When Epic VP Mark Rein heard co-workers talking about a Call of Duty 4 match, he asked what server they play on. The answer? "Just send us a friends request."
While the heated (and pointless) console vs. PC argument rages on in Internet forums, even big PC advocates at Epic are picking the couch over the desktop.
"I'm a real fan of the PC, but yes, consoles are definitely stealing a lot of hardcore gamers from the PC," Rein told Guardian Unlimited's Keith Stuart.
"When [Activision's] Call of Duty 4 came out, I heard some of our guys sitting around talking about the great game they'd had last night and I'm like, 'Hey guys, what server are you playing on? I'd love to come and join you,' and they said, 'Just send us a friends request.'
It was at that point I realized they were all playing it on console. Plus, the sales of the console versions are something like ten times the sales of the PC versions."
In 2007, the Xbox 360 version of November's Call of Duty 4 alone had sold over 3 million units. On PC, the game sold 383,000 units at brick-and-mortar retail, according to NPD Group's US sales data.
Rein also expressed high hopes for user-generated content, both on the whole and specifically for Epic's own recent shooter, Unreal Tournament 3. The PS3 version of the game (along with PC) supports user-generated mods.
"At some point, I'd like to work with the creators of some of the professional quality mods to help take them to the next level and work with us to build a marketplace where they can make some money off their content," he said.
And will Epic ever explore genres outside of the shooter genre?
"I don't see that happening in the short-term," Rein said.
Well I for one will never choose to play an FPS on a console over the PC. Not with the current control schemes anyway. Maybe next generation when Sony & MS bring out their wiimote clones...
It happens at around the same point in every console cycle. Consoles briefly catch up with PCs in terms of power, PC games start demanding you make expensive upgrades, it all gets ugly, and PC owners start prefering the console versions for a brief period of time.
It hasn't helped that Microsoft have ruined the cycle with the foul horror that is Vista this time around, either, and a lot of gamers have started spending their more and more of their gaming time and money on supscription based MMOs.
Give it another 12 months, when consoles fall behind in terms of power and looks again, and I'm sure that PC owners will start buying the PC versions of these games again.
The problem is hardware. These days if you want a decent frame-rate online, you need a fairly top-end PC. My PC isn't bad, but it's a single-core 3800+ and a 7900 graphics card, so for really new stuff it struggles. I've run the Crysis demo and the Frontlines beta on my machine and both killed my computer at fairly low detail levels. In fact, I had to run the very lowest Frontlines detail settings (640x480 - ewwww) just to be able to move.
But I can pick up any 360 game and know that it'll run on my Xbox. It's a hardware standard. Developers and gamers both know that if it runs at 60FPS on the one it was tested on, it'll run exactly the same across the board.
The other issue, although smaller, is hacks and bots. It's far more common to see instant guaranteed headshots on a PC FPS than a console one. Same goes for any bots or hacks in any genre.
Consoles can't match PC for FPS accuracy or RTS clicking. But PCs can't match consoles for guaranteed equal hardware.
Past: PCs expensive & high maintenance. PCs offer graphics, functionality and 'wow' factor beyond anything consoles could even dream of. People put up with hassle & cost because of this.
Present: PCs exepensive & high maintenance. PCs no longer offer graphics, functionality and 'wow' factor beyond anything consoles could even dream of. People refuse to put up with hassle & cost because of this.
That sums up exactly why I moved from PC to console -
xbox live was the final push though, and with user generated content now possible on consoles I can safely predict a lot more people making the same change.
Past: PCs expensive & high maintenance. PCs offer graphics, functionality and 'wow' factor beyond anything consoles could even dream of. People put up with hassle & cost because of this.
Present: PCs exepensive & high maintenance. PCs no longer offer graphics, functionality and 'wow' factor beyond anything consoles could even dream of. People refuse to put up with hassle & cost because of this.
Exactly my point of view. I used to keep upgrading my PC to a meduim spec for not a huge cost (maybe a £60 midrange graphics card, maybe a slighlty faster version of the cpu and some extra ram). Unfortunately the chip makers are now changing the sockets and bus speeds so often that a simply buying a slightly faster version of your CPU and slotting it in is now virtually impossible as by the time you upgrade, the socket is out of date and the processors are not sold anymore! I also prefer xbox live to playing on the pc online as it just works (apart from a few times over christmas) and I can sit on my comfy sofa and play on a big screen. The wii also offers amazing fps controls as you get the benefit of a joypad to move around (which is much better than a keyboard) and the pointer to look and shoot (which is far better than a joypad).
