Valve: Why the PC is the future

By Oli Welsh Published 27 June, 2008

Newell and co. stick up for their roots (and Steam).

When Valve summoned a handful of US and UK journalists to its Seattle headquarters at the end of last month, it promised to talk about the future of Steam, its digital distribution system. That it did, revealing the ambitious Steam Cloud service for remote storage of game data, and boasting that it would soon be making more money selling games digitally, all the while remaining untroubled by piracy.

Valve mastermind Gabe Newell and his cohorts had an ulterior motive for bringing reporters together, however, and unusually for an ulterior motive, it wasn't a wholly self-interested one. It was this: to evangelise the PC as the games platform of the future.

"This really should be done by a company like Intel or Microsoft, somebody who's a lot more central to the PC," says Newell, pointing out that companies like Blizzard, PopCap and GameTap would have just as much to say as Valve about how PC gaming is leading innovation in technology, business models, and community-building. But, notwithstanding Microsoft's occasional promotion of Games For Windows - an initiative Newell refrains from attacking directly, but exudes disdain for - that support has not been forthcoming.

Where console platforms have merciless and well-funded PR armies poised to combat any criticism, negative stories about the PC - mostly publishers, or developers like Crytek, complaining of rampant piracy and flat sales - run unimpeded. Sales data that focuses solely on boxed copies sold at retail appear to back them up. Valve has had enough. "There's a perception problem," says Newell. "The stories that are getting written are not reflecting what is really going on."

'Valve: Why the PC is the future' Screenshot 1

Although all consoles now offer download services and support for indie game development, Audiosurf's creator believes his game could only have happened on PC.

You want figures? There are 260 million online PC gamers, a market that dwarfs the install base of any console platform, online or offline. Each year, 255 million new PCs are made; not all of them for gaming, it's true, but Newell argues that the enormous capital investment and economies of scale involved in this huge market ensure that PCs remain at the cutting edge of hardware development, and consoles their "stepchildren", in connectivity and graphics technology especially. Meanwhile, Valve's business development guru, Jason Holtman, notes that without the pressure of cyclical hardware cycles, PC gaming projects - he points to Steam as an example - can grow organically, over long periods of time, and with no ceiling whatsoever to their potential audiences.

More pertinent, perhaps, are the figures directly relating to games revenue that the retail charts - admittedly a stale procession of Sims expansions and under-performing console ports - don't pick up. "If you look into the future, there's an important transition that's about to happen, and it's going to happen on the PC first," says Newell.

'Valve: Why the PC is the future' Screenshot 2

Valve is continuing to produce its Team Fortress 2 promo videos because they continue to increase sales. With online distribution, there's no reason to stop promoting a game after launch.

At its heart, he explains, is a shift from viewing games as a physical product, to viewing them as a service - something that is also happening in other entertainment media. Digital distribution is part of that; more fluid and varied forms of game development, with games that change and engage their communities of players over time, are another; as is, naturally, the persistence and subscription (or otherwise) revenues of MMO games. None of this is reflected in the sales charts analysts, executives - and gamers - obsess over.

Valve sees 200 per cent growth in these alternative channels - not just Steam, but including the likes of cyber-cafes as well - versus less than 10 per cent in bricks-and-mortar shop sales. Steam has a 15 million-strong player-base with 1.25 million peak concurrent users, and 191 per cent annual growth; none too far off a console platform in itself. The PC casual games market, driven by the likes of PopCap, has gone from next to nothing to USD 1.5 billion dollar industry in under ten years, and has doubled in size in just three. Perhaps most surprisingly, Valve has found that digital distribution doesn't cannibalise retail sales - in fact, a free Day of Defeat weekend on Steam created more new retail sales than online ones.

And then there is the game that many claim has been the death of PC gaming, but that Valve sees as its greatest success story, and its future. "Until recently, the fact that World of Warcraft was generating 120 million dollars in gross revenue on a monthly basis was completely off the books," Newell says. "Essentially, [Blizzard is] creating a new Iron Man every month, in terms of the gross revenue they're generating as a studio. Any movie studio would be shouting about that from the rooftops. But it was essentially invisible."

Newell thinks that WOW is "arguably the most valuable entertainment franchise in any media right now", and also believes, rightly, that it could only ever have happened on the PC. He also tips his hat to South Korea's Nexxon for its enormous success with free-to-play, microtransaction-driven games like Kart Rider and Maple Story, soon to be aped by EA's Battlefield Heroes.

There is another reason for the gulf between the perception and the reality of the games market, Valve thinks, and it's a geographical and linguistic one. The dominance of the English language gives the US and UK games markets, where the PC is weakest, undue prominence. In several major Western markets - notably Germany and the Nordic countries - the PC performs much better. What's more, in the emerging markets of China, Korea and Russia, where gaming is seeing unprecedented, explosive growth, console install bases are negligible, and the PC is king. Valve thinks that there's a silent majority of global gamers who are skipping the console era entirely, the way these developing nations already skipped dial-up internet.

Steam is available in 21 languages for this reason, and Valve reckons that its speedy localisation and lack of physical distribution is an effective counter to the piracy common in these markets. It's also allowing Valve to get games to players in regions traditional channels don't support. "PC's are everywhere in the world," says Holtman simply. "PC's are the same all over the world. All of sudden, if you can open up emerging markets and go somewhere like Russia or South East Asia, you've gone way further than you can go with a closed console. There are 17 million PC gaming customers in Russia alone."

'Valve: Why the PC is the future' Screenshot 3

Newell believes WOW: Wrath of the Lich King shipping "will have a larger impact on moving the PC forward as a gaming platform" than initiatives such as the Gaming Alliance.

A key shift in this brave new world of games as services rather than products - and one that runs contrary to the traditional image of PC gaming - is a move away from graphical fidelity being the yardstick of progress. "As a company that's really proud of the job we do with graphics it's funny to say this," Newell says, "but we get a better return right now by focusing on those features and technologies that are about community, about connecting people together."

He cites easy uploading of gameplay videos to YouTube as a bigger source of entertainment value than marginal improvements in graphics. "I think that people thinking about how to generate web hits on their servers are a lot closer to the right mentality for what's going to be successful in entertainment going forward, than somebody that's used to having conversations about how to get end caps at Best Buy."

The revolution in distribution and business models also offers a major new opportunity for smaller games - and smaller games developers - to thrive. The demands of retail - the logistical problems of getting boxes to shops, and the budgetary drain of huge marketing campaigns - mean that bigger is necessarily better in the traditional games market.

Not so on Steam and its equivalents, says Valve, pointing to the huge success of indie darling Audiosurf, as well as its own Portal. "As you move away from that huge first weekend, big blockbuster mentality," says Newell, "you're getting back to an area where smaller and smaller groups can connect with customers. I think you're going to find that the enjoyment of being in the game industry as a developer on the PC is a lot greater than outside of it."

He's backed up by an actual indie, Audiosurf creator Dylan Fitterer. This one-man development, created without financial backing - impossible on consoles, due to the cost of development kits - was the best-selling game on Steam full-stop at its release, outclassing many big-budget titles. "I didn't have to ask anybody if I could release it, except for my wife," Fitterer says. "It took a few years, and I was pretty darn tired by the time it was ready. Something like certifications? No thanks." He also points out the tight limitations of console servers versus PC servers for online gaming; Audiosurf's scoreboard for every song ever recorded would be out of the question on a closed platform.

Holtman argues that Steam and Steamworks - the suite of free tools it offers - revolutionise the environment for developers and publishers. The auto-updating system means that a game can be developed right up to release and beyond. It eases painful crunch times, and allows game makers to respond to their audiences, publishers to develop their titles as continuously evolving franchises rather than finite products.

"All of a sudden, PC games become this thing that's reliable and up-to-date," says Holtman. Team Fortress 2 designer Robin Walker weighs in, noting that the PC version of the shooter has had no less than 53 updates since its release last year - something that certification cost and time have prohibited for on console - and that this "ship continuously" ethos is a key component to the success of the best multiplayer titles. Steam, he says, makes that process fast and transparent.

"I don't want anyone between me and my customers," says Walker. "I want to write code today and I want all my customers running it tomorrow." Possible on the PC - Steam in particular, naturally. Not possible on consoles. For his part, Fitterer added achievements to Audiosurf in a total of two days. This constant iteration creates a feedback loop between developer and customer that, reckons Walker, can only improve the quality of the game. "The more I talk to my customers, the better my decisions will be. Without a system of talking to my customers, I will make bad decisions."

'Valve: Why the PC is the future' Screenshot 4

Crysis' low sales and endemic piracy was interpreted by many as a death knell for the PC, but Valve thinks it could have been avoided.

The implication is a striking one: sporadic, excessively controlled updating means that console multiplayer games will never reach the heights of their PC counterparts. There is a counter-argument - that PC games descend into a poorly-defined, indistinct mess of constant patching - but it is effectively squashed by the fact that, if you look for a multiplayer game with the longevity and massive popularity of a WOW or a Counter-Strike on console, you won't find one (with the very arguable exception of Halo).

Auto-updating is the reason Valve created Steam in the first place. It's the reason it now finds itself in an odd position for a developer: semi-publisher, leading distributor, market analyst, agony uncle and technocrat - not to mention defender of a platform that's still being proclaimed dead, when all signs point to the very opposite.

At the end of the day, PC gaming's health - and its trickiest challenge - comes down to a bottom line that even the format's detractors can't refute: there are just so many of the damn things. "We think the number of connected PC gamers we are selling our products to dwarf the current generation of consoles put together," states Newell. "There are tremendous opportunities in figuring out how to reach out to those customers."

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (155) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • gamefan #1 4 years ago

    Well if you can afford to constantly upgrade your PC then yes, they could be the future. For me I think they are trying to talk the game up. Most gamers use consoles becasue they are easy to use and can't or won't pay £300 for grahics card just to play a game.

    Yes the hardcore will use PC's for certain types, but mainstream, I think Valve are way off the mark.

  • udat #2 4 years ago

    I kinda agree with you Gamefan, but at the same time, there are a lot of games on steam that will play fine on a 3 year old desktop system, or a laptop, etc.

    The games on Steam are one of the few things that make me think about getting a "PC" again, having totally excised Windows from my life a year or two ago.

  • Rayn #3 4 years ago

    To me it looks as if consoles and PCs will merge into a hybrid product anyways...the consoles have gotten more and more computer like over the last couple of generations, and it doesn't look like it's an evolution bound to stop

  • DFawkes #4 4 years ago

    Here's a basic rule - if you can't run Peggle, I think it's time for a PC upgrade. I used to think Steam was all about controlling content, but I now see it's both a valuable tool for communities and a handy way of games distribution.

    I think there's a little something for everyone on Steam. Even the ancient 566mhz Celeron with 128MB memory and on-board graphics could run Deus Ex, a really good game. My PC may not be my primary gaming machine, but it's nice to know it's sitting with access to all these games should it take my fancy.

  • butler` #5 4 years ago

    I'm so pleased that this article (and the press meeting from which it was spawned) addresses so many issues regarding the PC as a gaming platform - and addresses them so well. It basically consolidates all my thoughts of the past five years, from Crysis situation to WoW, and all with the incessant console war babbling noise in the background.

    Where others see impossibilities and improbabilities, Valve see opportunity. (I'm sure there's a famous quote there somewhere.)

    I just hope they aren't alone.

  • Benno #6 4 years ago

    PC developer states PC gaming is the future. Shocking.

  • chudders #7 4 years ago

    I love Valve.

