Uh-oh, Epic superstar Cliff 'Cliffy B' Bleszinski is at it again, this time speaking about what used to be his company's biggest baby; PC gaming.
Speaking to MTV's multiplayer blog, the Gears of War man says that the current state of PC gaming is in "disarray," and explains why right now he'd rather be making games on consoles (and yes, it has something to do with money).
"I think people would rather make a game that sells 4.5 million copies than a million and Gears is at 4.5 million right now on the 360," he said.
"I think the PC is just in disarray... What's driving the PC right now is Sims-type games and WoW and a lot of stuff that's in a web-based interface. You just click on it and play it. That's the direction PC is evolving into. So for me, the PC is kind of the secondary part of what we're doing. It's important for us, but right now making AAA games on consoles is where we're at."
Can't argue with him on the sales, but I wonder what Mark Rein has to say about PC's "secondary" part in Epic's plans?
its all about cash, and why not, however it will be extremely bad for the industry if in the future devs stop producing PC versions of console AAA games. The PC market drives the console markets technology, the gpu's of the PS3 and 360 are 99% the same as the PC versions, so if he continues to believe that he may be shooting himself in the foot, cheap harddrives prices come from the PC market( although that will never change due to business usage etc ) etc etc
PC gaming isnt dying but it certainly needs something drastic to change the way it's going.
Money talks and when big budget PC games shift 50,000 copies compared to a million on consoles, what are developers supposed to do?
I think the format of going into a shop and buying a PC game is almost over, something new has to happen. It might be a Steam equivalent but it has to do something.
He has a point to some degree. I have a pc as well as a 360 but refuse to upgrade to Vista due to it's unfriendly nature towards the likes of Itunes. Not to mentiom the enormous cost involved in upgrading various components to enable me to play such games as Crysis. The simple truth is that consoles are a hell of a lot easier to play next-gen games on, and much less expensive. I think this has a lot to do with a decline in sales of pc games.
The only thing making PC gaming look like a hassle for everyone is the insane hoops you have to jump through to install many items these days.
I buy all my games, but find myself having to use No CD patches just so that I don't have to dig up the CD every time I want to play!
Some of these installations are a nightmare, especially if you don't have the net like I didn't have a while ago. It's not just games too, the latest Corel and Adobe software seem to demand the internet these days for installation.
He's right though. You just need to look at the likes of Gears of War on 360 which sold 3 million in 10 weeks and Halo 3 which has sold 8.1 million since release. Compare that to Crysis on PC which sold 86,633 units since release and UT III on PC which has sold 33,995...
I think we can all come to our own conclusions based on those figures...
He's right though. You just need to look at the likes of Gears of War on 360 which sold 3 million in 10 weeks and Halo 3 which has sold 8.1 million since release. Compare that to Crysis on PC which sold 86,633 units since release and UT III on PC which has sold 33,995...
I think we can all come to our own conclusions based on those figures...
Crysis has sold over a million copies now. Please don't post ignorant bulls**t.
I have played PC games over the years, but I got fed up with not having the required specs to run games.
I dont want to spend Ł500 or more a year to play games, and nor do a lot of people. This is why Consoles are so popular and why I laughed when HP said that there would not be another console generation.
People like the ease and cost of consoles and the friendly controls, that where the PC falls down.
You used to have to be an octopus to play games like Doom or Duke Nukem with the Keyboard and mouse on the PC.
He's right though. You just need to look at the likes of Gears of War on 360 which sold 3 million in 10 weeks and Halo 3 which has sold 8.1 million since release. Compare that to Crysis on PC which sold 86,633 units since release and UT III on PC which has sold 33,995...
I think we can all come to our own conclusions based on those figures...
Crysis has sold over a million copies now. Please don't post ignorant bulls**t.
The only thing making PC gaming look like a hassle for everyone is the insane hoops you have to jump through to install many items these days.
I buy all my games, but find myself having to use No CD patches just so that I don't have to dig up the CD every time I want to play!
Some of these installations are a nightmare, especially if you don't have the net like I didn't have a while ago. It's not just games too, the latest Corel and Adobe software seem to demand the internet these days for installation.
Thats the worse thing thats happening nowadays. All the companies seem to assume that everybody has the internet. They are trying so hard to combat piracy but I know so many people who still dont have a broadband connection so they cant use certain software. They just go to a car boot & buy the pirate copy - Wa la. Works perfectly & no hassle whatsoever
He's right though. You just need to look at the likes of Gears of War on 360 which sold 3 million in 10 weeks and Halo 3 which has sold 8.1 million since release. Compare that to Crysis on PC which sold 86,633 units since release and UT III on PC which has sold 33,995...
I think we can all come to our own conclusions based on those figures...
Crysis has sold over a million copies now. Please don't post ignorant bulls**t.
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/12/17/hardware-geeks-fail-bump-crysis Try to control yourself.
He's right though. You just need to look at the likes of Gears of War on 360 which sold 3 million in 10 weeks and Halo 3 which has sold 8.1 million since release. Compare that to Crysis on PC which sold 86,633 units since release and UT III on PC which has sold 33,995...
I think we can all come to our own conclusions based on those figures...
This is the type of bull that console fanboy web sites like this post. Crysis sold more than a million in less than 3 months. As more people upgrage their pc's Crysis will sell very well in the long run.
He's right though. You just need to look at the likes of Gears of War on 360 which sold 3 million in 10 weeks and Halo 3 which has sold 8.1 million since release. Compare that to Crysis on PC which sold 86,633 units since release and UT III on PC which has sold 33,995...
I think we can all come to our own conclusions based on those figures...
Crysis has sold over a million copies now. Please don't post ignorant bulls**t.
How do you guys know these figures?
*clueless*
Crysis sell over a million in less than 3 months http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=crysis+platinum&spell=1
Thats the worse thing thats happening nowadays. All the companies seem to assume that everybody has the internet. They are trying so hard to combat piracy but I know so many people who still dont have a broadband connection so they cant use certain software. They just go to a car boot & buy the pirate copy - Wa la. Works perfectly & no hassle whatsoever
I've had to "pirate" a few of my own games
Especially when I didn't have the net at home, just so that I could play the title I bought.
I hope this is sorted soon, I'm planning to build a monster of a PC for the summer. I want the minimum of installation problems possible.
And I also must turn off the annoyances in Vista first.
The reason gaming on consoles is so popular is because everyone is on level ground. You're all using the same hardware, so if one guy is getting 60fps in his game, so is everyone else. PC gaming puts everyone on different levels and it's usually the guys with faster PCs and higher frame rates that can win because their overall action/reaction times are lower.
Add to that the difficulty of policing hacks, bots and cracks and you have a very good reason to stray from PC games.
There's nothing like the accuracy you get from a keyboard/mouse combo. It's great in FPS, it's really fast in RTS and no platform does sims better. But my PC won't run most new games. I was in the Frontlines beta and got 20fps at 640x480 with everything on the lowest. It'd cost me as much as a PS3 to upgrade my system, and it's not even that old.
I used to argue against consoles because the fixed hardware means the tech is out of date really fast. But I've discovered that in the meantime at least everyone has the same hardware limitations and developers know what will work for everyone and what won't.
@vectra, good point on the nutty installation hoops, ive no net and i have to search through forums to see if a new release requires net access to activate. Not to mention new drivers required for the latest releases to get max performance and the use of CD keys/needing CD/DVD in the tray, i also download the nocd patches( however i guarantee this will be used in consoles soon along with online activation requirement )
As for the price of PC gaming, i dont buy that in the lease. Consoles and PC's cost the exact same from my own experience, PC games are cheaper but you spend the difference on the hardware, also you get ŁŁŁ selling off your old hardware. On top of the by the end of a consoles lifecycle the hardware is 5+ years old. Whereas PC hardware is constandly evolving therefore devs take advantage of that and if you want to you have to get new hardware. A lot of people are still using nvidia 6800 cards which are at least 4 years old now
XBOX 360 is a cut down PC so i dont really see the argument there, Crysis has sold over a million and will sell several million more as people wait for a whole new refresh of hardware in May with Intels Nephalim or whatever its called
They need to simplify gaming on the PC to make it appeal to the masses, loads of people play net flash games etc on their PC simply because it doesnt require any new hardware to run, you just click and start, no install etc etc.
PC gaming will never die, but its upto devs to support it, otherwise the hardware in the next gen of consoles will be utter crap compared to the advancements from PS1->PS2->PS3,xbox->xbox360, not to mention the fact that PC gaming keeps the cost of console hardware down, thus if that starts failing the cost of console games will increase to pay for the subsidised hardware
I was in the Frontlines beta and got 20fps at 640x480 with everything on the lowest. It'd cost me as much as a PS3 to upgrade my system, and it's not even that old.
