Comments on: Quasi-Exclusive! Newell on the future of the PC

By: mmoinn

mmoinn — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:09:02 +0000

[...] sale near the wow power leveling , let you enjoy your game to stimulate. Cancel reply. Name …Quasi-Exclusive! Newell on the future of the PC | Rock, Paper …I met Gabe Newell a while back when I was reviewing Half-Life 2 or something, but I completely [...]

By: Kadayi

Kadayi — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 19:44:56 +0000

The fundamental problem with Console games is that the games they host are ultimately constrained by the limitations of their hardware controllers to provide the user with a means to instigate in game actions. The bonus for Consoles is the fact that because of their enforced simplicity they are very easy to pick up and learn. In comparison the PC with it’s keyboard/mouse combo offers up far greater interface opportunities for developers, but more often than not developers don’t invest time in making good, simple and intuitive interfaces (like you have to have with consoles), but instead just assign everything to innumerable keys, which relies too much on a players inner geek to get to know.

An example of what I mean is say changing your rates in CS:S. To do this you have to enable the developer console inj your settings, then type in 3 separate command lines with the appropriate settings for each. Knowing how to do that isn’t something that’s found in the manual, you have to search around the web to find it, but an enormous number of serious CS players actively do it,especially when it comes to match play (I know..I’m one of them…).

If it was a pure console product the rates would either change automatically dependent upon your connection type, or there would be a simple and intuitive GUI interface too take care of it all. Until PC developers are prepared to tackle these sort of nitty gritty things the PC will always lag compared to consoles in terms of immediate popularity, even though it should be the superior platform.

By: Morry

Morry — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:10:15 +0000

For games to be playable on integrated graphics means that the hardware needs to be improved significantly. More and more games are being developed for the consoles, therefore the ports of these titles will require a mid-range graphics card to run reasonably well. It’s a good thing that AMD and ATi have combined, as this scenario can theoretically happen – motherboards shipping with a mid range video card as standard. Once the average consumer recognises that the PC they buy at the shop is a formidable gaming machine, they might just use it as the machine for the whole family – work and play in the one machine.

I’m not sure about instant-play games though. Games that are pre-installed on the PC take greater advantage in terms of load times, resources and, of course, mods.

By: Nowon Wil KNo

Nowon Wil KNo — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:55:20 +0000

Not sure if Martin is the same guy as Coxall… however if Coxall is someone different than Martin and he his arguing against Matin’s claim that PC gaming will be around forever ; one must note that the 16-17% is a significant increase in revenue for any developer who choses to port their console game to PC. That is why developers who target multiple console anyway usually port their game to the PC as well.

What needs to happen for that 16-17% to increase is
…games need to be playable on intel integrated graphics
remember that as crappy as it may be… it is at least comparable to an ATI 7500 or an GeForce3… especially if you take advantage of the immense processing power available on even low end PCs (remember Nabe’s comparison of the sales of Intel and Cell) a game developer can get some impressive results

…the crappy EULA that nobody reads needs to go away
and be replaced by the simple green “FBI warning” we see in all movies. Software is published, not manufactured. The lengthy “no warranty” nonsense belongs on software no more than it belongs on books.

…in fact, games need to be immediately playable from the discs without an install…
Steam gets close to this… the moment it is downloaded you do not need to go through an install afterwards. Content can be streamed to the hard disk for the sake of performance during play.

In fact, there is no reason for any app to not be stand alone… the install shield and latching to registry nonsense needs to be gone.

By: Martin Coxall

Martin Coxall — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:07:07 +0000

Well, let’s look at some hard and fast numbers here.

What percentage copies of BioShock are for the PC version? It’s around 16-17%, isn’t it? Even though it’s obviously the superior version, fools.

Publishers are going to notice that kind of thing eventually, you know, once they employ people what can add up and that.

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:06:33 +0000

Just a quick one as I need to get out the door…

I’m sure PC gaming will be around forever but seeing that a lot of developers opt to develop for consoles first and foremost, citing the plethora of configuration variations on the PC, I think that a UCP has a lot to offer.

I bet my left arm that any developer out there would kill to be able to develop one set of resources for all the consoles out there and just have it work.

By: DuBBle

DuBBle — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:02:24 +0000

I think that Dyack is correct to claim that the PC serves as a ‘no-standard’ medium. What a pity that Newell chose to address the defenseless ‘going nowhere’ notion. I’d like to know Newell’s opinion on this issue, because I’m quite sure that a lack of a common unifier is the reason for the consumer’s scare-factor associated with PCs and for the saddening bias of magazines such as Edge towards the console market.

By: Tom Bramwell

Tom Bramwell — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:12:56 +0000

Listening to Dyack talk, you do get the sense he’s onto something – I just don’t know if he’s completely there. His admission that he has no idea of the economics of how it works are a bit of a tell. It’s hard not to see the main things he’s talking about, like the increased difficulty of developing, which we hear everywhere we go. Looking at it superficially, when it starts being big publishers snapped up by other big publishers, perhaps that’s when we’re heading towards Dyack’s ideal of a unified format.

Although I like Newell’s defence of the PC. I often wonder about the defence it gets – the sales *are* poor, and I’m semi-sure it will be reliant on next-gen to drive a lot of top-drawer content like BioShock going forward – but the sheer versatility and the fact it’s the root of the Internet (ha) will always mean that it’s the vanguard of proper developments like digital distribution, peer to peer and so on, and, since they’re surely going to shape retail going forward, it’s hard not to see software – utilitarian as much as games – driving the next generation of gaming hardware.

By: Jim Rossignol

Jim Rossignol — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:33:29 +0000

I raise you to twenty!

By: Martin

Martin — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:20:13 +0000

Well, I might just open up a can of worms (delicious worms!) here but I feel that the very stick that Gabe is looking for is the billions of dollars “the big three” lose on their hardware (yeah, Nintendo says that the Wii was profitable from the launch but I’m not sure if that’s taking R&D into consideration).

The reason they’re not working together already is because it’s a case of “we know what we got but not what we might get”. No-one dares risk a cooperation with a rival as they don’t know what they stand to lose from it. There are too many unknown variables.

I think Dyack is right – it just won’t happen as soon as he thinks. I give it 10 years until we have a Unified Console Platform.