These market moves should make PC Gaming more sales competitive with NextGen Consoles

[NoodleFighter]

I've been looking around, with the current changes going on with PC gaming, I wouldn't be surprised if PC Gaming started getting more competitive with consoles in console gaming turf and gaming in general. Nvidia and the PC Gaming alliance have claimed that by 2014/2015 the PC will be making more money than the consoles. That is though unless next gen makes some major changes. Here are some reasons/market moves that will make PC gaming more attractive to console gamers/casual audience.

Services/Stores:
Steam and other DD stores have been leading the way with PC Gaming purchases, even Good Ol Games is selling modern games now with their most recent game being Alan Wake. Gamestop has finally taken some consideration into PC gaming and has adapted to it's current style. They've made Steam cards which is great so now people don't need credit cards to buy games off Steam, people without credit cards would mainly be kids though. The UserBase has also been growing rapidly over time, in 2009 it use to be about 20 million, know it is over 40 million, no to mention not everyone and all games use steam.
http://cdn.overclock.net/d/d0/d03cc6f6_90368.jpeg

Nvidia Geforce Experience:
Nvidia have noticed PC gaming is troublesome for some gamers, so with Nvidia Geforce Experience, it will give you the simplicity of a console and the performance of a PC and by that Geforce Experience will auto update your drivers, and those drivers will automatically tweak your games to the best possible settings for your hardware depending on what resolution and framerate you want.
http://cdn0.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/3881332/geforce_experience_large_verge_medium_landscape.pn g

Controller support and options:
Many games nowadays have controller support for the PC, the demand for controller support is quite massive I could even name over 50 games with controller support without even trying. For native controller support gamers have the option of an Xbox 360 controller or a Logitech Controller in the shape of a dualshock controller.
http://www.logitech.com/assets/32785/wireless-gamepad-f710feature-image.png

[NoodleFighter]

Cheap Entry level:
AMD APUs, Nvidia's GT series and intel IGPs/CPUs are advancing the entry level for PC Gaming while still being cheap, the new technology they're using is making hardware more powerful while still being efficient and small.
http://static.techspot.com/fileshost/newspics3/2011/amd-apu.jpg

Laptop/Mobile gaming:
Over the years laptops have become more popular than desktops, the investment in mobile tech like AMD APUs are making laptops more gaming capable. They may not be as powerful as their desktop cousins but still pack enough to game. People don't seem to mind spending so much money on laptops and other mobile devices. So laptop gaming should be more trendy in the future.


Asia:
Asia has been shown to be one of the main growing forces for PC Gaming. Seeing as how StarCraft 2 is a national sport in South Korea and League of Legends is loved and played everywhere we should expect to see in the future more Asian investment going into PC gaming. Already we're seeing Asian devs investing into making more enthusiast games.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8N158AGq3VM/T4mpuaLxDII/AAAAAAAAInM/grdQYoPuFW4/s1600/k1.jpg

The AlienWare X51:
I know Alienware is brand PC builders all hate, but with the X51 they've made a good job of attracting more gamers to PC gaming. Since most console gamers/casuals don't want to build a PC the AlienWare X51 makes a good bridge in bringing them over to experience PC Gaming. Infact quite a lot of console gamers have converted to PC gaming thanks to this machine. The aesthetics and console size make it very appealing. With Nvidia geforce expereince, upcoming Steam big picture mode, and more and more games supporting controllers it will feel even more like a console.

http://i.minus.com/iADGgqPAhS9qu.jpg

Free to Play games:
Free to play games have reached quality that meet or beat AAA games. Considering PC has F2P games that some people consider similar to mainstream but on steroids like FireFall, Planetside 2, and WarFace. Tribes Ascend has over 1.3 million downloads. WarFace has over 1 million registered accounts/downloads in Russia alone and the game is a closed beta.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/2012/03/warface.png

[squirrel]

From my personal experience, I would recommend against automatic update of graphic driver. I recall that after update of an ATI HD4870 driver (I dont recall what version it is, may be 10.3?), fluid cannot be rendered in Bad Company 2. You see, they dont always make bug-proof drivers.

[DeathPig]

From my personal experience, I would recommend against automatic update of graphic driver. I recall that after update of an ATI HD4870 driver (I dont recall what version it is, may be 10.3?), fluid cannot be rendered in Bad Company 2. You see, they dont always make bug-proof drivers.

I endorse this product and/or service.

After an auto-update to 290.something in nVidia, my lap would not go beyond the Starting Windows screen. It would power up the screen, but it would be black. And it took a lot of fiddling around in safe mode to revert back to the previous version.

But GeForce Experience, if developed quickly, could be a real help, as it makes playing with settings easier.

[archonsod]

Problem is as popularity increases, quality goes down.

[Coodu]

I agree with your ideas. But I guess it comes down to what you want your experience to be. You still have the legions of console gamers who don't even touch a web community they just plonk money on the games they want and play in their living rooms.

However with the exploding indie/kickstarter movements the PC market tailors to pretty much everything now. I know whenever I play a console or watch a friend I just always think to myself "There's such a lack of choice here", especially since Xbox Live is kinda crappy here in AUS for lag and such.

I for one am happy PC is going strong, wouldn't play any other way :)

[byteCrunch]

Comparing PC sales and consoles sales does not really work, the issue with the PC (if you could call this an issue) is that it is far more fragmented, the variety of genres/games on PC dwarfs consoles, which results in lower sales per title, whilst consoles are a far more captive audience.

On another note, whilst I have no evidence for this, I tend to see PC gamers stick to specific games more often, whether it is LoL or WoW or CSS among others, PC gamers will just play these games and no other again impacting sales, if one game occupies your time why buy more.

I do not think it is anything to do with a matter of consoles being more popular which is complete rubbish, there are far more PC gamers, it is just that they are spread alot thinner and thus buy less per title, whilst in alot of cases console gamers just buy whatever the new major release is.

[Feldspar]

The AlienWare X51:
Infact (sic) quite a lot of console gamers have converted to PC gaming thanks to this machine.

Sorry, I lolled when I saw this and the little label at the top that claims RPS forums are powered by Alienware (and not too much caffeine, half-assed opinions and the inbuilt belief of every poster that they alone embody the word of God). Numbers, please, I was unable to google up the sales figures for these machines, but I'd be surprised if it was in the figure that I would call 'quite a lot'. I've never seen one or heard of someone buying one.

[NoodleFighter]

Sorry, I lolled when I saw this and the little label at the top that claims RPS forums are powered by Alienware (and not too much caffeine, half-assed opinions and the inbuilt belief of every poster that they alone embody the word of God). Numbers, please, I was unable to google up the sales figures for these machines, but I'd be surprised if it was in the figure that I would call 'quite a lot'. I've never seen one or heard of someone buying one.

Hmm maybe quite a lot isn't what I should say saw but more like quite a few, especially since it just came out this year. There is one on display at my local microcenter and I see some console gamers around it trying it out. I've seen a lot of questions about it from console gamers and casual gamers.
I could see this selling a lot more if Dell/AlienWare decide to advertise it on TV a little, maybe through in a game promotion and put more units on display in retail stores.

[Feldspar]

I can see a consolised PC selling quite well with the right advertising, I don't think the Alienware is going to be too much of a hit (it's at least £200 too expensive), but chances are this market is going fill itself sometime soon. After all, aren't the consoles all trying to PCise themselves in some fashion?

[NoodleFighter]

I can see a consolised PC selling quite well with the right advertising, I don't think the Alienware is going to be too much of a hit (it's at least £200 too expensive), but chances are this market is going fill itself sometime soon. After all, aren't the consoles all trying to PCise themselves in some fashion?


Huh? AlienWare is a pretty mainstream gaming PC brand, I see them at a lot of gaming events and even some non gaming stuff. For Ex AlienWare logo was in a UFC arena or something. Maybe more companies making their own mini slim PCs should help out in recruiting.

[Rii]

The next generation of gaming consoles will undoubtedly support free to play games. Ghost Recon Online for Wii U is F2P.

Also PCs aren't even the competition these days, the upcoming war will be between traditional platforms vs. smartphones/tablets/hybrid-tablet-notebooks and their ecosystems. From the PC perspective its about losing the current software development environment to one that more closely resembles the console environment, from the console perspective its about the old world players going down the drain (with the exception of Microsoft which seems reasonably well positioned and by all accounts is actively rising to meet the challenge) and from every gamer's perspective its about a "race to the bottom" in terms of the types of games on offer, akin to the stagnation of the FPS genre when it switched from PC to console development in early 2000s, but worse, and for everything.

[Nalano]

Is this a "PC gaming is dying" thread in disguise?

[Rii]

More like "the PC is dying". Folks complaining about Windows 8's tablet leanings don't know what they're talking about. The alternative is that Windows doesn't adapt and over the rest of the decade slowly dies as a consumer operating system, taking the PC out of the home with it.

The best hope for preserving something vaguely resembling the status quo of open development environment and hardware specification is for Windows 8 to be a success as both as a tablet and desktop OS and for x86 to make inroads in the tablet and smartphone world.

[NoodleFighter]

The next generation of gaming consoles will undoubtedly support free to play games. Ghost Recon Online for Wii U is F2P.

Also PCs aren't even the competition these days, the upcoming war will be between traditional platforms vs. smartphones/tablets/hybrid-tablet-notebooks and their ecosystems. From the PC perspective its about losing the current software development environment to one that more closely resembles the console environment, from the console perspective its about the old world players going down the drain (with the exception of Microsoft which seems reasonably well positioned and by all accounts is actively rising to meet the challenge) and from every gamer's perspective its about a "race to the bottom" in terms of the types of games on offer, akin to the stagnation of the FPS genre when it switched from PC to console development in early 2000s, but worse, and for everything.
That really doesn't confirm that it will be same for all next gen consoles. The PS3 has F2P games but very very few of them so few you could count them on 1 hand. The next gen consoles online system will have to be very flexible for online, the patching process and fee and strictness is too much for most devs to deal with. That strictness has forced devs to flee to PC.

You also forgot to list cloud gaming, looking at Nvidia's GRID which they made a deal with Gaiki to do. I only see smartphones/tablets as a threat to casual gaming that is until they make more gaming tablets like Project Fiona and that cloud gaming becomes very accesible, looking at smartphone/tablet gaming most of it is people just playing simple $1 games to burn time. PC gaming can adapt to tablets/hybrid-tablet-notebooks. We already have external GPUs you can hook up to your laptops. Cloud gaming will be the dominate future of gaming but is until ISPs become unlimited bandwith or become very cheap. Look at it like this people can just go a gaming channel on their SmartTV and and game away.

[Rii]

That really doesn't confirm that it will be same for all next gen consoles. The PS3 has F2P games but very very few of them so few you could count them on 1 hand. The next gen consoles online system will have to be very flexible for online, the patching process and fee and strictness is too much for most devs to deal with. That strictness has forced devs to flee to PC.

Which is undoubtedly why they will change it for the next generation of consoles to attract publishers. That's why Ghost Recon Online for Wii U was shown off so early in the piece: to demonstrate to the world that Nintendo is ready to "cooperate" with the demands of publishers.

Of course the reduced power of the platform vendors relative to current and previous generations is not necessarily in consumer interests...


You also forgot to list cloud gaming, looking at Nvidia's GRID which they made a deal with Gaiki to do.

Yeah. I guess I don't see it as being as a huge deal as some others do as consumer ownership of games is going the way of the dodo anyway. The main difference is that it makes piracy an awful lot harder, but for me I've always found piracy of games more trouble than it's worth anyway. Course there are other implications like lack of mods, the fate of games when EA decides they are no longer profitable, the types of games that will be designed under such a system, etc. etc.

[Nalano]

More like "the PC is dying".

That assertion's even sillier than the previous.

[frightlever]

If anything consoles are more likely to be dying because of those aforementioned tablets and smartphones. Did Sony ever see a profit on the PS3?