How come you were getting such crap framerates? whats your CPU and GPU and Ram? i never played that beta as no net access at the moment, but seriously theres something very very very wrong there. I had one of the worst gfx cards ever in my old dell years ago, it was an FX5200( its well known to be one of nvidias low points ), i got BF2 4 years after getting that Dell, but i could still play BF2 @ 800x600 everything low and get ~40 FPS( didnt do my Kill/Death ratio any good lol, but still )
Ive yet to see a game that plays with 20FPS or less on the absolute lowest settings on any PC( not saying it doesnt happen but id expect that to happen only with a 5+year old PC ), and i mean that in the context of actually having enough ram to run a game rather than it paging and killing the system
He's right though. You just need to look at the likes of Gears of War on 360 which sold 3 million in 10 weeks and Halo 3 which has sold 8.1 million since release. Compare that to Crysis on PC which sold 86,633 units since release and UT III on PC which has sold 33,995...
I think we can all come to our own conclusions based on those figures...
Crysis has sold over a million copies now. Please don't post ignorant bulls**t.
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/12/17/hardware-geeks-fail-bump-crysis Try to control yourself.
How do you guys know these figures?
*clueless*
Google's a good start.
http://thegamingsource.blogspot.com/2008/02/crysis-sale-exceed-expection-over-1.html You tiresome ignoramus.
If you want the best gaming experience, you have to have a PC. End of. I would never say that the PC gaming industry is in disarray when games like Crysis are hitting the shelves, however I do understand that many games originally console based are usually poor imported versions on the PC and to run these games requires a uber PC. GOW was one of these imports and cannot compare to the awesomeness of Crysis or Half Life
http://thegamingsource.blogspot.com/2008/02/crysis-sale-exceed-expection-over-1.html You tiresome ignoramus.
It still doesn't erase the facts that I pointed out about the game's poor performance which went on well into December. The only thing you can say about Crysis' sudden jump in sales is that everyone skipped it during the Christmas period to play the big hitters on consoles and then moved onto Crysis start of the new year. I've also yet to see anyone say anything about UT III's p**s poor PC performance, which should be under the spot light since this article is from an Epic employee...
Um yeah, nice job on that PC version of 'Gears', Cliffy, shame you forget to mention it takes an 8 million dollar PC to run the game properly without that annoying stutter, FFS its a damn console game..why does it need such a beefy rig to run? I dont care how much better it fkn looks than the 360 version. If it looks as good as the 360 version on my PC i would be happy. I just want to play the damn thing and not be bugged by a shoddy conversion of a decent game.
And of course this wouldnt be the reason why PC gaming is in 'disarray' would it Cliffy? PC gaming isnt what it used to be, and really just not worth it these days.
Ive yet to see a game that plays with 20FPS or less on the absolute lowest settings on any PC( not saying it doesnt happen but id expect that to happen only with a 5+year old PC ), and i mean that in the context of actually having enough ram to run a game rather than it paging and killing the system
Clearly you never played the MMO 'Vanguard: Saga of Heroes'.... Horse s**t is coded better.
http://thegamingsource.blogspot.com/2008/02/crysis-sale-exceed-expection-over-1.html You tiresome ignoramus.
It still doesn't erase the facts that I pointed out about the game's poor performance which went on well into December. The only thing you can say about Crysis' sudden jump in sales is that everyone skipped it during the Christmas period to play the big hitters on consoles and then moved onto Crysis start of the new year. I've also yet to see anyone say anything about UT III's p**s poor PC performance, which should be under the spot light since this article is from an Epic employee...
You haven't presented any facts yet, just ill-informed assumptions.
I think now that MS, NVidia and, Intel are working together in an alliance, we may start to see PCs in high street shops which are spefically built and graded for their gaming performance. The day you can walk into a store and walk out with a PC you know is guaranteed to run all the current games in medium settings for example, is the day PC gaming will become much more easy for casual gamers. It'll also mean developers can design their games with these specific rigs in mind to make sure performance is optimised, and the PC tinkerers should still have their fun.
I think it can be more accurately said that the kind of short lived, graphic heavy, tech shooters that Epic specialize in are in disarray on the PC. Personally I'm neither bothered by this 'revelation' or Cliffy's desire to turn away from PC gaming. I for one will neither miss him, nor his dime-a-dozen shooters.
Whatever happens to the big games companies moving to consoles, the PC will still have a thriving indie community which will grow and come up with more and more original games. Indie developers will save PC gaming, not the big corporations.
http://thegamingsource.blogspot.com/2008/02/crysis-sale-exceed-expection-over-1.html You tiresome ignoramus.
As for the price of PC gaming, i dont buy that in the lease. Consoles and PC's cost the exact same from my own experience, PC games are cheaper but you spend the difference on the hardware
PC gaming isn't that bad at the moment, you can pick up a pretty capable PC for around Ł500, even less if you have the OS, keyboard, mouse and monitor from your old machine already.
I just built my cousin a quad core system with 512MB Nvidia graphics for Ł400, if he had Ł500 I could have upgraded his video card to really tear up all benchmarks
Check out how much 60GB PS3s are going for you'll see it's not that bad
I'm on an Athlon AM2 3800+ (about 2.4Ghz I think), a GeForce 7900GS-E and 2Gb RAM. Technically I think it's around the minimum system, but I think it's because it was designed for multi-core.
I could upgrade, but I'd need to do the motherboard as well to support multi-core. Then I'd risk incompatible RAM (the bane of my PC life) as well. And I'd need a new PSU. For the cash I could get a PS3 and some games - and I'd have a BR player too
And the end result still wouldn't be that much better than my 360's 3x 3.2GHz job, so there doesn't seem much point. Oh, and I'd need to upgrade my girlfriend's at the same time or she'd be well p**sed
Yeah he should pay more hommage to the Pc and continue to support it, his company wouldnt exist without it. He is just grumpy because no one will play his UTIII. So these daily announcements of the pc-gaming being dead is shooting themselves in their feet. Oh, well back to the gaming - playing GoW on the PC atm!!!
I dont agree that PC's are the same price as a console.
Maybe you can get a PC for Ł400-500 quid, but its not top of the range and is outdated in under 2 years, needs a memory upgrade or a new graphics card.
PC's are probably a bit cheaper at the moment due to the low dollar rate, memory the same, but if you compare the life cycle of a console and the same for playing pc games, the console is a much cheaper option.
He has a point to some degree. I have a pc as well as a 360 but refuse to upgrade to Vista due to it's unfriendly nature towards the likes of Itunes. Not to mentiom the enormous cost involved in upgrading various components to enable me to play such games as Crysis. The simple truth is that consoles are a hell of a lot easier to play next-gen games on, and much less expensive. I think this has a lot to do with a decline in sales of pc games.
do not get vista anyway its crap ur better of sticking with the 1 uve got
You haven't presented any facts yet, just ill-informed assumptions.
I presented you with sales figures, which are facts, which you can try to ignore however you want... I don't know what your problem is but you act like like I've just told you your mum's not making enough money on the streets to feed you... (no offense, just getting my own back for your smart bottom remarks)
Here's some more facts for the sales rate for Gears of War on 360; 1 million sales in 2 weeks: http://www.gamersquad.com/category/Third-person-shooters/Gears-of-War-blasts-past-1-million-sales/ 2 million sales in 6 weeks: http://www.arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061217-8435.html 3 million sales in 10 weeks: http://videogames.propeller.com/story/2007/01/19/gears-of-war-sales-top-3-million/
Here's some for UT III on PC; 33,995 sales in 4 weeks: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/14/crysis-sales-in-crisis-ut3-gets-fragged-too/
Now, if you were Epic and had these sales figures in front of you, which console/format would you want to develop your AAA games for?
I think it can be more accurately said that the kind of short lived, graphic heavy, tech shooters that Epic specialize in are in disarray on the PC. Personally I'm neither bothered by this 'revelation' or Cliffy's desire to turn away from PC gaming. I for one will neither miss him, nor his dime-a-dozen shooters.
See you Cliffy. Don't forget not to write.
Word. Unfortunately, lots of publishers seem to think like him. Most publishers are evil destroyers of originality. Me want kill.
I have played PC games over the years, but I got fed up with not having the required specs to run games.
I dont want to spend or more a year to play games, and nor do a lot of people. This is why Consoles are so popular and why I laughed when HP said that there would not be another console generation.
People like the ease and cost of consoles and the friendly controls, that where the PC falls down.
You used to have to be an octopus to play games like Doom or Duke Nukem with the Keyboard and mouse on the PC.
Jesus Christ. 500 a year? Why would you need that? That is just another myth floating around.
An octopus to play Doom on the PC? Seriously, are you handicapped? In ease of use, consoles win, in friendly controls, certainly not.
I think now that MS, NVidia and, Intel are working together in an alliance, we may start to see PCs in high street shops which are spefically built and graded for their gaming performance. The day you can walk into a store and walk out with a PC you know is guaranteed to run all the current games in medium settings for example, is the day PC gaming will become much more easy for casual gamers. It'll also mean developers can design their games with these specific rigs in mind to make sure performance is optimised, and the PC tinkerers should still have their fun.
