[Rant] PC gaming is too expensive. 'Sup consoles.

I never thought this might happen, but I'm beginning to loathe PC gaming. Why? Because of the ridiculous system specs that game developers are pushing down our throats these days. And I will not fail to mention the fact that, currently, a new (and very mudbutt) OS will soon be required to play the latest games.

Vista? Garbage. DX10 only games? Go fuck yourself. OpenGL should be the way to go, since the door is now open to MacIntels and Linux PCs.

New information about games like Lost Planet, Crysis, Quake Wars and Unreal 2007 say that your 8800GTS is going to perform piss-poor. (It should be noted that the X2900XT performs worse than an 8800GTS.) Why do game developers continue force their consumers to buy a new PC every 2 years to play their games? Sure, you could buy the "value" components, but then you aren't getting the full experience of the game or it just looks like complete ass.

It would fantastic if game developers took the time to optimize their source code, so that us gamers don't feel the need to blow our money for their game.

Enter the game console. There are no upgrades to be made to a game console. We save money. The game console is about 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of a new mid-range PC. We save money. It doesn't need to be switched out for 5 years. We save a FUCKTON of money.

The other half of the pocket-draining PC equation is the fact that hardware manufacturers like nVidia and Intel feel like churning out new parts every year. Even though the Conroe (Core2Duo) and it's children spawned last year, it's getting a significant upgrade next year, and being phased out the year after that. The current DirectX 10 8800GT series of video cards already fail at upcoming DX10 games and I'm sorry for anyone who bought one already. MONEY. MONEY. MONEY. And we have to spend it because the game developers have their cocks up Intels and nVidia's asses so they can plot together on ways to make consumers buy their shit.

The PlayStation 3. I received a full demonstration over the weekend from a buddy that owns one. I was thoroughly impressed for a number of reasons:

-It's a BluRay and DVD player. (just like a PC, except for less)
-It plays games in natively supported HD resolutions (like the PC)
-Wireless support for internet and addons (like a PC)
-Support for PC game controllers, keyboards and mice, and a ton of USB peripherals (ooh, encroaching on PC territory there)
-Free online play (sup PC. Why does online play need to cost anything when the customers are actually the game hosts?)
-Download game demos, movie trailers to the hard drive (o hay PC)
-Install Linux (haha, neato and cool, but pretty useless. to me anyway)

So, why now would I even bother with a PC unless it was for work? It's really a tough call. Both platforms share some of the same releases, but it would good if they shared all or most. If Sony and Microsoft had found a way to rally the support of PC game developers, we might be seeing some better and more abundant releases.

PC gaming is becoming RIDICULOUSLY over-priced, and the games need to be ported to reasonably priced consoles.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I have given up on PC gaming for the same reasons about 3 years ago. All I know is that it saved me a shitload of money and I didn't miss a whole lot of PC games actually worth playing. Those that are usually run fine even on my two year old machine. If you don't care about FPS games too much, you'd be stupid to upgrade your hardware just for those.

Most amazing jew boots

I can sympathize. Oblivion is also the biggest example of PC gaming being too expensive. *sigh* If I want to play that game I have to buy a PS3 or a 360. Not paying 2,000 for a new machine.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Well, it's the nature of the beast. You give someone a platform that provides endless customization and they'll attempt to optimize as much as possible. Likewise, developers aren't going to stand on their laurels just because they can, they're going to try to go for the highest common denominator-- because it makes them look good, and because it sells games.

I recently spent a grand on updating my PC using my tax return. I didn't have to, but it means more games open up for me that I wouldn't have played before because of the requirements, or because I wouldn't want to play them without the special effects. FEAR, for example, or Neverwinter Nights 2, or Rainbow Six Vegas.

I could try to play some of these on console, but I've always been a fan of the mouse/keyboard setup, and if I'm going to play a game, I want it to perform and control well.

The reason I love PC gaming is that you can always go back and play your older games at the same time. So I see it as an investment not just in future games, but in past ones as well. While you don't need the latest stuff to be able to play older games, it does help if you want to run them concurrently (like having a larger hard drive.)

