PC Gaming

[Saxman]

It's a thought that comes up now and again, but there was a time when the PC Gaming section out-sized the console section by almost triple. Dozens of PC gaming mags filled the shelves. You could walk into an electronics store and walk out again knowing you had a quality title in your hands that would blow away the best of what the consoles could muster.

Sometimes I miss the mid/late-90s. It was a golden age. Janes' simulations were at their peak and could fill an aisle almost by themselves. Sierra had yet to sink into the abyss of Hoyle Classic Cards and redneck sports, and you could always look forward to the latest King's Quest or Quest for Glory installment. Star Wars games were actually GOOD and George had not yet spoiled his universe with cartoony SFX and twirly lightsaber dance. Adventure, strategy, role-playing games and shooters had their home on the PC.

The last 10 years has been painful, watching illustrious developers fall into ruin, and PC gaming becoming a mess of mediocrity. Titles that the PC could and SHOULD do better are shifting to consoles, and what little makes it to the PC pales in comparison to what it once was. Companies have forgotten that the PC still has its hardcore gamers, and left us with little more of a selection than half-assed ports of titles never designed to run on the PC's hardware configuration and the latest Sims expansion. The rays of light like Half-Life 2 are dim and few, and hard to find. The shelves of PC games have shrunk until they now rarely even fill ONE side of an aisle themselves.

It's a dark time.

[Ack-Ack]

PC games are not in any danger of being made obsolete by consoles.  Every 5 years this theory pops its head up and it has yet to be proven true. 



ack-ack

[Chalenge]

Some companies lost interest because of piracy from what I have heard. I think with the economy of the U.S. being down fewer people pay premium prices for video games. I have always waited until the games come down in price before I buy especially EA games because they are a company that doesnt mind releasing a game that is so full of bugs as to be unplayable on some systems. Then MS adopts the 'Vista only' type game approach only to have the games hacked and patched for XP by pirates/hackers. In the top ten of my game favorites the top four include three flight sims and one of those is AHII but one of the others is a title dropped by Microprose years ago and bought by gamers. 

[Hangtime]

Hello, Voss.

[crockett]

There was also a day when the consoles ruled the nest before the PC games took it over. Remember Atari 2600, Pong, Nintendo NES Sega Genesis. It wasn't until the consoles all just about went out of business before the PC market became big.

There was a stretch in the late 80's early 90's when computer gaming was almost dead. Hell Atari went bankrupt in that time frame if I'm not mistaken and was bought out that or they were almost bankrupt.

That was just as PC's started to come into their own and companies started developing for them. The PC heyday had it's run, but it was bound to happen that consoles would retake the top of the market.

Something you have to figure, building a high end gaming PC costs a good $1,500 to $2k even if you build it your self. Hell man my video card cost me around $400 when I built my PC about 6 months ago and it's wasn't even the top card.

Now you can buy a XBox360 or a playstation for somewhere around $400 for the complete system. It's simple economics, PC's just can't compete in the pricing and lets face it, the average family PC isn't going to be a high end gaming machine so it's going to have a hard time running all the latest and greatest PC games.. (can anyone say Crysis for example)

Meanwhile the xbox360 or PS 3 or 4 or what ever number it is, will play any game built for it and once again PC's just can't compete with that. Another problem is console games have a somewhat set shelf price, the game isn't going to drop from $50 to $19.95 in 4 months. That means the stores aren't taking a risk stocking the shelves with console games, like they do with PC games.

It does suck, because I know what you mean by crappy games on the PC, but I think you will slowly see smaller companies like what we have here with HTC, that will fill the gap for the PC market. It's why I'm getting into game developing myself because I think the gap is going to keep growing and will allow for small developers to compete.

[Helm]

PC games are not in any danger of being made obsolete by consoles.  Every 5 years this theory pops its head up and it has yet to be proven true. 



ack-ack

hmmm ....well the Walmart down the street currently carries 0 PC games ....if that's not a bad sign...I don't know what is
...and I DO NOT live in the sticks ...but a major city ....it cant be a good sign

[mensa180]

Our Wal-Mart has at least 20.

[trax1]

Lately the best PC games are the ones that come out on consoles first, unfortunately it's usually a year before it comes out on PC.

[crockett]

Lately the best PC games are the ones that come out on consoles first, unfortunately it's usually a year before it comes out on PC.

Those are the ones that always suck IMO, because they tend to be crappy ports from the console version to the PC.

[MoeRon]

There is still hope....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb5BvuCknfs   

[Spikes]

Look at COD4 and Halo 3 for the XBOX, they made a big deal out of H3 because it was new and all, but all it is is new graphics, updated mods weapons etc. PC gaming will never die.

[Xasthur]

I've recently bought a Ps3 and it is fantastic. I mainly bought it as a Blu Ray player but Metal Gear Solid 4 is awesome and it just wouldn't be the same on PC. I think PC games like AH are completely different to console games. AH would be rubbish through a console but MGS is perfect. The fact that I have a 5.1 surround sound system set up which is fully supported by the Ps3 helps with the involvement too, it's just so impressive on a 46'' lcd tv with a high quality sound system and a good couch. Ultimately, consoles and PCs offer different things for the me.

[Saxman]

On thing the PC can do that consoles just can't match is sheer scope and scale. When Baldur's Gate (1998) came out, it needed *5* CDs because of the sheer volume of content. Consoles can't do that. If a PC developer wanted they could make an RPG with the technical aspects of Half-Life 2, and combine it with the sheer scale of Daggerfall (which had a game map covering some 62,000 square miles of accessible territory, with 15,000 explorable towns, cities and dungeons. Oblivion--which it should be noted was also developed for console--in contrast had 16!).

A PC title could do something of that scale because PC developers could get away with multiple discs to hold the content. This is something consoles can't do, not because of technical impossibility but because the gamers wouldn't go for it. PC gamer mentality is DIFFERENT. Disc swapping is part of PC gaming. Some games STILL have separate install discs. In fact, I'd LOVE to see a PC title with today's technology that requires five DVDs to HOLD it all, especially if the developers are efficient with their coding and avoid wasting space. That's one thing a PC can offer that just hasn't been taken advantage of like it was in the past.

[1Duke1]

Hello, Voss.

hehehehe....wonder where tha ol' scorpion-bit..cancer/brain tumor-havin..p51 own'in..CIA F16'a flyin' POS is??

[Xasthur]

Ps3s use Blu Ray discs which gives you something like 50 gig of data. I know that MGS4 used most of that, so there's your 5 dvd game on one disc. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing 2 disc Ps3 games in the future, they did multiple disc games on PS1 back in 2000 iirc.