My Take on the Demise of PC Gaming
Alvin
points. Really, no one knows exactly what will happen with pc gaming
in the years to come, but here are my thoughts on some of the
arguments:
1. PC games will always survive because we have the multiplayer
community, mods, patches etc...
Once a solid argument, this point falls flat in the face of the
Xbox. Xbox live is actually offers a more solid multiplayer
experience by eliminating cheaters, hackers, and voice communication
rather than type chat. Voice chat offers a more realistic experience
especially with games like Ghost Recon where teamwork is important.
Xbox live will offer free downloads, and patches are possible with the
Xbox HD.
2. PC games are superior - not necessarily true, anymore. We are
sending the pendulum swing in a different direction these days.
Before, the PC games would be ported to consoles. Now, PC gamers are
being forced to wait for the consoles games like Halo and Splinter
Cell to port over.
3. PC games have the best graphics - Yes, PC games can always stay on
the cutting eye with eye candy, but games are usually not optimized
for the latest and greatest video card. Right now, Unreal 2 is the
cutting edge, and it does not look much better than Halo on my TV.
Also, consoles have processors optimized for gaming only. PC
processors are bogged down by the OS, and have to compute thousands of
calculations that are not related to gaming.
4. Consoles have the advantage of predictability - face it, PC games
are unpredictable. In December, I enjoyed problem free games of BF
1942. Now, I will not buy Road to Rome. I would love to enjoy the
game, and I have the hardware, yet for no obvious reason, I now get
"corrupt data" when I try to load a map in MP. The same map will load
after I restart again. Then there is the jerky online play with
"connection lost" every 30 secs. I paid for the hardware, and full
price of the game, and now I am not getting the experience promised to
me by the box. At least, consoles can deliver without being worried
if your game is goign to run with each startup.
5. As long as there are PCs , there will be PC games - Now, this
argument is just stupid. PCs can exist and sell without computer
games. Most people do not drop several hundred dollars to use their
computers for gaming only. I can bet that everyone here will still
own a PC even if games are extinct.
I hate to knock PC gaming, but it stinks sometimes. My prediction is
that the games will not die off completely, but we will only see a
handful of high profile games like Doom 3, Thief 3, and Rainbow Six
which will show up on all platforms. PC gaming will become just like
gaming on a MAC. Limited releases.
Gandalf Parker
news:d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com:
> I hate to knock PC gaming, but it stinks sometimes. My prediction is
> that the games will not die off completely, but we will only see a
> handful of high profile games like Doom 3, Thief 3, and Rainbow Six
> which will show up on all platforms. PC gaming will become just like
> gaming on a MAC. Limited releases.
Ive been on the net since before WWW, since before PC's.
Ive seen alot of "this will die off"predictions about langauges,
operating systems, various ways of ding things. Generally the safest bet
to make is that NOTHING dies. Something else might take the lead or hog
the limelight to the point that it SEEMS like the only thing going on,
but nothing dies.
Gandalf Parker
Mark Morrison
wrote:
<snip>
The PC is dying.
<yawn>
Next topic - isn't food expensive these days ?
--
Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes !
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses !
And what's with all the carrots ?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway ?
Bunnies ! Bunnies ! It must be BUNNIES !
Ken Rice
abuse@[127.0.0.1] says...
>but nothing dies.
Not even this thread <G>.
--
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Maps of Ultima 7 Parts 1 & 2, Prophecy of the Shadow, Savage Empire,
Crusaders of Dark Savant & Others.
MB1701
Xbox2, PS2, GC2 have mouse and keyboard inputs and high-def tv's are more
common.
I am sick to death of buggy, unreliable pc games. Of games where the
hardware mark is always 'two years from what you have now, even if you have
a 1-yr old system'.
And RTS's are getting mighty old. Every time you read a review these days
it's 'well, it's a nice game but the 'gee, this is new factor' isn't there
anymore. I played AOM for about half an hour before saying, 'been there,
done that for forty hours already'.
-M
"Alvin" <alvinst...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com...
Bowen
"MB1701" <mb1701@ncplus-spambad-.net> wrote in message
news:FhednQTg5Nm...@kallback.com...
> Well said and all true I think. The final nail in the coffin will be when
> Xbox2, PS2, GC2 have mouse and keyboard inputs and high-def tv's are more
> common.
Mmm... XBox uses USB... do some wire cutting and take a USB mouse/keyboard and hook
it up. It uses a stripped down version of Win2k, so I assume some drivers will work
if you find them and happen to get them installed. Theoretical of course, but it
should work in theory.
--Bowen--
Hank
<abuse@[127.0.0.1]> enlightened me with:
Tell that to all of those companies that rushed to back up
their data onto computers in the 70s!! Lots of them have no way to
even read it these days much less put it to any use. I learned to
program on a Sperry Univac 1100/72 ... you're telling me that isn't
dead??
Just being contrarian, of course.
H
Feel the burning stare of my hamster and change your ways!
Jeff Thomas
'limited' releases.
More than ever, lack of innovation and never ending upgrading cycle are
the core problems. How many new gaming concepts have revolutionized the
industry and captivated the imagination of the general public in recent
years? Very few on my count.
Consider this, if you have SimCity 3000 would you want to buy SimCity
4000? The differences are only subtle, I mean it plays the same, sure the
graphics have improved but does the newer features make it worthwhile? For
most which I spoke to, it doesn't and is missing that "wow" factor.
As for PC hardware, most of people at home are content with their old
computers, sure it can't play the latest games, but core business software
isn't as demanding on hardware. And with so few people upgrading, little
wonder they're reluctant to buy the newer computers just to play them.
Another factor is the market has reached saturation, and the lack of
killer games is also, not helping. I remember in early 1990s, people going
crazy over one game and buying PCs just to play "Doom" - that doesn't
happen anymore.
The reality is that game consoles are just that, no matter how many
PC-like features are integrated. I wouldn't dream of running business
applications on games console connected to a television, not only is text
unreadable at high resolutions and mouse navigation difficult. But also,
its cumbersome incomparision to PC box with monitor and mouse.
Don't forget, subscription based internet gaming is where the future
really lies. From software companies point-of-view its a very attractive
money earner. Firstly, they profit by selling the game at full price like
other titles and then again with the ongoing monthly fees with some
changing to fixed term contracts, similar to those used for cell phones.
The industry will survive, but I only hope it won't result in two horse
race, between Microsoft being a monolopy in this sector and Electronic
Arts. Already, tenative plans by M$ are afoot to attain software companies
to increase their market share in this area and that'll do more harm than
good. It would suck, if the majority of the games are X-Box exclusives and
possibly, PC.
Aristotle
>. PC games will always survive because we have the multiplayer
>community, mods, patches etc...
>
> Once a solid argument, this point falls flat in the face of the
>Xbox. Xbox live is actually offers a more solid multiplayer
>experience by eliminating cheaters, hackers, and voice communication
>rather than type chat. Voice chat offers a more realistic experience
>especially with games like Ghost Recon where teamwork is important.
>Xbox live will offer free downloads, and patches are possible with the
>Xbox HD.
Bzzzzt. Thanks for playing. Voice chat is HORRIBLE. It makes multiplayer
gaming WORSE. Have you actually experienced XBOX live? The voice chat is
nothing but "FUCK YOU! YOU FUCKING FUCKHEAD FUCKSTICK! GO FUCK YOUR MOTHER!"
I am serious. XBOX Live Voice chat is just a bunch of immature kiddies using
it as an opportunity to curse like crazy. Furthermore, unlike with text, there
is no easy way to filter such things (although all filters should be
controlled by the end user, not the developer, but I digress). When they
aren't cursing like sailors, they are dorking around with the stupid voice
altering features.
Furthermore, the much touted ability for the XBOX to support mods, patches,
etc is nothing but hot air. Nobody is using it. The PC still annihilates the
console in the areas of multiplayer, mods, and patching.
If anything, XBOX live has provided PROOF that the console will likely NEVER
be able to rival the PC in this area.
>2. PC games are superior - not necessarily true, anymore. We are
>sending the pendulum swing in a different direction these days.
>Before, the PC games would be ported to consoles. Now, PC gamers are
>being forced to wait for the consoles games like Halo and Splinter
>Cell to port over.
The sad thing is that it is simply the acts of huge companies like MSFT and
SONY buying developers and making them design for the console that has caused
this. Well, that and the fact that the PC gaming industry seems to obsessed
with graphics that the games are often buggy and unreliable.
Furthermore, the ability to patch PC games has become a crutch rather than a
perk. Instead of using patches appropriately - to add features or fix total
surprise problems - they are used as a way to release a game in beta state and
finish it later via patches. This abuse of the patch concept is single
handedly the biggest threat to PC gaming in my opinion.
>3. PC games have the best graphics - Yes, PC games can always stay on
>the cutting eye with eye candy, but games are usually not optimized
>for the latest and greatest video card. Right now, Unreal 2 is the
>cutting edge, and it does not look much better than Halo on my TV.
Um...... What? Are you blind or something?
Sorry, but my 1600x1200 resolution Sony Trinitron 21" monitor and GeForce4
4600 Ti simply DESTROY *any* console and my Mitsubishi 66" HDTV.
The difference in graphics power and resolution are extreme. The PC completely
obliterates the console in this area.
>4. Consoles have the advantage of predictability - face it, PC games
>are unpredictable.
Very true. See my mention of the patch problem above.
>5. As long as there are PCs , there will be PC games - Now, this
>argument is just stupid.
Why is it stupid? It makes perfect sense.
>I hate to knock PC gaming, but it stinks sometimes. My prediction is
>that the games will not die off completely, but we will only see a
>handful of high profile games like Doom 3, Thief 3, and Rainbow Six
>which will show up on all platforms. PC gaming will become just like
>gaming on a MAC. Limited releases.
You obviously are not following genres like the MMORPG.
-Aristotle@Threshold
--
THRESHOLD RPG - Where Roleplaying is not an option, it's a requirement.
Player run clans, guilds, legal system, economy, religions, nobility, and
more. Roleplay online with thousands of people from all over the world.
http://www.threshold-rpg.com -**- telnet://threshold-rpg.com:23
Aristotle
>Well said and all true I think. The final nail in the coffin will be when
>Xbox2, PS2, GC2 have mouse and keyboard inputs and high-def tv's are more
>common.
Using a keyboard and mouse on the couch will never be anything but frustrating
and uncomfortable. The ergonomics just aren't there.
As for high definition TVs: I have one, and it still doesn't even come close
to bridging the gap between console and PC gaming.
>And RTS's are getting mighty old. Every time you read a review these days
>it's 'well, it's a nice game but the 'gee, this is new factor' isn't there
>anymore. I played AOM for about half an hour before saying, 'been there,
>done that for forty hours already'.
Excellent point. The PC genre needs innovation badly.
Perhaps the stiff competition coming from consoles these days WILL provide the
needed kick in the rear to make PC game companies evolve.
I am sick of the same old same old PC games. I am sick of D&D/d20 system
licensed games.
Get some imagination developers!
Gandalf Parker
@netnews.attbi.com:
> Tell that to all of those companies that rushed to back up
> their data onto computers in the 70s!! Lots of them have no way to
> even read it these days much less put it to any use. I learned to
> program on a Sperry Univac 1100/72 ... you're telling me that isn't
> dead??
> Just being contrarian, of course.
I remember that machine. 32 toggles and an enter button?
Can you still read the holes in cards?
I "played" with one in the military. Wouldnt be surprised if they are
still using some of them. :)
Gandalf Parker
Gandalf Parker
news:b2rs5o$1fcfot$1...@ID-159243.news.dfncis.de:
I would say that you still have to be able to program on one to do a full
replacement... but someone has already figured out how to turn it into a
linux box so thats covered too.
Gandalf Parker
Derek
a
> perk. Instead of using patches appropriately - to add features or fix
total
> surprise problems - they are used as a way to release a game in beta state
and
> finish it later via patches. This abuse of the patch concept is single
> handedly the biggest threat to PC gaming in my opinion.
Absolutely correct! I have formed relationships with several people that
work for game companies, and I have rallied against this sort of thing for
years. People deserve *finished games*, not early to mid beta phase copies,
for their money. From the responses i've gotten, it's mostly about money,
pure and simple. They finish a game up to late beta phase (sometimes earlier
than that), and then decide from the sales/reviews if it's worth the money
needed to actually pay the programmers to finish it. It's a business
decision most of the time, and a very sad one for gamers.
Derek
Stormcloud Creations
http://www.stormcloudcreations.com
Hank
<abuse@[127.0.0.1]> enlightened me with:
>hank...@NOSPAMgeocities.com (Hank) wrote in news:3e517408.966261059
Heck yeah ... for heat.
Ahhh, the glory days. Need to add a user? Buy another MUX or
a DCP/40 port ... sysadmins thought they would live forever as long
as they were the only ones who could tame those great beasts. As a
lowly O-1 in the Army I never got to be in charge of anything like
that, the Univac was from my college programming days ... but I did
get an Atari 800/XL then ... which was pure heaven by comparison,
mostly because I could play games ... pretty much how we all ended up
here, I suppose.
H
Bowen
> > mouse/keyboard and hook it up. It uses a stripped down version of
> > Win2k, so I assume some drivers will work if you find them and happen
> > to get them installed. Theoretical of course, but it should work in
> > theory.
>
> I would say that you still have to be able to program on one to do a full
> replacement... but someone has already figured out how to turn it into a
> linux box so thats covered too.
Well, it actually runs games like you supposedly would run any PC game. That's as
much as I can ascertain from the information I've seen and my friends destroyed box.
--Bowen--
Applebrown
flaw to become apparent, we need to look at what a PC is. The best
definition IMO is that a PC is:
-an upgradeable, dynamic hardware medium in which to run software.
A console at this point is:
-a static hardware medium in which to run software.
Until a point is reached that consoles as we know them now can have
"upgradeable, dynamic hardware", there will be PC's as we know them now,
from the definition above. It's kind of a paradox really. Once consoles
reach a point where you can interchange hardware, swap out and upgrade, they
will effectively become PC's (as we know them now).
One final point. PC's will be here as long as consoles are. The games will
be here as well, though whether they become "open source" mods for the
majority of them, is uncertain, but doubtful. On no other system than a
constantly changing system can one develop cutting edge software. There will
always be a market for cutting edge software, regardless of how small.
Console popularity may be on the rise, but since there will always be a
demand for cutting edge games (above and beyond what you can get on a
console), there will always be a market for the PC as we know it now and the
games it can play.
In all likelihood, the console medium will one day fuse into what we now
know as PC's and its hardware able to be constantly upgraded and changed.