    There, I said it.

  • UncleLou #8 4 years ago

    Well if you can afford to constantly upgrade your PC then yes, they could be the future.

    *sigh*

    Yes the hardcore will use PC's for certain types, but mainstream, I think Valve are way off the mark.


    Which mainstream audience are you talking about? The mainstream audience that has 360s and PS3s? the much bigger mainstream audience that has Wiis? The just as big, if not bigger mainstream audience that buys gazillions of games on PopCap?

  • Zelos #9 4 years ago

    Valve is the only reason I bother with a Windows partition. I gave up on PC gaming after getting fed up with bugs in Battlefield 2, the Orange Box brought me back: fantastic single and multiplayer games that run fine on my old GPU. The continuing updates to TF2 are the icing on the cake.

  • Spooke #10 4 years ago

    Console players constantly talk of the price factor but this is another red herring created by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. The cost of ownership of a PC is high but the additional cost of the elements that allow a standard PC to play games are not. So if you are buying a PC for home use the better graphics card, additional RAM and slight faster processor usually amount to the same price as a PS3.

    Add onto that the lower cost of the games, I bought Race Driver: Grid off Steam and after the exchange rate it came to £23. Thats nearly half the price of the PS3 version. This is similar story with most games.

    Also one other thing that no one seems to mention is the portability of Steam. If I go to a friends house for the weekend and they have a pc that is a sensible spec I can install Steam, log into my account and play all the games I have bought on Steam. For free.

    I moved from Mac to PC solely to play games and even though I have a PS3 and a Wii my PC is the best platform and the one I get the most value out of.

    Gamefan is way off the mark.

  • RazorObsession #11 4 years ago

    if money was no object, i'd have to agree with valve.

    Unfortunately, for me, it is an object, thus i disagree.

    When or if it is no longer an object, i shall agree again.

  • krudd #12 4 years ago

    Steam being all great as it is I find that a lot of people that come into my work have never heard of it or don't really know what it is!! ... This smells of hardcore gaming to me! ... (though I'm constantly logged in)

    Kind shows how there are great digital channels for pc but the mass still don't know of them! Unlike Live or PSN that seem to be shouted about all the time!


    .. where am I going with this?!?!

  • chiz #13 4 years ago

    All this £300 for a new graphics card is a load of tosh. You can get a pretty damn good one these days for £50-£90 that will easily outperform any console.

  • crozon #14 4 years ago

    lets get this straight a 8800gt is around £120-150 it plays crysis on high, and no game is going to make it struggle for a long time. There its cheaper than a wii and you can use it till the next consoles come out.
    and you can use PicLens ([link url=http://www.piclens.com/)< br /> ]http://www.piclens.com/)< br /> [/link]

    and i love valve!!!!!!!!!

  • Muddtallica #15 4 years ago

    I don't much care about where the future lies, as long as it brings Half-Life 2 Episode Three sooner rather than later. Valve, stop talking and get cracking!

  • DaveLev #16 4 years ago

    PC's are expensive because they arn't limited to gaming!

    You cant run MS Office on the XBox, you cant surf the web (with exeption to the Wii), you cant play flash games. PC's have much more variety than consoles, and i'm guessing almost every person that has said "PC's are way too expensive" have got a PC of some sort in there household, just that my PC is a XBox and a PS3 as well as everything else that a PC can do!

    and as the people above me have said, you can get the new ATI Graphics cards that came out this week for under £150 .. they will play any game out at the moment on high graphics and would out perform any consoles.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 12:03

  • IronCladChicken #17 4 years ago

    > Well if you can afford to constantly upgrade your PC then yes, they could be the future. For me I think they are trying to talk > the game up. Most gamers use consoles becasue they are easy to use and can't or won't pay £300 for grahics card just to play
    > a game.

    Here we go again; I'm currently using a three year old PC (AMD dual core 4400+, NVidia7900GTX, 2GB ram, X-Fi sound card)
    I have no problem running the current games on through my TV (using a $1.50 DVI-HDMI cable) at >360 graphic quality levels (thats running at true 1080p btw, not an upscaled image ala Halo3, GTA.

    This means I will be able to continue playing games at at >XBox360 quality for as long as I like... I would need to upgrade if I wanted to run say, Crysis with all the settings maxed, but I I have no problem running it to my TV's limitations, so I dont bother.

    On top of this, I use my PC for web browsing, emailing, instant messenging, sorting out my finances, booking holidays, programming (work), web development (work), watching some TV (BBCi & the Sky download service), etc.. it also does a great job at upscaling DVD's.

    I do own a console (Wii) which I play to death (Super Smash Bros. better be sitting on my doormat when Iget home tonight!)
    But the idea that you constantly need to upgrade to play the lastest games is complete bunkum.

  • Menace #18 4 years ago

    Only thing I don't like about Steam is that it's blocked at work (the bastards) - and that sometimes it takes awhile to start up - especially if it decides to update when I just want a quick game.

  • bdc #19 4 years ago

    That 'Crytek' link in the article is a typo!

  • Hypercube #20 4 years ago

    I upgrade my PC maybe once every 3 to 4 years. Last time I completely rebuilt it, because I wanted a new bit of everything. Cost me about £600 and now it's blisteringly fast.

    So that's about £150 to £200 a year for upgrades. Complaints about upgrade costs are usually from people who buy their PCs ready made from manufacturers (in my experience). Being able to build your own is initially off-putting (as the learning curve is pretty steep), but it makes it a lot easier to keep costs down.

    Edit: And quoting £300 for a graphics card is a bit silly when you can get something like an 8800GTX with 768MB of video RAM for less than £200. Unless you're trying to impress someone with your 'uber-card', it's easy to get great graphics performance from a card costing less than £200.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 12:09

  • Killerbee #21 4 years ago

    I completely agree with the posts above. Most people these days have a PC for internet access, work or whatever. The incremental cost for turning a PC bought in the last 2-3 years into a decent gaming PC is much less than the cost of a console; most probably it just needs a graphics card upgrade and you can get an 8800GT for less than £100 now and plenty of games don't even require that.

    Steam is a great system that's really come into its own - and I admit to being very sceptical at first when I had to install it to play Half-Life 2.

    The age old problem of piracy must be a concern for developers and publishers, but if they make it easy enough to download a game legitimately and for a price that looks like good value versus the retail box, then I actually think they'll win over most people to doing the right thing. Downloaded PC games don't suffer any of the problems console game publishers have been up in arms about with the second hand market so surely the two factors must sort of balance themselves out. Buying retail space and real-world promotion must also be more expensive than an online launch, advertising campaign and distribution model, so there's another way to balance out the costs of piracy there.

    I certainly hope and expect to see a rosy future for PC gaming and it's a market I'm very glad I bought into ahead of getting myself a PS3 or 360.

  • Nallen #22 4 years ago

    Well if you can afford to constantly upgrade your PC then yes, they could be the future. For me I think they are trying to talk the game up. Most gamers use consoles becasue they are easy to use and can't or won't pay £300 for grahics card just to play a game.

    Yes the hardcore will use PC's for certain types, but mainstream, I think Valve are way off the mark.

    That's just bullshit. Don't you people that spout this crap all the time care that it's not fucking true?

    Btw, what's mainstream exactly? What makes up to date console gaming more mainstream than Solitare?

  • Widge #23 4 years ago

    I totally rebuilt my system, PSU, fan, AMD X2 4400+, 2 GB DDR2, Coolermaster Case, motherboard... for under £200. I've got a x800GTO2 in the machine at the moment left over from my old build (cost me £150 about 2 1/2 years ago) which has been more than enough for the Steam games that I play and if I was to get a new GPU, it would be about another £100 on the stuff I've already spent. PC's cost £400 to play a game is a myth that can be filed alongside "the PS3 has no games" and "all 360's RROD".

    Its so easy to get a system that is decent enough budget without being obsolete within months. Bar Crysis, is there anything of recent that has been stretching PCs? The 8600 nVidia series is running stuff at console spec at the moment, whack one of those in your system and its cheap... and should last some decent time.

    PC gaming only becomes expensive when you obsess over having every single slider set at max for every single game that comes out.

  • Whizzo #24 4 years ago

    Anyone who talks about £300 graphics cards really needs to see just how good the new ATi 4850s are and how cheaply they can be bought for too.

  • Katsumoto #25 4 years ago

    "PC gaming only becomes expensive when you obsess over having every single slider set at max for every single game that comes out."

    Exactly. And that is their prerogative of course. But if you are happy with medium-high settings there will be no need to upgrade a PC bought within the last 9 months, say, for several years.

    And as has been pointed out, PCs do more than play games! Something that is often forgotten.

    God I love Valve. Bring on a Steam OS! ;)

  • dagoberto #26 4 years ago

    my current card was 69 quid two month's ago , (oc'd hd3850 512mb) and will play any game on max settings at 1680 x 1050 (apart from crysis which it will still play on high shaders at that res).

    Graphics cards are now so cheap and powerfull .

    The hd4850 will set you back around 120 quid and its an absolute beast of a card (slightly quicker than a 8800gtx)

    I could build a beast of a pc for 300 quid (same as a ps3)

  • chiz #27 4 years ago

    P.C. games are also cheaper and usually have more features :)
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 12:25

  • gamefan #28 4 years ago

    So I touched a nerve on the £300 for a graphics card and upgrades. So the cards cost less, so I apologise.

    This could soon become another PC v PS3 v 360 debate which is not the point. I used to play games on my PC, but these days prefer the 'simplicity' of the consoles. How many COD4 were sold on PC? Nowhere near the 'mainstream' of the console markets. Oddly, Crysis have now stopped PC development.

    Valve are a great developer and I think they just have a dislike of consoles (PS3 only?). It's thier business and they can chosse to support whatever platformt they want.

  • Katsumoto #29 4 years ago

    " How many COD4 were sold on PC? Nowhere near the 'mainstream' of the console markets. Oddly, Crysis have now stopped PC development. "

    No, not as many as the console versions. It still sold VERY well.

    Crytek haven't stopped PC development. They said they are no longer going to make PC games -exclusively-.

  • darkmuse #30 4 years ago

    If only i could get my drivers to play nice together and not have the PC lock up after 10 minutes of playing something unchallenging like Guild Wars (And yes I'm tech savvy and built the machine myself for a few hindred quid a couple of years back). At least with a console I get to put a disc in and it works (usually). I don't want to have to set sliders to trade off performance vs looks, I want a developer to have done that balancing for me. Having said that I do think services such as Stream are a fantastic step in the right direction, and good luck to them.

  • PlugMonkey #31 4 years ago

    Just to echo what everyone else has said about the 'cost of pc gaming' myth. The prices have come down so much now. I just completely rebuilt and it cost me just over £700 including OS, and it will run anything on max detail - and anything on PC means comfortably in advance of PS3 and 360.

    It only came to £700 because I decided to treat myself to some luxury 'silent' components and case, without which it would have been more more around the £600 mark, would still have run anything and would still have been as quiet as either of the consoles. Admittedly, that's a bit more than a PS3, but it also works much better as a web-browser, media server, ipod hub, word processor, CD burner and so on. If you only wanted something that would be as good as a PS3, I reckon you could easily build it for less than £400.

    Also new games only cost £30 instead of £50, through digital download it can be even cheaper, and there's just so much choice. I'm currently playing Alien Shooter: Vengeance. Not exactly cutting edge, but it's a great blast. A bit like a PSNetwork or Live Arcade game, except it only cost me £2.50.

