Graphic haven't improved much since 2006. Reason - Too few pc exclusives!

I am not one of those people who believes that graphic makes a game. Some of my best games are still on PS2 and gamecube, but I was just thinking that graphic really haven't gotten better the last 4 years as I see it and the reason is I belive that we have the Xbox360, PS3 and Wii and almost every game that is released on these systems are also released on pc. Now of course they look slightly better on pc, but taken as a whole, they can never look that much better than on consoles, since consoles are for the most part first priority. Crysis which was released in 2007 is still the best looking pc game on the marked, even though it is 2 years old and Oblivion which was multiplatform is still also in scope one of the most stunning games visually. It beats Dragon Age which was released in November this year hands down in the visual department. So the main problem why graphic isn't improving, is because all games that are almost all games that are released on pc, are first released on the consoles and the very few pc excliusives are low budget titles. So if we will have a next generation of consoles I don't see the graphic on the pc will improve very much untill that time, since there is only as much you can do to enchant an Xbox360 or PS3 title. Heck even Uncharted 2 looks better than almost everygame on the pc.´Im not even sure we will see that much better graphic on the pc in the future or ever, since developers are focusing much more on console games these days. Whats your opinion.

Well the consoles can't support better graphics and they don't improve them so it won't lag on them. About the PC - who cares about PC gamers anyway?

Well the consoles can't support better graphics and they don't improve them so it won't lag on them. About the PC - who cares about PC gamers anyway?

Crimsader

pc gamers and their mothers, duh.

I could be mistaken since I don't follow it that closely but hasn't hardware slowed down as well. That could be a reason too.

I am not one of those people who believes that graphic makes a game. Some of my best games are still on PS2 and gamecube, but I was just thinking that graphic really haven't gotten better the last 4 years as I see it and the reason is I belive that we have the Xbox360, PS3 and Wii and almost every game that is released on these systems are also released on pc. Now of course they look slightly better on pc, but taken as a whole, they can never look that much better than on consoles, since consoles are for the most part first priority. Crysis which was released in 2007 is still the best looking pc game on the marked, even though it is 2 years old and Oblivion which was multiplatform is still also in scope one of the most stunning games visually. It beats Dragon Age which was released in November this year hands down in the visual department. So the main problem why graphic isn't improving, is because all games that are almost all games that are released on pc, are first released on the consoles and the very few pc excliusives are low budget titles. So if we will have a next generation of consoles I don't see the graphic on the pc will improve very much untill that time, since there is only as much you can do to enchant an Xbox360 or PS3 title. Heck even Uncharted 2 looks better than almost everygame on the pc.´Im not even sure we will see that much better graphic on the pc in the future or ever, since developers are focusing much more on console games these days. Whats your opinion.

ZiggyStardust16

I also used to think that graphics didn't matter before this gaming gen started. But as I've gotten older I've seen that graphics are important. It doesn't make a game but it greatly adds to the experience and if the graphics are sub-par then it can be off putting. Its kinda like a woman. Its whats inside that counts but its always better to have a pretty outside as well. It makes immersion into a game easier

The countless noobs flocking to consoles and buying up their crap has made PC a secondary platform for most and this has hurt us. All we can do is trudge on. We still have more exclusives than them and we have betetr games to boot. It is no secret that a mediocre game on consoels can sell a million while sometimes a good game on PC can't do the same.

PublicNuisance

I'm glad graphics haven't improved, I don't want to buy a decent PC only to last 3 years.

"Yo, yo, yo, MW2 is good and all, but I just gotta say, Crysis is the best FPS of ALL time, of ALL TIME, and that's it."

[QUOTE="ZiggyStardust16"]

I am not one of those people who believes that graphic makes a game. Some of my best games are still on PS2 and gamecube, but I was just thinking that graphic really haven't gotten better the last 4 years as I see it and the reason is I belive that we have the Xbox360, PS3 and Wii and almost every game that is released on these systems are also released on pc. Now of course they look slightly better on pc, but taken as a whole, they can never look that much better than on consoles, since consoles are for the most part first priority. Crysis which was released in 2007 is still the best looking pc game on the marked, even though it is 2 years old and Oblivion which was multiplatform is still also in scope one of the most stunning games visually. It beats Dragon Age which was released in November this year hands down in the visual department. So the main problem why graphic isn't improving, is because all games that are almost all games that are released on pc, are first released on the consoles and the very few pc excliusives are low budget titles. So if we will have a next generation of consoles I don't see the graphic on the pc will improve very much untill that time, since there is only as much you can do to enchant an Xbox360 or PS3 title. Heck even Uncharted 2 looks better than almost everygame on the pc.´Im not even sure we will see that much better graphic on the pc in the future or ever, since developers are focusing much more on console games these days. Whats your opinion.

