PC Gaming Is Back in Focus at Tokyo Game Show (bloomberg.com) 156
After taking a back seat to consoles for the past few years, personal computers are enjoying a resurgence in gaming, thanks to the popularity of e-sports, customizable machines and faster software releases. From a report: This week's Tokyo Game Show will feature a main-stage tournament for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, a hit online survival PC game that's been downloaded more than 10 million times since March. Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One consoles are heading into their fifth years, while Nintendo's Switch is in a bit of a lull before new titles are released for the year-end holiday shopping season. Spending on gaming-ready PC rigs are on track to climb an average of 6.6 percent per year through 2020, while the market as a whole is projected to decline 3.8 percent annually, according to Gartner. Revenue from PC titles will grow by 3 to 4 percent over the coming years, while console-game sales are seen flat, according to DFC Intelligence. Written off years ago for being too expensive, complex and bulky for mass appeal, gaming PCs are seeing a resurgence that could even threaten consoles, according to Kazunori Takahashi, Japan gaming head at Nvidia. "The abundance of titles and the popularity of e-sports is bringing a lot of excitement to PC gaming," said Takahashi, whose employer supplies graphic chips to PC and console makers. Even in Japan, "it's not unreasonable to think that PCs can eventually become a presence that threatens console gaming."
Dirty console peasants will be beaten back! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Dirty console peasants will be beaten back! (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems to me that the more popular console games these days have their roots on PCs. Consolitis fucked over a few PC games though, like Skyrim, which had that really crappy flash based menu system that worked well for controllers, but not for mice, and overall the game's control system was really broken for kb+mouse, even though Oblivion didn't have these console problems.
Re: Dirty console peasants will be beaten back! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention that a lot of good RTS series got dumbed down for console use. And let's not get into RTS aimbots so console users can actually hit anything with their twiddle sticks.
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RTS? Aimbots? I think you are confusing Real-Time Strategy (RTS) with First Person Shooter (FPS)
And any dumbing down of FPS's happened with Quake with easy-mode headshots from mouse-aiming.
Really, the pre-quake players of FPS's considered mouse aiming to be "easy mode for casuals"
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Yes, that second RTS should be FPS. My apologies. But it was mostly the RTS games that got dumbed down to fit with the gaming style of consoles.
As for the FPS games, well, in the early shooters headshots were pretty much impossible since there WAS only two dimensional "aiming", aka moving the mouse left or right. Along with mostly two dimensional movements. Today, it's trivial to move in three dimensions, aim in three dimensions and have 6 degrees of freedom in a FPS game, which can lead to very interesting
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But it was mostly the RTS games that got dumbed down to fit with the gaming style of consoles.
Oh? Which ones? Or did you mean to write FPS again instead of RTS, because EVERY console RTS I own has mouse support. (C&C, Red Alert, Red Alert Retaliation, Dune 2000, Warzone 2100) Admittedly, they're all PSone titles. There's only 1 post PSone RTS that I know of, that being RA3.
Also you'll have to #define "dumbed down" because from what I see when a PC "Master Race" type says "dumbed down" they're actually saying:
"Waaah I don't like consoles existing and don't like the fact that the games I play
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I don't care that consoles exist. What bothers me is that more and more studios think they can get away with creating mediocre console games and then do a half assed port.
About the games, well, take the Tropico series and watch its development as the shift towards consoles increased, culminating in the train wreck that T5 is. RUSE is another great example of sitting there and wondering why the hell the game is playing like a hog until you find out that this is the only way it could be made playable with a c
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Tropico 4 still retained a bit of the variety and complexity that its predecessors had. With T5 they went off the deep end, resulting in a handful of buildings to choose from (yes, even after upgrading to a later tech level) and stripping a lot of options and little things you could fiddle and tweak.
Did you ever think that those design decisions were made to increase the games appeal to MORE gamers on PC than just the bearded strategy game guys? That those decisions weren't made with the console market in mind...but to sell more Tropico to MORE PC gamers.
Not only that, but the game has multiplayer. Did you ever think that the changes made were designed to streamline the game to make it a more fun multiplayer game on PC?
But no, it's now on consoles and everything you don't like is consoles fault. Per
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It seems to me that the more popular console games these days have their roots on PCs.