Applebrown
"Alvin" <alvinst...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com...
Knight37
> This topic has been debated many times, and both sides have valid
> points. Really, no one knows exactly what will happen with pc gaming
> in the years to come, but here are my thoughts on some of the
> arguments:
>
>
> 1. PC games will always survive because we have the multiplayer
> community, mods, patches etc...
>
>
> Once a solid argument, this point falls flat in the face of the
> Xbox. Xbox live is actually offers a more solid multiplayer
> experience by eliminating cheaters, hackers, and voice communication
> rather than type chat. Voice chat offers a more realistic experience
> especially with games like Ghost Recon where teamwork is important.
> Xbox live will offer free downloads, and patches are possible with the
> Xbox HD.
The PC has had voice chat in multiplayer games for several years, but not
everyone uses it, you know why? Because idiots with a mic are more annoying
than idiots with a keyboard.
So far all I hear about XBOX Live is that it "will have" this that or
another. Very little of "XBOX Live HAS" this that or another. Most of it
won't ever see the light of day, either. There's what, 5 or 6 games on Xbox
Live? Some sports titles I don't have any interest in, then MechAssault,
and Unreal Championship which I already have as UT2K3 on my PC, what else?
The games are coming out way too slow. That's the main reason I have not
pony'd up the $50 / year fee to play Live yet.
> 2. PC games are superior - not necessarily true, anymore. We are
> sending the pendulum swing in a different direction these days.
> Before, the PC games would be ported to consoles. Now, PC gamers are
> being forced to wait for the consoles games like Halo and Splinter
> Cell to port over.
For years and years there have been console games that were never released
on the PC. Ever see Mario here? Nope. Final Fantasy? Just 2 out of the 10
that there are (not counting FF11). Orge Battle series? Nope. Starfox? No.
Metroid? Nope.
There are a lot of superb PC-only games too, though. Arx Fatalis isn't on
the consoles. Neverwinter Nights isn't. Morrowind is on XBOX, but not the
patches or expansion packs and most importantly not the Editor and the user
mods. No One Lives Forever 1 & 2 aren't there. Warcraft 3, Age of
Mythology, Warlords Battlecry II, not there. Lots of other strategy titles,
RPGs, and action titles only on the PC. Some of them superb.
> 3. PC games have the best graphics - Yes, PC games can always stay on
> the cutting eye with eye candy, but games are usually not optimized
> for the latest and greatest video card. Right now, Unreal 2 is the
> cutting edge, and it does not look much better than Halo on my TV.
Uh, okay whatever. I have Halo and it looks great but it's not as good as
what U2 is capable of doing on a good rig with the right video card. It may
be that we've reached a certain level where the average gamer can't tell
much of a difference in all the fancy graphics, though.
> Also, consoles have processors optimized for gaming only. PC
> processors are bogged down by the OS, and have to compute thousands of
> calculations that are not related to gaming.
Very little of this is going on while you're gaming, though, if you kill
all the background tasks. Lets not forget that certain console games suffer
from poor frame rates, and when that happens you're SOL because you can't
just throw better hardware at it.
> 4. Consoles have the advantage of predictability - face it, PC games
> are unpredictable. In December, I enjoyed problem free games of BF
> 1942. Now, I will not buy Road to Rome. I would love to enjoy the
> game, and I have the hardware, yet for no obvious reason, I now get
> "corrupt data" when I try to load a map in MP. The same map will load
> after I restart again. Then there is the jerky online play with
> "connection lost" every 30 secs. I paid for the hardware, and full
> price of the game, and now I am not getting the experience promised to
> me by the box. At least, consoles can deliver without being worried
> if your game is goign to run with each startup.
It sucks that this happens but probably what happened is some other program
came along and trashed a DLL file that you needed to run BF1942 properly.
Try reinstalling DirectX and your video drivers. I have the latest Nvidia
Detonators, the latest DX9, and the 1.3 BF1942 patch and it all seems to
work.
> 5. As long as there are PCs , there will be PC games - Now, this
> argument is just stupid. PCs can exist and sell without computer
> games. Most people do not drop several hundred dollars to use their
> computers for gaming only. I can bet that everyone here will still
> own a PC even if games are extinct.
You've just proven why PC games will always exist - the PLATFORM will
always be there, which means there will always be people with computers to
sell games to, as long as someone is willing to cater to that market. We
might not always have the EA's (spit) and the Eidos's (cough), but we'll
always have someone to come along and cater to this market.
> I hate to knock PC gaming, but it stinks sometimes. My prediction is
> that the games will not die off completely, but we will only see a
> handful of high profile games like Doom 3, Thief 3, and Rainbow Six
> which will show up on all platforms. PC gaming will become just like
> gaming on a MAC. Limited releases.
Completely off base prediction IMHO. The other way is much more likely to
happen - big, high profile games like you mentioned stop coming to the PC
and start going console only, leaving the PC for the indie developers and
small time publishers like Dreamweaver, Strategy First, JoWood, etc. I
don't really think that will happen either, but it's more likely to happen
that the reverse.
--
Knight37
"He says to me, he says to me, 'You got STYLE, baby. But if you're going to
be a real villain, you gotta get a gimmick.' And so I go I says YEAH, baby.
A gimmick, that's it. High explosives. Aaaaaa-hahahahaha!"
-- The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight, The Tick
Knight37
with:
> In all likelihood, the console medium will one day fuse into what we
> now know as PC's and its hardware able to be constantly upgraded and
> changed.
I don't see this as a trend. The majority of console gamers do not see this
as an advantage. What those gamers want is a easy to use, plug it in and
play it device, and that's what they get. In the past when console games
tried this "upgrade" approach, such as the SEGA CD, and SEGA 32x, it
failed, and so companies are not likely to try this any time soon.
magnulus
PC gaming's going to continue, because I'm not going to stop buying PC
games, and neither are millions of other people.
If nothing else, the Koreans will keep PC gaming going :)
XBox is just a bastion for whiney "Sega pitty party" Dreamcast owners and
undertaxed yuppies. This explains the low install base.
"Alvin" <alvinst...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com...
Destroy
a while but byproducts will still flow.
E. Deirdre Brooks
> > 1. PC games will always survive because we have the multiplayer
> > community, mods, patches etc...
> >
> >
> and they are not Falcon4.0 type people and never will be,the PC is for
> the serious gamer and always will be..period,this has been written about
> many times in CGW mag.
I'm not sure I'd call PC gamers the "serious" gamers vs. a hypothetical
"casual" console gamer.
If I were forced to it, I'd say someone who has PC and consoles (at
least two) would better qualify as a "serious" gamer" than someone who
restricts their choices.
--
E. D. Brooks | kalima...@attbi.com | US2002021724
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
AeonAdventure | "Why, in my day, we used to fight the Lord of
Terror with nothing but a sharp stick!" -- www.reallifecomics.com
ELVIS2000
(remove/)> wrote:
> Besides..the other systems were developed mostly for non-pc types
>and they are not Falcon4.0 type people and never will be,the PC is for
>the serious gamer and always will be..period,this has been written about
>many times in CGW mag.
At some point I almost envision the consoles being for the eye-candy,
big-budget games -- and the PC moving towards strategy and RPG only.
jw
John
in their downward curve technologically. The PS2 is already several
years old and the Xbox's 733Mhz processor can't hold a candle to
today's PCs running at 3 Ghz. By this logic, PCs have a chance to far
outshine consoles and 'wow' us come the end of 2003, when they should
theoretically be running circles around HALO. The PS3 and Xbox 2 are
still years off, so there's plenty of time for the PC to win back
converts who realize they'll never run Doom 3 or Quake 4 on their
consoles.
Seriously, come mid-2004 when we've all got 6 Ghz Pentium 5s running
photorealistic graphics, todays consoles are going to look like toys.
Alex
> This topic has been debated many times, and both sides have valid
> points. Really, no one knows exactly what will happen with pc gaming
> in the years to come, but here are my thoughts on some of the
> arguments:
>
>
> 1. PC games will always survive because we have the multiplayer
> community, mods, patches etc...
>
>
> Once a solid argument, this point falls flat in the face of the
> Xbox. Xbox live is actually offers a more solid multiplayer
> experience by eliminating cheaters, hackers, and voice communication
> rather than type chat. Voice chat offers a more realistic experience
> especially with games like Ghost Recon where teamwork is important.
> Xbox live will offer free downloads, and patches are possible with the
> Xbox HD.
In this area PC will probably always have a big advantage,
just look at the army of gamers who program and do graphics for
living. Majority of them work on PC and know how to use tools there.
Even if it's relatively simple to learn to do the same for XBox
or some other future console, general laziness will stop people
from doing mods and patches for consoles. Multiplayer is
also suits PC better, because of the established infrastructure:
email, usenet etc. Plus to get a lot of multiplayer related
service somebody has to program and host them (you are not going
to rely on game developers for that, are you?) again PC has advantage
because of a mass of professionals.
>
> 2. PC games are superior - not necessarily true, anymore. We are
> sending the pendulum swing in a different direction these days.
> Before, the PC games would be ported to consoles. Now, PC gamers are
> being forced to wait for the consoles games like Halo and Splinter
> Cell to port over.
It depends on type of the game. Simulators, strategy and complex RPG
are definitely better and deeper on PC. Other genres might be better
implemented on consoles, I can't comment on that.
> 3. PC games have the best graphics - Yes, PC games can always stay on
> the cutting eye with eye candy, but games are usually not optimized
> for the latest and greatest video card. Right now, Unreal 2 is the
> cutting edge, and it does not look much better than Halo on my TV.
One huge advantage of PC is the picture quality, even high definition
TV isn't anywhere close to a good monitor (even average monitor
has better picture quality). This really prevents many games from
existance on consoles. Many strategy games (city building comes to
mind first) is a real pain to play in less than 1024x768, because
you can not see enough. Simulators also require good resolution.
Even older games like GPL need at least 1024*768 to provide
realistic view. So until something better than high-definition
TV becomes common, consoles are not likely to catch up in graphic
area.
> Also, consoles have processors optimized for gaming only. PC
> processors are bogged down by the OS, and have to compute thousands of
> calculations that are not related to gaming.
Though Microsoft is famous for do_nothing loops, 3GHz P4 is still
have much more resources available for game calculations than any
consoles. That's another reason why we don't see strategies/sims/complex
RPG on consoles - they plainly don't have enough power.
> 4. Consoles have the advantage of predictability - face it, PC games
> are unpredictable. In December, I enjoyed problem free games of BF
> 1942. Now, I will not buy Road to Rome. I would love to enjoy the
> game, and I have the hardware, yet for no obvious reason, I now get
> "corrupt data" when I try to load a map in MP. The same map will load
> after I restart again. Then there is the jerky online play with
> "connection lost" every 30 secs. I paid for the hardware, and full
> price of the game, and now I am not getting the experience promised to
> me by the box. At least, consoles can deliver without being worried
> if your game is goign to run with each startup.
This is probably the main factor that detracts many casual users
from PC gaming. People who works with PCs everyday for various
purposes are not likely to be deterred by it, but for the casual
PC user it's an issue.
> 5. As long as there are PCs , there will be PC games - Now, this
> argument is just stupid. PCs can exist and sell without computer
> games. Most people do not drop several hundred dollars to use their
> computers for gaming only. I can bet that everyone here will still
> own a PC even if games are extinct.
I think you're missing reasoning behind this argument. Games for PC
will exist as long as PC exist not because PCs can not exist
without them, but because as long as there're people working
with PCs, some of them will be creating games. Games always
existed in the past, even on mainframes which weren't exactly
game-oriented computers.
> I hate to knock PC gaming, but it stinks sometimes. My prediction is
> that the games will not die off completely, but we will only see a
> handful of high profile games like Doom 3, Thief 3, and Rainbow Six
> which will show up on all platforms. PC gaming will become just like
> gaming on a MAC. Limited releases.
I would expect that multitude of mass market games will move to
consoles. Initially, the market for computer games was essentially
niche-market. Only 10 years ago few people owned PC and most of them
were quite knowledgeable about them. Games were geared toward
those people (and generally was created by the same crowd). But
over the years a mass market has emerged and demand for the games
has changed, and this market has become the place to make big money.
As less and less educated crowd joins the gaming community the
demand for simpler games and easier to use hardware will be growing,
and that's what pushes console market growth. Concerning PC games
I rather expect things to get better - fewer games, but
deeper and of better quality. As soon as PC loses the mass market,
dumbing down the games will become a way to lose money instead
of make them, so there'll be less business decisions vs game
quality. Besides, I hope that 3D race will stop and developers
will start to dedicate more time to gameplay.
I'm certain most people have their own all-time favourite
games, but just look at nethack for example - all these modern
RPGs come and go, but it stays. Somehow it's providing more
gameplay despite outdated graphics. Or look at Avernum. Or
at Dominions. I highly doubt that any of those would be
affected by the state of console market.
Alex
magnulus
"John" <arcana...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:eb3d8c55.03021...@posting.google.com...
For high-end only, maybe. I know 3 Ghz processors are high-end now days,
but I certainly don't own one. And truth is, you can play all games out
there just fine with something alot less than what I have (Athlon 2400). (
In fact, the main reason I got such a fast CPU wasn't for new games, it was
for running old pre-T&L sims and games. It really is cool to play a
botmatch in UT with 50 bots, or be able to run Microsoft Train Simulator
with all the details and get about 35 frames per second.)
I think 2003-2005 might be good years for PC gaming:
1) Both PC and XBox will be older technology
2) DirectX 9 hardware will be mainstream and much cheaper than it currently
is. Once it hits 100 dollars or less, it will really pick up for
developers.
3) XBox and PC will have nothing like the cinematic rendering that DirectX 9
will be able to produce. PS2 still has some good graphics in many games
(such as Silent Hill 2), but DirectX 9 will produce visuals that look better
than the CGI cutscenes in these games, and in real time.
Now, Doom 3 will bring some attention to PC gaming, and I doubt the XBox
is going to be able to run this game as well as the PC. This is good for
the PC, but they need more games, maybe something else that will grab a
mainstream audience's attention on par with The Sims, Diablo, or Deer
Hunter, something with alot of eye candy you can't get on a console. I
don't think Doom 3 on its own will draw large numbers of people to PC
gaming, because chances are if you are into FPS games, you already own a PC.
That is of course unless they really add something new to the gameplay of
Doom 3.
Sauron_UK
workstations in the first place.......