They are available today, but twice the price of a console. Go into PC City/World in any country and look at the prices and specs.
The dark alliance is not going to help the average Joe, but line their own pockets. Plus off the shelf Vendors are much more expensive than Home Build.
You pay for the brand, like all things.
I love PC adventure and Strategy games, but I stopped playing them as I didn’t want to spend €200 to be able to play a game. Plus that would be even more now, I would need a new PC as mine is 3 years old.
I have played PC games over the years, but I got fed up with not having the required specs to run games.
I dont want to spend or more a year to play games, and nor do a lot of people. This is why Consoles are so popular and why I laughed when HP said that there would not be another console generation.
People like the ease and cost of consoles and the friendly controls, that where the PC falls down.
You used to have to be an octopus to play games like Doom or Duke Nukem with the Keyboard and mouse on the PC.
Jesus Christ. 500 a year? Why would you need that? That is just another myth floating around.
An octopus to play Doom on the PC? Seriously, are you handicapped? In ease of use, consoles win, in friendly controls, certainly not.
Is it a myth? Tell me the current Minimum to play most PC games? My Current PC is not able to run anything in the charts. That said, how much do spend and how often then?
the pc is a SPECIALIST PLATFORM. of course the average thicko joe isnt going to dive straight into pc gaming. it takes education and skill to even understand how to use one of these things properly, especially when gaming is involved. i dont know what the hell these bulls**tters think theyre playing at, but we all know what theyre trying to do - force gaming down one road so every company can bring out games on one platform, fix everything and constantly charge us. well its not going to happen, because what they say about us is codswollop and it WILL come back and bite them on the bottom.
I have an expensive PC and no consoles - I play FPS mainly and I am sure most people would agree the controls are far superior on the PC. I just hate console controls.
As for UTIII and the decline of PC Gaming, it is decling because mroe people think it is decling. More and more crappy console to PC ports are coming out - and they run poorly as they are unoptimsed, and look crap as they haven't changed anything for running at higher resolutions. If developers put time into their PC ports, they might turn out alright and be able to run on almost anything.
Ah well, I will always support PC gaming, and hope develoeprs realise if they release crap, it will sell crap!
It probably sold more in Europe and lets not forget Digital Distribution
That's all I could find with my Google search. If you find anymore info, let us know, as I find this sort of stuff interesting as at the end of the day, these are the sort of facts that force developers to decide what format/s their game will be released on.
I've also yet to see anyone say anything about UT III's p**s poor PC performance, which should be under the spot light since this article is from an Epic employee...
Erm, what? UT III runs faster than Oblivion, and that game is almost two years old now.
I still say it's the installers more than anything else affecting PC gaming. Also with all these HDTVs in the living room more and more people are going console.
My PC is in the living room but a lot of people cram their PCs into bedrooms, basements or a study.
Also the cost, although you can play on medium quite happily. Most people want to crank everything up to max so that's where the expense thing comes from. They don't want to settle for medium just because that high option is there.
Ive yet to see a game that plays with 20FPS or less on the absolute lowest settings on any PC( not saying it doesnt happen but id expect that to happen only with a 5+year old PC ), and i mean that in the context of actually having enough ram to run a game rather than it paging and killing the system
Clearly you never played the MMO 'Vanguard: Saga of Heroes'.... Horse s**t is coded better.
lol,no never, i steer clear of them there MMO's too addictive. Also im sure there are many games out there that run like crap even at the lowest settings, but i havnt found one with any rig i have( even using my old rig with an x850 pro in it, all it cant run are Shader 3 stuff which is in a games minimum specs )
You haven't presented any facts yet, just ill-informed assumptions.
I presented you with sales figures, which are facts, which you can try to ignore however you want... I don't know what your problem is but you act like like I've just told you your mum's not making enough money on the streets to feed you... (no offense, just getting my own back for your smart bottom remarks)
Here's some more facts for the sales rate for Gears of War on 360; 1 million sales in 2 weeks: http://www.gamersquad.com/category/Third-person-shooters/Gears-of-War-blasts-past-1-million-sales/ 2 million sales in 6 weeks: http://www.arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061217-8435.html 3 million sales in 10 weeks: http://videogames.propeller.com/story/2007/01/19/gears-of-war-sales-top-3-million/
Here's some for UT III on PC; 33,995 sales in 4 weeks: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/14/crysis-sales-in-crisis-ut3-gets-fragged-too/
Now, if you were Epic and had these sales figures in front of you, which console/format would you want to develop your AAA games for?
You presented sales figures for the first month and claimed they were overall sales to date, which are not facts. It's ill-informed bulls**t. Rather than owning up to your mistake, you chose childish defensiveness, at which point my tollerance with you expired.
There's obviously a lot of factors involved, not least the enormous amounts of cash Microsoft threw at Gears of War and its marketing. Indeed Epic's own Mark Rein seems quite happy with the sales for UT3 - http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=179876
I'm not trying to claim that everything's hunky dory with the state of PC gaming, but when people such as yourself propogate nonsense dressed up as fact it just perpetuates silly myths. It's almost like YOU have decided that you prefer consoles and so pick & choose 'facts' just to twist the knife in - that's certainly how it comes across.
Epic is a developer. Their focus should be on making great games for whichever platform they can work best on. Their focus should not be on making as much money as possible. Yes, they need to make enough to cover their costs, of course. But once greed becomes the focus, they are lost. Just look at EA.
Makes sense. With so many variations of PC specs out there how many programmers and testers will it require before a game can go gold and at what cost. I guess a few years back games could be written in 300mb of code, but with games nowadays arriving at the 10gig barrier there's way too much risk involved. If you ran a games company what would you do? And poo to the high-end PC gamers! It's like a handicap if your PC is less than a year old playing certain games online (mine is!). At least with consoles all your mates have an equal playing ground and less faffing with firewalls, hardware glitches, hacks, etc. More time playing less time fixing is my motto.
You presented sales figures for the first month and claimed they were overall sales to date, which are not facts.
It's almost like YOU have decided that you prefer consoles and so pick & choose 'facts' just to twist the knife in - that's certainly how it comes across.
I did a quick search on Google as I know people here won't accept anything unless they see the cold hard facts in front of them. I obviously didn't know, or see, an updated sales update for Crysis...
I'll admit I do prefer consoles to PC but if the situation was turned, I would still accept the facts as that's the situation, same as it's the situation 360 has a 16.5% failure rate and PS3 doesn't have any worthwhile exclusive games atm...
I have played PC games over the years, but I got fed up with not having the required specs to run games.
I dont want to spend Ł500 or more a year to play games, and nor do a lot of people. This is why Consoles are so popular and why I laughed when HP said that there would not be another console generation.
People like the ease and cost of consoles and the friendly controls, that where the PC falls down.
You used to have to be an octopus to play games like Doom or Duke Nukem with the Keyboard and mouse on the PC.[/quote crap,i can play all the latest games on my mid level system,which ive only upgraded once in 3 years.ive only got a 3gig chip and a 6800gt and i do just fine,crysis bioshock you name it.the controls take getting used to on any system,pc OR console.im utter s**te with console controls.maybe if lazy developers stopped peddeling crappy ported games they might do better.
The pcs 2008 lineup looks amazing, far superior to whats coming out on the consoles this year. Although the majority of the 360s 2008 lineup has'nt been announced yet, I doubt it'll be as good. I just hope my pc will be able to handle all these games. My first year owning all five current systems and a decent pc has me frothing at the mouth, or could that be a touch of rabies? hmmmm!.
I think of myself as a hardcore gamer, and have been playing pc games for over 10 years (since doom2).
I find it very, very rare that a good console game comes out that you can't get for the pc atleast in a years time (a game I want to buy that is). On the other hand, a lot of the really good games dont ever come out for the consoles.
I generaly buy the games which score over 88% and play for months untill i get boredd, let me give some examples:
Supreme commander (amazing game, never coming out on console)Dawn of war, company of heroes, UT3 (yes it's a good game), crysis (pretty good but not omg amazing), TF2, World in Conflitct (beutiful if u have the pc to run it). So as you can see, I mainly play fps and rts games. Which the pc domintates completely. Theres hardly any good rts games for consoles which in my opinion (as i like rts so much) makes pc's superior.
Another arguemnt is that you never get truly groundbreaking games like Eve-online, WoW or most other mmo's for consoles. This is another win for the hardcore gamer.
So my argument is this: If you love rts,fps, mmo games... pc is the way. If your more of a casual gamer, and like to play a fun 2 player sports, co-op, or just want something hasstle free- then consoles is the way.
I do have some gripes with pc games: I don't play CoH or DoW anymore because the performance got wrecked with patches that they brought out, which would never happen on the console. So now even though i have a good pc, I can't enjoy those 2 games anymore.
