How the PC is making consoles look out of date

[Ron2K]

Over the years the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco has morphed from a developer focused gathering to a kind of mini-E3, where games are announced and the internet gets flooded with developer interviews and game previews. However the real core of GDC is still development, and it often delivers a fantastic insight into where games are headed.

What has been clear from this year’s GDC is that consoles are beginning to show their age. We are currently experiencing the longest lifespan in console history, and with the hardcore gamers truly sated both Microsoft and Sony have focused efforts on increasing their user base with more casually focused interaction through Kinect and Move.

Rest of article

Cue obligatory StarBound DRM whine.

[StarBound]

You know me too well. So here it comes:

This year is the first year since the launch of the current generation consoles that pc games has looked and felt like they are dominant over the console titles. A bad example but an example of this none the less is Dragon Age 2. The demo runs like crap but the full game on console runs even worse. Gametrailers is a known console prefered site yet they themselves stated the pc version is the better choice. Not just that but other podcasts also talked about crysis 2, while not as graphicly overwhelming as crysis 1, runs much much MUCH better on pc than its console counter parts. Taking it one step further ...Battlefield 3. Don't need to say anything on this.

PC gaming only takes around 10% of the total games marker world wide but the pc is the tech push. We are already 2 Direct X generations down the line. Visually the differences are only applied with tesselation and DOF but even these can be simulated with certain techniques.

Now for the long overdue DRM rant. Online activation sux. But everything is online these days. Steam wont function without online access and at any given day and any given time it can screw you over during internet down time. Consoles are still the superior plug and play device. HOWEVER the talk of cloud and streaming servers has me worried. Imagine a world where your publisher and developer only streams video. No more need a geforce GTX9870ti quad sli to run a game. The downside is you need a stable, unshaped, uncapped internet for full 1080p 3d stream (24mb I think). So which way is gaming going?

[-Prometheus-]

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[D3PART3D]

The point of games: the gameplay. Graphics and processing power are rarely ever used in a way that benefits gameplay these days, so who cares? Only people with too much money.

Sony and Microsoft need to work on designing better gamepads to rival the keyboard and mouse. That will do more for gaming than three GTX 580 cards ever could. All PC gaming needs is talented game developers.

[RiaX]

The point of games: the gameplay. Graphics and processing power are rarely ever used in a way that benefits gameplay these days, so who cares? Only people with too much money.

Sony and Microsoft need to work on designing better gamepads to rival the keyboard and mouse. That will do more for gaming than three GTX 580 cards ever could. All PC gaming needs is talented game developers.

i think thats where motion based controls are going to be better than a keyboard and mouse for the console user.

As for graphics, a pc will always be superior to consoles because they can be upgraded as many times as you want. Its just that the cost for running games at optimum graphics without compramising the frame rate for the same expected life of a console generation is too expensive. I mean look at the new unreal engine, its SICK, soon i wont be able to tell the difference between real life and video games but the machine that you need to probably run it at level is another story.

[Sojourn]

HOWEVER the talk of cloud and streaming servers has me worried. Imagine a world where your publisher and developer only streams video. No more need a geforce GTX9870ti quad sli to run a game. The downside is you need a stable, unshaped, uncapped internet for full 1080p 3d stream (24mb I think). So which way is gaming going?

This is a candy deserving argument.
It has me worried just as much.
Imagine a gaming society where 80% of mainstream game content are streamed, you only run the basic framework locally.
In EU/US they have the networking infrastructure, or is close to having it.
We, on the southern tip of Africa, we will be sucking eggs.

As for games for PC superseding consoles, no-brainer right there.
How can a device that for all purposes remain static with its hardware, compete with a device that can be upgraded by every individual component - when various new hardware upgrades are released just about every month?

[-Prometheus-]

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[IcePick88]

IMHO, I don't even know why consoles exist!

The only benefit I see of the console is the plug and play. No worrying if the game will run on it ect. No min specs and stuff.
But that is about where it's superiority ends.

@D3PART3D - Graphics to me adds to the experience. Like Metro 2033. Damn, if it was on a PS3 or x-box, I would never have been so immersed in the game. All the small detail that the PC GPU gives, adds to that atmosphere. So graphics does play a HUGE role.

I dunno why people by consoles. I would love to hear the reasons. They lack the graphics, their games are more expensive, about the only part you can upgrade is the hard drive, they have limited function and they sit and gather dust when not playing games, listening to music or watching a movie off it.

[StarBound]

IMHO, I don't even know why consoles exist!

The only benefit I see of the console is the plug and play. No worrying if the game will run on it ect. No min specs and stuff.
But that is about where it's superiority ends.

@D3PART3D - Graphics to me adds to the experience. Like Metro 2033. Damn, if it was on a PS3 or x-box, I would never have been so immersed in the game. All the small detail that the PC GPU gives, adds to that atmosphere. So graphics does play a HUGE role.

I dunno why people by consoles. I would love to hear the reasons. They lack the graphics, their games are more expensive, about the only part you can upgrade is the hard drive, they have limited function and they sit and gather dust when not playing games, listening to music or watching a movie off it.

Metro 2033 is on the xbox. I have it. Runs much better than pc but to get pc to run it with the same quality you have to turn down graphics so much you wonder why you bothered.

Consoles were purely gaming. It was always cheaper to get a console to do the same games that arcade or pc had with a single spec. MK on pc for instance had 3 settings, low, medium and high. Depending on your pc spec you had to adjust. The Megadrive and super nes just played it as best it could. MK3 on SNES was one of the best arcade to cartridge conversions. Until the game came out for PS1 which was better than arcade based on visuals and remastered cd audio.

