Carmack: PCs Not Important As Consoles

[spleendamage]

I've got a gaming PC and an Xbox 360.

On my Xbox I play Guitar Hero, Grand Theft Auto and Forza.
Maybe I play it a couple times a month?

But I use my computer every day. I bought my rig in November 2006 (the day the 8800s were released) and my machine played Crysis just fine (even at 2560x1600).

Maybe it's because I am not a fan of console game style for the most part. I tend to like RTS games and turn based strategy games. Consoles have very few offerings in those genres.

I think consoles are probably a better platform for fighting games, driving games, sports games and other games which require a special controller device like guitar hero.
But with only the ability to offer least common denominator performance, pay to connect online subscription service, complete absence of a modding community and a fairly limited spectrum of game types that work well... it's just not a compelling platform for me.

 

[martin0642]

It's just as easy to pirate console games, and PCs have joysticks and D-Pads also, so all types can be played there.

John Carmack is not "outdated", he makes the engines that other people base their games off of. I think id releasing "games" is more of a tech demo and a small cash recoup more than a real attempt at making awesome story lines and games.

Finally, this stupid PC/Console argument really shows a lot of ignorance. Consoles ARE computers, and every generation becomes more and more like a standard PC, with keyboards and mice and internet gaming and login accounts and direct downloads.

Consoles are basically like Macs, they keep control of the hardware, thus developers have a better idea of what they have to work with. The fact that people commonly run Linux on their PS3s and XBox's should have been an indication on where the tech is going.

Once content owners follow the example of "OnDemand" TV availability and make it simple to impulse buy games and try demos in a single interface, AND offer a price cut for digital transmission with Steam-like authentication to combat piracy, they'll make a killing. I remember a lot of people guarding their Counterstrike keys real close, because there was incentive to do so.

Ohh yea, and those digital purchases better be guaranteed for life, on all future terminals from that vendor through emulation.

 

[jwl3]

Why would you ever abandon the PC market? I mean, the freaking game is programmed on it! You don't program a video game on an XBOX 360 or PS3.

I hate programmers like EA who have completely turned their back on PC users. Companies like ATI/Nvidia/Intel/AMD are going to severely suffer if PC gaming withers. If not for gaming, I could use a Pentium III 1 GHZ computer to browse the web and use MS office. I don't need quad core processors and a $500 video card.

 

[Guest]

PC Gaming is hardly in trouble. John Carmack should know better. The downfall of PC Gaming has been prophesied so many times in the past.

Take it from me a gamer since the late 70s...PC gaming will never die. Take a look at PC Game sales and realize that other than Sims, quality usually rises to the top:

Here are the 10 million + titles

The Sims - 50 MILLION COPIES SOLD (No non handheld console has come close to matching this!)
The Sims 2 - 15 million copies sold
Lineage 2 - 14 million subscribers
WoW - 10 million subscribers
Starcraft - 10 million

Others 1 million +

Civ IV - 3 million
AoE 3 - 3 million
Diablo 2 - 4 million
Warcraft 3 - 3 million
etc etc

Even the crap Crysis still managed to sell 1.5 million copies

Top console games can sell close to 10 million but most come nowhere near that figure.

PC gaming has evolved in different directions but it is by no means dead.

Shame on Carmack.

 

[supadupanerd]

For crying out loud you guys ad-homonym attacks are pathetic. Carmack has stated in this article that he doesn't think that the days of PC gaming are necessarily numbered... Just that they appear that way.

As primarily a developer on the PC, few know the shifts in the industry as well as id Software. Constantly are doom-and-gloom reports about how the PC is falling to the wayside of consoles, some even blaming piracy. Carmack isn’t so convinced: “Well, it’s hard to second guess exactly what the reasons are. You can say piracy. You can say user migration. But the ground truth is just that the sales numbers on the PC are not what they used to be and are not what they are on the consoles.”

And seriously, are you really going to sh!t on a guy for giving his opinion? (some people would rather hold a controller and sit on a couch than hold a mouse and sit in a chair)This guy has been programming for longer than a good many of you have even been walking, and is partly responsible for some of the greatest feats of gaming evolution (Wolfenstein, Quake 1..)

Honestly who can really blame id for diversifying their publishing?
(especially in a down market economy)
Development is costly and time consuming, and porting the id tech 5 engine accomplishes not only, recouping development costs, but also getting it into the market place in order to compete with other middleware providers such as the (unreal tech or the monolith engine)sooner.