It's a well-intentioned list, but the PC is already the thousand pound gorilla in the gaming market. The bulk of console sales are retail and this is what's compared, but it doesn't take into account download sales, MMO subs or the myriad other ways PC users spend money on games. When talking about console gaming sales, they usually include hardware sales, while conveniently ignoring the money spend on PC hardware. All told PC gaming dwarves the consoles, and it's only going to get bigger.

[soldant]

More like "the PC is dying". Folks complaining about Windows 8's tablet leanings don't know what they're talking about. The alternative is that Windows doesn't adapt and over the rest of the decade slowly dies as a consumer operating system, taking the PC out of the home with it.

The best hope for preserving something vaguely resembling the status quo of open development environment and hardware specification is for Windows 8 to be a success as both as a tablet and desktop OS and for x86 to make inroads in the tablet and smartphone world.
The problem with Windows 8 is that it forces the Metro UI onto desktops. Big, bulky UI elements and modal apps make zero sense on high resolution 24" displays. The classic desktop mode is great for desktops but conforms to the classical small mouse-driven UI elements which aren't good on a tablet touchscreen. It's a schizophrenic approach at attempting to unify tablets and desktops. There shouldn't be any unification except in compatibility; the desktop should use a desktop UI, the tablet a tablet UI. That's the issue people have with Windows 8. Not that Microsoft are looking to bring one OS to two form factors, but that they're forcing a tablet UI onto a desktop OS.


As for this list: pretty much nothing there makes a PC as brain-dead simple as "Put console on table, plug in, drop in CD and play." If anything it seems to argue towards a single hardware profile or closed system where compatibility is maximised to weed out issues (like driver bugs)... and nobody in PC gaming wants that. We're at a decent balance right now where we maintain a vast backlog of compatibility yet moved on from the dark DOS days when even something as simple as audio support could be a pain in the arse.

[Rii]

Did Sony ever see a profit on the PS3?

PS3 has been one of Sony's few money-spinners for several years now...

[NathanH]

yet moved on from the dark DOS days when even something as simple as audio support could be a pain in the arse.

Oh god I remember manual audio configuration.

[Keep]

Oh god I remember manual audio configuration.

Oh god. I had happily buried those memories until now.

[NoodleFighter]

The problem with Windows 8 is that it forces the Metro UI onto desktops. Big, bulky UI elements and modal apps make zero sense on high resolution 24" displays. The classic desktop mode is great for desktops but conforms to the classical small mouse-driven UI elements which aren't good on a tablet touchscreen. It's a schizophrenic approach at attempting to unify tablets and desktops. There shouldn't be any unification except in compatibility; the desktop should use a desktop UI, the tablet a tablet UI. That's the issue people have with Windows 8. Not that Microsoft are looking to bring one OS to two form factors, but that they're forcing a tablet UI onto a desktop OS.


As for this list: pretty much nothing there makes a PC as brain-dead simple as "Put console on table, plug in, drop in CD and play." If anything it seems to argue towards a single hardware profile or closed system where compatibility is maximised to weed out issues (like driver bugs)... and nobody in PC gaming wants that. We're at a decent balance right now where we maintain a vast backlog of compatibility yet moved on from the dark DOS days when even something as simple as audio support could be a pain in the arse.

Going by that logic I could just say, Turn on PC, double click game and play

[b0rsuk]

The easiest way to make PCs competitive with console games would be to turn PCs into a closed platform, like Steam but more. Steam is not enough DRM. No pesky free trade, reselling, modding (DLC is better than some filthy, ragtag modders), no challenges of any kind. Path of least resistance.

Consoles are so popular among developers because developers can ask any price they want, and you can't do anything about it. There's game resale market, but worry not they are working on fixing that.


The problem with Windows 8 is that it forces the Metro UI onto desktops. Big, bulky UI elements and modal apps make zero sense on high resolution 24" displays. .

That's not the problem, that's the point. One of Microsoft's top executives accidentally said something like "windows phone guys are going to love that". Which meant they want to make transition from desktop computers to Windows Phone brain-dead simple, because they're trying very hard to compete with Iphone and Android. Unless there's an internal conflict in Microsoft, they won't make Windows 8 on PC any less like a phone.

I can't imagine Free to Play games appearing in big numbers on a console ! When you make barely any profit on hardware, or even make a loss, you must recoup that with prices of games. The only reason consoles are sometimes cheaper than PCs is they're counting on future profit from sold games.

[Carra]

An automatic graphics benchmark would be great. Just let me push a button "benchmark" and set all the little sliders for me.

And please don't smack me with terms like "anisotropic filtering".

[Rii]

That's not the problem, that's the point. One of Microsoft's top executives accidentally said something like "windows phone guys are going to love that". Which meant they want to make transition from desktop computers to Windows Phone brain-dead simple, because they're trying very hard to compete with Iphone and Android. Unless there's an internal conflict in Microsoft, they won't make Windows 8 on PC any less like a phone.

Windows Phone 8 is built on the Windows 8 kernel. And you can bet the next Xbox is too. Microsoft can't bridge the phone/tablet/notebook/desktop/xbox streams together in a single push given the x86/ARM split, but they're beavering away at it and rightly so. Integration is the name of the game. And of course they're trying to compete with Android and iOS, because those integrated ecosystems and the form factors that use them represent the future and the PC is the past.

The full strategy won't come to fruition till Windows 9, but its 8 that counts: right now the smartphone and particularly tablet ecosystems are still immature and open to challenge
Another three years down the track and that won't be the case, the market will be locked up as securely as MS and Intel have had their spheres locked up for the last twenty years. The big gambles for the future are being made here and now, this is crunch time and Microsoft quite reasonably couldn't care less whether you want Metro on your desktop or not.

[soldant]

Going by that logic I could just say, Turn on PC, double click game and play
Except that'd miss a couple of pertinent points. Like driver updates, actually installing the game, etc...


That's not the problem, that's the point. One of Microsoft's top executives accidentally said something like "windows phone guys are going to love that". Which meant they want to make transition from desktop computers to Windows Phone brain-dead simple, because they're trying very hard to compete with Iphone and Android. Unless there's an internal conflict in Microsoft, they won't make Windows 8 on PC any less like a phone.
That's exactly my point - it's not a smart point. There's nothing wrong with looking to unify the two platforms so that software can remain consistent across the lot. That's a good point. But that doesn't make their Metro UI any better on a desktop. I can put an ashtray on a motorbike and claim it's the point of my design, but that doesn't make it a good design. The classic desktop is so disconnected from what's going on in Metro that it's almost like having two entirely separate systems (at least as it stands). Neither UI is suited to its opposite platform. I'd sooner take fragmentation than crippling the desktop sector. Really, a touch screen monitor (which is effectively what a tablet becomes when it's propped up) isn't fun to use.

[NoodleFighter]

Except that'd miss a couple of pertinent points. Like driver updates, actually installing the game, etc...


That's exactly my point - it's not a smart point. There's nothing wrong with looking to unify the two platforms so that software can remain consistent across the lot. That's a good point. But that doesn't make their Metro UI any better on a desktop. I can put an ashtray on a motorbike and claim it's the point of my design, but that doesn't make it a good design. The classic desktop is so disconnected from what's going on in Metro that it's almost like having two entirely separate systems (at least as it stands). Neither UI is suited to its opposite platform. I'd sooner take fragmentation than crippling the desktop sector. Really, a touch screen monitor (which is effectively what a tablet becomes when it's propped up) isn't fun to use.

Both PS3 and Xbox 360 have some type of updating such as firmware updates, PS3 games need to be installed, installation is optional for Xbox 360 (but it gives you faster loading times and less pop ins) and Wii unless you plan on buying DLC and WiiWare/XBLA games.

[soldant]

Both PS3 and Xbox 360 have some type of updating such as firmware updates, PS3 games need to be installed, installation is optional for Xbox 360 (but it gives you faster loading times and less pop ins) and Wii unless you plan on buying DLC and WiiWare/XBLA games.
Not all PS3 games need to be installed, and the firmware update process is pretty painless. A lot more effort goes into a PC than a console in terms of getting it running and maintained. From a power user perspective it isn't difficult and largely trivial (until some new display driver breaks backwards compatibility or suddenly screws something up), but from a regular console user's perspective it's a different story. I'm not sure how you can make the process easier or more friendly without losing the flexibility and power that ultimately gives the PC the benefit. A console user doesn't have to worry about compatibility or upgrade cycles or anything like that. If a game doesn't work there's only two possibilities: the game is defective, or the device is defective (and it's time for a replacement or return). If something doesn't work on a PC, there's a lot of factors to consider. Of course the flexibility exists to find and solve those problems yourself (without waiting for lengthy returns) but from an average person's perspective that's a lot of effort.

Consoles succeed mostly on convenience. You're unlikely to get that kind of convenience on the PC, unless we move to a walled garden. In that case, we'd all be using Macs.

[byteCrunch]

Windows Phone 8 is built on the Windows 8 kernel. And you can be the next Xbox is too. Microsoft can't bridge the phone/tablet/notebook/desktop/xbox streams together in a single push given the x86/ARM split, but they're beavering away at it and rightly so. Integration is the name of the game. And of course they're trying to compete with Android and iOS, because those integrated ecosystems and the form factors that use them represent the future and the PC is the past.

The full strategy won't come to fruition till Windows 9, but its 8 that counts: right now the smartphone and particularly tablet ecosystems are still immature and open to challenge
Another three years down the track and that won't be the case, the market will be locked up as securely as MS and Intel have had their spheres locked up for the last twenty years. The big gambles for the future are being made here and now, this is crunch time and Microsoft quite reasonably couldn't care less whether you want Metro on your desktop or not.

You fail to acknowledge the fact that the desktop is still Microsoft’s biggest market, if it Windows 8 fails there, it does not matter, if people hate Windows 8 on the desktop, they are going to make the same assumption of the tablet version, Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot either way.

Why do you think they have included both Aero and Metro on both Desktop and Tablet, it is due to a lack of confidence so they are hedging their bets. If they were so confident that this is the future, why not push just Metro on both if they "couldn't care less whether you want Metro on your desktop or not."

Also what are you basing your assumption on that tablets etc are the future for PC as a whole?

[NoodleFighter]

Not all PS3 games need to be installed, and the firmware update process is pretty painless. A lot more effort goes into a PC than a console in terms of getting it running and maintained. From a power user perspective it isn't difficult and largely trivial (until some new display driver breaks backwards compatibility or suddenly screws something up), but from a regular console user's perspective it's a different story. I'm not sure how you can make the process easier or more friendly without losing the flexibility and power that ultimately gives the PC the benefit. A console user doesn't have to worry about compatibility or upgrade cycles or anything like that. If a game doesn't work there's only two possibilities: the game is defective, or the device is defective (and it's time for a replacement or return). If something doesn't work on a PC, there's a lot of factors to consider. Of course the flexibility exists to find and solve those problems yourself (without waiting for lengthy returns) but from an average person's perspective that's a lot of effort.

Consoles succeed mostly on convenience. You're unlikely to get that kind of convenience on the PC, unless we move to a walled garden. In that case, we'd all be using Macs.
Every game I've encountered on the PS3 required installation, it sounds like small games that are on blu ray that have enough extra space don't require install, but games I've encountered such as MGS4, Uncharted, Resistance, Ratchet and Clank, Lost PLanet, and for some games on PS3 and Xbox 360 it is best that you install it.

