The Rebirth of PC Gaming.

[Pr0d1gy]

With the recent unveiling of the next gen consoles and their price schemes, it has become clear to anyone who can do simple math that PC gaming should come back in a big way given the extremely low cost of building or buying a current gen PC. When you add up all the costs of owning a console for several plus years you can see that they clearly cost more than all but the highest end DIY PC's.

Obviously, the Sony & MS employees will come in here and claim that the console is far more convenient. Let me point out the joke that is this argument for everyone. I can easily plug a PC into my TV now, I have to download just as many or more updates on the consoles now, and consoles take forever to load their OS and navigate through any menus within them when compared to a modern PC. As an example, it takes my PS3 at least 3 to 4 times as long to load as my PC (an upper middle end rig that cost right at $800 to build).

So the prevailing question here is obviously, will we see a big spike in PC gaming in this generation or are the public so indoctrinated that they will ignore the facts?

 

[darkewaffle]

Nothing's changing. Consoles are easier for the same reason people don't build nor fix their own cars. It unloads the responsibility and it gives peace of mind. Not to mention Average Joe thinks the skillset required to build a computer is much higher than it truly is and most of the population is still quite timid when it comes to PC usage.

 

[Snock514]

pc gaming died?

 

[Midwayman]

I think the biggest issue here is to the average Joe, a gaming PC has a far greater up front cost. If you can't build your own PC you are mostly stuck with boutique PCs if you want anything comparable. Usually those places ream you on the costs. Plus of course over the course of the years you're more than likely going to need to upgrade PC to keep playing titles at a reasonable frame rate.

Sure, out of the gate the costs arent that different if you can roll your own, but I think having a stable platform that you don't have to worry about upgrading is more important than you think in the market.

I do think there will be a surge for PC ports just simply because they are using x86 and GCN this time around. However I doubt we'll see the average joe giving up a console and buying a gaming PC.

 

[sunzt]

Steam is saving PC gaming.

 

[Barfo]

pc gaming died?

Yup, dies about every other week according to threads started here and other PC Gaming forums.

 

[ImpulsE69]

The only thing that might make PC gaming a bit more mainstream is that with the newer consoles being so close in code to PC's many more games will be ported. Good or bad, that's really the only change I see happening.

Certain games are just better on console and vice versa. I suppose with people hooking PC's to TV being more common, you might see a small shift, but at the end of the day, most people don't want their main PC hooked to their tv 24/7.

 

[Snock514]

Yup, dies about every other week according to threads started here and other PC Gaming forums.

awww RIP :''''(




oh wait its being reborn yey!

 

[Dankk]

Nothing's going to change anytime soon. Tech-savvy PC enthusiasts will continue building their own gaming rigs and enjoy all the cheap goodies Steam has to offer. Not-so-tech-savvy PC gamers will continue to play lower-end titles and indie games on their laptops. Console gamers will continue to play console games. Simple as that.

Something radical would need to happen in order for something to change; but as far as I can see, the next-gen consoles are merely a logical upgrade. Nothing truly groundbreaking.

If anything, the biggest movement happening in the industry is mobile gaming. For the most part I think cell phone games are introducing casual consumers to video games, which is nice. But that's all. There will always be console gamers too. And there will always be PC gamers.

Nothing's changing. Consoles are easier for the same reason people don't build nor fix their own cars. It unloads the responsibility and it gives peace of mind. Not to mention Average Joe thinks the skillset required to build a computer is much higher than it truly is and most of the population is still quite timid when it comes to PC usage.

Yup.

 

[Anteaus]

PC gaming was definetely on a decline for awhile. Some would like to say it was due to piracy and that might be part of it, but another aspect is that fewer stores were stocking them in great numbers, and therefore fewer people purchased them, which lead to fewer titles on the shelves, which lead to fewer people purchasing them...it was a cycle. Once gamestop sold their souls completely to the god of used games and gave up on PC gaming it was another nail.

PC gaming is on a huge upswing right now and yes it is mainly because of digital distribution. DRM is one aspect, but in real terms never has there been so many different titles for sale at one time and be so easy to acquire. Boxed games have limited shelf lives and must give way to other products, but digitally they never disappear or get replaced unless the developer specifically desires it. With the exception of some particular DRM practices, it's all win for both developers and gamers.