Also I like upgrading and customizing my machine, so that it looks like a total beast... which is another whole side to the story. My pc is just over a year old now, but its still pretty top level, as there arnt many games that take advantage of quad core, and sli. Ive overclocked it, and get around 13000 in 3dmark. Core 2 e6600@3.4, 2gig ram, 8800gtx oc'd.
you could definatly get a decent pc for Ł400 like somone else said, if you allready had the monitor.
I think of myself as a hardcore gamer, and have been playing pc games for over 10 years (since doom2).
I find it very, very rare that a good console game comes out that you can't get for the pc atleast in a years time (a game I want to buy that is). On the other hand, a lot of the really good games dont ever come out for the consoles.
I generaly buy the games which score over 88% and play for months untill i get boredd, let me give some examples:
Supreme commander (amazing game, never coming out on console)Dawn of war, company of heroes, UT3 (yes it's a good game), crysis (pretty good but not omg amazing), TF2, World in Conflitct (beutiful if u have the pc to run it). So as you can see, I mainly play fps and rts games. Which the pc domintates completely. Theres hardly any good rts games for consoles which in my opinion (as i like rts so much) makes pc's superior.
Another arguemnt is that you never get truly groundbreaking games like Eve-online, WoW or most other mmo's for consoles. This is another win for the hardcore gamer.
So my argument is this: If you love rts,fps, mmo games... pc is the way. If your more of a casual gamer, and like to play a fun 2 player sports, co-op, or just want something hasstle free- then consoles is the way.
I do have some gripes with pc games: I don't play CoH or DoW anymore because the performance got wrecked with patches that they brought out, which would never happen on the console. So now even though i have a good pc, I can't enjoy those 2 games anymore.
Also I like upgrading and customizing my machine, so that it looks like a total beast... which is another whole side to the story. My pc is just over a year old now, but its still pretty top level, as there arnt many games that take advantage of quad core, and sli. Ive overclocked it, and get around 13000 in 3dmark. Core 2 e6600@3.4, 2gig ram, 8800gtx oc'd.
you could definatly get a decent pc for Ł400 like somone else said, if you allready had the monitor.
Damn you and your yummy pc. My pc seems barely adequate now, with a 3dmark score of 8201.
Games sell better on consoles so PC is largely ignored. PC is largely ignored so games sell better on consoles. It's a vicious cycle.
PC gaming is in trouble though, no matter how much people try to deny that fact. Example, I have a top-end gaming PC and I hardly ever actually play games on it. My reason is because there are no games! I hate RTS games, so there's a huge chunk of PC-exclusive games I personally don't care about. Anything coming out this year that is of any interest, I already own on a console or will be able to purchase on a console before the PC gets it. I only ever have one game on PC to look forward to for the entire year, in comparison to almost one per week on consoles. 2006 was Dark Messiah, 2007 Crysis, this year it's Left4Dead... all good PC games, but not enough.
It's not just me either. A few lads here in the office only game on PCs. They're dying for games. One of them can't wait for Assassin's Creed... Assassin's Creed? Is it November? That game has been and gone. I already played through that twice on a console. Another is waiting for Devil May Cry 4. Yep, guess what? I'm over halfway through that game. While he waits for Devil May Cry 4 for even be given a release date, he's picked up Resident Evil 4 and DMC3 for PC to tide him over. He doesn't play DMC3 because it's such a horrible port that it's unplayable, while on the Resident Evil side, there he is playing a massively inferior version of the same Gamecube game I completed literally years ago.
Already this year, consoles have gotten two huge and highly anticipated games in established and popular franchises, in the form of Burnout Paradise and Devil May Cry 4... in contrast, the last time I checked the PC release schedule, the only thing coming out in the following month was World Championship Darts.
I'm sure system requirements have a lot to do with it too. I have a Quad Core CPU overclocked to 3GHz, 4GB ram, all bleeding-edge stuff. When Crysis came out I spent €620 on a factory-overclocked Nvidia 8800 Ultra, the most powerful version of the card you could possibly buy, and I'm still only barely hitting 15fps if I crank that sucker up to Very High. I spent over €200 more than an entire PS3 playing my games perfectly would have cost, just for one component of my still-inadequate PC. One component. Not counting the €999 my processor originally cost, and all the rest I've spent on parts. It's not worth it.
I'm rambling a lot here, but basically my opinion is that PC gaming is in trouble, mainly because there aren't enough games. Thanks for reading!
I think of myself as a hardcore gamer, and have been playing pc games for over 10 years (since doom2).
I find it very, very rare that a good console game comes out that you can't get for the pc atleast in a years time (a game I want to buy that is). On the other hand, a lot of the really good games dont ever come out for the consoles.
I generaly buy the games which score over 88% and play for months untill i get boredd, let me give some examples:
Supreme commander (amazing game, never coming out on console)Dawn of war, company of heroes, UT3 (yes it's a good game), crysis (pretty good but not omg amazing), TF2, World in Conflitct (beutiful if u have the pc to run it). So as you can see, I mainly play fps and rts games. Which the pc domintates completely. Theres hardly any good rts games for consoles which in my opinion (as i like rts so much) makes pc's superior.
Another arguemnt is that you never get truly groundbreaking games like Eve-online, WoW or most other mmo's for consoles. This is another win for the hardcore gamer.
So my argument is this: If you love rts,fps, mmo games... pc is the way. If your more of a casual gamer, and like to play a fun 2 player sports, co-op, or just want something hasstle free- then consoles is the way.
I do have some gripes with pc games: I don't play CoH or DoW anymore because the performance got wrecked with patches that they brought out, which would never happen on the console. So now even though i have a good pc, I can't enjoy those 2 games anymore.
Also I like upgrading and customizing my machine, so that it looks like a total beast... which is another whole side to the story. My pc is just over a year old now, but its still pretty top level, as there arnt many games that take advantage of quad core, and sli. Ive overclocked it, and get around 13000 in 3dmark. Core 2 e6600@3.4, 2gig ram, 8800gtx oc'd.
you could definatly get a decent pc for Ł400 like somone else said, if you allready had the monitor.
See my PC is 3 years old and way behind the spec you have and would cost quite a bit to upgrade or buy a new one.
I also think your right, there are lots of good games on the PC that dont come out for consoles, which is a shame, as if they did, it would be better for everyone. The more they produce for PC, 360 and PS3, the more they sell and the more they would produce, right?
If your more of a casual gamer, and like to play a fun 2 player sports, co-op, or just want something hasstle free- then consoles is the way.
More snobby, elitist PC bulls**t. Consoles have been host to hundreds of groundbreaking games yet the PC snobs will dismiss each and every one of them with petty reasons and no actual knowledge of the games they're dismissing.
Out of all the so-called fanboys that frequent this place, and bicker and argue over trivial little things, it's easily the PC ones that are the most annoying. They always seem to think they are better than the lowly console gamer, that they are the hardcore and console gamers are just passing time until they are enlightened by a PC-playing angel.
You are the Hyacinth Bucket's of the videogaming world.
I'm sure system requirements have a lot to do with it too. I have a Quad Core CPU overclocked to 3GHz, 4GB ram, all bleeding-edge stuff. When Crysis came out I spent €620 on a factory-overclocked Nvidia 8800 Ultra, the most powerful version of the card you could possibly buy, and I'm still only barely hitting 15fps if I crank that sucker up to Very High. I spent over €200 more than an entire PS3 playing my games perfectly would have cost, just for one component of my still-inadequate PC. One component. Not counting the €999 my processor originally cost, and all the rest I've spent on parts. It's not worth it.
I'm rambling a lot here, but basically my opinion is that PC gaming is in trouble, mainly because there aren't enough games. Thanks for reading!
I know people that will spend that as well on a monster machine as well, but I class them as hardcore MMO players mainly.
That why I said about the Ł500 a year to be up with the higher spec machines. I know you can play for less, but its not the same experience.
I spent a few years upgrading to play a few years ago, but came to the conclusion that I was wasting money and went to the console. I was always crap at FPS anyway.
If your more of a casual gamer, and like to play a fun 2 player sports, co-op, or just want something hasstle free- then consoles is the way.
More snobby, elitist PC bulls**t. Consoles have been host to hundreds of groundbreaking games yet the PC snobs will dismiss each and every one of them with petty reasons and no actual knowledge of the games they're dismissing.
Out of all the so-called fanboys that frequent this place, and bicker and argue over trivial little things, it's easily the PC ones that are the most annoying. They always seem to think they are better than the lowly console gamer, that they are the hardcore and console gamers are just passing time until they are enlightened by a PC-playing angel.
You are the Hyacinth Bucket's of the videogaming world.