2. And have you not heard of Hyperthread Intel P4's? (the 3 ghz+ one with a
second on-die processor, the one smaller for OS and the main one for the
games)
3. Pc games always have the edge on IQ, console games are too easy, and
often can be finnished in one sitting.
4. True, consoles do have the edge on hardware compatibility...but they have
to pay throught the nose for games.
5. PC games are often £15 cheaper and often better than the console version,
and just look how they mangled the port of Ghost Recon or Quake 3 on the
consoles,they really suck badly.
6. PC is the first choice for FPS and RTS games.....often the domain of the
mature gamer.
7. PC can do anything asked of it (except maybe be crash free...lol) when
was the ast time you ran a 3D modeller prog or Spreadsheet, or Video editing
prog on a console....NEVER. PC Wins cos it can adapt....they constantly
spring out new ways to be used....consoles will only ever be consoles....
"Alvin" <alvinst...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com...
Sauron_UK
SCENERY! ffs, the popup on most games ive played on the kid ps2 have really
pissy popup scenery....nobody could get away with it that bad on PC stuff..
Sauron_UK
hardware etc cos they are richer than console owners....and money leads the
production of better hardware, thus console may be all dancing on release,
but are quickly eclipsed by PC hardware thereafter....then console owners
have to wait 4 years for the next model...lol
"ELVIS2000" <el...@nyc.com> wrote in message
news:t3h35v83r5fn38n4v...@4ax.com...
E. Deirdre Brooks
>
> 3. Pc games always have the edge on IQ, console games are too easy, and
> often can be finnished in one sitting.
Which games? I mean, Halo can be, if that sitting is about 6-8 hours.
Many others can be. Some I've seen can't (although some rely too much on
ridiculous difficulty settings to extend gameplay).
> 4. True, consoles do have the edge on hardware compatibility...but they have
> to pay throught the nose for games.
New console games around here typically cost the same as new PC games.
That is, between $40 and $60. Shopping for bargains and used copies
notwithstanding.
> 6. PC is the first choice for FPS and RTS games.....often the domain of the
> mature gamer.
Five minutes on battle.net will disabuse anyone of that notion. I mean,
sure, there *are* mature gamers who play FPS and RTS games, but from
what I've seen, it's not a requirement, or even an inclination.
> 7. PC can do anything asked of it (except maybe be crash free...lol) when
> was the ast time you ran a 3D modeller prog or Spreadsheet, or Video editing
> prog on a console....NEVER. PC Wins cos it can adapt....they constantly
> spring out new ways to be used....consoles will only ever be consoles....
This is just silly. The console is explicitly designed for games. I
mean, if you buy one, you know you'll use it for gaming. There's nothing
unexpected here. If you buy it for use as a game machine, you don't lose
out because it won't help you with your taxes too.
ka...@ecn.ab.ca
<applebrown@no_spam.gamebanshee.com> wrote:
>There's one huge flaw in the "PC is going down" argument. In order for that
>flaw to become apparent, we need to look at what a PC is. The best
>definition IMO is that a PC is:
>
>-an upgradeable, dynamic hardware medium in which to run software.
>
>A console at this point is:
>
>-a static hardware medium in which to run software.
Rephrase that.
"a static hardware medium on which to run gaming software."
That for me is the deciding factor; if I can only buy one medium, I
buy the one that has the most uses. Right now that's the PC.
Perhaps if consoles aquire word processing, programming, spreadsheet
email, usenet, and WWW capabilities I might be convinced to switch to
them. Until then, they wait until I can justify having both.
ka...@ecn.ab.ca
>But also consider this -- the PC will always shine when consoles are
>in their downward curve technologically. The PS2 is already several
>years old and the Xbox's 733Mhz processor can't hold a candle to
>today's PCs running at 3 Ghz.
The Xbox also doesn't have Windows XP hiding underneath everything,
sucking up clock cycles. Or a fuckload of other things that the PC
has.
IOW: it doesn't need to have the same power.
>Seriously, come mid-2004 when we've all got 6 Ghz Pentium 5s running
>photorealistic graphics, todays consoles are going to look like toys.
Yes. But so will today's PCs.
Briarroot
>
>
> 6. PC is the first choice for FPS and RTS games.....often the domain of the
> mature gamer.
lmao! You've *got* to be kidding. :-)
Richard Hutnik
> This topic has been debated many times, and both sides have valid
> points. Really, no one knows exactly what will happen with pc gaming
> in the years to come, but here are my thoughts on some of the
> arguments:
>
> 1. PC games will always survive because we have the multiplayer
> community, mods, patches etc...
The real question is whether or not they will survive as a mainstream
activity, or will go underground. If they stop getting major shelf
life, then there is a problem.
> Once a solid argument, this point falls flat in the face of the
> Xbox. Xbox live is actually offers a more solid multiplayer
> experience by eliminating cheaters, hackers, and voice communication
> rather than type chat. Voice chat offers a more realistic experience
> especially with games like Ghost Recon where teamwork is important.
> Xbox live will offer free downloads, and patches are possible with the
> Xbox HD.
The problem here is that you don't get them from the user community.
If you give people the ability to mod, they can keep a game alive.
You get a cleaner game, with less cheaters, if the user community
can't hack the game. Anyhow, may I mention Phantasy Star Online now?
There were no mods for it in gameplay, and people couldn't hack
(supposedly). BUT... they uses Gameshark to create items, etc... and
ruined the game. Characters were stored locally, for example. You
can't have mods and such, and also not have cheating.
Hmm... anyone know how badly Neverwinter Nights is overrun by
cheaters?
> 2. PC games are superior - not necessarily true, anymore. We are
> sending the pendulum swing in a different direction these days.
> Before, the PC games would be ported to consoles. Now, PC gamers are
> being forced to wait for the consoles games like Halo and Splinter
> Cell to port over.
And INNOVATIVE titles? You get some. But, you are far more likely to
get such on the PC. Also, where are the strategy titles? I don't see
them on consoles to the extend that PC strategy gamers would be happy.
... other points snipped if no comment ....
> 4. Consoles have the advantage of predictability - face it, PC games
> are unpredictable. In December, I enjoyed problem free games of BF
> 1942. Now, I will not buy Road to Rome. I would love to enjoy the
> game, and I have the hardware, yet for no obvious reason, I now get
> "corrupt data" when I try to load a map in MP. The same map will load
> after I restart again. Then there is the jerky online play with
> "connection lost" every 30 secs. I paid for the hardware, and full
> price of the game, and now I am not getting the experience promised to
> me by the box. At least, consoles can deliver without being worried
> if your game is goign to run with each startup.
This is a true point. The diversity in the platform results in
unstable play.
> 5. As long as there are PCs , there will be PC games - Now, this
> argument is just stupid. PCs can exist and sell without computer
> games. Most people do not drop several hundred dollars to use their
> computers for gaming only. I can bet that everyone here will still
> own a PC even if games are extinct.
If there are devices people use a lot, they tend to play with them.
Heck, even cell phones get games. You can argue the PC may demise as
a platform nearly completely, except to have it do taxes and whatnot.
They won't use it for gaming only. BUT, they still can use them for
gaming. The days of PCs as the dominant gaming platform (dating crash
and post-crash) are over though. PCs still hold several key
categories as gaming niches, strategy games being one of them. If you
want a good strategy game, you go PC. And please, no one give me
[Game X] Tactics or Advance War as counter examples. They are
exceptions that only prove the rule. Both games are compared to PC
games.
> I hate to knock PC gaming, but it stinks sometimes. My prediction is
> that the games will not die off completely, but we will only see a
> handful of high profile games like Doom 3, Thief 3, and Rainbow Six
> which will show up on all platforms. PC gaming will become just like
> gaming on a MAC. Limited releases.
Actually, you will get limited versions. BUT, you forget that PC
games are one of the few entry points into the industry and the
barriers to entry to create PC games is lower than consoles (much
lower). The end result is a LOT of games that can get created. You
will likely find these in cheap jewel cases. The distribution costs
end up lower also, as do the costs to produce. There are no licensing
fees that need to be producted.
So, given enough supply, there will be demand.
Now excuse me, I need to get back to work. I will likely fiddle with
Zillions of Games tonight, something that only exists on PCs.
- Richard Hutnik
Richard Hutnik
The thing is that these high end things aren't what interest most
people. The price-vs-feature aspect turns most people off. In my
case, I am becoming more and more one of these average people, and
would rather spend my time on a console for graphics games, than on my
PC. For an occational strategy game, a PC is a must, but it is so
much less of a headache. Yes, I know I take a hit on performance, but
I am now finally going to get my 1.6 Ghz. box with a GeForce 4 paid
off now. Do I really want to upgrade again, to do something I will
spend, at most, a few hours a week? Maybe in a year or two, but not
now.
One thing here. If the tech refresh of a gaming platform ends up
being 4-5 years for most people, then guess what, console gaming is
where the money will be.
- Richard Hutnik
Damocles
"Gandalf Parker" <abuse@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
news:Xns9325988983C36ga...@216.168.3.30...
> > that the games will not die off completely, but we will only see a
> > handful of high profile games like Doom 3, Thief 3, and Rainbow Six
> > which will show up on all platforms. PC gaming will become just like
> > gaming on a MAC. Limited releases.
>
> Ive seen alot of "this will die off"predictions about langauges,
> operating systems, various ways of ding things. Generally the safest bet
> to make is that NOTHING dies. Something else might take the lead or hog
> the limelight to the point that it SEEMS like the only thing going on,
> but nothing dies.
>
> Gandalf Parker
Didn't Gopher finally die? I remember using that for research way back in
the day. And Archie, to track down FTP servers.
Applebrown
> In the past when console games
> tried this "upgrade" approach, such as the SEGA CD, and SEGA 32x, it
> failed, and so companies are not likely to try this any time soon.
Looking at the failure of one company 8 years ago I don't think is a good
indication of what will eventually transpire. While I completely agree that
people do enjoy a true plug in and play effort, who's to say that that will
not be possible with future hardware? Already, the consoles are doing things
that were once solely in the domain of PC's. Microsoft is aiming to bring
out a complete entertainment medium.
With things like Palm Pilots, they're considered plug and play devices by
many people, yet are able to be upgraded with more ram, more capabilities.
RAM packs for the Nintendo 64 were successful, and that was an upgrade.
Memory cards are being built better and with more capacity. PC's merely have
slots, with which you can take out cards and plug new ones in. In the
future, if that's all it takes with consoles to be able to play better
stuff, while not fooling around with the junk we have to now like proper
drivers, etc... this I believe is the wave of the future, even if it's not
going to happen in the next couple years. Instead of huge cards being the
upgrade, you'll simply take out and insert small chips or credit card like
upgrades.
So, yes, in the future I think console hardware will be upgradeable and
interchangeable, while still being plug and play and catering to that type
of audience.
Applebrown
Gandalf Parker
news:b2tnv0$ok...@mercury.cc.uottawa.ca:
>
> "Gandalf Parker" <abuse@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
> news:Xns9325988983C36ga...@216.168.3.30...
>> to make is that NOTHING dies. Something else might take the lead or
>> hog the limelight to the point that it SEEMS like the only thing
>> going on, but nothing dies.
>
> Didn't Gopher finally die? I remember using that for research way back
> in the day. And Archie, to track down FTP servers.
Gopher sites never took off the way they were expected but they seem to
number about as many as they used to. Especially in sites for geneology
searches. Archie definetly has fallen out but the net has picked up its
duties nicely. The software is still out there and does work. As people
forget about it, and stop looking for it, it will probably be resurrected
to a new purpose.
Gandalf Parker
Alvin
> alvinst...@hotmail.com (Alvin) once tried to test me with:
>
> > This topic has been debated many times, and both sides have valid
> > points. Really, no one knows exactly what will happen with pc gaming
> > in the years to come, but here are my thoughts on some of the
> > arguments:
> >
> >
> > 1. PC games will always survive because we have the multiplayer
> > community, mods, patches etc...
> >
> > Once a solid argument, this point falls flat in the face of the
> > Xbox. Xbox live is actually offers a more solid multiplayer
> > experience by eliminating cheaters, hackers, and voice communication
> > rather than type chat. Voice chat offers a more realistic experience
> > especially with games like Ghost Recon where teamwork is important.
> > Xbox live will offer free downloads, and patches are possible with the
> > Xbox HD.
> The PC has had voice chat in multiplayer games for several years, but not
> everyone uses it, you know why? Because idiots with a mic are more annoying
> than idiots with a keyboard.
Nonsense. Talking trash is part of online gaming. Most people don't
use it because it's a hassle to bother with downloading Roger WIlco or
whatever.
> So far all I hear about XBOX Live is that it "will have" this that or
> another. Very little of "XBOX Live HAS" this that or another. Most of it
> won't ever see the light of day, either. There's what, 5 or 6 games on Xbox
> Live? Some sports titles I don't have any interest in, then MechAssault,
> and Unreal Championship which I already have as UT2K3 on my PC, what else?
And your prediction is based on what evidence? Xbox live has been out
only 3 months. Give it time. Star Wars galaxies is planned along
with BF 1942 and SOF2. Ghost recon gets high praise from the Xbox
community for its realism in online play.
> The games are coming out way too slow. That's the main reason I have not
> pony'd up the $50 / year fee to play Live yet.
>
> > 2. PC games are superior - not necessarily true, anymore. We are
> > sending the pendulum swing in a different direction these days.
> > Before, the PC games would be ported to consoles. Now, PC gamers are
> > being forced to wait for the consoles games like Halo and Splinter
> > Cell to port over.
>
> For years and years there have been console games that were never released
> on the PC. Ever see Mario here? Nope. Final Fantasy? Just 2 out of the 10
> that there are (not counting FF11). Orge Battle series? Nope. Starfox? No.
> Metroid? Nope.
> There are a lot of superb PC-only games too, though. Arx Fatalis isn't on
> the consoles. Neverwinter Nights isn't. Morrowind is on XBOX, but not the
> patches or expansion packs and most importantly not the Editor and the user
> mods. No One Lives Forever 1 & 2 aren't there. Warcraft 3, Age of
> Mythology, Warlords Battlecry II, not there. Lots of other strategy titles,
> RPGs, and action titles only on the PC. Some of them superb.
The trend is shifting though.
> > 3. PC games have the best graphics - Yes, PC games can always stay on
> > the cutting eye with eye candy, but games are usually not optimized
> > for the latest and greatest video card. Right now, Unreal 2 is the
> > cutting edge, and it does not look much better than Halo on my TV.
>
> Uh, okay whatever. I have Halo and it looks great but it's not as good as
> what U2 is capable of doing on a good rig with the right video card. It may
> be that we've reached a certain level where the average gamer can't tell
> much of a difference in all the fancy graphics, though.
