Console ports are fine!

[PowerYoga]

borderlands menu. console ports are not fine.

 

[darkewaffle]

Um, yeah. About that. Can we have the picture asking if Trolling or merely stupid again?

Understand that “Consolization” isn’t only about graphics quality. It is also about over all system resource availability, disk space, access speed, etc… All of which are superior in todays PC market than on the current generation of colsoles. And POTENTIAL is also lost due to these limitations inflicted by the Console. Absolutely Graphical limitations is in there and probably closer to the top than the bottom, but not the sole and exclusive reason.

That was kind of my point. It means something different to everyone, so every time a multiplatform game comes out that's too easy, it's consolized. Every time it's buggy, it's consolized. If it's got casual appeal, it's consolized. If it's not pushing bleeding edge graphics, it's consolized. If it's not as good as the original, it's consolized. If it's shorter, it's consolized. If it's dumbed down, it's consolized.

It's a scapegoat word.

Take DA2 as an example. One main reason why the development team used the same maps and tiles over and over and OVER again was to reduce development time. This was not the only reason. The other reason is that it allowed for an easier Console port. The fewer maps/textures the less space and resources necessary to support the game (i.e. consolized). The same can be said for the “Wave Theory” of ninja mobs. This was done mostly so that the console could handle larger volumes of creatures attacking. And it all but totally ruined the combat. In other words, two of the main reasons why DA2 was so critically panned was because it was shunted down and dumbed down just to fit in a console.

See, if that was the case though, it should be pushing the console to it's very limits; which I think it clearly isn't. If you look at the breadth of environments and maps available in other console games, I don't think you can really believe that those dungeons were built like that because of technical limitations. Time limitations, I'd agree with, they wanted the game out quickly to make a cashgrab.

And here again is 'consolization' in a much more ambiguous form. You don't like how the enemies pop out of nothingness (Just like the spiders, lizards, demons, assassin enemies, and probably others did in DA I might add), that's ok. But what about that is supposedly 'consolized'? If it was so consolized, wouldn't they just make it so that you're fighting fewer enemies so that there is less to render? Either that, lets assume you're right, or would you rather have the supposed 'technical limit' placed upon how enemies appear or how many enemies appear? To me if that's truly a bottleneck (speaking hypothetically) wouldn't you rather they 'consolize' an aesthetic aspect than a gameplay aspect?

I think the OP was only at fault in that they are probably a Console Gamer to begin with who recently forayed into PC gaming, but only in as far as Console games ported to PC goes. They assume that all of the functionality of the Console games is all there is. And so they only perceive the difference being graphical. Alternately, they don’t realize that most PC games today are made with consolization in mind so don’t understand what the DEVS COULD HAVE DONE had they not had that restriction.

Oi, this whole pc gaming high horse needs to die already.

And no one is saying that every “lousy multi-platform” game would have turned out significantly different if it was PC exclusive. Some of them would indeed have been lousy no matter what. But people are saying that because Console gaming is 90% of the market these days, developers are not even trying to make things that fully realize the PC potential. DX11 is totally underutilized. Significant RAM capabilities are Hugely underutilized. Multi-threading and Quad core processing is largely underutilized. Either because the games coming out are intend to multi-platform it or because since they are competing against “lousy multi-platform” games, they don’t need to push the boundaries to make a sale. In short, there isn't anywhere near as much money to be made in PC only games as there is in Console or multi-platform games.

Console gaming is nowhere near 90% of the market. Not even remotely. PC gaming software revenue is massive. A lot of money is made differently on the PC, sure, but reaching new demographics and exploring new mediums is vital for growth.

Which I think is really the problem the industry is experiencing. Because video games (relative to other content delivery mediums) are still relatively young, it's got growing pains. Game makers can put out subpar games but instead of being $10 or $20 like a CD, an album, a book, a movie, its $50 or $60 and it's usually somewhat difficult to test a game before purchase or return it after making your judgment. Game makers have learned that they can make a lot of money and they don't necessarily have to put forth as much effort as they may have once believed, the big games that disappoint in a given year are usually still big games that make money. For now, there's enough growth in the market that I think there's room for developers to make those decisions but still have an audience; but eventually it'll catch up and the market will "correct" in a sense. But until then there's enough 'fresh blood' to allow it.

