Decline of PC Gaming?
 

I don't know if it's just me, but I think the PC games industry has been in a slight decline over the years. Maybe it's just me refusing to play a MMO, which seems to be what is flooding the PC library right now. It just seems that my favorite genres on the PC are somewhat either declining in quality or quantity. RTS games have alwasy been a favorite of mine in the PC world, but I think the last good RTS game that came out (IMO) was Age of Empires 3. I tried Rise of Legends because Rise of Nations was good, and I was severely disappointed. I'm still waiting for a direct sequel to Starcraft, my personal favorite RTS game of all time. And Warcraft 3, for how much it was hyped, sucked ass in my opinion. FPS games fare a bit better in that most of them are still fun. FEAR, Quake4, and hell, even the CS series is still gold. But this seems to have slowed down somewhat as well I haven't seen a good FPS since FEAR, so I dunno. RPGs outside of MMOs have been one of my favorites, but they're just about nonexistent in the PC world. I guess you could make a case for Oblivion, but I felt Oblivion was a little too open ended for my taste. It ended up feeling like a MMORPG without the "MO", leaving a Massive Role Playing Game. I dunno if it's just me, but the lack of any real direction kinda ruined it for me. The last RPG that was decent in my opinion was Fallout. I dunno....have I just not been looking hard enough, or are my tastes just too refined?

Eh, Fallout is pretty ancient. If you really feel that way you probably just aren't into PC rpgs in general because I can think of at least 7 rpgs right off the bat I thought were pretty "decent" since 1998 for the PC. (honestly, I could think of far more I personally enjoyed but I can think of 7 that were critically acclaimed or obsessively praised by large fanbases)

I don't really see where you're coming from either way, since pc gaming has always been a little slow IMO. There are the same number of shitty releases being released with a small ratio of "good" games as there always were. The only real difference I can see is that somewhere along the line developers ditched "point and click" style adventure games and, like you said, MMOs became the apparent "rage".

I hear Oblivion was great. PC gaming isn't declining, and it will never stop. Sure, they have a lot of crap games, but there are plenty of good ones.

Hmm....so my tastes are just really refined then.....What are some good games that you would recommend that are big? For one thing, I was never a fan of sports games or fighting games. To an extent I never got into Sim games either. I like the old school RTS games, FPS games are usually fun, and I guess the traditional RPG type game would be my third in terms of PC genres. Most other ones generally don't fit my preferences for PC games.

Some great FPS games off the top of my head are FEAR, Call of Duty 2, Half-Life 2. FEAR is getting an expansion soon, and so is Half-Life 2 (Sort of). Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is somewhat decent, though it's not at all like the original by any means. Rainbow Six Lockdown was good, but it's just a generic arcade shooter now. Still good fun though.

RTS games aren't so hot this year, but some good ones are coming. Company of Heroes, and Supreme Commander being the top two. I personally loved Empire At War for it's space battles.

RPG Games have always lacked on PC, that's true, but some pretty good ones are Oblivion, and Dungeon Siege 2. Those are the only ones that have been released semi-recently. There are other great ones too, that are a bit old, like Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2.

If you are into RPGs oblivion is a blast. Just make sure your computer can handle it :/

Yeah, I've got Oblivion, but for some reason, it just feels TOO open ended for me. That and it's not exactly a true RPG per se. Rather, it mixes too many genres together....There is indeed the RPG element as well as a somewhat FPS element but with sword fighting, and then a massive MMO world. It's the latter two that I don't like in my RPGs. FPS element is fine, but I don't like the FPS + Swordplay. MMOs, like I've said, is somewhat too open. Maybe, it'll just take some getting used to....I dunno, any other suggestions?

Neverwinter Nights for all of your RPG needs on PC.... You're looking at a shitload of hours just for the Original game, then you got the expansions, then the Premium modules and after that online content.

Virtually limitless.

Actually sales have been slipping for the past few years while console games keep growing.

The consoles are starting to look like PCs only they just play games and that's it, and they don't have roaming hardware configurations and the consoles are fairly cheap. There was an article about this in the most recent Game Informer.

I made a thread about this before the recent crash, so I might as well reply here.

I'm convinced that PC gaming is declining, although it's such a slow process that most of us (especially those who never witnessed the dawn of PC gaming) won't really notice.

Sure, the PC has a lot of great games and is home to a few select genres currently unimaginable on a console, but the days of truely awe-inspiring and innovative PC games slowly but surely is coming to an end.

The high production values undoubtedly go into console games today and it's such a better place for gaming if you look at all the advantages a gaming console has over a desktop computer. All major and well-known franchises have made their way to consoles or are even console-exklusive.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not dismissing the PC as an important platform for games, but just look at the shift of focus over the past few years. Gaming is big on consoles now, not PCs.

I've never really enjoyed gaming on my PC. I like to sit in my comfy chair, in front of a large TV, and kick back while I play a game. I'm not suggesting that PC games are inferior to console games, because I've enjoyed a vast number of titles on the PC. It's just that given the choice between the same game on console and PC, I would always choose the console verison, unless it's a terrible, lazy port.

For those reasons, the decline and even eventual fall of PC gaming is a non-issue for me. I don't like sitting at a desk to play.

You said it all! Plus most of the games I like are console exclusives or have a console version.

Anyway, PC gaming won't die so easily and half quoting a portuguese PC maganize editor: 'As long as you can use that machine over that corner to play PC game market will continue.'
Plus there are many, many PC hardcore gamers than not only buy games but also buy hardware and I'm not talking about graphic cards only and they really don't like consoles thus keeping the hardware market alive.

Also the PC the only plataform where you can truely do homebrew games and have a chance of amking some bucks with it, and now (or when MS finally releasees every part of it) with XNA you can develop a game on Pc and then port it over XBox 360. Maybe your basement 2D plataform/shooter/whatever will be the 360 next big 2D game!

And let us not forget emulation, that IMHO is the only good PC gaming :D
I think it's worth wasting 500€ on a PC just to use Kega Fusion and have some good old MegaDrive fun. Plus if we are lucky, someone, someday will create a good low level Dreamcast emulator and we shall once again enjoy Jet Set Radio, Soul Calibur 1 or the masterpiece that Shenmue is.

This thread was made first and is at least in coherent english.

Being a long time PC gamer, I definitely agree that it is on the decline. First and foremost, new games just keep requiring people to upgrade their computers, and this isn't something that everyone can afford to do. Then we have the sea of MMORPGs that simply don't interest me either, and the ton of "me-too" titles. Half-Life 2 is arguably the last great (non-mmorpg) PC game to come out, and that was in November 2004. Games like FEAR, and Battlefield 2 were good, but I could easily have lived without them.

Even the latest HoMM5 is a disappointingly average game. I'm a huge HoMM fan and I am optimistic enough to see great potential in it, but as it stands there are simply too many things to nitpick that I find little enjoyment playing it.

All in all, the best PC gaming experiences are still found in the classics made years ago (eg. StarCraft, Neverwinter Nights, Counterstrike, WarCraft 3, etc.). The next PC games that I have high expectations for are HellGate London (by the folks who made Diablo 2), and Supreme Commander (the guy who made Total Annihilation). PC gaming isn't dead, but console games are quickly catching up in the online department and with constant upgrades being a necessity, it's getting less and less appealing to always play catch-up.

my theory's always been that there will always be a "decline" as long as things are dynamic. for as long as there is change there is deviation from earlier times. i dunno if it's just nostalgia or our tastes in certain things become set in stone at a certain point in our lives, but a lot of us are resistant to changes... i guess especially in video games.

example: just think about sitting in front of the tv playing round robin style mario kart on the snes..... or is that just me? well insert your own example and you'll find as graphics and technology go "up", we're more likely to be disappointed by a lack in actual fun.

for those who didn't want to read the whole post, my theory (i repeat, theory) is the "fault" is in our expectations and not the games themselves.

If you like X-Men, there is a PC version of X-Men Legends 2(Actually has some exclusives over the console version). I also like the Lord of the Rings based RTS Battle For Middle Earth 2(I also hated Warcraft 3).

The PSP version of X-men Legends 2 also had some exclusives. I heard that the PC version stank, but I haven't tried it myself.

I've heard good things about BFME 2, and I'm thinking of picking up the Xbox 360 version when it comes out in July.

From what little I messed around with it, I couldn't really tell much difference between the PC version and the console version. I would never try playing it without a USB gamepad though.

Wow, I haven't checked this thread in a while and it exploded....

But yeah, I see that it's not just me seeing a decline in PC games. I personally prefer PC games to most other Console Games:

1. Completely configurable, Able to strike a balance of performance and quality to fit personal tastes.

2. Much more personalization of games. (i.e. customizable characters like whoa as opposed to "unlockable costumes" of the consoles, which are near pointless)

3. Better Multiplayer online than any console out on the market. (or at least ultimately less headaches getting it to work)

4. No Split Screen Multiplayer (at least for the most part. This pissed me off the most on many console games)

That said.....PC gaming I still feel is on the decline:

1. Harder and harder to keep up with the technology curve (at for graphic whores) with nVidia and ATI releasing a card like every 3 months.

2. PC games right about now are getting relatively few good games with more console-to-PC ports and games that are absolute crap.

3. As I said before, PC library is filling up with MMOs which personally, I'm not a fan of.

I think point 1 will probably correct itself soon with pricetags on the PS3 and XBOX360. With the cheapest of each at $499 and $299, respectively, the same money could get you a very nice graphics card....I'm talkin about cards in the high range with GeForce 7900GT ringing in at about $309.99 or a Radeon X1800XT at $319.00 (prices courtesey of newegg.com). Afterwards though, with the complete control of Performance/Quality comes a complicated process, especially those who aren't that bright technologically. It's a long process for the impatient, compared to the time it takes to pop in a game like Halo 2 to properly configuring F.E.A.R for fun gameplay, the difference is quite a bit. Then again, if you're playing F.E.A.R, you should already know how to configure it quickly, so it won't be that much of a problem, so at any rate, that'll fix itself too.