The gap is closing though. Usually, you only notice the huge
difference in quality towards the end life of the console which is 5
years.
> > Also, consoles have processors optimized for gaming only. PC
> > processors are bogged down by the OS, and have to compute thousands of
> > calculations that are not related to gaming.
>
> Very little of this is going on while you're gaming, though, if you kill
> all the background tasks. Lets not forget that certain console games suffer
> from poor frame rates, and when that happens you're SOL because you can't
> just throw better hardware at it.
Even with killing background applications, Windows still runs several
tasks. XP is even worse at that. You can tweak it, but I don't think
you can disable all the Windows jobs. Consoles use a stripped down OS
that does not need to run things such as explorer.exe. Consoles are
less likely to have bad framerate unlike PC games which can cripple
even super fast rigs with bad framerates. I have never seen a console
game play so badly that it was a slideshow.
> > 4. Consoles have the advantage of predictability - face it, PC games
> > are unpredictable. In December, I enjoyed problem free games of BF
> > 1942. Now, I will not buy Road to Rome. I would love to enjoy the
> > game, and I have the hardware, yet for no obvious reason, I now get
> > "corrupt data" when I try to load a map in MP. The same map will load
> > after I restart again. Then there is the jerky online play with
> > "connection lost" every 30 secs. I paid for the hardware, and full
> > price of the game, and now I am not getting the experience promised to
> > me by the box. At least, consoles can deliver without being worried
> > if your game is goign to run with each startup.
>
> It sucks that this happens but probably what happened is some other program
> came along and trashed a DLL file that you needed to run BF1942 properly.
> Try reinstalling DirectX and your video drivers. I have the latest Nvidia
> Detonators, the latest DX9, and the 1.3 BF1942 patch and it all seems to
> work.
Well, I'm trying to solve the online connection problem first. This
problem ruins it for me. Every 30 secs, I get a message, connection
lost, and the game freezes.
> > 5. As long as there are PCs , there will be PC games - Now, this
> > argument is just stupid. PCs can exist and sell without computer
> > games. Most people do not drop several hundred dollars to use their
> > computers for gaming only. I can bet that everyone here will still
> > own a PC even if games are extinct.
> You've just proven why PC games will always exist - the PLATFORM will
> always be there, which means there will always be people with computers to
> sell games to, as long as someone is willing to cater to that market. We
> might not always have the EA's (spit) and the Eidos's (cough), but we'll
> always have someone to come along and cater to this market.
If the money is not there, then the market will go away. Companies
are not going to spend millions of dollars to make a PC game that does
not profit. The existance of PC's does not necessarily prove that
games will be around. Non-gaming software will always be around.
> > I hate to knock PC gaming, but it stinks sometimes. My prediction is
> > that the games will not die off completely, but we will only see a
> > handful of high profile games like Doom 3, Thief 3, and Rainbow Six
> > which will show up on all platforms. PC gaming will become just like
> > gaming on a MAC. Limited releases.
> Completely off base prediction IMHO. The other way is much more likely to
> happen - big, high profile games like you mentioned stop coming to the PC
> and start going console only, leaving the PC for the indie developers and
> small time publishers like Dreamweaver, Strategy First, JoWood, etc. I
> don't really think that will happen either, but it's more likely to happen
> that the reverse.
I don't think they would leave the PC community out of the big
releases. The Mac analogy is a good one. Most people do not own a
Mac, profit margin is low, but they make big name games for Mac.
Knight37
> In article <d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com>,
> alvinst...@hotmail.com says...
>> 1. PC games will always survive because we have the multiplayer
>> community, mods, patches etc...
>>
>>
> Besides..the other systems were developed mostly for non-pc types
> and they are not Falcon4.0 type people and never will be,the PC is for
> the serious gamer and always will be..period,this has been written about
> many times in CGW mag.
CGW, now there's an unbiased source. ROFL.
Besides, "serious" gamers go where the games are, they don't limit
themselves to a single platform.
--
Knight37
Sweet days of summer - the jasmine's in bloom.
July is dressed up and playing her tune.
And I come home from a hard day's work.
And you're waiting there.
Not a care in the world.
-- Type O Negative, "Summer Breeze"
Knight37
> 1. Nobody ever mentions that ALL games are written and tested on PC
> workstations in the first place.......
They are written on PCs and other (more powerful) workstations. They are
then TESTED on the platform they are writen FOR. You don't test an XBOX
game on a PC, you run it on an XBOX.
> 2. And have you not heard of Hyperthread Intel P4's? (the 3 ghz+ one
> with a second on-die processor, the one smaller for OS and the main
> one for the games)
Technology with PCs will always get faster and better, but that doesn't
always make the games better.
> 3. Pc games always have the edge on IQ, console games are too easy,
> and often can be finnished in one sitting.
ROFL. Name 3 console games you've finished in one sitting. I'll wait right
here, you could do one over lunch.
This is just a complete lie. I bet you don't even play console games. I do,
and I have many games on both PC and console, and there are tons of long
and sometimes extremely difficult games on the console. Sure, there's hard
games on the PC too, but I have found that many times console games require
more skill to complete.
> 4. True, consoles do have the edge on hardware compatibility...but
> they have to pay throught the nose for games.
Not really. There are budget label games for consoles. Been to the store
lately? Plus there's a good used market on console games, I typically can
find almost any game for around $30. Just picked up Metroid Prime for that
btw. I rarely pay full price for games, be they PC or console.
> 5. PC games are often £15 cheaper and often better than the console
> version, and just look how they mangled the port of Ghost Recon or
> Quake 3 on the consoles,they really suck badly.
Ports the other way usually suck. Ports usually suck, period.
> 6. PC is the first choice for FPS and RTS games.....often the domain
> of the mature gamer.
Oh right, "mature" gamers are into FPS and RTS. I'd say the most mature
gamers are PC gamers that are into turn-based strategy games or adventure
games. You're on target that PC gamers on average are older, but you're off
about what genres they play.
> 7. PC can do anything asked of it (except maybe be crash free...lol)
> when was the ast time you ran a 3D modeller prog or Spreadsheet, or
> Video editing prog on a console....NEVER. PC Wins cos it can
> adapt....they constantly spring out new ways to be used....consoles
> will only ever be consoles....
There's advantages to only being a gaming console. For one thing, the
hardware is a hell of a lot cheaper.
--
Knight37
You must get dizzy with everything revolving around you like that.
Knight37
> The days of PCs as the dominant gaming platform (dating crash
> and post-crash) are over though.
That's just it. The PC has never been the dominant gaming platform. Console
systems have ALWAYS sold way more units than the PC has.
--
Knight37
What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your
entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know
what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.
-- Morpheus, "The Matrix"
Knight37
with:
> "Knight37" <knig...@email.com> wrote in message
>> In the past when console games
>> tried this "upgrade" approach, such as the SEGA CD, and SEGA 32x, it
>> failed, and so companies are not likely to try this any time soon.
>
> Looking at the failure of one company 8 years ago I don't think is a
> good indication of what will eventually transpire.
Okay, then, what is a good indication of what will transpire? We can only
look at the past for trends, we can't see the future.
> While I completely
> agree that people do enjoy a true plug in and play effort, who's to
> say that that will not be possible with future hardware? Already, the
> consoles are doing things that were once solely in the domain of PC's.
> Microsoft is aiming to bring out a complete entertainment medium.
What exactly are they doing? Are they making the XBOX expandable?
> With things like Palm Pilots, they're considered plug and play devices
> by many people, yet are able to be upgraded with more ram, more
> capabilities.
Palm Pilot <> game console. :)
> RAM packs for the Nintendo 64 were successful, and that was an upgrade.
RAM Pack for the N64 was only (moderately) successful because they gave it
away for free with one of their hottest Nintendo-only characters, Donkey
Kong 64. And even then it didn't get on a very high percentage of N64's in
the field, so it's not like developers could just assume the customer
would have it (except for DK64, since it gave it away for free in the
package).
> Memory cards are being built better and with more
> capacity. PC's merely have slots, with which you can take out cards
> and plug new ones in. In the future, if that's all it takes with
> consoles to be able to play better stuff, while not fooling around
> with the junk we have to now like proper drivers, etc... this I
> believe is the wave of the future, even if it's not going to happen in
> the next couple years. Instead of huge cards being the upgrade, you'll
> simply take out and insert small chips or credit card like upgrades.
But in the past this has always more or less failed because if it doesn't
come with the console, not many people have it, and if not many people have
it, not many games support it, and it's a vicious cycle.
> So, yes, in the future I think console hardware will be upgradeable
> and interchangeable, while still being plug and play and catering to
> that type of audience.
They already ARE upgradable, it's just that there are relatively few games
that support the upgrades, relatively few people buy them, and so it's
almost not worth mentioning.
About the only "upgrade" on current consoles that seems to be doing fairly
well is the PS2 broadband/modem adapter, and I consider that more of a
peripheral and not really an "upgrade." By "upgrade" I assume we're
talking about expanding the core power of the console, not just adding
another I/O device.
--
Knight37
Knight37
>> not everyone uses it, you know why? Because idiots with a mic are
>> more annoying than idiots with a keyboard.
>
> Nonsense. Talking trash is part of online gaming. Most people don't
> use it because it's a hassle to bother with downloading Roger WIlco or
> whatever.
What part of my statement is nonsense? You actually believe that the
reasons people don't do voice gaming is because it's a hassle to install?
That's not it at all, it's because for many gamers the negatives associated
with voice chat outweigh the positives. Besides a lot of the hardcore
online PC gamers DO have it and DO install it. The option is available and
not that hard to setup IF you're into it. BTW, I do have voice chat
installed for some games, and most of the time I don't use it because of
the multitude of idiots.
>> So far all I hear about XBOX Live is that it "will have" this that or
>> another. Very little of "XBOX Live HAS" this that or another. Most of
>> it won't ever see the light of day, either. There's what, 5 or 6
>> games on Xbox Live? Some sports titles I don't have any interest in,
>> then MechAssault, and Unreal Championship which I already have as
>> UT2K3 on my PC, what else?
>> The games are coming out way too slow. That's the main reason I have
>> not pony'd up the $50 / year fee to play Live yet.
> And your prediction is based on what evidence? Xbox live has been out
> only 3 months. Give it time.
What prediction? I'm talking about what it has NOW. It had a pretty weak
launch, IMHO. There should have been something for everyone to want to
play, instead we got a handful of mediocrity. Unless you like sports games.
> Star Wars galaxies is planned along
> with BF 1942 and SOF2. Ghost recon gets high praise from the Xbox
> community for its realism in online play.
I already have GR on the PC why would I want to buy it again? I already
have UT2k3 on PC why would I want to buy it again? I already have SOF2 on
my PC, why would I want to buy it again? I already have BF1942 on my PC,
why would I want to buy it again? Why would I want to buy SWG for XBOX and
pay $50/month for XBOX Live on top of whatever other fees it has when I can
buy it for my PC?
IMHO, XBOX Live is useless for me, if all it does is offer an alternate
place to play the games I already have for the PC.
> The trend is shifting though.
Not really, PC still has just as many good titles as it did and so do the
consoles. The only "trend" is that there's now more multiplatform games in
development.
>> > 3. PC games have the best graphics - Yes, PC games can always stay
>> > on the cutting eye with eye candy, but games are usually not
>> > optimized for the latest and greatest video card. Right now,
>> > Unreal 2 is the cutting edge, and it does not look much better than
>> > Halo on my TV.
>>
>> Uh, okay whatever. I have Halo and it looks great but it's not as
>> good as what U2 is capable of doing on a good rig with the right
>> video card. It may be that we've reached a certain level where the
>> average gamer can't tell much of a difference in all the fancy
>> graphics, though.
>
> The gap is closing though. Usually, you only notice the huge
> difference in quality towards the end life of the console which is 5
> years.
You can notice the difference now if you actually have state of the art PC
hardware. Thing is, not many people have that.
> Even with killing background applications, Windows still runs several
> tasks. XP is even worse at that. You can tweak it, but I don't think
> you can disable all the Windows jobs. Consoles use a stripped down OS
> that does not need to run things such as explorer.exe. Consoles are
> less likely to have bad framerate unlike PC games which can cripple
> even super fast rigs with bad framerates. I have never seen a console
> game play so badly that it was a slideshow.
It's easy to make a game into a slideshow if you use outdated hardware and
then bump up the graphic options. That's not really a problem for PC games,
though.
>> It sucks that this happens but probably what happened is some other
>> program came along and trashed a DLL file that you needed to run
>> BF1942 properly. Try reinstalling DirectX and your video drivers. I
>> have the latest Nvidia Detonators, the latest DX9, and the 1.3 BF1942
>> patch and it all seems to work.
>
> Well, I'm trying to solve the online connection problem first. This
> problem ruins it for me. Every 30 secs, I get a message, connection
> lost, and the game freezes.
If you're on a dial-up forget it. It will never be smooth enough. Even on
slower DSL lines it tends to suckage. Different servers perform better than
others tho, and it can take some time to find some that work well for you.
>> > 5. As long as there are PCs , there will be PC games - Now, this
>> > argument is just stupid. PCs can exist and sell without computer
>> > games. Most people do not drop several hundred dollars to use
>> > their computers for gaming only. I can bet that everyone here will
>> > still own a PC even if games are extinct.
>
>> You've just proven why PC games will always exist - the PLATFORM will
>> always be there, which means there will always be people with
>> computers to sell games to, as long as someone is willing to cater to
>> that market. We might not always have the EA's (spit) and the Eidos's
>> (cough), but we'll always have someone to come along and cater to
>> this market.
>
> If the money is not there, then the market will go away.
The money is there. The people who have the computers have the money.
> Companies
> are not going to spend millions of dollars to make a PC game that does
> not profit. The existance of PC's does not necessarily prove that
> games will be around. Non-gaming software will always be around.
Yes it does, as long as there are PCs capable of playing games there is a
market, and someone WILL cater to that market. If EA quits servicing that
market someone else will step up to the plate. It may be that you don't
need to spend millions to make a PC game that will satisfy this market,
either.
>> > I hate to knock PC gaming, but it stinks sometimes. My prediction
>> > is that the games will not die off completely, but we will only see
>> > a handful of high profile games like Doom 3, Thief 3, and Rainbow
>> > Six which will show up on all platforms. PC gaming will become
>> > just like gaming on a MAC. Limited releases.