My PC is my media center, so I do pretty much everything photo, audio, and video-related on it, making it reasonable to me to want to keep it working in top shape. I might have spent a grand this year, but I won't be upgrading again for probably another 5, so I don't see much of a problem with it.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Nowadays I play on my consoles/handhelds way more than I do the PC, not because PC gaming is too expensive, but because I just find console games more appealing than PC games. All the PC games I do play are the older games several odd years ago. The only upcoming game I want right now is Spore, and that supposedly doesn't need a fancy new system to run. One good thing about PC Gaming is that the games are always going to have more depth to them than console games, thanks to keyboards.

Go play some old games if it's getting to expensive to upgrade. There's some fun to be had.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Keep in mind console games are much pricier than PC versions of the same game and most console games don't support keyboard/mouse anyway.

I see them as different areas. Much like I wouldn't want to play Wii games on my Xbox, or DS games on my PS2, PC games have their own appeal, while console games have their own. You will never get anything like DX10 Crysis on a console, not by a mile. The console ports of PC versions are nearly always inferior or illsuited, and the people who praise them are usually simply used to the compromise already.

Then again, get a modded PS2 and you're set for easy, varied gaming for years. It really depends on what you seek.

Japanese RPGs, third-person action games, exclusive gems the likes of ICO, Okami, Final Fantasy XII, Gradius V, Metroid Prime or F-Zero GX, you've no choice but to go console.

Strategy, simulation, FPS, online anything, you can really only go with PC, as much as people insist that oh but the 360 pad works so well.

Kinda like when people keep telling me Resistance actually plays really, really well on the PS3's flabby analogue sticks. Or that the PSP's analogue nub is perfect for the likes of Prince of Persia.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I think that the console industry got it "nearly right" this generation. What we need to see is a "perfect storm" of the following features to rid ourselves of the very expensive PC upgrade path:

-Wii controls: just as good as a mouse, and with some innovative UI programming I bet someone could develop a control scheme that allows easy access to the features a keyboard does (such as inventory, turning a flashlight on/of, dodging/strafing, etc.

-200+ GB hard drive: 200GB IDE hard drives for PC's are what, down to about $80? And the 360's 20GB hard drive costs about $100. That's crazy talk. Throw in a massive 200 GB hard drive so that console gamers can download extra content, mods, etc.

-No micro-transactions: mods and extra content are free on PC. There is no logical reason the same type of content should be charged for on consoles except $$ in the company's pocket. I would argue that free additional content would drive console/software sales and they would recoup that loss of potential profit anyway.

-HD graphics but no more than that: games/systems should have HD graphics but not burdern gamers or developers with $$ additional cost for extremely small gains in graphical quality. If 80 bi-linear streaming texel shader renderer doo-dads look nearly as good as 100 and it would cost $20 more per console to have the 100, leave them out. Make developers optimize code for those 80 instead. Look at the first-gen PS2 games compared to God of War II to see what optimized code can do for graphics.

Standard USB peripherals: We should be able to plug in a keyboard. Even into a portable gaming console like the PSP. If no developer chooses to implement it that's fine, but there should still be the option. Keyboards aren't rocket science for cryin' out loud.

Optical drive with burning capabilities instead of just read-only: There is no need to fill up the internal hard drive with game saves, extra content, etc. Download that 500MB map pack and then burn it to disk for safe-keeping. (This one isn't a must but would be nice.) Or, enjoy a 100% digital distribution chain where retail games are sold at a 10% discount if you download them to your console's HD and burn them yourself. (By-passing middle-men ftw!)

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Winter Storm

I can sympathize. Oblivion is also the biggest example of PC gaming being too expensive. *sigh* If I want to play that game I have to buy a PS3 or a 360. Not paying 2,000 for a new machine.

I have a 4-year old machine that runs Oblivion max settings with gigs upon gigs of added content. I can easily post screenshots of it, discuss it, and play it on just barely more than the cost of the PS3. And the controls are better. And I have the entire EVERYTHING that a console can do. This does so much more out of the box.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I don't know... The PS3 isn't very cheap either. I would much rather pay for a high-end PC gaming computer than a PS3. A PC also has much more functionality than a gaming system.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Lukage

I have a 4-year old machine that runs Oblivion max settings with gigs upon gigs of added content. I can easily post screenshots of it, discuss it, and play it on just barely more than the cost of the PS3. And the controls are better. And I have the entire EVERYTHING that a console can do. This does so much more out of the box.

