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I think you need to go back and look at far cry 1 , it came out 2 years prior to Gears of War and it looked great at the time but theres no comparison.

Were you thinking of the sequel or something?

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You really think next-gen consoles wouldn’t get much improved graphics if high-end video cards stopped coming out for the PC?

No. But the pace would certainly slow down, and the consoles wouldn’t enjoy the free lunch they’ve been getting up until now. The time between console releases would probably grow even longer, or the improvement between generations would diminish.

Anyway, you seem to miss the point: the latest consoles (except for Nintendo) have lost money. Lots of it. Neither Sony, nor Microsoft, have made their money back yet.

How can they keep sustaining new console releases, if they never recover their expenses? Right now they have to cheat, by taking money from their other divisions in order to keep the consoles going. For Microsoft, they take the money from their Windows and Office profits.

They can’t keep it up forever. It needs to become self-sustaining. But I don’t see how that’s going to happen, if the PC side of innovation – and people willing to pay the full costs – goes away.

Why do you think a graphics card costs $200 or more? Somebody’s got to pay for the R&D, and console owners sure ain’t that group of people. Unless you want to pay the true, full cost for your next console? Which will end up costing almost as much as PC?

Look at when Gears of War came out for the 360 and was the absolute best looking game out (on anything) for a year or so until it showed up on PCs.

I don’t think a lot of people would agree with you, on that one. Off the top of my head, I would say that Oblivion and the first Far Cry game were in the same ballpark.

And as far as Valve goes, they are making games on an engine thats 5 years old.

And how old is the Unreal egnine? Unreal 3 is based on the previous version, which dates back just as long. Just because Valve’s Source debuted in 2004, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been dramatically rewritten under the hood in the meantime, like Unreal has.

If you are using them as an example of graphics-pushing then I don’t know what to tell you.

You said “console ports that are usually unoptimized and buggy (GTA4) because of the absolute mess of hardware configurations they would need to code for”.

My point was that whether or not a developer pushes the visual boundaries with graphics, is irrelevant. It all has to do with how much care they put into their work, and how much testing they do.

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All the Ultra Extreme QuadFX 500$ cards in the world won’t matter at all if no software comes out to take advantage of it. Look at when Gears of War came out for the 360 and was the absolute best looking game out (on anything) for a year or so until it showed up on PCs. This wasn’t that long ago. If the big developers are making their games for consoles (which they are), they arent going to be pushing the boundaries of high-end PC tech.

And as far as Valve goes, they are making games on an engine thats 5 years old. Of course they run well on older hardware, that was the entire point of the source engine. If you are using them as an example of graphics-pushing then I don’t know what to tell you. Also check the steam techsupport forums if you think valve games don’t cause any headaches.

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And for the poster who said consoles thrive off innovations on the PC, Uh what? Even if you are only talking graphically, consoles graphical direction has been ahead of the pc for ages. Games like Jet set radio, okami, and windwaker hit years before anything similar on the PC.

Uh, no. Wrong. Don’t confuse artistic style with graphic capability. Those games were artistically beautiful, but a PC could have just as easily produced those graphics with a modest graphics card.

Both the Playstation 1 and 2 may have had a brief periods where they were ahead of PCs at the time, in terms of rendering capabilities. But in both cases, it didn’t last long. Since then, consoles have leeched off the innovations on the PC, and were only on par at their time of release.

Both the 360 and PS3 are using GPUs derived from PC video cards. At their time of release they were not significantly ahead of their PC brethren, if at all. The 360 Xenon GPU is derived from the ATI X18XX/X19XX architecture, and the PS3 GPU is derived from the nVidia GeForce 7XXX architecture.

The next wave of consoles is set to repeat the same trend. The Xbox 720 (or whatever they’re going to call it) will have another ATI GPU derived from their current video cards, and the PS4 is rumored to be getting Intel’s Larrabee . . . which will show up on the PC, first.

The only graphics pushing software the PC will get from here on out is console ports that are usually unoptimized and buggy (GTA4) because of the absolute mess of hardware configurations they would need to code for.

Funny, then, that a developer like Valve always seems to make games for the PC that run really, really well and don’t cause people a lot of headaches.

I wonder why that is? Surely Valve has to deal with just as many different PC configurations, as any other developer? So why do their games always run so well?

If Valve can do it, why can’t the other game devs do it? Oh, right . . . they have to give a damn, first.

That’s where the problem really lies. Not because PCs are too difficult to code for. Quick, lazy ports with absolutely no effort being put in. Valve actually gives a damn, and polishes their games to an iridescent shine on the PC.

As for the rest of your comments, they’re great hyperbole.

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And for the poster who said consoles thrive off innovations on the PC, Uh what? Even if you are only talking graphically, consoles graphical direction has been ahead of the pc for ages. Games like Jet set radio, okami, and windwaker hit years before anything similar on the PC. Another poster mentioned Valkyria Chronicles which is another example of consoles trumping PCs when it comes to innovation graphically.

As for indie devs, more and more will move to the downloadable platforms of the consoles. Its a much more safe enviroment for them to get their small games out on without as much fear of massive piracy (90% piracy world of goo) plus get some free advertisment and exposure from the big three. There are tons of innovative games hitting PSN/XBLA these days, just look at the newly released flower for PSN and braid for XBLA for examples.

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My GF has had the same computer for 2 years now, that cost 600 back then (including a decent LCD 19″ monitor”) played crysis mostly maxed, and hasn’t had a single problem running new games. So.. I think the days of computers doubling in capacity every 6 months is over.

And, frankly, those times brought about great advances, so they were worth-while.

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So really, two steps forward, two steps back. Or maybe three steps forward in 2007, but no room for improvement in 2008 (i.e. should have obeyed Moore’s law like the CPU manufacturers). We’ll probably see the trend continue in 2009 or 2010 and this hiccup will be forgotten.

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Just because I resemble that remark (modder/overclocker/score keeper) doesn’t mean I’m in the majority and the majority rules w/their spending habits. No spending…no marketshare.

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