 

[axelf86]

I have both a PS3 hooked up to a 56" 1080p LCD television and an excellent gaming rig. I can honestly say that I can see good points for and against both gaming platforms. However I myself usually always end up going back to my computer for various reasons.
Unlike so many of the uneducated without first hand experience building there own PC's or those that just don't know how to shop. A solid gaming PC can be had for roughly the same price as a console + the extra's. Also, you do not have to upgrade every few years, just think about it logically. If you have a current game console and it's been said many times that these are expected to last 5 to 10 years. Well if you can buy a good gaming PC for 500 bucks thats going to get you the same or similar graphics as today's consoles, thats all you need to buy. You don't have to upgrade unless you want to run the latest games at the HIGHEST possible seeings. However you will still be able to run them, just no better than the consoles will. They will just look only as good as what's on the current crop of consoles. No better, no worse, however you have the option if you so choose to upgrade and improve the visuals.

Next, despite the doom and gloom of companies who state piracy is hurting pc sales more than anything, are full of it. I have no doubt that piracy hurts sales, just nowhere near what game developers are saying. For one, whether they want to admit it or not, MOST people, NOT all that pirate a game probably would not have bought it. I know this because I have friends who download games and most of them wouldn't have bought the game. I'm sure I'm not in an exclusive group of friends and have to believe that many others are the same way. Second, just from my own experience, as I'm in the IT business and work on A LOT of individuals computers. I can tell you the number one thing I get the most which I believe hurts PC gaming beyond belief. Is people coming to me saying, "hey, I just bought this game for my computer, and I can't get it to run." 9 times out of ten it is because they have some store bought computer with crap for a video card, more often than not integrated graphics.

There are a TON of computers out there in users homes and a good deal of them would love to buy games for there computers. However out of all of those new computers being purchased how many can actually play games? And I don't mean PONG or online simpleton games, I mean the same games as the consoles? The answer sadly, is not very many. I think Tim Sweeney of EPIC games has touched on this very subject and I think it is the biggest problem/limitation for game developers on the PC platform.

Intel, ATI and Nvidia need to stop putting garbage graphics adapters in off the shelf computers to try to sell PC's for 300 bucks and making people think they got a good deal. Either that or the Best Buy's and Circuits City's need to educate the customers better. I can tell you that I've had more than a handful of people say, "I just bought this computer at Best Buy for x amount of dollars last week, and it won't even play this game I just bought for it."!!!

Focus on the primary problems and not the secondary problems.

 

[bounty]

hehe... imagine if ATI produced the XBOX 360. They'd have no problem making xbox 360 "compatible" video cards/drivers. All games that could run on xbox 360 would run on computers with ATI 3d cards.

There is no reason other than licensing for there to be console or pc only games. The real XBOX 360 instead is the Microsoft Mac. Why didn't they just make it run with Direct X? Same for Sony. They should just throw windows on there and get it over with.

Which is why consoles are doing well. The big guns are (sucessufully) pushing their (proprietary) family of products. M$ knows you'll have a copy of windows on your laptop and a 360, they've sold you 2 licenses now. Soon you'll pay for an additional copy of office (live!) on your console.

The PC and the internet were products of their ability to be open/hacked. Same for PC gamming, which arose with consoles as competition. Now that consoles are more like PC's the PC has more direct competition.

 

[robwright]

[citation][nom]jwl3[/nom]Why would you ever abandon the PC market? I mean, the freaking game is programmed on it! You don't program a video game on an XBOX 360 or PS3.I hate programmers like EA who have completely turned their back on PC users. Companies like ATI/Nvidia/Intel/AMD are going to severely suffer if PC gaming withers. If not for gaming, I could use a Pentium III 1 GHZ computer to browse the web and use MS office. I don't need quad core processors and a $500 video card.[/citation]

He's not turning his back on PC gaming. Read the full interview. He's saying the sales aren't what they once were, and that consoles are a much bigger business. He also said id would basically release Doom 4 for free on the PC "because it's the right thing to do." Does that sound like a guy who's abandoning PC gaming? Or maybe just someone who's concerned about the PC gaming business today, someone who's been making games for a very long time and knows more about the industry than any of us.

 

[skalagon]

I dont want PC gaming to die

 

[chaohsiangchen]

I think John Carmack deserves more praise than bashing here. We will still get RAGE on Windows, Linux and even Mac. Game play will be identical across the platform. It's the marketing and design that will be geared towards consoles, not game title exclusive on consoles. I don't have problem with people playing games on consoles, as long as they don't claim their console superior than my custom built PC.

