Poseidon said:
Bodhesatva said:
ssj12 said:
Bodhesatva said:
As a PC gamer, I've always chuckled at the notion that, say, God of War II and Grand Theft Auto players are more "serious" or hardcore." From my perspective, you're all casual. "Hard core" video gamers, to me, make a living playing video games, or at the very least, play those games 10+ hours a day. I have always felt the bulk of Playstation 2 owners were in some nebulous center area: not children, by any means, but also not serious gamers. My personal opinion -- Video game consoles, in general, alienate hardcore gamers, not just the Wii. It's not the right venue for it. Personally, I pay 400 dollars a year to make sure my PC gaming rig is up to date and keeps me competitive in the world of professional gaming. THAT is hardcore, and it's something that consoles (and, particularly I think, gamepads instead of mouse/keyboards) have never provided. |
interesting opinion on what HardCore is but frankly I disagree. A hardcore gamer is someone who has played games through multiple generations on many different systems. You might say professional gamers are hardcore.. they arent.. half of them never played Pong or PacMan in their lives. There just Professional Gamers. I'm a hardcore gamer. I've played competitively (Former Cal-P UT04 1v1) and have owned/played every console since the Atari 2600. |
That's fine. You can certainly have your opinion of the definition, and I can have mine. |
I'm going to have to agree with ssj12. Your definition is more of a "Hardcore PC Gamer." If you feel like spending $400 annually, all the power to you man. This is one reason why people in a way flock to consoles because developers have to manipulate the hardware that is presented to them, whereas, let's be honest some people that make PC games are waiting for that new graphics card. Crysis is making a few people rip their hair out. PCs just lack traditional RPGs, action/adventure games (And when they do, it's crappy), platformers, and party games. |
Interesting -- I think most people flock to Consoles because most people aren't hardcore (and in fact, if most people were, then the definition would need to be reworked).
I'll put this simply: any new console is cutting edge for, at most, a few months. Even the PS3 is beginning to be eclipsed already (DirectX 10 is live!). For a developer that absolutely must, at all times, have the best possible hardware at their disposal, the console is only an option for perhaps 3 months out of a 6 year generational cycle.
I see many posters acting as if visionary minds looking to expand video games are going to do so on the PS3. I say they're wrong: they'll do it on the PC -- and perhaps the Wii, thanks to the unconventional control scheme. This has historically been true: other than Nintendo and Miyamato, since the NES, every major video gaming innovation has been on the PC: Simulators (as in, Sim City, the Sims, etc), Real Time strategy games, First Person Shooters, Massively Multipler Online Games or heck, even online games in general -- basically every new genre invented since the basic action/adventure/rpg/racing genres were defined back in the 8 bit days has gotten its start on the PC. There certainly have been some wonderful refinements and polishes of existing ideas: Halo, console versions of The Sims, the advent of Xbox Live, and several others are great games, but not highly innovative. Heck, The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker may be one of the greatest games of its generation, but it's as close to rehash as you can get intellectually. It's just rehashed very well.
At this moment in time, the Xbox360 is no longer cutting edge technology for companies looking to expand the possibilities of gaming. The PS3 falls into the same category -- or will, very soon. These platforms are very good, even excellent, for bringing existing innovations to the mass market. But precisely because they are "platforms," and not constantly evolving hardware, these systems cannot be cutting edge for long. This is the primary reason I don't think of them as hardcore, frankly.