Really dude driver issues?
http://community.us.playstation.com/thread/4621075?start=0&tstart=0
http://community.us.playstation.com/thread/4680023?start=0&tstart=0
http://community.us.playstation.com/thread/3414966?start=15&tstart=0
http://community.us.playstation.com/thread/3406926?start=0&tstart=0
http://community.us.playstation.com/thread/3911207?start=0&tstart=0
That was a horrible argument to use against PC gaming, maybe if this were last gen or earlier this gen or talking about the Wii it would be a lot stronger but now, no way. For 360 it mainly applies to defective hardware or defective games.
I can't think of any major convenience things consoles have over consoles, considering installing games on PC install the whole game so afterwards you have the advantage of double clicking on the game when ever you want which makes up for having to install the game unlike PS3 where unless it is a PSN game you still need the disc.

[Rii]

You fail to acknowledge the fact that the desktop is still Microsoft’s biggest market, if it Windows 8 fails there, it does not matter

If Windows 8 flops on the desktop ... well obvious MS would prefer that not to happen, but it doesn't really matter. The non-corporate/government/institution/education desktop market is pretty much dead, and that market has just (and is still going) through a transition from XP to 7: MS is not expecting sales (of Windows 8) there.


Why do you think they have included both Aero and Metro on both Desktop and Tablet, it is due to a lack of confidence so they are hedging their bets. If they were so confident that this is the future, why not push just Metro on both if they "couldn't care less whether you want Metro on your desktop or not."They are pushing Metro on both, and they're including 'Aero' (not actually Aero) because you need it for legacy apps and its better suited to many tasks. The point is to get folks used to the interface paradigm. Just because they're not going to sacrifice the big picture to fanservice stuck-in-the-mud PC types doesn't mean they're actually trying to make your life harder. Worst-case scenario is that they replaced a shitty subsystem (the Start menu) with another shitty subsystem (Metro). Who cares?


Also what are you basing your assumption on that tablets etc are the future for PC as a whole?

On the fact that the PC market has been flat for most of a decade now, with all growth occurring in the notebook sector, with said sector now being cannibalised by tablets building off the stratospheric smartphone market?

Of course that's just the current trend, what makes one think it will continue is that tablets can do almost everything that general consumers need their devices to do. Alone they're more convenient than existing form factors and keyboard/dock attachments take care of everything else. Emerging technologies such as wireless display streaming will put the issue beyond doubt.

[soldant]

Really dude driver issues?
Really dude, didn't you look at the start of this thread? Two people on the first page note that GPU drivers frequently come out with bugs that break backwards compatibility or lead to random FPS drops or graphical glitches. If you think every release is completely flawless and never causes issues, then you might as well claim the sky is black because it'd have the same validity.

Notice how I never said firmware updates were flawless? They're not, they cause issues (though the PS3 seems to be much worse for it than on the 360) but it's entirely the fault of Sony/Microsoft. They've only got one hardware profile to worry about. On a PC there's a multitude of software and hardware combinations that random issues without apparent cause can eventuate. Good luck getting a console kid to trawl through forums to find the answer when they could just drop in the CD for Call of Honour 5: Iron Steel Trenches.



Gees, people are acting like I'm attacking the PC and putting consoles above it. I'm not, I'm a PC gamer, I only own a 360 for exclusives but barely play it. But to claim that PC gaming is the least trouble free method is delusional. Well maybe not delusional but it's said through the eyes of a person used to solving issues or driver updates or reading up on hardware for upgrades. Look at the lifespan of your average console versus upgrades for a PC. A console for its lifetime will continue to play games at the same resolution with an increasing level of fidelity as developers start to dig into the system and expose more performance hacks. A 6 year old PC will not play current games at a high level of fidelity or resolution. The trade-off is that a brand new PC will outstrip a console, but clearly the benefits aren't worth the costs for most people or the PC would be the dominant force instead of the consoles.

[random_guy]

Consoles succeed mostly on convenience. You're unlikely to get that kind of convenience on the PC, unless we move to a walled garden. In that case, we'd all be using Macs.

Not sure which games you're playing, but I haven't had any compatability issues for a looong time. Compatability problems are these days largely reserved for older games, and if I remember correctly none of the consoles are compatible with all of their previous versions' libraries (ie try sticking a random Xbox game in your 360 and unless emulation support has been enabled for that title it won't work).

Installation is as easy as following instructions, if you install to the default directories all it takes is pressing "next" a few times. The only reason this might not be the case is because of DRM. With steam the process is even easier, in fact I'd say it's probably more convenient to buy and install a game on Steam than it is to do so with XBLA. Don't know about PSN or WiiWare as I haven't used them.

Convenience is always brought up in any discussion about the relative merits of the platforms, but I think the argument holds less water these days.

Edit: Though one thing that annoys me about Steam is its insistence on trying to install directx etc on the first activation of EVERY game. It would be so easy to implement a simple check - if I've installed any game through steam, I've already got those things installed - and would save time and aggrevation.

[Danny252]

An automatic graphics benchmark would be great. Just let me push a button "benchmark" and set all the little sliders for me.

And please don't smack me with terms like "anisotropic filtering".

Don't quite a few games do this now? Or is it still pretty rare?

[Sketch]

I think he means driver compatibility, and if he doesn't I do. There are still a number of PC games that get released and just don't work out of the box. There are bad bugs on the consoles too, but rarely, if ever will a game just not start. That and the incredibly frustrating experience I had with Skyrim not working properly with my GPU for a long time giving me worse frames than I should get, or the weird bug that meant a certain sound profile caused a CTD. Then there's the whole AMD fiasco that was RAGE's release.

tl;dr a console won't ever give you game.exe has stopped working the first time you launch the game.

[random_guy]

I think he means driver compatibility, and if he doesn't I do. There are still a number of PC games that get released and just don't work out of the box. There are bad bugs on the consoles too, but rarely, if ever will a game just not start. That and the incredibly frustrating experience I had with Skyrim not working properly with my GPU for a long time giving me worse frames than I should get, or the weird bug that meant a certain sound profile caused a CTD. Then there's the whole AMD fiasco that was RAGE's release.

tl;dr a console won't ever give you game.exe has stopped working the first time you launch the game.

OK, fair enough - so these types of issues do still exist then. I just haven't encountered any for ages. Guess I've just been lucky.

[zookeeper]

Going by that logic I could just say, Turn on PC, double click game and play

I think that (for the general public anyway) the simplicity of consoles begins even before you start installing things. It begins with the approachability of consoles, with the fact that I can buy one at walmart, plug it into my TV, and be playing games within an hour. I don't need to worry what kind of graphics card is in the PS3, because it doesn't matter. Does this 360 have enough memory? Doesn't matter, because I know my 360 games will work.

In contrast, I just checked out the desktop selection on the best buy website (not that i'd ever buy a computer from there, but I imagine a lot of people would/do). They apparently have a "performance and gaming computers" category, where the cheapest machine sits at $530 (cad). This is already a good bit more than a console (in fact I could buy a 360 and a ps3 from the same site for the same price), but when I look at the specs for the machine, it's pretty crap. How crap is it? I'm not even sure. Differentiating the mess of gpu model numbers is a fair challenge even for those who keep up with the tech., so I can't even imagine how impenetrable it must be for someone who just wants to play their game.

[RobF]

They are pushing Metro on both, and they're including 'Aero' (not actually Aero) because you need it for legacy apps and its better suited to many tasks. The point is to get folks used to the interface paradigm. Just because they're not going to sacrifice the big picture to fanservice stuck-in-the-mud PC types doesn't mean they're actually trying to make your life harder. Worst-case scenario is that they replaced a shitty subsystem (the Start menu) with another shitty subsystem (Metro). Who cares?

*puts hand up*

I do. Because Windows 8 is mainly shit. The hot corners system is unintuitive and awful on a single monitor and terrible on a multi-monitor set up. The whole of Windows 8, even working predominantly on desktop makes the tasks I have to do in order to make games often a massive bigger pain in the arse than they have to be, things as simple as knocking the mouse so the windows all lose focus is infuriating when you're trying to work. Having bullshit appear over the screen because you hover over a corner is awful. The Metro start screen is a pain in the arse to sort, the all apps even worse to browse through than the old start menu. After spending years decluttering the bottom of the screen and having things tucked away, I'm now having to rely on pinning apps so they're in a convenient place to switch between. It's a massive step backwards for productivity and user interaction.

Giving a time limit before forcing a reboot to updates, and more loss of user control, is wank.

Turning the computer off takes more clicks than ever before and with them pushing Metro harder with the next iteration of Visual Studio and locking out free users from doing anything but, they're going to be making life harder for hobbyists too.

And the ribbon is a piece of obtuse shit.

Until the time comes when I can do all the work I need to do on a tablet, then I need the desktop and the desktop OS to be not shit and I need it to work for me not for how MS thinks I should be doing things because it unifies their vision across 3 screens. And that means having an OS designed for the desktop, not a bastard thing like Win8 is.

Whether they're trying to make my life difficult or not, the end result is the same. Using Windows 8 makes my life more difficult.

If they push further to Metro and MS deciding how big I need my workspace to appear then I'm quite simply going to have to move to Mac development primarily because it will be unusable for the way I *need* to work to get things done.

So yeah. I care.

[NoodleFighter]

Really dude, didn't you look at the start of this thread? Two people on the first page note that GPU drivers frequently come out with bugs that break backwards compatibility or lead to random FPS drops or graphical glitches. If you think every release is completely flawless and never causes issues, then you might as well claim the sky is black because it'd have the same validity.

Notice how I never said firmware updates were flawless? They're not, they cause issues (though the PS3 seems to be much worse for it than on the 360) but it's entirely the fault of Sony/Microsoft. They've only got one hardware profile to worry about. On a PC there's a multitude of software and hardware combinations that random issues without apparent cause can eventuate.Good luck getting a console kid to trawl through forums to find the answer when they could just drop in the CD for Call of Honour 5: Iron Steel Trenches.

Gees, people are acting like I'm attacking the PC and putting consoles above it. I'm not, I'm a PC gamer, I only own a 360 for exclusives but barely play it. But to claim that PC gaming is the least trouble free method is delusional. Well maybe not delusional but it's said through the eyes of a person used to solving issues or driver updates or reading up on hardware for upgrades. Look at the lifespan of your average console versus upgrades for a PC. A console for its lifetime will continue to play games at the same resolution with an increasing level of fidelity as developers start to dig into the system and expose more performance hacks. A 6 year old PC will not play current games at a high level of fidelity or resolution. The trade-off is that a brand new PC will outstrip a console, but clearly the benefits aren't worth the costs for most people or the PC would be the dominant force instead of the consoles.

So why are these people looking for answers after their PS3 or games won't work after a firmware update?

I know not all PC driver updates are flawless for everyone, but how could you use an argument like that when people on the PS3 are experiencing issues like them and 360 to some extent.
Xbox 360 may not have suffered as many software issues as PC or PS3 but everyone and their grandma knows that the hardware issues that came with the Xbox 360 for years made up for that and put it on top.

So is that kid going to trawl the forums when firmware update 5.12 won't let him play Black Ops 2 or when his 360 disc drive scratches all his games or refuse to play older ones?
Also the first two post did not point out frequent updates, they pointed out specific updates that gave issues, just like specific firmware updates on PS3 can give some people issues.
This gens upgrade cycle is very different than the previous gens especially since current gen is the longest one so far, developers have learned to make more use of PC hardware and pretty much anyone with a 8800GT or X1950 can still play games to this day, except with the X1950 since it is DX9 it won't play Direct X11/10 only titles, but an upgrade to play those games such as BF3 would a worthy upgrade since you'll get a massive jump with the tech that is out now.

[zookeeper]

Giving a time limit before forcing a reboot to updates, and more loss of user control, is wank.

...

If they push further to Metro and MS deciding how big I need my workspace to appear then I'm quite simply going to have to move to Mac development primarily because it will be unusable for the way I *need* to work to get things done.

I'm not a mac user, so I'm just going on hearsay, but isn't one of the cardinal traits of osx that you do it how apple wants you to do it, whether you like it or not?

[RobF]

I'm not a mac user, so I'm just going on hearsay, but isn't one of the cardinal traits of osx that you do it how apple wants you to do it, whether you like it or not?