Now, the only problem is the problem of the games. As said before, the library is filling up with MMOs, Crap, More Crap, and Console-to-PC Ports, which count usually as even more crap. This is not to say there are no good games coming out or already out, because F.E.A.R is a damn good game with an expansion coming out some time soon. Classics will always stay (Starcraft, Counter-strike, Quake/Doom series, etc.), and I'm sure good games will continue to come out. It's just recently been somewhat slowing.

I'm somewhat ambivalent with your theory personally as my expectations haven't changed. I've always prefered traditional games over those that are overly revised. I'd take Final Fantasy VI over Final Fantasy XI any day, Similarly, I'd prefer Starcraft over Warcraft III. That is not to say new games all suck, because I'd prefer F.E.A.R over any Resident Evil and Quake 4 over any other Quake. I'm just saying that games that are deviating too far away from the original formula for those games I tend to alienate myself from. A good example is Tony Hawk series, where the first game and the second game were fun games (That is Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 and 2). The Tony Hawk Underground 2 revision is pretty much crap. Alternatively, there are always some good, new ideas that are worth trying and become genuinely fun. While there aren't many nowadays, there was a time when some of our systems were newly invented and unheared of before, including the ATB system in the Final Fantasy series or the idea of a real time strategy before it exploded. I personally saw the ATB system a unique characteristic of the Final Fantasy Series. Now that they have ditched it in their newest games, I have lost contact with the Final Fantasy series somewhat.

I personally believe PC gaming is going down hard. Mainly because everyone is trying to bring better graphics with each game and its hard as hell to keep up with technology. I read above someone said oblivion is great? yes it really is it does kick alot of ass, BUT! right now it has a ton of problems crashing of all sorts, im waiting on a patch myself and then ill play it again. PC gaming i think will die from hacing to upg your computer all the time to be able to play when you could just buy a console and them last 5-7 years and no extra hardware needed other than controllers or maybe memory cards.

That was back in the day when consoles did not sell for that much. Nowadays, the price of two decent graphics cards will cost about as much as a console (referring to PS3 and XBOX360). So if you see it this way, You could get midrange cards everytime at about $100-$200 price range. Those will be sufficient to play the games. Like Oblivion....I'm running a Pentium 4 2.8GHz with 896MB PC3200 RAM and a GeForce 6600GT. It runs fine at framerates ranging from 30-50FPS.

Wow, FPS Games havn't been good since FEAR? Play games like Condemned: Criminal Origins if you feel that you need a original twist on the FPS genre, Also if you havn't already pick up Half Life 2 I noticed you did not mention that one so thats why I am mentioning it as an amazing title.

RPG wise, Have you played the Star Wars: Knights of the old rebulic game? It's an amazing RPG experiance, In my opinion it's a better game then Fallout. I don't understand how you do not like Oblivion, Yes maybe The Elder Scrolls 3 could have seemed boring to the average gamer but Obvlivion kept with the same formula but added so much more that it became one of the most addictive RPG titles to hit the PC.

Also, Slow down on the "dunno".

Maybe I need to give Oblivion a second chance, but I've already played through Half Life 2, and there's no compelling reason, for me anyways, to play through it again. Maybe I should check out KOTOR. I've never been a fan of Star Wars, but this might be a turn for the better. I'll give it a try. I've never heard of Condemned: Criminal Origins, but I'll look for that too. Thanks.

For some reason, western RPGs aren't as appealing to me as Japanese ones, probably because I prefer anime-like sprites and brightly colored background... it's a shame that no companies are willing to bring over all those RPGs Falcom has made for PC over the past 7 years oversea...

KOEI should also consider localizing their RoTK series for PC here, they did that for PS2 with crappy resolution and complicated controls which can be executed with a few clicks of a mouse in the PC version...

I find PC gaming is slowing down like someone said before, because the graphics are to much for alot of people to be able to run. The average computer user will buy a computer knowing little about it except it may look pretty and ignore key things like the processor and video card. When they buy this computer it will probally be in some lame store that should never be allowed to sell PCs, and will come out with a brand new E-Machines or Compac. I used to have an E-Machines and it seems their goal is to make the shittiest computers possible to lure people, then design their computers so they are only compatible with E-machine upgrades that are hella expensive.

My point is to play games like FEAR, and Oblivion you actually have to know a fair bit about computers and can't impulsivly buy it with little worries like consols. I really want to play Oblivion but my graphics card isn't quite good enough (radeon 9600 pro)

The Sierra Quest games outside of FPSs are what made me an avid PC gamer. With no more of them I don't just dont' care anymore

My point exactly. People buy console games because they're easy to use and you don't need to know a thing about how the damn thing operates. All you need to know to play the game. Pop in a CD and close the tray and the game loads for you. Easy. PCs, you get the "Why does my computer crash when I try to load a game?" "Why is it so slow?" "Why won't it startup?" Let's face it, gamers everywhere are simply either too stupid or not patient enough to deal with these problems.

BTW, when I say decline of PC gaming, I didn't mean there aren't any good games out right now, I'm saying the flow of games has been greatly decreasing. I'm sure the ratio of good:crap games are still there, but because it's so much slower now, It feels like so much longer before we get good games.

Those problems have always been associated with PCs, I don't see why it's even an issue at this point.

Also, it's not like you always need top of the line hardware to play on the PC, unless you're a graphics whore.

I think the minimum requirements now-a-days to run a modern game is more around:

a P4 @ 2.0/AMD Athlon XP 2600+ or AMD64 @ 2.0
nVidia GPU at least in the 6 series 128MB/no idea with ATI series (not a user :P ); more than likely something in the 9000 series??
A gig of ram obviously DDR400/PC3200

Hmm I feel the consoles are going to be the ones on the decline with the high price of the "next gen" consoles that will without a doubt have issues reading games later on in their life span makes buying a PS3/Xbox 360 or WII not worth it... I think the PC should be the prefered platform for developers since it's price does not suck and it costs them nothing to drop games on it.... and oh yeah... the PS3 costs as much as one of those high end PCs now... so yeah...

I can only hope so....I'm an avid PC gamer and I hope good games continue to come out for PC. Not that I don't like Consoles (A Nintendo Fan BTW) but PCs are much more versatile than any Console out on the market right now bar none. Yes, PS3 does cost about as much as a decent PC right about now. Considering that you have been keeping up with your PC, (meaning you kept the stuff you don't need to change, i.e. Case, PSU, Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor, Speakers, etc.) a decent upgrade for a PC is about $500*. Coming in at about $100 less than a PS3. That is an upgrade that is capable of playing all the latest games mind you.

*This price is on Newegg. It's an Athlon 64 4000+ Processor with Compatible Mobo and a Radeon X1800GTO and 1 GB of RAM.

A high end PC costs $600? Thats news to me.

Nah, A decent PC costs about $600 though. That's not one capable of playing Oblivion, granted, but a stock PC will be able to play Oblivion once you drop another $150 on a decent Graphics card like the GeForce 7600GT.

A $600 PC with a moderate video card isn't going to get as good of a performance as a Xbox360, though. (On Oblivion, I mean) Maybe if you change 600 to somewhere in the 800~900 range it would be more believable.

I really haven't noticed the decline of PC gaming but to be honest 90% of the games on my PC are either RTS games or turn based strategy games. I tend to favor console gaming for all the other games I enjoy. It's been a bit lackluster recently in strategy games lately. Empire at War dissapointed. Ditto for D&D Dragonshard. The Winter Assault Expansion felt like too small of an update to Dawn of War for my tastes. I am rather happy with Galactic Civilizations II though. On the other hand I'm used to slow periods between good strategy games. Console gaming has pretty much destroyed PC gaming's golden age. After all why blow $1500 on a PC when you can spend $400 on a 360?

WTF?
A low end PC costs 700€.
A moderate PC costs 1500€.
A good PC costs 3500€.
A high end PC costs 8000€.

A excelent PC costs over 15000€.

You doubt? Just go to Alienware choose workstations and start pumping it up, before you kow it the bill will be in $14000
Of course this is not a gaming PC but a work PC (as in Pixar like work PCs).

And I take console over PC any day because PC games are mostly stratagy and FPS.

First of all, Why the hell are you going to Alienware? They're overpriced as hell. If you made your own, I guarantee you I can make a Computer capable of playing Oblivion with $1000 USD.

EDIT: I'll prove it to you.....Assuming you kept everything else I didn't list....

Albatron K8SLi Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail - $69.99
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester 2000MHz HT 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor - Retail - $357.00
XFX PVT70GUDF7 Geforce 7800GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail - $289.00
Patriot Signature Series 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail - $79.99

Hell I think that's all you need. What is that? $70 + $357 + $289 + $80 = $796. One of your "low-end" PCs. We can make more cuts on it too and I'd be sure that it could still play Oblivion. Granted $600 was as bit low, but a Low-End does not start at $700.

Proof that it plays Oblivion? My piece of shit Dell plays oblivion running a Intel P4 Prescott 2.8GHz plays Oblivion very well with a GeForce 6600GT and 896MB RAM (3x128 + 1x512). Now you can't tell me that one above can't cut it.

Dude... I said: "Of course this is not a gaming PC but a work PC (as in Pixar like work PCs)."

You may run any game on a 700€ machine but that doesn't mean it is a high end or excelent machine machine.
You were talking about a Athlon64 with 1 Gb of RAM and a game graphic card.
I'm talking about a system with 2 AMD Opteron CPUs, a professional graphic card (QuadroFX) and 16 (sixteen) Gb of RAM! Granted this is only for professional work only but this is indeed the most high end machine you can get in desktop/workstation level. More powerfull than this and you have to move to servers/supercomputers or Beowulf clusters.

Stop being a moron, we're obviously talking about high end GAMING PCs. The operative word being GAMING.

We don't give a damn what Pixar uses for their high end PCs.

PC Gaming isn't on the decline because of hardware. PC Games have always fluctuated in 3 to 4 year cycles where the new stuff won't work with older hardware. Perhaps some of you don't remember when you couldn't play 66mhz games with 33mhz processors, but I do.

There's a huge base of gamers that do know the ins-and-outs of their PCs, and do pay the money to keep up in terms of the hardware. That's because a lot of PC Gamers aren't 13, and actually have paying jobs and an income. You're also paying for more than just a gaming platform when you buy a PC. It doesn't matter if you can use a mouse and keyboard on an Xbox, nobody is going to game on it like they do a PC. Using it as so is just redundant, and leads to a lot of software compatibility issues.