M$ and SONY are actually losing money selling consoles, and they get more money back from games sold. That's why we have game consoles so cheap and royalty so high. People who hate those companies can just buy consoles, but buy no games and use the console as linux internet machine.

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

Consoles are becoming more like PCs, but they are limited. I want something that can do it all, which the PC delivers. Its not like you can just alt+tab out and look something up while you are playing on a console or hang out on Vent or TS (console = crapy talk features), not to metion that the only way to play a MMO or a FPS is with a keyboard and mouse. I mean have you tried Halo cross platform ZOMG nerf DPI = Lame. Here I go rambling again, sorry just needed to vent. I'm just tired of hearing about the death of PC gaming when I love it so much.

 

[hixbot]

I would like to see PC games offer LOCAL MULTIPLAYER, and ONLINE SPLITSCREEN.
In this era of HDTV's, hooking up your gaming PC to your TV is a piece of cake. Well then, why do the console versions of cross platform games have more features?... like online splitscreen, there's no reason a PC game can't have those features.

 

[Guest]

Ok if Pc isn't not selling so why then did PC come 2 place after ps3 for EA sales. PC sales was better than the 360.

2 the 360 and the ps3 is old by the time rage comes out on pc. The hardware will be better on the PC. Even intel thinks ps3 and 360 is old snce Intel is entering the PC gaming Industry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBPegjNG2qw&feature=related

If PC gaming doesn't make sale numbers

why then games like sims,guild wars,wow,cod4,masseffect better than console sales?

 

[miribus]

*Just one more note. I saw Crysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crysis as a very bad thing for PC gaming. It laid it out so starkly. No matter how much money you spend, no matter how cutting edge your system, it will never be enough. The PC enthusiast is fighting a losing battle against the march of technology. I could have bought a nice C5 corvette for what I have spent on PC tech over the last 15 years. Crysis really put it in perspective for me.

So, you'd rather play on an old console with the perception of the best possible graphics, than actually play with better graphics even if the software can push past it?
That makes sense.
Why by a 50" tv when they keep making bigger ones?

Either you're a PC gamer or you're not.
It would be like me talking to a car tuner saying he's stupid to spend so much money tricking out his car instead of just buying a nice simple sedan and putting the money away for a rainy day.

I'm willing to bet that far more often than not a PC to a PC gamer is much more a part of their life than just a glorified console.
Rarely (ok, never) do I see anyone who is a PC game only play games on their pc ever ever ever.
If all you ever do is play games, and actually like that blasted gamepad for anything more than sports games (virtually my sole reason for owning a console... other than blu-ray) then fine, get a console, save some cash, and be happy with it.
If you use your PC and like to play around with it like I do, and spend so much time on it anyway, why not use the gaming system I already have inside it?
To think that you need to spend $100s on a video card or thousands on a "top rig" to play games nicely and smoothly means you're sorely mistaken and completely uninformed.
My 3 year old dual core opteron and x1950xtx still plays the latest games extremely nicely, including Crysis. Could it be better? Sure. Better to the point where I can justify the extra cost for some extra eye candy? Maybe, maybe not, but that's my decision.
Honestly I hope more and more of the major developers go to the console because the crop of games recently has been as much garbage as good in my opinion. I'm sick of seeing glowing reviews of games that should be mediocre by any PC gamer's standards... that's right I'm looking at you Halo, and Gears of War. It's time we started seeing what smaller less known developers can do for the PC again who can put more money and thought into the game and less into the license fees.
I'll take a buggy, barely understandable translation of a game with a lot of character like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. any day, over any of them.
And finally, despite the increased chance of piracy over consoles, PC gaming will never die. You don't need development licenses for it, and it's a hell of a lot easier to code for than ever changing console architectures.

Piracy and lazy developers are murdering PC games.
Lazy developers uninterested in optimizing their code for more efficient use knowing full well that nvidia, amd, or intel will bail them out by building some better hardware. Ask any honest programmer, they'll tell you, they just don't have to work so hard anymore.
That and lazy developers making mediocre games also drives up console games knowing that pc gamers won't let them get away with that crap (or lets face it more likely pirate it anyway).