 

[Slammy1]

Yeah, I see your point. With the more casual gamers in the market there's a bigger demand for the simple games so it's not just consolization. Look at all the social site games, MMORPGs, these are what drive the numbers for PC. I've thought that before, that maybe hardcore gaming will become console gaming.

sigh

 

[thespyder]

That was kind of my point. It means something different to everyone, so every time a multiplatform game comes out that's too easy, it's consolized. Every time it's buggy, it's consolized. If it's got casual appeal, it's consolized. If it's not pushing bleeding edge graphics, it's consolized. If it's not as good as the original, it's consolized. If it's shorter, it's consolized. If it's dumbed down, it's consolized.

It's a scapegoat word.

I think where you are seeing scapegoat, I am seeing a pervasive problem that covers a lot of ills, but with one main root cause. Consolization. Just about everything that you list above is because the developers are trying to shoehorn the game into a fixed and aging platform with limitations that are not held by the PC platform. So it isn’t a scapegoat, it is an apt description of a pervading problem in the industry.

See, if that was the case though, it should be pushing the console to it's very limits; which I think it clearly isn't. If you look at the breadth of environments and maps available in other console games, I don't think you can really believe that those dungeons were built like that because of technical limitations. Time limitations, I'd agree with, they wanted the game out quickly to make a cashgrab.

Who says that it has to push the console to it’s limits? You are using spurious logic and unrelated cause and apparent effect to marginalize the argument. The programming may very well have been the best appropriate to the programmers skill and time allowed in taking an established engine and paring it down to fit in a console.

If you want to talk fact, it is a fact that resources on Consoles are significantly limited in comparison to PCs of today. DA2 was limited in ways that the original Source did not require. And any game built on the Source (DA:O) did not need to be limited in the ways that DA2 was limited (i.e. there was no Wave theory of combat in DA:O). Hence this required MORE coding, not less to accomplish. The skills were “Altered” also to fit the new game but look surprisingly like they were cut down significantly to be less resource intensive. Again, More coding. If either of these choices were made due to time constraints, it would have been FAR cheaper, time wise, to leave them as they were in DA:O.

And here again is 'consolization' in a much more ambiguous form. You don't like how the enemies pop out of nothingness (Just like the spiders, lizards, demons, assassin enemies, and probably others did in DA I might add), that's ok. But what about that is supposedly 'consolized'? If it was so consolized, wouldn't they just make it so that you're fighting fewer enemies so that there is less to render? Either that, lets assume you're right, or would you rather have the supposed 'technical limit' placed upon how enemies appear or how many enemies appear? To me if that's truly a bottleneck (speaking hypothetically) wouldn't you rather they 'consolize' an aesthetic aspect than a gameplay aspect?

Whoa. There is a HUGE difference in Monsters popping out of nowhere (say dropping from the ceiling like spiders can and will) and the continuous and pervasive wave upon wave of EVERY TYPE OF MONSTER in the game popping out of nothingness once and only once you defeated the previous batch. This wasn’t “Oh, we like the mechanic of More guards coming around the corner”, this was clearly “The platform we are using takes a serious performance hit beyond X number of monsters on the screen, so let’s break them up into smaller groups or ‘Waves’”.

And you give your choice as if they are the only two. Either wave over wave or merely fewer enemies. There is a third option. On PC there are a LOT MORE resources available to draw upon. Quad Core multi-threading, More RAM and Significantly beefier Video Cards (not to mention DX11). So if the game were not made with the requirement of being on Consoles as well, the third option of larger single MOB battles is very viable.

Oi, this whole pc gaming high horse needs to die already.

Please explain. It is a fact that PCs are superior technically over consoles. Quad Core machines have more cores and multi-threading capabilities. Windows 7 can handle loads more RAM than the consoles. PCs can handle GPU’s that are 7 years superior to the consoles of today. And with each of these capabilities comes significantly greater potential for games. How is it “High horse” when pound for pound PC platforms outstrip and outpace consoles?

Console gaming is nowhere near 90% of the market. Not even remotely. PC gaming software revenue is massive. A lot of money is made differently on the PC, sure, but reaching new demographics and exploring new mediums is vital for growth.

Ok, some basic facts. In the first place, in 2008 PC revenues (according to your link) were just over HALF console games. And while in 2009-2011 revenues have gone up for PCs, they have moved up in just about the same amount in Consoles. As for the “Projected” figures, these are definitely based on the fact that Consoles are reaching their “End of Life” for this generation, which is represented by Console gamers adopting to the clearly superior platform (PC). But they are still projected, which means that as soon as the next gen consoles come out, those figures get pitched to the wind. I may have been off by saying 90%, but 66% is just as telling. And the fact that most games today are multi-platform is driven directly by the fact that Consoles have significant market share above PC games. And most of them are built with Console in first position and PC lagging as after thoughts, these facts haven’t changed.