Consoles are starting to lose a lot of the appeal they used to have. It's getting to the point where you can't even purchase complete games anymore. The online sweetspot has given console developers casus belli to justify early releases followed by the extensive patching that has plagued PC Gaming since its inception. The pre-requisite of unstable HD standards is also going to create huge dents in gamer's pocketbooks, since they'll be shelling out over a thousand dollars for a television that may not even be viable in the next two years in addition to the original 300-600 dollars they payed for the console. The only company that isn't adopting these trends seems to be Nintendo, which is why the Wii will be the first Nintendo console I've owned since the original NES.

The fact of the matter is that consoles are beginning to cost as much to make as mid-range PCs. The PS3 costs over a thousand dollars US to make, yet Sony is only selling it for 600 in the hopes that software sales will subsidize their cost of production. That's a lot of games for the average owner to buy, which is pushing it, since the lowest common denominator isn't like you and me, and has an extensive game library.

PC Gaming is on the decline because PC games suck. Don't believe me? Let's take a look at the big genres as they stand today compared to a couple years ago.

Modern Role Playing games barely qualify as roleplaying experiences to begin with. I don't see how you can say roleplaying gamers are sure to love Oblivion when that title has more in common with Grand Theft Auto than franchises like Fallout, KOTOR, and the early Ultima series that create tangible consequences in the game world based on the player's choices. Low-budget offerings are on the right track, but they get no real exposure. That a lot of them tend to be developed in Europe doesn't help either.

First Person Shooters are a dime a dozen. HL2 had great single player and multiplayer, but it serves more as a springboard for Steam than anything else. Valve's pay-to-play content doesn't hold a candle to what free mods used to offer. I love DoD: Source, but it doesn't hold a candle to the original Day of Defeat in terms of what it offers. 3rd parties can't just code-in the British, after all. HL2:ep1 is the same stuff you played in the original HL2, only with an incremental story progression and more shots of Alyx's ass. Everybody likes the first Sin episode, of course, but there's a very legitimate concern over whether or not 6 hours of gameplay is worth 20 dollars.

Doom3 was a great single player experience, but its multiplayer is very noob-hostile in terms of its accessibility (people who have played Quake 3 for the past 6 years are much more knowlegeable of Id's engine dynamics than people like me). Quake 4, not surprisingly was phenomenally average, and Call of Duty 2 lacked some of the lustre of its predecessor while offering little more in terms of its multiplayer. It also doesn't help, I suppose, that a lot of these titles are cross-platform releases, and as a result have been "dumbed down" by PC standards.

RTSes are just lame. I'm sorry, but whether it's Swords and Sworcery, or starships and phasers, it's all the same shit from a decade ago. RTSes are only truly great when the playable factions are well balanced between each other, and the gameplay actually involves a level of strategy. Supreme Commander seems poised to offer these, but the rest of the genre falls flat on its face. Even the sweetspot tactical RTSes are lacking in a lot of respects. Having to cater to their small online element, Rome: Total War had AI that was even dumber than in Medieval, and the player could simply hold back and decimate the AI with arrows before moving in for the kill. Granted, this is how the English defeated the French with the longbow, but the difference between the French and Rome's AI is that the French actually fought.

Other than that, I honestly can't comment much on RTSes. The Warhammer 40k game Dawn of War seemed pretty solid, but I could only repeat what I've heard through 2nd hand.

Honestly, what's going to save PC Gaming is digital distribution and its accessibility to independant developers. Steam is great and all but Valve makes a lot of shady business practices, which is why the advent of Galactic Civilizations 2 has proven the viability of the PC as a future gaming platform.

Galciv2 proved a lot of things:

1. Copy Protection is horseshit. Galciv2 had no cd copy protection, and yet it still rose to the top of Wal-Mart's retail charts. This disproves the notion that gaming sales have gone down because of piracy, as opposed to the fact that PC games just suck.

2. Digital Distribution is a great way to make more money for developers. With the distributor taken out of the picture, that means a bigger slice of the pie for developers themselves, which supplements the cost of developing the next project. Galciv2 itself wouldn't have been possible if it hadn't been for the online success of the Windows Galciv, which created a lot of revenue for Stardock. Not bad for a 10 man development team, eh?

3. People aren't interested in the name as much as they are by the gameplay. Publishers latch onto franchises like they were candy found on the street, preserved in its wrapper. Fallout, Ultima, X-Com, Command & Conquer, countless franchises have fallen by the wayside because their sequels failed to offer experiences that satisfied the original fandom. Galciv 2 proved this by offering gameplay that Masters of Orion fans loved, but wasn't offered at all in MOO3. It isn't about the name of the game that draws people, or even the narrative. It's the game.

The future of PC gaming depends in a large part on how many companies are willing to follow Stardock's example. The end result would be a lot of low-budget titles that are accessible and fun to play while making the process viable to independant developers. Sure you'd still have your big-budget successes like your FEARs, and Half-Life 2s, but niche gaming is what will support the PC as a gaming platform, and really that's what PC Gaming has always been to the mainstream: a niche.

What do you mean? There are persons how like to play with keyboard + mouse rathar than a gamepad? What has it to do with decline of the PC gaming?

I for one think patches in consoles are god sent, devs just can't spend that much time hunting bugs to meet the deadlines so patching is really needed. Even if they have the time some bugs will pass by their QA team so patch is teh good.
Of course abuse is abuse and they shouldn't release early titles and then patch them 999999 times. And I haven't understood this sentence: "It's getting to the point where you can't even purchase complete games anymore."

Again? This argument is getting tired, the X360 doesn't require any HDTV, it supports it but will also work on any TV that has a SCART or composite plugs, i.e. any TV that's not 20 years old. I still don't know about the PS3 but I doubt they'll require anything asides the SCART/composite. This is the so called 'Wii talk' where Nintendo fans rant against XBox360/PS3 pseudo requirements...

Go figure... the Wii also connects to the internet so there's space for 99999 patches games too. If Nintendo blocks patches then you're left with buggy games. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. And the Wii also 'requires' LCD TV. i.e. It doesn't, like the X360/PS3 it only requires a special TV for special functions (progressive scan in this case).

The subsidized consoles are a wierd problem, if they aren't subsidized they'll cost more, if they do the games cost more... troublesome indeed. Anyway you can get a 360 for 300€, I dare you to find/build a PC with the same horsepower a 360 has for just 300€.

I sure do! I only play emulated games (Megadrive/PSX) on PC, so you bet I do.

Depends on the prices and conditions, for example some time ago I wanted to buy Legacy of Kain: Defiance, if I bought as a digital ditribuition I would pay 20€, I would need to activate it and then reactivate everytime I play it on a diferent PC. That means this PC would need to be connected to the internet, if it wasn't I wouldn't be able to play, plus you only get 5 free reactivations then you have to pay again for a game that it's yours.
The retail/CD version costs 8€...

SO TRUE!! This is what RIAA (in USA), game publishers, you name it need to understand. In fact I remember a very nice quote from someone in a forum:
"It's funnier to try and break a game copy protection than to play the game itself."

As I said it depends on the method.

PC lacks variety in games.
PC games need Patches and fixes after release in other words they are not optimized well for all cards.(FEAR for example,200 mb patch that's ridiculous).
PC needs upgrades every year,new tech comes in which then is applied in new games making your card obsolete.
PC is HD less.
How many of you guys think ,your PC can run upcoming CRYSIS?...lol.

PC is best for repetitive online games,RTS and FPS with refurbished ideas.
PC lacks creativity.
Evry PC hit also comes on consoles.
PC share of market is 8%(actiontrip).

Yeah PC is DEAD.

True
So do console games, just because there weren't any 'till now doesn't mean they didn't re

True and these upgrades are expensive.

WTF? Are you dumb? PC have been HD capable for years, PCs have been HD capable since Windows 95, maybe with (lots of) limitation be able anyway.

True... PC games are boring

PC doesn't lack anything, it's just a machine therefor has no creativity or any other feeling/thought.

True, at least the for the kind of games I like.

Have no clue

The PC is a machine and has no life, therefor it can't die. But it can burn :lolsign:

It's a pre-emptive argument against people who would use mouse and keyboard attachments on their consoles to get PC-like controls with First Person Shooters while also acting as a double-whammy to defend against people that mod their Xboxes to function like computers.

The idea being that it isn't the platform that is the problem.

A "Complete Game" has certain connotations for a lot of people, but in this case I'm referring specifically to the issues that are involved in a game launch. It used to be, before you could patch games, that releases needed to be bug-free in order to sell well. It didn't matter what speed internet connection you had, it didn't even matter if you did have the internet, it wasn't an issue. That was one of the benefits to console gaming that can no longer be particularly touted.

Nintendo becomes the exception, since even though they're starting to receive a lot of 3rd party support, they're still requiring all games to have a seal of approval. This is a kind of quality assurance that doesn't exist anywhere anymore.

Yet they do require High Definition televisions to enable a lot of their features, as well as provide imagery that competes with the current level of PC graphical capabilities. In short, I hope you enjoy paying money for features you can't use.

Which fails to take into account Nintendo's quality assurance. If anything, the Wii being connected to the internet will mean more downloadable content as opposed to required patches. Granted, this does leave the gate open for them, but doing so means that Nintendo has given up on part of the business practice that has made them such a successful niche group.

I don't intend to. On the other hand, you can use the PC for more than just gaming. If we get down to la nitty gritty, I COULD build a PC with the same horsepower as a 360 if it meant that I wouldn't have necessary components for, like, having a PC. What people predominantly associate with gaming in terms of PCs, the video cards, are only half the cost of the current consoles if you're buying last-generation or last-iteration video cards, which would last you about 3 to 4 years as it was.

See, this is the flaming retard realm of Digital Distribution, and fails to take into account anything that makes it beneficial to both the developer, and the consumer. I mean, honestly, when you can have your own copy for half the price, why even bother in the first place?

Double Post:
devil already covered a few things, so I'm going to pick up his slack.