>
>> Completely off base prediction IMHO. The other way is much more
>> likely to happen - big, high profile games like you mentioned stop
>> coming to the PC and start going console only, leaving the PC for the
>> indie developers and small time publishers like Dreamweaver, Strategy
>> First, JoWood, etc. I don't really think that will happen either, but
>> it's more likely to happen that the reverse.
>
> I don't think they would leave the PC community out of the big
> releases. The Mac analogy is a good one. Most people do not own a
> Mac, profit margin is low, but they make big name games for Mac.
I don't think the big publishers will ignore the market either, but I think
it's even less likely for the smaller publishers to ignore it. There are
also tons of smaller publishers that cater to the Mac. Since it's a less
popular gaming platform there aren't as many as on the PC.
--
Knight37
I took an IQ test and the results were negative.
Applebrown
> >> In the past when console games
> >> tried this "upgrade" approach, such as the SEGA CD, and SEGA 32x, it
> >> failed, and so companies are not likely to try this any time soon.
> >
> > Looking at the failure of one company 8 years ago I don't think is a
> > good indication of what will eventually transpire.
>
> Okay, then, what is a good indication of what will transpire? We can only
> look at the past for trends, we can't see the future.
Isn't it a bit naive to think that one aspect of a failed piece of history
can afford a glimpse at all of what's in store for the future. I mean at the
very least, lets take a look at more than one. Because Sega CD/32x failed,
that does not mean all future upgradeable equipment will fail. I had a
Genesis on the day it came out, late August 1989. By the time the Sega CD
came, I had moved on to IMO at the time better things and I think many
people were ready for something different. A big cause of the Sega failure
was that it came out too late, and had little support. In the future, it's
definitely possible a company might market a system from the get go to be
upgradeable, able to play all current games now, but in the future you won't
have to buy a whole new system, just interchange and upgrade slightly when
you want to, so that it'll last longer than the cycle we have today.
Better predictors of the future would be looking at _current_ trends and at
what technology we might have in the future.
> > While I completely
> > agree that people do enjoy a true plug in and play effort, who's to
> > say that that will not be possible with future hardware? Already, the
> > consoles are doing things that were once solely in the domain of PC's.
> > Microsoft is aiming to bring out a complete entertainment medium.
>
> What exactly are they doing? Are they making the XBOX expandable?
I'll list some things should have been obvious to you, that being internet
connectivity, the addition of hard drives, and looking at future at
multimedia other than games to go along with the console. People on their
own are already using Linux, plugging PC hardware into their Xbox, and
running PC applications.
> > With things like Palm Pilots, they're considered plug and play devices
> > by many people, yet are able to be upgraded with more ram, more
> > capabilities.
>
> Palm Pilot <> game console. :)
There are only minor console examples right now, which was why I made a
prediction, not a statement that we're there already. People play games on
their palm pilots. It's technology that costs about the same or more than a
console, and is also something that can easily be modified. You gave an
argument that people want plug and play. There's an electronic hardware
example that plays games, while still being upgradeable, even though it's
not considered a "console".
>
> > RAM packs for the Nintendo 64 were successful, and that was an upgrade.
>
> RAM Pack for the N64 was only (moderately) successful because they gave it
> away for free with one of their hottest Nintendo-only characters, Donkey
> Kong 64. And even then it didn't get on a very high percentage of N64's in
> the field, so it's not like developers could just assume the customer
> would have it (except for DK64, since it gave it away for free in the
> package).
>
> > Memory cards are being built better and with more
> > capacity. PC's merely have slots, with which you can take out cards
> > and plug new ones in. In the future, if that's all it takes with
> > consoles to be able to play better stuff, while not fooling around
> > with the junk we have to now like proper drivers, etc... this I
> > believe is the wave of the future, even if it's not going to happen in
> > the next couple years. Instead of huge cards being the upgrade, you'll
> > simply take out and insert small chips or credit card like upgrades.
>
> But in the past....
It's future technology, not past technology that will allow us to do this.
Don't you think technology will improve to the point where we can insert and
exchange chips as needed, depending on what people want and what market the
developers are trying to cater to? We can pretty much do it right now,
though we're a ways away from that kind of interchangeability being easy and
marketable. I'm not saying that this ability will lead to the ultimate
successful machine, just that this idea will in all likelihood be tried at
some point in the future, whether it fails or succeeds.
Applebrown
Alvin
I bet the Sony Playstation had a weak launch too yet over time, it
ended up beating out Nintendo, and producing hundreds of games. The
fact that Xbox live has a limited library now does not mean that it
will stay that way. Your predication that online gaming will fail
with consoles is based on ZERO evidence.
> > Star Wars galaxies is planned along
> > with BF 1942 and SOF2. Ghost recon gets high praise from the Xbox
> > community for its realism in online play.
>
> I already have GR on the PC why would I want to buy it again? I already
> have UT2k3 on PC why would I want to buy it again? I already have SOF2 on
> my PC, why would I want to buy it again? I already have BF1942 on my PC,
> why would I want to buy it again? Why would I want to buy SWG for XBOX and
> pay $50/month for XBOX Live on top of whatever other fees it has when I can
> buy it for my PC?
Ummm, maybe to enjoy gaming in a recliner or on a coach with your
buddies? Different tastes, but that factor alone is worth it to me.
Also, PC multiplayer is ruined by hackers and cheats.
> IMHO, XBOX Live is useless for me, if all it does is offer an alternate
> place to play the games I already have for the PC.
>
> > The trend is shifting though.
>
> Not really, PC still has just as many good titles as it did and so do the
> consoles. The only "trend" is that there's now more multiplatform games in
> development.
> >> > 3. PC games have the best graphics - Yes, PC games can always stay
> >> > on the cutting eye with eye candy, but games are usually not
> >> > optimized for the latest and greatest video card. Right now,
> >> > Unreal 2 is the cutting edge, and it does not look much better than
> >> > Halo on my TV.
> >>
> >> Uh, okay whatever. I have Halo and it looks great but it's not as
> >> good as what U2 is capable of doing on a good rig with the right
> >> video card. It may be that we've reached a certain level where the
> >> average gamer can't tell much of a difference in all the fancy
> >> graphics, though.
> >
> > The gap is closing though. Usually, you only notice the huge
> > difference in quality towards the end life of the console which is 5
> > years.
>
> You can notice the difference now if you actually have state of the art PC
> hardware. Thing is, not many people have that.
THing is, most games do not take advantage of high power graphics
cards. Even with the top games, graphics still look angular,
rectangular, and blocky.
> > Even with killing background applications, Windows still runs several
> > tasks. XP is even worse at that. You can tweak it, but I don't think
> > you can disable all the Windows jobs. Consoles use a stripped down OS
> > that does not need to run things such as explorer.exe. Consoles are
> > less likely to have bad framerate unlike PC games which can cripple
> > even super fast rigs with bad framerates. I have never seen a console
> > game play so badly that it was a slideshow.
>
> It's easy to make a game into a slideshow if you use outdated hardware and
> then bump up the graphic options. That's not really a problem for PC games,
> though.
Actually, slideshows can be achieved even on high end computers with
games like Morrowind. Morrowind requires thousands of AI calculations
in the background which sucks up the resources. Yet, on my Xbox, no
slowdown at all.
> >> It sucks that this happens but probably what happened is some other
> >> program came along and trashed a DLL file that you needed to run
> >> BF1942 properly. Try reinstalling DirectX and your video drivers. I
> >> have the latest Nvidia Detonators, the latest DX9, and the 1.3 BF1942
> >> patch and it all seems to work.
> >
> > Well, I'm trying to solve the online connection problem first. This
> > problem ruins it for me. Every 30 secs, I get a message, connection
> > lost, and the game freezes.
>
> If you're on a dial-up forget it. It will never be smooth enough. Even on
> slower DSL lines it tends to suckage. Different servers perform better than
> others tho, and it can take some time to find some that work well for you.
I'm on broadband cable with upload speeds of 200K on average. I have
this problem on every server in every game which makes no sense since
it just started a month ago. I might try a new cable modem or NIC
card.
> >> > 5. As long as there are PCs , there will be PC games - Now, this
> >> > argument is just stupid. PCs can exist and sell without computer
> >> > games. Most people do not drop several hundred dollars to use
> >> > their computers for gaming only. I can bet that everyone here will
> >> > still own a PC even if games are extinct.
>
> >> You've just proven why PC games will always exist - the PLATFORM will
> >> always be there, which means there will always be people with
> >> computers to sell games to, as long as someone is willing to cater to
> >> that market. We might not always have the EA's (spit) and the Eidos's
> >> (cough), but we'll always have someone to come along and cater to
> >> this market.
> >
> > If the money is not there, then the market will go away.
>
> The money is there. The people who have the computers have the money.
And apparently, they are not spending it on computer games. A PC game
must be amazing to catch the mainstream attention. How many TV ads do
you see on computer games vs console? The money aint there. I see
one ad for the Sims, that's it.
Chomski
Without the PC this mod and thousands of others like it would never have
been created.
Try creating a mod or total conversion on your console. Tricky isn't it?
That is why the PC will continue to thrive, the life of games are extended
far beyond that expected by the developers because of the modders. Bored by
GTA3 on your PC? No problem, load up a mod and go stunt racing with it
instead. Bored by GTA3 on your console, tough luck, buy another game.
This conversely may be why console manufacturers and software developers
want everyone to buy consoles instead so they have control over what we can
play, but that would be a shame.
"Alvin" <alvinst...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com...
> This topic has been debated many times, and both sides have valid
> points. Really, no one knows exactly what will happen with pc gaming
> in the years to come, but here are my thoughts on some of the
> arguments:
>
>
> 1. PC games will always survive because we have the multiplayer
> community, mods, patches etc...
>
>
> Once a solid argument, this point falls flat in the face of the
> Xbox. Xbox live is actually offers a more solid multiplayer
> experience by eliminating cheaters, hackers, and voice communication
> rather than type chat. Voice chat offers a more realistic experience
> especially with games like Ghost Recon where teamwork is important.
> Xbox live will offer free downloads, and patches are possible with the
> Xbox HD.
>
>
> 2. PC games are superior - not necessarily true, anymore. We are
> sending the pendulum swing in a different direction these days.
> Before, the PC games would be ported to consoles. Now, PC gamers are
> being forced to wait for the consoles games like Halo and Splinter
> Cell to port over.
>
>
> 3. PC games have the best graphics - Yes, PC games can always stay on
> the cutting eye with eye candy, but games are usually not optimized
> for the latest and greatest video card. Right now, Unreal 2 is the
> cutting edge, and it does not look much better than Halo on my TV.
> Also, consoles have processors optimized for gaming only. PC
> processors are bogged down by the OS, and have to compute thousands of
> calculations that are not related to gaming.
>
> 4. Consoles have the advantage of predictability - face it, PC games
> are unpredictable. In December, I enjoyed problem free games of BF
> 1942. Now, I will not buy Road to Rome. I would love to enjoy the
> game, and I have the hardware, yet for no obvious reason, I now get
> "corrupt data" when I try to load a map in MP. The same map will load
> after I restart again. Then there is the jerky online play with
> "connection lost" every 30 secs. I paid for the hardware, and full
> price of the game, and now I am not getting the experience promised to
> me by the box. At least, consoles can deliver without being worried
> if your game is goign to run with each startup.
>
>
> 5. As long as there are PCs , there will be PC games - Now, this
> argument is just stupid. PCs can exist and sell without computer
> games. Most people do not drop several hundred dollars to use their
> computers for gaming only. I can bet that everyone here will still
> own a PC even if games are extinct.
>
>
E. Deirdre Brooks
stfu, n00bz0rz! <-- my impression of the typical "mature" FPS/RTS gamer.
:)
Richard Hutnik
> richar...@hotmail.com (Richard Hutnik) once tried to test me with:
>
> > The days of PCs as the dominant gaming platform (dating crash
> > and post-crash) are over though.
>
> That's just it. The PC has never been the dominant gaming platform. Console
> systems have ALWAYS sold way more units than the PC has.
Actually pre-NES it was, and things kind of help until the NES really
took off. PC sales have declined recently as the whole video form of
entertainment (PC/consoles) became entrenches as big money. Budgets
got much bigger and guess what gets the lion's share of development
now? It is consoles. PC's still get niche stuff, but they aren't
getting the budgets as much. Still, they are a form of entry in the
business by developers and there are still niche areas PC games serve.
I can name genres that are no longer on the PC:
- Action sports titles
- Fighting games (never really had them much, but now no one even
tries). This includes wrestling games, boxing games, and Street
Fighter type games.
- Platformer/mascot games. Well, you do get a few retro type titles
coming out of garages.
- Light gun games.
- Anything type of game that appears in arcades now. Ok, you get a
few budget titles that try to clone, but they are hadly anything. No
dance dance revolution games either.
- Multiplayer split screen action/party games.
What you do get:
- RTS and turn-base strategy (this includes C&C clones, God games, and
sims)
- FPS's.
- Adventure and RPG games.
- Low graphically intensive sports sims.
- Driving games (occationally. These are drying up except budget
titles)
- An occational flight and space sim.
- Massive Multiplayer Online games (of the above genres).
- Puzzle games (on occation)
- Games that come out of developer's garages.
- Richard Hutnik
ka...@ecn.ab.ca
wrote:
>Knight37 <knig...@email.com> wrote in message news:<Xns9325D6164...@130.133.1.4>...
>> alvinst...@hotmail.com (Alvin) once tried to test me with:
>> The PC has had voice chat in multiplayer games for several years, but not
>> everyone uses it, you know why? Because idiots with a mic are more annoying
>> than idiots with a keyboard.
>
>Nonsense. Talking trash is part of online gaming.
And spawn-camping is part of MMORGPs so shut the f*** up & like it
n3wb...
now get lost before i r4p3z ur @$$
Dickie
"Damocles" <phae...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:b2tnv0$ok...@mercury.cc.uottawa.ca...
Heh, back in the bad old days when ya used gopher and all the links were
.edu sites. Back when 1 in 30 web sites
had any graphics at all and when they did they were GIF files because they
were still stuck in the Compuserve
mindset. Ahhh, memories...
Dickie
Knight37
with:
>> > "Knight37" <knig...@email.com> wrote in message
>> >> In the past when console games
>> >> tried this "upgrade" approach, such as the SEGA CD, and SEGA 32x,
>> >> it failed, and so companies are not likely to try this any time
>> >> soon.
>> >
>> > Looking at the failure of one company 8 years ago I don't think is
>> > a good indication of what will eventually transpire.
>>
>> Okay, then, what is a good indication of what will transpire? We can
>> only look at the past for trends, we can't see the future.