 

[HeXen]

but it sure would be nice to see console hardware progress a little faster.

i agree with that, i think many of us gamer geeks would except maybe the general mass consumers. its like trying to get people to upgrade TV's. its just slow. especially the economy right now. It won't be easy to sell another $500+ console especially if you consider many people think of new consoles as losing out on previous investments in games and peripherals and wont buy it for their kids right off. it would be slow adoption thats for sure.

The other problem is console makers taking a hit on hardware costs and making it up in peripherals and licenses. Then convincing developers to invest yet more money into a new console as their investing many thousands already in some current game just for a console that may not sell that well, or at least may take a while to adopt.

I think 5 yrs is a good number to release new consoles, However these days i think it would work out best if they were made backwards compatable with existing games and peripherals. Offer the new console hardware, but don't kill off devices that are perfectly fine only to replace it with more of the same. But legacies may not be a great thing either.
i think both all the console makers are in a pickle, release too soon or too late, is the market right, ready? how many developers will quickly adopt, change too much or too little yields complaints...etc, etc. but if they all wait too long, then sales may stagnate and/or some other company rushes in, like if Apple pushed a console right now, i can only imagine Sony's and MS fears and worries.

 

[greenhawk]

the only fundamental difference between a "console port" and a "PC exclusive" game is that the min-spec target has, ironically enough,

so interface and the feel of the controls do not rank on your "list of differences" then?

Out of interest, are you on of those people that use a xbox controller on the PC to play these ported games?

The consoles are a *good* thing for PC gaming! The minimum spec as a 360 or a PS3 is much better than what min spec would be otherwise. This ultimately leads to higher quality graphics (which is what I assume you all complain about) right out of the gate, and a solid target platform for many, many years.

You see stabability. I see stagnation.

Minimum specs might be better off, but it sure is not pushing hardware to better levels as their is no need for it when designing for a fixed hardware level.

As to the graphics running better? Following the argument of designing for the hardware, why develop a better graphics mode that most of your target audience will not use? No PCs are not getting better graphics from that argument as for a lot of the games, better was never developed/ written. It is a one size fits all approach with consoles and the ported to PC has options to TURN IT DOWN for the even older hardware (the ones called "current" when the consoles were originally released.

Also, because the consoles are constrained so much, it forces clever algorithmic optimization and program structure, which DOES translate over to performing well on the PCs. Ever notice how "pure PC" games nowadays run like crap, don't use more than 2 cores, etc., but the "console ports" do?

The thing here you are forgetting is that when you design for a specific hardware, even in areas that are not PC based, you are trading flexability for performance. This works good for the instance you are working for, but makes moving it towards a new hardware harder, to the point were the newer hardware (in this case, PCs) are not running the code nativly, but in a emulation mode. As any long term gamer or hardware developer can tell you, emulation mode is the worse mode to run in in terms of performance.

As a example, take the old snes or nintendo emulators out back in the 486 days. The performance of those cpus was several times the performance of the original hardware, but some still run the game WORSE than the original hardware. Nothing as improved in the field of emulation in getting better performance with better hardware vs the running nativly on the original hardware.

As to the PC exclusive games, I'm personally on the fence for as a lot of those games did not receive the funding or development time that similarly titled games would have several years back (or vs the consoles current budget). This I see as showing more than the issue of "PC Exclusive" vs "console port". argument.

PC gaming is better than ever but it won't stay that way -- with our improved visuals, better control scheme -- if all people ever do is find stuff to complain about.

I disagree on the first, and as to the PC getting better soon, it is only due to the attention consoles have been getting that those PC improvements were not taken advantage of a fews years ago.

Sorry, but thanking someone for giving me attention after they delibratly ignored me is not something I find comming naturally to my human nature.

 

[greenhawk]

I can usually find a way to make the mouse feel mostly normal and live with the interface oddities.

Got to love paying full price for software that feels like it was done as a after throught (if it even got that far).

 

[greenhawk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0

LOL. the internet delivers another good laugh.