Diablo-B

I also used to think that graphics didn't matter before this gaming gen started. But as I've gotten older I've seen that graphics are important. It doesn't make a game but it greatly adds to the experience and if the graphics are sub-par then it can be off putting. Its kinda like a woman. Its whats inside that counts but its always better to have a pretty outside as well. It makes immersion into a game easier

Not neccessarily.

While the impact of download services like Steam(which never release their numbers) is impossible to measure, Crytek (maker of Crysis) has stated that for shooters the PC gaming market just isn't as large as the console market (by market I mean the people willing to pay money for games, not steal them).

http://pc.ign.com/articles/906/906291p1.html

Because of piracy, Crytek President Cevat Yerli said the follow up to 2007's release of Crysis, Crysis Warhead, will be the last PC exclusive from the developer. Back in April, Yerli asserted that games like Crysis on consoles would "sell factors of 4 [to] 5 more." This is not to say that the company is abandoning the platform, but that the company will branch out to support the consoles as well. "It takes nothing away from the PC gamer if the game is also available on another platform," said Seeley.

Reason for that is because PC's are too expensive. Too few people know how to build their own.

Consoles, on the otherhand, are cheap and easy. It's uniform for everybody (not taking into account connection). If it breaks, you can just get another one. 99% of the time, a game will work on your console, and you don't have to jump through hoops with issues. Consoles deliver almost the graphical experience of a PC, but cost $300 - $500, as opposed to a $1000 - $2000 PC. PC's also need to be upgraded every 2 years, where hardware companies continue to make new hardware. However, consoles have limitations.

Bottom line - Wait for Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony to make a new console, which will be in maybe a few years. The recent trend, imo, has been PC games waiting for console technology, because that's where the money is.

Bottom line - Wait for Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony to make a new console, which will be in maybe a few years. The recent trend, imo, has been PC games waiting for console technology, because that's where the money is.

Beagle050

Thats cause consoles do more and better marketing for their games then the PC. I mean whose responsibility is it to market big games for the PC.Diablo-B

The freaking publisher is who.

I can't believe no one mentioned this, but the biggest factor is piracy. Several publishers have mentioned this explicitly.
It is not lack of technology. Just go to TomsHardware and check out the GPU charts. The $100-$250 price ranges have doubled performance over the past two years. Not 30%, not 50%, but DOUBLED(there is a temporary shortage on several cards due to low processor yields that has led to a temporary spike in prices).

Many PC players who know how to install a GPU also know how to torrent and crack games. Several Polls in 2009 estimate PC piracy rates to be between 80 and 95%.
Now compare that to the number of modded consoles.
There were what, about 1 million XBOX360 consoles banned from XBOX Live for piracy in Nov. I'm not sure what the percentage of 360 owners are on Live, but even if its only 60% of the 31million 360s, that would be 1 in 18, or under 6%.
Thats a HUGE difference from PC, and developers are well aware of this.
So, in order to cover costs, many devs have decided to make a game for PC only if they can make it for console as well, which of course brings the overall graphical quality down to the lowest common denominator, aka X360/PS3.
The very slow adoption rate of Vista, and subsequently DX10/DX10.1 haven't helped matters either.

My crossfired 5050's could take Unchated 2 and apply insane AA, AF, tesselate the models, apply other post processing effects and the game would play beautifully, IF it were designed for PC.
Many people played Cysis, few paid for it.
Devs have lost incentive to put lots of money into graphics for PC exclusives.

There are several methods being tried right now to curb piracy that aren't as harmful as starforce and related bogus software, such as requiring you to be logged in live in order to play a game.
As much as this pi$$es me off, I understand that I will not see avant garde titles like Oblivion and Crysis again until devs are sure that they will make money off of their title.

But that's just like, my opinion, man.

I can't believe no one mentioned this, but the biggest factor is piracy. Several publishers have mentioned this explicitly.
It is not lack of technology. Just go to TomsHardware and check out the GPU charts. The $100-$250 price ranges have doubled performance over the past two years. Not 30%, not 50%, but DOUBLED(there is a temporary shortage on several cards due to low processor yields that has led to a temporary spike in prices).

Many PC players who know how to install a GPU also know how to torrent and crack games. Several Polls in 2009 estimate PC piracy rates to be between 80 and 95%.
Now compare that to the number of modded consoles.
There were what, about 1 million XBOX360 consoles banned from XBOX Live for piracy in Nov. I'm not sure what the percentage of 360 owners are on Live, but even if its only 60% of the 31million 360s, that would be 1 in 18, or under 6%.
Thats a HUGE difference from PC, and developers are well aware of this.
So, in order to cover costs, many devs have decided to make a game for PC only if they can make it for console as well, which of course brings the overall graphical quality down to the lowest common denominator, aka X360/PS3.
The very slow adoption rate of Vista, and subsequently DX10/DX10.1 haven't helped matters either.

