Does the future look bleak for PC Gaming? Consoles have a boom/boomz.

As the title states,

The current trend is going great for casual gamers not wanting to be watered-down by the technicalities of owning an up-to-date gaming PC of today's next-gen gaming requirements. XBox360, PS3 & Wii all had great games (current and upcoming; AC2, MW2, Dragon Age, Bayonetta, GoW and many more) and not to mention sales, however, do exclude what the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) had done to all of us out there.. lol.

By all means PC had a fair amount of games as well last year such as L4D2, MW2 (debatable), DoW2, AC2 (supposedly but delayed), Half-Life.

However, console seem to be more "loud" than their PC counterparts which brings me to ask myself: Is the PC going to be a minority platform (it'll be around, just a tiny fragment of the gaming world) with the demand, market and benefits of Consoles that allures developers to prefer consoles as the prefered platform?

*Demand - casual gamers outnumber enthusiast PC gamers (technicalities/price or costs)

*Market - large market of casual gamers (adults, parents, working ppl, kids, PC gamers) who want a stress-free gaming platform; i.e. Just pop the disc & it works, period.

*Benefits - Piracy. PS3's Blue Ray discs have not been pirated, for games as far as I know. Frequent firmware updates that allow the weeding out of hacked console systems.

~ What's your opinion on this? ~

My stand:

I'm for PC Gaming as well as Console Gaming. Just hate it when developers dumb down one platform version over the other; e.g. MW2 (dun flame me *.*)

FPS & MMORPG - with the PC. Platform, RPG, 3rd person - with the Consoles.

PC gaminig's biggest problem is that graphics advance so quickly that they never maximize the potential of any hardware. With consoles, the game companies have a certain set of hardware to work with and they have to do the best with what they have. IT naver c hanges. With PCs, things like graphics cards are always being released, so htere is no incentive to do thebest with what is out there. The end result is that PC gaming simply costs more if you want to keep your gamiing PC up to date

PC gaminig's biggest problem is that graphics advance so quickly that they never maximize the potential of any hardware. With consoles, the game companies have a certain set of hardware to work with and they have to do the best with what they have. IT naver c hanges. With PCs, things like graphics cards are always being released, so htere is no incentive to do thebest with what is out there. The end result is that PC gaming simply costs more if you want to keep your gamiing PC up to date

valereth-1

Yeah, it is a bomb to continually keep your rig up-to-date. Which I find that the best is to get almost the best/the best during a certain period where it would last for maybe 2 years?

Then upgrade again when performance really dips for the currents games...e.g. less than 30FPS. I was on Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz, 3GB RAM, 512MB GeForce 8800GT playing Crysis at less than 20FPS in multiplayer. ~_~ but im making the upgrade now

Sooooo many threads with almost the exact same title.
As long as there is any money to be made on the PC, game will be developed for it.
I's not like a console, eg. companies may be worried about a short life span or low adoption rate such as what happened a la Dreamcast, and to a lesser degree gamecube. There is already a massive install base. Ever decreasing boxed sales figures from research groups such as NDP are useless stats, as more and more people purchase thier games and content packs online.

No, the future does not look bleak. long after the PS3 and 360 no longer get new games, there will still be a continuous supply of "Windows/Mac" games.
Is WoW showing any signs of slowing, with their graphics from 10 years ago?

@cyber

Yeah, quite a few threads...I apologize for adding to the masses, but just wanna voice my op.

Well WoW for that matter, an MMORPG, MMORPGs home will always be the PC no doubt. DotA, CS1.6 will be the retro-classics of the PC.

The PC still has a future with Starcraft 3 & Diablo 3 stated for released in the unannouced future. Those are the classics...

But for consoles, it seems that majority are for the console. As I stated earlier, there are fewer hardcore or PC tech-enthusiasts compared to the casual/even hardcore console gamers. PC won't disappear from the gaming world, but maybe become a minority =/

It'll still be there, just that maybe we'll get half-assed games being ported to us from consoles. Long delay of games for the PC when Consoles already had their share (Assassin's Creed 2 I'm looking at you, Ubisoft). And then with people wanting an easy, fast, hassle-free multiplayer experience which the console can provide. No server technicalities or responsibilities, just pure plug&play.

I'm not sure of statistics either, but do game developers make a loss due to "Piracy"? OR they still make a profit, just not as much as they would for not piracy. Blame the pirates for making PC gaming unprofitable, but I feel that genuine players or even majority of any player for that matter would want to enjoy the game. And most games today comes with multiplayer (almost a standard requirement), the joy of playing against and with other players. Pirated games can't give that mode to the players & I believe they will still make sales & profit quite good from it.

basicly console gaming is easier to get into and cheaper (even if you build your own pc , you still have to take into account labour and ive never seen anyone build a half decent pc for 300 $)

while it is possible to get a better gaming experience on pc it takes alot more work for usaly a minor benifit , and at the end of the day people will veiw convience as more vauable thenslightly better graphics.

