| 20happyballs said: Yes, I guess from a purely visual standpoint there are a handful of developers trying to make the most out of PCs. However, the games themselves can be easily ported to the PS4 and X1 with only some hits to the visual fidelity and some post processing effects removed. But in the end the core of the games themselves will still be the same on the consoles and PC. PC games, although great looking, are not a generation ahead. While we haven't seen it yet, soon there will be games coming out or the X1 and PS4 that just cannot be ported to the PS3 and Xbox 360 just like there are games for the PS3 and Xbox 360 that would have never worked on the prior generation. I don't see games such as Assassin's Creed, Gears of War, Uncharted, Infamous, and maybe even COD4 being any good on a PS2. Those games would not have worked on the previous generation. At the time of their release, those games could truly be considered "next gen". Soon there will be games that won't really be possible on the PS3 and Xbox 360...I know this is somewhat of a subjective opinion, but Ryse is almost one of those games. If Ryse was ported to the Xbox 360 the game would be horrible. The game, although many would disagree, is actually pretty good but only because of the realistic and cinematic visuals made possible with the X1. Of what I can remember, Crysis 1 is the only PC game that was truly a generation ahead of the consoles. However, most PC gamers at the time couldn't even run it at max settings. For this reason, most PC games today are not that ambitious and so ,consequently, they are not a generation ahead of console games. |
PC advancement will be gradual but steady, Consoles have mostly caught up to high end (but not Enthusiast) PC at the moment but PC will pull ahead again in the coming years. And honestly PS4 and XBOne set a pretty good baseline going forward, and on high end PC you will be able to add more polish on top of that. PS4/XBOne may be mid high today but in 3 years they will be low end. It's not just graphics either there are advancements coming in other areas as well. Take Oxide Games' new Nitrous engine wich will power several upcoming Strategy titles, which leverages the multithreaded CPUs and ammount of RAM modern PCs have to deliver 10k+ interactive units at the same time. While also delivering a modern rendering engine.
There is also things like the 4K Oculus Rift (which is on the roadmap as having the screen magnified to fill your FOV in the rift it's possible to pick out pixels at 1080p) which will require a pretty insane amount of power to deliver 3D gaming at that resolution in the minimum 60FPS (aparently when the screen is strapped to your face 120FPS is actually very preferable, and any inconcistancy is very easy to pick up so you need locked framerate) you need for a smooth experiance in VR. Which will allow a level of immersion that we have never seen before. Just because the assets and effects aren't 2X better doesn't mean that gamers wont need a lot more power to get the experiance that they want (naturally not everyone wants/needs the same experiance but the demand for new and better is always there), whether that is VR, multi-monitor surround, or just super high refresh rate (120Hz+) that some people want and are willing to pay a premium for. And a lot of these experiances just won't be possible on consoles any time soon.
And as I said there is one game set to be the next Crysis in Star Citizen, which the developers want the highest settings to push even the most powerful multi GPU enthusiest rigs in 2015. It is a game that most of the people playing will likely be playing at medium as those settings are aimed at people with a GTX 680 which is already almost twice as powerful as the PS4.
And there are also some amazing modders out there ready and willing to upgrade many games far beyond any developer would be willing to in todays market. Just look at some of the stuff that is going into games like Skyrim and GTA IV, the mods basically make them look like entirely new games. Wich leads into another thing it's not just more proccessing power that makes PC gaming attractive anyway. In fact most PC players are perfectly happy with PCs that are much weaker than even the PS360 generation, because the PC offers other experiances and benefits that you can't get anywhere else. Consoles are still playing catchup in terms of the business models and community features on PC for example. Things like user modding and a direct consumer-developer relationship are still things you can't really do on consoles. And there is also the matter of control methods, consoles don't offer the wide veriaty in input methods that the PC does.
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