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

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!)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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 ).

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by flakpyro

I find it kinda funny the indrusty considers itself on the upswing when everytime i go to EB games the pc game shelf space is smaller and smaller, a very sad thing to see...of course thats EB games

I would say the PC section in the local Gamestops has shrunk to about 10% of the shelf space, whereas 5 years ago it was 30% of the shelf space and 10 years ago it would have been 50% of the shelf space.

Also, this needs to be said about PC gaming: installation. If I wanted to install all my PC games to be able to play them at will as easily as my console games, I would need probably 1 terabyte of storage (if you count mods, which as they're seen as a "plus" on the PC side, we'll have to count here). On the other hand, if I have 200 console games, it's simply a matter of physical storage space. Still, it's easier/faster to dig a game out of a shelf in the closet than to install a PC game and apply all the patches etc.

For example, I haven't even re-installed UT2k4 after my last OS reinstall because with my maps/mods it takes up about 50GB of space. I'm thinking of buying a 500GB HD when they come down in price. I guess you could say this is similar to having to buy memory cards to store game saves, but that fad has come/gone. In the cartridge days they used battery backups or passwords, and now with the 360, Wii, and PS3 all having internal storage, memory cards are a thing of the past...

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