Most games that are available for PC and consoles are compiled from the same codebase. One of the reasons why so many PC titles are dumbed down is because the lowest common denominator is the console that everyone codes for.
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It really did. I purchased one of the Assasin's Creed games for my PC, the Pirate one, and it's essentially unplayable using a normal mouse and keyboard. Even using the mouse and keyboard to configure the mouse and keyboard was virtually impossible.
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that one asscreed is notoriously poorly ported. It has the control issues you mentioned, but also has a permanently locked fps to 60fps, and yet still manages to have frame drops and stutters even on cards like a 1080. Its a great game, but a horrid port
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Thank god for SkyUI
It's intermingled (Score:2)
The first PCs were essentially consoles after all!
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How so?
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Unless he's referring to hooking up a serial console to some S-100 machine, he might be referring to the console ancestry of some "home computers", or the computer ancestry of some consoles. Sometimes both within the same line.
One example was the C64. at one point in its development it was intended on being a console. Then it was decided that they could turn their console into an inexpensive computer. But....a console version of the C64 WAS released in Japan BEFORE The C64. It is called the Ultimax.
htt [wikipedia.org]
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This exactly! Thank you! They were basically consoles disguised as productivity machines.
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I don't see any compelling evidence that the C64 was initially going to be marketed as a gaming system. If I see it, I'll believe it though, but it's just not here. I think what happened is Commodore realized just how much market potential there was for games, so they shifted heavily in that direction by the time to C64 came out, but it was built as a computer, not a console.
But, no matter the case, Commodore was only one player in the market, and PCs as we know them today do not have their roots in Commodo
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like Skyrim, which had that really crappy flash based menu system that worked well for controllers, but not for mice, and overall the game's control system was really broken for kb+mouse, even though Oblivion didn't have these console problems.
Flash based? What are ou talking about.
Were you even around in the past when PC gamers on Slashdot complained about Oblivion's UI and controls being "consolitis" You can even find threads on slashdot about it.
I've got one other thing to say. WITHOUT sales from console players there would be less incentive to make these RPG's.
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Flash based? What are ou talking about.
Maybe he is talking about Scaleform [wikipedia.org].
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That's called a ten foot UI, and it's not new. PC games have been using that since way before consolitis was a thing.
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Consolitis fucked over a few PC games
Sure. It wasn't rampant piracy, or the greed of Publishers, must have been 'consolists'.
What a fucking retard.
And here I thought that it was Microsoft cannibalizing the PC development community in '03 by making the XBox more attractive to develop for.
With nearly all of the action-game developers (Bungie et al) suddenly switching to XBox, and later PS3/4, you saw the number of PC games dwindle to the point where they'd all but disappeared from retail stores by '05. Steam stepped in, and provided a good platform for small indie games to prosper. Then the big console titles started getting ported to PC again, but now
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More games with controller support too (Score:2, Interesting)
I used to be turned off by PC games because I hate playing with a keyboard and mouse. But with most games on PC now supporting controllers the same as they do on consoles, it's really becoming a level playing field. And with more mod availability, better graphics options and more hardware customization options, the PC has a strong leg-up on its console competition (for now at least).
As consoles are becoming more and more PC-like and PC's become more-and-more console like, I think it may be a dead issue soon
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But with most games on PC now supporting controllers the same as they do on consoles
Sadly, it's often Xinput controllers only, not traditional DirectInput controllers.
Fuck you, Microsoft, I'm NOT buying a goddamn Xbox 360 controller when I already have several perfectly good devices.
Re:More games with controller support too (Score:4, Interesting)
Sadly, it's often Xinput controllers only, not traditional DirectInput controllers.
In part, you can blame Windows Store for this. UWP applications can access XInput but not DirectInput.
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It's been a long time since the primary API for controllers on Windows is XInput.
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Well for me Windows anal prove 10 has killed PC gaming. I have purchased two really old games for PC since Christmas, simply because I had never played them before and further investing in a corrupted platform makes no sense. I will likely buy no new games until my current machine dies and I swap platforms, M$ can stick windows 10 where the sun don't shine, rather than have them pry into my life, like they have a right to it, fuck M$. I see the positive story for windows PC gaming as real panic sets in with
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Good tip. But that doesn't always work. And some games lack controller support entirely. In such cases, try AntiMicro. [github.com]
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ESports isn't a category of games.
