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PC Gamers Too Good For Consoles Gamers?
thsoundman sends in a blog post from Rahul Sood, CTO of HP's gaming business, who claims there was once a project in development at Microsoft to let Xbox users compete against PC users playing the same game. According to Sood, the project was killed because the console players kept getting destroyed by their PC counterparts. He wrote, "Those of us who have been in the gaming business for over a decade know the real deal. You simply don't get the same level of detail or control as you do with a PC over a console. It's a real shame that Microsoft killed this — because had they kept it alive it might have actually increased the desire of game developers and gamers alike to continue developing and playing rich experiences on the PC, which would trickle down to the console as it has in the past."
It's not really surprising. There are some console players good with a gamepad, but it really doesn't work as well as a mouse and keyboard combo. With FPS games you cannot turn your character as fast and precisely as you want to, and don't even get me started on how real-time strategy games work with consoles. Keyboards also have a lot more keys available.
There is also significant amount of more intelligent gamers on PC who play strategy games, old games like nethack and adom, simulation games... They have a strategit intelligence. Consoles on the other hand are quite much just racing games, fighting games and some badly controlled FPS games.
PC gamers are also more active in modding community, programming and everything else since it's an open platform.
Hahahahaha
All it amounts to are full keyboard and mouse, and microsoft can make a ton of cash by selling them as add on accessories for the xbox360... They are just being stupid and stubborn clenching to the controller
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
who had more fun?
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
You asked a question.
Answer: Yes.
I got a wireless mouse and keyboard working on my XBox 360 and then played through Modern Warfare 2 in single player mode. On my back projection TV from 1999, I was doing on average a lot better on XBox live than I was with the control pad. We set it up on my friends massive LCD with a very high response time and I felt unstoppable. It seems when you increase the input devices and give me finer tuned control I can concentrate on that and get further up the curve more easily. Might not be the same for some people but if you want to walk all over people, see if your device supports keyboard and mouse through USB and then relearn the game. It took a while but it got to the point of not being fun anymore.
I'd imagine on average the PC user would trounce the XBox 360 user. For me the killer aspect was reducing having to use my thumbs on two joysticks to look around down to the two dimensional plan of my mouse pad. Had to tweak the sensitivity a bit but really two different worlds.
My work here is dung.
Anybody who has played both knows that the keyboard + mouse combination is unquestionably superior to the gamepad; it's not up for debate and it's not even close. This is not meant as an insult to console gamers in any way (I am one); that's just the reality of the situation. The only surprising thing about this story is that apparently allowing the two to play against each other was seriously considered.
Consoles on the other hand are quite much just racing games, fighting games and some badly controlled FPS games.
PC gamers are also more active in modding community, programming and everything else since it's an open platform.
Which sort of sucks for people who want, for example, moddable fighting games.
kb/m is undoubtedly the most precise way to control most games. There's a reason why many RTSes don't come out on consoles and why FPSes have auto-aim while you almost NEVER see auto aim on a PC.
Shadowrun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun_(2007_video_game) had this feature. In my experience it was generally the PC players who had the advantage.
Not everybody plays online; in fact, it's an extra-cost option on Xbox 360. This means games are likely to support offline multiplayer. I imagine that one reason for lack of keyboard and mouse support on console games, and one reason that Microsoft's ban[1] hasn't been reconsidered, is that four keyboards and four mice won't easily fit around one TV.
[1] Microsoft doesn't allow games to use a keyboard for anything but chat, apart from a couple special case exceptions like FFXI.
This was supposed to be a big selling point for Shadowrun, the FPS that was released for the 360 and the PC. Perhaps more accurately, it was supposed to be a selling point for both Windows Vista (since it wouldn't run on XP) and LIVE subscriptions, but the whole thing fizzled rather quickly on both platforms.
Just don't mix the two on games where one has an advantage over another. I don't imagine people playing games like Uno, Poker, or pinball are going to be any better because of the platform they're on. Heck, on old arcade games and shooters like Geometry Wars the controller may be an advantage. I know I have a much easier time flying in Flight Simulator X with my 360 controller connected to my computer than when using the keyboard (although I'd probably do even better with a stick, but never bothered to buy one).
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Re:The real question is...who had more fun?