Us hardcore PC gamers are still here, sat in front of our beige boxes. There may have been a few lily livered wimps that refused to carry on updating their drivers twice a day and graphics card every third Sunday, but they'll be back.
Give it a couple of years........suddenly the 360 & PS3 graphics won't look quite as shiny as they once did, and those gamers will come crawling back, begging for another chance to resolve an IRQ conflict here, drop a logic bomb through the trapdoor there.......
On a serious note though, surely a 'hardcore' gamer would be one who is platform independent ?
Us hardcore PC gamers are still here, sat in front of our beige boxes. There may have been a few lily livered wimps that refused to carry on updating their drivers twice a day and graphics card every third Sunday, but they'll be back.
Give it a couple of years........suddenly the 360 & PS3 graphics won't look quite as shiny as they once did, and those gamers will come crawling back, begging for another chance to resolve an IRQ conflict here, drop a logic bomb through the trapdoor there.......
On a serious note though, surely a 'hardcore' gamer would be one who is platform independent ?
Yeh dunno what Rein is talking about. Bought a wii on launch and now I'm back into pc gaming
Us hardcore PC gamers are still here, sat in front of our beige boxes. There may have been a few lily livered wimps that refused to carry on updating their drivers twice a day and graphics card every third Sunday, but they'll be back.
Give it a couple of years........suddenly the 360 & PS3 graphics won't look quite as shiny as they once did, and those gamers will come crawling back, begging for another chance to resolve an IRQ conflict here, drop a logic bomb through the trapdoor there.......
On a serious note though, surely a 'hardcore' gamer would be one who is platform independent ?
Im with you , i play consoles and PC games, but if you take your FPS seriously you'd be an idiot to think that youre gonna be 'top man' in an FPS sitting back on the couch, tv blaring, using a crappy controller( good for arcade games crap for FPS ), turning your virtual self around at a fixed rate whereas on the PC youll be playing with headphones with surround sound, being able to turn to any angle from 0-359 degrees in a fraction of a second. Its all to do with the control and to be honest i dont think consoles will ever have that, keyboard and mouse would suck on the couch, even using a wii type device would be crappy. Ive played Halo etc online and it drives me absolutely nuts if its the hardware thats holding me back, getting killed cos i cant turn around fast enough and the likes, it makes abilities more random and dumbed down
The cost of PC gaming argument is completely pointless to me, i spent 2300euro on my PS2 in 5 years and ive spend the EXACT same on my PC and probably game more on average on my PC, everyones different so im not saying that applies to 100% of the people out there. I keep my rig constantly updated which is a little hassle selling old parts and buying new ones, but its a PC and i use it for work, coding, surfing,documents,downloading movies/music, converting movies,charging and synching my phone, messing about with 3D applications like povray and blender, arsing arount with paint packages, tidying up photos.
I also agree that in the next 2 years PC's will be so far ahead of the current consoles that console gfx will look crap by comparison, its happened with every generation so far, playing battlefield 2 in 2005 with high res( or next gen, hate the term ) gfx @ 1280x1024, everything maxed out,2 or 4xAA and getting 50+FPS , playing online with 63 others, then turning to my PS2 and just thinking OH GOD!!!!!!!. I cant remember before 2000 with the PS1 and PC( might have been to much booze in those days lol ), but i had both then too.
It stands to reason that console technology is static while PC technology is constantly evolving. The more up to date you want to be with your PC the more it will cost you, its the same with everything whether its new features in cars, the latest tv technology or whatever
I have found recently that I am playing more and more games on my 360 and my PC, it's a shame, I've just upgraded the PC aswell, but it just sits there gathering dust and surfs the web.
*curses consoles*
I think it's mainly the fact that consoles this time have really managed to compete in many ways with the PC, we are seeing a lot more games launching on most platforms at the same time, and I think that most people just enjoy the pick up and play aspect (I know I do, even after 10+ years of PC gaming).
I still have Crysis, UT3 and COD4 sitting unfinished on my PC, the last game I finished on it was BioShock, and I've only played it once since it was released.
Consoles have stolen me away from PC gaming due to the lack of variety. Looking at PC games it seems to be MMO, RTS, & FPS (that's still the case on consoles too).
I still use my PC for FPS games as I'm really horrible with the pad. For my racing, arcade and sports, and same room multiplayer action though my consoles get the most usage.