With the PS4 and XB1 being X86, it is now even easier for developers to go crossplatform into PC territory which means more games. It's gotta mean something when you have developers like From Software, who traditionally were console only, are now producing for PC alongside consoles as a day one release.

PC gaming is only going to get better.

 

[Dankk]

PC gaming is on a huge upswing right now and yes it is mainly because of digital distribution. DRM is one aspect, but in real terms never has there been so many different titles for sale at one time and be so easy to acquire. Boxed games have limited shelf lives and must give way to other products, but digitally they never disappear or get replaced unless the developer specifically desires it. With the exception of some particular DRM practices, it's all win for both developers and gamers.

With the PS4 and XB1 being X86, it is now even easier for developers to go crossplatform into PC territory which means more games. It's gotta mean something when you have developers like From Software, who traditionally were console only, are now producing for PC alongside consoles as a day one release.

PC gaming is only going to get better.

Oh, absolutely. The PC gaming landscape is beautiful. The selection of games we have available for PC is greater than the total libraries for all the consoles combined. That's because we can still download and play games that are literally decades old (even if we have to tweak them a little bit). And, of course, there are the thousands of indie devs who only release their work for PC. That's the beauty of an open platform.

As a cross-platform developer, releasing your game for PC is an excellent long-term decision. While it probably won't make as much money up-front as consoles, people will still be purchasing your game on Steam 10 or even 20 years from now.

I remember a while ago, the XCOM complete pack was on sale on Steam for $5. It soared to the #1 top-seller on Steam that day. Thousands of people bought it. There was a considerable amount of profit made.... for a game over 20 years old. It's hard to achieve that with consoles.

 

[smackababy]

If PC gaming is on the upswing because of DD, console gaming was just dealt a huge blow by troglodytes screaming over it.

I see PC gaming continuing to expand and gamers continuing to cry about it dying because of "consolization" and other nonsense.

 

[KaOTiK]

If PC gaming is on the upswing because of DD, console gaming was just dealt a huge blow by troglodytes screaming over it.

I see PC gaming continuing to expand and gamers continuing to cry about it dying because of "consolization" and other nonsense.

There are good ways to do DD and bad ways, MS was wanting to do the bad way.

 

[ImpulsE69]

If PC gaming is on the upswing because of DD, console gaming was just dealt a huge blow by troglodytes screaming over it.

I see PC gaming continuing to expand and gamers continuing to cry about it dying because of "consolization" and other nonsense.

You really do live in your own little world don't you.

 

[AustinInDallas]

its all x86 now. So less shitty ports?

 

[Dankk]

its all x86 now. So less shitty ports?

Well, it's not that simple. Just because it's all x86 now, doesn't mean it's easy. There's still a ton of extra work that goes into making sure each version works properly.

Windows, Mac OS, and Linux all use x86. But how many games actually work with all three?

 

[CrackRabbit]

its all x86 now. So less shitty ports?

I'd hope so, especially with the Xbox having Windows at it's core.

Well, it's not that simple. Just because it's all x86 now, doesn't mean it's easy. There's still a ton of extra work that goes into making sure each version works properly.

Windows, Mac OS, and Linux all use x86. But how many games actually work with all three?

Yes, but much simpler than the current gen where things need to be compiled to run on the PowerPC based Xenon and Cell cpus.
With both consoles having similar X86 based cpu and ATI/AMD graphics it should be easier for developers to bring things to all three platforms with fewer differences between them in performance and graphics.

 

[Aikouka]

With the PS4 and XB1 being X86, it is now even easier for developers to go crossplatform into PC territory which means more games. It's gotta mean something when you have developers like From Software, who traditionally were console only, are now producing for PC alongside consoles as a day one release.

I saw an interesting note about Final Fantasy XV's development and posted it in the console sub-forum, but it seems appropriate in this thread too. Essentially, Square is developing Final Fantasy XV with the PC as their main target, which represents their true vision of what the game should look like. This doesn't mean that the PS4 and X1 will end up looking the same as their PC development target is apparently a high-end machine, which they were never clear what "high-end" entails. Oh, and to be clear, this does not mean the game is slated for a PC release, but they did say that it is possible if they see the desire. So... go buy Last Remnant on PC.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that they're using the PC as their main target and porting down to the consoles.

its all x86 now. So less shitty ports?