    Digital download is the future. The PC is the only system equipped to cope with it already. The future's bright for PC, unless you only count retail sales, but if you do that I'm afraid you're living in the past.

  • rudedudejude #32 4 years ago

    What you spend on upgrades you save on torrent downloads :D

  • oreillymj #33 4 years ago

    "It was this: to evangelise the PC as the games platform of the future."

    When you start using wank words like "evangelise", then you know it's time to quit journalism and become a marketing tosser!!!!

  • Krusty #34 4 years ago

    Well said Valve!
    I spend much more time, and get much more enjoyment from gaming on my PC than my 360 & Wii, and always will.

    What Steam really needs, in my opinion, is more publishers on board!
    Imagine if EA (for Spore) or someone of that size put their catalogues on...

    Plus, we need to know what's coming!
    I've bought several games physically that have then come out on Steam inside a few weeks... would like to have known that I should have waited :)

  • Nikanoru #35 4 years ago

    I've said this before, PC gaming is like buying a car that requires mechanic skills just to get it to run as it should. As long as this does not change, Valve can philosophize all they want, the market for PC games is never going catch up.

    And the horribly fragmented target platform is annoying as crap for developers too, even if Valve is not going to admit it. Just to name one example that aggravates me personally, there is NO way for a developer to prevent screen tearing on all computers and configurations, even in simple 2D games that need vsync badly. Me, I'm anxiously waiting for the day when console homebrew becomes as accessible as PC homebrew is.



    I upgrade my PC maybe once every 3 to 4 years.

    Yeah, and when you're past the half point of one of your upgrade cycles, new games start coming out that aren't optimized for your PC anymore and run like ass. And that's if you bothered to upgrade everything to top-of the line! Within my 5-6 year console cycle I can be sure that the games I play are always completely created around my specific piece of hardware.

  • canIdoyabombsforya #36 4 years ago

    "the consoles have gotten more and more computer like over the last couple of generations, and it doesn't look like it's an evolution bound to stop "

    No they havn't, the PC has become more like a console since day 1.
    The original and most popular home compters were just consoles with keyboards, hard drives and modems (Apple Atari etc) with custom sound chips, custom colour graphics on board.
    The PC was a Green screen monster, bleep bleep sound, for doing spread sheets and word processing.
    At the beggining of the 90s when the Mega Drive and SNES ruled for gaming, PCs didnt have custom graphics chips, custom sound chips, never mind stereo sound, or joysticks joypad etc.
    Mid 1990s when the PS1 was released, a P100mhz PC was around £1,000, it still used an internal speaker for games, sound cards had just become affordable but 3D card was a luxury.
    The price of PCs have also come down to console like levels, the only advantage PCs owners have is making use of ongoing increase in power, at a price.

  • Henrik_se #37 4 years ago

    Also, has anyone else noticed that the upgrade cycle for PCs seems to have slowed down?

    I remember when you had a 486 or a Pentium, and when the first 3D cards came out, and the first few generations of 3D cards, and you could really notice the difference after an upgrade, and almost all your games pushed your system to the max. You had to upgrade frequently to get ok performance in most games.

    But for the past 5 years or so, performance is just getting cheaper and faster at a faster pace than games can utilize it, and you don't need to have a bleeding edge machine to play most games. Sure, there's the occasional system hog like Crysis that pushes the envelope, but the absolute majority of games will play really well on mid-range systems.

  • Nikanoru #38 4 years ago

    Oh, one other thing I keep hearing from PC proponents is the ridiculous argument of "you can do other things with it like web browsing and word processing and listening music". Yes, and I can do that with a PC I got on a yard sale for 25 quid, too! Quoting such widespread and common functionality as an argument for a particular platform is like saying "my toy is better because it can do my laundry as well!"

    Wait, that may not be such a bad idea...

  • myk #39 4 years ago

    Apart from the whole directX 10 debacle Microsoft has done a good job in creating a standard video cards adhere to, creating a far more stable upgrade path. The manufacturers have also done well to create drivers that cover wide ranges of cards; when I upgraded from an ati x1900 to a 3870 I didn't need to change any drivers (and it works with the other x1900 to drive four monitors flawlessly)

  • Katsumoto #40 4 years ago

    "as consoles become more and more complete media thingies and can actually display proper HD resolutions all the time I think the PC will become more and more marginalised. " You could of course make an interesting counter-argument, and say that consoles will basically become more and more pc-like, until the two are basically inseparable.

    interesting discussion vaguely along those lines
    Edited by 2 at 27/06/08 @ 13:00

  • Darren #41 4 years ago

    If PC gaming is dying then it's not just because of the expense of upgrading, it's also because people don't want the hassle of trying to get the games running properly in the first place. Why does this game keep crashing? Is it out-dated graphics drivers, some other incompatible hardware driver or a conflict with some other software I'm running? Why is the game keeping juddering... why does it keep asking me to insert the original disc when it's already in the drive, etc., etc.? Why doesn't this game run as well under Vista as it did XP? Who knows, sometimes it's a nightmare trying to get some games working fine and I'm an experienced PC user who runs a clean machine too.

    With consoles you just slap the game in the drive and you can play it straight away (well except for PS3 owners with those increasingly commonplace mandatory HDD installs); no wonder people are turning their backs on the PC for gaming... I pretty much did the same thing!!! Apart from the odd game, I rarely bother playing games on my PC these days, it's used solely for emailing and browsing.

  • JohnnyWashnGo #42 4 years ago

    I don't buy into the price argument. As many posters have pointed out - a pretty decent gaming PC can be hand for a whiff over £600 these days.

    That being said, I am a believer in every device having its purpose and ecshew the use of todays one-device-for-everything machines. My PCs are used for development and for serving content. Sure some of them could run game reasonably well, but thats why I have games machines, to play games. I feel the PC as it stands at this point in time, is the clumsiest way of playing video games.

    This of course doesn't take into account that most games players using a PC are playing by themselves staring at a 24 inch monitor in a dark room. I prefer to play my games in the living room where the missus can have a laugh at me when i muck up and die or where other people can join in if they fancy a round on smash brothers. The solo gaming experience, for me, died when I left uni in 2000. These days, I enjoy a more social gaming experience.

  • UncleLou #43 4 years ago

    Really? Absolutely the opposite for me. "Social" gaming died for me when I left uni. These days I prefer games as a solo activity and don't spend time with friends in front of the TV/monitor anymore.

  • Katsumoto #44 4 years ago

    "If PC gaming is dying then it's not just because of the expense of upgrading, it's also because people don't want the hassle of trying to get the games running properly in the first place. Why does this game keep crashing? Is it out-dated graphics drivers, some other incompatible hardware driver or a conflict with some other software I'm running? Why is the game keeping juddering... why does it keep asking me to insert the original disc when it's already in the drive, etc., etc.? Why doesn't this game run as well under Vista as it did XP? Who knows, sometimes it's a nightmare trying to get some games working fine and I'm an experienced PC user who runs a clean machine too. "

    But if this is the reason PC gaming is apparently "dying", why is this only suddenly a concern now? PC games have infinitely fewer problems than they used to. Do you remember trying to get a game like Dark Forces to work? You'd spend ages fiddling with the sound card settings in a big blue set up screen. IP DME bla bla bla 192. You sometimes had to make boot disks etc, go into some windows config file and fuck about on a command prompt for ages. None of that anymore. It is very rare to have problems when running a game under vista these days, and you certainly don't need to spend ages fiddling about.

    And, you know, as console games move closer to PC games they are starting to have problems too. It's not like console games don't crash, nor require patches ;)

    edit: again, none of this explains why the PC is still far more popular outside of the US and the UK. And I don't believe that we're just too stupid in these countries to understand how PCs work!
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 13:10

  • ukslim #45 4 years ago

    The problem with PC hardware upgrades is not (mostly) the cost. It's having to know. I'm a technical guy, but I zoned out of the hardware side of things years ago - I couldn't tell you what speed CPU I have without checking. Most people don't want to think about CPU speed, RAM, GPU capability, just to play a game. That's one reason PopCap games do so well - if Windows works, then the game will work too. For high end games, the consumer has to do way too much thinking.

    Whereas, a current-gen console means that with no thinking, any game you buy, will Just Work.

    The other problem is this: console gamers don't want to play games sitting at a desk. Sure you *can* plug a PC into an HDTV, but it's not what the developers have in mind, and it doesn't give you a seamless experience.

  • Katsumoto #46 4 years ago

    Yup.

  • Yossarian #47 4 years ago

    note to Eurogamer editorial staff: it's "PCs", not "PC's".

  • mcbi4kh2 #48 4 years ago

    @Nikanoru

    Valve can philosophize all they want, the market for PC games is never going catch up.

    err, did you even read the article?

    You want figures? There are 260 million online PC gamers, a market that dwarfs the install base of any console platform, online or offline

    Explain how the PC needs to "catch up".

  • knightmt #49 4 years ago

    Spyware, spyware, spyware, I hate the steam system it is deeply insidious, why can't they use dongles or usb keys. I have just bought a new PC(with an NVidia SLI 8600GT) I have also bought a load of games because I know that this is the only time I will be able to play them an 8800GT will not outlast the current consoles, developers move on. PCs are great but not for gaming value, with the exception of MMOs (given large exception for some).

  • Chufty #50 4 years ago

    In case the cost argument hasn't yet been invalidated, you can quite easily build a PC, for the price of a PS3, that will run games at a higher resolution, framerate and visual quality.

    (This is not the same as buying a PC from PC World for £299.99.)

    Add to that the cheaper cost of PC games and the massive flexibility of the platform, there's no contest.

    Then, next year, buy a new graphics card and maybe a bit more RAM for a couple of hundred quid and PS3 and 360 games will look laughably ugly by comparison.

    It's worth pointing out though that PC gaming and console gaming are different experiences and there's a matter of preference to playing sofa/TV games or desk/monitor games.

  • Katsumoto #51 4 years ago

    @ nat - Well, I don't care, so long as these futuristic consoles come with all the advantages of the PC. If in your "flexibility" you include the ability to use any peripherals whatsoever, including keyboard/mouse, (not Microsoft branded ones OR NOTHING!), the ability to create and use mods without having to have them approved by some faceless corporate type, etc. etc. Even then, it would suck - I have almost two decades worth of back catalogue that I wouldn't be able to play, unless they somehow made these new consoles able to play pc games. But then they're basically PCs. Can you see these futuristic consoles not being a closed system? Or are we still going to be paying 40 quid a year to use one huge monolithic online service etc? Will devs have to get permission before they can publish a game for these consoles? If all of these issues are addressed, then who cares what platform we're on I guess

    THen again, if all of that is addressed, we're still talking about consoles becoming pcs, not the other way around. I don't think it's wishful thinking at all myself. I mean, surely even as a diehard console-only gamer, you can see some of the advantages (listed above) of the PC as a gaming platform?
    Edited by 3 at 27/06/08 @ 13:25

  • Darren #52 4 years ago

    Chufty - "In case the cost argument hasn't yet been invalidated, you can quite easily build a PC, for the price of a PS3, that will run games at a higher resolution, framerate and visual quality."

    Yes, you can but that PC will definitely not be capable of running all the games released for it for the same lifespan as the PS3 without paying for upgrades. That is the beauty of owning a console... the fact that you know it'll play all the game released for it over its five or six year lifespan. Sure by the end of its life the games will start to look a little creaky but good developers can milk more performance out of them due to experience with the hardware, which isn't the case with the PC at all because there's trillions of different hardware combinations which makes it near impossible. If a game doesn't run well on a PC, well you just upgrade it. Console developers don't have that luxury so they have to work harder to achieve the same results. End result console owners probably get more value for money out of their hardware than most PC owners do with theirs, at least as far as games go (PCs obviously have more uses besides games obviously).