I'm sure a lot of big hitters will be released on consoles and PC. If it does then I'll use the PC more, much like I did in the Saturn/N64 era. My 3DFX powered rig saw most of the action
Past: PCs expensive & high maintenance. PCs offer graphics, functionality and 'wow' factor beyond anything consoles could even dream of. People put up with hassle & cost because of this.
Present: PCs exepensive & high maintenance. PCs no longer offer graphics, functionality and 'wow' factor beyond anything consoles could even dream of. People refuse to put up with hassle & cost because of this.
Wrong on all accounts.
First, PCs are only expensive and high maintenance if you're a graphics whore... and as the Wii has clearly proven, there are a huge number of gamers who *aren't* graphics whores. There are also an enormous numbers of PC gamers who realize that there are reasons why PC games have graphical options (catering to non-graphics whores and futureproofing chief among them). A similarly enormous number of PC gamers mainly play older and/or freeware/indie games, meaning the latest hardware simply isn't a requirement.
(Of course, there's nothing wrong with being a graphics whore, and in fact I have a very nice PC and 30" widescreen monitor for playing modern games like Crysis at high-ish settings; however, I also have a Wii and I regularly play games that are older and/or less graphically advanced but are generally more fun, like Doom and Starcraft.)
Contrary to what another post above claims, a mid range PC is quite capable of playing Crysis. This poster's problem is that while the GeForce 7900 is still a great card, his CPU is preventing it from performing anywhere close to it's potential. Simply put, any PC with a single core CPU (especially one as slow as the Athlon 64 3800+) isn't even considered mid-range any more. (And considering that if you shop around, you can buy an Athlon 64 X2 5000+ for around £50, there's absolutely no reason to have such an antiquated processor).
Second, every time a new generation of consoles has first come out, the graphics of those consoles have tended to equal or exceed those the PCs of the time were capable of producing. Then, 1-2 years later, PCs have overtaken the consoles again. For example, way back when the first Sonic the Hedgehog came out in 1991, a PC capable of running a game with that quality of graphics and at that speed would have been very, very expensive. Then, in 1993, the PC had Doom 1.
Third, modern PCs most certainly *are* capable of graphics beyond anything the consoles could even dream of. Try out the PC versions of games like Oblivion, Gears of War, Quake IV, etc at 1920x1200 (or better yet 2560x1600) at maximum graphical settings, and tell me they don't beat the socks off their console counterparts.
Yes, PCs which have better graphics than the PS3 and 360 are still relatively expensive (though considerably less than a grand or more, as many people seem to think), but the same has ALWAYS been true.
Fourth, the "hassle and cost" has ALWAYS put many people off buying a PC. Back when I was at school, I knew loads of people who cited this as one of their main reasons for prefferring the SNES and/or Amiga over the PC.
Fifth, the "high maintenance" of the 360 (aka the worry of potentially having to return it for a replacement every six months) has also put many a potential customer off that console.
Unfortunately the chip makers are now changing the sockets and bus speeds so often that a simply buying a slightly faster version of your CPU and slotting it in is now virtually impossible as by the time you upgrade, the socket is out of date and the processors are not sold anymore!
Sheer nonsense. If anything, new sockets are now *less* common than they used to be.
The last time it was possible to buy "a slightly faster version of your CPU" and find that it has a completely different socket was back in early 2007, when AMD stopped producing socket 939 versions of the Athlon 64. But there was still a nine month period when both 939 and AM2 versions of Athlon 64s were being produced.
I don't think Intel have changed the socket used by a range of their processors since the mid 90's; since then, the introduction of a new Intel socket has always co-incideded with the introduction of a new range of Intel CPUs (in other words, Intel CPUs with different sockets are not "slightly fast versions".
AM2 itself has existed for almost two years now, and the new socket AM3 (a standard expected to last for many years) processors due out later this year are fully compatible with AM2 motherboards (though not visa versa).
For non-graphics card peripherals, PCI has lasted for almost 15 years; compare this to the previous standard bus, ISA, which lasted for 12 years.
PCI-Express is close to four years now, and looks to be the dominant graphics interface for at least as long as AGP (which was dominant for seven years).
Love how Mark Rein can overhear a small group of co-workers and come up with such an "epic" headline. The answers in that title, "hardcore PC gamers", if they are hardcore they wouldn't throw away their PC and get a 360 would they? Plus COD4 is hardly a hardcore PC title it's a very arcade style mutiplatform title.