Of course it is. The term refers to video games with competitive multiplayer that remains interesting among expert players and whose publisher grants a license for leagues to stream their matches.
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https://www.penny-arcade.com/c... [penny-arcade.com]
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PC gaming runs $1000+
Even $1000 is less than the total price of this generation's consoles: PlayStation 4 Pro ($399), Xbox One X ($499 once it ships in November), and Nintendo Switch ($299).
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Actually:
Even $1000 is nearly the sum total price of this generation's consoles: PlayStation 4 Pro ($399), Xbox One X ($499 once it ships in November), and Nintendo Switch ($299).
And, once you have either the XBone or PS4, the other gets pretty optional. Plus, any of them are cheaper than a top video card alone. (ballpark, anyway, not checking).
Yes, PC gaming is awesome, it's just less so at twice the HW cost.
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OK, now go ahead and calculate games' prices too.
Getting sweet game deals from isthereanydeal.com is valid for PC but not so much for consoles.
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OK, now go ahead and calculate games' prices too.
Just as Steam has sales, PlayStation Store has sales. Consoles also have the "Greatest Hits"/"Player's Choice" rereleases of disc games. And if you live in an area where the best available Internet access is satellite or LTE at $5/GB or more, you'll appreciate the bandwidth savings of disc games.
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Just as Steam has sales, PlayStation Store has sales. Consoles also have the "Greatest Hits"/"Player's Choice" rereleases of disc games.
Are there any 3rd party websites selling games at discounts? I wasn't talking about Steam only, I was talking about a whole ecosystem, literally dozens of websites offering games at a discount (shady grey-area websites are not considered, they suck). And then there's gog.com...
And if you live in an area where the best available Internet access is satellite or LTE at $5/GB or more, you'll appreciate the bandwidth savings of disc games.
Thank God, I don't. I love my 18 bucks a month Gigabit Fiber :)
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Are there any 3rd party websites selling games at discounts? I wasn't talking about Steam only, I was talking about a whole ecosystem, literally dozens of websites offering games at a discount
You mean websites like Amazon or Wal-mart?
Sure Digital games on the Playstation ecosystem are PSN marketplace only, but physical discs are still a thing. Remember, one of the reasons PC games went digital so strongly is that PC publishers, unlike Sony, NEVER started using Blu-rays.
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No, not generic websites, but the likes of HumbleBundle, BundleStars, GamersGate, Games Planet, GOG, not to mention aggregators such as isthereanydeal.com.
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generic websites with deals are still deals as are the deal on the PSN store directly.
And I notice that only ONE of those websites you mention are in the US, perhaps those cater to cheapass former-pirate Eurogamers?
Because HERE gamers buy from generic websites as well as PSN or the Xbox store. And places like Amazon or Wal-mart have deals, in a couple of months there will be huge Black Friday deals on games.
Try to remember that gaming culture in America is NOTHING like that of Europe. We aren't a bunch of
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And more gently, you might not be aware that in the US console games and PC games cost the same and are generally discounted the same. It's not like eastern europe where PC games are like 10 euros and console games 70 euros or something.
For example in poland the Nintendo switch is 1499 zloty, that's US$419. In the actual US the Switch costs $299.
so when Eurodudes like yourself say console gaming is more expensive...Americans look at you and roll our eyes at you.
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Wow, talking about that superiority that earned Americans so much stereotyping and hate throughout recent history... you represent it very nicely.
Look, when I visit a website I don't give a flying fuck which country it's from. I only care whether it's useful to me.
Yes, consoles and console games are expensive around here. Yes, PC games are more widely available and generally much cheaper if you look in the right place.
And yes, my 18 dollars a month Gigabit Fiber internet connection allows me to install a la
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Wow, talking about that superiority that earned Americans so much stereotyping and hate throughout recent history.
Considering the fact that personal computing, console gaming and computer gaming were ALL invented here....maybe you should stop playing games then.
Yes, consoles and console games are expensive around here.
Have you ever wondered why? Have you ever thought that the higher prices for console games and hardware is artificial protectionism?
Yes, PC games are more widely available and generally much cheaper if you look in the right place.
your cheap PC games are essentially being subsidized by Americans.
And yes, my 18 dollars a month Gigabit Fiber internet connection allows me to install a large game in 5 minutes.