    I know console games generally cost more but I think it's worth it for the mostly hassle-free time you have with them. I'd rather buy a new console every five years than have to upgrade my PC every six-twelve months.

  • ukslim #53 4 years ago

    @Chufty: "In case the cost argument hasn't yet been invalidated, you can quite easily build a PC, for the price of a PS3, that will run games at a higher resolution, framerate and visual quality."

    Sure, YOU could probably spec one up in an hour or so, then when the parts arrive, assemble them in another hour or so, then spend another two hours installing and patching Windows. Or, you could have spent 4 hours playing a game.

    A less experienced person might end up taking a whole afternoon speccing up the PC, then when it arrived, spend longer learning how to put it together. The time they've taken building a PC, they could have played Crackdown from beginning to end.

    Then there's plenty of people who would give up long before they've built a PC. Yet these same people would have no trouble buying a console from a shop and setting it up.

  • Katsumoto #54 4 years ago

    "I'd rather buy a new console every five years than have to upgrade my PC every six-twelve months."
    So don't upgrade it every 12 months :p You could upgrade it once every 3 years and it would still outperform a console! My PC which I bought last September will outperform both of the current "next gen" *shudder* consoles as it is. It still runs anything coming out with no problems and will continue to do so for another year or two, when I may have to spend 100 quid on a new GPU. I really don't understand this "constant upgrade cycle" myth. But hey, no matter how many times we tell it how it is it still gets propagated all over the place (Mainly by people who aren't actually pc gamers - not a dig at you btw, I know you actually were one). I just.. don't get it.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 13:41

  • Dynamize #55 4 years ago

    Valve are a great developer and I think they just have a dislike of consoles (PS3 only?). It's thier business and they can chosse to support whatever platformt they want.

    IF they 'dislike' consoles, it's because moving into that market proper would not provide the profit to mitigate the costs of shifting focus away from their large and established PC market. It's not about harbouring a resentment against you, your console of choice, or your dog. If a company notices a way to make money, they'll do it.
    It's the same with Stardock, Taleworlds, Irontower Studios etc. They don't see the realisation of profit in consoles, don't have experience with the tools and/or can't stump up the fees to get into consoles. Such is life on a platform with one company's iron grip on it.

    I'm very happy with PC gaming, as I have been for some 16 years. Sure, there've been tantrums and upsets along the way but when there were, I just manned up and learnt a bit about the machine I was using. IRQs, DMA, memmaker, EMM386, it's a rich tapestry.

    There's a nice sense of achievement and satisfaction when you finish building a PC and turn it on for the first time, and indeed when you encounter a problem that you solve all by yourself. Maybe that's some latent memory of playing with Meccano or something coming into play. The manly pursuit of fitting things together, of BUILDING. Could only be made better if you could get a hammer involved somewhere in the process. Maybe a spanner an' all.

  • black2 #56 4 years ago

    It's the driver thing etc. that bugs me. Yes I well remember sodding about with IRQs, DMAs, boot menus and the like, and things have been improved. But it's virtually impossible for the developer to predict the massive amount of permutations of hardware configs there are out there. And I turned my back on PC gaming a long time ago because I just couldn't be arsed.

    I read late last year about everyone and his mum saying how great Portal was, so in January I decided to install Steam and download.

    I've still never played it because Intel haven't released drivers that make my gfx card work with the game. It's so infuriating.

  • SBfistfun #57 4 years ago

    I feel the PC as it stands at this point in time, is the clumsiest way of playing video games.

    I can see your point, but the pc is far less clumsy how it handles certain factors. Most pc games allow me to set-up my control scheme exactly how I like (this includes mouse support being standard, I dont like fps, Battlefield etc games on a pad) whereas on the 360 I get what I'm given.

    Although xbox live is nice and simple and makes connecting to games easy, I find the performance of on line games is inferior to the PC. When I'm playing PC games I will make sure I connect to a server reasonably close (In the UK or at least Europe), with xbox live I get chucked in with players all over the world, and unsurprisingly this leads to far more lag You see far more jittering and rubber banding. Why can't I chose? I would never connect to a US server when I'm playing Battlefield or whatever on my pc.this really annoys me!

    If I had the option to customise things like this on console,I would be a happy man, but this isn't going to happen so I guess I'm going to have to keep my pc up to date.

    Plus not to mention you can get user made mods and levels for a lot of pc games, and some of these are really good.

  • hahayou #58 4 years ago

    Why compare graphics to the 360? I bet everyone in this thread has a PC with more powerful hardware than the most popular console.

  • PlugMonkey #59 4 years ago

    the only advantage PCs owners have is making use of ongoing increase in power, at a price.

    That's one of the advantages. I would say the main advantage is that it's an open, unlicensed system. Anybody can do whatever they like on it. I use Winamp for most of my multimedia needs because I like it. If you don't like it you can use something else. It doesn't matter. If you don't like the XMB, then you don't like the PS3. There's not really much you can do about it. Likewise for codecs. My PS3 plays half my videos, the 360 plays the other half. My PC just plays all of them.

    Oh, one other thing I keep hearing from PC proponents is the ridiculous argument of "you can do other things with it like web browsing and word processing and listening music". Yes, and I can do that with a PC I got on a yard sale for 25 quid, too!

    Well YOU could. I certainly wouldn't want to! I think the point is that you can buy a PC to run applications for £150, and you can buy a PC that'll do that and games for £250 more. That's cheaper, or at least not more expensive, than getting the cheap PC and a games console, so for the billions of people in the world for whom a PC is an essential tool, it's a cheap way to get gaming. My PC may have cost £300 more than my PS3, but it has £300 worth of extra functionality.

    If PC gaming is dying then it's not just because of the expense of upgrading, it's also because people don't want the hassle of trying to get the games running properly in the first place. Why does this game keep crashing? Is it out-dated graphics drivers, some other incompatible hardware driver or a conflict with some other software I'm running? Why is the game keeping juddering... why does it keep asking me to insert the original disc when it's already in the drive, etc., etc.?

    Jesus, have you actually tried running a PC game in the last 15 years? What the hell are you doing? Personally, I put the disc in, install the game, download the updates (if I can be arsed) and then start playing. It's a remarkably similar system to the one the PS3 offers nowadays. With Steam I just set it downloading and then come back when it has finished and start playing. I can't think of the last time I had serious compatability problems. Possibly F16 Falcon on my mum's 386. I had to make a boot disk.

  • Daikon #60 4 years ago

    I'm sick and tired of upgrading my PC all the time only to discover that the latest games run like a turd in a funnel.
    Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to my X360 and Wii for gaming.

    Edit: Oh and I prefer a large plasma screen and joypad to a computer monitor and mouse/keyboard combo. But maybe it's just me.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 14:05

  • mcbi4kh2 #61 4 years ago

    @Daikon

    You upgrade your PC all the time and they still look like "turd in a funnel"? You must really know what you're doing.
    And let me introduce you to a concept called resolution. Bigger != better.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 14:07

  • chris_ace #62 4 years ago

    Post deleted at 11:55:13 13-12-2011

  • Katsumoto #63 4 years ago

    It's obviously not just you :p That's your PREROGATIVE! I much prefer sitting by a monitor with a keyboard and mouse, and that's me for you. Neither of us is wrong, it's a preference.

    Just because X prefers consoles doesn't make Y, who prefers PCs, a spacker, and vice versa. Important lesson for us all!

  • smartgun #64 4 years ago

    It's not about graphical fidelity, system power, versatility, upgrading, etc. I just want to put the disk in, sit back on my sofa with my wireless controller and PLAY.

  • monkie_king #65 4 years ago

    Yeah but PCs have more poglyons, innit.

  • Daikon #66 4 years ago

    My PC may have cost £300 more than my PS3, but it has £300 worth of extra functionality.

    Are you referring to the cup holder?

  • ukslim #67 4 years ago

    @Plugmonkey: "Jesus, have you actually tried running a PC game in the last 15 years? What the hell are you doing?"

    I've installed three Steam games in the last couple of months. Audiosurf just wouldn't work, until I found a forum that told me to download a .DLL from some arbitrary site and put it in my system folder. Trackmania Nations didn't work until I rebooted (but there were no messages advising me to do so). Railroad Tycoon worked first time (but there were forum posts suggesting that other people had big problems, and it didn't work at all in Vista). 1 out of three is not a good ratio.

    As much as it's easier than it used to be (I'm old enough to remember tweaking autoexec.bat) - to compete with consoles it has to work every time.

  • Katsumoto #68 4 years ago

    "It's not about graphical fidelity, system power, versatility, upgrading, etc. I just want to put the disk in, sit back on my sofa with my wireless controller and PLAY. "

    Rar. That's fine! But what you need to understand is that for a lot of people it IS about graphical fidelity, system power, versatility etc. Some people don't get off on sofa gaming (I play all my consoles at a desk, too), and on the odd occasion I DO feel like sitting back, I can just get my wireless 360 pad and use that instead. They're both valid preferences.

  • mcbi4kh2 #69 4 years ago

    @ukslim

    1 out of three is not a good ratio.

    You're quite right its not, similar to the ratio of Xbox360's that fail. At least all you had to do was copy a single file. Beats sending it back to receive a second hand replacement in return.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 14:14

  • ukslim #70 4 years ago

    :hahayou: "Why compare graphics to the 360? I bet everyone in this thread has a PC with more powerful hardware than the most popular console."

    Not me. My laptop is powerful enough for all my development work (although, hey, we'd all like more performance), but Spore Creature Creator won't start, saying that my graphics hardware isn't good enough.

  • Haloboy #71 4 years ago

    @ katsumoto

    "Crytek haven't stopped PC development. They said they are no longer going to make PC games -exclusively-. "

    They have also stated that this all 100% depends on how Warhead is received, and how well the copying measures they are planning to include actually hold up into generating more sales. The same sales that were so drastically cut down when Crysis was released. So basically Warhead will make or break if they remain PC only, and they simply want everyone to go out and support this ideal in a none illegal fashion which is a more than reasonable request.

    So just a quick few words to all you pirate dicks out there..basically just "GTFO and stop killing off the platform ffs". And no I don't want to hear all that "I want to try a game before I buy it" bs, just like anything you buy you are taking a chance on it being a worthy investment. You don't go into a whorehouse and request a free bj before you are satisfied enough do the dirty with your chosen wench now do you? Which reminds me I must get back to The Witcher, hmmm......

  • shogo10 #72 4 years ago

    Its all good and well that Valve thinks the pc market is the most successful, but they're in the small circle of pc devs who have experience in the market as well as the resources to be in the position they are in. How about other pc devs? What about their point of view, have they been as successful as Valve? I'd rather hear from someone other than Valve, I already know about their success stories.

  • HappyTreeFriend #73 4 years ago

    Its been mentionned already, but i'd have to say one of the biggest issues for me is the enviroment in which i play games. Sitting up to a desk and playing with a mouse and keyboard simply doesn't appeal to me. Immature perhaps, but being able to sit on the sofa, TV other side of the room and wireless pad in hand is unbeatable (i'm sure you can buy these things for a PC too...but still)

    I have played many PC games, and found a few to be outstanding, but the solitary experience isn't something i crave any longer. As a kid i'd play even console games alone, but growing into my twenties the social element appeals greatly, and by that i don't mean online gaming. I've loved playing through epic games on my own, but really the expriences of having the family play wii sports at Christmas, and Smash Bros on import a few weeks ago with some friends were simply amazing. Fun, real memories....