I realise consoles have their place and the gap between them and PCs is probably as close as it's ever been, enough to covert some casual PC gamers or those with older PCs and a tight budget.
Unfortunately the chip makers are now changing the sockets and bus speeds so often that a simply buying a slightly faster version of your CPU and slotting it in is now virtually impossible as by the time you upgrade, the socket is out of date and the processors are not sold anymore!
Sheer nonsense. If anything, new sockets are now *less* common than they used to be.
The last time it was possible to buy "a slightly faster version of your CPU" and find that it has a completely different socket was back in early 2007, when AMD stopped producing socket 939 versions of the Athlon 64. But there was still a nine month period when both 939 and AM2 versions of Athlon 64s were being produced.
I don't think Intel have changed the socket used by a range of their processors since the mid 90's; since then, the introduction of a new Intel socket has always co-incideded with the introduction of a new range of Intel CPUs (in other words, Intel CPUs with different sockets are not "slightly fast versions".
AM2 itself has existed for almost two years now, and the new socket AM3 (a standard expected to last for many years) processors due out later this year are fully compatible with AM2 motherboards (though not visa versa).
For non-graphics card peripherals, PCI has lasted for almost 15 years; compare this to the previous standard bus, ISA, which lasted for 12 years.
PCI-Express is close to four years now, and looks to be the dominant graphics interface for at least as long as AGP (which was dominant for seven years).
For once, Mr Rein has a point. Well, a valid point. Sort of.
Consoles aren't stealing hardcore gamers (not my choice of words). It's more a case of no-one making games for the PC.
CoD4 is a console game, first and foremost. If I had a mouse & keyboard for my 360, I'd probably be playing on the 360 despite my preference for the PC. Why?
Well, as mentioned, CoD4 is a console game. It's balanced for small teams (max 8v, whereas PC players are used to 32+ player servers. 8v8 is just too small for me, I like lots of action. However, once you get over numbers over 8v8, CoD4 becomes very unbalanced. Weapons are too rigid in their function and often weak in most areas, whilst grenades become overpowered (especially 3 frags on a small map) and air-strikes & Helo's become the norm rather than an occasional treat/irritant.
Then there's the cheats. Whilst I don't doubt that cheating/hacking exists for all version, it's rife on the PC and even well admined servers have their fair share. Not to mention clans that all use cheats, clans that kick people for being better than themselves and all the usual guff.
We also have to pay for our servers. I'm not promoting Windows Live or whatever the f**k it's called (because currently, it's crap), but the level of administration on a server is down to the people who pay for them.
The most important point though is that CoD4 is a console game. Whilst the PC version is pretty solid (one random crash and one disconnection since I've owned it - it's a damn solid game engine, and I like that), it's not been changed to cater for PC gamers, and that's why the multiplayer isn't as good as it could be.
The PC version needs bigger maps, more dynamic weapons (not being able to switch fire modes? Get lost! Only the MP44 has any character to it) and the requirements for an airstrike or helo changed to make them a rare sight. And get rid of that bloody minimap, even with a silencer and UAV jammer it's rare to actually 'hide and be stealthy' as even if team-mates don't follow you, they flippin spawn next to you. How can you be stealthy with two or three team-mates letting rip with LMG's, grenade launchers and RPG's.
Don't even get me started on how stupid a wookie suited soldier looks hiding behind a sofa
Even hardcore mode is pretty limp. Most of the weapons become defunct, as do most of the perks.
As for Epic's own effort. UT2004 with a lick of brown/grey paint and way too much HDR/Post Processing doesn't do it for me one bit.
I don't always agree with what Rein has to say, but at least he has a passion for his subject and speaks his mind. He has my respect for that.
pc is far too much bother, with reliability issues.. sometimes u cant even get the game to install let alone run smoothly.
consoles are dedicated and far less problems. everything is taken care of, just pop the disc in.
great graphics, with massive widescreen HD tvs beats sitting like a t**t clutching a mouse staring at a pansy monitor.
If you have a 360 it will probably break within 6 months...
Playing a PC game on a 92" screen using a HD projector beats sitting like a t**t staring at a pansy widescreen HD TV!
