| HappySqurriel said: By adding a $100 to $150 graphics card to (pretty much) any modern PC you will be able to play any game that is also available on the consoles at near maximum settings at 1080p at 60fps or higher ... If you start looking at the high end gaming PCs that have multiple graphics cards and a top of the line CPU they are probably more powerful that the hardware Sony or Microsoft will use in their next generation consoles.
The problem (as has been pointed out) comes down to games, and from a business perspective it doesn't make sense to target high end PCs anymore. A little more than a decade ago, people were upgrading their PCs every 12 to 24 months and games were much cheaper to develop, so producing a game that targeted the top 25% of systems upon release would soon be able to be played by most gamers; and you didn't need that many sales to break even or profit even if it only really sold well initially. To really push these systems to their limit, you would need to create a game that will sell in the 5 Million unit range (across platforms), and to do that without decent console ports at a time when people upgrade their PC every 4 or 5 years is not going to be possible. With that said, I would expect to see more PC games that target higher end hardware in the near future. We're at a point where companies can complete games for the PC and (not too long after that) port them to next generation hardware at a time when game choices on those consoles will be limited. |
That's really where the parity shift for PC gaming will happen, if it actually happens.
I think a lot of people thought Crysis was suppose to herald the "next generation" on PC as it was the game that forced a lot of gamers to do a significant upgrade (or gave them an excuse), but that was back in 2007 and instead of seeing more PC games that simply weren't possible on a console, we now have the sequel being developed to run on consoles and no one seems particularly eager to make the next big PC exclusive that requires a significant upgrade.
So in that respect, consoles are holding back PC developers. Those who want to reach the broadest commercial audience anyway.
Even developing a game they can port over to the next generation of consoles makes no sense currently since there's no set timeframe for them. A port of a game that was only playable on PC could end up being a year old or even older by the time the console port came out resulting in minimal sales for anything that wasn't a seminal title.
So it boils down to when a major licensed game development environment like Unreal Engine 4 or CryEngine 4 becomes available to developers. Both are going to be targeted for console use, so it's a question of if middleware developers are going to release them for PC earlier or simply wait for the next generation of consoles.