    Went a bit nostalgic, but i guess the thing to remember here is that all consoles and PCs exist and do quite well in their own rights. Theres no need for pissing contests along the lines of - the PC is the future/ consoles are the best etc. Opinions are like arseholes.....everyone has one.. :o)

  • Azazel #74 4 years ago

    PC has Quakeworld.

    Therefore PC wins.

  • Nabokov #75 4 years ago

    "It's not about graphical fidelity, system power, versatility, upgrading, etc. I just want to put the disk in, sit back on my sofa with my wireless controller and PLAY."

    Quite opposite for me. The one thing I hate with WII is the trouble to get a game running; I have to put TV on, find controller, notice that there is wrong disc in, go to kneel down in front of if (I'm too old for kneel down), find the case, find the game I want to play... With PC it's so nice to just sit down and double click. I have four year old PC and I have no idea when I last updated any drivers, maybe couple of years ago (except automatic Windows updates). So easy.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 14:28

  • Daikon #76 4 years ago

    It also has to be nostalgia, the PC is where Valve has its roots.
    I still remember running Half-Life on my fresh new minty Voodoo 2 PC for the first time like it was yesterday....

  • Azazel #77 4 years ago

    I believe that children are our future, not PC's. Teach them well and let them lead the way.

    Sexual Chocolate... they play so fine don't you agree?

  • Nikanoru #78 4 years ago

    @mcbi4kh2: Explain how the PC needs to "catch up".

    Have you even been reading anything? The PC "market" is so fragmented that you'll never reach all customers with most games, and you won't reach 90% of them with games with high system requirements. Just recently a friend told me he went to buy a new PC game and they had to tell him "it may not run", and if it didn't, he could return it. Retailers certainly don't want that. They want to be able to say, here's an xbox game, I can sell this to anyone with an xbox.

    Why don't you explain how PC game sales keep lagging behind if there's such a ridiculously gigantic userbase?

  • Haloboy #79 4 years ago

    "It also has to be nostalgia, the PC is where Valve has its roots.
    I still remember running Half-Life on my fresh new minty Voodoo 2 PC for the first time like it was yesterday.... "

    Don't we all.

    *switches game to hardware open gl mode*

    Holyyyy f*ckballs!!! 0_0

  • Chufty #80 4 years ago

    I've still never played it because Intel haven't released drivers that make my gfx card work with the game. It's so infuriating.

    This is the problem. If you have an Intel graphics chip, your PC is not capable of running games like Portal.

    People just don't have the knowledge and/or the interest to build a gaming PC and so are forced to buy them - usually paying over the odds for an underpowered PC that will not last and is difficult to upgrade.

    AMD have recently unveiled their 'GAME' badge system to try and muscle in on this gap in the market, so I think companies are starting to wise up to these problems.

    Microsoft could help too - where's Vista Gaming Edition?

  • Haloboy #81 4 years ago

    "Just recently a friend told me he went to buy a new PC game and they had to tell him "it may not run", and if it didn't, he could return it. Retailers certainly don't want that. They want to be able to say, here's an xbox game, I can sell this to anyone with an xbox."

    Yeah but they also can't wait to say "Hey kid! Here's Gears of War 2, yeah it's exactly like the first but we know you will want it anyway, enjoy!".

    Suckers. :p

  • ukslim #82 4 years ago

    You know where all this is leading: nowhere. Some people like playing games on PCs. Some people prefer consoles. And their tastes will change as their lives do:

    - teenager with a desk and a PC in your room: probably game on that
    - child who's not allowed a PC in their room due to porn fears: probably use a console
    - student in a room with a desk: PC
    - your own home, your living room is your own: console
    - got kids, the study is your haven: PC gaming again
    - etc.

    Consoles won't die. PC gaming won't either. The end.

  • TSYNDMonkfish #83 4 years ago

    PCs do cost more than consoles, and you do need to faff about updating software & hardware every few years, but they are the best gaming platform available.

    Im not looking down at consoles at all, as they are top quality machines these days, but while there people who are willing to pay for the best and most varied gaming experience available, PC gaming will continue to thrive.

  • chanderzz #84 4 years ago

    I was nodding along in agreement to this article until he got to the bit where he was saying the pc is good because you can patch games. This is fine with games like tf2. But he also condones patching games to 'ease painful crunches'.

    As far as im concerned thats un acceptable, no company should be releasing a half baked game! I dont buy any other products expecting them not to be finished only to have the manufacturer send me the parts later so why should i accept that with my games!

  • UncleLou #85 4 years ago

    Why don't you explain how PC game sales keep lagging behind if there's such a ridiculously gigantic userbase?


    And we all know, more sales must mean it's much better. Of course.

    Not to mention that ridiculous comparisons are always made. Like comparing the entire console market (including handhelds) to the PC, etc.

    In the end, I am where I think the better games are. And that's still the PC for me, by a countrymile. Everything else is less important.

  • Haloboy #86 4 years ago

    "PCs do cost more than consoles, and you do need to faff about updating software & hardware every few years, but they are the best gaming platform available."

    Seriously, you don't have to do squat if you are content enough with what you have. I know people who are still playing WoW on machines that I thought would have been fossilised by now. And y'know what? They don't care if they only get 12-15fps when playing, they still manage to enjoy the game on offer.

  • Dynamize #87 4 years ago

    Please, everyone stop trying to be reasonable. You're undermining the tribalism.

    The planet CANNOT accomodate a market for five or more gaming platforms. There must be a WINNER. That winner is [my platform of choice], and it will destroy all the other platforms; bestriding the earth as a monopoly and enjoying the fruits of its utter dominance. This will probably be a good thing, because monopolies always work out best. Everyone knows providing free choice to the consumer is foul.

  • Haloboy #88 4 years ago

    Don't be silly man. There's always time for war.

    THIS. IS. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!

    Oh alright, own what you like then, see if I care.

    Hrumph.

  • Pulsar_t #89 4 years ago

    PC gamers are becoming more insecure than ever. Personally I don't care, all you fanboys can suck on it.. I also think the PS2 dwarves every other machine out there! But let's face it, there'll always be a place for PCs. Emulators run best on PCs, and you can encode DivX shit on it too! Yay!

    Wankers.

    (prolly my least civil post yet.. but you're a sad bunch!)

  • PlugMonkey #90 4 years ago

    "Are you referring to the cup holder?"

    Are you being facetious? No, I'm talking about word processing, spreadsheets, selling things on ebay and printing the labels straight off with one click, photo editing and printing, video editing, music mixing, cd burning, filesharing and a million and one other things I completely take for granted.

    ukslim: Re 1out of 3 on Steam: Blimey, that does suck. I guess I was just born lucky. ;)

    "Immature perhaps, but being able to sit on the sofa, TV other side of the room and wireless pad in hand is unbeatable (i'm sure you can buy these things for a PC too...but still)"

    Indeed you can. I've got a wireless mouse + keyboard, and if I felt so inclined I could very easily just plug my PC into my TV, which is just a glorified LCD PC monitor after all. The only reason I don't is I use the PC to play games when the girlfiend is watching CSI or House. I might swap the PC and the 360 over for a bit and see what big screen PC gaming is like. As LCD TVs become more prevalent, I think the days of peoples' PCs being on a desk in the corner of the room will come to an end. There's no real reason for the two to be separate anymore.

  • black2 #91 4 years ago

    If you have an Intel graphics chip, your PC is not capable of running games like Portal.

    Why?

    I'm not PC-thick, but I've never heard this before. Valve certainly don't say so on their website when I'm downloading Portal, instead stating that it exceeds rec. specs. Regardless of my own selfish issue, it's demonstrative of the idea that some people don't want to (or aren't able to) pay out for extra hardware for their machine that already runs other applications, including similarly intensive games. The tecnological advantage of PCs - the ability to switch components as you wish - is the biggest barrier to PC gaming dominance.

  • Katsumoto #92 4 years ago

    "PC gamers are becoming more insecure than ever."

    How ironic then you feel the need to come onto a page which clearly has no relevance to your hobby and slam complete strangers. Twat.

  • Nithron #93 4 years ago

    People are still running the "you have to constantly upgrade your PC so you can run the latest game at a resolution higher than real life and anti aliasing in triple-digits" line? Christ's sakes. No, you don't. A decent PC(Running you about £600, with everything thrown in) will play games, looking damn nice, for about three or four years.

    If you do need to upgrade, whack in a new graphics card, which usually costs about half as much as a console.

    Then, you save money on the games, and the free online multiplayer.

    No, it aint that expensive. Stop acting like this is the mid-80s where a decent PC cost £3000 and you had to build it from a kit you bought from Sir Clive.

  • NKSR #94 4 years ago

    imo, console gaming has overtaken pc gaming

    i much prefer COD4 on 360 over the pc version anyday. hardly any cheaters for a start.

    pc gaming is stale

  • mcbi4kh2 #95 4 years ago

    @NKSR

    In what way has console games taken over PC games?

  • NKSR #96 4 years ago

    for a start consoles are plug n play. no need for patches etc. games update themselves. xbox live is a fantastic service. gaming online on a large tv, combined with wireless rumble controllers is much more fun than sitting at a desk on a pc

    just my opinion of course

  • Feanor #97 4 years ago

    "I'm not PC-thick, but I've never heard this before."

    Yeah, you are. The official Portal page clearly states the game requires a Direct X 8 level graphics card. Intel don't make graphics cards - Nvidia and ATI do.

    http://ww w.steampowered.com/v/index.php?...

  • Razer #98 4 years ago

    @ NKSR

    "xbox live is a fantastic service. gaming online on a large tv, combined with wireless rumble controllers is much more fun than sitting at a desk on a pc"

    I can sit on my comfy sofa playing games on a large screen TV with wireless rumble controllers on my PC. Consoles don't have a monopoly on that.

    Oh, and I didn't have to pay £40 or whatever to play my games online...
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 16:29

  • ukslim #99 4 years ago

    @feanor: [link url=http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intel915g/ sb/CS-011807.htm
    ]http://ww w.intel.com/support/graphics/in...[/link]

    There are certainly Intel graphics cards that support DirectX 9.

    However, working out which graphics hardware is in a particular PC, and whether (in theory) that works with a particular game -- that's more effort than I personally am willing to go to.

  • PotajiTo #100 4 years ago

    The reason Crysis didnt sold well is because its a mediocre game with very high requirements.
    Everybody knows that, even crytek.

  • Kalain #101 4 years ago

    @NKSR

    No patches on a console? Umm.. GTA IV is being patched on PS3 and Xbox and I think, not quote me on it, Halo 3 had one as well. So, that bit of the argument has been shot down.

    Your Xbox live costs you additional money on top of your Internet connection to get the full features of it. My gaming service is free for everything and anything they want to add to it. Steam is vastly superior to Live in my opinion.

    As for sitting at a table, I remember that next time when I'm playing Mass Effect on my 32" TV with my feet up on the couch and wireless K&M. I've been doing that since HDMI connectors were on the back of the videos cards. Consoles might have the advantage of plug n play, thats fair enough I'll give them that, but your other points can easily be done on a PC without any hassle.