You've quite simply pointed out another reason why PC game is on the low... Not everyone can afford a PC capable of running games like COD4 at the same standards as a 360/PS3 version, let alone have enough room or desire to buy a HD projector to play PC games... Consoles on the other hand are on the rise and have broken into the mainstream. If I see a game that on console's as well as PC, I'll opt for the console version unless it's an RTS or MMO.
pc is far too much bother, with reliability issues.. sometimes u cant even get the game to install let alone run smoothly.
consoles are dedicated and far less problems. everything is taken care of, just pop the disc in.
great graphics, with massive widescreen HD tvs beats sitting like a t**t clutching a mouse staring at a pansy monitor.
If you have a 360 it will probably break within 6 months...
Playing a PC game on a 92" screen using a HD projector beats sitting like a t**t staring at a pansy widescreen HD TV!
Your bank manager must be very pleased
LOL. Actually a HD Projector (720p) works out cheaper than a HD TV inch for inch. I paid a grand for my projector setup which included the screen, ceiling mount and HDMI lead. The same setup costs even less now than it did 6 months ago. What size HD TV could you get for a grand?
If you have a 360 it will probably break within 6 months...
Playing a PC game on a 92" screen using a HD projector beats sitting like a t**t staring at a pansy widescreen HD TV!
Your bank manager must be very pleased
LOL. Actually a HD Projector (720p) works out cheaper than a HD TV inch for inch. I paid a grand for my projector setup which included the screen, ceiling mount and HDMI lead. The same setup costs even less now than it did 6 months ago. What size HD TV could you get for a grand?
Dunno haven't looked, I still have a smaller than 32" CRT SDTV.
It comes down to price really, doesn't it? If you want a PC that runs games better than a console you gotta at least have a graphics card thats gonna cost you about the same as the console, and don't forget all the other stuff you gotta dish out for on top of that. Sorry PC but if you want to compete with consoles, hardware prices are gonna have to go down.
Although what the guy said earlier about in a few years consoles won't be able to keep up with the PC, and gamers will start going back to PC is right. Although it is said the PS3 has got loads of power that games arn't using so... who knows.
Well, the PC market has never really been about competing with consoles before now.
It's always been there for those truly dedicated gamers who were willing to go the extra mile with both expense and effort to play the crème-de-la-crème of modern gaming.
Now that console power has briefly caught up with the average spec of the PC enthusiast, the only real advantage the Windows machines have are their controls and their far superior online capabilities, (Oh, and the fact that their games are a lot cheaper) which, to be perfectly honest, aren't always that important in the face of the convenience and simplicity that the consoles can offer.
Give it a while, and those 'dedicated gamers' won't have the choice about which version to buy anymore, as the X360/PS3 versions will be severely crippled, if they appear at all.
Crysis has given us all an early taste, and there will be more soon enough.
In my humble opinion, you don't even have the right to call yourself a real gamer unless you've got a gaming-spec PC hidden away somewhere.
I have been playing pc games for years and years and i alwalys keep my pc up to date with the best stuff you can get. i bought my first two consoles this year a wii on launch and a 360 elite back in october, I love car games/fps so my pc gets more use (cant get a g25 to work on the 360!) but i loved playiing gwar2 on the 360 was a diffrent and better game on it and mass effect rocks, as many people have said in a year or two the consoles will look dated, and most hard core pc games that have made the switch will come back.
consoles stealing me away? like f**k they are! ive tried a mates 360 and its not a patch on a pc. my systems only middeling, 6800gt but it runs everything fine.crysis,cod4,bioshock,total war etc.ok, not on the highest settings but im fine with that.ill upgrade when i can afford it.besides im crap with console pads,so bad in fact i was beaten in halo3 multiplay by my mates 7 year old.besides the mods that you can get for pc games extend game life for months if not years,so ill stick with the poor old soon to be gone pc.i think us pc gamers will be just fine.
Just because few people at Epic decided to ditch PC gaming, it doesn't mean consoles are stealing Hardcore PC gamers. That can never happen.
I have read comments and witnessed friends moving away from consoles (high prices) to PC recently and NO, unless you are a complete retard living in some strage land where every hardware costs your life, PC gaming is way cheaper and easier to maintain than consoles.
I've read a few opinions on here, some of which are valid, with others being more than a little bit absurd. I think I should post my views and experiences as a gamer of god knows how many years, (which I think qualifies me as a so-called 'hardcore gamer', despite what various snot-nosed kids or hardware snobs may insist to the contrary).