>
> Isn't it a bit naive to think that one aspect of a failed piece of
> history can afford a glimpse at all of what's in store for the future.
> I mean at the very least, lets take a look at more than one. Because
> Sega CD/32x failed, that does not mean all future upgradeable
> equipment will fail. I had a Genesis on the day it came out, late
> August 1989. By the time the Sega CD came, I had moved on to IMO at
> the time better things and I think many people were ready for
> something different. A big cause of the Sega failure was that it came
> out too late, and had little support.
It (and every other upgrade for consoles that has happened so far) also
showed a common theme for console gamers -- they don't usually go for
upgrades.
> In the future, it's definitely
> possible a company might market a system from the get go to be
> upgradeable,
I never said it wasn't POSSIBLE. I said there's no indication that it's
PROBABLE.
> able to play all current games now, but in the future you
> won't have to buy a whole new system, just interchange and upgrade
> slightly when you want to, so that it'll last longer than the cycle we
> have today.
That would be great. But that hasn't been done before in the console
market, at least not with any success.
> Better predictors of the future would be looking at _current_ trends
> and at what technology we might have in the future.
Current trends are to release a new platform every 4-6 years, and more
times than not, drop all support of the previous system. The ONLY console
to break this trend thus far is the Playstation 2. Kudos to Sony for making
it compatible with PSX games. The EXCEPTION, not the rule.
Now, considering the success of the PS2 platform, I'm sure that Sony,
Microsoft, and Nintendo (and any other wannabes) will all carefully weigh
the pros and cons of providing backwards compatibility with the older
games on their next venture. It may not have been 'the' factor that made
the PS2 successful, but it is bound to be one of the factors. But even this
is a far cry from being able to upgrade consoles like we do PCs.
>> > While I completely
>> > agree that people do enjoy a true plug in and play effort, who's to
>> > say that that will not be possible with future hardware? Already,
>> > the consoles are doing things that were once solely in the domain
>> > of PC's. Microsoft is aiming to bring out a complete entertainment
>> > medium.
>>
>> What exactly are they doing? Are they making the XBOX expandable?
>
> I'll list some things should have been obvious to you, that being
> internet connectivity, the addition of hard drives, and looking at
> future at multimedia other than games to go along with the console.
> People on their own are already using Linux, plugging PC hardware into
> their Xbox, and running PC applications.
XBOX ships with ethernet and a hard drive. Those aren't "upgrades." And
what some hacker does to his XBOX is hardly an indication of what Microsoft
has planned, either. There are no official Linux, PC hardware, or PC apps
for the XBOX. Hell, Micrsoft hasn't even released a frickin' keyboard and
mouse for it. At least Sony was thoughtful enough to put an actual USB port
on their system so that people could use USB devices on it. Microsoft uses
"USB" but they put their own funky connectors.
Besides, we were talking about UPGRADES. I don't consider adding a new
input device an upgrade. I don't say "I'm going to upgrade my PC. I think
I'll get a gamepad." That's not an upgrade, it's a new peripheral.
>> > With things like Palm Pilots, they're considered plug and play
>> > devices by many people, yet are able to be upgraded with more ram,
>> > more capabilities.
>>
>> Palm Pilot <> game console. :)
>
> There are only minor console examples right now, which was why I made
> a prediction, not a statement that we're there already. People play
> games on their palm pilots. It's technology that costs about the same
> or more than a console, and is also something that can easily be
> modified. You gave an argument that people want plug and play. There's
> an electronic hardware example that plays games, while still being
> upgradeable, even though it's not considered a "console".
How is palm pilot upgradable? Is it just adding new peripherals and maybe
some extra memory? Can the core processor be upgraded? The screen? Also I
consider PDA's to be a vastly different market than consoles. Yes, people
play games on them. People played games on watches too but that doesn't
make them a real game system. :)
BTW, there are some really kick ass PDAs out there. A friend of mine has
one that he can run a web site on, no kidding. Kind of expensive to run it
since he has to pay a wireless internet fee but he can do it. He can also
play MP3s and things like that. I was impressed. I forgot what it was, I
think it started with X... Xerix? something like that. I think it cost as
much as a new desktop PC though hahah.
Anyway, I don't think what the PDA market is any real indication of what
the console market will do. It hasn't been before; PDA's have been around a
while now.
>> But in the past....
>
> It's future technology, not past technology that will allow us to do
> this.
We've always had the technology to do it. We've been doing it for decades
on desktop computers, and for years on laptops. The thing is consoles are
specifically designed to NOT be upgradable.
They do this so they can sell a new console system in 4-6 years. They can
rerelease the old games in special "Sonic Megapack" editions to run on the
new hardware. Or at least tack on a "64" to the end of the name and make a
new game with the old characters that people will all buy because hell it's
Mario and Mario kicks ass. Even worse is how they are doing it on the GBA,
oh look, it's a 16-bit handheld that's basically equivalent to the SNES,
lets rerelease all our old SNES titles instead of coming up with new games!
> Don't you think technology will improve to the point where we
> can insert and exchange chips as needed, depending on what people want
> and what market the developers are trying to cater to?
Can you be more specific?
> We can pretty
> much do it right now, though we're a ways away from that kind of
> interchangeability being easy and marketable. I'm not saying that this
> ability will lead to the ultimate successful machine, just that this
> idea will in all likelihood be tried at some point in the future,
> whether it fails or succeeds.
I'm not getting what you're saying. Are you suggesting some kind of
"console" (whatever) that you can just plug a different CPU in? Plug
different memory chips in? Etc? I think that technology moves too fast to
come up with any kind of standard for a component that is so integral to
the whole computer. What happens when a new CPU chip is invented but it
won't for whatever reason fit the standard bus? What happens when a new
kind of memory is invented but it also won't fit in the existing standard?
On the PC, we solved this by making cases more or less generic and swapping
out the entire motherboard when such an upgrade is required. It's possible
they could make this more idiot proof, somehow. But it still seems like
such a core piece of the unit that it would be difficult to make some kind
of universal socket that would never need an upgrade itself.
At any rate, you're talking far future here. At least 10 years before any
home computer has this functionality and another 5 at least for consoles to
catch on to it. IMHO. I could be wrong, natch. :)
I'm pretty certain that something like this is not in the works for the
next XBOX2, PS3, or NintendoThingy.
--
Knight37
I am Jack's wasted life.
-- Narrator played by Edward Norton, "Fight Club"
Knight37
> I bet the Sony Playstation had a weak launch too yet over time, it
> ended up beating out Nintendo, and producing hundreds of games. The
> fact that Xbox live has a limited library now does not mean that it
> will stay that way. Your predication that online gaming will fail
> with consoles is based on ZERO evidence.
What prediction? I never predicted online gaming with consoles would fail.
I do think XBOX as it currently is and also based on what it will be in 3-6
months is not worth $50/year to me, and that's all the claims I've made. If
anything I think it will suck, at least in the short term, but still be
financially successful. Console gamers are THAT desperate for online games.
I do consider the online gaming scene on the consoles to be moving at such
a glacial pace, it's rediculous. Especially Nintendo's "online presence."
If console makers expect to be able to keep up with the PC in the online
gaming arena, they had best start producing some titles that CAN compete.
And not just remakes or rehashes of stuff we already have on the PC, but
new stuff that is BETTER than what the PC offers now.
>> > Star Wars galaxies is planned along
>> > with BF 1942 and SOF2. Ghost recon gets high praise from the Xbox
>> > community for its realism in online play.
>>
>> I already have GR on the PC why would I want to buy it again? I
>> already have UT2k3 on PC why would I want to buy it again? I already
>> have SOF2 on my PC, why would I want to buy it again? I already have
>> BF1942 on my PC, why would I want to buy it again? Why would I want
>> to buy SWG for XBOX and pay $50/month for XBOX Live on top of
>> whatever other fees it has when I can buy it for my PC?
>
> Ummm, maybe to enjoy gaming in a recliner or on a coach with your
> buddies? Different tastes, but that factor alone is worth it to me.
> Also, PC multiplayer is ruined by hackers and cheats.
As if the cheaters aren't going to figure out a way to cheat on the
consoles. Just wait. It WILL happen. The only way that they can prevent
widespread abuse is by having draconian policies against the ones they
catch. Press criminal charges and ban them permanently off the gaming
network. For Sony this isn't an option really (no closed single gaming
network for all their games) but XBOX Live has a chance to stop them if
they get hardlined about protecting the community.
But even so, it's not worth paying for games twice just to play them on the
couch, not to me anyway. Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to
pay $50/year to play Unreal Championship when I can pay $0/year to play
basically the same game, UT2K3, which is also highly more modable, on my
PC? Why would I want to play MechAssault when I could play a real mech game
like Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries? Etc. I don't see a good reason to pay to
play games I can play for free, no way. Not to mention having to buy them
again.
I dunno, I sure hope Microsoft puts out some more XBOX-exclusive stuff that
supports Live that doesn't suck. Otherwise I won't have any excuse to get
online with my XBOX. Maybe Halo 2.
>> You can notice the difference now if you actually have state of the
>> art PC hardware. Thing is, not many people have that.
>
> THing is, most games do not take advantage of high power graphics
> cards. Even with the top games, graphics still look angular,
> rectangular, and blocky.
I don't know, I have seen some amazingly good graphics on a high end PC.
They don't look blocky with all the options turned on. The DOOM3 alpha
looks absolutely killer, even though it ran slow as molasses on my poor
little PC. I imagine on a top of the line PC whenever it finally comes out
using the release-version code, it's going to just blow people away for
graphics and sound. Now as for gameplay, we can only hope. :)
> Actually, slideshows can be achieved even on high end computers with
> games like Morrowind. Morrowind requires thousands of AI calculations
> in the background which sucks up the resources. Yet, on my Xbox, no
> slowdown at all.
MW is a badly optimized program, for either the XBOX or the PC. I've read
about all the crashes of poor hapless XBOX users with no way to patch the
game. At least the PC users should finally get a game that works maybe by
the time Bloodmoon is released. MW is also the exception to the rule, not
many PC games are as big of a pig as it.
>> >> It sucks that this happens but probably what happened is some
>> >> other program came along and trashed a DLL file that you needed to
>> >> run BF1942 properly. Try reinstalling DirectX and your video
>> >> drivers. I have the latest Nvidia Detonators, the latest DX9, and
>> >> the 1.3 BF1942 patch and it all seems to work.
>> >
>> > Well, I'm trying to solve the online connection problem first.
>> > This problem ruins it for me. Every 30 secs, I get a message,
>> > connection lost, and the game freezes.
>>
>> If you're on a dial-up forget it. It will never be smooth enough.
>> Even on slower DSL lines it tends to suckage. Different servers
>> perform better than others tho, and it can take some time to find
>> some that work well for you.
>
> I'm on broadband cable with upload speeds of 200K on average. I have
> this problem on every server in every game which makes no sense since
> it just started a month ago. I might try a new cable modem or NIC
> card.
Very strange. It's possible it could be a network setting in your windows
registry, or some outdated file in there in the network drivers somehow. Do
you have problems with any other online games?
I remember back when that code red virus was prevalent that it majorly
screwed up internet gaming on our cable system for a month or so until they
finally got rid of it. Maybe there's something like that going on (but with
a different, new strain).
>> > If the money is not there, then the market will go away.
>>
>> The money is there. The people who have the computers have the money.
>
> And apparently, they are not spending it on computer games. A PC game
> must be amazing to catch the mainstream attention. How many TV ads do
> you see on computer games vs console? The money aint there. I see
> one ad for the Sims, that's it.
When have we ever had to have TV ads for PC games to keep the industry
alive? The PC gaming industry has never relied on mainstream attention to
survive.
Knight37
> Knight37 <knig...@email.com> wrote in message
> news:<Xns93267F410...@130.133.1.4>...
>> richar...@hotmail.com (Richard Hutnik) once tried to test me
>> with:
>>
>> > The days of PCs as the dominant gaming platform (dating crash
>> > and post-crash) are over though.
>>
>> That's just it. The PC has never been the dominant gaming platform.
>> Console systems have ALWAYS sold way more units than the PC has.
>
> Actually pre-NES it was, and things kind of help until the NES really
> took off.
The NES was released in 1985. The IBM XT, hardly a gaming monster, was
released in 1983. The IBM computers weren't even considered a serious
gaming machine until the release of the EGA adapter (1984) and the Adlib
sound card (1987). Sound Blaster didn't even come along until 1988. Prior
to the NES, the Commodore 64 (1982) and the Apple 8-bit series (early 80's)
were the most popular computers for gamers. Prior to those platforms there
were other computers that could play games but most everyone had an Atari
2600 (1977-1985) or an Intellivision (1979-1985), or possibly Colecovision
(1981-1986). But after NES came out, it dominated video gaming.
> PC sales have declined recently as the whole video form of
> entertainment (PC/consoles) became entrenches as big money. Budgets
> got much bigger and guess what gets the lion's share of development
> now? It is consoles. PC's still get niche stuff, but they aren't
> getting the budgets as much. Still, they are a form of entry in the
> business by developers and there are still niche areas PC games serve.
Consoles games have always been bigger sellers than PC games.
> I can name genres that are no longer on the PC:
> - Action sports titles
Action sports titles like the Madden series?
> - Fighting games (never really had them much, but now no one even
> tries). This includes wrestling games, boxing games, and Street
> Fighter type games.
These games always sucked on the PC. I think someone is working on or maybe
even already has out a sequel to One Must Fall, one of the better ones. The
main problem with this genre on the PC is that it's weak to sit in front of
a computer desk to fight it out with friends. It works much better on the
couch in front of a (preferably big screen) TV. Combine that with
controllers that were never as tight or responsive as a console controller
and you get a dead genre...
> - Platformer/mascot games. Well, you do get a few retro type titles
> coming out of garages.
You get those and Rayman 2 and maybe a handful of others. The real issue
here is that other than Sega's Sonic, most of the console makers have
guarded their mascots like they were gold, never letting them appear on any
other console. Seems like the PC got one of the Gex games. We got some
Frogger ones too. Not sure what else, I don't play those much.
> - Light gun games.
It would be kind of stupid to make a game for a device that maybe 10 people
have for their PC. :)
> - Anything type of game that appears in arcades now.
Haha, you mean fighting, racing, or light gun. That's about all they have
in arcades these days. :)
> Ok, you get a
> few budget titles that try to clone, but they are hadly anything. No
> dance dance revolution games either.
Thank god for that.
> - Multiplayer split screen action/party games.
Again, this would go against the nature of the platform. People do not like
to sit in the home office crowded around a 17" PC screen to play a party
game. Besides, at least one game supports split screen action (although
AFAIK, its almost never used) Serious Sam.