It's not usually a lot of fun having your arse handed to you.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
When it comes to certain types of game such as the FPS, the keyboard and mouse is a superior input method. But what I don't understand is why more games on consoles don't support keyboard and mouse as inputs. After all both Xbox and PS3 can have these attached, it's just support in actual games is lacking.
This is not to say that the console gamepad controllers don't have their own advantages. They are much better for "relaxed" gaming when you are sitting back on the couch, and "social" gaming, with more than one player. Interestingly, PCs have the opposite problem in this regard - many of the PC games are not designed to work well with a gamepad.
... and then they built the supercollider.
This. Best answerer had good intentions, but everything after the first two words was pretty like throwing a plasma grenade straight up and then deciding to snipe.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
The winners. At least statistically, winners have more fun.
This applies in most games that aren't Dwarf Fortress.
There may be games ported to both, but a PC and a video game console are so very different.
Just like the walled-garden that Apple has produced for its iProducts, many people prefer the consoles for their simplicity. With a console game there is no mandatory install. There is no worrying about system specs. There is a significantly smaller chance someone else is [capable of] cheating online.
What does that have to do with gaming performance, then?
People who use Linux are often considered power-users because they know more than the average Windows user. I think this would equate to console-vs-pc gaming. People who play games on their PC (Facebook games do not count) are in my experience more likely to know more about their computer.
Another difference is (obviously) the input device. Some people just like controllers. Controllers, however, aren't mice. They aren't nearly as accurate and they are usually more cumbersome. Personally, though, I like the feel of a joystick over point-and-click. Pulling a trigger on a controller simply feels better to me than does clicking a mouse to fire a gun.
Final note: I have heard that some people testing the new Playstation Move motion controller would pretty much always beat those using controllers because the style of input. Maybe with new motion controls console games can meet up against the PC competitively.
Sood is trolling for attention specifically for webOS.
The point he makes about PC vs. console control is correct, IMO. But this article should be taken with a grain of salt since it is just trying to entice people to develop for HP's webOS.
Not that big a deal for new games, but what about the huge library of existing games that won't be able to support it?
If the games were reading existing controls through an API rather than bit-banging hardware ports, the driver should be able to translate keyboard keypresses into player 1's gamepad keypresses. It'd be like JoyToKey for Windows, except in reverse. But then the operating system on something like a Wii is so thin that it might not be possible.
... at least, it should be. Where's the freaking mind-reading controllers already?! I want to just look at the screen and be able to control it all! It's like this: Mind-reading controller is as much better as keyboard and mouse controller as keyboard and mouse controller is better than console game pad.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
The mouse has precission, and the keyboard a verb (the keyboard is like a whole language at itself).
But the people can be very quick to react to the tiny verb set of the pad. So the console dudes are fast at Quick Time Events, fast and precise. So you can make a game where the console people is better than the pc dudes. You have to add combos, quicktimeevents, and nerf the need for precission (having spray and pray weapons, and autoaim).
Is doable.
And why would you want that? not to have people playing from a Xbox vs a PC, thats not interesting. Think a dude in a DS versus a dude in a PC. Thats something "new".
-Woof woof woof!
This goes to all my friends who kick my @$$ at Gears and Halo.
Its not my fault, someone put a wall in my way.
All it amounts to are full keyboard and mouse, and microsoft can make a ton of cash by selling them as add on accessories for the xbox360... They are just being stupid and stubborn clenching to the controller
A keyboard and mouse have to be optional, the controller has to be the primary device. The controller is smaller, costs less and most importantly works while sitting on the floor or couch. A keyboard and mouse can not be included because costs must be manically controlled in the console market. So developers and gamers are in a situation where each side passes on the keyboard/mouse until the other side shows interest in it.
With a console game there is no mandatory install.
What you say is true of the Wii and the Xbox 360. It is not true of the PLAYSTATION 3, where Metal Gear Solid 4 takes several minutes to cache several GB to the hard drive when you get to a new act or you switch to another saved game that's on a different act.
There is a significantly smaller chance someone else is [capable of] cheating online.
And few to no legit fan-made mods either. If the first Half-Life were a console exclusive, there would likely have been no Counter-Strike.
I personally am glad they don't mix PC games and XboxLive games. I play Modern Warfare 2 on XBL and I have the PC version. Which do I like best?