I havnt got a clue where youre coming at with all that??? and to be honest with you even the concept of considering PC owners are elitist snobs leads me to think of an inadequecy Most PC gamers i know have always game'd on PC on console, most PC gamers i know own both a console and PC( it may be a PS2 or original xbox, but whats the rush to get a new one? ) and no matter how you look at it most serious gaming is done on PC( think Counterstrike Tournaments etc. ) simply because you have a lot more control sitting a foot in front of your screen with a mouse and keyboard and emulated surround sound with headphones. There are a very small minority of PC gamers that reckon the PC is the be all and end all of gaming, and to be honest i find that attitude clueless, no more than only gaming on a console and thinking everything else is crap
If you like games you dont care about the hardware as long as it looks decent enough and is fun to play single player or multiplayer and that the control mechanism doesnt feel restricted( DMC3 control is a joke on the PC, FPS feel crap with a joypad ). I have a decent PC because i use it for more than just games, however i enjoy playing all my old Amiga classics on the PC, Snes emulation and arcade games via MAME, i would seriously miss that if devs stopped developing on PCs or concentrating on it.
Not to mention that too much control for Sony/M$ or Nintendo is a very very bad thing for gamers, if we have to rely totally on them we'll all be generating them and publishers a fortune watching their dynamic ads( something that can never ever be enforced on a PC )
I know people that will spend that as well on a monster machine as well, but I class them as hardcore MMO players mainly.
That why I said about the Ł500 a year to be up with the higher spec machines. I know you can play for less, but its not the same experience.
I spent a few years upgrading to play a few years ago, but came to the conclusion that I was wasting money and went to the console. I was always crap at FPS anyway.
I try and limit myself to Ł200-250 a year, just got an 8800GT, next big pruchase will be a Quad core( for video encoding though, not games although they'll benefit )
I have played PC games over the years, but I got fed up with not having the required specs to run games.
I dont want to spend or more a year to play games, and nor do a lot of people. This is why Consoles are so popular and why I laughed when HP said that there would not be another console generation.
People like the ease and cost of consoles and the friendly controls, that where the PC falls down.
You used to have to be an octopus to play games like Doom or Duke Nukem with the Keyboard and mouse on the PC.
Jesus Christ. 500 a year? Why would you need that? That is just another myth floating around.
An octopus to play Doom on the PC? Seriously, are you handicapped? In ease of use, consoles win, in friendly controls, certainly not.
Is it a myth? Tell me the current Minimum to play most PC games? My Current PC is not able to run anything in the charts. That said, how much do spend and how often then?
Clearly I am a cow hand then
What specs does your computer have now? Exactly what did you spend 500 pounds or more on every year?
I have played PC games over the years, but I got fed up with not having the required specs to run games.
I dont want to spend or more a year to play games, and nor do a lot of people. This is why Consoles are so popular and why I laughed when HP said that there would not be another console generation.
People like the ease and cost of consoles and the friendly controls, that where the PC falls down.
You used to have to be an octopus to play games like Doom or Duke Nukem with the Keyboard and mouse on the PC.
Jesus Christ. 500 a year? Why would you need that? That is just another myth floating around.
An octopus to play Doom on the PC? Seriously, are you handicapped? In ease of use, consoles win, in friendly controls, certainly not.
Is it a myth? Tell me the current Minimum to play most PC games? My Current PC is not able to run anything in the charts. That said, how much do spend and how often then?
Clearly I am a cow hand then
What specs does your computer have now? Exactly what did you spend 500 pounds or more on every year?
i agree, 500 is way too much, my 250 goes on the whole system, not just for games e.g. getting more ram for applications, getting bigger harddrives for movies or whatever, if i do upgrade the CPU or GPU i flog the old stuff, i spent Ł180 on my new 8800GT but sold my old 7800GTX for Ł60 ). Ł500 on gaming is just crazy
Its also nuts to think you need to be an octopus to play an FPS on a keybaord, thats like saying a controller is better to drive a car with rather than a wheel, gears and pedals lol
OH AND ANYONE WHO THINGS MOST PC GAMERS RIGS ARE CRAP( actually myself included when you consider Sims and WoW heads lol ) - 2 MILLION 8800GTs SOLD IN 4 MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!! - http://www.guru3d.com/newsitem.php?id=6491
PC games are alot like music, why buy it when you can download for free. There is demand for PC gaming but the sales figures don't match up because of piracy and the cost of a bad boy gaming rig. I think something has to done about encrypting the content at a hardware level like consoles do and developing a pure gaming O/S that can properly utilise hardware for gaming. This should prevent the high cost of constant system upgrades and ensure reliable compatibilty that is a major flaw in PC gaming when compared to consoles.
First and foremost take the bulls**t out of the price of consoles vs. PC. The PS3/XBOX360 is cheaper blah blah blah, yeah but you have to take into account the cost of bloody TV that you play it on and cost of the games; that's a lot of friggin'dough you have to splash out. And when time passes you can buy decent PC components for less because there is always the technical progress. Another thing is who the hell buys a computer just to play games ??? It's not a games console it's a goddamn workhorse that you can use for lot of things other than games. And for that matter it's also used to write those games that you play on them consoles.
First and foremost take the bulls**t out of the price of consoles vs. PC. The PS3/XBOX360 is cheaper blah blah blah, yeah but you have to take into account the cost of bloody TV that you play it on and cost of the games; that's a lot of friggin'dough you have to splash out. And when time passes you can buy decent PC components for less because there is always the technical progress. Another thing is who the hell buys a computer just to play games ??? It's not a games console it's a goddamn workhorse that you can use for lot of things other than games. And for that matter it's also used to write those games that you play on them consoles.
and console games are far more expensive than PC games, with the difference paying for the hardware that Sony/M$ subsidised in the first place For me, 5 years gaming on PS2=2300euro, 5 years gaming on PC=2300 euro and ended up having a decent PC at the end of it all wheres my PS2 is dead( unfortunately grrr ), even if it was alive id get Ł50 max for it
theideal: "Out of all the so-called fanboys that frequent this place, and bicker and argue over trivial little things, it's easily the PC ones that are the most annoying. They always seem to think they are better than the lowly console gamer, that they are the hardcore and console gamers are just passing time until they are enlightened by a PC-playing angel.
You are the Hyacinth Bucket's of the videogaming world" -----------------------------------------------
Consoles and PC's both have their pros and cons when it comes to games but i agree with the often snobbish nature of some hardcore PC gamers' posts regarding consoles and console gamers (not necesarily any1 in this thread)
Starmonger: "If your more of a casual gamer, and like to play a fun 2 player sports, co-op, or just want something hasstle free- then consoles is the way" ---------------------------------------------
I agree with the hassle free part, but i think the other guy misunderstood you and thought you meant ONLY casual gamers play consoles. With the ease of use of consoles, it makes them much more accesible to casual gamers than PC's are. I'd say Consoles are for casual OR hardcore gamers but PC's are more or less only for the elitist/hardcore type of gamer who is also into their tech specs.
if i wanted i COULD buy a kickass PC and learn the ins and outs of PC gaming, (i have the money and the brains to do this) but i simply cant be bothered, im a HARDCORE GAMER and i just want to play GAMES, so i play very happily on my consoles without ever bothering about the hassle of installing stuff or upgrading, or the annoyance of cheaters in multiplayer games.
I think this is the case for lots of console gamers
PC gaming is in trouble though, no matter how much people try to deny that fact. Example, I have a top-end gaming PC and I hardly ever actually play games on it. My reason is because there are no games! I hate RTS games, so there's a huge chunk of PC-exclusive games I personally don't care about. Anything coming out this year that is of any interest, I already own on a console or will be able to purchase on a console before the PC gets it. I only ever have one game on PC to look forward to for the entire year, in comparison to almost one per week on consoles. 2006 was Dark Messiah, 2007 Crysis, this year it's Left4Dead... all good PC games, but not enough.
I totally agree. For about 10 years up until a year ago, I used to be a 100% pc gamer (didn't play games on anything else) but I got bored from the lack of games. So I bought an XBox 360 and have loved it! I spend 80% of my gaming time on it. When I get a new pc soon, I will be perhaps 50/50 between console and pc, but I cannot see myself going back to 100% pc gaming anytime soon. This is a real shame as playing on the pc is better, but without the games...
I have played PC games over the years, but I got fed up with not having the required specs to run games.
I dont want to spend or more a year to play games, and nor do a lot of people. This is why Consoles are so popular and why I laughed when HP said that there would not be another console generation.
People like the ease and cost of consoles and the friendly controls, that where the PC falls down.
You used to have to be an octopus to play games like Doom or Duke Nukem with the Keyboard and mouse on the PC.
Jesus Christ. 500 a year? Why would you need that? That is just another myth floating around.
An octopus to play Doom on the PC? Seriously, are you handicapped? In ease of use, consoles win, in friendly controls, certainly not.
Is it a myth? Tell me the current Minimum to play most PC games? My Current PC is not able to run anything in the charts. That said, how much do spend and how often then?
Clearly I am a cow hand then
What specs does your computer have now? Exactly what did you spend 500 pounds or more on every year?
