 4 years ago... they don't have the chops to pull off a game that looks like FFXIII or Heavy Rain. When all your friends are technophiles your sense of how most people live is a little skewed. Not to mention a lot of people just don't want to sit in front of their computer to game- they want to sit on the couch and relax with friends (who also have room to sit and a huge screen to share). There's also an associative nature between PC=work and TV=relax/fun. I just don't want to be near my PC when I want to have fun. I sit in front of a PC all day at work. Leave me alone!
console ports are killing pc gaming. fallout 3, mass effect etc. engines, mechanics, UIs designed for console neanderthals and left intact for the pc version. and despite all these failings, reviewers praise them as games of the year. argh.
FO3 is buggy on all platforms, but at least on PC you can install the unofficial patch, which fixes a huge number of bugs.
I own a PC which could easily be called a 'gaming rig' and I own a PS3. When I want to buy a game like Fallout 3 I could buy the PS3 version that has the lower quality graphics (I could no doubt max it out on my PC) and lack of ability to get mods, or I could get the better looking PC version that could be expanded with a ton of mods, my choice was easy.... I bought the PS3 version. PC games have every advantage but are DOA in my eyes due to DRM (look at Assassin's Creed 2 and Command and Conquer). These made it a complete no-brainer of which one I'll buy. I don't need headache's and time wasted looking for a crack for the game I bought. I have Windows to play my computer games (World of Warcraft and Guild Wars, thats it. Will get Guild Wars 2 when out). That is all I use Windows for, playing 2 whole games because since they are online only I don't need to worry about horrible DRM killing my game play or my computer. The PC market is being held back by consoles for the reason that when I put in a game in my console I don't have it complain that the cd isn't in the drive (when it is), the console doesn't spend 2 minutes during the starting load to make sure the disc is real (Clive Barkers Undying always did that). Console games run, and they always run without a billion DRM induced headaches. PC games are like playing Russian Roulette every time I started up the game (and now don't even stop at that part) and that is why PC games aren't selling and console games will always get my money first.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
You are putting your head in the sand if you think it is not having an effect.
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/09/id-software-ceo-piracy-pushed-us-multiplatform/
Non-casual single player games have been in a slump for years.
but high-end pc exclusives are on the decline due to poor sales compared to consoles.
Maybe if you bought some fucking games occasionally you'd have a point, but looking at the sales charts, PC sales are laughable compared to consoles. PC gamers were pretty mad about the whole MW2 thing, looking at the astronomical amount of players on CoD4 vs the actual sales it doesn't take long to figure out why publishers don't really give a fuck.
Spot on ! Anyone who bought Battlefield Bad Company 2 for PC, and had low-spec hardware - still within min specs but not the latest - will know this ! EA made a bad job of specifying the min specs, what they said should work did not. To make it worse, they have done nothing about resolving the problem or even acknowledging a problem, its been left to gamers to post in forums & solve this. PC gaming will always face such problems, console versions only take away resources from the PC development cycle.
The "advantage" if you want to call it that, I have found with games mostly being made to run on consoles is that it means my PC hardware gets good usage. I built my PC when the 360 had been out for about a year and a half (Decemberish 2007), just as it's hardware was beginning to be used to its potential. I built it to play the games that were out at the time, and it consisted of an Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 @ 3.00GHz, an nVidia 8800GT 512MB and 2GB of Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800MHz. Including case (already had a monitor and hard drives, speakers etc.) it cost about $1000 AUD. Since the complexity of games in general (I say this excluding cases such as Empire Total War, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Crysis) has no increased due to the static nature of console hardware, my PC, though worth far less now, still plays just about anything I can throw at it. For that I thank the Xbox 360, it means I didn't waste as much on my PC. It is worth noting though, that this situation playing out so well was extremely dependent on timing of my purchases.
The article says that the PC has returned to favor as a gaming platform, but squeezes this in between two mentions of the fact that nearly all games are made for console first and foremost. Wha?
PC gaming currently consists of:
- RTSes
- MMOs
- European sim games
- Indie games
- Web games
- Ports of console games (including nearly all FPS'es)
I've seen no resurgence of PC gaming, only a continual decline - aside from the web games of course, which are thriving.
There's still a DISTINCT lack of DX10 or 10.1 games as well... Decent graphics don't necessarily make a good game, OTOH dated graphics aren't so hot either and cell shaded just plain sucks
Anyways this is still fairly irrelevant as I'd hazard that the VAST majority of PCs are equipped with, at best, DX10 level GPUs, but consoles are STILL holding back PC games in other fashions, e.g. total available resources i.e. memory, CPU power, disk space, I/O along with the fact that devs seemed to be trying to shoehorn EVERY SINGLE type of game onto a console even where the consoles just are simply not good for them given their general I/O limitations. e.g. I NEVER could stand FPS on consoles as the controller control schemes were just AWFUL, and no voice chat doesn't replace keyboard + mouse for those games. To make matters worse is when you get UI for games that are GIGANTIC on a PC screen when clearly designed for readability on a TV screen, etc.