XBL wins hands down only for the fact that you don't have aimbots such as from this website:
http://www.mw2aimbot.com/
Yes, to be fair there is "JTAG'd Lobbys" on XBL that give you "enhancements" but those are far and few between the amount the PC gaming world has. Also JTAG's don't last long (banned in a few hours) and if you do get in one of those rooms you have to keep your xbox on so the "enhancements" last. reboot and they are gone. PC games have also always been plagued with "trainers" from such old school sites like:
www.megagames.com/trainers and the like.
If the 2 gaming worlds bridged we would definitely see an uproar in PC cheats r4ping the the p1ss out of XBL users. And that would suck!
Mind-reading controller is as much better as keyboard and mouse controller as keyboard and mouse controller is better than console game pad.
Mindlink for Atari 2600 was canceled because it gave players headaches.
Mouse and Keyboard is obvious, but what about frame rate.. On the consoles you are stuck with whatever the developers thought was good enough to play. On a PC you can tune the game to run faster by reducing the GFX or resolution and throwing hardware at it. A faster frame-rate equals better response time and a huge advantage.
It has nothing to do with PC gamers being "too good", the mouse is just a superior aiming tool. But of course everyone already knows that.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
PC FPS's i've played dont, i think that sums it up. Console players THINK they're wailing on people, but its the game giving them a hand because of their crummy controls. Don't get me wrong, not a console "hater" i own every console there is and enjoy many games, i just don't play FPS's on them.
Nothing's more frustrating than getting my ass handed to me in a FPS. I DOMINATE FPS games, and I'd better, since I've been playing since Doom.
Not being able to get more than 1 kill (usually my own suicide) is SO frustrating!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Sorry to say I haven't checked this out but they don't? I mean the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 all have USB ports on them. You'd think you could just plug in any old keyboard and mouse and it'd work. (Hell, didn't Unreal Tournament on the PS2 support keyboard and mouse?)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
You want to test this out easily?
Go buy a XIM3 when they come out.
Xim360.com
Make sure to check their forums out for the official Xim 3 dev blog.
I know this is on my Christmas list, and I can't wait tearing it up with a keyboard and mouse on all the 360's FPS games.
The mouse and keyboard are superior controllers for most types of games. In the case of FPS games, the difference is night and day. There's just no way to stack up with a controller, no matter how good you are. Now for other games that is not always the case. Personally I have a game pad, a flight stick, and a wheel since I love games and I get out the controller that is appropriate for the game. However FPSes, MMOs, strategy games, RPGs, the mouse/keyboard reign supreme.
This is also why you'll see some differences in PC and console FPS design. Console FPSes use auto aim, of course, but also deal with things in a slower, less engulfing, fashion than found in some PC FPSes. With a gamepad you cannot quickly whip your character around and check your back, so it is no fun to have something where you are getting jumped from all sides. However on a PC, sure, that's a good way to add to the challenge and bring fast reflexes in to play.
Some games are just not good for consoles. Nothing wrong with that, just something to accept. As for cross platform play, I'd love to see more of it, however it just needs to be done right. In the case of any shooter games, make it co-op only. Also choose the games wisely. Street Fighter 4 probably would work well cross platform, no real advantage anywhere there. Bad Company 2, not so much the console people would get slaughtered.
Shadowrun from FASA Interactive featured cross-platform play, and required some significant built in handicaps for the Xbox players to have even a fighting chance.
Proximity aim assistance (pointing close enough would trigger auto-targeting, like a lot of current console FPSs), boosted health for Xbox players, network code that was favorable to console players in some ways, and a few other factors.
What it came down to was that in order for PC vs Xbox play to be anything except a horrifically obvious and very cruel joke, they had to literally build in the same kind of 'advantages' that are normally provided with programs which would get you banned by Punkbuster or Valve Anti-Cheat.
Quite a few of the former FASA developers and artists that worked on Shaowrun migrated to ACES Studios where I worked off and on between early 2007 and its closure in Jan 2009, so this is confirmed firsthand from them.
I don't recall specifics about any wider-ranging Microsoft research into cross-platform play, but it does sort of ring a bell from a few remarks I heard. I think Bungie may have been experimenting briefly with it. My guess would be that it was ditched as part of (or possibly contributed to) the decision to not make a PC port of Halo 3.
There are tons of them, and they sell a shitload, despite the fact that the mouse is such a better control.
