Tom

"The alMIGHTY N" <natlee75@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3fd160d4-d4a4-4c5c-bd67-699f3ad6cd93@g31g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
> On Jan 15, 12:33 pm, Morgan <nos...@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>> Tom wrote:
>> >>> (look at Wii sales!!).
>>
>> >> You can't really count the Wii, it's not a gamers console.
>>
>> > It is a gaming console no matter how you look at it
>>
>> True, I was probably being over glib about that, sorry. I just don't
>> considers the Wii to have the same target audience asthe PS3/360/PC.
>
> Okay, let's be fair about it. You can take away the Wii, which none of
> us were really counting anyway within this context, since I've taken
> away casual and MMO games on the PC side (neither share the same
> "target" as PS3 and 360 which is basically the point I was making
> before).
>
>> > It would be interesting to see how many former avid PC gamers have just
>> > quit it and made the switch to consoles and not looked back. I was
>> > there
>> > for a few years.
>>
>> I was there for a few months.
>
> I've been there since 2004. The last core PC games I bought were Half-
> Life 2 and Doom 3. After that, I never saw a need to use my PC for
> core gaming anymore since the consoles were more than good enough
> technically and an overall better experience.
>
>> >>> I am, for the most part, one of them, except I am an RPG freak, they
>> >>> are better on PC, but I somehow think that won't last much longer
>> >>> going into the next gen.
>>
>> >>> The PC market is certainly not dead, but it is a nearly complete
>> >>> shell of its former self and game sales and especially hardware sales
>> >>> even reflect that.
>>
>> >> That's my point and the point that a couple of people seem to ignore.
>> >> I'm not saying that the PC will make some massive comeback I'm simply
>> >> saying that it will probably have a slight but noticeable improvement
>> >> if the next generation of consoles doesn't come out PDQ, and that it's
>> >> not dead, as die-hard console fanatics seem to think. They seem to
>> >> read this as "the PC will come to conquer us all."
>>
>> > I didn't really notice anyone ignoring your words, but you do seem to
>> > be
>> > very dismissive of the sales points and the well known gaming
>> > preferences today,
>>
>> No dismissive at all, I been very happy to admit that a lot more games
>> are sold on consoles and that it's a far more lucrative section of the
>> market. What I'm not happy to concede is that PC gaming is dead or that
>> joint developed multi format games are the sole domain of the consoles.
>> Basic common sense, if developers are investing the time and money in
>> a PC version then there's a substantial amount of money to be made from
>> PC gaming still.
>
> When you bring joint development into the discussion, it only
> highlights that the only reason developers are spending resources on
> PC versions is because it costs them very little extra to do it.
> Developing for the PC is not that different from developing for the
> 360 - and all the actual design and coding takes place on a PC,
> anyway.
>
> The second developers have to go to the same lengths for a PC version
> as they do for a PS3 version, there won't be a PC version of that
> game. It just isn't worth it in the end.
>
>> I'm not saying that
>>
>> > consoles have been and still are the gaming grade of
>>
>> > choice for "most" gamers, not PCs. I actually do not see it making an
>> > improvement in sales or even growing as a base. I couldn't even say
>> > that
>> > PC sales will make even a small improvement since the decline has been
>> > very long, since the mid to late 90s this has been happening. Did you
>> > see PC rigs sales ramping up while the PS1 and PS2 were selling over
>> > 100m each, as an example? Another fact about PC gaming is that some
>> > games require really high end systems to be able to run them.
>>
>> In real terms this is actually vary few though these days. Crysis need
>> a stupidly high spec, and the Witcher wasn't that much better (I'm
>> chalking that one up to bad programming because it wasn't that much to
>> look at)
>>
>> Bioshock (as I mentioned earlier) and Fallout 3 for example both ran
>> nicely on mid range rigs.
>
> Only if you're talking about mid level PCs that cost at the end of
> 2008 twice as much as the Xbox 360 did at the end of 2005 in which
> case you're paying double to sit at your computer desk and watch a
> lower resolution version of the same game with possibly better
> lighting,textures and framerate but no anti-aliasing.
>
> At least according to benchmarks done by sites like Tom's Hardware and
> AnandTech which showed that even that relatively timid performance
> from the PC perspective required graphics cards that today still cost
> upwards of $300-400.

Not true, when you consider that to get good graphics for the console, you
also have to spend (minimum) $500 on a decent HDTV and console games cost
mostly $10 more all of the time to PC games. Your graphics card price is
totally off. You can get a Radeon 5850, which can run the games mentioned on
very high for $289, and they were just released last September. And the
previous releases (like the 4890) that are still more powerful than that,
are even cheaper, like below $200 in a few cases. Over a two year period,
with an avid gamer buying games, you could easily see console gaming being
more expensive. But as I said before, most gamers don't care as console
gaming is good enough and being in front of a TV is more relaxing and
preferable anyway, even for me :-).

>
>> > I have been a PC gamer going back two decades, but with the arrival of
>> > the og Xbox, what it did online and what it offered graphically, my
>> > gaming preference swung totally 180º.
>>
>> I expanded rather than switched around the same time Assassin's Creed
>> came out. At the time it was a very bad patch for the PC releases
>> since then however I've been gradually going back. Most cross platform
>> games I get are for the PC (my PC was highish spec about 2.5 years ago),
>> I have a friend who is in prety much the same situation. For me the
>> 630/PS3 are for games that arn't out on the PC or I think would be more
>> suited to a control pad.
>
> In which case you're in the same minority that Tom belongs to.
>
> I didn't even bother with the PC version of Serious Sam HD, which I
> could have been playing on my computer months ago. Serious Sam was one
> of my favorite games of the first half of this past decade and I was
> very excited about it.
>
> I do know a few people who opted to just go for the PC version,
> though, to play it earlier. Most of my friends who are interested in
> it, though, are getting it now so we can all play together on Live.
>
>> > consider paying for. Mass Effect, though I loved it on the 360, just
>>
>> > because of its storyline, was sorely lacking graphically and by way of
>> > using commands and changing items/weapons, that I made the swing to a
>> > new rig knowing ME2 is about to arrive.
>>
>> I've opted for that on the 360 just because I've alread y got ME1 on the
>> that format and I want to import my save game. It's a couple of game
>> that I'm seriously considering getting on both formats though.