From a government owned and/or subsidized ISP?
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Considering the fact that personal computing, console gaming and computer gaming were ALL invented here....maybe you should stop playing games then.
Yes, much like the Internet was invented by Al Gore.
Console gaming was conceived by a German dude (Ralph Baer). But hey, fine, whatever.
Have you ever wondered why? Have you ever thought that the higher prices for console games and hardware is artificial protectionism?
So? There's VAT and other taxes which, lo and behold, are partly used to even out the development discrepancy between EU countries.
your cheap PC games are essentially being subsidized by Americans.
Where the fuck did that retarded idea come from?
From a government owned and/or subsidized ISP?
Nope. It actually is that cheap in my "third-world country" which your fellow Americans were very impressed with when they came here on vacation. My Internet is offered by a privately-owned ISP, wh
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As if there aren't other mass market retailers that can have sweet game deals like say...Amazon, or Wal-mart, or Target, etc etc.
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Compare a $700 desktop PC to a $700 combination of a PS4 Pro and a docked Switch. The $700 PC can still run applications other than home entertainment, such as applications to further your education or run your home business.
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If you've got a PS4 pro or even a cheaper base PS4 you really don't need a $700 PC. You can make do with an even cheaper one. And lot of people do their computing on mobile devices, and who says a Switch is required? Not everybody is interested in the Nintendo franchises.
1050 Ti, despite the name, can do 1080 (Score:2)
If you've got a PS4 pro or even a cheaper base PS4 you really don't need a $700 PC. [...] Not everybody is interested in the Nintendo franchises.
Nor the Sony franchises for that matter. So if exclusives aren't the deciding factor, the fair comparison is between a desktop PC with a discrete GPU and the combination of a base PlayStation 4 and a desktop PC with integrated graphics. As of two weeks ago [pcgamer.com], a $160 GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is cheaper than a $300 PS4.
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You know...if dropping a grand every once in awhile is going to break your bank, perhaps your time would be better spent trying to educate yourself and do whatever to get a better paying job, rather than wasting time playing games....?
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if dropping a grand every once in awhile is going to break your bank
It's not just a grand. As games change from shared-screen multiplayer to online multiplayer that requires a separate machine per player, it can be two grand to four grand depending on household size.
perhaps your time would be better spent trying to educate yourself and do whatever to get a better paying job
That depends on exactly what you mean by "do whatever", especially for someone who has been turned down repeatedly for jobs that use his degree.
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As games change from shared-screen multiplayer to online multiplayer that requires a separate machine per player,
It does? You do know that some online games let TWO people play shared screen with other players Online. A good example of this is Diablo 3 on consoles. you can have ANY mixture of local and online players.
Also who says that more than one person wants to play games at the same time.
And while multiple-of-the-same-console households aren't common, they do exist. I know a couple that has THREE PS3's. (though only one PS4). The same couple has MULTIPLE portable game machines (DS's and Vitas) and a tablet AN
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The speculators will kill the cryptocurrencies for us. They're keen on making a big deal about how much the value swings around and they've made a mint because of it. The complete opposite of what a currency should do.
PC gaming never went away ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... everyone just got tired of the the console fanbois constantly shouting trying to drone everyone else out.
Not everybody has been sucking at the tit of Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo. In the PC space there have been a ton of AAA and Indie games that just aren't available on console.
Console are nothing more then walled gardens on a gimped PC. (Hey consoles, how's that 120 fps working out? What, you can't do it and you _still_ struggle to do 30 fps @ 1080p BWUAHA.)
PC have been infinitely more customizable. The first to support 22-bit graphics (Voodoo), 32-bit graphics (RGBA), 4K, 120 fps, SSD, etc, consoles are always playing catching -- signified by the "PC Master Race" slogan.
The keyboard + mouse blows the gamepad away for any sort of precision. i.e. I'll seriously doubt we'll ever see StarCraft (1 or 2) on a console anytime soon because console peripherals never sell well. Hell, with Starcraft 2 I can STILL bog down my i7-4770K + GTX 980 Ti.
This same cycle happens every console. A new console comes up. Everyone gets excited over "exclusives", then in a few years everyone goes back to a bigger and better gaming experience on PC -- for those that can afford it -- and whines about all the shitty console ports. Rinse and Repeat.