Nigger please. As if your anime-fighter battle menus, platformers, and beat-em-ups are anything to shake a stick at.

This is horseshit. Who has even had to upgrade their hardware in a year unless they've bought aging cards to begin with? Upgrading PC hardware is all about making large jumps as opposed to keeping up with the pace of what's "hip" and "happenin."

OH GOOOOD I CAN'T ENABLED HDR LIGHTING WHAT WILL BECOME OF MY GAMING EXPERIENCE!!!!!? =(((((((

Just the ones with 64-bit processors and decent video cards. If I made the leap to 64-bit I could run Crysis with the rest of my hardware. Closer inspection of Crysis, however, reveals a graphical and gaming leap that's extraordinarily incremental.

Here's footage of chinks in a jungle! Trees fall down! EXCITING!

I'm not even going to touch repetition again. You're failing to take into account, though, the kind of point-and-click interface that makes the PCRPG. I'd like to see drag-and-drop menu systems and radial combat menus on the console. Oh wait, you can't have those, I forgot. :)

http://www.armchairempire.com/images...xenosaga_3.jpg

=/

To be played with an inferior control scheme, and more often than not, inferior graphics. Oh wait, I forgot, you can pay 20 more dollars for the same game on the 360. Silly me. :)

Well I'd like to see how RE4 and DMC3 turn out on PC... Onimusha 3's port wasn't great, but it was fairly decent. I love to see console only games get ported to PC, they will definitely improve the variety we are limited to right now.

I think Bradylama got most of it already, but nevertheless....

Um....I think he means that there is simply no reason to buy such an accessory since those who own XBOXes are not going to play a game in a Keyboard/Mouse fashion, or else, they'd just buy the PC game instead. Regardless, any game that is a console exclusive is probably mapped out for a controller and not a keyboard, making the keyboard ultimately unnecessary.

Um....I was under the impression that the use of patches was always a crutch that PC gamers faced in order to get a product out on time. THey would usually code the program game quickly to meet deadlines and then iron out the bugs later. So, patches aren't a good thing. Alternatively, they could just push the damn deadline back and ensure a quality product in order to negate the need for patches, because, let's face it, it's a pain in the ass to go out and get the patches. Hopefully, we get back on topic of PC Gaming not a PC vs Console war.

Ditto on the first part.

So....why are we talking about consoles again? BTW, I think the argument against the PS3/360 is that if you paid that much for a console, you expect it to deliver what it promises. Since both companies have been boasting about HDTV for so long, I, as a consumer, want to be guaranteed that this console will do what they've been saying. Now that you come out with a console and tell me that it can only do it on a more expensive version, I'm going to be pissed. It's a requirement in that they've been boasting that and not delivering it universally.

Bradylama already responded to this. So whatever.

For the most part, you should already have a PC that is up to date with modern games, or at least decently up to date. In that case, All you need to do is to pop a $150 on a decent video card and up your RAM if you need to. 1GB RAM is about $80, so yeah, that's less than $300. Now, if you don't have a computer, I suspect you probably don't have an HDTV either.

Something I agree on. Not that they suck, but they're beginning to suck. Emulators for me!:biggrin:

Now this dumbass.....

1. There's quite a bit of variety in PC games. I can't say I'm a fan of all of them, but I know they exsist.

2. I agree that patches are somewhat crutches to an extent for PC Gaming

3. Only if you're a graphics whore who notices the minute differences between a 7800GTX and a 7900GTX.

4. My current Resolution: 1280x1024.

5. Touche. But I know my friend can. (Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 1GB RAM, GeForce 7600GT)

EDIT: Hell, even I can....

Quote:

CPU: Athlon 64 3200+/Intel 5xx series Graphics: Nvidia 6600/X800GTO (SM 2.0) RAM: 768Mb/1Gb on Windows Vista HDD: 6GB Internet: 256k+ Optical Drive : DVD Software: DX9.0c with Windows XP

That move to a 64-bit system....

Intel Pentium 4 506 Prescott 533MHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail - $91.99

6. Bullshit. There have been plenty of new ideas that come to PCs oustide of RTS and FPS. Considering how you forgot MMOs. I guess you haven't read through the previous posts.

7. See Above.

8. Yeah, but significantly inferior quality.

OK, I'm done now, can we get back to PC Gaming?

I tried Oblivion again, and now that I've explored a bit more of the game, I'd have to agree, it's a bit more fun than what I frst said it was. (Now I don't have to spend 3 days finding out where I'm going. I finally found the Fast Travel method. :doh:

Never tried clicking on something on your map, huh?

Skexis brought up Spore in my chocojournal, and that seems to be a game that'll blow people's minds. Biosphere is also set to offer a great horror roleplaying experience. Sure it'll be on the Xbox360, but do you really want to play it on an Xbox? =/

PC Gaming may not be dying yet.

Ok first lets do rundown

Best of PC

WoW=MMORPG

Crysis
Farcry
HL2
Fear
Fear 2(inevitable)
Prey
CallofDuty 1,2 and 3
Unreal series
Quake series
Doom3
Sin
You can name any other technically sound and hit pc game ,it would be definatley FPS.

All are FPS with refurbished gameplay,but same run,hide and shoot affair.Superficial gameplay changes like physics.

But still, mother of all FPS came to Xbox and it was HALO,HALO 2 sold 125$ on first day,created entertainment history.End of argument,biggest evidence.

PC 'thinks' about FPS only but one console FPS fucks all its FPS games skyhigh,pity.

When i said VARIETY i meant more GENRE'S.More than 3 i.e RTS,MMORPG and FPS.

What Consoles gave us

Zelda series (wait for twilight princess).
Metroid prime(Hybrid genre)
MGS series(stealth action)
Fighting games like DOA,Tekken,SoulCaliber,you cant even begin to imagine playing fighting games on PC...lol
GT series(racing)
PGR series

Mario,i don't like it but ppl dig it.(platformer)
Jak and Daxter,Ratchet series

HALO series.(Fps)

FinalFantasy series.(RPG)

I dont have to mention games like ICO,Shadow of the colossus and god of war because it already too much and list of consoles variety never ends.

And now every developer is considering 360 first and ideal platform.
Id software and Valve for example.
Even Oblivion developers made the controls more friendly on 360 version,
How?(check the gamespot review for details).

Bradylama:From creativity i meant games like ICO,Shadow of the Colossus,Katamari to name a few.
I didn't mean new FPS with advanced shader model and physics.
Name the games on PC which you think is creative then i iwll counter you ,dont throw one pic from console huge library,to satisfy yourself.

And BTW, Console library(of good games) is way bigger than PC's.

PC lacks japanese support.

Wii and its remote is another SLAP on PC.That what i call gaming.
Gaming is not about Shaders and HDR, its way beyond that.

Reggie nicely said,Games are not about souping up existng formula like you customize your car thats one vehicle
Its about giving you entirely new dimesnion of interactivity and concepts.An entirely new vehicle.

'PC is dead because No gameplay innovations'.

You're using games that haven't been previewed, much less released as evidence. They can't possibly be the "best of PC" if they aren't available. I could list some games like Warhammer 40,000, Black & White 2, or classics like Bad Mojo, Fallout, Baldur's Gate, and so on, but in my eyes it's hard to make a claim for the decline of PC gaming in the first place, considering most if not all console games eventually find their way into user's windows-operated machines.

Example: KOTOR is one of my favorite games...for the PC.
Prince of Persia was fantastic...played on my PC.
Fahrenheit is a new classic for me. I have it...for PC.

Getting back to playing older games on PC, though: the accessibility of PC systems is what often makes me prefer a game on PC rather than on console. Knowing that I can install or uninstall it pretty much at leisure (rather than requiring a backwards-compatibility module on my console) is reassuring. How do I know how long they'll let me play the PSX version of Street Fighter Alpha 3? Will I have to drag my dusty old PS2 out of the closet some time in the future to play a round or two, disc read errors and all?

Now, console exclusives exist, sure. PC exclusives exist as well. Trying to compare the two is apples and oranges, because the developers just want to make a buck. If they can do that by offering console exclusivity, they'll do it. If they see that there is a market for certain kinds of games on a certain kind of console (the way many people said RPGs was a Sony-owned market for the longest time) then you can damn well bet they'll put their game where ti will have the best effect, for the least cost.
Saying that developers are abandoning the PC because the exclusives you've seen are all the same kind of game doesn't hold up. What you're really saying is that all of the games with the most publicity (i.e. the most money riding on their success, i.e. the most parent company clout) show up the most in stores and magazine ads. And that's true. I don't think innovation necessarily means abandoning an audience at its most rapt, however. I may have played Blade Runner before, but that doesn't necessarily mean I won't enjoy Syberia or Dreamfall.

This is all still bullshit politics. Saying "computer < consoles lol" doesn't earn you any street cred, okay?

Not even out yet. What the fuck. Unless you downloaded it.

PC gaming has lost its innovation overtime. Titles like Clive Barker's Undying are some examples of what I talk about. Something that has a good story and not necessarily mean have a multiplayer aspect. Another is Deus Ex. I mean, there's quite the good story and all that, something that has been lost in Invisible War because the developers of the second just decided to stick with anything cyber and dystopian, something people have seen way beforehand.

Another recent release is Rome: Total War. That is one of the finest RTS games I have ever had the fortune of playing. No building up of soldiers, no buildings, no superweapons and no weapon upgrades. Just legions of soldiers/archers/cavalry/siege weaponry and you do whatever it takes to win in an open field/mountain/settlement etc. Classic.

Lot of games have potential sure, but it's what we've seen beforehand. It just has an improved interface/graphics etc.

Something I want to underline, because I don't think people have recognized it for what it is.

The vast majority of DOS and windows-based games operate under current windows operating systems. Those that don't usually have exe fixes or emulators available to let them play on a windows system.

Just because people play games that came out years before doesn't mean PC gaming is in decline. It just means people can play those games much more easily, and hell, if they're good, more power to those people.

The same option didn't exist with consoles up until PS2, so it's only recently that console developers have been catching on. The question is, how much of their resources are they willing to put into backwards compatibility?