In fact, I think it might even be BECAUSE of that to an extent. Lot of PC shooties are pretty hard core. You are expected to have some badass reflexes to do well. That is fine... For people with said reflexes. However not everyone has them, and it diminishes with age. Ok well consoles help equalize that. Because of the limitations of the controller, you can't make people react as quick, and you have to have some aim assist. That levels things out some, makes it easier for players who have slower reflexes to compete.
Don't get me wrong, I love PC gaming. I don't own a console, and don't want to. However FPSes are big business on the console and have been for quite some time.
Combos/chords work on keyboards. They are merely more commonly used out of necessity on a gamepad. On a keyboard it is more natural to use different keys, in particular to use mnemonics to aid in recalling where a key is found.
...
Quickly timed events are something entirely doable on PCs. Watch the keyboard as a pro plays Starcraft.
DS vs PC, now you are going to have to nerf more than precision. Obviously onscreen detail, possibly networking,
Just as a keyboard and mouse can be used to more precisely control a video game than a control pad, the new motion-based controllers will offer control pad users a whole new breed of competition that they can slaughter with ease.
Anecdotally you can see this already with games like Mario Kart Wii. Simply using the controller and nunchuck offer superior precision and control compared to when using the controller as a steering wheel, even with the aid of the steering wheel plastic mold.
I can't wait until people try to play games with Kinect on Xbox Live only to find that they get their asses kicked by anyone using a control pad.
What 360 game supports a mouse?
Stale hardware leads to stale (and non-competitive) games. Companies are starting to realize it.
The difference in control precision between a gamer mouse and a gamepad is really obvious. Most console gamers get all defensive about the subject; claiming superiority of the mouse diminishes their hard-learned gamepad skills.
And it's not just some microsoft's project that has backed out from PC-vs-consoles gaming. UT3 was initially promised to deliver PC-vs-consoles fights, but they backtracked quite fast on that promise. Not only is cross-matching not possible, but console-version of the game is slowed down in comparison to the PC version.. They do allow the use of mouse and keyboard on the PS3 version, but the game servers can set rules that prohibit use of keyboard+mouse..
There is, though, one part where gamepads have an edge: PC FPS gamers use keyboard for movement, and while versatile, keyboards don't allow proportional controls. Gamepads would allow smoother movement speeds. Too bad there's no game where it would make any difference. In most games you just want to run at full speed, sneak at crawl speed or just stand still. These are handled quite easily by keyboard. Also, nothing prevents your average PC gamer from getting a joystick and using it together with a mouse.
I'm a solid PC gamer, and hate consoles. But I have to admit that if they got the WIImote to be more accurate and the nunchuck a little more intuitive they would probably surpass the Keyboard/Mouse as far as accuracy. All they'd need to then is get some decent games on the WII... lol
Remember when Civilization IV was so kick butt on Windows and Mac systems? Sid never learned his lesson from when he made Civ 1 for the SNES and other consoles, it does better on PCs and people who play game consoles aren't smart enough to figure out Civ IV so they made Civilization Revolution instead or Civ IV for Dummies and dumbed down everything.
Look the game consoles are mostly used by young people in college or ready to go t college or in high school and yes even as young as age 6 using their parent's account and credit card (they lied about their age BTW as most kids do) and then when us college graduates who own PC or Mac systems in our 30's 40's etc grew up playing games just like these for the past 10 to 20 years of course we are going to do better. You grow up playing Wolf3D, Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake II, etc, and you get really good playing shoot 'e, up gun games and you put us with n00bz barely able to figure out how to aim much less use a gun.
It isn't our fault we are sad geezers with sharp shooting skills, I am related to the McCoys in the Hatfield/McCoy feud and got the sharp shooter gene passed on to my son, who can take out the other people in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.0 game that he has to mute the talk of other people who always cuss him out be they old geezers, young adults, teenagers, pre-teens or whatever because I taught him my gun fighting skills with Wolf3D, Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake II, etc before he even got to video game consoles.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Shadowrun release for Xbox 360 and PC, and you could have players from both in the same multiplayer game. According to the guys who made Shadowrun, the console players were consistently beating the PC players:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9iSzLaI9fw
Granted, there are a ton of variables, and it's impossible to isolate any one.
The Old Spice guy agrees with this article.
Keyboard is different but viable input device for fighting games, you can play any arcade game in an arcade Emulator and the Street Fighter series works well.