 

[greenhawk]

Just wait for the next gen of Consoles, the improvements for them will help PC games in turn. always has

until Microsoft made the xBox (based on a PC for faster developement time IIRC), what consoles did and what PCs did were apples and oranges. No relationship for games at all. Nothing on the current porting level anyway.

next gen consoles will draw from the current PC hardware so will not be making a huge step in hardware. Then the cycle repeats itself as after about 12-18 months the PC market would have caught up on the price/performance (seeing as generally new console releases have been sold at a loss just to get into initial markets).

Then we have 5-10 years of the same issue all over again of the same hardware limiting of software. Praze it if you will, but compaired to the fast development PC had, this current speed is a snail.

 

[greenhawk]

But hey at least it's saved me money since I haven't had to upgrade my video card as quickly.

if saving money was a #1 requirement, then I suspect stopping gaming all together would save more. People that call themselves hard core gamers are not really in it to save money.

 

[greenhawk]

Its definitely a postive thing there's a trend towards one standard in gaming, so that all platforms can enjoy the same titles.

From a gaming point of view, yes that is a good thing, but unfortunitly you get businesses/marketing/ect involoved and they take it as a free monopoly and exploit it. It is why PC can be the better option as it is far more open than all the enforced DRM and restrictions in place on consoles to keep out the competition. If it was a serious intention of making a better gaming system, the makers would not care if someone else made the hardware system.

On a side point, Direct X was introduced to reduce the overhead present in the system supporting all the different hardware formats. It was intended to reduce complexity with needing to write code for all the GPUs on the market.

 

[greenhawk]

Yea, checkpoint only save systems drive me nuts. I mean I have hundreds of gigabytes of free space on my hard drive. How hard would it be to include a "save anywhere" command. Almost all PC exclusive games back in the day had this.

A good example I have for this is the save system in Far Cry2. All documentation and in game said to save/sleep you needed to be in one of the pre-definied sheds set aside for this purpose.

Though it turned out for the PC some hot keys where added and not mentioned anywhere except when someone started bashing keys and posting about it on line.

Add to it that at the inital release it allowed but re-assigning, but if felt like 1/2 the game stopped working once you did that. Even to the point that I think I found exiting the vechile still used the previously bond key. I suspect the game got a update a few weeks later to fix these at release problems, but by that stage, I had sold it for 30% of the price I paid and still felt like I was ripping off the buyer.

 

[greenhawk]

It's a scapegoat word.

I can agree that is it over used, but for each of your examples given, I can see how designing for consoles / the console market can cause each of those issues.

therefore, it is not just a scapegoat, it is based in some truth.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

That was kind of my point. It means something different to everyone, so every time a multiplatform game comes out that's too easy, it's consolized. Every time it's buggy, it's consolized. If it's got casual appeal, it's consolized. If it's not pushing bleeding edge graphics, it's consolized. If it's not as good as the original, it's consolized. If it's shorter, it's consolized. If it's dumbed down, it's consolized.

It's a scapegoat word.

It's not a word with any kind of authoritative definition, but I believe most of us it in an appropriate manner, most gamers know the traits associated with console games compared to PC games.

You can very definitely tie in things like difficulty to consolization, aids are put in to games to help the console crowd, in Portal 2 the portals snap to surfaces, in Crysis 2 they added autoaim (later removed), these were not part of the more PC orientated originals.

Bugs are a mixed bag, some are very clearly console related, leaving in console HUD messages like press X to continue is a good example.

Casual appeal is an obvious one, generally speaking the console market is bias heavily towards the casual crowd, that's rubbing off on the PC, you can see games like DOA tank on the console due to their complexity and DA2 is released with a playschool like HUD/inventory/menu, clearly targeted at consoles.

Graphics are another good one, it doesn't need to be bleeding edge, but something from within the current generation is preferred, having something targeted at 6 year old hardware is nearly 4 generation old that's an 8-16x improvement in hardware but next to no improvement in graphics, this goes against the grain of traditional PC development.

Sequels are often consolized, as mentioned above, games like DAO tanked on the console but did really well on the PC, the sequel low and behold is more tailored for consoles, it's not some big secret.

As for shorter, shorter I don't know about, casual gamers don't complete games as much, and so this encourages shorter games, and again console games are mostly a casual market so that correlates. Dumbed down is an obvious one, PC franchises frequently get dumbed down in order to cater for consoles, there's loads of examples of this.