The thing with PC Oblivion's benefits over console versions is also how you get everything else not by Bethesda. Sure, there's a lot of really pointless and broken mods out there, but there's so many excellent usercreated mods that actually fix the game and make it more like it should have been in the first place.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

My reasons for playing PC games are that the kind of games I play are essentially restricted to PC. Namely, I play mostly FPS and strategy games. Those are extremely limited on consoles, and to be honest, I can't stand playing them with controllers, though I admit being able to use a keyboard and a mouse on a console mostly solves that.

Other than lack of games I like, I dislike the lack of community made content. I may be wrong since I'm not up to speed with what's happening in the console world, but I don't think there's any console game where you'll find tools for map making or the like. I won't even mention mods since those are inexistant.

As for costs, they're not particularly high for me. My machine is old, and I will be needing an upgrade soon, but it's not like it'll break the bank, and it'll certainly be less expensive than buying 3 brand new consoles (and a TV since I don't have one). Add to that the fact that my computer is something I use for much, much more than gaming, and that I don't care all that much about graphics, so the investment will be worth it and not too expensive. I've been playing STALKER and Supreme Commander on fairly low settings and they're still awesome games.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I don't understand why anyone needs to have the newest PC games right now.

See, what I do is build a PC that I feel is very good performance vs. very good value. After that, I see what games I can run and buy those.

My last computer couldn't run, say, DOOM 3, but I wasn't about to upgrade a machine just so I could play DOOM 3. My current machine, which costs a fraction of the price it would have when DOOM 3 came out, now can, so I bought it.

I agree that buying and upgrading a PC solely for the purpose of gaming can get ridiculous, but let's keep in mind that without publishers pushing the limits, we wouldn't have similarly higher demands for electronics upgrades, which means your $300 video card today would still be extremely expensive 3 years from now.

Game publishers and hardware manufacturers who push the limits drive down the prices on slightly older stuff for the rest of us.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

As a Mac user, I've been pushed to console gaming by default--none but the biggest releases come out for the platform, and almost all of them are late to boot, except Blizzard, bless their souls.

I mainly play single-player RPG's, so the console's lack of hard drive space and internet connectivity is much less of a negative; hell, I couldn't afford Xbox Live even if I owned an Xbox.

Still, I have to say that the PC (in the sense of Personal Computer, which includes Macs) is a superior platform for FPS, MMORPG, and RTS. Sure, all those genres have appeared on consoles, but the controls aren't as fluid and for any kind of voice or keyboard support you have to buy expensive peripherals, while the average PC has this functionality built in.

That, plus my lack of assets, makes any upgrade something to put off (or perhaps to mooch off of richer friends and relatives). So I won't be springing for a new Macbook just to run Starcraft 2, and I'll not be buying a PS3 for FFXIII either, at least not until they're cheaper.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Speculative's speculation (hrrhrrhrhrhr) is pretty much spot-on. I want to elaborate on two of the points he makes, though:

No more than HD resolution: Yes, good graphics look pretty. Yes, they make for good screenshots to sell games (Y HELO THER, EA GAEMS). However, why do they need 1920x1080 pixels to look that good? Didn't people say games like FF6, Vectorman, Comix Zone, Viewtiful Joe, and Ico looked good? Hell, I remember a baseball game for the C64 being lauded for "more realistic graphics." We're talking little red stick people here.

"Graphics" need to take a backseat to art. Games can look good without having to run in 4096x3600 or whatever insane resolution that PC game makers are pushing these days. Never before did I need a video card that eats 600 watts of power and raises the temperature in my game room by 10 degrees to enjoy a good-looking game. Hell, you could argue that the original Zork had the highest resolution of any game ever made, because your imagination filled in the details on its own. Graphics don't get more realistic than that.

There was a reason a lot of people drooled over each iteration of Final Fantasy's summon monsters, and although I look upon FF with a less-than-favourable disposition, I must concede this point: it wasn't all about the polygonal flash effects that filled the screen whenever Bahamut spat burning plasma death at the hapless monsters below. Rather, a good part of the interest was how did the artist decide to draw Bahamut this time?. All the resolution in the world can't save a no-talent hack from sucking. Hmm, no wonder Nomura's character designs have done little for Square in the age of HD and progressive-scan. *ducks*

So let's have more games that look good based on style, art direction, and design (*cough*SMT Nocturne*cough*), and less quintilinear-mipmapped 18x psychotropic-filtered 10-factor antialianalasized resolution-fests that lack anything resembling creativity.