My crossfired 5050's could take Unchated 2 and apply insane AA, AF, tesselate the models, apply other post processing effects and the game would play beautifully, IF it were designed for PC.
Many people played Cysis, few paid for it.
Devs have lost incentive to put lots of money into graphics for PC exclusives.

There are several methods being tried right now to curb piracy that aren't as harmful as starforce and related bogus software, such as requiring you to be logged in live in order to play a game.
As much as this pi$$es me off, I understand that I will not see avant garde titles like Oblivion and Crysis again until devs are sure that they will make money off of their title.

But that's just like, my opinion, man.

cybrcatter

While it's true that piracy is rampant on PC, I don't really think that's the whole issue. Fact of the matter is that the majority of people obtain their media legally. This is true for music, movies, computer applications, and it's true for games. I also have to really question the 85% to 90% piracy quote. If that were true PC game sales should be barely scrounging up numbers, not selling the millions of copies that they currently do. For example Crysis has sold millions of copies. I find it very hard to believe that it could have sold 9x more if it wasn't for piracy. You want to know the reason Crysis didn't fly off the shelves? Because the system requirements were so damn high that when it was released even a person with a $5,000 rig couldn't get it to run all settings maxed at a high resolution. But even then it still managed to sell 1 million copies in its first three months on the market which is very good considering how few people could run it back then.

The big reason why consoles get favored over the PC by developers is because the console market is MUCH bigger than the PC market. Your average gamer these days is a casual one. They have no interest in owning more than one console, much less owning a $2000 gaming PC. They also do not have the technical know-how to put together a gaming PC or fix the myriad technical issues that pop up on an extremely common basis when playing games on the PC. God only knows how many many games I've installed on my system where I had to spend hours on google and forums trying to figure out why the game wouldn't play, I couldn't get sound, why I was getting microstuttering, lag, etc. A normal person is not going to have the patience or technical expertise to deal with all of that.

You'll notice that back in the 90's gaming was mostly a niche hobby for nerds and geeks. Those types of people are more likely to own gaming computers, and as a result PC gaming was a major market back then relative to consoles. However, starting with this decade we saw a shift in consumer demographics from geeks and nerds to frat boys and jocks. Console sales exploded as did sales of FPS and sports games. As a result, the focus of the industry shifted to exploit those new trends. Coincidentally this is also one of the reasons why we've seen creativity in games all but bottom out in the industry (the other factor being development costs).

tl;dr: Piracy isn't to blame, the massive differences between the install bases of consoles and PCs is.

Consoles are the main driving force behind modern gaming. I don't think anyone would argue that games are better and more versatile on PC than on a console, but consoles are what pushed gaming away from the niche market and into the mainstream. I think the good outweigh's the bad in this, more demand means more games, means more good games, more variety, and more growth and opportunity for the industry. This is a good thing! As gamers we should rejoice!! :)

Well the consoles can't support better graphics and they don't improve them so it won't lag on them. About the PC - who cares about PC gamers anyway?

Crimsader

An opinion may be subjective but there comes a point where a statement is so outlandish and ridiculous that it begs the question: Does this person need an eye exam?

All one needs to do is go back and play the launch games on either the XB360 or the PS3 and compare them with more recent releases. To the OP I ask this question: can you really sit there with a straight face and tell me you don't see the significant graphical progression when playing games like Batman: AA, Assassin's Creed II, Modern Warfare 2, Killzone 2, etc.?

And the PC continues to get exclusives and multiplat releases that look better and run smoother than the console versions, not to mention games like Crysis which most PC's can't even run beyond mid-level, so really, what's your point?

Frankly, this whole thingreads like a thinly veiled anti-console diatribe, which would make it suitable fodder for system wars.

An opinion may be subjective but there comes a point where a statement is so outlandish and ridiculous that it begs the question: Does this person need an eye exam?

All one needs to do is go back and play the launch games on either the XB360 or the PS3 and compare them with more recent releases. To the OP I ask this question: can you really sit there with a straight face and tell me you don't see the significant graphical progression when playing games like Batman: AA, Assassin's Creed II, Modern Warfare 2, Killzone 2, etc.?

And the PC continues to get exclusives and multiplat releases that look better and run smoother than the console versions, not to mention games like Crysis which most PC's can't even run beyond mid-level, so really, what's your point?

Frankly, this whole thingreads like a thinly veiled anti-console diatribe, which would make it suitable fodder for system wars.

Grammaton-Cleric