Not really! If you're playing in one of their walled gardens (Mac App Store/iOS etc...) then rather obviously, you're at the mercy of their whims but aside from having more regular OS upgrades, I still use my Mac in the same open way as when I bought it in '06.

I'm a bit miffed about Gatekeeper but really, I've had UAC irritating me for half a decade now so whatever. If they remove the "install from anywhere" then we'll have a problem but for now, it's all as fine as can be.

[NoodleFighter]

I think that (for the general public anyway) the simplicity of consoles begins even before you start installing things. It begins with the approachability of consoles, with the fact that I can buy one at walmart, plug it into my TV, and be playing games within an hour. I don't need to worry what kind of graphics card is in the PS3, because it doesn't matter. Does this 360 have enough memory? Doesn't matter, because I know my 360 games will work.

In contrast, I just checked out the desktop selection on the best buy website (not that i'd ever buy a computer from there, but I imagine a lot of people would/do). They apparently have a "performance and gaming computers" category, where the cheapest machine sits at $530 (cad). This is already a good bit more than a console (in fact I could buy a 360 and a ps3 from the same site for the same price), but when I look at the specs for the machine, it's pretty crap. How crap is it? I'm not even sure. Differentiating the mess of gpu model numbers is a fair challenge even for those who keep up with the tech., so I can't even imagine how impenetrable it must be for someone who just wants to play their game.

Good reply how much exactly is $530 CAD? The cheapest desktop I could find that is gaming capable is $400, the thing is it has like a 1TB HDD, so if if it used 500gb or less it could be in the $300 range. It is a PC with an AMD A6 APU PC, which should give you settings and performance similar than the consoles or better depending on the game.
What were the specs of the machine you were looking at?

[soldant]

I think he means driver compatibility, and if he doesn't I do.
Exactly, though there are other weird incompatibilities that occasionally pop up. GPU drivers are some of the worst for it.


So why are these people looking for answers after their PS3 or games won't work after a firmware update?
Maybe you should go back and read my post, specifically the point where I never claimed firmware updates were flaweless and troublefree? Nah, that'd be too much effort, right?


I know not all PC driver updates are flawless for everyone, but how could you use an argument like that when people on the PS3 are experiencing issues like them and 360 to some extent.
Because for the most part the issues aren't as bad as for the PC. The fix is to release new firmware which solves the problem for everyone. The process for the end user of finding the problem is absurdly simple; either the hardware itself is defective and needs a replacement, or they need a firmware update which is in Sony's hands. Compare that with the PC, when you can have a crash or BSOD or whatever and have a multitude of possible causes which need to be eliminated one by one.


So is that kid going to trawl the forums when firmware update 5.12 won't let him play Black Ops 2 or when his 360 disc drive scratches all his games or refuse to play older ones?
Probably, but the fix boils down to "wait for new firmware" not "post system specs and current drivers and crash log and..."


This gens upgrade cycle is very different than the previous gens especially since current gen is the longest one so far, developers have learned to make more use of PC hardware and pretty much anyone with a 8800GT or X1950 can still play games to this day, except with the X1950 since it is DX9 it won't play Direct X11/10 only titles, but an upgrade to play those games such as BF3 would a worthy upgrade since you'll get a massive jump with the tech that is out now.
Remember that with a single hardware profile the devs can pull out coding tricks (i.e. that 'direct to metal' rant from AMD) to squeeze more power out of the system, which is why a console can last for ages and even show improvements in performance and graphical fidelity over time. As devs become more familiar with the system their products improve. That's not the same as developers not using DX10 or making more use of DX11. Not to mention that a PC naturally has higher performance overheads from background tasks and so on, which is something we can't avoid since a PC is so utilitarian anyway. Ironically, the cooling of the videocard wars can be attributed to the rise of consoles.

As for the 8800GT argument: I could pull out my 6600GT and it'd run some games, but it'd do a very shitty job of it. The argument that a low-end card is all you need doesn't hold true; to get the same level of visual fidelity as a console you'd need to at least be mid-range (and an 8800GT isn't for the current gen games). To exceed it, you need to be higher end. If you're going to sit mid-range and just match a console, you're not gaining much of a benefit.

[mlaskus]

And the ribbon is a piece of obtuse shit.


Now hold on right there, ribbon is a fantastic interface. It works great in applications that offer a variety of options in different contexts. Office suite where it originated being a good example.
You mentioning it in a discussion about Win8, might suggest that you are referring to it's inclusion in the likes of Windows Explorer or Notepad, where I will admit it is an overkill and may be counterproductive.

It replaces the mashed together mess that traditional menus offered, with an intuitive, context sensitive toolbar.
It's superiority can be easily seen when introducing it to people with little or no experience of using the previous interface.
Unlike it's predecessor, even some of the more advanced features are instantly usable by most people.
Unless you provide a well thought-out argumentation against it, I am going to assume you are a dinosaur that is either unwilling or unable to relearn the way you interact with software.

On a note unrelated to Ribbon. Rii has a very good idea about Microsoft's approach to Windows 8, I would write more in support of his argumentation, but it's past 3am over here and I'm off to sleep.

[NoodleFighter]

The only thing I see good about the metro UI is for casual use or people that have HTPCs and such hooked up to big screens. Other than that as long as I can use a traditional like UI I'm cool with windows 8 and if the coding in the OS isn't so different older games won't work at all.
I'm a bit disappointed they aren't working on a new DirectX and are only just adding a new update that makes DX11 more optimized. But then again DX11 support for PC games is just starting to become mainstream even though its been out since 2009. If devs did it earlier we'd have games the could look half as good as Samaritan by 2010.
Just think of a well optimized engine built from the ground up to take advantage of DX11 and use Opencompute/OpenCL for advance physics. That would be one hell of an experience.

[RobF]

Unless you provide a well thought-out argumentation against it, I am going to assume you are a dinosaur that is either unwilling or unable to relearn the way you interact with software.

I'm glad you find it intuitive and a superior system (no sarcasm intended) but I'm entirely unable to focus on the layout of the menu system, it makes me crosseyed, the little sub windows and the placement of icons and text make it even more difficult to focus on stuff and I have to scan repeatedly to find anything I need. Even having used Office repeatedly. There's little to no design unity from one tab to the next, it's a mung of icons, text, windows and whatever else gets thrown in there. I don't know, there's probably a dancing cactus wearing a hat and a thong in one of the tabs somewhere and it is hideously ugly also.

It's physically more difficult and massively less intuitive for me to use than any other system I've encountered and the only other interface I really struggle to get my head around is Blender, which is notoriously shit. That's accounting for running close to 30 years of software use over multiple formats and OS.

And given that inbetween typing this, I'm flitting between Cinema4D, Photoshop and Groboto, I'm going to assume that I don't have an inability to learn due to dinosauritis or anything like that and nor am I afraid of new interfaces or what have you. I'm fairly comfortable in my assessment that the problem lies with Ribbon. As in, Ribbon is guff.

So yeah, it's balls. Soz.

[b0rsuk]

I'm not a mac user, so I'm just going on hearsay, but isn't one of the cardinal traits of osx that you do it how apple wants you to do it, whether you like it or not?

That is correct. He meant Linux.

[NoodleFighter]

Exactly, though there are other weird incompatibilities that occasionally pop up. GPU drivers are some of the worst for it.


Maybe you should go back and read my post, specifically the point where I never claimed firmware updates were flaweless and troublefree? Nah, that'd be too much effort, right?


Because for the most part the issues aren't as bad as for the PC. The fix is to release new firmware which solves the problem for everyone. The process for the end user of finding the problem is absurdly simple; either the hardware itself is defective and needs a replacement, or they need a firmware update which is in Sony's hands. Compare that with the PC, when you can have a crash or BSOD or whatever and have a multitude of possible causes which need to be eliminated one by one.


Probably, but the fix boils down to "wait for new firmware" not "post system specs and current drivers and crash log and..."



Remember that with a single hardware profile the devs can pull out coding tricks (i.e. that 'direct to metal' rant from AMD) to squeeze more power out of the system, which is why a console can last for ages and even show improvements in performance and graphical fidelity over time. As devs become more familiar with the system their products improve. That's not the same as developers not using DX10 or making more use of DX11. Not to mention that a PC naturally has higher performance overheads from background tasks and so on, which is something we can't avoid since a PC is so utilitarian anyway. Ironically, the cooling of the videocard wars can be attributed to the rise of consoles.


As for the 8800GT argument: I could pull out my 6600GT and it'd run some games, but it'd do a very shitty job of it. The argument that a low-end card is all you need doesn't hold true; to get the same level of visual fidelity as a console you'd need to at least be mid-range (and an 8800GT isn't for the current gen games). To exceed it, you need to be higher end. If you're going to sit mid-range and just match a console, you're not gaining much of a benefit.


So can't that person just "wait for new driver update" or just uninstall the driver or if it is a crashing/BSOD issue just do a system restore to an earlier point before your system installed that driver or whatever update caused the problem. I have yet to experience a driver issue, but a Windows Update issue I have, I solved it by doing a system restore in safe mode.

Except a 8800GT isn't as weak as a 6600GT and is more powerful than the consoles, it can already play games at higher settings than the consoles and max for some games. An 8800GT can do Crysis 2 max settings in 720p DX9 with a smooth framerate and no problems while the PS3 and Xbox 360 are playing it in sub HD and can barely keep it at 30fps which drops during intensive battles, and both versions suffer from easy to spot pop ins and are considered low settings. A X1950 could do same but a bit slower. If a 8800Gt isn't for current gen games why is it faster than both the GPUs in the PS3 and Xbox 360, uses DX10 and the fact that its specs/equivalent are pretty much the maximum for minimum requirement for PC games and console ports? If by current gen you're talking about PC GPU gens like 8000,9000,200GTX, than yeah, but in current gen PC specs you can always just buy its equivalent which is like $50 or something now.

[random_guy]

So can't that person just "wait for new driver update" or just uninstall the driver

That's a good point, and also reflects a new way of looking at this debate - PC gamers are often able to troubleshoot or solve issues on their own, whereas console gamers are often SOL until Sony or MS get off their arses and issue a new update.

[b0rsuk]

It's a difference in culture. A culture of fixing things versus having things fixed for you.

[icupnimpn2]

That's a good point, and also reflects a new way of looking at this debate - PC gamers are often able to troubleshoot or solve issues on their own, whereas console gamers are often SOL until Sony or MS get off their arses and issue a new update.

And console games, as they are deployed on hardware with only a few, well-tested variations rarely require anything close to such screwing around to get working. PC gamers are able to troubleshoot, but so much of that is out of necessity that it hurts.

[Sketch]

Exactly. And some things might never get fixed, (Cryostasis just barely works on AMD cards I hear) unless someone in the community figures something out. Skyrim is probably the worst console issue as of late, what with the PS3 version being sort of spotty. I do love PC gaming, but it's given me more issues than a console ever has. And before someone says well I'm doing it wrong, there's only so wrong I can be doing it before its things that aren't my fault. Skyrim, RAGE etc etc.

[random_guy]

And console games, as they are deployed on hardware with only a few, well-tested variations rarely require anything close to such screwing around to get working. PC gamers are able to troubleshoot, but so much of that is out of necessity that it hurts.

Point taken, but I do feel like you guys are overstating things just a little. Maybe it's just because I have been around since the days of IRQ channels and writing custom autoexec.bat files, but the whole process seems pretty simple these days, troubleshooting included.