I still believe consoles has a place in the world and with DRM even more so. Although I see that BTGames was advertising AC brotherhood doesnt need internet with huge letters printed across the picture. Might mean that conpanies finally came to their senses. PC has always been the driving force. New hardware every year, now every 6 months but the costs has been enormous and the effort in finding a working driver and flushing out errors is still the thing that plagues pc up to this day.

PC games CAN look and play better than console counterparts. The developer only needs to program for the features avalible on the platform and not just say "pc and console has shader 3 so we are sticking to that." and so on and so forth.

[D3PART3D]

@D3PART3D - ...immersed...So graphics does play a HUGE role.

I like pretty things. I really do. The point is, you're not supposed to be looking at a wooden plank thinking, "wow, that looks so real!" you're supposed to be thinking, "Hmmm, that looks really weak. If I give it a hard enough kick, it will break and the structure it is supporting will fall over and kill those enemies." As long as the graphics can tell you about possibilities, they are good enough, realistic visuals are just the cherry on top. THAT'S what gaming is about. The interactivity. Go watch a movie otherwise.

Deus Ex is so ugly it made my eyes water, but it is still adored, do you wonder why?

Secondly, immersion can be had in so many ways. What about great voice acting? Realistic character development? Gameplay dynamics that cause certain emotions, such as vulnerability in System Shock 2 where you're always on your last bullet? Graphics are not as HUGE as you think...

Why I own a PS3:
1. Demon's Souls.
2.Great when friends are over.
3. Demon's Souls.

i think thats where motion based controls are going to be better than a keyboard and mouse for the console user.

Move is a step in the right direction I think, providing more accuracy than thumb sticks can. More buttons would be nice too. Not so sure about Kinect.

[RiaX]

i agree but kinect is still the best, it just needs real games for it now.

[crathob]

Imagine a world where your publisher and developer only streams video. No more need a geforce GTX9870ti quad sli to run a game. The downside is you need a stable, unshaped, uncapped internet for full 1080p 3d stream (24mb I think). So which way is gaming going?

The publisher/developer or online distrubution service like steam would neet A LOT of GTX9870 (sli/crossfire) to serve the thousands of gamers.

[crathob]

i think thats where motion based controls are going to be better than a keyboard and mouse for the console user.

Move is a step in the right direction I think, providing more accuracy than thumb sticks can. More buttons would be nice too. Not so sure about Kinect.

This. But Kinect needs a lot more work to be good enough (removing slight delays in motion/ more accurate bodyparts recognition) that it would be used instead of the traditional mouse/keyboard or controller. I still prefer the mouse/keyboard to Kinect.

[StarBound]

It's funny that the article this month is on integrated cpu/gpus because thats what the ps3 and xbox 360 does. Unless they drasticly change the systems it will always play 2nd fiddle to a pc BUT remember that back in the days before 3dfx console was king plain and simply put. Lower clock rates, less ram, and decent frame rates just facerolled the pc but then again the pc had some titles that did the exact same thing to console.

But take desert strike and jungle strike. They were far better suited for console than pc. Take dune 2. The pc version was better than the console version. Take C&C. Playstations was better than DOS but lower detailed than win95. And 3D games just worked better on playstation than pc until 3dfx made its mark. Tomb raider is proof of this.

The consoles are outdated and needs some serious work. But the fact remains they are mainstream and games will be developed to their specs. Crysis 2 just shows how badly pc gaming is neglected. Dragon age 2 shows just how far programming skills and optimization has degraded.

[hamin_aus]

more accurate bodyparts recognition

lulz

[Shawn911]

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Guys am i stupid or is this what i am really seeing. i have seen this on other threads as well i CANT READ Peoples Input. i just See dots.

[rustypup]

that's weird... sad as well, because -Prometheus-' posts are simply chock full of valuable insight and pathos...

that or someone threw their toys out the cot and ran around replacing their comments with blocks of dots...

never ignore occam's razor...

[Sojourn]

I vote for toys.
Because I asked him in a pm and yea, its toys.

[Stuart]

Guys am i stupid or is this what i am really seeing. i have seen this on other threads as well i CANT READ Peoples Input. i just See dots.

And how does that make you feel?

[Shawn911]

Guys am i stupid or is this what i am really seeing. i have seen this on other threads as well i CANT READ Peoples Input. i just See dots.

And how does that make you feel?

that makes me feel very dotty. i tried the Braille method but got so many letters and when i opened my eyes to see i was rubbing dust around the screen.

that's weird... sad as well, because -Prometheus-' posts are simply chock full of valuable insight and pathos...

that or someone threw their toys out the cot and ran around replacing their comments with blocks of dots...

never ignore occam's razor...

Cant say dont know what the prob is......

I vote for toys.
Because I asked him in a pm and yea, its toys.

Politics!

[A_BULLET]

now is prometheus really only writing in dots or is he actually typing words ?

[StarBound]

Maybe he is typing in morse code?

Apart from pcs making consoles look outdated if you take a pc from those days a pc today makes those look even worse with consoles being able to play new games a slight bit better than the pc of that day.

[rustypup]

if you take a pc from those days a pc today makes those look even worse with consoles being able to play new games a slight bit better than the pc of that day.

bovine behind produce... PCs back then were already rendering far above 1080p with zero hassle.. without the over priced hardware-drm'd/sub-standard content the console market laps up as if it were finest crème brûlée...

[DeathStrike]

i am actually going to just add my 2c here. i prefer some games on pc and other games on console.

[rustypup]

i prefer some games on pc and other games on console.

so you're actively contributing to this?..

owning multiple platforms to game is like buying multiple pianos to play music... "special" and "unique"....