naznatips said:
Nice, except I built a $600 PC that plays all multiplatform games released to date signifficantly better than their console counterparts. Not to mention it uses the super special advanced technologies of Word Processors and Free Online Multiplayer and web browsers! *gasp* Yes, that's right, I'm arguing you get a lot more features and games for your money for a PC than you do for either a PS3 or 360. And games that are on PC and 360 are absolutely not 360 exclusive. In fact, to even suggest such is ridiculous. Is Left 4 Dead a 360 exclusive now? All it is is a half-assed EA handled port of a game built for and around the PC. Bioshock was built on the PC first, and ported down to the 360. CoD4 was built on the PC first, and ported down to the 360 and PS3. The fact that these games exist on the PC in superior forms absolutely convinced me not to buy an Xbox 360. Instead, I'll be most likely be buying a PS3 as an HD console, because it offers more exclusives. The sales argument is just a joke. PC game sales have been increasing signifficantly over the last 3 years. The difference is that they are expanding in markets that NPD can't track (making them all the more irrelevant). Steam, EANation, and other digital distribution services are expanding at an insanely rapid rate. Steam increased in subscribers at a rate of 158% quicker in 2007 than in 2006. The Orange Box sold more than 70% of it's total units on Steam, and yes, that includes the 360 version. And that's just the American market... let's talk about the worldwide market. How about Europe? Germany, where PC games consistently outsell console games. Where Crysis outsold Super Mario Galaxy. Or how about Korea, the fastest growing gaming market in the world? Are they rushing out to buy 360s? No, they play PCs! Both Gabe Newell and Will Wright claim the PC market is growing. PC gaming is hardly dying, and the 360's lack of exclusive games is visibly hurting its console sales in territories like Europe where PC gaming is particularly strong, and again was what made the decision for me about which HD console I intend to purchase. |
It plays game today fine, but what about games five months from now? One of my laptops was built for games, or more speficially game development. It's just slightly over two years old and was built so I can have 3DSMax open, Photoshop open, whatever editor open I'm using, and the game itself runnign all at the same time and still perform well. It is a very good machine. That all being said when Oblivion was released it could run it but not well. I had to turn down many of the settings so that it looked and played much better on the 360. When Neverwinter Nights II came out, once again I could run the game but not well at all. Everything had to be turned down significantly in order to actually play the game. When Portal was released, I even had to turn down the settings to get a good frame rate.
So I don't know a lot about PC gaming but I do know you can build a $600 computer to play todays games but how well with games 6 months to a year from now work on it?
While games like Left4Dead are a gray area, games like Gears of War, Halo 3, Mass Effect, and all those other that are really 360 games being put on the PC later or off to the side release are 360 exclusives.
And I can't argue sales much let alone world wide since I don't pay a lot of attention to PC sales data let alone world wide data. :-p