Dr.Henry_Killinger said:
ZyroXZ2 said:
I responded to a similar thread from another forum earlier, and while the topic discussion may not be a complete match, I feel my thoughts might still be worth something in this thread. Here's a copy-paste of my response to this news on that other forum: There's no doubt still a "hate Microsoft" bandwagon in which the narrative for MS exclusives coming to PC is a "loss" and makes the Xbox One "not worth buying", but the vast majority of people who use this narrative neither own a PC capable of matching the graphical fidelity/performance of the Xbox One nor will even buy these games on PC anyway knowing that they're still supporting Microsoft as a result of their purchase. The reality is that the current gen x86 consoles ARE budget PC gaming in a nutshell. And due to their mass production, no end-user will EVER build a more powerful gaming PC for $350. A common mistake is to just look at the CPU, GPU, and RAM and say, "look at how much better the components I can buy for $350 are!" while completely forgetting that to match what comes in the box of the console requires buying a PC case, a mouse and keyboard, Windows 10, internal components, etc. that all add up to well beyond $350 (not to mention a cheap headset if you want to match the Xbox One's pack-in like-for-like). When all is said and done, if someone doesn't have a gaming PC that matches or exceeds the performance of a gaming console, I will recommend the gaming console. Every. Single. Time. On the PC side of gaming, if you wish to build something better than the consoles, then you're in business. PC gaming is no longer the budget friendly option (and in many ways, never was: it was an odd exception that last generation's HD console twins were matched if not exceeding the then-high-performance PCs), it's the option you go for because you want the best of the best. BUT, as a person with a beast of a gaming rig, therein lies another side of the argument against PC gaming: we spend all this money to get the top-notch gaming performance only to have our versions of games be marginally "upgraded" from their console versions. The excuse to go PC loses a major step here since these "better" versions are just a few bells and whistles thrown on. Developers are NOT going to give PC gamers the original release trailer for The Witcher 3 or The Division and give console gamers the latest, downgraded version. In conclusion: yes, most people who simply knock the Xbox One simply because its exclusives come to PC are doing so simply for the sake of hating on Microsoft. There was NEVER a buying intention from these people to begin with. To people considering an Xbox One that are a bit more impressionable and affected by the "go PC" narrative of MS haters, it's a very simple question: does your PC exceed what the Xbox One can do? If not, then buy an Xbox One. By the time you're done upgrading or building a new PC, you'll have spent more money. If you're willing to spend even MORE money to get better graphics and performance, it sadly won't give you the night-and-day difference you deserve. If you can live with that, go PC.
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Narrative implies fiction rather than fact, a game on multiple platforms reduces the need for the platforms that can play this game. The only way this isn't true is if you have significantly different versions and all that does is skew things even further rather than balance them. Even if you didn't have a PC or an XB1, its a fact that the game being on both platforms, saves you a choice from making either.
I think you overexaggerate the importance of graphical fidelity/performance on PC gaming, and I don't blame you the graphics/performance enthusiasts are a vocal minority. Especially when we consider this from a budgetary perspective, if you've got a medium spec PC, wouldn't it be cheaper to get a 60$ game Vs. 60$ game + 299$ console? It doesn't need to exceed graphical fidelity/performance, unless that's something the consumer cares about.
The reason consoles are still a thing is because they hit that ever shrinking sweet spot of graphics/performance, price, and ease of use, and PC/Mobile is closing it in from all sides.
Yeah there is a hate bandwagon, but that doesn't mean legitmate concerns should be ignored, and hell all that does is inflate the bandwagon.
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The thing is: the PS4 stands as a sales example that people this generation DO care about gaming graphics/performance and in a large enough quantity to NOT be a vocal minority. Otherwise, they'd have bought a lot more Xbox One's for its $50 cheaper price tag (up until the PS4's recent price drop of sorts), and vast majority of identical 3rd party games. At this point in time, the PS4's exclusive library is still not the best and definitely not stronger than the Xbox One's right now, as many of its "exclusive" titles are either also on PS3, Vita, and/or PC. That PS4 is selling off good marketing, and that marketing is that it's the "best place to play", and anyone looking at what this represents in the gaming space is those dazzling graphics, not a library of games people can't get anywhere else.
At the same time, the vast majority of PC gamers are, indeed, using mid-range hardware. But PC gamers who care about graphics are not a vocal minority: we may be a minority in comparison to how many PC gamers have PCs that can pump out higher graphical settings, but if you've spent enough time in the PC gaming community, you'd know how important being able to "run" a game on "decent" settings is. In fact, I haven't even seen any PC gamers ever say, "I just want to be able to play it smoothly on the lowest settings". Graphics matter to PC gamers more than console gamers since we have the power to change what we get out of them, but the number of us who can crank them up are, indeed, a minority.