  • Maledictus010 #102 4 years ago

    As much as i like Valve and steam because of the convenience factor, there are some things that are not really all that nice.
    1. Steam implements restrictions based on geographical locations. That may have something to do with local laws about game content, but that's not always the case. Some games simply can't be bought in Canada or America because of whatever reason, but it's still annoying. Especially considering that internet shops don't have this problem.
    2. Updates are stated as being convenient and automatic. This is only true for the games that are actually updated. Quite a large number of games on Steam are way behind on updates, where their retail counterparts have been patched a long time ago. The fact that retail patches usually don't work with Steam versions complicates things further.
    3. Pricing. For some mystical reason Steam is almost always (way) more expensive than retail releases. I understand that Valve doesn't set the prices but if this is the way developers and publishers treat the paying customer then no thank you. It almost feels as if the publishers consider online sales as sort of extra: make the price high so any sale that does go through is a good one.
    Having said all this i'm still a fan of Steam and have many games on it. But i don't think the picture that is painted by Mr. Newell is entirely correct.
    I understand that these complaints are addressed mainly at Steam and not the online sales system as a whole. I have no reason to believe that online sales will or will not be the future of game distribution, i'm willing to wait and see before screaming bloody murder, but if Steam is be taken as an example then they still have some wrinkles to iron out.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 16:47

  • NorfolkNClue #103 4 years ago

    You want to talk about the future? Valve appear to be aligning themselves to become the combine in hundred years or so :p
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 16:59

  • ukslim #104 4 years ago

    @Kalain: "As for sitting at a table, I remember that next time when I'm playing Mass Effect on my 32" TV with my feet up on the couch and wireless K&M. I've been doing that since HDMI connectors were on the back of the videos cards."

    Does that work out for you? I mean, ergonomically? I find that a mouse - wireless or not- is only a practical input device when I'm sat at a desk. I've successfully played PC games from the sofa when they work with a pad, but otherwise it's just not comfortable, and PC games that are 100% pad friendly are few and far between -- you frequently need to return to the keyboard or mouse.

  • Lemming81 #105 4 years ago

    They introduce new concepts to console gamers, like online play, and they are amazed.

    Then they can download content, which is even more amazing - and soon they have hardware upgrades available for purchase to cope with the new high end downloadable content.

    They get headsets to speak to people, then consoles get USB keyboard support and browsers - so incredibly, they can use the internet!

    And some really hardcore consolers realise that the drag aim is too annoying compared to a mouse when using their web browser and go buy a USB mouse which has been made compatible with the latest downloaded firmware update - and then they realise that they can aim better with a mouse and start using it in FPS games, and suddenly they find have reached the highest level of console gaming.

    Because now they own a f**king PC.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 17:33

  • Feanor #106 4 years ago

    Integrated graphics are not graphics cards.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 17:35

  • subtlesnake #107 4 years ago

    "I'm not PC-thick, but I've never heard this before. Valve certainly don't say so on their website when I'm downloading Portal, instead stating that it exceeds rec. specs."

    The performance of (and support for) Intel's integrated solutions has always been absolutely awful. For the longest time, they were only good for playing Quake 3! If you have a recent Intel chip like the X3000 you should in theory be able to play Portal but the performance will be pretty bad.

    Integrated graphics really aren't any good for playing modern games.

    "A decent PC(Running you about £600, with everything thrown in) will play games, looking damn nice, for about three or four years."

    Three years ago, a complete £600 PC (sans monitor) would have had, I think, a 6600 GT (maybe a vanilla 6800), and a low end Athlon 64, meaning it would struggle to run current games even on medium settings (and Crysis is in a different ballpark entirely).

    From my perspective, I spent £1100 2.5 years ago (November 2005), getting a (relatively) cheap dual core processor I could overclock, and going for the fastest GPU available (the X1800 XT, which only just been released). After recently upgrading my graphics card and memory, I'm still in a comfortable position, but even if I can stick it for another 1.5 years (which will be tough) I'm looking at £1400 of expenditure for 4 years, or £350 a year.

    Had I bought a 360 on launch it would have set me back at less than that amount, and even though 360 games are more expensive than their PC counterparts, I'd have to buy 14 a year to match my PC expenditure (or 12 a year, including Live).

  • Feanor #108 4 years ago

    You use your PC for more than just games though, right?

  • Katsumoto #109 4 years ago

    12 games a year isn't that much though, really. I rack that up easily. One a month - easy! And as Feanor says, the PC is for other stuff too.

  • Ryuken #110 4 years ago

    Valve stating the obvious things. They should really make their own retail packages more worthwhile though, 'digital distribution future' my ass. We need to go back to the cardboard box era with brilliant manuals and freebies and without any labels or some other bullshit on the cover, it should be all about the game itself, how much you can become obsessed with it and not necessarily about the marketed platform or how easily games should be made available to the public.

    PC gaming hasn't changed in terms of success, the sales numbers you hear now (a few exceptions aside, like WoW) are the same as what a major hit would have sold 10 years ago which isn't bad at all, especially not when you see the consoles are getting even more attention now. In the end console gamers are still playing versions of games that could be so much more on an open platform, despite certain perceived disadvantages. I'd say, get along, there are no winners or losers here, every current platform is gonna 'survive' and everyone has his/her preferred platform of choice. Making odd comparisons or making conclusions out of sales numbers is making every arguing side look a bit ridiculous. If PC gaming was dead then I think a lot more devs would have gone bankrupt than just Iron Lore in recent times. If you got a good game, PC exclusive or not, a good publishing deal and some hype built up then it'll sell well, just ask GSC or even Crytek.

  • subtlesnake #111 4 years ago

    "You use your PC for more than just games though, right?"

    Yes, but there wasn't anything I wanted to besides gaming, that I wouldn't have been able to do with my previous PC (Athlon XP 2400+, 9800 Pro).

    "12 games a year isn't that much though, really."

    Well, it depends what sort of games you buy. I tend to focus primarily on FPS, and there most certainly isn't one AAA FPS a month (From last year I can think of Crysis, STALKER, Bioshock, CoD4, Orange Box - what else?).

    Edit: Also the point of PC viability here is £650 a year, which not everyone may be able to afford.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 18:06

  • Katsumoto #112 4 years ago

    Fair enough! I can't think of much I'd add, UT3 and GoW (ok, not really a fps ;)) maybe.

  • Fallen_Angel #113 4 years ago

    @subtlesnake: What happened to you is exactly the same that could have happened to a console gamer buying a console at the end of a generation. Its like buying, say a Xbox a few days before a price drop. Then a year later the 360 comes out, so it'll cost 300 quid (Can't remember what they released at), plus a HDTV to get the most out of it, now you're getting close to the same thing.

    I think thats a bit of a badly explained example, but basically what I'm trying to say is that a year ago I bought an expensive high end system, spent a grand on it, BUT its a year later now and nothing has come close to actually pushing it, bar crysis, which I could play nicely at 30fps throughout. My system before that was kept up to date (I like having all my sliders on max) and I was spending roughly 200 quid a year, if that. Granted thats more than a console, but considering I use my PC as a multimedia system, work station for uni, gaming, server and internet browser, its pretty central to pretty much most things I do.

  • LMN8R #114 4 years ago

    Look, I absolutely love what Valve does - their games, Steam, their incredible dedication to the PC platform, and more. But it's incredibly ironic how, in the comments section about an article where Gabe Newell says that the PC problem is a perception problem, the same gamers agreeing with him continue to purport the same perception problem that Crysis has.


    Let's look at the facts.

    Crysis did not sell poorly. It has sold 1.5 million copies now according to PC Gamer, the first million coming in under 2 months of time.

    Crysis does not require a beast of a system to run. In December, I put together an entire build from scratch - except for monitor and speakers - for under $900. It can run Crysis with all the details set to high. That includes all of the hardware you need, and the operating system.

    Even if you have to run the game on medium settings, it still is very competitive with other games out there. If Crytek had simply labeled their medium settings as "high", high settings as "very high", and left the current very high settings to a future patch when future hardware was available, there would not have been nearly as much backlash.


    That's all I have to say on the matter. Valve is awesome, but come on people - don't allow the same perception problem plaguing PC gaming's reputation to trick you into believing the crap going around about Crysis.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 20:49

  • WrongShui #115 4 years ago

    PCs are the best, its official all you unwashed console kiddies can go fuck off with your childish games like Kameo you tarts.

    lalalalalala

  • Asundai #116 4 years ago

    someguy:
    "I've said this before, PC gaming is like buying a car that requires mechanic skills just to get it to run as it should. As long as this does not change, Valve can philosophize all they want, the market for PC games is never going catch up."


    Rubbish. The only thing the average PC user really needs to do is learn how to install drivers, and if Valves Steam Cloud does what they say it will they won't even have to do that. Ie: You're talking bollocks.

    You can get a PC capable of running ANYTHING currently released (at mostly max settings and higher resolutions than consoles!) for £500-£600. That's only £200-300 more than a PS3. Note that these games will look and play better on a decent PC than on consoles as well (a nice bonus).

    Also, note that almost everyone has a PC these days, which has a huge effect on the price. How, you ask? Simple, if you're going to buy a £300-£400 priced 'work' PC plus a £200-£300 console you're looking at £500-£700 in total. If you're looking to buy a gaming pc you're looking at £500-600. The same cost, or cheaper in some cases. PC gaming is NOT as expensive as people claim.

    Also, for those who say that 'sitting at a desk playing games is boring!' - you can hook up a computer to your TV and play with wireless keyboard / mouse or even an actual console controller, if that's your thing (wiimote and 360 controller can both be made to work with PC games). This is a case of people not having a clue as to what can be done with modern tech.

    Basically, the only reason consoles are so far ahead of PC in our culture (note they aren't elsewhere) is due to the massive backing they receive from their creators (subsidized cost, massive advertising campaigns, exclusive game deals) and a general perception problem from people who don't realise what can be done with PCs these days, or how much they actually cost.

    Also, Live is good, but Steam and an internet browser is better (and free, by the way).
    Edited by 4 at 27/06/08 @ 22:26

  • TheNinkyNonk #117 4 years ago

    I like PCs. Nay, I love PCs.

    I just like slouching on my couch, in my lounge, in front of my 40" TV even more.

    And another nuggett: I've never once had to fuck around with my console to get games working. I've never NOT had to fuck around with my PC to get games working.

    I just can't be arsed with PCs, not after a day working on them.

  • Asundai #118 4 years ago

    Yeah, so apparently people can't read.

    You know what? I've had ZERO problems with PC games for several years.

    On the other hand, i have had several problems with my xbox 360 (which unlike with a PC i can't solve myself!)

    I own every console and a kickass PC, and i have to say that for me personally the consoles don't compare at all. They're louder (quite significant when you're used to a silent PC), less reliable, there's (almost) no mods, the community is smaller and limited, the input devices are inferior, the visuals are inferior, and you're extremely limited in what you can do with the hardware unless you go down the chip / exploit road.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/08 @ 22:40

  • PinkSpider #119 4 years ago

    Valve are aces. And I love them lots as I can run their finest games on my quite old system (7600Gs, 1.8Ghz dual core thing etc).

    I remember when steam came out. How it was shit, but now it's the hub of my PC gaming stuff.

  • spiny #120 4 years ago

    @gamefan : um nope. for just over 100 quid you can get a card that will play *anything* available and will probably last a couple of years.

  • TheNinkyNonk #121 4 years ago

    Honestly, this sounds like a bunch of overweight comic collectors telling me how easy a quarter gauge steam engine is to run.

    Buy game

    Open game

    Put game in

    Slouch

    Grasp pad

    Relax

    End of

    Every time

    And hands up if you EVER enjoyed using a mouse on a couch...anyone?

