12 Ways Consoles Are Hurting PC Gaming

[sakichop]

You shouldn't if you don't want to. However, expecting the "impossible" will set you up for disappointment after disappointment. A "reality check" now and again goes a long way to not only keep you expectations at a realistic level but also to understand WHY the result is as it is.

Besides, as far as I'm concerned DA2 DOES deliver.


It is not a fallacy. The whole argument of point number 3 is about pushing the limits of hardware/technology and in order to do that you need state of the art equipment. Hence the need to upgrade every time something new comes along. I wasn't talking about being able to run a game at medium/low settings on an aging PC.

But playing games on medium to low settings on an aging pc is console gaming.

My problem is that the console has nothing to offer the pc a game made for the console first then ported over always feels lacking. Da2 for example.

Whereas a game developed for the pc then ported over to the console can be excellent. Dao for example.

Whether its right or not devs will see console gamers as more actiony and requiring less depth than pc gamers.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

But playing games on medium to low settings on an aging pc is console gaming.

No.

To me, this is an over-simplification.

Playing a game on easy or on medium settings could simply mean that the player does NOT want to make combat his or her focus !

Or this would mean that the "I fight, therefore I play a role" system is the primary focus of ANY role-playing game ...

 

[sakichop]

No.

To me, this is an over-simplification.

Playing a game on easy or on medium settings could simply mean that the player does NOT want to make combat his or her focus !

Or this would mean that the "I fight, therefore I play a role" system is the primary focus of ANY role-playing game …

I meant graphic settings not difficulty.

 

[fatBastard()]

But playing games on medium to low settings on an aging pc is console gaming.

My problem is that the console has nothing to offer the pc a game made for the console first then ported over always feels lacking. Da2 for example.

If staying on the cutting edge of technology is a requirement for you then I can see how this is a problem.

It is not for me though. I'm perfectly happy with the current gen of graphics that games like, for instance, Assissin's Creed, Bulletstorm, or even Dragon Age 2 provides. I don't need anything else. For all its' bells and whistles Crysis was still a mediocre shooter, so I honestly prefer the time and effort of the developers are put to better use than more or less unnecessary graphical enhancements.

To each their own.

 

[DoctorNarrative]

It is not a fallacy. The whole argument of point number 3 is about pushing the limits of hardware/technology and in order to do that you need state of the art equipment. Hence the need to upgrade every time something new comes along. I wasn't talking about being able to run a game at medium/low settings on an aging PC.

The way I read your post I took that as a reason you shifted to consoles, not as a response to the article. Having to upgrade "every 6 months" to be a PC gamer is a MASSIVE fallacy. You can still play every game released on the PC with an 8800 at better than console settings and that card is almost 5 years old.

 

[Zloth]

The root issue is a lack of HW standardization -> the net result is an extra layer between HW + SW called the API(aka DX11). Which adds huge overhead… Imagine if devs could program directly to the HW!?!

I don't have to imagine it, I lived it. We had that back in the DOS and Windows 3.11 days. Horrible. You know how there are sometimes issues where AMD cards work fine but NVIDIA cards break (or vice versa)? Imagine that being ten times worse.

Oh wait, but you are saying hardware standardization. Errr, how do you do that? Force NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel to all merge?

To the article…

This all reminds me of the missionary problem that can come up in churches. You go out, try to convince people to join, wear you nametags, and so on… and it works. Suddenly you come to church and find all the parking spaces are full! Ah, what a wonderful problem to have, eh? A few months later, a large group of these strangers are asking the choirmaster to play a bunch of hymns you've never heard before, crowding out your favorite hymns. Hmmm… A year later, they are getting elected to committees and changing when the service times are, adding/removing celebrations entirely, and espousing religious viewpoints that are … different, to say the least. Eventually you find yourself wondering if this church is really your church anymore.

The same thing has happened with gaming. The gamers have been saying out great gaming can be even for adults. Unfortunately, the so & so's finally saw that we were right and now they are swarming into the hobby - and changing everything around to suit themselves!

Though there's one big one that doesn't fit so well - checkpoint saves. Who likes those!? Even the previous generation of consoles didn't really need them, never mind today's consoles with multi-gigabyte hard drives.

 

[MasterKromm]

I don't have to imagine it, I lived it. We had that back in the DOS and Windows 3.11 days. Horrible. You know how there are sometimes issues where AMD cards work fine but NVIDIA cards break (or vice versa)? Imagine that being ten times worse.

That's a fair point, but you're talking pre 1995… It wasn't even until around that time that almost all GPU makers implemented 2d acceleration support. To keep a long story short, SW has fallen behind HW. Bypassing the API(in most cases DirectX) would also cut MS out of the equation - which is always a win. As you say, it is worth mentioning that the API still has it's uses - with respect to stability and compatibility. But are we at a point that the application programming interface is what defines(limits) the PC gaming experience?