I have to some degree been swayed by the lure of consoles over the last 12 months or so. Despite owning many of the consoles since the SNES & Megadrive era, I've basically been a 'computer gamer', using a PC mainly, with the Atari ST, Amiga and a Spectrum before that, (dating back to 1982). The lions share of games used to be played on computer, with only the most exceptional of console games receiving any 'play time.'
However, this is the first generation of console where I have actually sought out the Xbox 360 versions of a number of games in preference to their PC versions. This is mainly due to the factors below, some of which, if not all have been mentioned by others previously. (I apologise for the length, but I do tend to go on a bit sometimes):
1 - The continual purchase/upgrade cycle of PC hardware.
I grew tired of this many years ago, but stuck with it for the fact that the payoff in games made it worthwhile. However, the straw that broke the camel's back for me was when I upgraded in mid-2006. I spent a considerable amount updating my PC to an Athlon 64-based machine. This meant that not only did I have to get a new processor, but a compatible motherboard, new memory and a better PSU. I also invested in a Radeon x800GTO16. This set me back something like £300 at the time, which for me, represented the highest sum I'd ever been able to afford on PC components at once and I upgraded with an element of future-proofing in mind, hoping that this would see me through a fair period of time before I needed to upgrade again.
Shortly after I upgraded, AMD decided to make Socket 939 a thing of the past, and introduced Socket AMD. Despite what another poster has written about there being a 6 month period in which both Socket 939 & Socket AMD being produced - I don't really think this is or was sufficient. The phasing out of Socket 939 meant that their relative value in comparison to Socket AMD chips skyrocketed, as many long-suffering PC gamers found themselves in the same boat as myself.
Little more than 6 months later, UbiSoft released the latest Splinter Cell & Rainbow 6 games, both of which needed a Shader Model 3.0 capable graphics card. My Radeon was only Shader Model 2.0 compliant.
In the intervening time, minimum specs for games have shot up, (with many games now needing a minimum spec of 2.5 gig processors to even meet the requirements on the box; bearing in mind of course the fact that only meeting minimum specs usually amounts to your game being an interactive slideshow). Memory speeds have also shot up in the intervening period.
2 - Windows Vista.
As another poster very intelligently wrote, the introduction of this 'more style than substance OS' also turned me off PC gaming. In the immediate run-up to Vista's release, everyone was told that this was to be 'THE gamers OS', and that everyone would need to upgrade to get the best out of their games. Of course, Vista has since been found to be a game killer in many instances, with its predecessor, Windows XP still managing to run games at significantly higher frame rates than its illustrious successor.
Notwithstanding this, I felt at the time of Vista's release, (and still do now for that matter), that I won't be buying the new OS, and that when all games are designed solely to run on Vista I will either buy a dirt cheap system with it preinstalled, or not bother. I can't justify spending that sort of money on an OS alone.
3. The relentless drive to up system requirements for games, (also referred to by myself as 'lazy programming').
I subscribe to both PC Zone and PC gamer and when I read recently that the pile of utter bile that is the PC version of 'Deal or No Deal' requires a 3 gig processor to run, I nearly keeled over. As I am sure many fellow readers of PC Zone would agree, this game looks to be total and utter pants. To imagine for one minute that this load of donkey's dangly things needs a processor of that capability to run surely must be a joke.
Nevertheless, this is what we PC Gamers are now used to and rarely give a second glance to. Remember, there were games that were ported to the PC from the PS2, (equipped with the mighty 294mhz processor & a 146mhz graphics synthesizer) that needed at the very least a 1gig processor and 256mb graphics card to even run on a PC. (The game in question? GTA San Andreas).
The fact that utter dross like Deal or No Deal allegedly needs such a high spec PC is proof of what I have believed for years - that PC programmers do not spend any time optimising their game and squeezing the best possible performance from lower spec hardware.
4. Pick up and play.
Virtually every PC game released these days is shipped with bugs. A patch or two is usually needed before the user is able to experience the game properly. In addition, you can buy various PC games, take them home, install them and find that they don't want to work with a particular component within your machine. Note - its only after you've bought the game that you find this out. Meaning you either have to sit and wait for a patch, rollback your drivers to a more compatible version, or in some cases, (and I'm looking at you here Shiny Entertainment), you wait and wait for a patch, but nothing ever materialises. In this case, you invariably never play the game again, or if you're lucky, a community-made patch appears.
On consoles, you buy the game, take it out of its case, pop it in the console and play. 'Nuff said.