Some fighting games require the player to press a direction and multiple buttons at the same time. On the keyboards included with PCs, this often leads to the familiar "boop, boop, boop" of the keyboard complaining to the PC that the user is holding down too many keys at once. What brand of keyboard do you recommend that has a powerful enough encoder not to do this?
And besides, if player 1 uses the keyboard, what does player 2 use? Another computer?
It would've been very fun to be able to play against console players in Team Fortress 2 even though I imagine many of them would complain about aim bots and the like but those same people complain on the PC version anyway. I'd have been interested to see some actual figures on kill ratios between console and PC FPS's
iburnaga.blogspot.com
Console developers already know this. They've all (mostly) made a conscious decision not to support mouse/keyboard interfaces because those who have them would wipe the floor with those who use the controller. It's all about price point and they are afraid of releasing a $60 FPS game that requires a $60 mouse/keyboard peripheral combo if you want to play it online. They know how stupid people are, the transition would be painful and costly.
I play PC FPS titles considerably better than console FPS titles. The input method, customization and other perks help a lot there.
I don't think there is a difference of skill at all, just more "apt" input devices and player specialization.
The console gamer also deals with more genres than FPS, whereas PC gamers MIGHT (I know there's choice, don't flame me) specialize in FPS only, there are enough. Possibly in a 2D platformer game, pad VS keyboard, the console gamer might have an edge.
Thing is, the PC is a better gaming experience. I can't play an FPS on a console, it's far too slow to turn, move, etc. Consoles traditionally had games that PCs didn't, like Square RPGs, enix RPGS, side-scrollers. Some games work better with a console, some with a PC. The only FPS on a console that worked out for me was the Metroid Prime series. Perfect control, fast-paced gameplay delivered with Nintendo-style game control.
:P
I think another issue is that though the recent games are coming with pretty graphics and usually good sound design, they are, mostly, a variation on a theme. Fun-factor in games has always been the most important thing to me. Immersion the close second. And if you can bother to make me laugh and not just swear in frustration, that'd be nice too.
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
I first noticed this on borderlands. It was kind of annoying, most of the time it made me hit the target, but sometimes it extrapolated wrong and pulled my cursor away from where I was trying to aim. I've just been putting up with it, but I suspect if I turn off "mouse smoothing", it will go away. I'm suspect that when I turn it off I will realize I'm not very good. I think mass effect 2 (and perhaps 1) did this as well on the PC. But I doubt unreal tournament and counterstrike did this, at least not without hacks. I've not plaid crysis, can anyone speak to it?
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
I played FPSs on PCs with a steering wheel/pedal combo and the mouse. Gas forward-speed depending on pressure-the same with brake and backing up. Strafing side to side with the wheel. 3 or 4 buttons under my thumb for jumping, ducking, etc. and the shifter paddle available, too. 2 buttons and a scroll wheel on the mouse and all the options were covered. Way more ergonomic and intuitive than a keyboard mouse combo.
Poor saps standing there getting shot while I ran circles around them strafing away with the wheel turned and the mouse staying on target. Murder plain and simple.
Just look at the difference of Portal from PC to console. Unfortunately it's a serious downgrade.
Invaders must die.
HP has a Gaming Business?
That should have been the breaking news.
Next thing you know, General Motor will have a Bicycle Business.
I have PCs and consoles and killed many hours on FPS since Wolf3D, but I have leaned more towards consoles because of the ease of use and multiplayer. However, I still play strategy games on the PC and am very much looking forward to Civ V.
Some thoughts:
1. Keyboard+mouse is definitely easier, but I feel that it makes it *too* easy to aim--especially for a sniper.
2. People talk about the mouse so much they forget about the limitations of the keyboard. Movement is definitely not as fluid on a keyboard. The problem is that it is pure digital. Want to go up? It is either "forward" or "forward quickly". You can't press the s key lightly to go forward slowly.
3. Being able to turn quicker isn't necessarily better. Being able to do a 180 in 100ms just doesn't feel right in a game.
4. Because you are playing against people with the same limitations, you don't really notice the difference once you get used to it. You are just "in the game".
Does it make a difference that PC's can have much faster processors and graphics cards than the XBox360? Or is the 5-year-old 3.2GHz PowerPC 970 really still on par with current multi-core Intel CPUs?