Kudos to Crytek for optimizing (supposedly) their code on the Crysis: Warhead engine to play fantastically with a mid-range pc (I'll believe it when I actually see it, the so-called journalists better really call them out on this claim) because if it holds true maybe it will be a trend.

 

[Aintry]

It amuses me to see PC fans make cost comparisons between PCs and consoles without taking the element of time or expertise into account. How long did it take you, a technophile, to gain the knowledge to upgrade or build your own computer with confidence? A while, right?

I can't imagine my tech-dumb sister, for example, doing all of the research necessary to put together a custom gaming PC for my nephew -- slogging through tech forum and after tech forum for days or weeks, researching the PSU, the motherboard, sound card, video card, RAM, case cooling fans, monitor and so on -- when she could bypass all of that by simply buying my nephew a console.

Tech-heads sometimes have the strangest ideas of what to expect from the average consumer. Just because something seems feasible to you doesn't necessarily mean that it seems that way to someone else.

 

[Guest]

The facts remains that PC is making more money than any console game. The 360 lost about 1.3 mill and the ps3 is like 3 mill in the hole right now.

No game is beating sims or wow in sales!

Even guild wars sold 5 mill compared to MGS4 sold 3 mill!

Micro softs profits mustly came from the PC last Q.

CRysis has better graphics than MGS4 and cost alot less! Crysis is a much better game than MGS4

project offset is going to be best next coming out and it's only on the PC.

 

[cappster]

How about this side of things: Without the constant demand and push for newer technology from the PC gaming side, the console side would be stuck in first gear. Where do console gamers think they get all of these "next gen graphics?" Companies like DAAMIT and Nvidia are always fighting to get the best hardware out to consumers. If they had to wait every 3-5 years on getting out a next gen hardware, the gaming community as a whole would be like stale bread and both companies would be broke.

 

[Guest]

Here is also is a link that proves PC gaming is soing any plat. It's not thoery but facts.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13654

In no has played a pc game take a look at console now compared it to a pc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SujAC5Rd03Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud0yPm31JT8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJgcMGtXBfQ

all pc games are better than console

 

[Guest]

Carmack, what a joke. After hearing this, I doubt I'll be buying Rage no matter how good it is. id made its name on the PC and always has, now they betray their fan base in order to make an extra buck. I will not be supporting id any further - they have made their choice.

 

[robwright]

[citation][nom]Anonymous Poster[/nom]Carmack, what a joke. After hearing this, I doubt I'll be buying Rage no matter how good it is. id made its name on the PC and always has, now they betray their fan base in order to make an extra buck. I will not be supporting id any further - they have made their choice.[/citation]

Again, how are they betraying the PC? Carmack said 1) they're not doing console exclusives, 2) that they'll do Doom 4, Rage, etc. for the PC, and 3) said that id would go so far as releasing Doom 4 for the PC even if they knew they weren't going to make any money from. So I ask again -- how is that a betrayal? Is making games for consoles AND the PC a sin? Is Valve betraying PC gaming? Is BioWare?

 

[Guest]

One last comment the next big project for pc only is this game
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22926.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkoi6WCCJHY&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Offset

This will own rage and any console game has to offer and it's only for the PC. The game is so good that it can't run on a console because console are too old

 

[robwright]

[citation][nom]the bomb[/nom]Here is also is a link that proves PC gaming is soing any plat. It's not thoery but facts.http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/n [...] tory=13654In no has played a pc game take a look at console now compared it to a pchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SujAC5Rd03Qhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud0yPm31JT8http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJgcMGtXBfQall pc games are better than console[/citation]

The Bomb, I applaud your defense of PC gaming. However, the link from Gamasutra that you cite is completely out of date. Those PC gaming sales numbers for the US were for the early part of 2007 -- after the monster success of WoW's Burning Crusade. Even after that expansion title sold millions of copies, US retail sales for PC games actually FELL in 2007 from the year before. Look up the full year results from the NPD Group.

 

[Guest]

Yea that's in the US only canada europe and the rest of the like PC more than console bigger market!

Console are old and out dated comepared to the pc! The wii is doing better than the ps3 and 360! Console is never going to beat the pc!

 

[Guest]

here is another link says that pc is good fine
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/us-pc-game-sales-surge

 

[robwright]

[citation][nom]the bomb[/nom]here is another link says that pc is good finehttp://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic [...] ales-surge[/citation]

Yes, it is. And it's the same data/report you cited before -- it's for the first part of 2007, not the full year. Go get a link for the full year data and tell me what you find.