Now whether or not Microsoft decides to continue their support for a backlog of games is pretty much irrelevant. The fact that this question even exists should be a reminder to everyone here that console gaming is competitive in nature, and the companies are only willing to give so much attention to something that earns them little or no profit.

By comparison, windows gaming is very often community-oriented, and will often foster groups devoted to seeing that games continue to be playable into the forseeable future. I might really want to play Full Throttle on windows XP, and normally, I wouldn't be able to. But because I'm using SCUMMV, I can. This kind of universality is something the PC offers that can't really be equalled by consoles in their current state.

Anyone who calls the most repetitive, dull, and generic FPS of all time the "mother of all FPS" clearly has no business discussing the subject of video games, but I'll go ahead and humor you for a minute.

In addition to some of the games already mentioned like Spore, KOTOR, and Black and White, let's not forget:

-The Civilization series (Turn-based strategies are vastly different from RTS's, don't even start that)
-The Sims series (Aside from the SimCity games, I'm not a big fan of them, but a lot people are)
-The Battlefield series (a hybrid of FPS and RTS)

What. Okay, ignoring the fact that Oblivion was dumbed down and crippled by its 360 version, any man who claims that playing a first person game with a controller rather than a keyboard and mouse is either lying or mentally impaired. I mean, hmmmmm, I wonder why I can only map spells to the numbers 1-8? Why not 9 and 0? Hell, why not any key I'm not using? Oh, that's right, it's because the Xbox 360's second analog stick can only point in 8 directions.

And lastly, I'll be damned if I sit on my hands and let you group Half-Life 2 with all those other shooters. On its own, it's an incredibly fun and inventive game, but that's not even what I want to talk about. It's all about the mods. Well, namely, one mod - Garry's Mod. It's sheer, unadulterated fun, and easily one of the most entertaining games I've ever played.

For example, in how many games can you make these? (Note the banner and the entry. And okay, I've been meaning to remake the dance with a static camera and a bit of bloom lighting on, but my point still stands). Or, for that matter, in how many games can do do almost any fucking thing you want? I rest my case.

So how about simulators (which encompass a wide variety of titles from flight simulators, to business, to racing, to space sims, to the Sims family), or Turb-Based Strategy, or 4x games, or galactic exploration, CRPGs, Adventure games, puzzle games, tactical combat. The list goes on and on and on.

And since you seem confident enough to bring up future titles, what do you have to say about Spore? A game where you determine the evolution of a species from a single-celled organism in the primordial soup to a galaxy-faring race?

Don't talk to me about variety or innovation. XIII was one of the most underrated FPSes to date, but I suppose you wouldn't know anything about that.

As for your wide range of genres:

Zelda series. Action RPG
Metroid prime. FPS/platformer
MGS series Stealth shooter (hello Thief)
"Fighting games like DOA,Tekken,SoulCaliber,you cant even begin to imagine playing fighting games on PC...lol" I could if I owned a gamepad. Too bad there isn't a market for it, though, since fighters are about as interchangeable as your child's kidneys. Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter 4 are great games swimming in an ocean of bile.
GT series. Racing sim.
PGR series. More racing.
Mario. Platformer.
Jak and Daxter,Ratchet series. Platformers.
HALO series. First Person Shooter
FinalFantasy series. Calling this an RPG is a laugh. Calling the genre innovative is HILARIOUS. Steambot and FFXII are exceptions to the rule, not the example.

So aside from Fighters and Platformers, how much genre variety does the console honestly have?

Bull fucking shit. Unless you call lacklustre support a consideration for the 360's superiority, then Valve and Id are all up in that.

And they are, indeed a few.

Arguing the dick size of game libraries is an excercize in futility as it is, since people are only going to buy the games they're actually interested in.

But it does have South Korean support.

Yeah, a controller gimmick that will make your arms tired is a surefire slap in the face of the PC market. Nevermind the DS stylus. I wouldn't expect you to actually formulate an intelligent rebuttal, though.

You're a fucking idiot.

Bring this trash again and you will be banned from this thread. It would be different if you had any clue what you were talking about, but your general idiocy and failing English is coming off as borderline trolling.

The last thing you can do(once you are cornered) is to ban.
This shows how cheap you can get, and further makes my arguments more meaningful and potent.They are hurting you.

You call me troll here is some research work..lol.
Go to Gamerankings.com and find out the top three best rated games ever.
I hope this is not trolling.
All top three games are console games.

How much you can neglect/Ignore???

Console rulz.

DeusEx too ruled,but it was back then,yeah i totally agree back then PC was ruling,PC used to cover all genre's but now shame.

I am objective unlike Brady,who is intolerant of anything different from his own likeness.

Laffo.

Has it occurred to you that in his original post, he made a few of the same claims you have, he just didn't make blanket statements?

Did anybody else catch that?

Actually, Console seems to be on the decline too......considering the top games are an N64 game, a DC game, and a PS1 Game...

Additionally, at 1up, here's their best at E3.....

Best Action Game: Lost Planet (XBOX360)
Best Adventure Game: Twilight Princess (GC)
Best Shooting Game: Quake Wars (PC)
Best Racing Game: Excite Truck (Wii)
Best RPG Game: Hellgate: London (PC)
Best Simulation Game: Spore (PC)
Best Strategy Game: Supreme Commander (PC)
Best Fighting Game: Virtua Fighter 5 (PS3)
Best Visuals: Crysis(PC)
Best Game Trailer: MGS4 (PS3)
Most Original: Wii Sports (Wii)
Best Sports: NCAA Football 2007 (Multi-Console)

So yeah, that's quite an impressive showing for the PC. I'm excited.....

Liar. The only thing you've hurt is my intelligence. I hope you enjoy not wasting your time and ours.

Word. Halo and its sequel are severely overrated. Exactly what did it have to offer that hadn't been done before in a FPS? I honestly would like to know.

Frat appeal. And a gamepad control scheme that didn't make people ARGH FURIOUS!

Seconded, while I don't hate the game itself (actually, I like the game, though it is somewhat repetetive), I really can't consider it "mother of all FPS". I really don't even see how it got the Frat appeal. Beforehand, it was Goldeneye 007 for the N64, and for that, at least it got some decent controls for being a console FPS. (The first Console FPS too, I believe) So that gets credit for pushing FPS into Consoles. Now that it's already there, Halo really hasn't done anything. If anything, it just proves how much better PC FPS games are.

EDIT: BTW, I'm thinking about checking out the Simulation genre in PC gaming with The Sims 2. Any opinions? thoughts? suggestions?

You know, one thing I would like to point out is that a major reason that some people seem to think console games have the drop on PC games is simply because many great PC games simply don't get nearly as much exposure. They don't get the hype, they don't get the marketing, and many times they don't even get attention from the game reporting industry.

I just spent four hours on Sunday having a blast playing Every Extend on my PC, and that's just a little freeware game. I never even heard of it until someone here at GFF pointed it out. That's just an example, but there are tons of great, underexposed games like this for PC.

Sexninja's list just shows how correct I am. His list is simply full of "popular" PC games; many of which are simply used to test the limits of new video cards. If only he knew FPS is just the tip of the iceburg. I could list games, but I'm really not even a big PC gamer, so I'm better leaving that to the pros. Yet, I already know the platform is awash in creativity.

Not only that, but the PC exclusive journalism is all garbage. Have you read PC Gamer lately? What a bunch of self-fellating hogwash.

As for the mother of all FPSes, Wolfenstein 3D is the Grandaddy. How do you even quantify parental connotations for games anyways? I guess you could say that Halo is the mother of console FPSes since so many people are attempting to follow its formula. GJ Bungie.

Of all FPS games, why the hell would everybody follow Halo's lead? Don't get me wrong, I think Halo is a good game, but there are plenty of other better FPS games that people can follow. Half-Life 2 is a good example, as is Quake 4 (some people may disagree with me here).

Also, by the E3 titles above, I'm tempted to venture into Simulation games with The Sims 2. Yay or nay?

That depends entirely on how much you mind spending a lot of time acheiving nothing but the generation of success or misery for a bunch of simulated people that aren't you.

Simulated life is fun to toy around with for awhile, but much like real life it gets hella boring. You could have an excellent time creating bizarre estates and being a sadistic asshole to your sims, but that's an investment of time that doesn't strike a cord at least for me.

Meh....I dunno...I guess I'll give it a try at least.

Speaking of which, there aren't any Fallout type games out anywhere or coming out anytime soon is there? I was a big fan of the game.

For console games that got a ton of hypes before its release followed by a huge public disappointment hurts even more than PC games that don't get hyped but still have good sales...

Well, Fallout 3 is going to have the same setting, but whether or not Bethesda can actually create a game like Fallout we have yet to see.

There are plenty of post-apoc games that are currently in development, and Bioshock will feature a lot of 40's art deco and a decaying environment, albeit under the ocean.

As for games with Fallout-like gameplay though? Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura had the same roleplaying element, but its combat sucked donkey donk. (Still a great game though) Any other game like it doesn't really exist, and since Troika bit the bullet after Vampire, the chances of there being another one are close to none.

Silent Storm had tactical grid-based combat like Fallout, but it's on a 3D plane, and the combat rules are much more detailed and quite frankly, awesome. It's not a roleplaying game, though. Hammer & Sickle tried to be the Silent Storm roleplaying game, but it had little to no roleplaying element at all. In any case, Silent Storm is what I consider to be the epitomy of squad-based TBS.

You're not too bright are you? Hype sells games before they come out. If the final product sucks, it'll still sell because of the hype. Regardless if the product can live up to it or not.

See: Halo 2, Black, Fable, Devil May Cry 2, FF Crystal Chronicles, and so on.

Your forgetting the games for PS3 will probably cost $70 per title and about buying extra controllers for the PS3 and any other gimmick they might have for you to get to play it properly.

Also what I meant is to say you can buy a PC capable of playing every game on the market right now for about less than $500 + $150 (someone forgot how many stores offer rebates on machines!) for video card with a god-damned monitor, DVD-Burner, and printer. That is much more valuable functions than a Xbox 360, PS3, or Wii can offer... Console gaming has been recently suffering too many me too titles syndrome... caused by companies like Rockstar, Square-Enix, and Konami!!! No one wants to play anything original anymore... and it was just dumb luck that Katamari caught on.. oh wait that was because it released dirt cheap...