And this is why you still can't find a decent trackball controller ala the Reflex:
http://gizmodo.com/175126/bodielobus-ps2-controller-with-trackball
Sony/MS won't release one because they know it would destroy joystick users, and no one else can make one because of patents (is my guess).
For those of us with RSS, etc., we would pay pretty much anything to get one of these. My 'one of these days' projects is to build one.
http://blog.slaingod.com
Obvious article is obvious, but I'm really hoping we see some more innovation with controllers in the next generation on consoles. I won't buy consoles solely due to not having a keyboard and mouse, but loved games like the FF series (including FFT), smash bros, soul calibur, zelda, and sonic (even the dreamcast ones). A controller that doesn't make me hate life in 90% of console games might make me want to buy one. I hope they make a controller where you have something like a touchpad where your thumb is and a joystick on the back of the controller for your middle finger. This way, you can use your thumb to aim (thumb on thumbpad is like a mini-mouse on a mousepad, will take time to get used to) and control directional movement with the same hand on the back of the controller. This would give a close-enough control level to PCs for consoles, and either allow cross-competition or KBM combos on consoles.
Console controllers are vastly inferior to KB+M, and need SOMETHING to narrow the gap.
This also has a lot to do with the environment which these games are played in. Your typical PC gamer will be sitting upright in a chair 1-2 feet from the display in a dimly lit or dark room, allowing for optimal concentration on the game. Contrast this with a console gamer who typically will sit 5-10 feet from the display most likely leaning comfortably on a couch. There are more opportunities for distraction and less immersion in the game. Of course there are exceptions to this, I would guess many have specific gaming chairs and postures they use when they play console games (I know I do). When you consider what the average person will do though, this may be reason for the difference.
Put a PC gamer on the PS3 with me and let's try some Killzone 2 deathmatch. I win. Put me on a PC for some Quake 3, I get pwned.
It's not rocket surgery - the analog sticks aren't as instant gratification as a mouse for movement, because developers have more options than 0 or 1 - analog controllers allow for degrees of movement on the sticks, and therefore more realistic movement (inertia). This is why a game like Grand Theft Auto (driving) on PC is kinda sad.
Pitting them one-on-one in an FPS? Well, no shit. Not a valid experiment.
According to Wiki, around a quarter to a half of all internet traffic is torrents.
Generously, if 90% of that is illegal, that means that about 20% to 45% of all traffic on the internet is illegal.
Obviously, what he have here is not a problem with the populace, but a problem with the law itself.
Sadly, the 'War on Copyright Infringement' looks like it's going to be every bit as damaging on the 'War on Drugs', with the possible silver lining that we don't pay for the former with our tax dollars. YET.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
My single video card is more expensive than your XBOX 360 combo + PS3 combo + Vii combo, plus 1 year subscription fee for each. I can turn video settings on my game to use 3 screens, 2048x1536 each, and get 100 FPS : 10ms response time. I can see you and kill you before you even notice my existence. This is not a fair comparsion.
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
O P Q A Z has always been and will always be the choice of champions. Spacebar, schmacebar...
You want the one about Bittorrent traffic I suspect. Or you love complete non-sequiturs a lot :P
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
All this shows is a lack of imagination in control design. Obviously a mouse lets you point more quickly and accurately, but the fact that this alone gives you an advantage means they should add more articulation to the aiming and firing simulation models. Great action games require more strategy and quick thinking than lesser ones, and getting away from twitch-dependent control is a step in that direction.
I'm ready for FPS games that let you mouse-look as quickly as you like, but have a natural delay and some extra finesse to line up shots and compensate for recoil and player movement due to the physical model (it takes time to accelerate, move, decelerate,.and aim a weapon). In other words, model FPS characters more like tank games where turret speed and vehicle movement are factors. Decouple looking speed from aiming speed!
Anticipation is more fun than instant gratification feedback alone.
I've always thought that part of the reason that the keyboard/mouse combo has been forbidden from consoles is to protect the image of the console as a unique device in the consumers mind. There is a legacy mindset/image regarding consoles that goes back to the time when most people didn't have personal computers. Add a keyboard/mouse and all of a sudden your console just feels like a less functional computer. I think people are more likely to purchase a device when it doesn't feel redundant.
