Is The Xbox The Cause Of The PC Gamer's Downfall? 194
Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial discussing whether the Xbox has grabbed much of the development effort and talent from the PC gaming scene, with the author arguing: "From what I've been able to gather, there just isn't much interest in PC games unless as an afterthought to a console release. Deus Ex 2 and Thief III are superb examples of this mindset." He continues of the Xbox: "Its introduction has clearly robbed a lot of the resources that used to be dedicated to making PC entertainment. This is fine if you're willing to buy an Xbox and support Microsoft directly that way. It's not fine if you're a PC gamer that wants what the PC can offer specifically, and not some watered down version of what you've come to expect from a company." Do you agree?
No.... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's funny (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft might not be too popular around here, but they sure aren't stupid or lacking in business sense, either way.
Rob
My Problem with the X=Box... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I wouldn't mind buying a PC X-Box kit (I'm not calling it an emulator since it wouldn't be emulating anything), I feel stupid maintaining two x86 PCs just because his Billness decided that's the way it should be. (Everyone talks about the extra X-box features, but really the feature set is dumbed down PC interface).
Cycles.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I for one don't ever plan on playing consoles... (Score:3, Insightful)
Feeling torn (Score:5, Insightful)
At first glance, the arguments for it being a bad thing are pretty damned strong. Deus Ex 2 was clearly crippled by the limitations imposed by console hardware. Halo is also widely believed to be "not the game it could have been", had it not been transformed into a console-first game. Console games have a reputation (among PC gamers) for being shallow button-mashing fests.
However, if you look at the issue with more of an open mind, there are some more positive aspects to this. KOTOR rocked... I've played it through twice and I can't see any way in which having the X-Box release harmed the game. Having an X-Box release no doubt increases the sales of these games dramatically, increasing the incentive for developers.
As I grow older, I find I care less and less about the factors that used to tie me to PC gaming. It's nice to be able to just stick the disk in the drive and play a game... no install procedure, no driver updates, no worrying over whether I need an upgrade. The issue of playing fpses on a console controller no longer really bothers me. A lot of my PC-fps playing friends say "that must suck, because you can't... like... turn around instantly". This kind of misses the point that a decent console fps will be engineered so that you don't need to and, in multiplayer, you're playing against people on a level playing field.
I don't think the current X-Box is going to make much more progress against the PC gaming market. I suspect (although I may be wrong) that titles like Farcry are, at last, pushing PC games beyond the technical capabilities of the current consoles. However, when the next-gen consoles arrive, PC gaming could be in very deep trouble indeed.
Re:No.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The PS2 and Gamecube would not have made me switch. People repeatedly say 'the Xbox has a lot of the same games as the PC, there are no real exclusives'. Fine, right. That shows that they are going for a similar crowd. I can play first person shooters on my Xbox, which was about 60% of what I played on the PC. There are also the racing/sports/3rd person shooters and now I'm set.
The Gamecube and PS2 don't target the same audience. I wouldn't buy a Gamecube if they were only ONE buck, because it doesn't have the games I want to play.
So for me, and a few of my friends, the Xbox is the one that stopped me from buying any PC games in the past 18 months. Instead I've bought about 35 games for my Xbox. I do have a friend who is a die-hard PC gamer- and he says he will stay that way forever...even though I harass him constantly to buy an Xbox. In the past 4 years I think he has purchased 2 or 3 games for the PC. I think you would find that the number of games purchased by the average Xbox gamer is much, much higher than the number of games purchased by the average PC gamer. And buying games, translates to support.
Of course, he used to COPY my games. I had a similar 20+ per year game buying habit on the PC, and he would copy my games. But his copying does not put money in the pockets of the developers, who would be willing to make more games for the system.
I tell him that if he wants the developers to support him (make more games) he needs to support THEM (buy more games). But he figures someone else ou there will do the buying...sadly, this is why the content providers are pushing for more and more DRM.
