Smidlee - Exactly what about Revolutions is going to make it Civ-Lite?

Do you realize the PC versions of Civilization 1 and 2 were on consoles, and were the EXACT SAME THING as the PC versions?

Leo-J - Here's my problem about the PC-X360 argument:

If you bought a $2,000 PC at the beginning of the generation, chances are, you cannot play Crysis very well, much less anything that comes out in the next 2-3 years that are major games.

By the end of the generation, to get the same PC/X360 port, you'd have to pay most likely another $1,000 to make it compatible with newer games, if not an entirely new MOBO and internals.

Whereas you could of been like me, and spent $400 for a Premium Xbox 360.

And save $2,600 that you could also buy a DS, PSP, PS3 and Wii, and STILL have $1,500 left over to buy more games with. Can anyone comprehend that? I bought a $750 laptop in May last year. Guess what? I can't run jack squat on it. At best, I can play games that are 3 years old hoping for little slowdown.

I've had some of my best gaming experiences on a PC. I love the PC. But for gaming, it's becoming a quickly archaic form of entertainment as consoles start to intergrate PC-like features that the X360 and PS3 have. The difference, is the insane quanity of cash you save on the consoles. My family bought a $2,500 PC in 1995. Guess what? The PSP has vastly superior functions than it does! For gaming, at best, it lasted me to 1999 for middle-tier gaming. Whereas my N64 lasted me until 2000 for $199.

libellule -

PC's still have crashes, and I've had multiple hard drives fail wiping all information, as well as other things since I've been a PC owner since 1995. My last PC had a faulty contact in the unit, canning the entire system.

Online for X360 is still free for most things. I agree with the online = free argument, but in many cases, it still costs for some subscripts. for PC games.

How is online PC gaming better than console gaming?

How is the PC experience, from an entirely gaming perspective, better?

Gaming pad functionality on many PC games is debatable, and for many, do not work.

You should compare the specs of a typical game from 2007 to a PC for $280 and see how far it gets versus a standard X360.

Again, Libelluel - Your paying $1000 for a PC that cannot play games in 3 years. With a X360, you are. Simple as that. PCs aren't for gaming. Remember that. They're meant for a plethora of uses (such as what we're doing right now), and because of that, suffer from an array of issues that a gaming device does not. Gaming systems are meant for gaming. Even if they have some PC-like features, they are still closed-resource units, that allow developers to get the most out of the system, enabling for a vastly superior lifespan. A PC from 2005 will not last to play games in 2011 like the X360 will.

"Smidlee - Exactly what about Revolutions is going to make it Civ-Lite?

Do you realize the PC versions of Civilization 1 and 2 were on consoles, and were the EXACT SAME THING as the PC versions?"

Yes I had both civ1 and civ2 on consoles but it's no secret that Revolutions is not a port of civ3or civ4. Even pre-views admited it "civ-lite" which many feels it's not a bad thing for consoles (civ2 didn't sell that well on PS).

Also except a extremely few games like Crysis you don't need a $2000 pc to play games. This is one reason I believe PS3/360 didn't sell as well since their price was close to what you can get a average tower for.

"Again, Libelluel - Your paying $1000 for a PC that cannot play games in 3 years."

 I send less than that for one of my tower 3 years ago and have no problems playing today pc games. (of course can't play the few games like Crysis on high settings)

@ Smidlee

Civilization is one of the few PC games that always has low specs for their game so people can play them.  Unless your PC is archaic, you'll be able to play Civ 5 whenever it comes out.

You wont be able to play many other games though since your PC will go out of date in a few months after you bought it.

@ mrstickball, you are completely correct, I can't afford to refresh my computer constantly, and the £250 360 will keep me entertained until it breaks (of course that is a completely different issue)

Yeah, with everything on lowest settings.

no and even if true I just go a buy a another $100 card. There are very few games that require a expensive card to run on high settings like Crysis.  I  even used graphics mods  to improve the 360 port Oblivion graphics on my old PC with it's cheap $100 graphic card. (many complained about pc got 360 ported graphic for Oblivion when the average pc can do better)

To me PC gaming and console gaming are completely different experiences. One has me sitting in a chair looking at my monitor while using a keyboard and mouse while the other I sit on a couch or lay on the carpet and play.

Some people would argue that you can take the PC to the livingroom or have one there instead of a console but I find it's a chore to try to relax on the couch or lay on the floor while trying to use a keyboard and mouse. And for those that argue that you can plug in a Xbox 360 gamepad or a similar one that doesn't work for every game and removes what is supposed to be one of the big advantages of PC gaming.

I really prefer to play strategy games on PC (they can be extremely cumbersome on consoles) but I also prefer to play action games such as the Grand Theft Auto series on console. For FPSs the gamepad doesn't bother me at all and I have no real preference since I don't have the time anymore to get so involved in a FPS that I would download user created maps (there are just too many games I want to play).

Anyways sure there's a lot of overlap between the PC and Xbox 360, most developers are using the exact same development tools for both so it's a no-brainer to bring out versions for both. But what's missing in this discussion is that even though the same game may be available for both systems some people may just prefer to play it on one or the other depending on what their gaming preferences are.

I'm starting to wonder if some PC gamers--not all--prefer some sort of self induced torment. One of my engineers at work built a really nice custom PC last year with custom case decent video card, fairly current dual-core CPU, 4 GB RAM, etc., and he also picked up a PS3 recently.

His first purchase for the PS3 was Oblivion, which he's logged over 100 hours in. Then about a month ago he kept drooling over all the mods and downloadable content available for the PC version of the game. So he actually went out and bought PC Oblivion and was looking to sell his PS3.

Well... he still has the PS3 and he's back to playing Oblivion on it. After about 3 weeks of trying to get the game to play correctly on his PC (even without any mods), he went back to the PS3 version.

The reason I say that some PC gamers might prefer self-induced torment, is because I asked him last 2 days ago if he was still looking to sell his PS3 (I prefer the 360, but a cheap PS3 to replace my son's PS2 in his bedroom wouldn't be a bad thing :^), and he replied that he was still keeping it for future games, but that he was going to go back and give the PC version of Oblivion another shot. He's going to wipe his whole machine and reinstall everything from scratch just to try and play the PC version!

What's that old definition of insanity? Something about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

Actually, the guy is easily one of the best software engineers I've met and has a degree in Computer Engineering, but sometimes I have to wonder just how much he's willing to suffer to have those mods...