Fighter games are a very specific subgenre of the "Action" genre. On the other hand, FPS and RTS games are two of the major video game genres.
A critic can dismiss anything as "a very specific subgenre". One might dismiss first-person shooters as "a very specific subgenre" of shooters in general, claiming that (say) one of the Touhou Project shooters is a valid alternative to Halo 3. And RTS is "a very specific subgenre" of the strategy genre that also includes "various god games/tycoons" and turn-based games like Advance Wars. As I understand it, the "Action genre" potentially includes any game that is not turn-based and doesn't have a refractory period longer than a second to make it act turn-based (like Secret of Mana or those Final Fantasy games using ATB). This is so broad that "you don't need this Action game because a completely different Action game is available" stops making sense.
The fact that developers tailor their games for consoles does not mean that consoles are the superior way to play them.
It appears developers tailor their games this way for two reasons: 1. before around 2006, affordable monitors big enough for multiplayer were standard-definition and therefore not compatible with many PCs except through an obscure video scan converter, and 2. a PC game can't tell from which of the connected keyboards a keypress comes. So instead, PC fighting games are tailored for things like X-Arcade.
Sometimes I'll get into a discussion about gaming and someone will ask what system I use, my reply is almost always "PC. I'm a grown-up."
I retired from Console gaming 12 years ago. $60+ games, shitty fps controls, no upgrade-ability and a lot more have made console gaming something that I was happy to leave in my past.
Console gaming is kind of like prison-sex. Some people actually prefer it, some people enjoy it, a bunch of people do it because it's all that's available and I completely abstain. If I can't do something the right way, I'll not do it at all.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I think the best way to get gamers to play games cross platform is to design games that are meant to be played differently on different platforms. Make an interface and character type that works better with a console controller and the players with the console controllers will excel in that role. I've tried playing games like Assassin's creed with both interfaces and while both work, the analogue sticks allow for better maneuverability. Yes, I can aim far more accurately with a mouse. Yes, the keyboard works great for widely varied input. But when it comes to dancing through a hail of rockets, or driving, or flying, the analogue stick just works better IMHO. I think the only way we're going to see cross platform games really pick up is to have roles that suit the various platforms better. Have the PC gamers playing the ranged combat characters and the console gamers playing the melee combat characters and I think you'll find it much easier to balance the game play.
I expected a nice circle-jerk about how great mouse+keyboard controls are, and Slashdot doesn't disappoint.
Myself, I'll stick with mouse+keyboard for FPS and RTS, and I'll go with a controller for platformers, fighting games, and SHMUPs. For RPGs it would be a toss-up.
Although I would say that the pointing capabilities of Wii games make aiming nearly as easy as the mouse; the only thing still lacking is turning ability. Metroid Prime 3 and the re-releases of 1/2, Resident Evil 4/Wii, and Sin & Punishment 2 are all fantastic examples of this.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Its not about PC versus console gamers its more about peripherals.
Look at Mario Kart Wii, same game on the same console. Some use the wheel, some use a classic controller and some use a Gamecube controller. I'm good with a classic controller (I'm a old school gamer and used to playing with a controller) but totally suck at using the wheel. Its not as fluid as the real thing when you are used to driving a car even a go kart.
Who wins the races on Nintendo WFC? Not the ones using the wheel most times.
I'm guessing that Microsoft didn't allow Xbox and PC versions of games to talk to each other for the same reason they don't allow Xbox games to talk to the same game running on their competitor's consoles.
You see, five years ago I was working on a multi-platform game with a multiplayer component. It was running on PS2, Xbox and PC and all versions could talk to each other, which you'd expect what with it being the same code and all.
When you hit retail though it's a different thing altogether: Each platform has its own authentication system. Network comms are encrypted (or at least they were last time I looked into the area, which was a number of years ago) to prevent h4x0rs fiddling with packets for cheating and cracking console security.
To top it off, the guy that wrote the blog post isn't even a friggin developer - he just glues together components and sells them as a "gaming PC".
It's not that us PC games think we are better then console gamers. It's just that we don't want to play on the xbox with a bunch of 12 yr olds who think they are cool cuz they can swear and yell at older people. Kids need to learn to respect their elders. If not they will get what my little cusin got from when he gave a bigger kid some lip.... a black eye HAHAHAHAHA
to that marble game labyrinth?
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
and put a joystick on it for good measure, too.