> What you do get:
> - RTS and turn-base strategy (this includes C&C clones, God games, and
> sims)
and there's not many good ones of this genre on consoles...
> - FPS's.
there's only a handful of good ones on the consoles...
> - Adventure and RPG games.
those are 2 genres, adventure is slowly plodding along, pining for the
fjords, but RPGs on the PC are stronger than ever and distinctly different
than the RPG genre on the consoles.
> - Low graphically intensive sports sims.
Since I'm not into sports games I'll take your word for it. :)
> - Driving games (occationally. These are drying up except budget
> titles)
There's tons of budget titles and we also recently got yet another Need for
Speed with don't really Need. Then there's the racing sims, like Nascar,
F1, Grand Prix 4, etc. Lots of racing games on the PC still, IMHO.
> - An occational flight and space sim.
Seems like they keep pumping out flight sims even though they all seem the
same to me, but then I just don't play those kinds of games anymore. We
should get Freelancer someday soon, but how many space sims do we really
need every year anyway?
> - Massive Multiplayer Online games (of the above genres).
Only recently available for consoles...
> - Puzzle games (on occation)
Tons of puzzle games actually. Just not that many that make the news.
> - Games that come out of developer's garages.
Yep, lots of "indie" development, which doesn't exist on consoles.
> - Richard Hutnik
What genre is this?
Briarroot
>
> Briarroot wrote:
> >
> > Sauron_UK wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > 6. PC is the first choice for FPS and RTS games.....often the domain of the
> > > mature gamer.
> >
> > lmao! You've *got* to be kidding. :-)
>
> stfu, n00bz0rz! <-- my impression of the typical "mature" FPS/RTS gamer.
> :)
Heheh - so true. I would hate to experience the immature style! ;-)
Gandalf Parker
news:37bc9e37.03021...@posting.google.com:
>
> I can name genres that are no longer on the PC:
> - Action sports titles
> - Fighting games (never really had them much, but now no one even
> tries). This includes wrestling games, boxing games, and Street
> Fighter type games.
> - Platformer/mascot games. Well, you do get a few retro type titles
> coming out of garages.
> - Light gun games.
> - Anything type of game that appears in arcades now. Ok, you get a
> few budget titles that try to clone, but they are hadly anything. No
> dance dance revolution games either.
> - Multiplayer split screen action/party games.
As Ive always said, the joystick games. Most computers prior to nes
actually had joysticks that came with them. How many do now? Or light
guns. The games which seem to love the PC are games with keyboards and
mouse. Maybe these two distinctions are coming closer together but Im not
sure that either one will kill the other.
If nothing else, its kindof hard to develop a console game using a
console. Maybe that will change also.
Gandalf Parker
Steve Hilberg
>But who knows... maybe in the future, when Intel, ATI or Geforce want
>to ramp up their hardware sales, they will make joint advertisements
>with PC game makers and have the "works best with Intel/Geforce" ads
>at the end of Doom3 commercials. :) And Microsoft doesn't help any
>because everyone already knows all PC games run only on MS OS anyway.
>Maybe if OS/2 was still around, you'd see Microsoft also advertising
>"Windows games" on TV?
I've actually already seen this in print: combination ads for the GeForce
and Ghost Recon, I believe -- I think I saw an AMD one too. PC World was
the mag, it think.
--
Steve Hilberg <Necromancer> CITES Workstation Services Group
<hil...@uiuc.edu> KB9TEV
I don't even know what CITES stands
for, so I don't speak for them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"As we were forged we shall return, perhaps some day. | VNV Nation,
I will remember you and wonder who we were." | "Further"
Richard Hutnik
out on EB:
<http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/categories/products/deptpage.asp?wherefrom=comingsoon&web_dept=PC+Games>
An interesting thing is that bulk of them are in the $20-$30 range.
Well, onto the post....
Knight37 <knig...@email.com> wrote in message news:<Xns93272CC48...@130.133.1.4>...
> richar...@hotmail.com (Richard Hutnik) once tried to test me with:
>
> > Knight37 <knig...@email.com> wrote in message
> > news:<Xns93267F410...@130.133.1.4>...
> >> richar...@hotmail.com (Richard Hutnik) once tried to test me
> >> with:
> >>
> >> > The days of PCs as the dominant gaming platform (dating crash
> >> > and post-crash) are over though.
> >>
> >> That's just it. The PC has never been the dominant gaming platform.
> >> Console systems have ALWAYS sold way more units than the PC has.
> >
> > Actually pre-NES it was, and things kind of help until the NES really
> > took off.
>
> The NES was released in 1985. The IBM XT, hardly a gaming monster, was
> released in 1983. The IBM computers weren't even considered a serious
> gaming machine until the release of the EGA adapter (1984) and the Adlib
> sound card (1987). Sound Blaster didn't even come along until 1988. Prior
> to the NES, the Commodore 64 (1982) and the Apple 8-bit series (early 80's)
> were the most popular computers for gamers. Prior to those platforms there
> were other computers that could play games but most everyone had an Atari
> 2600 (1977-1985) or an Intellivision (1979-1985), or possibly Colecovision
> (1981-1986). But after NES came out, it dominated video gaming.
Home computers (now bearing the name PCs) are what dominated the
videogame business post crash, pre-NES. They were also a viable
alernative to consoles back then. Of course, the business was small
potatoes compared to now. It was funny that, back then, people were
predicting that home computers would replace cart based systems. It
took the NES, and beyond to establish consoles as a viable gaming
platform, and the Playstation 1 to show that consoles are to be the
dominant platform. Now, one has to take seriously the decline of PC
gaming as something actual. Not that it would go away, but that it is
become a niche thing, akin to the Mac. Most people don't want to put
up with the hassle of PC gaming. They don't know the specs either of
their boxes. I ask the average joe in an EB what kind of computer
they have, and they tell me the brand name. They don't even know what
kind of 3D card is in their, its speed, or whatever. Face it, the
reality is, people don't want to know these things.
> > PC sales have declined recently as the whole video form of
> > entertainment (PC/consoles) became entrenches as big money. Budgets
> > got much bigger and guess what gets the lion's share of development
> > now? It is consoles. PC's still get niche stuff, but they aren't
> > getting the budgets as much. Still, they are a form of entry in the
> > business by developers and there are still niche areas PC games serve.
>
> Consoles games have always been bigger sellers than PC games.
But now, you are watching consoles be permanently established as the
default gaming platform, something that wasn't the case post-crash
through the 16 bit wars.
> > I can name genres that are no longer on the PC:
> > - Action sports titles
>
> Action sports titles like the Madden series?
As far as I know, these are going to dry up. I thought I read that
even Electronic Arts is going to drop sports on the PC. At the very
least, the only football title you get on the PC is Madden. No one
else even tries. I speak action based titles of course.
> > - Fighting games (never really had them much, but now no one even
> > tries). This includes wrestling games, boxing games, and Street
> > Fighter type games.
>
> These games always sucked on the PC. I think someone is working on or maybe
> even already has out a sequel to One Must Fall, one of the better ones. The
> main problem with this genre on the PC is that it's weak to sit in front of
> a computer desk to fight it out with friends. It works much better on the
> couch in front of a (preferably big screen) TV. Combine that with
> controllers that were never as tight or responsive as a console controller
> and you get a dead genre...
And the converse side is this is why RTS's and FPS's tend to appear on
the PC mostly. Of course, Herzog Zwei was one of the first RTS titles
and it appeared on a console.
> > - Platformer/mascot games. Well, you do get a few retro type titles
> > coming out of garages.
>
> You get those and Rayman 2 and maybe a handful of others. The real issue
> here is that other than Sega's Sonic, most of the console makers have
> guarded their mascots like they were gold, never letting them appear on any
> other console. Seems like the PC got one of the Gex games. We got some
> Frogger ones too. Not sure what else, I don't play those much.
They aren't being done now, except as garage games. If they ever
appear they are in cheap jewel cases. It is just NOW, with the PC
declining as a gaming platform, these titles have gone away from it.
> > - Light gun games.
>
> It would be kind of stupid to make a game for a device that maybe 10 people
> have for their PC. :)
There isn't a demand either for them. Chicken and the egg here. Yes,
light gun GAMES WERE tried in the past (House of the Dead anyone?).
BUT, they aren't there now.
> > - Anything type of game that appears in arcades now.
>
> Haha, you mean fighting, racing, or light gun. That's about all they have
> in arcades these days. :)
You forgot Dance Dance Revolution games. :-)
> > Ok, you get a
> > few budget titles that try to clone, but they are hadly anything. No
> > dance dance revolution games either.
>
> Thank god for that.
Be kind of silly doing such on the PC. BUT, I won't blast Dance Dance
revolution games because, at least, they try to do something different
in the arcades.
> > - Multiplayer split screen action/party games.
>
> Again, this would go against the nature of the platform. People do not like
> to sit in the home office crowded around a 17" PC screen to play a party
> game. Besides, at least one game supports split screen action (although
> AFAIK, its almost never used) Serious Sam.
I know about Serious Sam, which I think was done merely to show their
engine supported it. The split screen action would most likely be
used for other things in other games. And yes, it goes against the
nature of the PC as a platform. Then again, its configuration
probably only lends well to a few genres. Genres where you don't mind
being by yourself physically.
> > What you do get:
> > - RTS and turn-base strategy (this includes C&C clones, God games, and
> > sims)
>
> and there's not many good ones of this genre on consoles...
They don't come off well. The TV screen sucks for these.
> > - FPS's.
> there's only a handful of good ones on the consoles...
Halo mostly. Of course, I would give my pitch for Metroid Prime. It
isn't fullblown FPS, but it controls well IMHO.
> > - Adventure and RPG games.
> those are 2 genres, adventure is slowly plodding along, pining for the
> fjords, but RPGs on the PC are stronger than ever and distinctly different
> than the RPG genre on the consoles.
The best tend to be on these, unless you think of Japanese style
linear RPGs who fans keep screaming that "an RPG is an RPG because of
the STORY!" and they blast the likes of Morrowind. I tell you, some
people just don't have a clue :-).
> > - Low graphically intensive sports sims.
>
> Since I'm not into sports games I'll take your word for it. :)
Front Office Football, etc... You could put these under strategy
games, as they are. They are just sports themed.
> > - Driving games (occationally. These are drying up except budget
> > titles)
>
> There's tons of budget titles and we also recently got yet another Need for
> Speed with don't really Need. Then there's the racing sims, like Nascar,
> F1, Grand Prix 4, etc. Lots of racing games on the PC still, IMHO.
Yes, budget titles.
> > - An occational flight and space sim.
>
> Seems like they keep pumping out flight sims even though they all seem the
> same to me, but then I just don't play those kinds of games anymore. We
> should get Freelancer someday soon, but how many space sims do we really
> need every year anyway?
The flight sims address different vehicles and such. As for space
sims, similar. At least different worlds involved and such. But your
comment does address the reasons why they aren't that many.
> > - Massive Multiplayer Online games (of the above genres).
> Only recently available for consoles...
Will see how it pans out.
> > - Puzzle games (on occation)
> Tons of puzzle games actually. Just not that many that make the news.
Garage games.
> > - Games that come out of developer's garages.
> Yep, lots of "indie" development, which doesn't exist on consoles.
The barrier of entry is real low. Heck, my games in Zillions can be
considered these.
> > - Richard Hutnik
> What genre is this?
I don't know. I wonder that myself :-P
- Richard Hutnik :-)
Jeff Thomas
Some inaccuracies here.
> > - Action sports titles
Nearly every year, they're churning out new sports titles, like popular FIFA
soccer or Rugby series and various other sports from time to time.
> > - Fighting games (never really had them much, but now no one even
> > tries). This includes wrestling games, boxing games, and Street
> > Fighter type games.
The PC has never been strong in this area, but a few did get the conversion
treatment like "Mortal Kombat" series and a new title is already under
development for release on PC this year.
> > - Platformer/mascot games. Well, you do get a few retro type titles
> > coming out of garages.
The "Oddworld" series are brilliant platform games on PC.
These days, most of the former platform games are becoming immersed into
first-person 3D action/adventure-type games in similar vain as "Tomb Raider"
series. An excellent example of this would be "Prince of Persia 3D".
> > - Light gun games.
No wonder, considering its largely available for game consoles. Where can I
buy one for PC?
> > - Anything type of game that appears in arcades now. Ok, you get a
> > few budget titles that try to clone, but they are hadly anything. No
> > dance dance revolution games either.
Usually, the arcade games in arcade paroles are more complex and powerful
than your average home PC. Therefore, it won't play back very well.
> > - Multiplayer split screen action/party games.
This so, old-hat. Its more fun to challenge your mates over a network with
dozens of players than cramming behind one computer or connecting two game
consoles together for triple/fourth-player games.
> As Ive always said, the joystick games. Most computers prior to nes
> actually had joysticks that came with them. How many do now? Or light
> guns. The games which seem to love the PC are games with keyboards and
> mouse. Maybe these two distinctions are coming closer together but Im not
> sure that either one will kill the other.
I still find the combination of keyboard and mouse, easier than either a
joystick or handheld controller. Lots of these games, don't translate well on
a console. My contenders are: RPGs, Flight Sims, First-person shooters and
God games.
> If nothing else, its kindof hard to develop a console game using a console.
Maybe > that will change also.
Titles on the Playstation, are originally designed using a PC. Its the cost
of the licensing agreements and access to development software that are
prohibitive to the ordinary users.
Allan C Cybulskie
"Nick G." wrote:
> On 18 Feb 2003 07:43:58 -0800, richar...@hotmail.com (Richard
> Hutnik) wrote:
>
> So keeping all this in mind, why do you think only now the cost and
> hassles of PC gaming are turning the masses to consoles, and killing
> PC gaming? Just because it took you two decades to figure that one out
> for yourself, and everyone in the world does exactly the same
> decisions at precisely the same times as you?
Several reasons:
1) Most of the applications don't require anywhere near the top-end of
systems that games require now, nor are they likely to for a while. I
don't think even the OS needs more than more RAM anymore.
2) Most casual users have applications that do everything they need it to
do (most applications have little room for improvement) and so don't really
feel the need to upgrade to get better applications.
3) The internet does not require all that speedy systems (bandwidth is the
larger concern).
4) Consoles are no longer merely gaming consoles, but can be used in the
heart of your home entertainment system. Thus, they are now more versatile
than they were before.
Take all of these together, and add the cost and hassle of the PCs, and
you're going to see the PC gaming market in a wee spot of trouble. It'll
probably never die, but it may become marginal.