5. Console games have improved.
The latest generation of console games have improved - you can play multiplayer online, there is now a greater variety of gaming genres available than there ever were on previous consoles, and graphics are more than satisfactory, (as long as you're not a graphics whore).
6. PC hardware snobs.
This is the last category and a personal bugbear of mine. If I never read one more post from some prat with more money than sense saying that 'if you can't afford to run the latest PC games at Ultra quality, then:
You're not a true gamer Not a hardcore gamer Shouldn't be gaming on PC
It'll be too soon. So what, either you or some parent with too much money has blown hundreds of notes on a system that'll probably be obselete in a couple of years. In my books, you are fools who would probably buy a turd if it had the right label on it, (and then insist it had better content, was better looking and ran faster (!) than the other turds out there).
Thats my two (hundred) penneth on the subject, and why I own Call of Duty 4 and Bioshock on my Xbox 360, rather than my PC. Don't get me wrong, I still updated my PC recently, but I'm now tending to buy lower spec games for it, (Defcon, Sam & Max, The Orange Box), with the exception being Crysis, (as at the moment, its a PC-exclusive game).
But those are the reasons why, in the last 12 months, I've bought more games and spent more playing time on my Xbox. And why I tend to agree with Mark Rein.
(Sits back and awaits multiple posts flaming comments...)
NB desmasic - your post about PC gaming being cheaper & easier to maintain than consoles is totally illogical.
Does anyone who owns a console forget they need a tv?
mid-high range pc + monitor roughly £800 console £300, rubbish tv, 50 quid, nice new hd tv £400??? the price of console gaming is almost the same as pc gaming, espcially as i dont acutally own a tv, so if i was to play on a console i would have to purchase a nice hd one so that i can sit in a living room and play it Just a point ive allways wondered weather or not console gamers have ever considered...
i do agree pc gaming is loseing to consoles these days though becuase of the high maintence that is required, such as driver updates which the average joe wouldnt know how to do properly, while sat at a console it downloads new firmware, installs and fixes everything for you!
It comes down to price really, doesn't it? If you want a PC that runs games better than a console you gotta at least have a graphics card thats gonna cost you about the same as the console, and don't forget all the other stuff you gotta dish out for on top of that. Sorry PC but if you want to compete with consoles, hardware prices are gonna have to go down.
Im gonna focus a little bit on this 'half decent gaming pcs cost far more then consoles' misconception for a moment, and by the way, saying you need a graphics card that costs about the same as a console to run games better then a console is utter rubbish, at least where im buying my parts from.
So, on costs between console on pc...
Lets take the 360, a quick check on amazon.co.uk tells me the console and its variants is selling for £150-£250+ . The TV, as mentioned above, can be anywhere between £50 to £300-£400, and then you factor in games, peripherals, subscriptions (XBox LIVE) and other DLC you pay for.
My last PC upgrade which pretty much stripped out everything inside my case and replaced it cost well under £300 and includes an intel dual core E6000-something (my memory fails me) and a radeon x1950 pro, both of which you can get for around the £75 mark. Im capable of playing anything around on the PC atm and im more then happy with it, not to mention on games which both the console and PC have, my PCs graphics are far superior.
Personally, anyone saying PC cost is out of control compared to the consoles is either buying from the wrong places or talking complete bull. Although I have to admit I seemed to have been lucky in that 90%+ of the gaming I've done on my PC over the years has been excellently hassle free, with the remaining 10% fixed quite easily with a simple download or other fix. At least my PC cant 'red ring' (although of course it can 'blue screen'!).
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, i play consoles and PC games, but if you take your FPS seriously you'd be an idiot to think that youre gonna be 'top man' in an FPS sitting back on the couch, tv blaring, using a crappy controller( good for arcade games crap for FPS ), turning your virtual self around at a fixed rate whereas on the PC youll be playing with headphones with surround sound, being able to turn to any angle from 0-359 degrees in a fraction of a second. Its all to do with the control and to be honest i dont think consoles will ever have that, keyboard and mouse would suck on the couch, even using a wii type device would be crappy. 
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, whereas PC players are used to 32+ player servers. 8v8 is just too small for me, I like lots of action. However, once you get over numbers over 8v8, CoD4 becomes very unbalanced. Weapons are too rigid in their function and often weak in most areas, whilst grenades become overpowered (especially 3 frags on a small map) and air-strikes & Helo's become the norm rather than an occasional treat/irritant.