Now I have a P4 1.8ghz with 512MB and a 128mb GC. I never said I spent Ł500 on my PC, but my mate bought a 128mb GC a few years (5 years ago I think)back and a 1GB of memory and thats what just those two items cost him. It was top spec stuff at the time and similar stuff today (equally top spec stuff, Not the same items)can cost as much.
I was spending Ł200 quid on memory and an graphics card at the time. In 18 months the GC was mostly min spec for games.
PC Gaming *is* expensive. I bought my PC a year ago for the princely sum of Ł350, and no, its hardly a graphics powerhouse, but it wasn't bad at the time. Now, I think theres barely a modern PC game I can run- a quick glance at the current PC charts reveals a load of footie sim games (ok, so I could probably manage those-) some Sims stuff, and Call of Duty 4, U3 and Crysis. Of those, I can run U3, in lowest settings, in 1024 x 768. Crysis and CoD4 give my machine CPU murmurs.
Now, I could upgrade. But my PC is in a neat little slimline case which won't house most graphics cards. So that'll be a new tower, then. Oh, and my monitor isn't widescreen- so that'll be a new monitor, too. Some more RAM would be nice to ease those gaming woes. And so on.
Add to this the fact that I'm not a PC expert. Sure, I can take a case apart and slot in a new card to a new hard drive if need be- but I don't fancy the task of lifting it all out and putting it in a new tower. Nor do I particularly see, to be honest, why I should have to.
I'm not alone here- there are a lot of people playing PC games who just don't really know how to work the hardware side. All those of you who are saying you don't need to spend a lot of money to buy a new machine / upgrade your existing machine, thats maybe true if you know exactly what you're doing when it comes to fitting it all. But me? I don't know. And I don't really have time to learn, either. There are far more things I'd rather be doing- gaming being one of them.
Seriously, my PC is seeing less and less use for gaming as time goes on- because I know its outdated, and I know it will have issues no matter what game I try and play- all I really use it for now is Lord of the Rings Online, and even then I have to fiddle with the settings periodically to get the best performance out of it. Yes, I could spend a few hundred quid and upgrade it. But I think I'd rather buy a PS3 to sit alongside my 360, thank you very much. I daresay I'd get more use out of it.
And on a sidenote, I don't just use the PC for gaming. But when I'm using Photoshop, Maya and suchlike, it can quite happily throw around huge images without a hitch. So I can't really see the upgrade need there...
Don't get me wrong, though- console gaming is far from cheap. Consoles themselves are, what, as much as a low-end PC, plus your TV and suchlike. But hang on a minute- don't most of us have TV's anyway? Why, yes, yes we do. And you know what? It doesn't have to be an all-singing-all-dancing HDTV to play games on either! My 360 is hooked up to a 4 year old Panasonic, and it the games still look great. Not as good as they could, perhaps, but at least I know that if I go online I'm not going to be held back by different hardware to what someone else has.
Of course, in a perfect world, I'd love a top-of-the-range gaming rig. But I'd also love it to be a lot simpler. More standardized hardware, technical specs, whatever- just make it easier for people to game with, and the users will come flocking back.
In terms of the games themselves... the PC market seems to be narrowing rapidly, harking back to its genre heyday of the mid-90's: First Person Shooters and Strategy games. But even then, the FPS's coming out on the PC these days are hardly revolutionary- Crysis' innovation is in its graphics, not its tried-and-tested gameplay- although there are of course interesting titles on the horizon. But more and more innovative or adventurous titles seem to be appearing on the console market- perhaps, again, because the makers can expect to sell more. Don't get me wrong, I know there are some indie firms out there making exceptional, genre-busting stuff, and I'm not saying all games should be about doing something new- I'm lookijng forward to Lost Oddysey immensely just because its an Old Skool RPG- I'm just replying to what other people have said, thats all.
I guess a lot of the dearth of interesting PC titles lately is the sheer cost of development, compounded by limited returns. I have no idea how much it must have cost to develop a game like Crysis (cue someone finding a figure) but I bet it was a lot. Will it recoup all that was spent on it? probably, eventually. But I bet if it was a top-tier console game it would already be raking in the profits (not prophets, those are something else). The sheer fact that PC games have to be programmed for a thousand and one different configurations makes the costs spiral, despite the (arguably pretty poor) efforts to DirectX and the like. Whereas for a console... you develop for one, maybe two different hardware configs. Now, granted, the PS3's Cell and the 360's CPU are different beasts indeed- but thats still a lot less time spent optimising system-specific settings, and a lot more time spent on game development in the first place.
Yeah, I'm rambling, I know. But what I'm trying to say is this: PC gaming might not be dead, but its a shrinking market, especially when it comes to cutting-edge titles. There's no denying the PC is a great gaming platform- but theres also no denying that, from the point of view of a game developer / publisher, a console is the better way to go to get better sales and support your own business. After all, its all very well to make a great game. But if nobody buys it, you're still in trouble, no matter how much critical acclaim it receives.
If PC gaming really is in disarray, then the main people to blame, are people like Epic, who release buggy unfinished games and then can't be bothered to fix them (presumably because patches are released for free).
I own both a PC and X360 and enjoy games on both, but I much prefer playing FPSes on PC, so I waited for the PC version of Gears. Unfortunately I can't even play it because of all the bugs, and having read the official Epic forums I know ALOT of people are having problems with it, and Epic are being absolutely unresponsive.
I had been a huge Epic fan for years, played UT, UT2k3, UT2k4 and now UT3 in a clan. I have to say that UT3 doesn't particularly feel finished, but at least its playable.
So if CliffyB wants to concentrate on consoles, that's fine, but I for one won't be contributing to his sales figures ever again. Well, okay, maybe I'll still play the UT series on PC, but that's it.
As far as I'm concerned, as long as companies like Valve are making PC games, we'll be fine
I think it can be more accurately said that the kind of short lived, graphic heavy, tech shooters that Epic specialize in are in disarray on the PC. Personally I'm neither bothered by this 'revelation' or Cliffy's desire to turn away from PC gaming. I for one will neither miss him, nor his dime-a-dozen shooters.
See you Cliffy. Don't forget not to write.
Totally. I don't have a care in the world for PC games but I don't really agree with a guy who thinks he makes "AAA" games cos as good as GoW can be, its such a hugely flawed game that drags it down. Like the guy above said, they can concentrate on consoles but I'd rather have them concentrate on making a game feel finished. These people at Epic have such high opnions of themselves (like Bungie) yet all they make is the same type of game that hardly set the world on fire...maybe except for the initial rush of GoW before all the bugs and glitches appear
Gaming on a PC is a pain in the ass. Now before you nerds who actually enjoy DLing patches and constantly swapping hard drives and video cards lay into me just remember. You are not the majority even though all your friends are into it as well. I used to game on a PC and loved it until you notice your PC won't run a new game and you have to upgrade. Then there is the constant job of hunting down patches or some damn Mod that's all the rage keeping you from joining any game because you don't have it. LOL gaming on a windows 98 machine sure as hell didn't help the cause!
Games sell better on consoles so PC is largely ignored. PC is largely ignored so games sell better on consoles. It's a vicious cycle.
PC gaming is in trouble though, no matter how much people try to deny that fact. Example, I have a top-end gaming PC and I hardly ever actually play games on it. My reason is because there are no games! I hate RTS games, so there's a huge chunk of PC-exclusive games I personally don't care about. Anything coming out this year that is of any interest, I already own on a console or will be able to purchase on a console before the PC gets it. I only ever have one game on PC to look forward to for the entire year, in comparison to almost one per week on consoles. 2006 was Dark Messiah, 2007 Crysis, this year it's Left4Dead... all good PC games, but not enough.
It's not just me either. A few lads here in the office only game on PCs. They're dying for games. One of them can't wait for Assassin's Creed... Assassin's Creed? Is it November? That game has been and gone. I already played through that twice on a console. Another is waiting for Devil May Cry 4. Yep, guess what? I'm over halfway through that game. While he waits for Devil May Cry 4 for even be given a release date, he's picked up Resident Evil 4 and DMC3 for PC to tide him over. He doesn't play DMC3 because it's such a horrible port that it's unplayable, while on the Resident Evil side, there he is playing a massively inferior version of the same Gamecube game I completed literally years ago.
Already this year, consoles have gotten two huge and highly anticipated games in established and popular franchises, in the form of Burnout Paradise and Devil May Cry 4... in contrast, the last time I checked the PC release schedule, the only thing coming out in the following month was World Championship Darts.
I'm sure system requirements have a lot to do with it too. I have a Quad Core CPU overclocked to 3GHz, 4GB ram, all bleeding-edge stuff. When Crysis came out I spent €620 on a factory-overclocked Nvidia 8800 Ultra, the most powerful version of the card you could possibly buy, and I'm still only barely hitting 15fps if I crank that sucker up to Very High. I spent over €200 more than an entire PS3 playing my games perfectly would have cost, just for one component of my still-inadequate PC. One component. Not counting the €999 my processor originally cost, and all the rest I've spent on parts. It's not worth it.
