PC Gamers Too Good For Consoles Gamers?

thsoundman sends in a blog post from Rahul Sood, CTO of HP's gaming business, who claims there was once a project in development at Microsoft to let Xbox users compete against PC users playing the same game. According to Sood, the project was killed because the console players kept getting destroyed by their PC counterparts. He wrote, "Those of us who have been in the gaming business for over a decade know the real deal. You simply don't get the same level of detail or control as you do with a PC over a console. It's a real shame that Microsoft killed this — because had they kept it alive it might have actually increased the desire of game developers and gamers alike to continue developing and playing rich experiences on the PC, which would trickle down to the console as it has in the past."

Mouse/Keyboard Vs Joystick/Eight Buttons

[eldavojohn]

I got a wireless mouse and keyboard working on my XBox 360 and then played through Modern Warfare 2 in single player mode. On my back projection TV from 1999, I was doing on average a lot better on XBox live than I was with the control pad. We set it up on my friends massive LCD with a very high response time and I felt unstoppable. It seems when you increase the input devices and give me finer tuned control I can concentrate on that and get further up the curve more easily. Might not be the same for some people but if you want to walk all over people, see if your device supports keyboard and mouse through USB and then relearn the game. It took a while but it got to the point of not being fun anymore.

I'd imagine on average the PC user would trounce the XBox 360 user. For me the killer aspect was reducing having to use my thumbs on two joysticks to look around down to the two dimensional plan of my mouse pad. Had to tweak the sensitivity a bit but really two different worlds.

Re:Keyboard and mouse

[CambodiaSam]

I tried a third party accessory that lets you plug in a keyboard and mouse, but the latency was nasty. It just wasn't responsive enough to be usable. If they sold a keyboard and mouse that compared to the PC gaming experience, I'd buy it.

Re:Keyboard and mouse

[ArbitraryDescriptor]

They don't even have to offer a keyboard/mouse controller. Offer a controller with a (good) touchpad in place of the right thumbstick. WSAD+Shift only offers 2bit input for movement, so the thumbstick is superior there. So this would give you absolute input for aiming, and high-res relative input for motion. Sounds damn near perfect to me.

Re:Keyboard and mouse

[enderjsv]

You're right. A lot of console gamers wouldn't know what to do with themselves. In fact, a lot of console gamers would be incredibly surprised to realize that all this time, they've been using aim-assist (I say aim assist instead of auto-aim, because auto-aim can also refer to mods that are far more influential than aim assist). If you were to ask the random console Bioshock player or Left-4-Dead player if the game had aim assist, I wouldn't be surprised if most of them said "no." But they do.

Personally, I think it's kind of a testament to how well aiming assist has been implemented into console games. It's almost transparent, and still allows for a wide range of skill. PC gamers who don't play console games very often probably still think of aim-assist the way they think of auto-aim, that the cross-hairs instantly snap to a players head or that bullets that wouldn't have hit magically hit their targets. While the latter is still the case in some games (like left 4 dead), the former doesn't exist in any game that I am aware of. Instead, the aim-assist acts more like a weak magnet. Large analog movements have less impact the closer you get to your target. So in, say, Call of Duty, holding the analog stick all the way to the right when not targeting an enemy causes you to turn quickly. But when you're targeting a person, the person acts as kind of a magnet which means you can use larger analog movements to fine tune your shot. It's an amazing system that works considerably well and is the ONLY reason fps games work on consoles.

That being said, as a PC gamer and a console gamer, I have to say I think there are quite a few PC gamers out there who still think there's little-to-no skill involved in console shooters and that playing a console shooter couldn't POSSIBLY be as fun as playing it on the PC. I think this is a shame as I find console games with clever aim-assist to be quite fun, not at all frustrating, with a ride range of skill levels and very entertaining.

RTS games, on the other hand...

Re:Not a surprise

[enderjsv]

I happen to agree with you. It's a shame you've been modded "troll," but maybe it was your tone.

The truth is, the article writer really has no idea why Microsoft canceled the project. He's just speculating. It also doesn't state the kinds of games that were tested. While I've long believed that RTS, FPS and MMORPG are superior on a keyboard and mouse, I have a hard time believing the same would be said about fighting, platforming, or racing games.

Let's call this article what it is. It's "speculation." I have to be honest, as a long time PC and console gamer, I feel there's quite a bit of bias against consoles here on slashdot as most slashdot users are PC gamers. Ask yourself if you really, truly believe this article finally realizes the idea that PC gamers are inherently better than console gamers, or rather if this article doesn't really give enough evidence to come such a conclusion. Personally, until a more scientific study comes along, I can only categorize articles like this in the "opinion" category and stick to my own experience, which is that there are very skilled players of all types, ranging across all genres, on PCs and consoles. Just my humble opinion.

Re:That's really what it comes down to

[capebretonsux]

While I agree with most of what you say, I think that if it were done with a ton of testing before release, a fps could work out quite well. The catch is you'd have to keep the console gamers confined to a tailor made 'class', say a heavy-armor soldier with heavy firepower, and keep pc gamers with lightly-armored and lightly weaponized soldiers. Rather than worrying about how to balance classes using the traditional methods, use the limitations of the differences between the console and pc as the limits of the playable characters in the game itself. We expect heavier classes to turn slower, move slower than lighter classes. Not sure if most gamers have both a console and a pc, but I'd guess that many do. Of course, the best scenario of this would have it sold as downloadable content, which could be installed on both a console and pc, while only being charged for a single copy (playable key) of the game itself (I figure we're dreaming of cross-platform gloriousness anyways.) Part of me still wishes, of course, that they still had released it anyways... who wouldn't want to beat up on console gamers all night long? I'd have bought a copy.

Re:That's really what it comes down to

[kiddygrinder]

that's pretty much flat out wrong, mice are more precise, period. if you cap the max turn speed it will do almost nothing to the most powerful part of it, which is the ability to move the sight 5 millimetres to the left and cap someone in the face. gross mouse controls are irrelevant, how often do you need to instantly shoot directly behind you? besides, you could essentially make a joystick turn as fast as you want, it would just exacerbate the issues with them.

Environment

[Anonymous Coward]

This also has a lot to do with the environment which these games are played in. Your typical PC gamer will be sitting upright in a chair 1-2 feet from the display in a dimly lit or dark room, allowing for optimal concentration on the game. Contrast this with a console gamer who typically will sit 5-10 feet from the display most likely leaning comfortably on a couch. There are more opportunities for distraction and less immersion in the game. Of course there are exceptions to this, I would guess many have specific gaming chairs and postures they use when they play console games (I know I do). When you consider what the average person will do though, this may be reason for the difference.

Re:Curious

[wagnerrp]

What about things like gamepads versus steering wheels in racing games. Surely the 1080 on a wheel gives a huge competitive advantage to the inch or so of traverse on a mini-analog. Should those be dis-allowed on games that support time trials and head-to-head racing? What about online flight sims and people using full size joysticks or HOTAS setups?

Re:Not a surprise

[CubicleView]

Maybe, but I find the frequent stuttering a little off putting. http://themacgamer.com/2010/05/28/half-life-2-performance-mac-vs-pc/ [themacgamer.com]