PC gaming was going down before the Xbox (Score:1, Insightful)
What about Falcon 3.0? Released approximately 6 years ago and, while a great sim, was extremely buggy and eventually had to depend on fan-created patches.
The article also ignores the dearth of junk games (Deer Hunter), over-hyped games (Daikatana), and vaporware games (Duke Nuke'em) that have turned some folks away from PC gaming.
Let's also not forget Peter Molyneaux's 'Fable' for the Xbox which will contain those moral choices that the article was lamenting was missing in today's games.
If anything, developers are moving over to consoles because it is easier and cheaper to develop for a closed system console instead of PC systems with a myriad of configurations that need to be developed for and patched.
Irregardless, a great game is a great game no matter the system it is running on. And the games we grew up with will always be better than the games we play today as adults.
Re: OMG (Score:2, Insightful)
Innovation is tough when no one wants to pay you for it. Developers are kind of stuck in this twisted games industry that says you can make something new or you can make something everyone is buying.
Re:I for one don't ever plan on playing consoles.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: better for the genres I prefer.
Which is fine. But would you play Mario Sunshine or Wind Waker and think "Boy, I wish I could control this with a mouse and arrow keys"?
Re:My Problem with the X=Box... (Score:1, Insightful)
PC makes its own grave well. (Score:5, Insightful)
You begin to see that it's just the matter that PC gaming is expensive in time and money. When you stop using your PC for gaming, you'll find it'll take a good 4 years before your computer is "too slow" and you upgrade for a fraction of the cost. Plus your computer's suddenly a lot more reliable because you can use an OS which has fewer games but more stability, like Mac OS X or a Linux flavour.
I'll put it another way: my swiss army knife isn't as good at some things as a butcher knife, and if cutting meat was something I'd want to do a lot, a butcher knife would be the way to go for me. A console's just a better, more concentrated way to game!
Different Experiences (Score:4, Insightful)
When I want a game that immerses me, I open my laptop and play NwN for hours and hours.
There are exceptions to this on Xbox, like Morrowind (also on PC) and the upcoming Fable; and vice versa on PC, with Flash games and the venerable Solitare. But I think for the most part, they offer different experiences, and can and will continue to co-exist...
RPGs (Score:2, Insightful)
With True Fantasy Online recently canceled and Fable looking further and further away, I'm starting to look at Playstation more and more as a serious alternative to Xbox just to play my Final Fantasy series.
don't play games (Score:3, Insightful)
But could the downfall of PC games have anything to do with the upgrade cycle? People still think of computers as expensive, complex, and evil devices. This drastically reduces their desire to upgrade. Relatively few people buy computers primarily for gaming. Rather they want to use internet applications (web, email, chat, p2p) and office applications (word processing, spreadsheets, accounting). All of the latest versions of this stuff run fine on a 3-4 year old PC and with longhorn and the next Office still at least 2 years away, there's no indication that this will change anytime soon. Traditionally, for sale computer games have a lot of high powered graphics that require cutting edge systems. Well, people don't have the same impotus to upgrade that they once did, hence the market has probably shrunk.
Also, it seems to me that improvements in graphics aren't as important as they once were, even in graphically intense games such as first person shooters. Things like reflections or fire effects don't affect gameplay as much as early improvements did. It's all garnish. Since high end graphics were a driving motivation in the PC games market, the diminishing gains of graphics technology has probably affected PCs. Now, today's console's look almost as good, if not better than, most of today's pcs.
Supply and Demand (Score:3, Insightful)
How much money do you pay for a good PC game? $40-60. How much does it cost to make one? A lot more. Why can you get it for $40-60, because lots of other people are buying it as well, so you benefit from your collective purchasing power.
The market will grow and shrink based on how much people are spending on games. If there are a tonne of people out there who want to buy PC games, people will make games for them to compete for their dollars. If many of those people switch to console, surprise, there will be less PC and more console games made.