Ajay Tanwar
news:3E5403B8...@usa.net:
> This so, old-hat. Its more fun to challenge your mates over a
> network with dozens of players than cramming behind one computer
> or connecting two game consoles together for triple/fourth-player
> games.
Drinking beer by yourself really sucks though. LAN parties are the
answer, but they take a lot of planning.
--
Ajay Tanwar | MCSE | ajta...@spam.yahoo.com
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people
in large groups." -Despair.com
Devo
<abuse@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:
>alvinst...@hotmail.com (Alvin) wrote in
>news:d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com:
> Generally the safest bet
>to make is that NOTHING dies.
>Gandalf Parker
Tell that to 3dfx...if you can :)
--------------
Devo
Aristotle
>So, yes, in the future I think console hardware will be upgradeable and
>interchangeable, while still being plug and play and catering to that type
>of audience.
How can you think this when the success and growth of the console hinges
almost entirely on the fact that people do not HAVE to upgrade.
The whole upgrade problem is one of the main reasons people are flocking away
from the PC and towards the console.
What you say here makes no sense and completely ignores the REAL trend in the
marketplace.
-Aristotle@Threshold
--
THRESHOLD RPG - Where Roleplaying is not an option, it's a requirement.
Player run clans, guilds, legal system, economy, religions, nobility, and
more. Roleplay online with thousands of people from all over the world.
http://www.threshold-rpg.com -**- telnet://threshold-rpg.com:23
Aristotle
>Nonsense. Talking trash is part of online gaming. Most people don't
>use it because it's a hassle to bother with downloading Roger WIlco or
>whatever.
Listening to a server full of 11 year olds say FUCK every 3 seconds is not
trash talking, it is a gruesomely painful annoyance.
And yes, that is what XBOX live is.
>The gap is closing though. Usually, you only notice the huge
>difference in quality towards the end life of the console which is 5
>years.
The gap is not closing. The day the PS2 came out PC graphics were already
vastly superior. TV technology is not even CLOSE to monitor technology. That
alone ensures that consoles will not even approach PC quality graphics.
>If the money is not there, then the market will go away. Companies
>are not going to spend millions of dollars to make a PC game that does
>not profit. The existance of PC's does not necessarily prove that
>games will be around. Non-gaming software will always be around.
This shows that you do not have a working knowledge of the evolution of
computers.
Aristotle
>If I were forced to it, I'd say someone who has PC and consoles (at
>least two) would better qualify as a "serious" gamer" than someone who
>restricts their choices.
Ack! What am I then? Between my wife and I, we have about 10 PCs and all 3
current generation consoles (not to mention 2 Dreamcasts)....
*shudders in fear*
Ajay Tanwar
news:Gd05a.8184$is6....@fe07.atl2.webusenet.com:
> In article <3E51B9CD...@attbi.com>, "E. Deirdre Brooks"
> <kalima...@attbi.com> wrote:
>>If I were forced to it, I'd say someone who has PC and consoles
>>(at least two) would better qualify as a "serious" gamer" than
>>someone who restricts their choices.
>
> Ack! What am I then? Between my wife and I, we have about 10 PCs
> and all 3 current generation consoles (not to mention 2
> Dreamcasts)....
I think that makes you Gamer Jesus.
Aristotle
>f...@f.com (Aristotle) wrote in
>news:Gd05a.8184$is6....@fe07.atl2.webusenet.com:
>
>> In article <3E51B9CD...@attbi.com>, "E. Deirdre Brooks"
>> <kalima...@attbi.com> wrote:
>>>If I were forced to it, I'd say someone who has PC and consoles
>>>(at least two) would better qualify as a "serious" gamer" than
>>>someone who restricts their choices.
>>
>> Ack! What am I then? Between my wife and I, we have about 10 PCs
>> and all 3 current generation consoles (not to mention 2
>> Dreamcasts)....
>
>I think that makes you Gamer Jesus.
Blech!
E. Deirdre Brooks
>
> In article <3E51B9CD...@attbi.com>, "E. Deirdre Brooks" <kalima...@attbi.com> wrote:
> >If I were forced to it, I'd say someone who has PC and consoles (at
> >least two) would better qualify as a "serious" gamer" than someone who
> >restricts their choices.
>
> Ack! What am I then? Between my wife and I, we have about 10 PCs and all 3
> current generation consoles (not to mention 2 Dreamcasts)....
> *shudders in fear*
Why, you'd be one of those guys other people like to hang around so they
can play with your consoles.
You should probably start up a webcolumn and comic strip and find a
sidekick.
--
E. D. Brooks | kalima...@attbi.com | US2002021724
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
AeonAdventure | "Why, in my day, we used to fight the Lord of
Terror with nothing but a sharp stick!" -- www.reallifecomics.com
hermyhermit
news:Xns9325988983C36ga...@216.168.3.30...
> Ive seen alot of "this will die off"predictions about langauges,
> operating systems, various ways of ding things. Generally the safest bet
> to make is that NOTHING dies. Something else might take the lead or hog
> the limelight to the point that it SEEMS like the only thing going on,
> but nothing dies.
>
> Gandalf Parker
Played any good games using the GLIDE API lately from 3Dfx?
Ahh wait, nothing ever dies let me go dig out my copy of Tomb Raider.....
need I make more examples of how flawed this logic is?
hermyhermit
news:Fxe4a.67414$a95....@fe05.atl2.webusenet.com...
> In article <d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com>,
alvinst...@hotmail.com (Alvin) wrote:
>
> >3. PC games have the best graphics - Yes, PC games can always stay on
> >the cutting eye with eye candy, but games are usually not optimized
> >for the latest and greatest video card. Right now, Unreal 2 is the
> >cutting edge, and it does not look much better than Halo on my TV.
>
>
> Sorry, but my 1600x1200 resolution Sony Trinitron 21" monitor and GeForce4
> 4600 Ti simply DESTROY *any* console and my Mitsubishi 66" HDTV.
>
> The difference in graphics power and resolution are extreme. The PC
completely
> obliterates the console in this area.
>
I was just about to say the same thing. To even REMOTELY compare even a
game that supports 480p on an HDTV with a game running in upwards of
1280x1024 on a 21" monitor.
The guy must be legally blind... its the only explanation how you could even
make such a statement.
Livid
the Collective assimilated the following from Ajay Tanwar:
> Drinking beer by yourself really sucks though. LAN parties are the
> answer, but they take a lot of planning.
You must be drinking the wrong beer, then.
Gandalf Parker
news:aL2dneaMFJI...@speakeasy.net:
> "Gandalf Parker" <abuse@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
> news:Xns9325988983C36ga...@216.168.3.30...
>> alvinst...@hotmail.com (Alvin) wrote in
>> news:d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com:
>> Ive been on the net since before WWW, since before PC's.
>> Ive seen alot of "this will die off"predictions about langauges,
>> operating systems, various ways of ding things. Generally the safest
>> bet to make is that NOTHING dies. Something else might take the lead
>> or hog the limelight to the point that it SEEMS like the only thing
>> going on, but nothing dies.
>
> Played any good games using the GLIDE API lately from 3Dfx?
>
> Ahh wait, nothing ever dies let me go dig out my copy of Tomb
> Raider..... need I make more examples of how flawed this logic is?
Using a specific to cover a general thing is flawed. Thats like me
saying that squirrels are not in danger of extinction and you point out
that you saw a dead squirrel in the road.
I dont remember anyone predicting the death of the 3Dfx API, or the
death of tomb raider. Although, when I see it put that way Id still have
to say theres argument. Since 3Dfx went open source at the end and still
has a large programming base, especially on linux. And tomb raider as a
franchise is still making money even if your one copy is too old for
you.
Please, try again.
Gandalf Parker
John Smith
"Gandalf Parker" <abuse@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
news:Xns9325988983C36ga...@216.168.3.30...
> alvinst...@hotmail.com (Alvin) wrote in
> news:d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com:
>
> > that the games will not die off completely, but we will only see a
> > handful of high profile games like Doom 3, Thief 3, and Rainbow Six
> > which will show up on all platforms. PC gaming will become just like
> > gaming on a MAC. Limited releases.
>
> Ive seen alot of "this will die off"predictions about langauges,
> operating systems, various ways of ding things. Generally the safest bet
> to make is that NOTHING dies. Something else might take the lead or hog
> the limelight to the point that it SEEMS like the only thing going on,
> but nothing dies.
>
When you come right done to it, there'll always be alot of folks
who need a computer for a variety of reasons, and
will spend a few bucks on some games for it, but who aren't
willing to spend a couple hundred bucks for a system that
only does gaming. Most computer owners are casual gamers
at best; among my co-workers (a bunch of engineers) most
of us own at least a few computer games, but only one
has any kind of console (one guy has an old nintendo).
L'acrobat
"Alvin" <alvinst...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d2ec46.030217...@posting.google.com...
> This topic has been debated many times, and both sides have valid
> points. Really, no one knows exactly what will happen with pc gaming
> in the years to come, but here are my thoughts on some of the
> arguments:
>
>
> 1. PC games will always survive because we have the multiplayer
> community, mods, patches etc...
>
>
> Once a solid argument, this point falls flat in the face of the
> Xbox. Xbox live is actually offers a more solid multiplayer
> experience by eliminating cheaters, hackers, and voice communication
> rather than type chat. Voice chat offers a more realistic experience
> especially with games like Ghost Recon where teamwork is important.
> Xbox live will offer free downloads, and patches are possible with the
> Xbox HD.
>
You can do voice chat with PCs.
You can eliminate cheaters without an Xbox.
>
> 2. PC games are superior - not necessarily true, anymore. We are
> sending the pendulum swing in a different direction these days.
> Before, the PC games would be ported to consoles. Now, PC gamers are
> being forced to wait for the consoles games like Halo and Splinter
> Cell to port over.
>
Purely subjective, 'superiority' depends on the type of game you like.
When does HoI or MOO3 release for Xbox?
>
> 3. PC games have the best graphics - Yes, PC games can always stay on
> the cutting eye with eye candy, but games are usually not optimized
> for the latest and greatest video card. Right now, Unreal 2 is the
> cutting edge, and it does not look much better than Halo on my TV.
> Also, consoles have processors optimized for gaming only. PC
> processors are bogged down by the OS, and have to compute thousands of
> calculations that are not related to gaming.
The fact is most consoles are on a 2 year upgrade cycle, for the 6 months
after release a console is competitive, for the next 18 months it just falls
further behind - go have a look at a game that came out for a console that
is 18 months old and compare it to the latest PC releases.
>
> 4. Consoles have the advantage of predictability - face it, PC games
> are unpredictable. In December, I enjoyed problem free games of BF
> 1942. Now, I will not buy Road to Rome. I would love to enjoy the
> game, and I have the hardware, yet for no obvious reason, I now get
> "corrupt data" when I try to load a map in MP. The same map will load
> after I restart again. Then there is the jerky online play with
> "connection lost" every 30 secs. I paid for the hardware, and full
> price of the game, and now I am not getting the experience promised to
> me by the box. At least, consoles can deliver without being worried
> if your game is goign to run with each startup.
If you can't make your PC work, stick to consoles.
>
>
> 5. As long as there are PCs , there will be PC games - Now, this
> argument is just stupid. PCs can exist and sell without computer
> games. Most people do not drop several hundred dollars to use their
> computers for gaming only. I can bet that everyone here will still
> own a PC even if games are extinct.
The above argument is just stupid.
Since you must buy a PC to do most of the things you do on a PC - why buy a
console at all?
Most consoles are given to kids to keep them out of the way and off the real
computer.
>
>
> I hate to knock PC gaming, but it stinks sometimes. My prediction is
> that the games will not die off completely, but we will only see a
> handful of high profile games like Doom 3, Thief 3, and Rainbow Six
> which will show up on all platforms. PC gaming will become just like
> gaming on a MAC. Limited releases.
I would love to have a dollar for every time I've heard the above nonsense -
computer gaming has been about to die in the face of the incredible (insert
console of choice) since the days of the Apple II, the fact is a console is
limited to only one use, games - to make it able to compete with a PC, it
has to become one - picking up all the advantages of the PC to balance the
disadvantages of a PC.
Consoles will always be good for kids, but grown ups need a computer and
since they have one, theuy might as well play their games on it rather than
buy a second cut down computer to do it.
L'acrobat
> Furthermore, the much touted ability for the XBOX to support mods,
patches,
> etc is nothing but hot air. Nobody is using it. The PC still annihilates
the
> console in the areas of multiplayer, mods, and patching.
>
Just out of curiosity, if you wanted to develop mods for an Xbox, wouldn't
you need a PC to do it on?
Aristotle
>Aristotle wrote:
>>
>> In article <3E51B9CD...@attbi.com>, "E. Deirdre Brooks"
> <kalima...@attbi.com> wrote:
>> >If I were forced to it, I'd say someone who has PC and consoles (at
>> >least two) would better qualify as a "serious" gamer" than someone who
>> >restricts their choices.
>>
>> Ack! What am I then? Between my wife and I, we have about 10 PCs and all 3
>> current generation consoles (not to mention 2 Dreamcasts)....
>> *shudders in fear*
>
>Why, you'd be one of those guys other people like to hang around so they
>can play with your consoles.
Aha! So that explains it! Our friends are actually just freeloading game
addicts! **sob**
>You should probably start up a webcolumn and comic strip and find a
>sidekick.
Hmmmm.
E. Deirdre Brooks
>
> In article <3E557DC1...@attbi.com>, "E. Deirdre Brooks" <kalima...@attbi.com> wrote:
> >Aristotle wrote:
> >>
> >> In article <3E51B9CD...@attbi.com>, "E. Deirdre Brooks"
> > <kalima...@attbi.com> wrote:
> >> >If I were forced to it, I'd say someone who has PC and consoles (at
> >> >least two) would better qualify as a "serious" gamer" than someone who
> >> >restricts their choices.
> >>
> >> Ack! What am I then? Between my wife and I, we have about 10 PCs and all 3
> >> current generation consoles (not to mention 2 Dreamcasts)....
> >> *shudders in fear*
> >
> >Why, you'd be one of those guys other people like to hang around so they
> >can play with your consoles.
>
> Aha! So that explains it! Our friends are actually just freeloading game
> addicts! **sob**
Exactly. They only love you for your XBox. Or your PS2. Or your LAN.
PROBABLY the LAN.
> >You should probably start up a webcolumn and comic strip and find a
> >sidekick.
>
> Hmmmm.
All you need to do is record witty conversations (even on a palm/visor)
and put them in some cartoony art. :)