Consoles have their place, but PC gaming is still around and always will be. You don't need some bullshit license to release your game on PC.
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The Roku doesn't have a 3.2 GHz CPU.
THAT is why the PS3 kept getting recommended as a blu-ray player and streaming device. Sure there were cheaper standalone players and roku's, but the PS3 hardware made it run better.
And it still is the ONLY blu-ray player from 2006 that can handle profile 5.0 Even in 2008 it was the ONLY blu-ray player on the market that was ensured could handle profile 2.0.
As for Netflix the PS3 was the first device to get 1080p HD support and 5.1 audio from them, everything else was s
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Sitting on a park bench.... [youtube.com]
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I intentionally left it vague:
* Some would argue that the only "proper" place is the garbage can.
* Some would argue that is as a "cheap Blu Ray" player. (I'm in this camp.)
* Some would argue they are cheap gaming box. i..e. No broken spyware drivers to worry about and games "just work" out-of-the-box (barring dumb Day 0 patches.)
Who is right? Everyone is right. My needs aren't the same as your needs -- stop judging another person's POV as inferior to your own. This is how we end up with retarded fanbois p
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yes, but back in 2006 you could get the future-proof PS3, or a 1000 dollar standalone that would never support any future blu-ray profile, no Bonusview, no BD-Live, no 3D.
The PS3 also had many more features than the standalones of the time. No 2006 standalone ever got Hulu or Netflix or Iheartradio, and they most certainly didn't have games.
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But don't you still need a GameCube or Wii console to dump your authentic Game Discs for use in Dolphin?
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The keyboard + mouse blows the gamepad away for any sort of precision.
Including for racing games and fighting games? How do you play, for example, 2-player Street Fighter series on a keyboard?
I'll seriously doubt we'll ever see StarCraft (1 or 2) on a console anytime soon
Command & Conquer: Red Alert: Retaliation (how's that for colon cancer) was ported to the original PlayStation, and the original StarCraft was ported to the Nintendo 64.
Everyone gets excited over "exclusives"
Sometimes "exclusives" can include an entire genre. What PC games in the platform-fighting genre are recommended for fans of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale or Super Smash Bros. series who seek to abandon console
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You don't need an Apple Developer ID to sell Games for Mac OS X, or macOS.
You need such an ID if you want to sell via the App Store.
Most Mac users regularily download software from other sites.
I believe there are also ways to sign the software, which is ok for the OS but does not require the App Store/Developer ID.
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Nobody cares about 'App Store Restrictions.'
In fact, nobody cares much about App Stores.
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By default, Gatekeeper doesn't require apps to be obtained through Mac App Store. However, it does require them to be signed with the certificate associated with a developer ID issued by Apple.
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That sounds like a MacOS defect. You can't run binaries at all until the developer has kissed Apple's ring?
Or is that a default setting that can be corrected by the user?
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Two of the three settings (Gatekeeper on and Mac App Store only) are visible in the GUI. The third (Gatekeeper off) is available only through the Terminal, and you have to search the web for it.
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How does a game tell presses on one keyboard from presses on the other?
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Thank you for the link to Mr. Chen's article. I'll proceed to bug game developers to add support for Raw Input.
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Just on a side-note, Starcraft 2 shouldn't really bog down that system. If you're running Windows 10, make sure to turn off GameDVR in the Xbox app, because it can cause serious conflicts with Starcraft 2 and can result in considerable graphical buffering issues, particularly in cut-scenes in Legacy of the Void, and even static scenes in Heart of the Swarm if graphics settings are turned up. If this isn't applicable to you, please disregard. :)
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Here are some more details:
I'm running Windows 7, not Windows 10.
99.99% of the time SC2 stays at 60+ fps. It is only 1 particular custom map where the framerate gets killed. IIRC it was 3v3 (humans vs AI)
Another friend of mine with an even higher end intel i7 has the exact same problem -- we were playing in the same game and wondered WTF was going when everything is normally buttery smooth. I do know that Blizzard spent a TON of time optimizing SC2 so I'm not exactly sure what is going wrong.
A mystery to
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Not everybody has been sucking at the tit of Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo. In the PC space
In the PC Space? You mean in the Windows space? The MICROSOFT Windows tit?
The first to support 22-bit graphics (Voodoo), 32-bit graphics (RGBA), 4K, 120 fps, SSD, etc, consoles are always playing catching -- signified by the "PC Master Race" slogan.