Best for consoles are actiony type platformer games that just simply don't require many controls, along with sports games(never cared for PC versions of sports games for some reason even though it really wasn't a control related problem -- I can see where sports games would be better on PCs for modding purposes, e.g. new rosters, etc.), simple adventure(action or not as they generally only have fixed dialogs) games, etc.
the upside to console holding games back in general is when the pc version comes out it runs at awesome speeds on my rig, despite it still being 4 years old. budgeting their resources seems to make it more optimized. now if they can redo these ugly huge console ui's. unfortunately with the buckets of money being spent on the console versions i don't see anything changing. the only way is to educate our console bretheren. they can save 10-20 per title by gaming on pc. which would offset the cost of upgrading their rig. as of now a 4850 witha dual core processor will get you by, which is relatively cheap. and you don't have to have a gold account to access free crap like facebook. and wallpapers and icons are free on pc. unfortunately the free dlc for pc is over(for games released on multi, not counting valve of course. it was nice while it lasted. we got a bunch of map packs for free on teh pc version of some games. while the console users had to shell out 5-10 per.
I'm a game developer. The only good point you make is that using OpenGL makes Mac ports a bit cheaper. The rest of your rant is bullshit, and if you're actually a gamedev (which I doubt) you should know better than to make such silly claims. There's a hell of a lot more to porting to a new platform than porting the graphics subsystem (and porting between DX and GL is trivial compared to what you have to do to squeeze stuff like physics onto console architectures).
We all want to use OpenGL because it's a nicer API than Direct3D
Hah! Bullshit. OpenGL might become a nicer API if Khronos ever gets their heads out of their asses and stops pandering to the CAD crowd. Until then it's an annoying mass of gotchas. Seriously, the backwards compatibility provisions in OpenGL make every Windows release look like a clean break from the prior version.
we can develop for it on our Macs, and our games will support just about every modern gaming platform imaginable (because we aren't tied to Microsoft's platforms).
Mac I'll grant you. What are these other modern gaming platforms? Seriously, what are they? Linux? Unless you mean all the mobile devices using OpenGL ES, but you need to rewrite significant portions of your engine and redo almost all of your art to get a reasonable experience on those, and a DX -> GL ES port is trivial when you're already doing all of that.
DirectX 11 doesn't support Macs, it doesn't support the PS2 or the PS3, it doesn't support the Wii, and it doesn't support most mobile devices.
Again, I'll grant you the Mac. What the fuck are you smoking as far as the rest goes? OpenGL doesn't magically give you free (or even meaningfully cheaper) ports to any of those platforms either:
PS2: No OpenGL here. Just a DMA controller and some hardware registers. The entire create/bind/release metaphor that both GL and DX are based around does not exist. The shading unit can't even express all of the common blend modes, and you have to do ridiculous gymnastics to fit textures into the tiny amount of video RAM you get. You should know this if you've ever worked with a PS2.
PS3: You're an idiot if you're using the GL library directly on the PS3. There's a reason Sony gives direct access to the hardware - if you care about performance you won't be using the wrapper libraries. But again, you'll be rewriting a bunch of your engine to get AI, physics, and other stuff running on the SPUs anyway and a graphics port from either DX or GL is fucking trivial next to that.
XBOX and XBOX 360: DirectX-ish API, so OpenGL gets you nothing here. Even if you start with a DX game you're still porting a bunch of code if you did anything worth mention since there are still fairly significant architectural differences between it and PC. About all you get out of the similarity is a good idea of what entry points will likely be named.
GameCube/Wii: Calling what those platforms expose "OpenGL" is just silly. The structural similarities between the libraries you get and OpenGL are trivial when compared with the mountains of restrictions, special cases, and other odd differences you'll be dealing with. And again, you're going to be rewriting a bunch of your engine to the execution environment so a 5% more direct graphics port saves you fuck all once you tack on the art changes and another QA cycle.
Mobile devices: we already covered the mobile devices. Have you actually worked on one? You should know better than to imply that you get magic free porting to them if you just use OpenGL. There's a hell of a lot more to a usable mobile port than flipping some defines and recompiling with GCC.
Seriously, the starting graphics API is fucking irrelevant to any serious porting effort. GL and DX have near identical capabilities, identical object lifetime management, trivially mappable entry points and trivially mappable state bits, and near identical performance and synchronization behaviors. Porting between the two is trivial compared all the other work a proper port requires.
Well, that's just your opinion, dude.
when you have a severely limited platform like consoles and game developers try to put the same game on both you end up with dumbed down games. However, there are still great companies that have not fallen into this trap making games like starcraft 2. MMO games also show what happens when you don't dumb games down and until sales includes MMO subscriptions they will not show a clear picture of PC Gaming. It is still huge, it never went any where.
consoles are for simple people. Consoles are a limited platform and they have to dumb down the games as a result. Simple as that.
It seems to me that the trend toward tightly-controlled software distribution (digital distribution on X360/PS3/Wii, iPod/iPad) is what will hold back PC gaming far more than any hardware issues. The model is already popular and is getting more popular every day. What hope will PC gamers have when they eventually port WoW (or whatever comes after that) to one of these devices? I would imagine publishers really like the increased control and extra piracy deterrents (constant OS updates to lock out hacks) regardless of whether it really thwarts piracy or not. And the public seems to be gobbling up the model. What's stopping it from taking over?
Right now these platforms don't resemble your typical PC very much, but I bet we'll see PC-esque versions soon (keyboard/mouse) designed to be a "true" PC, and the Windows machines will be marketed more and more as no-fun workstations.
Will it still count as PC gaming if the OS is dumbed down?