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Kristophe
Obi-Wan Kermobi
Joined: 26 Apr 2004
Posts: 4
Location: The Outer Banks of NC, USA |
| Xbox 360 & PS3: Death To PC Gaming - Editorial @ C/NEt |
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C/Net's David Carnoy brings us his <a href="http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6233821-1.html" target="_blank">opinions</a> re the Xbox 360 and the Sony PS3 irt their impact upon PC gaming (pretty much the same stuff we hear every year about the consoles sounding the knell for PC Gaming)...
<br>
<br><blockquote><em>A few years? That's all well and good for the folks at Nvidia and ATI, who win whether consumers are buying PCs or consoles, so long as they're buying a lot of them. But it's probably not so good for Intel, which didn't make it into any of the next-gen gaming machines (IBM is supplying CPUs to all three new consoles). Personally, I think that once the Xbox 360 and PS3 come out, instead of looking at high-performance PCs, more people are going to spend that $2,000 or so of discretionary income on a new HDTV, likely one of the flat-panel variety.
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Sat Jun 04, 2005 1:54 pm |
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Tzeremes
Village Dweller
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Posts: 6
Location: NY |
I am so sick of editorials like this. Everytime the next gen consoles come out there is always some idiot proclaimingthe death of PCs. PCs have lived through everything and will continue to do so. PC is the platform that eventually pushes graphics. In the 5 year lifespan of the next gen systems PC's graphics capabilities will double what a console can do. That is why most xbox 360 games look like top on the line current PC shooters. I'm not bashing any console, but I just hate people like this running their mouth about something they don't know. History has proven them wrong before and will do so again. |
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Sat Jun 04, 2005 1:58 pm |
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yeesh
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 03 May 2002
Posts: 113
Location: Unofficially representing Queens |
I love PC gaming best.
This article is weak because the author is forecasting based on data which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with which system survives and which does not. PCs have always been more expensive, and the balance of graphical power has shifted back and forth a bit. You can't just point to these same facts and start making conclusions, and I sure agree with everyone here on RPGDot that this article is simply the unresearched opinion of some editor.
I love PC gaming best.
OTOH, as unhelpful as a pointless articles as this are, I'm actually less friendly towards the ostrich-like reactions they provoke from those of us who love PC gaming best. Just because the prediction hasn't come true yet, doesn't mean it's wrong to say that it will. Will there ever be a time when no PC anywhere has a single game on it? Not likely, and if that's how you choose to define the death of PC gaming, then congratulations PC gaming is never, ever going to die. Sweet!
However, just because you've heard all this before (just like, say, a lifelong smoker has heard all the warnings about the dangers of smoking before, but he hasn't died yet, so they must all be groundless!), continuing just because you've heard all this before doesn't change the fact that conditions this round are a bit different. I hate to be a broken record on this, but go to friggin Gamestop and take a look. Where are the PC games? Oh there they are, in the way back, on 2 or three little rows of shelves out of the store's 30. Historically speaking, was this how things were in 2000? In 1995? You tell me, history folks. Plot it on a graph and see which direction the line goes. I don't have the figures, but someone feel free to look them up; my understanding is that sales of PC games are declining, even as sales of video games as a whole rise. Was this true 5 years ago?
You know what else is different? When the PS2 and the XBOX came out, we weren't talking about PCs catching up in "a few years". PCs were superior. They cost more, but they were already superior. We'll have to wait to see the consoles actually arrive, but it doesn't look like that's going to be the case this time around, and even if some Crossfire or SLI setup can actually achieve parity with the console systems at launch, you're talking about an utterly unprecedented price/performance gap. It won't be a $1500 PC vs a $300 console, it'll be a $3000 PC vs a $300 console. I mean, yikes.
You know what other else is different? That speed increase that has happened in the past with PCs is not necessarily going to continue. Let me explain: Granted, nVidia and ATI are going to keep making faster and faster cards so that they can keep charging someone (alien to me) $500 every year or so to stay at the top of the performance charts. That's half of it, but the other half is the CPU, and AMD and Intel have sort of given up. I know, switched gears is a better way to say it. They are all about dual- and multi-cores, because making their chips go faster and faster is getting harder and harder (or whatever, I'm not an engineer, you tell me) and now they've decided that their going to focus on getting a few slightly slower CPUs to work together to overall do things faster. Wonderful for some applications, but head on over to anandtech or tomshardwareguide, and take a look at what dual-core does for gaming. Nothing. Now lord knows that PC gaming companies could invest time and effort to figure out how to get the most out of this utterly different paradigm for processing their game code, but how long will that take? And at what cost for a decliing, less profitable market?
I love PC gaming best.
Just because the death of a declining industry hasn't come to pass, or indeed maybe can't come to pass if you choose to define "death" narrowly, doesn't mean that there isn't plenty of cause to be sad for us PC gaming enthusiasts. Many of the games that I want to see for the PC are either never going to get made, or they're being put together by Russian / E. European developers with a track record of terrible games. Historically, that wasn't the case 5 years ago.
Still, this article doesn't make a very convincing point. As the console makers themselves understand, it's not really about the hardware. It's about the games. Proof of the decline of PC gaming is in the size of the PC section at Gamestop and Electronics Boutique, and it's in the reports of Jagged Alliance 3, which should have been the single greatest game ever made. *sob* An article that examined the state of PC game development, by talking to dev companies, by looking at the sales numbers, and the trends in PC hardware, and maybe taking a good look at the fallout from the "release now, patch later" mentality, would have reached a more sound conclusion and be less of a waste of time.