  • TheNinkyNonk #122 4 years ago

    "I remember when steam came out. How it was shit, but now it's the hub of my PC gaming stuff."

    And you think they're so benevolent banging on about how great PCs are? To think, MS and Sony are just blinding us with their BS PR...

  • Lin #123 4 years ago

    If consoles become more and more PC like in their range of functions and versatility like people keep saying, won't we end up with a situation where they have just as many crashes, incompatibilities and general confusion as the PCs they are replacing? In other words, you can't have your cake and eat it.

  • hahayou #124 4 years ago

    TheNinkyNonk - yeah, I have no trouble using a mouse on my sofa, you just need one with arms with hard-ish flat tops. Hopefully enough geeky people with computers hooked to their TVs buying sofas like this will make it a standard feature...

  • Katsumoto #125 4 years ago

    I love this idea that if you're not "slouching" on a sofa you're somehow not a gamer. Um.

  • Feanor #126 4 years ago

    "Even if you have to run the game on medium settings, it still is very competitive with other games out there. If Crytek had simply labeled their medium settings as "high", high settings as "very high", and left the current very high settings to a future patch when future hardware was available, there would not have been nearly as much backlash."

    Well said.

    I think some of the PC guys in this thread are underplaying how many little issues come up with PC games. Just last night I got a PunkBuster error when I played CoD 4 for the first time in a while. I was able to figure out how to manually update PunkBuster in about 15 minutes, but that type of fiddling isn't for everyone.

    Good thing neither consoles or PCs are dying out any time soon, even with the poor state of the economy.

  • zehoo #127 4 years ago

    do consoles let me play fps games with a mouse and keyboard? no? then f**k off
    do consoles let me play my games on my 60" 1080p tv in true 1080p? no? then f**k off (exception being gt5 prologue)

    Tired of hearing this argument, consoles have their niche and pc's has it's.

    (disclaimer: I own a ps3 and a wii but not a 360 since I'm not a halo fan which is a pos fps game ever that's massively over-rated. I regret buying the wii, I was over waggle by the end of the first week, and while the ps3 may be decent I'm still waiting on some f**king game dev's to grow balls and use it's ability to let me use a mouse keyboard to play fps games on it, ut3 doesn't count)
    Edited by 1 at 28/06/08 @ 03:03

  • Nikanoru #128 4 years ago

    Some of you people can keep playing down the ridiculous price (especially if you're buying a ready made PC, but even if you're not), the technical bullshit (especially if you're building your own PC, but even if you're not), the stupidly frequent upgrade cycles, and the fact that no game is ever quite made for the exact hardware you're running, but that doesn't make any of those problems magically go away.

    And finally, let's face it, you can keep going on about how PC games are supposedly "deeper omg" (read: fiddly crap that's fun if you enjoy MS Excel), but 9 out of 10 of all the best games each year, not to mention of all the best games ever, are on consoles.

  • TheNinkyNonk #129 4 years ago

    "I love this idea that if you're not "slouching" on a sofa you're somehow not a gamer. Um. "

    I'm not saying that. I'm not trying to get into some argument about what a 'gamer' is. I'm just saying that consoles lend themselves to a more relaxed, social atmosphere than PCs do. Yes, there's ways round it, but your average punter is more than happy to plug a little box in next to their TV and chill out without the hassle of upgrades, mice, keyboards etc.

    This is why console gaming is becoming the defacto choice of your average gamer - even if it means taking a slight hit in visual fidelity.

  • TheNinkyNonk #130 4 years ago

    "do consoles let me play fps games with a mouse and keyboard? no? then f**k off"

    Funny, I was playing UT3 on PS3 last month with a mouse and keyboard and it rocked!
    Having to move my kitchen table and a chair in front of my TV to get into a comfortable position to do so, sucked.

  • Laika #131 4 years ago

    Wow, I dropped into this thread expecting to find the console tards slagging off PC gamers, but instead found all those computer-literates willing to defend the PC and its future.

    Wunderbar!

  • FooAtari #132 4 years ago

    Highly amusing thread.

    The ignorance of apparently "informed" gamers is unbelievable.

    I especially liked the counter argument of one 360 owner. "its not about power of graphical fidelity" I'll remember that in the next PS3 v 360 flame war thread. Funny how selective some people are with their arguments.

    I've said it a million times before though. Why a gamer wants to see any platform die off is beyond me. And finally, use whichever formats suits your needs best. But that doesn't make you more right than anyone else or give you the right to talk a lot of bollocks to justify your decisions.

  • Widge #133 4 years ago

    One way where PC gaming trumps console gaming, my Dell xps m1530 can run the likes of Bioshock, Stalker, C&C3 etc all at max, 1440 res ... and the best bit? its portable! If I want to dive into a meeting room at lunch and have a blast on a game, its fantastic, on trains, even more so! Can't carry a TV and a PS3/360 around with me.

    Its got an HDMI out so if I did choose to plug it into the TV at home I could, also if the TV is taken by madam, I can bog off with it and play anywhere.

    Also I thought PCs were compatible with 360 controllers? Surely that equates to sofa + pad = games.

  • FooAtari #134 4 years ago

    canIdoyabombsforya

    "At the beggining of the 90s when the Mega Drive and SNES ruled for gaming, PCs didnt have custom graphics chips, custom sound chips, never mind stereo sound, or joysticks joypad etc.
    Mid 1990s when the PS1 was released, a P100mhz PC was around £1,000, it still used an internal speaker for games, sound cards had just become affordable but 3D card was a luxury. "

    Wow, just wow....

    Couple of points to begin with. 1993 Doom. Compare the PC version to the SNES version...

    As for internal speakers on a mid 90's £1000 PC? Your either really stupid or maybe your only 16 or so and just don't know any better.

    While you were playing Tomb Raider at 320x240 or whatever res the PS was early on I was playing it at something like 1024x768 on a £90 quid PowerVR 3d card (ok 3Dfx killed off the powervr, but thats not the point)
    Edited by 1 at 28/06/08 @ 11:35

  • Nithron #135 4 years ago

    @FooAtari: You're absolutely right. I don't think many of the people in this thread want consoles/PCs to stop existing. Why would they? What basically happens is, someone comes on here and through either real ignorance or deliberate trolling, says some stupid crap like "Yeah, that's fine if you wanna spend £3000 a year just to make your PC run the latest game!" and then, a bunch of PC gamers... Or random people who aren't just plain ignorant of the facts come along and try to correct him.

    Then a bunch of people who either like arguing or hate PC gaming come along and argue with the guy that just corrected him.

    And so on.

  • smoothn00dle #136 4 years ago

    Pc for gaming is like racing a truck on a F1 circus or vice-versa.

    PC can outperform Wii in every area but it can't never be a wii.

    The most powerful processor in this world right now is not in PC, it is the Cellchip inside PS3. I can't see anything on the PC roadmap in the next two years, can outrun Cellchip.

    The future of gaming is in the living room with family and friends on a 46 inch LCD tv, not on a tiny computer desk by yourself, limit on a 22inch monitor because if it get any bigger, it will burn your eyes out.

    PC gaming is the past. Console is the future. if I were PC game developer looking for tech challenge, not easy programming, i would go consoles because parallel processes on asymmetric cores is high.

  • speedsix #137 4 years ago

    Console gamers don't give a toss about pc gaming and pc gamers sure as hell don't give a toss about console gaming so why are you all arguing about it?

    PC gamers seem to be the more irate of the two, most just can't understand why people don't want to play games on the PC.

    Oh and screw Valve for not supporting their console userbase, TF2 on Xbox is a joke.
    Edited by 1 at 28/06/08 @ 19:46

  • Lemming81 #138 4 years ago

    "Pc for gaming is like racing a truck on a F1 circus or vice-versa.

    PC can outperform Wii in every area but it can't never be a wii.

    The most powerful processor in this world right now is not in PC, it is the Cellchip inside PS3. I can't see anything on the PC roadmap in the next two years, can outrun Cellchip.

    The future of gaming is in the living room with family and friends on a 46 inch LCD tv, not on a tiny computer desk by yourself, limit on a 22inch monitor because if it get any bigger, it will burn your eyes out.

    PC gaming is the past. Console is the future. if I were PC game developer looking for tech challenge, not easy programming, i would go consoles because parallel processes on asymmetric cores is high.    "

    That entire post didn't have a single grain of truth in it. That's got to be some kind of record for just how wrong someone can be.

  • YourMessageHere #139 4 years ago

    @ Nikanoru

    Some of you people can keep playing down the ridiculous price (especially if you're buying a ready made PC, but even if you're not), the technical bullshit (especially if you're building your own PC, but even if you're not), the stupidly frequent upgrade cycles, and the fact that no game is ever quite made for the exact hardware you're running, but that doesn't make any of those problems magically go away.

    And finally, let's face it, you can keep going on about how PC games are supposedly "deeper omg" (read: fiddly crap that's fun if you enjoy MS Excel), but 9 out of 10 of all the best games each year, not to mention of all the best games ever, are on consoles.

    We who support PCs as gaming platforms can indeed keep playing down the price, technical bullshit and upgrade cycle problems because they only exist as problems if you let them.

    You can pay silly money or sensible money depending on whether you buy readymade or DIY, and if you don't know enough, ask a friend who does to do it and buy them a bottle of something nice for the favour.

    Technical matters are generally not big deals, any more than broken consoles are; usually a forum search can solve any problem in minutes, with simple maintainance you can have a smoothly running PC that plays practically everything hassle-free, or you can not pay attention and let adware, bloatware and other meaningless rubbish clog up your processor cycles and RAM (until you remove them, which is also simple usually).

    Upgrade cycles do not exist. I run a GPU that's pretty old (GeForce 6800GT, cost me £120 back when the 7000 series was new) and while not superpowered, it's only recently it's stopped always being able to run new things acceptably. Many cards have come and gone and I've felt no need to buy them - no-one is forcing me to buy new anything to play the latest games.

    And so what if the games are not made for my exact hardware? They run, in most cases better than on the consoles they are tailored for.

    Those problems - they've magically gone away.

    What makes a game "best"? It's not like any given game is objectively "better" than any other. If your list of the best games of any given year is made by someone other than you, you're doing something wrong. If I made lists of the best games in a year, they'd be composed entirely of PC games as I only play on PC. Plenty of these deeper games are enjoyed far more than console titles, your supposed "best games", by those that play them. If you like games on consoles more, good for you, but no-one can legitimately start claiming that console games are "better". Basically, PCs are good for some people and not others, just like consoles. You're a console gamer, fine - the PC has advantages you cannot take advantage of, that doesn't mean it's a bad format. I too would appreciate the simplicity of just putting a game in a drive and playing, but I'm not willing to lose the ability to customise and tweak my games, or be forced into using a pad, an input device I hate above all others, to do so - doesn't make consoles bad though.

  • smoothn00dle #140 4 years ago

    @speedsix
    Good point! U don't see console companies, Sony and Nintendo come out and say something like that. Even Microsoft don't say something like that.

    Some game companies like EA go full on multi-platform and they said: we want as many gamers as possible to experience our games. On the other hand, companies like Kojima production, go exclusive and they said: only one platform can deliver our high expectation. Therefore better quality. Valve is neither.

    @Lemming81
    To understand truth requires some level of intelligence. Be patience.
    Edited 1 times. Most recently by smoothn00dle at 01:42 on 29/

  • JimmyDoDopp #141 4 years ago

    I dunno about it being the PC of the future. I think that might be taking things a bit far.
    http://www.FireMe.To/udi

  • Nithron #142 4 years ago

    That's pretty condescending, smoothn00dle. Got some figures and technical data to back those extraordinary claims of performance up?