[NoodleFighter]

Same here I feel it is being way to exaggerated, and you seem to underestimate the intelligence of users

[soldant]

Point taken, but I do feel like you guys are overstating things just a little. Maybe it's just because I have been around since the days of IRQ channels and writing custom autoexec.bat files, but the whole process seems pretty simple these days, troubleshooting included.
So have I, and thanks to all the extra layers that Windows adds in things are a far cry from how they used to be. But although I'm capable of solving issues on my own it doesn't mean that I should have to or that I take some pleasure from doing so. Some of the arguments read like "Well, it doesn't take that much effort to troubleshoot so just do it, it's superior to everything else." Point is that I shouldn't have to bother with it. I don't for example buy a car for the joy of fixing it every 100km. It's nothing to be proud of if your system takes more effort to maintain!

NoodleFighter: That's great you've never experienced a driver issue. I have encountered driver issues, mostly from the ATI side of the fence, as have plenty of others. The best recent example is Rage and ATI/AMD GPUs where the game was broken due to buggy driver support. To say "Well I've never had issues so it clearly isn't a problem" is like me saying I've never caught measles or polio so it's clearly not a problem. Yes, people can wait for driver updates, but unlike firmware issues it isn't always clear what is causing the issue. Also in terms of solving issues it's a lot easier to solve a problem for a single hardware profile versus a near-infinite hardware-software combination in the PC market.

Also your comparison about the 8800GT vs the GPU/CPU solutions on consoles displays a fundamental lack of understanding about the difference between the PC platform and consoles so I guess I don't really need to say anything in response. The Crysis 2 thing is entirely irrelevant because glorified techdemo games aren't worth talking about compared to things like Skyrim. As I said, the power from the PC is the main selling point but unless you give the console gamers a reason to care and reduce the perceived difficulty gap they're not going to care. The benefits don't outweigh the difficulties for most of them.

[NoodleFighter]

So have I, and thanks to all the extra layers that Windows adds in things are a far cry from how they used to be. But although I'm capable of solving issues on my own it doesn't mean that I should have to or that I take some pleasure from doing so. Some of the arguments read like "Well, it doesn't take that much effort to troubleshoot so just do it, it's superior to everything else." Point is that I shouldn't have to bother with it. I don't for example buy a car for the joy of fixing it every 100km. It's nothing to be proud of if your system takes more effort to maintain!

NoodleFighter: That's great you've never experienced a driver issue. I have encountered driver issues, mostly from the ATI side of the fence, as have plenty of others. The best recent example is Rage and ATI/AMD GPUs where the game was broken due to buggy driver support. To say "Well I've never had issues so it clearly isn't a problem" is like me saying I've never caught measles or polio so it's clearly not a problem. Yes, people can wait for driver updates, but unlike firmware issues it isn't always clear what is causing the issue. Also in terms of solving issues it's a lot easier to solve a problem for a single hardware profile versus a near-infinite hardware-software combination in the PC market.

Also your comparison about the 8800GT vs the GPU/CPU solutions on consoles displays a fundamental lack of understanding about the difference between the PC platform and consoles so I guess I don't really need to say anything in response. The Crysis 2 thing is entirely irrelevant because glorified techdemo games aren't worth talking about compared to things like Skyrim. As I said, the power from the PC is the main selling point but unless you give the console gamers a reason to care and reduce the perceived difficulty gap they're not going to care. The benefits don't outweigh the difficulties for most of them.

I see where you are coming from being ATI/AMD GPU users explained a lot. I'm a Nvidia user, nvidia users are less prone to getting driver issues than AMD/ATI users. Some even say that Nvidia pays devs to make AMD games crappier but I don't believe it since Nvidia has excellent driver support. Their drivers optimize the performance of games pretty well. AMD is the worst driver support if you count in their linux drivers. Driver support has been getting better over the years especially on Nvidia's side. Seeing as how console keep becoming more like PCs expect them to have more PC like issues next gen. They're not as plug as play as they were previous gens.

According to Steam's hardware survey there are more Nvidia users than ATI/AMD. You don't need the latest hardware and greatest hardware to beat the consoles and to see a difference, FFS Metro 2033 on low settings is still better than the Xbox 360 version and the differences are easy to spot.
There are these things called PC exclusive, PC games that can't be played on consoles, wouldn't that also be a major selling point seeing as how console users always bring up exclusives.

I don't think I can take you seriously after saying this "The Crysis 2 thing is entirely irrelevant because glorified techdemo games aren't worth talking about compared to things like Skyrim." I sensed damage control

[soldant]

I see where you are coming from being ATI/AMD GPU users explained a lot. I'm a Nvidia user, nvidia users are less prone to getting driver issues than AMD/ATI users. Some even say that Nvidia pays devs to make AMD games crappier but I don't believe it since Nvidia has excellent driver support. Their drivers optimize the performance of games pretty well. AMD is the worst driver support if you count in their linux drivers.
Actually I'm primarily a nVidia user, and they're not free from driver issues either, though I agree nVidia's drivers are superior to anything AMD put out.


You don't need the latest hardware and greatest hardware to beat the consoles and to see a difference, FFS Metro 2033 on low settings is still better than the Xbox 360 version and the differences are easy to spot.
Are you serious?


There are these things called PC exclusive, PC games that can't be played on consoles, wouldn't that also be a major selling point seeing as how console users always bring up exclusives.
If you're interested in those games, sure. But the PC exclusives are either simulations, or indie games like Minecraft which can run on a potato. Most of the major games are cross-platform.


I don't think I can take you seriously after saying this "The Crysis 2 thing is entirely irrelevant because glorified techdemo games aren't worth talking about compared to things like Skyrim." I sensed damage control
I can't comment much on Crysis 2 on consoles since I haven't played it on a console, but Crysis 2 isn't as popular as something like Skyrim or the Mass Effect series. It was built to be punishing on hardware simply because that's Crytek's selling point... since they sure as hell can't write a story.

[NoodleFighter]

Actually I'm primarily a nVidia user, and they're not free from driver issues either, though I agree nVidia's drivers are superior to anything AMD put out.


Are you serious?


If you're interested in those games, sure. But the PC exclusives are either simulations, or indie games like Minecraft which can run on a potato. Most of the major games are cross-platform.


I can't comment much on Crysis 2 on consoles since I haven't played it on a console, but Crysis 2 isn't as popular as something like Skyrim or the Mass Effect series. It was built to be punishing on hardware simply because that's Crytek's selling point... since they sure as hell can't write a story.

Yes I am serious Metro 2033 was a love note to PC gamers. 4A games made sure the game took advantage of whatever PC features were out although physx and DX11 features were performance hogs that didn't show much differences worth the performance. The main difference you can tell between DX9 low settings and the Xbox 360 version is that textures used for low settings are still a higher resolution than the 360 version the PC version has lighting in some areas that the 360 version doesn't and the 360 version is also darker to try and cover up what it really looks like.

Hawken, MechWarrior Online, Mercenary Ops, Shootmania Storm, Hard Reset, FireFall, Planetside 2, War of The Roses, Krater, Blacklight Retribution, WarFace, Iron Front, Tribes Ascend, Project C.A.R.S (timed though since it is coming out for Wii around its launch), World of tanks, Gas Guzzlers Combat Carnage, A Machine for pigs, Tera Online, Guild Wars 2,
Auto Club Revolution, X Rebirth, rFactor 2, Super Monday Night Combat, Natural Selection 2, Chivalry: Medieval WarFare, GTR 3, Umbra, Carrier Command Gaea Mission. These are just games dated to release in 2012. Going back previous years, Shogun 2 Total War, Trackmania 2, Crysis Warhead, The Witcher, Shattered Horizon, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Napoleon Total War, E.Y.E, StarCraft 2, etc etc.
Than here are the games I guess you would consider potato games looking at their system requirements
Cube World, Terraria, Diablo 3, Torchlight 2, Grim Dawn, E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy, OverGrowth, League of Legends, DOTA 2, Tactical Intervention, Dear Esther, Amnesia, Garshasp the monster slayer (crap game anyway), Rusty Hearts, Crazy machine 2, Continent of The Ninth etc etc

[soldant]

I'll concede that my list was unnecessarily narrow, but quite a few of those aren't really popular even in PC gaming, and many don't approach the same sales volumes as the major cross-platform AAA titles. Hell some of them aren't even out and could be absolute rubbish for all we know. Also you doubled up a few times there. I also like how you mention "Garshasp the monster slayer" and note it's a crap game. If it's crap, why mention it? That's not a selling point!

Still, how many copies has The Witcher moved compared to Skyrim? And isn't a little bit ironic that the new XCOM (the Firaxis one, not that trainwreck one we won't talk about), a juggernaut in the PC gaming world, is also going to be out on the 360? But I will agree the PC has dominated the online gaming aspect in terms of features and games since... well, forever I guess, and it's not likely to change any time soon. But for the average Heroes of the Call 4: Steel Medal of American Iron Duty they probably don't care. I'm not certain any of them would really care about X Rebirth, or Super Monday Night Combat, or Shogun 2, or The Witcher (too long for a start, their attention spans wouldn't last the intro) or... well, 90% of that list really.

[NoodleFighter]

I'll concede that my list was unnecessarily narrow, but quite a few of those aren't really popular even in PC gaming, and many don't approach the same sales volumes as the major cross-platform AAA titles. Hell some of them aren't even out and could be absolute rubbish for all we know. Also you doubled up a few times there. I also like how you mention "Garshasp the monster slayer" and note it's a crap game. If it's crap, why mention it? That's not a selling point!

Still, how many copies has The Witcher moved compared to Skyrim? And isn't a little bit ironic that the new XCOM (the Firaxis one, not that trainwreck one we won't talk about), a juggernaut in the PC gaming world, is also going to be out on the 360? But I will agree the PC has dominated the online gaming aspect in terms of features and games since... well, forever I guess, and it's not likely to change any time soon. But for the average Heroes of the Call 4: Steel Medal of American Iron Duty they probably don't care. I'm not certain any of them would really care about X Rebirth, or Super Monday Night Combat, or Shogun 2, or The Witcher (too long for a start, their attention spans wouldn't last the intro) or... well, 90% of that list really.

How popular do these games need to be and which games are the ones that aren't popular? The Witcher which was CD Projekt Reds first game to this date has sold about 2.1million copies. Skyrim a multiplat 5th sequel to a franchise that started in the 90s/2000s sold about over 10 million copies.
What's your take on console exclusives?

[soldant]

The Witcher which was CD Projekt Reds first game to this date has sold about 2.1million copies. Skyrim a multiplat 5th sequel to a franchise that started in the 90s/2000s sold about over 10 million copies.
The Witcher's sales figures aren't bad but it doesn't really matter too much that Skyrim follows a long line of Elder Scrolls games (which went more mainstream with Oblivion, but Morrowind gave it the kick in the pants it needed). What does matter is that it sold absurdly well.


What's your take on console exclusives?
Most of them aren't particularly entertaining for me, to be blunt, just like your average console gamer probably doesn't care about The Witcher. But I sure wish we had things like Red Dead Redemption or Heavy Rain, which ironically are the kind of games that strike me as being more suited to the PC.

[byteCrunch]

On the fact that the PC market has been flat for most of a decade now, with all growth occurring in the notebook sector, with said sector now being cannibalised by tablets building off the stratospheric smartphone market?

etc etc.

Tablet sales figures are hardly so substantial that they can be deemed as some sort of replacement, with the iPad reaching only around 64 million units after three years and three revisions (how many of those are people just upgrading?) along with Android tablet sales which are known to be pretty abysmal, that Google have stated they are disappointed with the figures, your working on the assumption that somehow the smartphone market and tablet market are intrinsically linked.

In the full scale of the PC market, tablets are as it stands still tiny by comparison, so far shipping an estimated total 110 million units as of 2011, whilst the PC market ships around three times that every year (also the lack of growth is rubbish, emerging markets are experiencing rapid growth for PC, its obvious first markets have considerably less annual growth for PC then something new like a tablet, the same will happen with tablets when they reach saturation point), tablets are hardly so ubiquitous that they can be considered even remotely a replacement for notebooks or desktops as it currently stands.