Basically all of those things you mentioned can be legitimate complaints due to consolization, they're not always legitimate complains for specific titles and people may attribute some of these things to consolization when they're not, but in general it's not used as a scapegoat. The whole PC industry is consolized now, there is almost no AAA PC exclusives these days and almost every PC title can be demonstrated to have some downside due to it's multiplatform nature, with maybe a few exceptions.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Got to love paying full price for software that feels like it was done as a after throught (if it even got that far).

Honestly, I'm fine with it. It's not a huge deal and if saving tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in PC tuning keeps developers and publishers on the PC bandwagon, I can definitely live with it. I know that revenue and profits on the PC are typically dwarfed by console versions of the same game and I'm just happy that they continue to support us with new releases. Dealing with some crap on PC is much easier than trying to play first person games on console controllers.

 

[AstroManLuca]

if saving money was a #1 requirement, then I suspect stopping gaming all together would save more. People that call themselves hard core gamers are not really in it to save money.

Hey, I'm not saying that saving money is a requirement or that I'm happy PC graphics are stagnating, I'm just pointing out that at least there is an upside.

Oh and I'm okay with checkpoint saves as long as they're not spaced too far apart. Quicksaving is convenient but it can make the game too easy. Of course they can always just limit you to quicksaving only when there are no enemies around. I've been playing Alpha Protocol recently (a console port if ever there was one, complete with unusable mouse controls) and it would be way too easy if I could just quicksave in the middle of stealthing through an area. At least they do allow multiple saves (you can make a copy of your most recent checkpoint at any point, and I don't think there's any limit to the number of saves you can keep).

 

[Blitzvogel]

I don't mind console ports or multiplatform games as long as they are decently made. All the multiplatforming and porting got PC gamers more games that otherwise might have not even been on the PC. But the same thing could be said the other way around. Had it not been for such decent console hardware, and the increasing development costs, many of todays games might have been PC only. In reference to that, I shudder to think what the state of console graphics and quality of multiplatforming would be had these consoles actually shipped with 256 MB of RAM instead of 512. At least the mainstream PC would've without question bypassed consoles in graphics early on, and perhaps would see more PC exclusives or games really taking advantage of what PCs can really do.

Even BF3 on PC with all it's bells and whistles, does not look a half generation above either the PS3 or 360 version. I'm especially quite surprised how well the PS3 version especially holds up in comparison to the PC. However, that is also a testament to how much more graphics horsepower it really takes to drive a 1080p + 4x AA picture @ 60 FPS instead of 720p + 2x AA picture @ 30 FPS. The availability of more picture clarity with higher resolution and framerate is a huge plus to me in multiplayer, and I think is worth it, even if the graphics are not the giant leap above consoles.

 

[bononos]

Just to get some background, how difficult is it for coding to run natively on PCs first and to port it to consoles vs vice versa.

Its a little bizzare to hear arguments that consolization isn't a major issue, the nauseous feeling on tight FOVs is not a good thing. And games play better on a joypad? Absurd.

 

[jinsaotomex4]

Just to get some background, how difficult is it for coding to run natively on PCs first and to port it to consoles vs vice versa.

Its a little bizzare to hear arguments that consolization isn't a major issue, the nauseous feeling on tight FOVs is not a good thing. And games play better on a joypad? Absurd.

This probably depends on the game's engine more than anything, but you would still need to make PC only UI and menus and such.

 

[Sulaco]

I could care less about the technical/graphical side of it.

What saddens me, is the gradual "dumbing down" and oversimplification of games made primarily with the console in mind first, then ported to PC. Basically, the disappearance of so many great games, largely because the publisher asks, "Would this hold the interest of a 17 year old with a gamepad?" If not, don't make it.
It hasn't totally disappeared; there's still plenty of great, deep games out there. But the"devolution" and evaporation of deeper, more realistic, more mature, and more satisfying games is saddening, to say the least.

 

[Pia]

Actually, not 100%. Console HD space is a premium (or at least has been historicall) and so there is some thinking that goes into that decision which is driven BECAUSE it is a console, particularly with the older consoles. Admittedly it is legacy thinking, but the origins come from actual limitations on hardware.

And that's why I said limitations of *current* consoles have nothing to do with whether the game has save anywhere.

I think a great many designers working on the PC have never understood that save systems are a part of game design, and that plopping in save anywhere is a design decision (usually a bad one). Designers working on consoles are ahead in that regard. That said, the bulk of all designers fail in usability since they don't provide suspend save (which is orthogonal to game design and therefore should be in every game).