PowerPC vs. x86 was never really the problem with most ports. Sure, sometimes they were buggy and crashed, but most qualms that I saw were usually related to poor menu options (consoles usually have very few options) or poor graphics caused by the use of low-resolution textures (current-generation consoles don't have enough memory for many high-resolution textures). The PS4 and X1 should fix the latter, but the prior is still on the developers.

 

[BrightCandle]

The difficulty with the PC market is measuring its size. Its clearly massive, much larger in user base than any of the consoles individually, and quite likely larger than all of them combined. But the range of types of games played is also much more varied and hence no game is going to penetrate it all.

I don't think its fair to say there has been a rebirth, because PC gaming has mostly likely been growing for decades without incident. The challenge become as it went digitally distributed measuring it, but even today measuring box sales it outsells any individual console, and that is excluding steam.

There isn't really a resurgence its always been the biggest gaming market and the most varied. its just with the end of the console lifecycle the gaming press has been noticing it existed more because of the enormous difference in performance and quality of graphics that the PC offered over the console. With the next gen out we will yet again be hearing that the PC death and it will no more true then as it is now.

 

[NickelPlate]

Yup, dies about every other week according to threads started here and other PC Gaming forums.

I know right, it's died a thousand deaths in the last umpteen years rofl.

 

[Skott]

Yup, dies about every other week according to threads started here and other PC Gaming forums.

I know right. LOL I been hearing about the so called death of pc gaming since I got into pc gaming in '93. I chuckle every time I hear it. Just like I chuckle about the rebirth topic in this thread.

 

[Anteaus]

There are good ways to do DD and bad ways, MS was wanting to do the bad way.

Exactly. The reason Steam took on so fast is because with PC Gamers it was assimilate or die a slow death. There were many who hated the DRM, but in the end a balance was found and everything improved steadily toward what we see now. The great experiment could have gone wrong, but in the end uncovered loads of potential. There is still room to improve but Valve almost makes game distribution and artform. Also, PC gamers were already used to DRM at various levels when Steam took off so the road was somewhat paved.

Microsoft obviously wanted to create a similar experience for console gamers and basically went with an all or nothing approach. The problem is that console gamers haven't been exposed to the types of DRM necessary for DD to work and weren't prepared for it. MS literally scared the crap out of everyone and they paid the price. Many PC gamers who also play on consoles were "generally" cool about it because we know how it works, but pure console gamers balked with good cause for the most part. Also, used games in the PC world is a pipe dream and thats another pill console gamers shouldn't have been forced to swallow over night. It took PC gamers years and lots of angry thoughts about Starforce, Securom, Ubisoft, and EA before we finally became confortable...or at least relatively so.

MS should have did the disc thing in the first place and then also slowly made the transition to pure digital over the next 2-3 years and let the developers choose the pace. Developers are the ones who ultimately choose which DRM practices to use. MS was really stupid for trying to get in front of it.

Even Valve isn't so foolish as to require DRM with games. They leave it completely up to the developer. In the end, they just care about their cut of the profits, and that's as far as MS should have taken it for now. My two cents.

 

[desura]

Not going to happen. Games are an inherently limited art form. Like, most attempts at telling story in games results in basically cutscenes + busywork. That's really annoying IMO. PC games are neat in a technical sense, like Battlefield 3's SP campaign was genuinely impressive, but the next-gen consoles will likely clean up.

Future is gonna be tablet pc gaming.

Reasons:

1. intimate and interactive. More intimate than pc games, and more interactive too due to touch + gyro controls

2. played on the go. one of the best places to play games is at the airport, or while waiting in something mundane.

3. More predictable hardware that only gets better. It seems like with pc games I always run into a gazillion issues that require me to go hack some .ini file or else the game will run with no sound or not run at all. Tablets, even google android and its famous fragmentation, do not have this problem.

I played some Eliss and bit.trip.beat on an iphone today while waiting, and it was IMO more satisfying than playing the latest Frostbite game on my gaming pc.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

console gaming hasn't died yet?

 

[The Boston Dangler]