No microtransactions: Oh, hel-fucking-lo. Whoever thought of the idea of "micropayments" needs to have his limbs ground to stumps and then be fed into the world's largest food processor, right alongside the moron that thought "unlockables" in racing games or even action/adventure titles would be a good idea or, worse, count as "secret codes" or "cheats." Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Select, Start is a "cheat." Not "beat the game on hard mode in 10 hours to get another costume." BTGOHMITHTGAC is not a cheat, it is taking the player for a complete tool, and it is not welcome.

Much less welcome, however, is "here is a racing game. It has the BRAND NEW AWESOME 2008 LAMBORGHINI! Now that you bought the game, you must pay us $2.50 extra if you actually want to USE that Lamborghini. Sucker." Uhm, 'scuse me, what the fuck ever happened to not releasing a game until it was finished? Oh, right, Working Designs happened. Well, okay, I can see their logic there (Lunar 2 4-month delay I am looking at you), but there is still no excuse for releasing an obviously incomplete game and then being brazen enough to make people pay above and beyond retail cost for the game to get the missing parts. Fuck that shit with a rusty steel pipe.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I'd be more of a PC game if my parents didn't loathe at the fact I take up too much space on our computer... Just a couple more weeks until I get my labtop, but they hate the fact I would install games on the PC and spend countless hours in front of it.

But either way, I prefer console games and handhelds... At least you can fit a DS or a PSP in your pocket. :|

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by CelticWhisper

No more than HD resolution: Yes, good graphics look pretty.

I agree on the whole "HD doesn't make Blinx any less of a trainwreck of a character design" thing, very little on the PS3 and 360 appeals to me on an aesthetic level. There's only so many dark, urban third person shooters you can design, though you can't deny Crysis looks absolutely astounding. Valve and Crytek are among the few to show what can be achieved with technology and great design combined. Then you have the likes of Lucasart's Fracture, which is excellent technology bogged down by N64 Rare quality design work.

As for the whole Working Designs thing, had they simply translated and released their games, they'd have had no trouble getting them out quickly. Instead they chose to waste time with rewriting and pretty wrapping paper.

This isn't quite the same as taking the time to finetune and polish something properly (Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil 4, HL2, etc)

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I would agree with Spec, except for two points:

-The hard drives in the current gen systems are Laptop hard drives. That's the real reason they cost so much, and why there isn't a 200gb+ sized one in consoles. It really bites because laptop drives suck ass.

-Equipping a burner on a console is corporate suicide. I don't think I need to elaborate.

The main argument I'm seeing against console gaming is lack of keyboard and mouse support. I'd like to point out that Microsoft has undocumented support for a those two peripherals. Game developers could add support to their games, but they probably don't know how since MS won't tell them. :|

The PS3, on the other hand, has support for a shit ton of USB addons including flash drives and memory sticks for cameras. In a lot of ways, the PS3 is a more complete PC gaming platform than the 360, but game support for the system is a little unwaivering.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by YeOldeButchere

My reasons for playing PC games are that the kind of games I play are essentially restricted to PC. Namely, I play mostly FPS and strategy games. Those are extremely limited on consoles, and to be honest, I can't stand playing them with controllers, though I admit being able to use a keyboard and a mouse on a console mostly solves that.

This is the reason that I have left my consoles to gather dust. They are just incapable of being able to properly support these types of games, and mice/keyboard sets are like gold dust round here, so that really isn't an option.

I see what your getting at though Render, it's not the games that have become expensive, most of the games for the PC are a damn site cheaper than their console counterparts, it's the hardware to run them that has become the expensive part of PC gaming.

Originally Posted by Render

And I will not fail to mention the fact that, currently, a new (and very mudbutt) OS will soon be required to play the latest games.

This is the one reason that could send me, and a lot of other people back to their consoles. I for one, will not getting Vista. My parents have it on their machine, sure it looks pretty, but I find that XP has much more going for it at the moment. If they can begin to support Vista more, and get rid of the stupid exclusivity for it, then this will more than likely inject life back into PC gaming.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by CelticWhisper

No microtransactions: Oh, hel-fucking-lo. Whoever thought of the idea of "micropayments" needs to have his limbs ground to stumps and then be fed into the world's largest food processor, right alongside the moron that thought "unlockables" in racing games or even action/adventure titles would be a good idea or, worse, count as "secret codes" or "cheats." Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Select, Start is a "cheat." Not "beat the game on hard mode in 10 hours to get another costume." BTGOHMITHTGAC is not a cheat, it is taking the player for a complete tool, and it is not welcome.