Since you enjoy conjecture, I am going to make some of my own, tablets will not replace notebooks nor desktops, instead just continuing to fill the gap they currently occupy. If tablet uptake had been as even remotely substantial as that of smartphones, you might have convinced me, but as it currently stands they really are not comparable.

[RobF]

How popular do these games need to be and which games are the ones that aren't popular? The Witcher which was CD Projekt Reds first game to this date has sold about 2.1million copies. Skyrim a multiplat 5th sequel to a franchise that started in the 90s/2000s sold about over 10 million copies.
What's your take on console exclusives?

Trials:Stop That Rap At The Start Evo sold half a mil in a couple of weeks. That's fairly alright, I think. Not bad for a small studio under Ubisoft with a relatively simple arcade game. I have no doubts that had that been on PC, the numbers would have been massively lower. Lifetime sales are probably still pretty healthy and worth RedLynx and Ubi having a bit of a party.

The top tier of Xbox 360 games all hit over 5 million copies sold, Halo 3 hit somewhere in the region of 8.

Not an exclusive and obvious reasons why it sold more but Minecraft shifted 1 million on consoles in the first 7 days.

Things -are- on the wane a tad (because Minecraft and Trials are outliers in many ways) with console sales but up until the past 12 months or so, console games could outperform PC games on the market by xLOADS degrees when we're talking exclusives or AAA games. And crucially for publishers, a majority of these sales would be at full price or with the retailers taking the hit on discounts not them. That's the sort of thing that big publishers find attractive and a nut you'd have to crack to make PC game sales more competitive. Or wait for the console behemoths to shoot themselves in the foot until they've no foot left.

(The important difference for PC and console sales is that PC games can continue to sell, albeit at discounted rates, for many years to come thanks to Steam sales and promotions and also, I'd argue that PC gamers would often buy more games just that the money is distributed further afield because of choice but I can't back that up, it's just a hunch. Take with a pinch of salt.).

But anyway, PC exclusives fairly often serve a niche. Most of the list you've reeled off are games that even were they on console, they'd fail to find a drastically bigger audience than they do on PC because they're not mass market games. That's not a judgement on the quality of the things because obviously, a fair load are well made, just that even if the PC came preinstalled with them all for nothing and you got a red rose and a blowjob for loading them up, they'd still struggle to achieve super massive high numbers in the console space.

This is actually something to celebrate, perversely enough. Because the way PC market is now, it means that these games can thrive. If you attempt to chase a more console like model then you run the risk of losing these (or shaving the edges off so Artemis would be a thing that would be dead on arrival) and you lose the greatest strength of PC games. Be very careful what you wish for, right? It's already becoming increasingly difficult to sell outside Steam if you're an indie (because that's where the eyeballs lie) and like the crop of client stores that have cropped up being massive point missers, it's worth looking not at what others do well, but what the PC does well and playing up those strengths.

Anyway. Moving along a tad... whilst there's loads that could be done to bring some sort of parity to ease of use between a PC and a console and I welcome any attempts to make my existence easier within reasons, it's sorta missing the point to lock down and automate a lot of systems on the PC unless you're banging out fixed hardware. At which point, you're indivisible from a console.

And everyone who raises concerns over automatic updates of system software are raising wise concerns. Consoles can roll out a new firmware and all is well. If something bricks, they'll be responsible for repairs and will absorb the hit (with a bit of lalalanothappening). Importantly, all games will still pretty much continue to function same as they ever did before post firmware patch and they can know this because fixed specs, cert and lot checks for compliance. Firmware updates are fairly comparable to OS updates. It's rare for a Windows Update to break an actual game in any discernible way. Hardware fall overs are another thing but y'know, the more hardware configurations, the more wobbly a game. So even though they're massively safer installs, it's still wise to offer the user control over when and where. Just in case.

They're not comparable with driver updates where a 0.049b release might run DOG RACE 2000 in a superior way to the later 0.0988z release so there's a group of users that won't want to upgrade from that and have no need to. 0.23x might break ZARGLE WARS but leave NIMBLES II intact.

It's a nightmare scenario and knowing that forcing that one update on people can do that is why you don't have automatic driver updates already outside of Steam's opt-in or what have you. And no, PC owners aren't some special breed of people who can magically know how to google or fix things, that's our peer group, that. Most people stare at computers like they're the work of the devil still and this is amplified massively with something as complex as even the most low end PC. If something goes wonky, either "Dave knows all about computers, ask him" or "just take it back, love".

And that's without considering that there'd need to be a default to off. You don't want a driver update nuking a cash machine or something. In which case, you're back pretty much where we are now with that particular train of thought.

[soldant]

They're not comparable with driver updates where a 0.049b release might run DOG RACE 2000 in a superior way to the later 0.0988z release so there's a group of users that won't want to upgrade from that and have no need to. 0.23x might break ZARGLE WARS but leave NIMBLES II intact.
Zargle Wars is a shit game anyway, drivers breaking that putrid mess would be a blessing. Nimbles 2 is the best game ever made, but I need to upgrade my floating point alphanumeric cardioverter to get it to run under my Frinkatron 2067 GPU.

Or, in other words, good points.

[RobF]

At least with Zargle Wars, you can use the Gentlemen Of The Zindlefiddle mod to make it more like Arthur Wars VII:Arthur Harder. It's not too bad then. Paradox really dropped the ball on the netcode though.

[random_guy]

So have I, and thanks to all the extra layers that Windows adds in things are a far cry from how they used to be. But although I'm capable of solving issues on my own it doesn't mean that I should have to or that I take some pleasure from doing so. Some of the arguments read like "Well, it doesn't take that much effort to troubleshoot so just do it, it's superior to everything else." Point is that I shouldn't have to bother with it. I don't for example buy a car for the joy of fixing it every 100km. It's nothing to be proud of if your system takes more effort to maintain!

I never suggested that it's something to be proud of, just that troubleshooting is a rare necessity these days, that - yes - it doesn't take much effort, and that the benefits of PC gaming outweigh this slight negative. You're making it sound like it's a miracle anybody ever gets a game running at all.

Edit: Also, Elder Scrolls games may sell more copies on consoles, but their true home is on the PC.

[soldant]

At least with Zargle Wars, you can use the Gentlemen Of The Zindlefiddle mod to make it more like Arthur Wars VII:Arthur Harder. It's not too bad then. Paradox really dropped the ball on the netcode though.
I haven't tried that, maybe I should dust off Zargle Wars again. I've been playing too much CounterNarf for ExoWidget 6: Full Iron Racket. Best tennis game ever. Shame about the German region block though.


I never suggested that it's something to be proud of, just that troubleshooting is a rare necessity these days, that - yes - it doesn't take much effort, and that the benefits of PC gaming outweigh this slight negative. You're making it sound like it's a miracle anybody ever gets a game running at all.
Thing is it still isn't near the ridiculously simple console level. If I put a game in my 360, it will work regardless of whether I'm using one I bought last week or 4 years ago (assuming it's lived this long). I don't need to update drivers, or wait for a driver patch because the current one breaks texture streaming, or roll back because the betas also break Zargle Wars...

Yes, it's true that it isn't so much of an issue as it was back in days long gone. For the most part things should work out of the box. But I'm not trying to look at it from a PC perspective, I'm playing devil's advocate here and putting forward the perspective of a biased console player. It's like people exacerbating a single flaw in the iPhone ("omg you can't install custom OS what a useless phone!) and ignoring any good elements from it. That's how the console players view PC gaming. They don't see any of the benefits as being worth the cost of maintaining the system.

[NoodleFighter]

Don't know about you guys but I find it funny some people are getting Alienware X51s and other gaming PCs mainly because Diablo 3 and MineCraft motivated them to even though both those games have some very low requirements.
So the popularity of the games have to be over 5 million?
Don't know what games you guys are talking about other than garshasp, E.Y.E, and maybe 2 or 3 others. But from the way you guys talk about them it sounds like only 2 people know about them and that they all need to have over 10 million players/sales with in your face marketing to be relevant.
Cthulhu on PC outsold what it sold on Xbox 360 in less than a year
Metro 2033 was a success because of PC
Alan Wake on PC managed to push so many copies in such a short timespan it made it hard to not put American Nightmare on it.
Terraria sells 200k just by word of mouth and later the month sells over 500k.
Looking at the PC games library, it is incredibly broad worldwide, looking at Asia especially China. I noticed that a lot of the most played PC games such as WoW, StarCraft, LoL, Diablo, and etc all have something in common. People in Asia all have legal access to playing them. They have payment models different than the rest of the world which most companies don't seem to adapt to for them, and China has a policy where they pretty much only buy products that are owned/distributed by Chinese companies. Take a look a Torchlight, that game was pirated over 5 million times in China. Runic games isn't sweating it, since they know Chinese gamers had no legit way of paying for the game, but Runic Games does know they'll be a huge market share once they get their torchlight MMO available their.
I predict if Asia had more access to western games the sales for traditional PC games would increase drastically.

[RobF]

That's completely the opposite of my point! My point is that they thrive because the PC lets them thrive. If they release on console, you *need* to do big numbers just to recoup your investment. The barrier and spend on a PC game is much lower for an indie.

200-500k for a small indie game is an enormously high number. Just the presentation alone would sink Terraria on a console. It looks like something straight out of the XBLIG ghetto or a not especially inviting PSN Mini. But thanks to the PC being how it is, it lives. And it lives because it can be made on a PC and it plays up to the strengths of the PC. And it can be sold on the most forward thinking digital distribution network which supports the PC. Putting a PC in a tiny console like box wouldn't help that in any discernible way because there's still a ceiling on "amount of people who want it" and that ceiling is nowhere near as high as it is for "Crysis 6:Call Of Honour Of War" but because the PC is as it is now, it -can- hit that ceiling with ease.

Compared to console titles, yes, hardly anyone knows about the majority of the titles you've listed. But that's ok. That's fine! A few more won't go amiss, natch but still, it's kinda all relative.

Which is why I'm saying you have to be -incredibly- careful what you wish for, because unforseen consequences. Bigger sales are always good but if it comes at the same costs the console platform holders have left themselves having to bear, then that's undesirable. We'll lose more than we gain. So look at what we have got, look at what we do well and go from there rather than chasing what other people have. Because that's precisely how some platform holders are screwing themselves hard.

And sometimes you have to look at some of what you've got and say "you know, that's kinda OK, we should keep doing that" and right now, acknowledging that it's consoles that are shitting their keks not us, so we're doing a lot of it right.

[NoodleFighter]

Are you talking about people who own consoles or the companies that own the consoles and their services? Technically no one owns PC gaming. All the exclusives, all the hardware, all the brands, all the services are provided by individual companies that do it because they want to and because they get instant profit back. They all usually get some form of instant profit gaining than either Sony, Microsoft, and maybe Nintendo.

Console holders sell their consoles at a lost which they have to hope they gain back by users buying new games for their platform and paying for their services. Meanwhile computer companies are selling their PCs at a profit same for hardware companies, AMD, Intel, Nvidia are all still making profit off their hardware and they have yet to sell any of their hardware at half it's production price unless you wait years later when it is weak to what is out by then.
Considering PC gets all the exclusives it has mainly due to its lower development cost, less royalty fees, and more freedom the number of games it gets outnumber the consoles every year.

You see Sony dumping loads of money onto PS3 exclusives and marketing and yet only get specific ones like God of War, Uncharted, Gran Turismo, and Little Big Planet make the money back they invested. All the others could be considered flops but you still see PS3 gamers bring them up. I guess like some people say, PS3 gamers don't buy their games. Sony has already lost over 2.8 billion dollars in their playstation division.

Microsoft pretty much stuck with what sells such as Halo, Gears, Fable, Forza, etc etc and let multiplats and XBL do the rest of their work.

Nintendo pretty much is the only one that was fueled entirely on exclusives. It was the only console this gen to have a lot of third party exclusives.