I think it's best to go with the flow. Buy games you enjoy, If they're console games, buy a console. If they're PC buy a PC (someone earlier identified how having a console + linux box is a killer combo of great games without the need for dual boot or a windows layer).
If you want to really whine, try being a mac gamer
Reasons why the PC is a better platform (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Think A console like you would think to a mac (Score:2, Insightful)
On the short end the console market has a 3 year turn around between new generations of hardware. On the long side it hits 5 years. They can't afford to innovate any faster then that. The PC advances on at a 6 month to a year per generation rate. Consoles have some advantages in terms of design that allow them to squeeze some extra performance out of older hardware, but they are unlikely to catch up to the PC market any time soon.
Typically, the A-List Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube titles look like arse compared to A-List PC titles running on nearly identical hardware (meaning 3-4 generation old graphics cards on the PC side) and don't even show up on the radar when compared to those same PC titles running on latest generation graphics cards at 1600x1200 with all the detail settings cranked. The next gen consoles are talking about being able to run in 720p (1280x720), but even if they could hit 1080i (1920x1080) remember that this not only requires you to have a $1500+ television (effectively bringing your console up to the cost of a upper-middle end PC), but you would be stuck with an interlaced signal again. And PC's are capable of even higher resolutions (though finding monitors that support them is difficult).
People have been predicting the death of PC gaming since it came into existence. It is doubtful that the PC market is going to die out. Diminish from time to time? Sure. Have less market share? Definitely. The ease of use, portability, and general lowest common denominator effect of consoles pretty much guarantees that they'll maintain (or expand) their already thoroughly dominant market share.
The Mac argument is not a terribly strong one. The UI is not significantly easier to use that of Windows XP to a novice non-computer user and really the UI is a moot point when we're talking about the ease of playing games. The input devices for a Mac are the same as those for a PC, the hardware has just as many problems as a PC from a major OEM like Dell. When compared to the overall PC market Mac's have less reliability problems, basically because you only have one source to choose from. In terms of gaming, Macs have all the worst of both worlds. Restrictive hardware, high cost, some reliability issues and cumbersome form factor for the living room. OS X has a gorgeous interface (again not necessarily more intuitive, but gorgeous) running on top of a pretty nice operating system and I really enjoy using it, but it isn't really a console killer. Nor is it a PC killer so long as Apple retains tight control over the hardware.
As always the greatest strength of the respective platforms are also their greatest weaknesses.
Re:I for one don't ever plan on playing consoles.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure what fighting games you play (indeed I can't really think of any that have come out on the PC for a while), but the keyboard has always been terrible for anything since Way of the Exploding Fist, when moves weren't mapped to directions but combinations of buttons. Quite how you think using a keyboard is easier to pull off a special move like in any modern fighter dating since Street Fighter II is beyond me, notwithstanding the minimum six different attack buttons, you've got to worry about getting to 8 directional buttons. My hands just don't work that way. In terms of precision, joypads have digital inputs too, still easier to use than a keyboard, but don't allow for the dynamics of analogue input, different walk speeds, move strengths etc. Proper arcade sticks are of course preferable to recreate the arcade feel, but joypads are clearly a closer relative than a keyboard; ultimately being a scaled down handheld version of them. Also bear in mind that all joypads since the SNES have at least two shoulder buttons, so you're not mapping everything to your thumbs.
In terms of third person cameras, the one in Quake 3 is not a serious part of the game - there's no mechanic for aiming in the 3rd person, they're more of an irrelevant demo hack. Same goes for UT2k3/4. You just don't see that many 3rd person camera games on the PC because you've only got one analogue input method, the mouse.
The quality of the cameras on consoles is besides the point, there are as many good examples as there are bad examples, but they're used more because it's a different method than has been enabled by the inclusion of two seperate analogue directional input methods. It is used more in adventure style games where seeing the character perform certain tasks is part of the cinematic atmosphere. Just look at the Dreamcast with it's single analogue input, and noticeable lack of 3rd person 3D games for proof, you're pretty much stuck with a view locked behind the character until some form of cutscene frees it up.