I like games where you unlock stuff. I'm not doing all the skill points in Ratchet and Clank just for the unlockables, but it is kinda nice to get something as a reward for doing all of it (though I am opposed to games like Haven where you have to do freaking ridiculous things in order to get a decent ending).

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Lukage

I have a 4-year old machine that runs Oblivion max settings with gigs upon gigs of added content. I can easily post screenshots of it, discuss it, and play it on just barely more than the cost of the PS3. And the controls are better. And I have the entire EVERYTHING that a console can do. This does so much more out of the box.

Whoa mine is younger than yours..

What the fuck do you have? D:

Mine is probably just a piece of crap though... PIV - 2.53GHZ, PCI slot, no AGP, and my 171$ Geforce 6200(OC) fucks up on my machine.. I think it can't handle it. Damn it.

/me is jealous of people who can play that game

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Something is wrong with your computer, Winter Storm. I have a 4 year old desktop with a 1.8ghz processor, 1gig of ram and a 64mb AGP card and it runs Oblivion just fine on max settings.

I agree with what Mikey said. It's silly to build PCs to be the best they can be just to play the latest games on max settings. That's going to cost more than an arm and a leg, and usually you're going to be spending all that money on unpolished chipsets that need a few months of bugtesting to actually run reliably and smoothly.

PC gaming doesn't have to be expensive. It's completely possible to just upgrade certain parts as needed, with medium-to-high end parts and keep going strong. I'd imagine it's feasible to get through 3-5 years on a PC with relatively little investment, and it's easy enough to build decent machines for around the cost of PS3. Reuse your cases, hard drives, DVD drives, keyboards, mice, and whatever else you can and you'll save yourself even more money...or you can take that money and put it into a faster video card.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Guru

Something is wrong with your computer, Winter Storm. I have a 4 year old desktop with a 1.8ghz processor, 1gig of ram and a 64mb AGP card and it runs Oblivion just fine on max settings.

Quote:

Minimum System Requirements:

* 512MB System RAM
* 2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 128MB Direct3D compatible video card

http://www.elderscrolls.com/games/oblivion_faq.htm

I run Obvlivion with a 2.4Ghz Barton, 1GB of RAM, and an x850xt slightly overclocked, and I don't run it on maximum so I can keep my framerates up to a good level for my taste. It is hard to see how you could run all settings on Max with only 64MB of video card RAM for such a graphics-intensive game. Or by max settings do you mean maximum resolution with details turned down?

At any rate, if you look at the bare minimum specs for Oblivion (meaning you can't have all the eye candy) it's actually pretty reasonable that a 3 year old computer would run it fine, as long as it wasn't a budget computer built on older parts at the time... However, as mentioned, after 3 years developers have learned to optimize console code while on the PC side they are possibly having to deal with a new OS, Open GL and DirectX version in the same time-span which, along with numerous other PC variables, makes it much more difficult to optimize code.

You know what I just thought of? Like the PC vs. Mac commercials they should have PC vs. Console commercials. This would probably work best for Nintendo since their Wii most closely follows the Mac line of thinking (easy to use, friendly, hardware comes in shades of white ).

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I can't believe you run Oblivion with all settings maxed there Guru; I have a PC with specs significantly better than that and I still feel like I'm playing Wolfenstein 3D at times with how my settings are.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

I can't believe you run Oblivion with all settings maxed there Guru; I have a PC with specs significantly better than that and I still feel like I'm playing Wolfenstein 3D at times with how my settings are.

I don't know how I do it either, to be honest. But I do.

I guess it's just a nice little machine. But all the fans are very loud.

Edit: Guess I lied a little bit, I don't have the draw distance maxed. But I have all textures set on high, and all lighting effects turned on, and the game runs nice and smooth.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I would be fucking happy if a PC doesn't die on me every 2 years or so. When I buy a new PC, I just get some average equipment for around $800 and can play any new game that comes out.

That said, I obviously don't have to buy the external stuff like a screen, speakers etc. every 2 years.

Jam it back in, in the dark.