[Sketch]

I'm fairly sure the console stopped selling at a loss, quite a long time ago.

[RobF]

In regards to what? When I say they're shitting their keks? Definitely the platform holders.

Sony are branching out into cross format dev and by the sounds of things, quite possibly entering into a deal with/buyout of Gakai for streaming tech (PS++?), Microsoft are, well, yeah. Microsoft want it all and are willing to throw their babies under the bus to get it. It won't work, but they're trying. They're also publishing on Steam just in case, y'know? Nintendo are... probably still fucking their store up? Last I heard they'd be continuing to tie purchases to hardware rather than accounts with the WiiU so yeah, still backwards. And after the sales of WiiWare, a hard sell to developers that they've *got* digital.

Where all 3 once had iron grips on certain quarters of the market, that's been whittled away at a rapid pace by Apple and Steam. They can't move as fast as they need to, they're clinging to models that appease the AAA publishers and little else (Sony are the most indie/experimental friendly out the three but still, console dev is thousands of moneys on top of what you'd need for PC or iOS.) So, right, the upshot is, PC gaming is thriving whilst the consoles shit the bed. And at least for the next year or so, it would take something cataclysmic to reverse that.

The rot is already there. The next generation is massively uncertain, so much so that I'd be surprised if anyone farted this year. Which is why this E3 is going to be super interesting to see if they're as spent as it seems and the next one to see if they're really going to try and fuck everyone because they don't know where else to go. This is the first time they've not just been able to rely on moving up a generation and people moving their game boxes to another room, suddenly they're being trusted with increasingly large and ephemeral game libraries. Fun times!

Or if we're talking when I say "they thrive" I mean the people who publish on the PC, build games on the PC and can find their niche because there's no-one to tell them they can't do that. And people with PC's go "oh, good, because I wanted that!".

[soldant]

Nintendo are... probably still fucking their store up?
They're still figuring out how to make money out of Mario.

[Nalano]

They're still figuring out how to make money out of Mario.

Probably the only Brooklyn plumber left who isn't out of a job. Still a bit of an ass, tho.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOgcZGKEr7o

[icupnimpn2]

I never suggested that it's something to be proud of, just that troubleshooting is a rare necessity these days, that - yes - it doesn't take much effort, and that the benefits of PC gaming outweigh this slight negative. You're making it sound like it's a miracle anybody ever gets a game running at all.

Troubleshooting may be a rare necessity for you, but it has become a way of life for me. I, too, have been on IRC and created autoexec files to run games back in the day, etc. etc. I also was a child and had nearly unlimited time and patience. Now I have a family, a job, church responsibilities, etc.

I can put a disc into my PS3 and it will work.

I can run King Arthur 90 different ways on PC and it still has a ridiculous bug and will never work with my configuration although it exceeds minimum specs, and when I emailed the developers they were no help.

Unlike console games, I have had to abandon games that I'd paid out money for. Just abandoned them. Maybe someday I'll have a machine that can play them. These are just a small number out of the hundreds I've purchased through digital distribution, but it still hurts to have a software fail rate when console has essentially none (barring some doof scratching their own disc). And a lot of my time has been eaten up trying to fix things that I HOPE I can because I am competent and an fairly advanced, storied PC user. It's hard to call it quits. Maybe the solution is around the next corner? The next regedit? The next OS install?

[random_guy]

Unlike console games, I have had to abandon games that I'd paid out money for. Just abandoned them. Maybe someday I'll have a machine that can play them. These are just a small number out of the hundreds I've purchased through digital distribution, but it still hurts to have a software fail rate when console has essentially none (barring some doof scratching their own disc). And a lot of my time has been eaten up trying to fix things that I HOPE I can because I am competent and an fairly advanced, storied PC user. It's hard to call it quits. Maybe the solution is around the next corner? The next regedit? The next OS install?

Well I definitely feel you there, that plain sucks. But surely there has to be something that keeps you guys coming back to PC gaming? All I'm trying to posit is that a failure rate, while unfortunate, doesn't outweigh the benefits of mods, customisability, fidelity, open vs closed ecosystem etc. At least for me it doesn't.

[soldant]

Well I definitely feel you there, that plain sucks. But surely there has to be something that keeps you guys coming back to PC gaming? All I'm trying to posit is that a failure rate, while unfortunate, doesn't outweigh the benefits of mods, customisability, fidelity, open vs closed ecosystem etc. At least for me it doesn't.
For some games the benefit of modding is a big plus, like Skyrim. But modding for the most part isn't the major player it used to be in PC gaming. Many AAA titles have bugger all mod support, and even where they do the importance of mods has diminished somewhat. The significance of modding for Half Life was far more than for Half Life 2. A lot of things go commercial or they aren't mods because authorware has reached the point where modding is about as much effort as using a package like UDK or Unity anyway... unless you want to reuse a lot of the assets that came with the game, but people's expectations of modders are so high that such things aren't usually taken very well.

The closed system probably doesn't bother most people because they just want to play games. The open ecosystem brings with it much of the 'problems' with PC gaming in a similar sort of "Android fragmentation" vs "iOS compatibility walled garden" way. For many this does outweigh the benefits. Most of them probably don't care about running at true 1080p when they look at all the extra stuff they need to do to get into PC gaming, because a console does a good enough job.

Again a lot of us look at it from the perspective of PC gamers where we're used to regular driver updates, bug hunts, and trouble shooting everything ourselves. Hell most of us end up with an understanding how how game engines work while we determine whether to lay the blame at the feet of the devs or nVidia/AMD. But the majority of people don't care, just like a majority of people don't really care about what goes on inside their car so long as it moves from point A to point B, or in the Android vs iOS arguments. Someone who is really into the subject matter will never understand why other people don't care, or will insist there are major benefits, but externally they just aren't as important.

[random_guy]

Fine, I give up. PC gaming sucks and we should all be using consoles instead.

Seriously though, what does it matter about the people who don't care? Just like people who don't care what OS their phone runs or what engine is in their car will make their buying decisions based on marketing and brand image, those who don't care about the benefits of the PC platform will probably never be converted over. Because while Sony, MS and Nintendo spend millions and millions marketing their brands, nobody's really marketing the PC as a gaming platform in and of itself.

Besides playing devil's advocate, what's your point? Compatibility issues will probably never go away altogether. If it's as big a problem as you make it sound, what then? There's clearly a big enough market of people who don't mind tinkering occasionally to get things to work, or there'd be no PC gaming market at all.

[soldant]

what's your point?
Hey, I'm not the one starting a big PC gaming glorious masterrace thing here. There is no point to this argument because of what you just said - people will choose what they think suits them best. All I'm doing is presenting the counterpoint to the PC master race argument that the console users for the most part aren't interested.

Nobody's marketing the PC platform because... well, how do you market it to an outsider? It's simply not possible because of the hardware choice. It's like saying you can market all Android phones by marketing Android itself.

[icupnimpn2]

Fine, I give up. PC gaming sucks and we should all be using consoles instead.

Seriously though, what does it matter about the people who don't care? Just like people who don't care what OS their phone runs or what engine is in their car will make their buying decisions based on marketing and brand image, those who don't care about the benefits of the PC platform will probably never be converted over. Because while Sony, MS and Nintendo spend millions and millions marketing their brands, nobody's really marketing the PC as a gaming platform in and of itself.

Besides playing devil's advocate, what's your point? Compatibility issues will probably never go away altogether. If it's as big a problem as you make it sound, what then? There's clearly a big enough market of people who don't mind tinkering occasionally to get things to work, or there'd be no PC gaming market at all.

Modding, tweaking graphics and settings... these are not draws for me, at least, as a PC gamer. And I don't think those will ever be mass market draws. The pluses are having a vast library available, ease of purchase, low prices for games, and being able to switch quickly between tasks.

Bringing back that old school rap/the original plot of the thread, consolization of PC would be nothing but a benefit for someone in my position as I don't want to fiddle. I'm not trying to crank out the highest resolution or an extra 60fps. Most of the time I just want something to give me an experience on par with that of a console game, which is a steady 30fps with decent textures and shadows (I'm not a twitch gamer).

I mean, I guess there could be some industry-wide marketing as with the dairy or pork industry, but most players in the PC space also have irons in the fire for mobile gaming and console gaming, so it would be hard to get a clear message out.

[Rii]

your working on the assumption that somehow the smartphone market and tablet market are intrinsically linked.

Indeed I am, and they are, both in terms of hardware and software. By 'hardware' I refer to the physical form factor, means of input/output, and system architecture: at the current time limited to ARM-based SOCs. By 'software' I refer to the operating systems (iOS/Android) and the cross-compatible applications developed for them. Taken together these factors comprise an ecosystem.

On a market level one can note a relationship between the prime vendors of these new ecosystems (Apple, Google) and their ascendancy in the world market. One should also note that major figures in the PC industry like Asus, Nvidia, Sony, Samsung, etc. are getting into and/or reinforcing their positions in the smartphone/tablet market.

And of course there's the unsubtle point that the gap between smartphones and tablets is diminishing: the next iPhone is going to have a 4" screen and the new Android flagship SGS3 has a 4.8" screen. On the tablet side of things the most successful Android tablet (Amazon's) is a mere 7" and there are rumours that Apple is working on a 7" iPad too. And smack in the middle there's the Samsung Galaxy Note at 5.5".


In the full scale of the PC market, tablets are as it stands still tiny by comparison, so far shipping an estimated total 110 million units as of 2011, whilst the PC market ships around three times that every year

If things were otherwise then it would already be all over for Microsoft. Times change, and the future belongs to those who are able and willing to recognise and adapt to that change. In the tech world where chip designs can take years to bring to market and software takes time to develop and ecosystems to mature, that means acting well in advance. The alternative is the graveyard. See, perhaps most recently and pertinently, RIM.

This unreasoning faith in the status quo is very common. Such attitudes in the mid-nineteenth century dismissed the idea of continental, trans-atlantic and oriental threats to the all-powerful British Empire, for most of the last half-century has dismissed talk of future Chinese ascendancy, and today dismisses talk of future Indian ascendancy. Sooner or later, that future comes along to smack folks upside the head. The only constant is change.


Since you enjoy conjecture, I am going to make some of my own, tablets will not replace notebooks nor desktops, instead just continuing to fill the gap they currently occupy. If tablet uptake had been as even remotely substantial as that of smartphones, you might have convinced me, but as it currently stands they really are not comparable.

It's not just my conjecture: it's Microsoft's and Intel's conjecture too, those twin architects of our current era. The reason they're acting as they are is because they can see what the future holds in store too, and they don't want to be left out in the cold. And frankly, when the alternatives are Apple and Google, I don't want them to be left out in the cold either.

If you want a glimpse of how the PC platform will evolve over the next few years to enter the New World well, umm, Windows 8, but beyond that check out Intel's Cove Point (http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/17/2954280/intel-cove-point-hybrid-tablet-ultrabook-windows-8-pricing) featured at IDF in Beijing (hey, there's something else that would've been unthinkable a decade ago) last month. Hopefully Asus will have something similar out for Christmas this year, although it's likely the form factor and its variants will only flourish with Haswell from Q3 2013. This is a big part of the reason Metro is the standard UI for Windows 8.

[byteCrunch]

Indeed I am, and they are, both in terms of hardware and software. By 'hardware' I refer to the physical form factor, means of input/output, and system architecture: at the current time limited to ARM-based SOCs. By 'software' I refer to the operating systems (iOS/Android) and the cross-compatible applications developed for them. Taken together these factors comprise an ecosystem.

On a market level one can note a relationship between the prime vendors of these new ecosystems (Apple, Google) and their ascendancy in the world market. One should also note that respected PC vendors like Asus and Sony are getting into and reinforcing their position in the smartphone/tablet market.

