[citation][nom]nottheking[/nom]As a platform, the PC has always been many, many years ahead of consoles. This dates back to the 1980s, when you had the 1985 NES on one side, compared to the 1987 IBM PS/2, the forefather of modern PCs. The PS/2 had such loads of power (powerful 32-bit CPU, megabytes of RAM, framebuffer capable of handling up to 640x400x256-color) that it wouldn't be until the 5th Generation, when the Playstation (and arguably Saturn) could rival it in 1994-1995.The trend has held true today; arguably, consoles don't lag QUITE as much, but said gap isn't actually shrinking anymore, and merely reflected consoles "finding their niche" from an engineering perspective. (this perhaps started around 1996, with the Nintendo64)And no, consoles don't really have the advantage of cost: for $300 you could readily put together a capable gaming machine. The Tom's System Builder marathons have REGULARLY shown how impressive a level of performance you can get out of ~$500US, easily blowing away a console. People only think a console can match an inexpensive gaming PC because they buy all the BS Microsoft and Sony spew: neither the 360 nor PS3 can even HOPE to handle 1920x1080 with the major titles: that resolution is strictly the domain for sports games. *- On the PS3, big-name titles from GTA IV to Uncharted 1&2 to Metal Gear Solid 4 and even LittleBigPlanet all run at 720p, and STRETCH to 1080p. *- For the Xbox 360, things get even worse: while some do 720p, many go lower: for games like Fallout New Vegas, they run at a mere 1024x576, (576p) which is but 64% the resolution. Halo: Reach, like Halo 3 and ODST, is 1138x640.*- To fit within the pitiful total RAM quantities the consoles have (both have 512MB total) they have to seriously cut back on textures. Either console can handle the texture load equivalent to what a 256-320MB video card on the PC would... And this in an era when 1GB is the standard per-GPU, and 2GB is optional.*- The consoles don't do the above at 60fps, folks; they typically run with a 30fps framerate cap.So all told, price and capabilities wise, the consoles are at a disadvantage. Their market advantage lies in their commoditization; makers know they have a relativley uniform audience of a specified size (the number of consoles sold) and hence find it easier to get money backing them....Because let's face it, the gaming industry is now basically like Hollywood: they see a game as a monetary investment, little more. Spend money and expect to make it. If you don't (because the game wasn't any good) blame pirates. Vision in gaming is effectively dead.Exactly right. Piracy has been going on forever... And yes, the consoles have ALWAYS been vulnerable to it. How ELSE could anyone explain Nintendo sticking with cartridges for the Nintendo64, in spite of the major downsides in price, (each cost up to $50 to make) and capacity? (64MB was the maximum cart size, 1/10th a CD that cost 200 times less) It was because it made piracy outright UNFEASIBLE: you wound up paying more for the hardware to play a pirated game than it'd cost to buy a used, legit copy.Over the past decade or so, a mindset has really overtaken most decision-makers, especially in the gaming industry. It's now all about chasing the "mainstream," or casual gamers with the attention span of a shrew. This approach is financially flawed for a number of reasons, but the big-wigs insist on it nonetheless, since it's the strategy du jour. As a result, we see developers exclusively chasing the "easy money." So they make a bland, cookie-cutter console title, then make a lazy port to the PC that is really little more than EMULATING it; hence such high system requirements for a PC port when said consoles are pathetically weak in comparison.This is most certainly true: older consoles were, as I'd personally discovered, a pain to program for. Writing most (or all!) of your code in assembly, dealing with arcane, proprietary architectures, etc. Modern console programming is, for anyone that's not touched modern programming environments for ANYTHING, pathetically easy by contrast: the tools basically baby the programmer and hold their hand, at a cost of bloat.Plus, it's not just easier to program, it's easier to sell: there is no major market for "casual PC gamers." That audience are the kind of people that play Farmville, and you can't sell them a $60US disc per game; they expect their games to be free, and embedded on the Web. Meanwhile, console games are easily herded into paying that $60US+ for a game disc even if it's something crappy.[/citation]
Other than using lower resolution textures (the game resolution and texture resolution are different), many consoles rely on special tricks in order to offer decent graphics, the most common trick is to progressively use lower quality textures and objects depending on their distance, than after a certain point, you simply have a pre-rendered scene. (when playing a game that is for both the PC and a console, look at items in the distance and you will immediately notice the difference in quality).
PC games don't need this optimization as there is ample resources available, this is also why in general when a game is released for the PC it will look batter than the console version
Developers also hate making games for the PC because if they were to actually keep the generation of games current to PC hardware, either the companies will have to hire more people or we will begin to get games with only like 2-4 hours of gameplay. Most games now have crappy story lines, w few years ago, games could not wow people with graphics, ti immerse the gamer they relied on a solid story that pulled the user in. (the majority of games still sucked but the good ones were better than the good ones from today in terms of gameplay and story)
Compared to PC games, it is easier to pirate console games and most piracy happens on the console.
Console: open console, connect dvd drive to PC, flash a modded firmware, download as many games as you would like, burn them to a dvd r or rw disk, and never have to worry about cracking another game.
PC route: download a game, open a nfo file, follow a long list of tedious instructions in order to get the game running, repeat the long annoying process each time you patch, reinstall or install a new/ different PC game.
Most firmware mods are not detected by microsoft, piracy on the console is much easier, and quicker as games require no cracking, someone simply buys the game, copies the disk and puts it up for download, others download and burn to a disk.
The reason why game companies complain about pc piracy is because they are able to better track things like half of the players having an invalid serial number or some other crap.
With console, you cant tell who is using a pirated copy or a legit copy unless you go into their house and physically inspect the game disk.
Most people at me school who know nothing about computers were able to take their console apart and mod the firmware. as the process is simple and tools on the software side are automated.
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