Son, consoles had graphics back when home computers were using 40 column text and customized character sets for most of their displays. And I distinctly remember the PSone version of DOOM having TRUE transparency aka 24bit+8bit 32 bit color when the PC version didn't. The PSone had 24bit True color in 1995, the Voodoo 3 came out in 1999 and wasn't actually true color but 24 bit dithered down to 16 bit for output (which 3Dfx calle
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Not everybody has been sucking at the tit of Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo. In the PC space there have been a ton of AAA and Indie games that just aren't available on console.
This, a thousand times this.
Lets be honest, AAA has gotten pretty crappy. Everything is just a rehash of last year, another Call of Boredom; Modern Snorefare, 2018.5, recycled shooters, recycled sports games. I've realised the last AAA game I liked was released 2 years ago (Fallout 4) and even then, there are consolisation elements I despise (and mod out). Things like DLC and pay to win have ruined most competitive games. I'd much rather play Endless Space 2 or Cities: Skylines these days to whatever is
Anyone wondering why? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are quite a few reasons why PC gaming didn't die 20 years ago when its obituaries were announced the first time. Or 15 years ago when it died again. Or 10 years ago. Or ever since. The reasons are simple.
Consoles had everything stacked in their favors to take over. There's really a LOT of upsides to consoles, all of which have been thrown into the gutter by their makers. Let's think back a few years, shall we? Let's go back to, say, the 1990s. PC gaming was a mess. So many different setups, no standards, drivers you had to invent and reinvent every other game you wrote, and the same shit for the ones wanting to play. Reconfigure this, memory-optimize that, IRQ settings here, DMA configuration there. Consoles were hassle-free gaming. Plug that cartridge into your NES, your Sega Master system, your NeoGeo or whatever you had and you were good to play. Easy. No fidgeting.
And no loading times! Stuff it in, turn it on, play! That was probably the first thing they lost with the advent of the first CD based consoles that made loading times from effin' FLOPPY DISKS look fast!
And the hassle free part was gone soon, too, when consoles started to become more and more fault-prone. Has there been a generation of consoles since PS1 and XBox where you could rely on them actually still working 2 years from purchase? For the sake of the all-holy copy protection, consoles have become a veritable nightmare when it comes to hardware stability.
Next thing they lost was the input advantage/disadvantage battle. Consoles used controllers, PCs used keyboard and mouse. Which of course means that certain games played better on consoles (like plattformers and arcade flight games) while others played better on PCs (like FPS, RTS and other games where point-and-click/shoot is more relevant). Now, PCs did get their console controllers quite soon. Not to mention the nearly inexhaustible supply of other periphery from flight sticks to steering wheels to ... you name it. Only very recently console makers realized that yes, there is actually a market for such input devices (with the noteworthy exception of Nintendo, who produced an incredible amount of input devices... sadly they insisted in making some NOBODY in their sane mind would WANT to use instead of producing what people would actually be using). And dropping the ball immediately again by providing only overpriced crap that you can use with THEIR product, ONLY their product and only with THIS version of their product. In other words, my PC steering wheel I bought 10 years and 3 PCs ago still works. Do you honestly expect your PS2 steering wheel to work when PS5 comes?
And I didn't even get into the area where you can actually upgrade your PC while you're stuck with whatever the console maker deems "good enough".
Personally, I think consoles dropped the ball when they insisted that they really need to have a full blown operating system that took away the key advantage these machines had over PCs: Exactly that they did NOT need that overhead and could apply their whole processing power to delivering a gaming experience.
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There are quite a few reasons why PC gaming didn't die 20 years ago when its obituaries were announced the first time.
Or vice versa when someone from say iD or some other PC-centric dev house or some hardware maker like alienware or Nvidia claims consoles are doomed.
That was probably the first thing they lost with the advent of the first CD based consoles that made loading times from effin' FLOPPY DISKS look fast!
It wasn't THAT bad....I've used a 1541 WITHOUT a fastload cartridge so I know bad.
Has there been a generation of consoles since PS1 and XBox where you could rely on them actually still working 2 years from purchase?
Yes. 50001 model PS2's are like tanks unlike the early models. My CECHE PS3 was working far past the 2 year mark. The PS4, purchased on launch day is still fine.