I love PC gaming best. It's not dead, but it's future has never looked so glum. |
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Sat Jun 04, 2005 3:50 pm |
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Hedek
Head Merchant
Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 50
Location: France |
Console gaming is probably great, but I can't see how community based games such as MMORPGs can ever be seriously played on consoles, I mean unless they want us to connect a keyboard to the console so that we can type and chat... it's more convenient to play with a PC.
The editorial is perhaps right, more and more game genres will probably be better on consoles and sales for these genre will decrease on PC while they'll increase on consoles, but I dare to say that PCs will forever be the best platform for MMORPGs.
_________________
Retired Editor @ RPGDot
Ex Guru @ HK's Torment (dead Planescape Torment fansite) |
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Sat Jun 04, 2005 8:33 pm |
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Deg
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 37
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quote:
Originally posted by Hedek
Console gaming is probably great, but I can't see how community based games such as MMORPGs can ever be seriously played on consoles, I mean unless they want us to connect a keyboard to the console so that we can type and chat... it's more convenient to play with a PC.
Thats quite a bold statement Hedek especially since the keyboard seems to be the only reason you give. A quick google on 'keyboard xbox' revealed plenty of links. You can simple connect any usb keyboard to it so i don't see any technical reason left not to play on a console. The main reason, in my eyes, MMORPGs weren't developed seriously for consoles was the inability to patch, errmmm add content i mean. With developments like xbox live that reason dissapeared as well.
The pc is out of technical advantages now i guess. Also we see the software industry, bioware for example, being far more interested in consoles then pc's for the sole reason of copying and hacking being more difficult there and therefore higher sales rates.
Is the pc going the get a rough time? certainly, is the pc going to die? hardly because you know what? there is more software being written then just games. As long as the pc remains the ultimate champion in diversity letting you skip from a shooter to a html editor, from a mmorpg to your bookkeeping it will not disappear nor will game companies ignore it because it is impossible for the average family guy to keep up to date with both systems. It simply costs to much.
just my 2 cents  |
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Sat Jun 04, 2005 11:09 pm |
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Amelia
City Guard
Joined: 18 Jun 2004
Posts: 141
Location: Ong's Hat, New Jersey |
I'm being a bit whimsical but... This 'death' of pc gaming seems much more relevant to the PC divisions of large scale game publishers than pc gaming in general. There will always be developers like Spiderweb Software developing games. While they may be mostly targeting a niche market, the games themselves appear almost soley built to satisfy that niche market (maybe that statement of integrity only means something to me). This may be an ideal, reductionists, ignorant angle to look at the situation but it would seem that if a total failure of the current business model could lead to the retreat of publishers currently dominating the pc market, to the console market, then it might allow some leeway for new business models to be had. I think this could be a good thing in the long run, if the developers could survive.
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The real secret of magick is that the world is made of words. And that if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish. -Terence Mckenna |
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Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:02 am |
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Guest
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That editorial is a load of trollocks (my new word). |
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Sun Jun 05, 2005 2:23 pm |
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Lucky Day
Guest
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Trollocs
Trollocs are creatures of the Dark One. They were created by Aginor, one of the leading biologists of the Age of Legends, by cross-breeding human and animal stock. Trollocs are generally bipedal and humanoid, often with both human and animal features: human eyes but an eagle's beak, for instance, or a bear's paws and claws. They are the basic shock troops of the Shadow.
-wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concepts_in_the_Wheel_of_Time_series
I've seen a number of bad articles with this title in the past but this one is one of the better one that makes some excellent points not seriously considered in the past before.
What has always saved PC's in the past was their flexibility and diversity and poor marketing by the Console Manufactures. They didn't realize in the past that after 2 years when their consoles started actually making money with the royalties, their hardware was out of date and doomed.
This time, the major consoles on the market have realized it and are ready. Arguably, Sony and Nintendo were ready with their last release as well.
Superior Hardware to PC's has happened before with consoles in the form of the Nintendo 64 and its 64bit Processor.
It will not be the death of PC Gaming until/unless the console can successfully replace all the other functionality of PC's IMO. |
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Sun Jun 05, 2005 3:29 pm |
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Jay
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 245
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I keep hearing how this is the first time that consoles have been superior to PCs, but I remember when the Playstation came out and how much better the games looked then on the PC. It wasn't until the 3d graphic cards came out that the PC had an edge. And as for the XBox 360, the same imagination that's been used on it's name seems to be used in it's games. Same old crap in a new suit. And as most of these games also seem to be coming to PC, I doubt it heralds the end of PC gaming. Don't get me wrong, the PC is suffering from the same problems. Endless World War 2 FPS, the same old tedious RTS games, overly hyped games that take 6 hours to complete. Meh. Most of the interesting games released on the PC lately have been low budget games.
I'm finding myself playing handheld games a lot more, as I'm fed up with all this ridiculous hype from all ends. Instead of telling us we should spend a fortune on new TVs, how's about doing something utterly insane and try and release games with playabilty. |
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Mon Jun 06, 2005 10:19 am |
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