Is pc gaming dying?

[purplerat]

your right, i dont know many people with a dip or lcd tv...thats because the fact they use a 40 dollar conversion kit to hook a 360 to a beautful 20.1-22 inch lcd monitor.

Actually the 'fact' is that very few people own HD TVs and probably even fewer use a monitor for consoles. The average consumer out there is using a tube TV w/composite video, that's why nintendo doesn't even package a HD hookup for the wii.

 

[microchip246]

I have 2 monitors for my computer, a 19 inch for the main screen and a 24 inch wide screen for secondary. I play my 360 on that screen and it looks good im satisfied with it. I see no need to get a huge expensive hdtv, when the resolution on that thing is excellent, 1920 x 1200, higher than any hdtv could go for less cash for the same size tv.

As for the whole pc gaming thing, ill just say that you always don't have to go out and buy the most expensive piece of hardware to play games really good that can still look better than ps3 and 360. I don't even see pc gaming even in the same class as console gaming. You do get more of a game selection on consoles, but the games just seem to have a higher replay value on the and they last longer!

 

[3Ball]

It is not a macbook, as I would never buy any mac product, I built it myself it is a ASUS barebone notebook and the build cost me $1000, that aside. The reason for me having them all. Gaming computer, this is something that I have as my main for when I am at home. I am sponsored by a few companies to play some games for a couple months out of the year. Hence I am not always at home. My gaming notebook is so when I go home from school, or in between classes I can kill some time or go to a lan and not have to lug around my heavy P180 case and all of the peripherals to go with the computer. The reason for my 360 is because I play console games such as, gears of war, halo (series), sports games, which I prefer on console with a controller, and call of duty 3 which is only on console and not PC. There are other game titles as well, but I do not believe that I have wasted my money in anyway and im not sure how you see that I have either because all 3 have different uses other than the blunt point of view that you see them as...it goes beyond, gaming and work, or work and gaming, and then just gaming!

Best,

3Ball

 

[trenchtoaster]

I personally spent about 1400 dollars building my computer from scratch, and damn it felt so nice.

I loved playing games on the computer and always wondered what it would be like to play with max settings and such with nice FPS and now I know. I liked physically building the computer, I liked researching the parts and deciding what to get, I love the quality of games on the PC.

Right now I only play WoW for the most part, but I also watch plenty of movies and listen to music, I know I will be able to play future games decently. The console just feels so lonely, it can't hold my attention unless I am playing with someone else.

 

[yakyb]

3 questions are being asked here
1.) what is better for gaming PC or console?

As for the whole pc gaming thing, ill just say that you always don't have to go out and buy the most expensive piece of hardware to play games really good that can still look better than ps3 and 360.

this is the point i was try to say earlier you do not need a $650 Gpu to beat a Ps3 for graphics you only need a 7900 based card ~$300 those who are trying to say cost of a pc is greater can you please be quiet now because it is not because if you use the internet at home you must add this into the overall cost of the purchase

someone mentioned controllers before and as far as they are concerned i use a Ps2 controller when playing some games on my PC and with the Pc and its good keyboard support Pcs im afraid win the controllers side of things

Ease of use no question there Consoles win hands down

whoever mentioned shoot em ups (or FPS as they are really known) then you are deluded, nothing beats the accuracy of a mouse. and esspecially in Team based fps (do consoles have a form of teamspeak yet? im not sure)

sheer performance is in no question the Pcs favour as said by Crytek devs of the up coming game Crysis
2nd generation consoles are not powerful enough to run Crysis therefor there will not be a Console Port

Performance is even for cost as indicated in my second post now however when prices drop next year Performance will be handed to Pcs

Games whilst you say more games are released on consoles (which i would argue with but ill give you that for the time being) how many derivitives of the same game are there, im not talking about sequels, im talking about genres. here is a list of a few

FPS, Platform, Sports sim,tekken style , Sports Management, RTS, Flight Sim, RPG, MMoRPG, racing, Point and click adventure(monkey island type games inc), Life simulator, management sim

i can think of a recent game under each category for the PC (apart from tekken style) i cant for the 360 or Ps3 so whilst you may(or may not) have more games availible to you they do not offer the variety of the Pc

eventually its each to there own Pluses and minuses and your desicion as to which suits what you want

2.The original Question was is PC gamimg Dying??
My answer No!
upon release of new Consoles there will always be the question of where does this leave PCs, and whilst over the the last year we have seen a slow down in revolutionary releases (since Far Cry, Doom 3, HL2 etc)
this next year looks to be very promising with the advent of DX10 (which will take a while to build up due to the requirements of Vista and hardware) games such as Crysis, C&C3 UT2007 and the very promising Alan Wake and project Offset.