My point was just because someone owns a smartphone and despite the parallels between the platforms, doesn't remotely mean they are going to also want a tablet, everyone has a smartphone, because more or less everyone has a mobile phone, it is not like some new market has appeared, people are just transitioning from one platform to another.

From the figures I see, more tablets are shifted because they have an apple stamped on the back then any huge market shift towards tablets as the future for everything.


If things were otherwise then it would already be all over for Microsoft. Times change, and the future belongs to those who are able and willing to recognise and adapt to that change. In the tech world where chip designs can take years to bring to market and software ecosystems take time to develop, that means acting well in advance. The alternative is the graveyard. See, perhaps most recently and pertinently, RIM.

This unreasoning belief in the continuation of the status quo is very common. Such attitudes in the mid-nineteenth century dismissed the idea of continental, trans-atlantic and oriental threats to the almighty British Empire, in the 1990s dismissed talk of future Chinese ascendancy, and today dismisses talk of future Indian ascendancy. Sooner or later, reality comes along so smack folks upside the head.

It's not just my conjecture: it's Microsoft's and Intel's conjecture too, those twin architects of the current era. The reason they're acting as they are is because they can see what the future holds in store too, and they don't want to be left out in the cold. And frankly, when the alternatives are Apple and Google and the loss of x86 and thereby the last couple decades of PC gaming, I don't want them to be left out in the cold either.

If you want to know what the future looks like, check out Intel's Cove Point platform featured at IDF in Beijing (hey, there's another thing that would've been unthinkable a decade ago). Hopefully Asus will have something similar out for Christmas this year.

I am puzzled by your insistence that somehow people are clinging to the past by using a desktop or laptop, then linking to a piece of technology which does nothing really new at all. So basically the future at least according to Intel Cove Point, is more or less a laptop, yes what a paradigm shift that is. Not to mention it is running Windows 8, a full OS, that is not really comparable to the Android or iOS environment.

Again all I see is the actions of companies hedging their bets, in no way has Microsoft, Intel, Apple etc etc fully committed to the tablet market, they are testing the waters. The lack of substantial sales growth on the PC end is more down to the economic climate, it has been three years since Windows 7, PCs also have a far longer lifetime, how long before the same happens to tablets, people are not going to upgrade every year, tablets will hit saturation point, then growth will slow.

The assumption that an uptake tablets sales directly correlates to a decrease in PC sales is complete crap. We will probably see technology converge but not out and out replacement, amazingly enough people use computers for different things, and it's not one-size fits all. Desktops were not replaced by laptops, tablets will not replace laptops/desktops.

New technology does not kill off old ones, they just slow them down, physical books vs ebooks, landline vs mobile phone, yes the latest technology clearly always replaces the old.

Tablets have found their own space, it just happens to have taken a small chunk out of desktops/laptops, not eaten them whole.

[Rii]

My point was just because someone owns a smartphone and despite the parallels between the platforms, doesn't remotely mean they are going to also want a tablet, everyone has a smartphone, because more or less everyone has a mobile phone, it is not like some new market has appeared, people are just transitioning from one platform to another.

This is where lock-in enters the picture, both informal (people tend to stick with what they know) and formal (i.e. all this shit I've bought only runs on Windows/iOS/Android) and structural ("x is the only place I can get what I need"). These factors exist today, particularly on Apple's side of things, but they will become far more significant and entrenched over the next few years. Which is why Microsoft and Intel need their foot in the door yesterday.


I am puzzled by your insistence that somehow people are clinging to the past by using a desktop or laptop, then linking to a piece of technology which does nothing really new at all.

I'm not saying that people are clinging to the past by owning or using a desktop or laptop, they're clinging to the past by pretending that such form factors/platforms are going to continue to be anything like as commercially significant as they are today ... or rather, as they were five years ago. Things have already changed markedly since then, as Facebook's shareholders have recently discovered. And they will continue to change.


So basically the future at least according to Intel Cove Point, is more or less a laptop, yes what a paradigm shift that is. Not to mention it is running Windows 8, a full OS, that is not really comparable to the Android or iOS environment.

Ok, at this point I don't even know what your problem is. And frankly its getting late and I don't care.

EDIT: Awoken, I have refined the original post.


Again all I see is the actions of companies hedging their bets, in no way has Microsoft, Intel, Apple etc etc fully committed to the tablet market, they are testing the waters.

Microsoft is not forcing Metro on desktop/laptop users of Windows 8 because they are 'hedging their bets'. They are integrating the ecosystems because that is how they can leverage their strengths (their vast userbase and software library) and thereby extend their empire into the New World. The message to desktop/laptop users and software developers is simple: this is the future, get with the program.

As for Intel, it is clear (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4371/intel-ultrabook-meet-the-new-thin-and-light-notebook/3) that their development efforts are focused on reducing power consumption, improving efficiency, and generally bringing their architectures into line with a world dominated by smartphones, tablets, and ultrabooks.


The assumption that an uptake tablets sales directly correlates to a decrease in PC sales is complete crap.

Oh, certainly: the correlation is probably only 0.5-0.6 at the moment and will rise to 0.8-0.9 as the smartphone/tablet ecosystems mature and they are increasingly able to serve as replacements for traditional platforms and form factors. People do not actually have limitless funds, and some people even like the idea of one device in place of two or three (tablet/laptop, desktop) even if that requires minor compromises in functionality or performance that aren't entirely offset by the benefits of having all of one's digital shit in the same place.


We will probably see technology converge but not out and out replacement, amazingly enough people use computers for different things, and it's not one-size fits all. Desktops were not replaced by laptops, tablets will not replace laptops/desktops.

Well, umm, sure. We still have mainframes too, probably more of them than we ever had during their heyday even. 'Death' is a relative thing, but no less real for all that. Game development follows the market.

[RobF]

The pluses are having a vast library available, ease of purchase, low prices for games, and being able to switch quickly between tasks.

Bringing back that old school rap/the original plot of the thread, consolization of PC would be nothing but a benefit for someone in my position as I don't want to fiddle.

Which is the fundamental problem of the PC. You get the vast library, ease of purchase, low prices and multitasking as a result of the machine being massively open and being fiddle-able. If you lose that, you lose all the good things It's terribly messy.

[Rii]

So apparently Microsoft doesn't want folks bringing back the Start menu in Windows 8. It doesn't want that at all (http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/31/3054348/microsoft-windows-8-start-button-legacy-code-removal).


Microsoft appears to be taking steps to remove legacy code from its Windows 8 operating system that will prevent modifications and hacks to re-enable the Start button and Start Menu. Windows watcher Paul Thurrott reports that the company has been "furiously ripping out" legacy code in Windows 8 recently that lets third parties bring back the Start button, Start Menu, and other legacy parts of the desktop interface. Thurrott claims that several well-known UI hacks (http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/6/2848443/windows-8-start-button-start-menu-how-to) that enabled the Start Button in the Consumer Preview do not work on the Release Preview.

On a related note, Windows 8 tablets and hybrids from Asus, Toshiba and Acer (http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/1/3056032/asus-acer-toshiba-windows-8) are to debut at Computex next week.

[byteCrunch]

I'm not saying that people are clinging to the past by owning or using a desktop or laptop, they're clinging to the past by pretending that such form factors/platforms are going to continue to be anything like as commercially significant as they are today ... or rather, as they were five years ago. Things have already changed markedly since then, as Facebook's shareholders have recently discovered. And they will continue to change.

Again how are you making such far reaching assessments, when we have no figures to support that conclusion, your working under the assumption still that PC sales are going to diminish directly as a result of tablets.


Microsoft is not forcing Metro on desktop/laptop users of Windows 8 because they are 'hedging their bets'. They are integrating the ecosystems because that is how they can leverage their strengths (their vast userbase and software library) and thereby extend their empire into the New World. The message to desktop/laptop users and software developers is simple: this is the future, get with the program.

What strength are going to leverage by handicapping their desktop/laptop platform? Besides, aggravating all those people who will be upgrading their computer come the release of Windows 8.


As for Intel, it is clear (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4371/intel-ultrabook-meet-the-new-thin-and-light-notebook/3) that their development efforts are focused on reducing power consumption, improving efficiency, and generally bringing their architectures into line with a world dominated by smartphones, tablets, and ultrabooks.

Intel has been doing this for years, long before tablets were even remotely a market. Things like die shrinks benefit all computers, die shrinking greatly reduces costs, since shrinking doesn't require any major changes to the architecture of the chip, allowing Intel to push them out in larger quantities at lower prices, despite great performance. This means the performance per unit of currency is better for everyone, it is not something new they have started doing for tablets. If anything, Intel's motivation to continue to push down this route is for the sake of Ultrabooks, considering Ultrabooks are Intels own "creation".

Edit: In fact the main reason for Ivy-Bridge is Intel wants to reduce power consumption to less than 77w for Ultrabooks.

I consider ultrabooks as a far more logical progression of where computing is heading, tablets offer you less, whilst ultrabooks offer everything your conventional laptop had, but with vastly greater battery life, much greater performance, not to mention Intel are throwing money at them, for 2012 they are aiming to drive its price down further, along with increasing screen size, performance, battery life, hence another die shrink for the i-Series.


Oh, certainly: the correlation is probably only 0.5-0.6 at the moment and will rise to 0.8-0.9 as the smartphone/tablet ecosystems mature and they are increasingly able to serve as replacements for traditional platforms and form factors. People do not actually have limitless funds, and some people even like the idea of one device in place of two or three (tablet/laptop, desktop) even if that requires minor compromises in functionality or performance that aren't entirely offset by the benefits of having all of one's digital shit in the same place.

I am just going to ignore almost this entire part because you are just making up numbers now.

People do not have limitless funds, hence they will buy that much cheaper desktop or laptop/ultrabook, which runs all the software they already have.


Well, umm, sure. We still have mainframes too, probably more of them than we ever had during their heyday even. 'Death' is a relative thing, but no less real for all that. Game development follows the market.

What does this even mean? Games are still mostly being developed for PC and consoles, so what is your point?

[David_Landriault]

Man I can't wait for game prices to go down so I can get more games on Steam! :D

[David_Landriault]

That way I can have the latest Uber computer and play Dragon Age 3 or 4.

[soldant]

So apparently Microsoft doesn't want folks bringing back the Start menu in Windows 8. It doesn't want that at all (http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/31/3054348/microsoft-windows-8-start-button-legacy-code-removal).
I'm using the release preview on my laptop. All things considered, it's not as bad as on my desktop, but I'm still not a major fan of the complete disconnect between metro and classic apps. The majority of what I do is still on the desktop, and because I actually need two windows open at once, this isn't likely to change. I'll probably adapt but I'm still not a fan of this progression. It doesn't make sense to force a tablet UI onto a mouse-driven environment.


I consider ultrabooks as a far more logical progression of where computing is heading, tablets offer you less, whilst ultrabooks offer everything your conventional laptop had, but with vastly greater battery life, much greater performance, not to mention Intel are throwing money at them, for 2012 they are aiming to drive its price down further, along with increasing screen size, performance, battery life, hence another die shrink for the i-Series.
Rii does have a point that tablets probably represent the progression of mobile computing. Once Windows 8 lands proper and the first few rushed tablets are cleared away and the better versions hit the market, it's entirely possible that the traditional laptop and even the ultrabook form factors will die. I can't for example recommend anyone buy a low-power netbook these days, because all they're good at is web surfing and an Android tablet or iPad would do that job just as well.

I just bought a new laptop recently and I didn't go with an ultrabook. I still got an Ivy Bridge system but I went with the more traditional laptop form factor because I ended up getting a lot more for my dollar. It's early days yet, but given that people tend to either go between a tablet or a laptop or a desktop, I'm not really convinced that the ultrabook will secure its place. They're trying to ride off the success of the Macbook Air, but Apple's success doesn't always translate to the PC market (otherwise AIOs would be exceptionally popular).