I'm rambling a lot here, but basically my opinion is that PC gaming is in trouble, mainly because there aren't enough games. Thanks for reading!
Are you actually ignorant enough to think that most PC gamers are eagerly awaiting DMC 4 and Assassin's Creed? Well, first of all there are loads of top rated games which came out on PC last year which haven't been and in some cases, will never be released on console. For example, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, The Witcher, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Crysis, World in Conflict, Supreme Commander etc. None of these are MMOs or Sims and they all did well in terms of sales. So your argument that there aren't enough games on the PC is plain wrong. Just because you don't know about them or you don't like them doesn't mean that they aren't there.
Also, this Cliffy B person is talking crap. Does he expect a high-profile Xbox 360 game which sold loads on the Xbox 360 to sell the same amount when released a year later on the PC? Does he have no sense of business at all? He can't seriously be judging the performance of the PC industry on the sales of GoW or UT3. UT3 is a multiplayer only shooter released at the same time as TF2 and ET:QW which both got better overall review scores. I doubt it would hve done much better on the Xbox. Anyway, the point is there are many franchises which sell really well on PC (Half-life, Civiisation, Total War, Elder Scrolls). If Epic's franchises aren't doing well on the PC then they're right to focus on making console games. But making ignorant comments like 'PC Gaming is in disarray' based solely on the performance on their franchises is stupid and misleading.
I think it can be more accurately said that the kind of short lived, graphic heavy, tech shooters that Epic specialize in are in disarray on the PC. Personally I'm neither bothered by this 'revelation' or Cliffy's desire to turn away from PC gaming. I for one will neither miss him, nor his dime-a-dozen shooters.
I think it can be more accurately said that the kind of short lived, graphic heavy, tech shooters that Epic specialize in are in disarray on the PC. Personally I'm neither bothered by this 'revelation' or Cliffy's desire to turn away from PC gaming. I for one will neither miss him, nor his dime-a-dozen shooters.
See you Cliffy. Don't forget not to write.
Pretty much sums up my thoughts.
lol, i agree, i never bought Gears for the PC( even though i was looking forward to it ) because of the horrendous amount of bugs/issues with Live/crashes/losing saves/stuttering. Epic dont even have the balls to give customers an update in their forums that theyre trying to fix the problems, I like UT3, but if there gonna just churn out bad ports and not support them, then yep, stick with the consoles Epic, youll not be missed
And "Cliffy B"? WTF, does he reckon hes some kinda rock star or summit?
Are you actually ignorant enough to think that most PC gamers are eagerly awaiting DMC 4 and Assassin's Creed? Well, first of all there are loads of top rated games which came out on PC last year which haven't been and in some cases, will never be released on console. For example, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, The Witcher, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Crysis, World in Conflict, Supreme Commander etc.
Nothing to do with ignorance... I said a few people here in my office who only play PC games are waiting for DMC4 and AC.
That's a nice list of PC-exclusive (at the moment) games that came out last year, and helps prove my point. 6 games? There were more (and better) games than that released on consoles in the month of November, nevermind the whole year. I didn't bother with either of the RTS games or The Witcher, but I own the other 3. Crysis was lots of fun but overall a bit disappointing (and not worth the money I spent on upgrades), I didn't much like Stalker (I was hoping for a sort of first-person Fallout - Bethesda will sort me out later this year), while Quake Wars is just awful. An ugly, buggy, overcomplicated mess of a game. I'll stick to Battlefield 2142 for that sort of online experience.
Are you actually ignorant enough to think that most PC gamers are eagerly awaiting DMC 4 and Assassin's Creed? Well, first of all there are loads of top rated games which came out on PC last year which haven't been and in some cases, will never be released on console. For example, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, The Witcher, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Crysis, World in Conflict, Supreme Commander etc. None of these are MMOs or Sims and they all did well in terms of sales. So your argument that there aren't enough games on the PC is plain wrong. Just because you don't know about them or you don't like them doesn't mean that they aren't there.
Also, this Cliffy B person is talking crap. Does he expect a high-profile Xbox 360 game which sold loads on the Xbox 360 to sell the same amount when released a year later on the PC? Does he have no sense of business at all? He can't seriously be judging the performance of the PC industry on the sales of GoW or UT3. UT3 is a multiplayer only shooter released at the same time as TF2 and ET:QW which both got better overall review scores. I doubt it would hve done much better on the Xbox. Anyway, the point is there are many franchises which sell really well on PC (Half-life, Civiisation, Total War, Elder Scrolls). If Epic's franchises aren't doing well on the PC then they're right to focus on making console games. But making ignorant comments like 'PC Gaming is in disarray' based solely on the performance on their franchises is stupid and misleading.
Very true, Cliffys ignorance is very annoying! Maybe if Gears came on PC first it would be doing 4.5 Million now. And yes, the person you are quoting is very wrong. Just because HE doesnt like RTS games it doesnt mean the rest of the world dont! WarCraft 3 is an RTS game and is as popular online now as it ever was. STALKER is a great PC game and underrated I think, I cant wait for the sequal.
I really enjoyed Gears on the PC and I hope when a Gears 2 comes out it will be coming to PC because I won't ever be buying a 360.
Maybe cliffy should remember on what platform their company made it big, BEFORE Microsoft came and put cash in their pocket to release on a console!
Are you actually ignorant enough to think that most PC gamers are eagerly awaiting DMC 4 and Assassin's Creed? Well, first of all there are loads of top rated games which came out on PC last year which haven't been and in some cases, will never be released on console. For example, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, The Witcher, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Crysis, World in Conflict, Supreme Commander etc.
Nothing to do with ignorance... I said a few people here in my office who only play PC games are waiting for DMC4 and AC.
That's a nice list of PC-exclusive (at the moment) games that came out last year, and helps prove my point. 6 games? There were more (and better) games than that released on consoles in the month of November, nevermind the whole year. I didn't bother with either of the RTS games or The Witcher, but I own the other 3. Crysis was lots of fun but overall a bit disappointing (and not worth the money I spent on upgrades), I didn't much like Stalker (I was hoping for a sort of first-person Fallout - Bethesda will sort me out later this year), while Quake Wars is just awful. An ugly, buggy, overcomplicated mess of a game. I'll stick to Battlefield 2142 for that sort of online experience.
Im waiting for DMC4 , but only after checking the official forums for issues post release as 3 was a disaster on the PC( i have the PS2 version too ) Anyways, i disagree with your point on the PC only having 6 big games and consoles having that in a month, surely being a BF player you'd have clocked up more hours in that than any console game. The first year i had BF2 i didnt play any other game( thats just me of course ), but console game longevity is generally crap, the only decent ones are GT series, FF series, and CoD4 MP, Oblivion( and i dont think the console version will get as much play time as the PC version with mods )
Without PC versions of console games, there arent going to be and mods for the console versions. Like it or not, but the future of console games lies in mods( even though it will harm M$ and $ony's sales figures if people are playing mods rather than buying new games ), there'll be an even stronger symbiotic relationship between the PC and consoles in the future beyond the hardware
http://thegamingsource.blogspot.com/2008/02/crysis-sale-exceed-expection-over-1.html You tiresome ignoramus.
It still doesn't erase the facts that I pointed out about the game's poor performance which went on well into December. The only thing you can say about Crysis' sudden jump in sales is that everyone skipped it during the Christmas period to play the big hitters on consoles and then moved onto Crysis start of the new year. I've also yet to see anyone say anything about UT III's p**s poor PC performance, which should be under the spot light since this article is from an Epic employee...
Feck sake you that thick and up your own bottom???, it still sold 1 mill copies!!!!!!!!!!!!. Doesnt matter when or how, it sold a million full price copies.
I blame PC games always being released in a beta form for poor sales, people have had enough of it. I can't remember the last new PC game I played that wasn't buggy as hell at release and required instant patching. Bioshock is a gd example and was unplayable for me for well over a month with no patch - I sold it on as I got fed up waiting. UT3 also bugged to hell - Only now 3 months after release is there a fix to let me put 3d sound on with my x-fi.
I blame PC games always being released in a beta form for poor sales, people have had enough of it. I can't remember the last new PC game I played that wasn't buggy as hell at release and required instant patching. Bioshock is a gd example and was unplayable for me for well over a month with no patch - I sold it on as I got fed up waiting. UT3 also bugged to hell - Only now 3 months after release is there a fix to let me put 3d sound on with my x-fi.
Here are all of the games that ive bought in the past few years and ive had no trouble running STALKER Oblivion FEAR Condemned Doom3 All HL2 games and the orange box Prey Star Wars:EaW WoW Guild Wars
I cant actually remember any game that ive had serious trouble with, though there have been some in the past but I cant remember their names.