Oh wait, but you are saying hardware standardization. Errr, how do you do that? Force NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel to all merge?

Don't be crass, of course I wasn't suggesting such a thing… Only pointing out the obvious strength of console gaming as a platform. Which(IMO) ties into the original article… Many console devs take full/near full advantage of their platform's computational power by coding directly to the hardware - because it is standard.

The PC's lack of focus/standardization will always leave it under utilized/inefficient in terms max theoretical computational power per real world performance. Dropping $250(and in many cases much more for top performance) on a GPU upgrade to see a minimal increase in performance or IQ is something that is inexcusable when considering the raw power of modern day GFX cards.

You don't have to agree with me, in fact you may be right… Implementation of a direct to hw coding approach may be nigh impossible(yielding instability and compatibility issues - this becomes an even larger issue with older HW sporting different uarchs). That doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted, or at least cut down the bloat that is directx.

FWIW, I'm probably done with PC gaming until there is a big shakeup… Both in terms of HW and games themselves(admittedly I'll keep my current multi-purpose/gaming PC for the occasional worthwhile indy and TW2 when it comes out). Which brings me to my main beef, console isn't hurting PC. The PC's inability to differentiate itself and innovate, both in terms of graphics and gameplay, is the real issue.

 

[JDR13]

Which brings me to my main beef, console isn't hurting PC. The PC's inability to differentiate itself and innovate, both in terms of graphics and gameplay, is the real issue.

It's not an inability to innovate as much as it's an inability to take that risk for most companies. Since they're making a lot more money on consoles, and the emphasis is on maximizing profit, they're going to continue to develope for consoles first.

 

[sakichop]

If staying on the cutting edge of technology is a requirement for you then I can see how this is a problem.

I am a bit of a technology whore, but cutting edge tech is definitely not a top requirement for my games. I'm currently playing the witcher, da2 and toee and if they made another ie game tomorrow with no changes to the engine I'd buy it day one.

It is not for me though. I'm perfectly happy with the current gen of graphics that games like, for instance, Assissin's Creed, Bulletstorm, or even Dragon Age 2 provides. I don't need anything else .

That seems a bit short sighted. I'm sure when black and white tv's came out people were satisfied but I wouldn't want to watch one now.

For all its' bells and whistles Crysis was still a mediocre shooter, so I honestly prefer the time and effort of the developers are put to better use than more or less unnecessary graphical enhancements.

To each their own.

I think you miss the point creating a game for the console first doesn't just mean less graphics. the power that a pc provides would allow for a better game overall.
Better Ai, path finding, more people on screen, more believable worlds with wildlife and npc with their own schedules, better day night cycles, basically just about any thing you can think of will benefit from the extra resources that pc's provide. Bioware even admitted that the reason kirkwall felt so empty was because of console limitations (frame rates).I think the console becomes a very easy excuse for devs to use.

This is not a problem of just the console (Although i think it makes it worse with how long in between new hardware releases.) even when games are made for pc they are made with the least common denominator in mind. I wish they'd make them for the highest common denominator and the let everyone turn down the settings if need be. That will never happen of course because everyone believes that they have some god given right to play every game at full settings. I'm not sure where this since of entitlement comes from i'd love to live in a million dollar home and drive a Lamborghini but cant so I don't.

I don't hate consoles I own everyone of them but I do believe by making games for them first you put a ceiling on the games you can make, which sets us back about 3 yrs versus developing for the highend pc's then letting people scale back as necessary.

 

[MasterKromm]

It's not an inability to innovate as much as it's an inability to take that risk for most companies. Since they're making a lot more money on consoles, and the emphasis is on maximizing profit, they're going to continue to develope for consoles first.

This is a valid point, and I agree to an extent… As far as gameplay innovation(or lack thereof), yes that has more to do with risk aversion. Conversely, the PC's inability to differentiate itself and innovate is contextually relevant when considering the inherent weaknesses of being restricted to a bloated API such as DirectX which has all kinds of overhead... I'm far from an expert as I have very limited coding experience(C++ during my uni years). But, if ATI or Nvidia opened up their inner workings perhaps we could have devs/engine designers put together their own APIs? It might be a decent compromise that mitigates MS's involvement in the PC gaming equation(IMO they have no proven interest in PC gaming), gives devs more access to low level coding and still keeps up stability + compatibility.

 

[SAGO]

whats a console? are those the things that all those proles keep talking about?

do enlighten me, dear gayming virgins.

 

[Maylander]

My take on it:

1) The glitchy port: Agreed. I don't like it one bit.

2) Dumbed down sequels: I don't really agree that it's a problem with sequels - it's a problem in general.

3) Tech: I don't really care about graphics.

4) Lousy interfaces/controls: Indeed, I want hotkeys damn it! I want to press M for map, J for journal and I for inventory!

5) No mods: I generally don't use a lot of mods, so this doesn't bother me that much.