3.) what do you game on?

I am personally a Pc Gamer with a console Background i personaly migrated away from Consoles as i got more interested in PC customisation. tweaking, and Performance increase (over my PS2) (as well as a large media storage system).

this i just what i personally Prefer
i also prefer Rugby over Football
Pride over Ufc
Google video over Youtube (now technically the same thing i guess)
Ham over Lamb
Salt over Pepper
Black better than White
Biros over fountain pens
girls over boys
old heavy clicky keyboards over crappy lightweight pos
you get the picture
so can we stop this arguement please as we seem to be going nowhere
and can we agree that the combined benefits of one are equal to the combined benefits of the other it all comes down to what we prefer and forward any future arguements on this topic to this Thread to stop this bickering!

 

[MayDay94]

Also, PC games can be patched over time. Ever hear of a patch for an X-Box game? If there is a flaw, you're SOL.

original xbox games have had patches for the past 5 years, ever since xbox live started. doa3 actually had a patch (really just more costumes) released on demo disks before xbox live. xbox has a hard drive and internet connectivity so really no different than pc in terms of patching. you just don't have all the user created mods/maps, but official maps and addons have been part of xbox experience for over 5 years.

 

[purplerat]

original xbox games have had patches for the past 5 years, ever since xbox live started. doa3 actually had a patch (really just more costumes) released on demo disks before xbox live. xbox has a hard drive and internet connectivity so really no different than pc in terms of patching. you just don't have all the user created mods/maps, but official maps and addons have been part of xbox experience for over 5 years.

Except for the fact that you have to pay for X-Box live in order to get those patches.

 

[Curious1]

So gaming is work for you and you don’t pay for all your hardware yourself and can get tax breaks? If that is the case, then I see why the cost doesn’t matter to you but you need to see that you are an anomaly and therefore your opinion is highly biased.

 

[purplerat]

If you have half a brain and know a little about PC hardware PC gaming shouldn't cost any more, and possibly even less then consoles while also staying ahead of them. For one, a large % of the cost of a gaming PC is the PC part which most people would pay for regardless of wether they game or not. Secondly, upgrade cost to keep up with games aren't as expensive as people make it seem because you can resell old parts to offset the cost, something you really can't do with consoles. If you bought a 360 last year and want a PS3 now, selling your 360 would mean wasting all the money spent on games and accesories for the 360. Personally PC gaming has been cheaper for me over the past 5 years then consoles. Upgrading and selling old parts cost a lot less then buying a PS2, Xbox, Game Cube, 360, PS3, Wii PLUS different games, controllers, memory cards, harddrives, network adapters, subscription services, etc, etc for EACH console.

 

[Crashman]

Remember that an Xbox 360 is probably a $500 machine specialized for games only, and the PS3, oh gawd, it probably cost them $700-800. They sell these at a loss in an attempt to kill PC gaming.

Really, the console makers are at war against PC gaming, their goal is to get everyone on their console so they can get royalties from all those game sales.

 

[KTev]

Lets think about this a little. If we assume that the gaming market on pcs goes to crap: will the pc disapear? There is no question the answer is no. As long as there are pcs there will be a pc game market maybe not as big as the consoles but it will continue.

Now lets shoot 15 years into the future. With the general idea that performance doubles every 18 months the average pc will be about 1000 (2^10) times more powerful then today. The question is, at that point can the average pc handle even the most powerful games they can develop. To give some perspective, 10 years ago I could type fast enough that a pc running word couldn't keep up. Around the time of the p3 many were asking how fast does a pc have to be: they could already handle everything people wanted. I credit the gaming and graphics/video markets for continuing to push pcs forward.

I predict that at some point in the future the hardware will exceed what game developers can put together. By that point in time either consoles will need to take on enough other duties to remain relevant or will go extinct. We can already see consoles trying to make the shift. The 360 doubles as a media extender and one of the selling points of the ps3 is blue ray.

I'm going to throw this dialog the other direction. I think the days of the console system are limited. Today they provide a service to a niche sector but in the future they will be replaced just as the small run printer has been replaced by the use of pc printing.

All I can hope for is that KTev Industries that has the dominant market share by then.

 

[Crashman]

Games still suck though. We need more things to be rendered in 3D in order to make them more realistic. We need to quit relying on "surface textures" and start replacing deeply-textured surfaces with 3D surface models. That means we need at least 100x the power to render things so that they really start to look...real.