This is why PCs don't get the game releases we think they deserve

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=27167026&tag=topics;title

Yeah, it is a bomb to continually keep your rig up-to-date. Which I find that the best is to get almost the best/the best during a certain period where it would last for maybe 2 years?

Then upgrade again when performance really dips for the currents games...e.g. less than 30FPS. I was on Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz, 3GB RAM, 512MB GeForce 8800GT playing Crysis at less than 20FPS in multiplayer. ~_~ but im making the upgrade now

admund

Crysis is a poor example.That game is either too far ahead of the curve or it's poorly optimized. My PC has similar specs to yours (I have a slightly faster CPU clock speed,4GB RAM, and the same card), and Mass Effect 2 runs great on it.

*Benefits - Piracy. PS3's Blue Ray discs have not been pirated, for games as far as I know. Frequent firmware updates that allow the weeding out of hacked console systems.

admund

:lol:

Blu-Ray has already been hacked and so has the PS3 just recently. It's only a matter of time before the PS3 starts suffering from piracy issues. Again, piracy is overblown on the PC platform and it has supposedly been dying for the past 15 years. PC gaming isn't going anywhere.

@cyber

I'm not sure of statistics either, but do game developers make a loss due to "Piracy"? OR they still make a profit, just not as much as they would for not piracy. Blame the pirates for making PC gaming unprofitable,

admund

You cannot count sales you wouldn't have had as losses.Piracy in PC gaming, just as it is for the music and movie industries is a lame excuse to cover up for a product's underachieving numbers.

The end result is that PC gaming simply costs more if you want to keep your gamiing PC up to date

valereth-1

I'm so glad that I never have to purchase a new gaming console to stay "up to date."

I somehow doubt it :P

Considering that consoles really aint doing too hot outside the US and Japan compared to gaming PCs (alot of devs seems to know that aswell considering the amount of devs working on pc titles). Even in Europe where consoles sell fairly well they are not selling the amount of numbers thatgaming grade PCs are, on daily basis.

For PC the "detail game" market is shrinking, altho I suspect it has more to do with Digital downloads, which is cheaper and more effective, both for the consumer, and the Dev/pub.

From a dev standpoint consoles are quite good tho, there is a chance of a higher yield compared to PC games, but if a product fails on a console it can potentially close down a development house, due to the insane amount of cash it cost to make, put out on console, and adverts).

And they can limit the games on console, so it wont be playied from here to eternity, like PC games often are thanks to MODs, so they know that a game does not have the legs that pc games has (this is a good thing for devs, since it means that console users will buy more games, since the players themself cant put new life into games, well unless they pay for dlc ;) )

And the Console is easily controlled by them, the gamers/users never really gain control over the product).

That was the thesis anyways, but reality is beginning to look different (likely due to online on consoles)

This is atleast the idea that was farwarded, but seeing as how PS3 games oftenfail to sell the numbers the devs and pubs need to break even, and devs on 360 seems to suffer poor sales from time to time, and nearly only 1st party selling on the Wii, it is not hard to see pubs and devs becomming more and more agitated, that the moneyhouse of console gamers, really dont throw offthe cash they used to last gen.

while it is possible to get a better gaming experience on pc it takes alot more work for usaly a minor benifit , and at the end of the day people will veiw convience as more vauable thenslightly better graphics.thedo12

Honestly? As long as Biizzard exists, PC gaming will be thriving.

I find it annoying that all my friends play and believe that consoles are better than the PC, it's just piracy and large costs that's ruining PC gaming.

The more people playing consoles instead of PC, the less of them I have to deal with in game.

[QUOTE="admund"]

Crysis is a poor example.That game is either too far ahead of the curve or it's poorly optimized. My PC has similar specs to yours (I have a slightly faster CPU clock speed,4GB RAM, and the same card), and Mass Effect 2 runs great on it.

King9999

[QUOTE="admund"]

*Benefits - Piracy. PS3's Blue Ray discs have not been pirated, for games as far as I know. Frequent firmware updates that allow the weeding out of hacked console systems.

MarcusAntonius

:lol:

Blu-Ray has already been hacked and so has the PS3 just recently. It's only a matter of time before the PS3 starts suffering from piracy issues. Again, piracy is overblown on the PC platform and it has supposedly been dying for the past 15 years. PC gaming isn't going anywhere.

+ Media banging on our heads with juicy stories that not necessarily represents the best of truth, mostly hype and user polls. Jihad extremists for one example of the stereotype we have for Arabs.