6) The great divide: It's getting silly, but on the PC we have a similar one - Apple vs MS. I try to stay out of it alltogether. Still, it's not a problem exclusively related to consoles.

7) Auto-save: I like auto-save, but I don't like check points being the only saving mechanism. I believe the article is referring mainly to the latter, in which case I agree.

8) Game for Windows: Imagine if they actually did something useful with this idea at some point? For now, it's useless, no doubt about it. And that video? Oh dear.

9) Being honest: Yes, I am getting a bit agitated by the whole "we're focusing on the PC!" when in reality everyone can see that they're not.

10) Kinecting the dots: Not sure where he wanted to go with this. Would there have been less restrictions on the PC? Probably. Then again, there probably wouldn't have been enough buyers to warrant its development on the PC.

11) Non-existent post release support: I only play MMOs multiplayer.

12) Dead-icated servers: Same as above.

Overall it seems I roughly agree with half of it. He did make some good points, certainly.

Note: I shamelessly copied fatBastard() and used his post as a template with certain changes.

 

[Tragos]

I don't agree that consoles are hurting my gaming , because of them my 2007 built machine can play everything in maximum settings .
I own a ps3 dedicated to pro evo gaming

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Just wanted to say that I thought further on what I had written earlier in this discussion : I noticed a pattern :

It is called embrace, extend & extinguish" - this is what currently Microsoft does with the "Windows Live" approach and with similar things.

Their "embracing & extending" approach can for example be found with SQL : They took SQL, added a few additional keywords/comands - and voilá ! : It is incompatible to the rest of the industry ! - At least the part beyond the "SQL language core" - there is a reason why it is called "MS-SQL". Oracle did this in parts, too.

This is their method : Take a thing, "embrace" it by adding it to the own "realm", and extending it by things that make it as incompatible to the rest of the industry as possible. And then - let the own market dominavce weigh in, thus eleminating any opposition by letting the OWN product be bought by the overwhelming mass …

Or, as Wikipedia puts it :

"Embrace, extend and extinguish,"[1] also known as "Embrace, extend and exterminate,"[2] is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found[3] was used internally by Microsoft[4] to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.

They plan to make the pc just like there precious xbox.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBPYdgy35KA&feature=player_embedded

1. Embracing the PC
2. extending it by transforming it into an xbox without an xbox shell
3. extinguish opposition because games not made for xboxes won't run on that platform anymore ...

 

[sakichop]

Yeah it has good points and bad points as you said. Get used to GFW as Microsoft plans to make it part of there next os. They plan to make the pc just like there precious xbox. Need evidence here is a video from an internal meeting at Microsoft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBPYdgy35KA&feature=player_embedded

Get use to pc avatars/more casual games/ and transactions.

that was awesome now I just need to turn myself into a 12 yr old girl and I can enjoy GFW.

 

[Dasale]

...Need evidence here is a video from an internal meeting at Microsoft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBPYdgy35KA&feature=player_embedded

Get use to pc avatars/more casual games/ and transactions.

Lol it's funny you didn't quote it wasn't targeted to you. It's for women, there's a little 5s passage for men and you get your weapons and war so be happy but clearly this is for women, not for you.

 

[Zloth]

Don't be crass, of course I wasn't suggesting such a thing… Only pointing out the obvious strength of console gaming as a platform.

I'm not being crass, that's just the only way I can see getting a common platform. All three major video companies have different strengths and weaknesses in their hardware. Each one of them is going to want to design this common hardware interface to favor their strengths and cover their weaknesses. I can't see any way they would ever come to an agreement unless one of them bought the other two out.

With DirectX (and OpenGL), though, you've got a third player deciding how things should work.

FWIW, I'm probably done with PC gaming until there is a big shakeup… Both in terms of HW and games themselves(admittedly I'll keep my current multi-purpose/gaming PC for the occasional worthwhile indy and TW2 when it comes out). Which brings me to my main beef, console isn't hurting PC. The PC's inability to differentiate itself and innovate, both in terms of graphics and gameplay, is the real issue.

I think adding a whole new dimension would certainly count on the graphics side of things! PS3 is trying to do this but games were already pushing the PS3 graphics to the limit. Asking it to do them in stereoscopic is asking a lot so they have to make special 3D versions of the games. Meanwhile PCs are able to do 3D just fine in most of the games coming out - even Bethesda games despite Bethesda saying they don't want to support 3D!

 

[sakichop]

Lol it's funny you didn't quote it wasn't targeted to you. It's for women, there's a little 5s passage for men and you get your weapons and war so be happy but clearly this is for women, not for you.

Yeah I know just having a little fun with it.

 

[Couchpotato]

Lol it's funny you didn't quote it wasn't targeted to you. It's for women, there's a little 5s passage for men and you get your weapons and war so be happy but clearly this is for women, not for you.

Didn't you know female gamers are on the rise. Now go away I tire of you already.