Now, PCs did get their console controllers quite soon. Not to mention the nearly inexhaustible supply of other periphery from flight sticks to steering wheels to ... you name it. Only very recently console makers realized that yes, there is actually a market for such input devices (with the noteworthy exception of Nintendo, who produced an incredible amount of input devices...
Recently? Try 1995, apparently you don't know much about the PSone and the peripherals it had
https://en.wikipedia.or [wikipedia.org]
Only two advantages really (Score:2)
Consoles only have two advantages really, and even then not even that is secure.
#1 Consoles have the ability to be plugged into your TV, and use controllers. The whole controller VS keyboard/mouse argument aside it is nice to be able to sit my ass on a couch for hours at a time to play Skyrim or whatever. That said, there is absolutely nothing stopping people with a PC from hooking it up to their TV and buying a controller if they really want to now. Only difference is one take a small bit of configuring wh
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#1 went out the window no later than when Steam rolled their whateveryoucallit-stick out that allows you to stream your game to a TV. Same deal as with consoles now. If you really want to game on your couch in your living room, the additional investment is basically now such a streaming stick and a Wifi XBox Controller.
#2 isn't really that big an argument either, considering that consoles are cross-financed with games. If you look down the console and PC games, you'll notice that in general console games ar
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The lower cost is only true during the first few months of the console's existence. After a while the advantage shrinks, and as soon as you factor in the higher cost for games it melts away anyway.
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and as soon as you factor in the higher cost for games it melts away anyway.
What higher cost? did you just time travel in from 1995? While there WAS a price differential at one time, there isn't one NOW. Things change.
Project Cars 2 $59.99 on both PSN and Steam
https://store.playstation.com/... [playstation.com]
http://store.steampowered.com/... [steampowered.com]
Factotum 90 $5.99 on both PSN and Steam
https://store.playstation.com/... [playstation.com]
http://store.steampowered.com/... [steampowered.com]
Rocket League $19.99 on both PSN and Steam
https://store.playstation.com/... [playstation.com]
http://store.steampowered.com/... [steampowered.com]
The Bard's Tale (resnarked version) $9.99 on b
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Game programming for PC was a nightmare in the 90s. You spent more time developing, testing and debugging drivers and making your game compatible to the thousands of different possible combinations of hardware some people could come up with.
It was HEAPS easier to develop for consoles, even though you had to cross-develop. There was exactly one and ONLY one configuration. Yes, it was quite often much more limiting than what you could demand from a PC gamer, but at least you didn't have to work around the var
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The same time that developing for PC got easier and easier with more and more tools, api and engines becoming available for a low price or even free, developing for consoles became more and more complex and higher and higher up-front fees and more and more insane and ridiculous NDAs and other hoops you had to jump through to be allowed to even develop for them.
Perhaps you didn't see the major console makers open up their developer programs dramatically over the past five years. Microsoft made a U-turn on its anti-indie stance from the run-up to Xbox One launch and started ID@Xbox. Sony lets anyone with an LLC and a static IP self-publish on PSN. Even Nintendo, formerly infamous for turning down Robert Pelloni's block puzzle RPG Bob's Game, has been open to individuals since July of last year.
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Too little too late. Any halfway decent Indie dev is now primarily developing for PC with the consoles being an afterthought at best. And, frankly, for the indie developer the PC is probably also the more attractive platform. It's very easy to hand out demos and it's equally easy to publish with things like Steam. The ecosystem is already established, you can easily market and even sell your game, even while it's still in development.
Most of all, though, you're not dependent on a single point of failure tha
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It's very easy to hand out demos and it's equally easy to publish with things like Steam.
Who says it isn't on PSN?
The ecosystem is already established, you can easily market and even sell your game, even while it's still in development.
Who says that isn't how PSN works? I've got "still in development" games installed on my PS4 right now.
If Steam suddenly decided that it doesn't want to run indie games anymore, there's plenty more game distributors. Try to continue selling your indie game on XBox if MS decides they don't want to play nice with peasants anymore.
Sure there's other distributors, but STEAM "is" a single point of failure because in the Windows world IT is the big kahuna. Everything else is an also-ran except for GOG and THAT is for older games.