This is coming from a console gamer though : Console games, like PC games haven't progressed much of anywhere since about 2003 so it's been the same bullshit over and over... how many times can companies recycle the same story for their RPG with different characters and settings? How many Tekken/Virtua Fighter games must we play before they resemble real fighting and no air-floater techniques?, How many sports titles must one play to realize it is the same game as last years release with updated rosters?

This is why console gaming has come to almost a hault... even those music games that breathed a fresh breath of air in are getting old (DDR anyone?)

Well if anything the Wii looks close to something new but it's basically just bringing what's been available in Asian arcades for years home...

I'm just saying $600 for a PS3 isn't worth playing games that could've easily been done on an older console with less impressive graphics but the same gameplay.

The jump from 8, 16, 32, and 128 bit all were a leap forward... with each one we experienced games not possible on a console before... now it's just a dead end because everything has been done... so we get sequels... and sequels of sequels... and failed shitty games and maybe 2 games a year worth playing... that is not worth the price of these new consoles... because I can say the same about the current PC... and updates to a PC don't cost as much as a new console... especially since the games for PC don't really take advantage of those video cards that I consider overkill...

Black didn't sell that well, and games like DMC2 or FFCC sell because of the names they bear, not just the hype they receive. I don't recall DMC being hyped much before it's released, yet it sold millions.

Yeah, the names they have attached to them automatically generate hype for them. No one would have cared for CC if it wasn't hyped up as being a Final Fantasy game first. DMC2 was hyped up because it was the sequel to the (quite good) original.

In many cases, attaching a well known name to something is practically the same thing as free hype.

Does Reggie even play games? Gamers don't want a completely different game with the same name (re: Final Fantasy (which is living on hype, by at least 40%) but what they do want is more of the same, yet improved. However they will go along with whichever way the ball bounces, on the mark of the developers' eye.

Gamers want sequels, not something different completely yet with "2" or mild material relating to the original. When it's a game which isn't story based, the same atmosphere from the original game should still be there.

Castlevania (2D) is a perfect example of what I'm getting at. The atmosphere (and don't tell me for a minute that 2D games don't have atmosphere) of them were all the same in some shape or form. The intentions and plot were still there. And overall, it was a sequel. Despite some of the sequels being rather poor, it still retained the factors which made it one. (And made up for it by making Aria and Dawn, which are instant wins.)

You have an intresting post here so I'll awnser.

All XBox 360 games cost 70€ and PS3 will cost that much aswell, but that's because these companies are selling the console below their production cost. And because they like to rip us some bucks ;)
Plus PC games are only this cheap because developers don't have to pay licences to develop for it like on consoles, I guess you have to thank MS for not charging licenses on DirectX usage...


This is a reflexion of mankind itself, not every single person on the planet invents a new device/formula/whatever. Infact only a very small number of persons do it and therefor only a small number of game developers 'invent' new games, absolutely nothing wrong in this behaviour.

Asides this obvious limit there's another not so obvious one, you can't continously improve/inovate/whatever, this is how people except things to be this days but it's obviously impossible, so dispite all your frustration/rage/whatever you'll have to accept that games have stabilized and that there wont be any major breakthrough in the video gaming world like there used to be forever.
I always like to compare it to other games and objects, there wasn't any change in the chess game in 1500 years and yet people still play it and enjoy it. Oter example is backgammon that might be 5000 years old and we still have fun with it today.


This has to do with perception of details no? After a certain point common gamers just won't notice diference from one game to it's new sequel dispite the diferences being there. Think of this like music files, to most of us MP3@160Kbps sound the same as a CD yet it's defenitely not the same sound quality. This is because we just aren't trained to notice the diferences like a audiophile is, and like in music only a very few of us are 'graphicphily', that is able to notice small details on games like better floor textures or more detailed background objects.

I'm going to go outside the PC scope for a second to respond to this....that is not to say it's not there for PC games, but I'm a bit better with examples on consoles...

I'd have to say I somewhat disagree here. While very few people are truly innovative, those who are tend to be stifled by those who are greedy, or those people that are innovative tend to have greed take them over. It's not that they don't want to be innovative, it's that they want money. It's already happened in the music industry. There are some artists who are not allowed to release songs because they're "not what the public wants to here" according to the publishers. They don't give a damn about what the artist wants to display, they only display what gets those greedy bastards money. Same with the video game industry, or so it seems. Most games that come out sell well due to massive hype or attachment to a famous name (Final Fantasy, Madden, DMC, whatever....or at least everything that has a number after it). I mean, seriously, most companies who have a successful game going will tend to make a sequel to it. These can be good or bad, depending on how much liberty they're willing to take. I'll be the first to agree that sometimes, some traditional games are always fun, as I'm a fan of Final Fantasy I - IX. But after a few iterations, it tends to become old. Final Fantasy kept it relatively fresh with new systems (Class Change in V, Esper System in VI, Materia System in VII, GF System in VIII, and Weapon/AP system in IX). This I can respect because it feels relatively new as opposed to Madden 95 through Madden 07. It's probably a bad game to use as an example, but it's the one that most clearly illustrates my point. Halo/Halo 2 play the exact same way, so while the first one is genuinely fun at times, the second one sucks balls in terms of new stuff. Fighting games also suffer from this, referring to reiterations of fighting games from a single series. I don't think the gameplay for Tekken ever changed from the original up to Tekken 5. Granted, I'm not a fan of Tekken and have never played much of the games, and am somewhat Biased, but still. Racing games also somewhat suffer from this to some extent, depending on which game you're talking about. Mario Kart series has kept things relatively fresh with the addition of new weapons, new hazards, new courses, and even new systems to keep things fresh. I'm talking about the jump from Super Mario Kart to Mario Kart 64 (3d upgrade, dropping the usage of coins pickup, dropped the feather pickup, added variations to the original pickups, a drift system, etc.) and from Mario Kart 64 to Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (an upgraded drift/powerslide system, new pickups/upgrades to pickups, system of tag-team racing (for better or for worse), new courses, now modes of multiplayer battle, etc.) and hell, even from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! to Mario Kart DS (again, new weapons, new drifting/snake system, new single player modes, I can't say much else since I haven't played this game yet.) Now you got games like Gran Turismo that start off pretty nice and then kinda decline in quality as you go. I'm not sure about that since I've only played the first one and seen the last one they released. And that last one they released, you didn't even race. Maybe I'm mistaken that Gran Turismo is a Racing Sim, but I previously thought and went into it thinking it was a racing game. And if games have plateaued already, I guess it's time for Nintendo to bail us out again, with their concept of changing how you play the game with it's new system, Wii.

Additionally, I think your chess arguement is moot at this point. Chess is a single game that hasn't changed at all. Of course it's still fun. If you took Super Mario 64 now and played it 1000 years from now, it'd still be just as fun, maybe graphically inferior at that time, but the fun factor is still there. I'm talking about a series of games that have evolved. A more apt example would be new card games that keep coming out. All the variations of poker can suffice as examples of what I mean. Card games in general have evolved over time. New games are constantly being made, so creativity hasn't been stifled just yet.


I think that's what we're trying to avoid, or else who in their right mind would buy new games if that happened?

It would be graphically inferior? Are you sure about that? 'Cause I'm not so sure.

Yes but they are created at a much lower rate. That the key point as I'll explain further below.


You may try to avoid it all you want but this isn't a lost battle, it's a battle that never existed. What you are saying is complete nonsense and just adds to convice me that humans have no sense of time at all, maybe that have the notion of days and weeks or even months but that's about it.
You are saying that in the comming, say, 5000 years (should the conditions allow it of course) we will continue to see the current rate (5/6 games per years?) of 'inovative' games just like today. Well even if it could be, then let's just add some 10000 years on it just for kicks, do you think it's possible to keep this rate for 15000 years? Or should I make it 67000 years just for fun?

This is a industry of miserable 30 years, a petty value even for human standards and we are already strugling with this 'need' for 'inovative' games and systems, how can you expect it to go on continously for 5 billion years (until the extinguish of the sun)?
It won't, not even for 200 years, just accept that you'll be playing the same Megadrive games when you are 80 years old and get over it.

As for buying new games... well you won't. Just like you don't buy a new chess set or a deck of cards even week you won't be buying a new game every week. This means that the gaming industry will colapse/crash or wane just like many other have, it won't disapear but shrink and stabilize into a (much) smaller size.

Relatively Inferior at least, compared to whatever will come out in 1000 years.

We are talking innovation here right? Innovation simply cannot be forced. Innovation will continue to come out, or should I say, the potential for innovation, at the same constant rate. It's what people do to stifle that innovation because of money. There's going to be stuff new that comes out all the time, it just depends on what gets published, which is where much of the problems lie. Those in the business get so caught up in the business aspect that they don't allow anything that seems risky to be published, which is a shame since with innovation comes risk. If you're not going to risk anything to try anything new, of course the thing won't go anywhere. I'm saying that it's not a lack of innovation that's going to kill games, it's the bloodthirst for money that's going to kill it. Just like how it killed much of music nowadays, it'll chip away at games, releasing only what gets them money and not what is a breath of fresh air. Why do you think every goddamn new game comes out is the exact same rehash over and over again, with possibly a different story behind it and better graphics? It's because those who publish the games are not going to bet on a loss over something that is guaranteed to win, whether it's because of massive hype or famous title. As long as we keep new possibilties open, then yes, I am saying that the same rate of innovative games will come. Now, if we were to drop any notion of trying anything new and taking any risks, then yes, innovation in this industry would die.

The need for innovation will always exist for everything that has ever come. Ever since anything came out, things need to be constantly evolving. Why do you think PCs have to constantly change architecture rather than just pump out faster clock speeds all the time? Innovation and new things will beat out old trends because they may work. Keyword being _may_. We'll take PC Hardware, We have slowly moved through different RAM types no? Remember what happened to RAMBUS RAM? Never got far off the ground. Intel has resorted to DDR standard and on to DDR2. Things will constantly change, whether for better or for worse. Change is a necessary part of everything. You will not be playing the same games 80 years from now because if you are, it means either 1) The industry has crashed, or 2) The industry is about to crash. If change is about, you will be playing lots of different types of games in several different ways.