    ...Also, you do realise that the Cell processor is actually just that, the console's processor, while the PS3's graphics chip is actually just a two-generation old Nvidia GPU?

  • bigdaddydj #143 4 years ago

    I remember when Steam account: "big brother of gaming" was what some of us old school gamers called it.

    Now I wait for a game to hit steam before I buy it. No more keeping track of CD's, no more lost serial codes. I think my Steam directory is like 90 GB now. I just hate upgrading my PC cause it takes like 5 days to get all my stuff back....

    but given the alternative, it's simply the pwn.

  • bigdaddydj #144 4 years ago

    For those who think the console is IT when it comes to gaming, you are missing it.

    For those who are true gamers, we have the PS3, a Wii, and a PC. Unfortunately for the console the PC always wins for a true gamer. And if you think the console isn't a PC, you don't get it either. Just because you have a controller in front of your TV doesn't mean you aren't on a PC. You just interface differently.

    Have you looked on the back of your TV and seen the VGA port? Don't you know HDMI is just DVI with a sound port?

    It's all circular, and as an avid PS3 and PC gamer, I can say most gamers don't spend alot of time playing games with others, even if it is in front of your tv. You spend 30 hours by yourself for every hour you spend with family and friends. Bashing PC's as sub par is moronic and misinformed, and quite frankly differentiates between true gamers and those who never gamed until they got a nintendo.

  • some1 #145 4 years ago

    I almost never buy games. I have a PC, I don't have any consoles. But I have to say, Steam won me over with the Orange Box. The biggest magnet, though, was Team Fortress 2. Between the free demos, and the new content (which means I won't be buying a stale product), I had to jump in.

    Valve knows what they're doing.

  • nhurm #146 4 years ago

    To add to the cost debate even more. Microsoft/Sony actually dont turn a proffit off of the 360/PS3. So if you buy a console, you are being subsidized for the hardware, but have to pay a larger toll for the games (this is because Sony/MS turns a proffit on liscensing developers to produce games for the platform, which is why developers ask that extra money to compensate). This is opposite of the PC where just about every piece of hardware makes money for the manufacturer.

    For me, I use PC because it is easier for me. I do 3D work semi-professionally, so popping a CnC3 or TF2 on one of my monitors while another item renders is perfect for me. I also have everything synced up via wireless N, so I can through an HD movie (in my TB movie HDD) from my comp to my 47" 1080p LCD (via RDC). So for my needs, the PC was the only option (consoles are getting there with streaming HD downloads, but it will take the next next-gen console to do that on the level that my PC has).
    Edited by 1 at 30/06/08 @ 04:25

  • fung0 #147 4 years ago

    Something not stressed enough: CONSOLE GAMES SUCK - compared to PC games. Example: Halo - one of the most popular console games ever. When it got ported to the PC and I finally played through, I was astounded. What the @#$%& was the fuss about?? Halo isn't good enough to be even a mediocre shooter on the PC. But on the Xbox, it's a work of genius.

    Standards are just plain lower on consoles.

    Part of the explanation is bandwidth... not of the internet connection, but of the user interface. Console players interact with the software via something like 8 buttons, a 4-way D-pad and two analog twiddle sticks. PC gamers interact using a mouse (usually with at least 5 buttons), plus a keyboard with over 100 buttons... plus, optionally, a joystick or other device. I don't want to get into an argument about whether the mouse+keyboard are superior to the game controller (though they clearly are), but simply to point out that rich, deep, intelligent games are less likely to happen on a console, because the player's interaction with the game is too limiting. (PCs also have many other facilities absent on consoles, but I think the point is clear.)

    That's not just theory; you can see it for yourself. Console ports are inevitably the subject of derision on the PC; and PC games co-developed for consoles are immediately recognizable by their inevitable dumbing-down.

    Consoles are for couch potatoes. Nothing wrong with that... I own a couch, and have three consoles sitting in front of it. But PCs are for people sitting upright, with their brains fully engaged. THAT's why the PC will always be the superior environment. Price and technology have very little to do with it.

  • magusat999 #148 4 years ago

    I'm glad someone finally pointed out the inequities being thrown about regarding the true statistics of PC gamer saturation... that is, someone that other people cannot refute. For years we have been deluged with lies about how the PC is "dying" as a game platform, backed up usually with flawed and incomplete data from NPD, who unapologetically lumps all of the consoles together, pits the total against the PC - and says the PC is falling behind. Truth is, if you compare the PC to the INDIVIDUAL game consoles, it beats the pants off of them several times over.

    It's also good that they didn't focus their entire argument on online gaming - but rather online distribution. The PC is not only great at online games - it is superior in every way for regular old single player gaming as well. The graphics are better, the options are better, the expansion and replay factor is humongously better than any console.

    I'd like to echo the fact that the cost of gaming on a PC is a very small fraction of a PC's price for the function you get. You can do an endless amount of things on a PC. Consoles are just for gaming. And about these people moaning about "upgrading" every time a game comes out - I have P4 3.2mhz, 7600 GS Nvidia Geforce, XP Sp3, 2 gigs of memory. I haven't had a problem YET playing any game. I played Crysis, Halo2, Oblivion, Gears of War, almost every Valve game that has ever been released... basically just about every FPS, adventure, and RPG that has come out within the past 3 years - and I have no complaints. Can i paly them all at Ultra Musto Bravo Supreme graphic settings? No, but I don't have it all cranked down to pixel blocks either. Most of the most demanding games I've played I can play at medium high to high settings. If you can play on a console and be happy, a PC game at medium settings is better looking than the one setting you get on a console.

    It's unfortunate that the lie about PC gaming will probably still be told, because what it is doing is stifling innovation. Developers who aren't making games for the PC are doing it because they are deceived as well. I wonder if you strip away the license fees, and other middle-man costs of making a console game - will you make more of a profit getting rid of the fat and just developing for the PC, without someone breathing over your neck?

  • UncleLou #149 4 years ago

    And finally, let's face it, you can keep going on about how PC games are supposedly "deeper omg" (read: fiddly crap that's fun if you enjoy MS Excel), but 9 out of 10 of all the best games each year, not to mention of all the best games ever, are on consoles.

    Oh, the bitter tears of console-only gamers with inferiority complex. Delicious.

  • Nikanoru #150 4 years ago

    @unclelou: funny, as I recall all these debates are usually started by PC geeks with an inferiority complex. ;) Nearly all the most highly rated games are on consoles, and none of your sarcastic comments will change any of that. And really, who's surprised at this when genres on the PC are mostly limited to FPS, RTS and standard dragons&elves type RPGs?

    I'm not a console only gamer btw. The PC has its uses. Starcraft was pretty fun. ;D


    Console players interact with the software via something like 8 buttons, a 4-way D-pad and two analog twiddle sticks. PC gamers interact using a mouse (usually with at least 5 buttons), plus a keyboard with over 100 buttons... plus, optionally, a joystick or other device.

    Ever heard of KISS? And I don't mean the band.

    Keyboards were created for work, and are a stupid way to control something that's supposed to be fun. Unless you think your office job is actually fun. Which, if I read some of this crap, isn't all that far fetched.


    Those problems - they've magically gone away.

    Hahaha, that's funny. Your whole post you spend grasping at straws. You've said absolutely nothing that negates any of the issues that exist. "Honestly, this sounds like a bunch of overweight comic collectors telling me how easy a quarter gauge steam engine is to run" puts it very well indeed.

  • UncleLou #151 4 years ago

    Yeah yeah, whatever, you keep telling yourself that. :)

  • MarceloAbans #152 4 years ago

    120 million gross for WoW alone. If you can find me a console game that does those kind of numbers then please share. The difference is that console gamin companies look at 1/4ly returns while PC gaming companies like Blizzard and Valve have a long term strategies, but that is because of the PC Model that allows for that type of growth. The problem stems from trying to use the same business model for Consoles to PCs and Vice Versa. I love HALO 2 & 3 but I know one day the power will be taken away from us because it's not up to the gamers to decide when the life of a game has reached it's end but rather companies who see it as being too much of an expense. This is why the view how both business models have to be evaluated to see what works for either. If the makers of Crytek were more focused on creating a game that was more community friendly then they'd see bigger returns but they wanted a blockbuster GTA IV #s and were disappointed by the returns. Problem was their strategy with it was all wrong. PC devs can make money on consoles and vice versa just different strategies have to be used. to PC gaming is dead is really silly, as long as there are PCs there will be PC games and players who want them.. can't really say that about consoles, Turbo Graphix, NEO-GEO, Dreamcast to name a few.
    Edited by 1 at 30/06/08 @ 17:26

  • Lemming81 #153 4 years ago

    @Smoothnoodle: "To understand truth requires some level of intelligence. Be patience."

    Too right. Which begs the question why you posted about something you clearly know nothing about? I'm not just a gamer, I'm an IT professional. And everything you wrote was some of the worst armchair-technician bullshit I've ever seen.
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/08 @ 13:45

  • Nikanoru #154 4 years ago

    Yeah yeah, whatever, you keep telling yourself that. :)

    As much as I'd love to say this is all me me me, I'm not making this stuff up by myself, honest! Check Metacritic, don't take my word for it. ;)




    to PC gaming is dead is really silly, as long as there are PCs there will be PC games and players who want them..

    Ah, but nobody's saying that! Just like nobody's saying cellphone games are dead. After all, as long as there are cellphones there will be cellphone games and players who want them...

    But PC gaming is not the future either, regardless of what a PC focused developer would like you to think.

  • YourMessageHere #155 4 years ago

    Your whole post you spend grasping at straws. You've said absolutely nothing that negates any of the issues that exist.

    Good point, apart from the fact that I am directly responding to your previous criticisms of the PC as a gaming machine, all of which I am telling you, and anyone else who swallows this rubbish, are either wrong or easily dealt with. It's a fact that you can build a PC that games comparably to a current generation console for a similar cost and end up with vastly more flexibility, it's a fact that technical problems are usually easily avoided and easily fixed, it's a fact that there is no "upgrade cycle" on a PC, it's a fact that games run unoptimised on a powerful PC better than they run optimised for a console. How does this fail to negate these "issues"? I could rephrase all that again but there's no point; you're apparently not interested in listening, simply in repeating a series of myths with no grounding in fact or common sense.

    Running to Metacritic to prove how much better console games are is not going to help you either; even though you're apparently ignoring what I said about quality being subjective, last time I looked Metacritic appeared to be English only, mostly US, Canada, UK and Australia, all of which are console-favouring markets, while PC-favouring markets are generally not English-speaking countries. Not to mention it's about as authoritative as Wikipedia, really, and doesn't seem to have a non-platform specific list of Tha Official Bestest Games Evar which would actually show what you seem to be saying.

    Do you really think it's sensible to apply KISS to a machine that makes millions of calculations per second, whose software is comprised of layers and layers of code and generally takes 1-2 years to make? That's both consoles and PCs, by the way. I like complex games, and for them, to paraphrase Churchill, a keyboard and mouse is the worst input device apart from all the others.

    PC gaming is the future. PC gaming is practically the present. All the current consoles are little different from modified PCs with the versatile bits hobbled, and the next generation will be even more alike with PCs.

  • theloz #156 3 years ago

    If the PC is the future, then why is it the only platform that Valve hasn't released the Half-Life 2 and Episode One high-def packs on?! SORT IT OUT GUYS!