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Easy? You consider this [psdevwiki.com] EASY? By the time I'm done jumping the hoops here I have developed, published and already forgotten an indie game on any other platform. And after reading the NDA and other agreements, anyone who still WANTS to develop for that... well, you're obviously a developer and not a lawyer.
Oh, and by the way, GOG does actually distribute other games, too. Not just ancient ones. It is basically Steam's smaller brother. Besides, even if Steam should fold at some point in time, do you really th
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You consider [Sony's company registration process] EASY?
You need the LLC or S corporation and the tax ID anyway so that you can organize revenues and expenses of your game business separately from your personal revenues and expenses. There are NDAs associated with any semi-curated store, even Steam or iOS.
By the time I'm done jumping the hoops here I have developed, published and already forgotten an indie game on any other platform.
Including Microsoft, Nintendo, or Apple iOS?
Oh, and by the way, GOG does actually distribute other games, too. Not just ancient ones. It is basically Steam's smaller brother.
That and Itch Direct [itch.io], which I've seen mentioned elsewhere as a stepping stone before an indie developer is "tall enough" for Steam.
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Easy? You consider this EASY?
It appears to be straightforward and from what I see the LLC and EIN process can be done entirely online. You'd want the LLC, EIN, and static IP for a company website/e-mail address anyway.
Heck, I think even Sony's NDA process is online.
even if Steam should fold at some point in time, do you really think it will take longer than a month before something steps in to replace it? Unlike with consoles, there is really nothing anyone could do from keeping anyone from creating such a service.
Inertia? Microsoft? Valve goes away and then you'd have EA, Ubisoft, Origin, Blizzard, Zenimax, Microsoft, CD Projekt, etc all fighting to be the next STEAM and fragmenting the market. STEAM became the juggernaut it is because it had no real competition. It's a walled-g
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I didn't say that Sony goes away, I said that PSN goes away. At least in its current incarnation. You think it's absolutely impossible for Sony to say "So. Closing time, folks. Kiss your ancient PSs good bye and buy the new one, for that's going to be the only one we'll support anymore!"?
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I said that PSN goes away. At least in its current incarnation. You think it's absolutely impossible for Sony to say "So. Closing time, folks. Kiss your ancient PSs good bye and buy the new one, for that's going to be the only one we'll support anymore!"?
Impossible? No, but VERY unlikely because they simply haven't done so. An example is the PSP. That thing hasn't received any updates in a long while so you can't access the store directly (other than the download history) on the handheld..but....you CAN use the PC web browser version of the store AND the PS3 version of the store to purchase content for the PSP.
So Sony still supports a 12 year old handheld they don't sell anymore.
Another example is how long SOE kept the PS2's Everquest Online Adventures
A few reasons IMO (Score:2)
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Fine and dandy (Score:2)
That's all fine and dandy, but people have to understand what the guy is talking about in it's own cultural context:
The japanese market has been famous for quite a while to have a very tiny PC gaming market.
It's still in the last place even if it advances a bit, because it was never very successful.
You have consoles not doing very well in recent years, with XBox One being a huge failure.
If you count Switch as a console though, we might see a complete reversal since absurd lines are forming to get a lottery
Personally I'll stick with consoles (Score:2)
Nothing beats a plug and play experience when you want to relax. Things screw up on PC and I never know if a given game is going to work. On console, I can buy a game on release and be guaranteed that I can finish it, and still be able to run all my old games as well without issue.
I've had driver updates break old games, break new games, your GPU choice can screw you over, and a whole bunch of other crap I don't want to even think about. I've been down that road.
I'll use PCs to emulate console games and enh
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Things screw up on PC and I never know if a given game is going to work.
I have not had a game not work since DirectX came along.
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A really expensive PC computer hardware that will became obsolete in a year, adding the added a high price for games we have something that is not for most people Versus a console priced at the same price as a regular laptop that won't become obsolete for a while (at least 3 or 4 years for Microsoft and nintendo and 5 years at least for PlayStyation).
Doesn't happen anymore. A six year old PC is good enough to play most games equivalent to how a console plays them.
Smartphone is hampered by touch-only input (Score:2)
Smartphones are good for 1- or 2-button or point-and-click games, not so good for other genres. In particular, I fail to see how platforming, with precise control of movement, jumping, and firing, is possible on a flat sheet of glass, nor how much of a market there is for phone games that require a third-party clip-on gamepad.