What did I say about the Chess argument being moot? You don't buy a new chess set for every new chess game you're playing. Once you buy it, you own it forever. Same with the cards, for however many types of card games you play. The gaming industry will not crash, it'll have it's ups and downs, sure, but it will not hit rock bottom. That is, unless innovation completely dies out, which is just not possible, as long as somebody is willing to take the risk.

Haha, okay. You live within the same time constraints as everyone else. Stop trying to speak as though you don't. It makes you sound retarded. Besides, haven't you ever read a book or played a game? It's the people with limited time on this earth who always make the most out of it.

It's odd that we get the same thread every year for both console and PC games... Is it the decline of mankind like wut?

Must be the decline of mankind, it got me to sign up on gamingforce once again ;) [Nice avatar Kamui, can't beat X!]

Decline of PC games? I suppose it has declined, or at least changed judging from 1990s Electronics Botique shelves lined with PC games, to today's EBgames with a section in the back of the store for PC, totally dwarved by sony's console section.

The more I think about it, the Decline of PC games is probably going too far. Where most games and fans at one time for the PC would be found in the public eye [on the shelves]; Thanks to the internet among other things; PC games are now split between Massive/multiplayer games, [I'm playing Guild Wars lol as I type this], retro gaming [I bet good money there are people playing Doom or Quake multiplayer as I write this], Emulation [opening the gates to so many older games], translations [!!!], and modding [long lasting communities to newer and older games]; PC gaming is very much alive. Although, I imagine console games is where a majority of the money is; aka easy access and powerful advertising.

And as previously pointed out, although shelf games may be thin; internet access and a few good leads can lead you to ridiculous amounts of games hiding somewhere in google online~

For example:
http://www.romhacking.net/
- tons of translation links and rom hacks [mods on games like metroid, mario] i.e. Seiken Densetsu 3 [never released in US!!! but a great experience translated!]

http://www.mp2d.co.uk/index.php
- just an example of freeware works; [Metroid Prime 2d in the works!]

http://www.mwmythicmods.com/telesphoros.htm
- Morrowind, just an okay game? Or surpassing Oblivion in amazing. If you find the right set of mods, this can be so true. [pretty updated list on some great mods] (many more exist)

I know NWN, Baldur's Gate 1/2, half life1/2 have a million and one user creations.
I know a quick search on google will find tons of freeware games.

Er, so where am I going with this; PC gaming is very alive. I dare say much more is out there for the PC than ever on the console. But, it's a jungle out there. I mean in here... [help!]
EDIT: Having so many options probably hurts business, but you have little excuse if you get bored!

lol... Final word, I love PC and Console gaming, I wouldn't want to see either decline. :edgartpg: (what is this smiley?) [lol oh I see edgar nm [...]]

Money talks, everything else walks...

First: If you take a look at pricing, often multi-platform games are released at a lower price than their console counterparts. Second: These games drop in price much faster than their console counterparts. For example, I picked up Psychonauts for PC for $30 while it was still $50 for PS2. For non multi-platform titles, this still usually holds true, except for the truly grade-A hits like HL2, etc. Third: The PC game section in the game stores around here has dwindled to next to nothing. It's half what is what when I was an undergrad. Stores will devote more shelf space to their profitable wares, end of story. We all know sales do not necessarily equate to quality... but developers migrate to where the $ is so this does have an effect.

On a related note, before the Saturn and PSX came around, everyone was playing PC games, or even putting a few quarters into the arcade, rather than Genesis or SNES... It seemed like there were a ton of cool PC titles. Nowadays, everyone just plays HL2 on their 24" lcd monitor. There are great titles, but a lack of variety. Just my observations...

I think this is true because PC games are much cheaper to make and publish because of the relatively cheaper "dev kits".

Well, they begin lower too, so that might just be a later effect of the first point.

Damn straight. Around here in Virginia, there's only one section marginally smaller than the PC section and that is the Gamecube section (I play PC and Gamecube games....:doh: )

I wouldn't say a lack of variety, at least not with respect to genres, but more of a lack of a quality control. Many games have some of the best ideas out but implement them very poorly into a game that could be considered poor back in 1992.

Omni - good point on the first two parts, except I'm not sure that Valve spent less money on HL2 than MS did on Halo 2, for example?

And as for variety, I'm just talking amongst my own personal preference, which includes RPG's (besides Oblivion, I'm not sure I can even name a title that came out this year that I'm interested in, and Oblivion is frankly a flaming pile of p00 that won't run on 20% or greater of systems that exceed recommended specs, including mine, apparently), sci-fi/fantasy FPS (there are so many war FPS games it's getting ridiculous, but where are the new Unreals and Half-Lifes?) So, for that part it's just based on my own personal preference - some may find a good deal to like in the PC platform's recent line-up.

Yep, even though the PC has good stuff for it, new stuff is coming out so slowly that the ratio of crap to good games is extremely exaggerated for the worse. I'll be the first to admit, I do like some of the games that have come out somewhat recently, but I can't recall liking any game since Oblivion in March this year.

Hitman: Blood Money is something worth looking at.

It's not just that, PC developers are actually capable of creating games from scratch, so long as they're executable from DOS, Windows, or Macintosh platforms.

Which is also, unfortunately, a matter of money. Publishers aren't as keen to support QA teams that have game testers who are familiar with the code as opposed to a bunch of nerds that raise their hands whenever there's a problem. Professional QA teams have been going the way of the dinosaurs ever since publishers tried to follow in EA's footsteps.

The CRPG also died with Black Isle studios. The combination of Interplay's massive managerial incompetence and Troika's going belly-up has meant the death of the original CRPG. Now former Black Isle members are stuck making sequels to Bioware games that are much more worth playing than their predecessors.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R it seems will finally be released this next year, though, although it's not certain how much of a roleplaying element it'll actually have. There's also an X-COM style sci-fi tactical RPG that'll be released over Steam at some point.

Spore is set to dominate the way people perceive PC Gaming, and Paradox has announced that the tried-and-true Europa Universalis engine will be replaced with a fully 3D one for EU3.

I'm at that age where I've been around since the beginning of pc gaming. I think the biggest problem is that the pc game industry is flooded. I remember when i was alot younger, and I always hear about one game at a time. There would be one or two games that people were talking about. Now theres just way too many. So many games are coming out. So many games of the same genre anyways. Alot of people just play none rather than trying to pick just one to play at a time. So many games coming out nowadays are simply graphically enhanced clones of previous games. I'm finding it really annoying.

People seem more geared toward console gaming than PC gaming, at least where I live.

I'm a confessed PC lover and Console hater. I think there has been a decline in PC Games over the past few years, but an increase of the same game on multi-formats. PC Games are also better value as they are played for longer due to the ability for a large percentage of them to be multiplayer and to have user-generated content created. Just my 2c.

Yeap. What a lot of people do ( ;) ) Is end up pirating games simply because they don't have the resources to try out games to see whether they're engaging. Pirating is driving many producers away from PCs and towards consoles.

This forum (the PC Gaming forum) has been dead for quite some time I feel. I look at major titles coming out and all I'm really interested in is Bioshock and UT2k7. Those games don't come out until the fall. Maybe, maybe we'll get HL2 Episode 2 at the very end of this year. Stalker might be good, maybe, we'll see. It seems like oftentimes there are more good console releases in certain months than there are good PC releases the entire year.

If there were still as many good PC games coming out consistently as there were 4-5 years ago, I would have already upgraded my PC. Now, I'm actually holding off as there's no need. My rig plays all the games I have an there's no need to buy any until 2008 at this point...

Im definitely hyped about UT2k7. that shall be an exciting release. Naturally I won't have a computer that runs it for some time. But eventually I will end up playing it.

PC gaming is definitely in decline. I struggle to find the games at my local stores, they tend to hide them towards the back of the shop. Thank god I found Internet shopping.

They are releasing a lot of games for the PC these days, but most of them are games that most people would never dream of buying. Instead of putting time and effort into the games, they are just churning them out. So all we get are a few good games a year, whereas the consoles tend to get more decent games on them than the PC does.

There are only really a handful of PC games that interest me that are coming out soon. C & C: Tiberium Wars, Quake Wars (or whatever they are calling it now), UT2K7, Bioshock and possibly Crysis. But other than this there are no games that I have any interest in for the PC.

Crysis, Stranglehold and Blacksite: Area 51 are in my sights now. Might upgrade to Vista / DX10 for Crysis if the hype is to be believed. Alan Wake would be a departure for me but I'm willing to try it.

By the time Crysis is released (Sept 2007) Vista might be a worthwhile investment, but as it stands at the minute it would just be a waste of money.

Another thing that is contributing to the decline of PC gaming is all the proposed "Vista Exclusive" games that are going to be coming out in the near future. A lot of people that I know don't want to get Vista, which would mean that they would be unable to play some of the games that are going to be released for Vista. Hopefully Microsoft will see sense, and make the games available to play on other versions of Windows. Otherwise, the PC gaming scene will slide further into decline.

It doesn't look like there's too many Vista-Exclusive games on the horizon. Maybe a half dozen- please correct me if I'm way off here. Most of the games (Crysis included) seem to be compatible with XP/DX9. I think there'll be some Microsoft or Microsoft funded games that will be exclusive to Vista but I believe the majority will still support XP/DX9 in some form as I doubt developers will "put all their eggs in one basket".

That said it's only been the last two games I've purchased (Neverwinter Nights 2 and Splinter Cell Double Agent) that I've found that Windows 2000 was no longer supported. Unfortunatly I don't think that XP will have the same longevity in game terms if Microsoft forces DX10 and Vista too much. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

In terms of future mindedness, with Vista etc, it is really hard to see whether PC gaming increases or not. It all depends on the adoption of Vista. Right now, people that are in the "know" don't want Vista, or are unwilling to buy it. They better have some damn awesome exclusives or they won't be getting the enthusiast gaming crod.