Ultimately the mouse is more accurate for looking, but it's fairly trivial to modify the game mechanics such that it doesn't matter, very moderate auto-aim, or wider attack damage for example. It really doesn't affect the gameplay at all. IME the only people that really complain about joypads in FPS are those who've spent more time than is healthy with the keyboard/mouse combo, possibly the need to unlearn before they can relearn, or maybe simple annoyance that proficiency with the mouse really doesn't map immediately to proficiency with the analogue stick puts them off. Suddenly that FPS that was a piece of cake is frustratingly hard. The only other mechanic it suits better is point and click. Although opinions on control methods are subjective, I think you'll find the masses prefer a joypad for most genres out there, and this is shown by how much broader and numerous console titles are.
The final nail in the coffin for the mouse/keyboard is the singular lack of multiplayer support, without multiple units. LAN parties are fun and all that, but not really practical or convenient, and generally unfair, due to such varied levels of horsepower allowing greater framerates, or more highly detailed levels etc.
You will see keyboards plugged into PS2's, but only for communication. The Xbox will supposedly never see a keyboard, and what do you think the chances of Nintendo ever supporting one? It's not like consoles are incapable of supporting a keyboard at all, it's just that there is no demand for it.
Multiplayer Environment (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's funny (no i think you are the funny one) (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the consoles have a HUGE advantage with their multiple controllers, they make gamming a social event. You can invite people over without being one of those nerds that carries their computer around to play games. Although, I'm sure there are console people out there who sit and play games by themselves all day.
But, we are lazy...so...in the end, the easiest will be the most popular.
I don't think you get it. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, put yourself in microsoft's shoes 5 years ago. Consoles are booming, PC sales are flat, and you don't make any money from licensing. If you ask me, Microsoft did what they did because they had to. The writing is on the wall for PC gaming. Microsoft didn't kill it by making the Xbox. If anything, the PS2 is more to blame for the state of PC games.
Yes, Microsoft could have put their xbox marketing money (half a billion) into promoting PC gaming. But do you really think this would grow the market such that Microsoft would get that money back? Keep in mind that when you buy a PC game, Microsoft gets NOTHING. Microsoft only get's money when a gamer decides to purchase a copy of windows XP.
If microsoft had done all the things you mention, I propose that it would barely make a dent in the growth of the consoles. So why not try to take a piece of the console pie as well?
Relax: It's a Business Cycle (Score:4, Insightful)
2 - X-Box development is still nigh impossible fomr a start-ups persepctive. You simply cannot get the dev kit as a start-up. PC development is the way into the marketplace.
3 - The more sophisticated PC Games get, the more expensive they are to make. A Triple A is 12-20 million $$ in dev costs. That is a HUGE gamble to take on a genre where barely 1 in 20 titles is successful. Think about it. As a console game you cover your bets and greatly reduce the chances of becoming the next Daikatana.
4 - MMORPGS, not the XBox, killed the PC RPG market. The glut of MMORPGS has killed development in a major category of PC development. This will sort itself out in 2 years with a massive die off. The market simply cannot support the number of MMORPGS in development. Several devs and publishers are going to lose BIG.
5 - It's a Mature Console Market: During a mature console market, the emphasis is always on maximizing software return on the platform while the PC beings to move seriously ahead and the tech gap becomes massive. Relax. Next year the generation AFTER Doom3 and HL2 will be on the horizon. 2 million polygon models - real time.
6- Next Gen is Coming: Games like Unreal 3 and Dragon Age are going to be making the consoles look like gameboys. No serious game will suggest otherwise. Relax. It's a product cycle.
Re:I used to LOVE to play (Score:2, Insightful)
Nintendo makes just as many great games as Sony does, they just don't release 50 shelf fillers in between like Sony. Open your eyes.