And if cliffy wants to complain, maybe he should look closer to home!! GoW update system on the PC was bugged, if you tried to update within the game nothing would happen, because you had to tab out to windows to accept the update box, how f**king stupid is that! Personally I blame MS the most for that one.
I agree with both sides of the PC/Console debate, however i was an avid PC gamer, constantly upgrading etc but i have two kids now and its not a cheap platform. Games like Crysis should be played at the highest graphical level, thats what the developers want. I had a 360 on launch day and i love it. No cd key problems, sound card, graphics drivers. Yes PC games are cheaper but you try and part ex one and no one wants to have it or give u more than a fiver for it,but i can part ex a 360 game and get Ł20 if its a recent game.
The PC platform is in dissarray but that is partly due to Vista problems,people waiting for the nine monthly graphics card update (9 series cards)and what most people seem to be unaware of is the demise of AMD/Ati and the rise of Intel in the graphics market up against NVidea, and Intel are pushing Ray Tracing as a new way of graphics development and developers are waitng for the outcome of this
Ray tracing is a hell of a lot more expensive to compute than rastar graphics, I don't think we will be seeing it any time soon.
Yes vista is s**te and needs to be sorted, and MS need t come out with a games OS and not one bloated down with useless s**te!
Its gonna happen - http://www.idfun.de/temp/q4rt/ The trick used in raster gfx continue making their generation slower and slower requiring faster and faster gfx, this compounded by the fact that ray traced gfx are brilliant for concurrent processing on multi core systems, as the processors dont require communication between them for frames. 16.9 FPS in that benchmark is excellent for current CPU's
Its a conflict of interest for M$ to much to make games more accessible to everyone on a PC, they get ŁŁŁ for every game sold on the xbox360( which is essentially a mid range PC )
just because this failure of a company didnt sell as much copies of their game as they expected doesnt mean that the whole of pc gaming is in disarray... ive never heard such unjust bulls**t in all my life... YOUR GAME DIDNT SELL BECAUSE IT SUCKED. NOT BECAUSE PC GAMING IS IN DISARRAY...
Let's have this debate a year from now. Because if something doesn't happen to change things in the next 12 months we can have a wake, and if some miracle does happen, we can all have a great celebration! One thing for sure. PC gaming won't be allowed to tread water in 2008...!
Wow that was quite a post
I remember the days when specs were too high people simply ignored the product and let the companies sweat a little. Nowadays as soon as a company releases "bleeding edge" technology there are people out there just jumping on board.
Games companies seem to also be jumping on board using the latest tech, especially with companies like Nvidia giving them the latest high end boards to work on. A far cry from the small dev teams that had to buy their own hardware all those years ago and as a result kept things more modest.
Back then it was amazing the things they would come up with. For instance I remember when Wing Commander came on the PC. Many said the Amiga would never do it but after some magnificent programming, there it was. Along with Microprose Grand Prix as well.
As long as Nividia and Intel keep flooding the market with new products I simply cannot see things changing for now unless something drastically bad happens to the market.
What a fool that man is ! Listen sunshine, the day when games on poxy console toys are not out of date within 3 months, because of the inability of consoles for upgrading,.. THEN, come and tell us about PC Gaming ! Tunnel vision jerk !
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Magazines will score a high end PC game like Crysis higher, despite having little innovation beyond graphics, and will downscore a game like STALKER for not having high end graphics, usually termed as 'not polished' - a favourite media phrase.
I completely agree with that point. I've always been of the opinion that gameplay > graphics, so I've never really understood why the media get so obsessed with the graphics. I've actually decided not to buy Crysis because the main selling point is that "it looks great".
If the graphics are only functional, and you can see what you're doing, but the gameplay is really enjoyable, then that game should score 90%-ish.
If the graphics are only functional, and you can see what you're doing, but the gameplay is really enjoyable, then that game should score 90%-ish.
It's a sad day for gaming when visuals make a game as well as multiplayer. I'm actually sad to see that, that is the way the market is currently heading. Not good at all.
Cliffy B is just mad because the crowd that once praised his games has moved and will stick to more sophisticated games in terms of design. Gears of War was not a good game by any standard on the PC, it was a dull corridor 3rd person shooter, it was the equivalent of Killswitch with better graphics. Sure it sold well on a console, but so does Fifa and Madden. Anything sells on console.
You can see there are 30,000 people playing CoD4 at any given time, 60,000 people are playing Counterstrike Source at any given time, 10,000 people playing BF2 at any given time. The PC market is not dying and isn't going anywhere. He needs to shut his trap, I used to respect this guy and thought he was a good designer, way back in the day. But by today's standards, he has fallen off. He needs to face the music and learn that his old designs will not sell anymore. I could have told him that, but then again would he listen to a college student who is studying game design.
Oh and UT3 did not sell well because it is the exact same thing as UT2003/2004. 4 years later that game style has been beaten to death, he should of looked at the sales figures of Quake 4 compared to Quake 3.
Anyways he needs to stop blaming the industry and just face it, his games are outdated in terms of gameplay.
Humourguy I think the point smashingpunk was making is that there are still plenty of players with the desire to play on PC, but that 'Cliffy B' needs to actually release a decent game if he wants to get in on that action.
I.E. It's no good citing the PC market's faults as a reason for pulling out if you ARE one of its faults.
PC gaming in GENERAL is still a massive market. You need to look at specific genres to see where things are changing. My favorite genre, single player action games, has almost disappeared completely. You just need look at what the next AAA games are...Stalker Clear Skies (sequel), Orange Box 2(I guess not for a year or 2), possibly even Duke Forever but I doubt it. I don't even know what's happened to Alan Wake...
Sad indeed that last year's highlights were limited to Crysis and OB. (Bioshock didn't do it for me for some reason.)
I'd like to see somebody do Outlaws2 and kick start Jedi Knight (without bloody light sabres) but I guess I'm just harking back to the glory days of the PC FPS...
What's the reason? The dumbing down of gaming via the console generation. Shame.
the gap between consoles and pcs is well less than it used to be. pcs used to do stuff consoles couldnt even dream of.
I think this is because the next gen consoles have just recently arrived. The PC industry is constantly developing, and as a result the latest Pc games in a few years time will look far better than any console version. FEAR for example, was released in 2005, long before its release on Xbox 360. Back then it looked fantastic compared to consoles.
The downside to a constantly developing industry is that its bloody expensive to keep up. Many companies simply drop out because they don't think its worth it, or the games are not high standard like they should be.
So you could say the PCs development is its own downfall at the moment - most notably in FPS - but some genres like RTS are hardly affected.
He's right though. You just need to look at the likes of Gears of War on 360 which sold 3 million in 10 weeks and Halo 3 which has sold 8.1 million since release. Compare that to Crysis on PC which sold 86,633 units since release and UT III on PC which has sold 33,995...
I think we can all come to our own conclusions based on those figures...
Crysis has sold over a million copies now. Please don't post ignorant bulls**t.
Actually sales of Crysis according to NPD (US=165k units)and ChartTrack (UK=71k units) would suggest a fraction of a million units actually sold through end of Jan 08. Mogs, it seems you mistake a publisher's announced sell in with actual consumer purchases.
So before calling others ignorant please check your facts.
As far as PC gaming, unfortunately we all know the truth - and it hurts. It is a complex problem with many issues: sales, ease of use and piracy to say the least.
At least Operation Flashpoint2, Stalker, Starcraft 2 and Far Cry 2 are around the corner, I hope. Until then I will have to play with my PS3 and X360.
I think no one bought Crysis because it's got EA on the box, thats certainly one reason that I avoided it.
Anyway, I blame publishers and the gamers, publishers have no f**king idea about anything, they cant make a good game, just go for eye candy to try and sell it.
And as for gamers, a lot look at a game thats not eye candy and dont buy it for that reason, then when eye candy comes along they complain that it wont run on their crappy computer.
One thing that I am glad about though is Capcom releasing Bionic Commando Rearmed, old style side scroller with updated graphics, yet probabaly any PC today can play it no problem, and every post ive seen about it people are praising it (which i actually found as a surprise cos a lot of the time people complain if graphics arent cutting edge). More games like this should come out.
And eya, Cliffy should stop being so narrow minded, I would rather Gears had lower quality graphics and a better gaming experience (the Corpser fight really was p**s poor) Ohh, and the lies on the TV trailer for the game, for shame!
ok, as far as i can see, and by the look of this wannabe cool-guy, he has no idea what hes talking about. he has unjustfiably caused a mass scare in the games industry, based on the fact that his company couldnt sell very many pc versions of gears or ut3. this in turn has scared developers into running to the console safe-haven and pointing the finger at the pc. the pc is a SPECIALIST GAMING PLATFORM. only hardcore hobbyists use pcs for gaming. of course theres going to be more people with a console because anyone with half a brain cell can use them. they are comparing two completely different gaming platforms here. it is really important to see that THE PC IS NOT THE SAME AS THE CONSOLE.
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How do you guys know these figures? 