In terms of right now, PC gaming is faaaaar from dead. Though the forum here on GFF might be dead, I think that is primarily because those that do PC game, have other communities that they are involved with. I'm playing Company of Heroes and I am active member at gamereplays.org; many others are involved with WoW guilds; I think more than one person has Oblivion on their PC; I haven't even mentioned FPSs yet (HL2, UT2k, BF2, etc)... The lists go on and on. PC gaming is far from dead, though it seems to pretty much be dead here on GFF.

Also, with the PS3/X360, we are seeing a upper-echelon of gaming, a high-class type of gaming. Expensive 1080p screens with expensive consoles. This is a trend that will eat into PC/Windows gaming because generally it looks as good or better than the PC equivalent, and that was one of the PCs great strengths.

PC Gaming as a commercial enterprise will die. The AAA boxes have been dying out since the turn of the millenium, and with smaller and smaller PC sections at retail stores it's a good chance that everything for the PC will go digital.

People are tired of the same old shit being recycled over again and again. It's a graphical crawl, and "next gen" is defined mostly by its bloom.

The way I see it, PC Gaming will go back to what it used to be, a hobbyist's pursuit, and we'll finally get to see a majority of games made by people who want to make them.

Looking back on my old post is funny, though. It's been almost a year, and apparently the RPG component in STALKER is annoying even though it's a solid game (it's shipping to me right now), and Europa Universalis 3 is phenomenal.

Still no real word on that X-COM-esque squad game, other than that it's not vaporware.

RPG-wise, none is better than Diablo 2 LoD (based solely on gameplay) since it was released back then, Titan Quest came close but didn't nailed it.

I'm gonna go ahead and say that PC gaming is only declining because of the expensive technology involved and the lack of code optimization.

The cost of of building a computer to run the latest games is insane. Looking at over $1200. And for some of the parts, it's not a one time cost. You have to upgrade if you want to keep in the loop. And with newer technology coming out YEARLY now, game developers feel the need to write their game with those parts in mind, forcing people to upgrade. Parts I'm mentioning are the CPU, and video card, with RAM dependant on the type of CPU.

Meanwhile, specific game consoles are cheaper and they don't need upgrading. This is due to the fact that the game developers optimize their games to the console and squeeze the fullest potential from the system. Meanwhile, PC developers just code the game and submit their rough draft as final, not giving a shit about their audience. If it means having to upgrade, they could care less.

(and people wonder why other people pirate.) :)

My thoughts exactly, Render.

My PC is...I think 3 years old now, and I have no chance in hell of playing a game that is released now.

It is SO annoying, that the developers of these games feel that they MUST use every bit of processing power that is available at this point, even though most people only upgrade their PCs like what every 4 years? What is the point of this? I find it hard to believe that in 3 years the system requirements increased 4 times, without seeing huge differences in quality.

Take a look at Half-Life 2. It's a solid game, and quite frankly it looked awesome then and now still, but even 3 years ago they didn't force you to have the best of the best equipment to play that game. Even 3 years ago 700 mhz was easy to have, as opposed to games like crysis, a game that's not even out yet, but has higher system requirements then most people have at this point.

Thread back from the dead!

I couldn't recall the last time I had seen any serious number of PC gaming threads in the gaming forum. There are some threads about multi-platform games like Crysis and UT2k7, but other than that, nada. I've decided to not upgrade my computer because of the current dry spell, but I've gone back and played a few PC titles lately like Dawn of War and really hope that the PC side of things springs back to life in 2008. Unfortunately, there's no reason for it to what with consoles being so successful. Maybe we will start seeing some PC-like titles (besides FPS :rolleyes: ) on consoles eventually?

Well they're always trying to get RTSs to work on consoles. After they beat their heads against the wall for nother generation or two they may just pull it off.

As for myself I upgraded my PC this summer specifically for UT2K7 (UT3 for the new people to the series). I got a dual-core, Phys-X card, 8800GTS, the works. Can't wait for the game to come out. Sure PC gaming is dying but UT and C&C are the only PC games I've ever cared about since each of their debuts so the decline has made little difference to me, knock on wood.

I was going to get Stranglehold for my PC, but at 12Gigs, I dodn't want to wait for that beast to install or the used HDD space when I can just wait another month and get it for my PS3 with no install time.

Yeah, what PC titles are there? Crysis is multiplatform? I don't recall reading that.
PC games are in decline, that's true. And that's basically the consoles fault. Cause, most game devs these days seem to develop their games first for the console, then for the PC.
I don't know the numbers, but it's probably because consoles have the bigger user base.
The number of PC only (or even PC first) devs is ever more shrinking. The only developer which I really think is very PC centric in its design philosophy would be Valve, but even they have something of a simultanous release of the Orange Box on all systems now.
Is it a good thing? As a long term PC gamer who actually grew up gaming on PC only it's kinda sad, but on the other hand, I'm glad that nearly every game I can have on PC is available on a console. I mean... I spent 350€ on an Xbox360. That thing will - in theory - last for five years (don't laugh, I said "in theory"!). If I spent the same amount on PC hardware, I wouldn't even have gotten ONE close to state of the art core piece (CPU / GPU ).
I'm officially through with PC gaming on the long run. It's too exensive, and too often a matter of "Plug'n'Pray". I won't upgrade my current gaming rig any more. Okay, it's a rather solid rig which will eventually last me for one or two years, but still. I don't want any more upgrades so I can play two or three games in a shiny resolution.
PC like titles on consoles? I bet Fallout 3 will be a multi platform release. But there are some things that just don't work well on consoles. RTS, or well, strategy games in general, at least not the same kind of strategy game you might see on a PC.

Until console makers start letting you use a mouse and keyboard for controls. Then I might finally start playing FPS games on consoles, too.

I'm currently trying to get a grip on dual analog controls in console FPS.
It's possible, but learning how use it PROPERLY is pretty frustrating, especially since it seems that most modern console shooters are trimmed to a pretty hardcore crowd, whose grip on the control scheme is of course some six or seven years beyond mine.
The only FPS'ish thing I've ever played on console was Metroid:Prime...

At that point, consoles are basically PCs anyways.

The way I see it, the fact that almost every console game has a PC release is just further evidence that I should spend that 350 dollars on a new video card instead of an Xbox.

You see, the problem I have with those games, is that they're often very "obviously" console ports. Of course, mostly it's just a feeling, but to me a game developed for PC feels diffrent somehow than the umteenth X360 port with shoddy optimaztion and the "vibration[ ]" box still in the controls menu. (Yes I know, that option might be used for a plugged in X360 for PC controller or something...)
Still... It's a matter of "purity" if you want... Stalker for example was a pure PC game. Bioshock was very clearly not. It's that most games nowadays that are brought to PC are actually ports. And the "original game" is then usually meant to be played with a controller and not with WSAD-Mouse...
It's hard to explain I guess...

Yeah, $350 computers that can run a game much better than any $1000 computer will, and, unlike computers, games actually look better the longer a system is out while maintaining the same hardware. Not to mention you have uniformity between all systems so you're plagued with fewer bugs and have more equal settings for every player in a game (don't tell me there's no advantage to running HL2 at 1280x1024 versus someone at 800x600).

If I could just attach a $20 keyboard and mouse to a console I'd never buy a computer game again, because the entire advantage of computers is negated.

That's why I'm hopint that UT2K7 on the PS3 with WSAD-Mouse support inspires more developers to do the same. Especially if they're going to put an RTS on the system.

@Bradylama
"At that point, consoles are basically PCs anyways."

It would require a lot more then that, especially seeing how K&M is just a means of input just like a controller and has nothing to do with the fact that it's the hardware and capabilities that make something a computer or a console. Not how you use it. However if the 360 had word processing or some feature like that then I would probably agree with you.

That's a good point about K&M support. Funny enough, I used to play Quake 3 for Dreamcast quite a bit using the Dreamcast keyboard & mouse. After that I was spoiled and haven't played a true FPS on consoles since. (Metroid Prime 3 is closer because of the Wii-mote, but with lock-on it's still not there yet.)

Crysis
UT3
BioShock
Spore
WoW Expansion
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Orange Box (HL2)
Fallout 3
Mafia 2

There's plenty to come that are great titles. You won't see as many console ports until the consoles control as well as a PC.

The only games on that list that arn't already being ported is Fallout 3. Crysis and WoW have strong likliness of being ported in the near future based off developer interviews.

And Bioshock is a 360 game that got ported to PC. Don't get that mixed in there.
(They said they'd develop it for both platforms at the same time, but IMO it's much more a console game than not...)

Yeah, it definitely shows.

I had much higher hopes for Bioshock than perhaps I should have. Don't get me wrong, it was a great game and all, but it went against several aspects of PC Gaming that I cherish quite a bit. A major one of these being the challenge factor of the game. Going from playing System Shock 2 in anticipation of Bioshock was maybe a mistake, but I stand firm in my opinion that System Shock 2 will forever be the superior of the two in almost every way but the graphical capabilities.

Once again, a case of "you got console game in my PC game you pricks."

Exactly. It's easier to make a game look amazing when you know everyone has the same hardware. You can use every trick you know when making a game cause you know what the system will do and won't, and stretch every little bit of processing power of the system without worrying about end user slowdown.

I'll use HL2 Orange Box as a case in point. I can't use the bloom effects and the highest water effects on my PC cause I'm limited by my graphics card but if you've seen the videos of Orange Box on 360, every effect is in there and they all look amazing, and I haven't seen anything PS3 Orange Box yet, but I'm sure it looks even better.

Except for modding. That's why I don't own a 360, or regular XBox for that matter. Any of the good games get ported to PC and are done better as well as continuing to get better due to the modding community. The games that are exclusive to PCs are going to be hard pressed to find anything equal to them on the console. Diablo II? Star Craft? Freelancer? Guild Wars? Baldur's Gate (and the countless good western RPGs that are on the PC that never see the light of day since it's not "Final Fantasy" enough). There is no comparison for FPSs nor RTSs on the console compared with PC, due to the control scheme, but even above that, there is no modding on the console, so the games that come out remain the same, while PC games generally improve the game over it's lifetime.

Given a choice, I would take a PC over any console to date, just for the capabilities open to it, plus the non-asian RPGs that are present on it.