 

[Pia]

Just to get some background, how difficult is it for coding to run natively on PCs first and to port it to consoles vs vice versa.

PC to XBox1 or vice versa would have generally been easy as the architectures were the same. But for virtually all consoles, an optimized engine differs greatly from an optimized PC engine. Either porting is difficult, or corners are cut and the result looks a lot worse than the target hardware would be capable of.

Its a little bizzare to hear arguments that consolization isn't a major issue, the nauseous feeling on tight FOVs is not a good thing. And games play better on a joypad? Absurd.

Why yes, some game designs are much more suited for a joypad compared to KB+M.

As for FOV in 3D games, the player should be allowed to set it on all platforms as the "correct" FOV depends on viewing angle. Which actually varies in console setups more than in PC setups, I think.

 

[waggy]

I could care less about the technical/graphical side of it.

What saddens me, is the gradual "dumbing down" and oversimplification of games made primarily with the console in mind first, then ported to PC. Basically, the disappearance of so many great games, largely because the publisher asks, "Would this hold the interest of a 17 year old with a gamepad?" If not, don't make it.
It hasn't totally disappeared; there's still plenty of great, deep games out there. But the"devolution" and evaporation of deeper, more realistic, more mature, and more satisfying games is saddening, to say the least.

/this.

its sad that FPS games are all no console games. i hate playing them with a gamepad.

 

[thespyder]

And that's why I said limitations of *current* consoles have nothing to do with whether the game has save anywhere.

I think a great many designers working on the PC have never understood that save systems are a part of game design, and that plopping in save anywhere is a design decision (usually a bad one). Designers working on consoles are ahead in that regard. That said, the bulk of all designers fail in usability since they don't provide suspend save (which is orthogonal to game design and therefore should be in every game).

Yeah, we are going to have to agree to disagree here. In the first place, what I was trying to indicate is that there is a Paradigm in console building in that limited saves (driven by limited space for saves) is and has always been. So even though the consoles no longer require it, game developer mind sets keep on falling back on that.

As for the good or bad of limited saves, I see it as bad all around. It is, among other things, a device to force artificially extended game play. And other than the limited space thing, it serves NO VALID purpose as I see it. Far too many games require you to play and replay ad-nausium sections of a game simply because you get to the end of the sequence and miss-step ONCE. There is no value or purpose to this (IMHO). But it does make a 10 hour game last 13-15 hours if done (Right???).

If players want the suspense you are referring too, they can limit themselves. Otherwise it is game developers enforcing game play methods unnecessarily on players.

PC to XBox1 or vice versa would have generally been easy as the architectures were the same.

Um, Architecture may be "Similar" but different OS and 7 years of hardware, not to mention thousands of different configurations mean that PC Platforms and Console platforms are/can be as different as night and day. Consoles have a hand full of configurations. PCs have almost unlimited. Understand that a different Motherboard can make all the difference in the world. Not to mention what version of device drivers you have running or what generation (or maker) of GPU. If you think that simple code changes are all it takes, you do not understand the complexity at all.

 

[NoSoup4You]

Gaming is mainstream now because of how popular consoles have become. If you told someone in 2004 that you spent the weekend playing Call of Duty:UO they'd look at you like you were from another planet. A.) What the hell is a "Call of Duty" and B.) Only shut-in creeps would play games all weekend.

Right now, even grandparents can at least grasp that "Call of Duty" is a video game because there are ads for it all over television. People everywhere are spending insane amounts of time playing games, as evidenced by any game release and how quickly people are "leveling up". I think I saw a guy on BF3 last night at level 34 already.

Personally I do get annoyed at badly ported console games, but without the consoles making video games mainstream we wouldn't have half the titles on PC we do today. Literally, there are awesome games getting launched every damn month of the year nowadays. Years ago there were months and months of nothing worthwhile being released, probably another reason why we hold onto those old games so dearly. That was all you had to play. Nowadays, thanks to Steam I have loads of games that were released in the last year or so which I haven't even played - Deus Ex:HR, The Witcher 2, Two Worlds 2, Dead Space 2, Shogun 2: Total War, Mafia II, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Shift 2 Unleashed, Magicka, NBA 2K12, Fallout New Vegas, Lara Croft: GoL... you get the idea.

And those are only the ones I haven't played yet, that's not including all the games I did actually get around to.

Gaming rules right now, I can live with the bad console ports because many of the ports are fine. I also game on a 40" tv so the huge UI's actually don't bother me.