sc94597 said: Slimebeast said: sc94597 said: Ail said: It will be a while before the average PC sets itself apart from the HD console. Sure the top PC already do, but not every PC gamer has a 250$ graphic card. + lets not forget that PC runs game at 1600x1200 and consoles run them at a much lower resolution... Average Dell PC ( I mean the 600-700$ PC)you can buy these days has a NVidia 8600 GT which while being better than what you find in HD consoles isn't that much better when you factor the higher resolution it has to run at compared to HD consoles. Sure you can have a lot more graphic power running 8800 SLI but not that many people do.......  YOu don't realize how fast pcs advance do you? A year from now most pcs will be getting the integrated Cpu and Gpu in one processor which is suppose to make the average processor advance enough to play most games of the current. pcs advance really fast, they are already starting to set apart from consoles with games like far cry 2 running so poorly on consoles compared to pc. I belieive this could be good and bad. There will be more than just pc ports for my hd consoles, and my purchase woul dhave been more worth it,  but not as many pc games for other people who like them to play on consoles.   First of all there is no evidence that integrated/fusion GPU/CPUs will have anywhere near the performance needed for modern games. By all logic their GPU-power will be very crappy, just less-crappy than the power in integrated chips we have today. Second, your time guess. "A year from now" is just that, guessing. There's hardly any info about AMD's Fusion-project at all, and even less so on Intel's. Third, even if the time guess would become reality, mass market integrated/fusion GPUs would cripple PC-engines and their use of the latest graphics effects! Don't u see the logic? The PC games today are cutting edge because of the fact that the mass market adopted the use of dedicated GPUs, and thus are having a lot of horse-power for advanced 3D graphics. Cheap fusion GPU/CPU-solutions are actually a threat against PC devs putting resources on creating cutting edge advanced game engines. First of all like you said we know very little about these projects, but then say it will cripple it more than help conflicting with your first argument. I will also ask why intel and amd will go this direction and even say it will help more than hinder if they already if it will hinder more than help. Who said we will lose the dedicated gpu option anyway? Who even said they won't make a dedidcated line of these chips for the high end pc gamers? Like you said we know very little about it. I also remember reading somewhere that amd mentioned that they were hoping for the first chip to be released in 09 , but I'm not too sure. And that is still not relevant to my point anyway. Pcs advance quickly. Last year it would have costed me $200 dollars to play crysis, this year it costs $500 and crysis seems to be getting maxed with pc around the $1000 dollar mark and even lower. The ps3 and even more so the xbox 360 rely alot on pc games for their 3rd party, and after they lose this we will either see a decrease in support, or more games designed for the consoles excusively.

Well, the purpose was to show that the argument about integrated/fusion CPUGPUs doesn't help your cause about the PC to et itself apart from the PS360. I didn't really contradict myself, because even though there hardly are no details about the fusion-projects, the general concensus is that there is 0 chance that they will be anywhere near the performance of separate GPUs (as I said, they will still be crappy, we just don't know how much the crappyness will improve).

Btw, you should use some commas in your texts, it's hard to understand now.

Anyway, the reason for Intel/AMD integrating the CPU/GPU is that they want to get a bigger slice of the market that is interested in decent graphics, but today buy systems with low-budget GPUs from AMD/Nvidia (plus u have the increasing lap-top market aswell, who are asking for stronger integrated solutions). And AMD in turn also tries to compete with Intel, hoping that the Fusion would add another argument to choose an AMD-solution instead of an Intel CPU+chipset combo which has extremely bad graphics rendering power.

I agree that PC technology advances quickly. That was an assumption by the OP. But how much and in what way will it affect 3d party support for consoles, that is the question.

 

Godot said: Ssyn said: akuma587 said: Software developers will have already figured out that the PC market is stagnating and will accommodate their games to the large PS3 and 360 userbases. This is false, the PC market is far superior in terms of revenue than the HD consoles atm, its very hard to track so I imagine that is why this site doesn't bother but NDP recently said that it will begin to try tracking digital game purchases and subscriptions(MMO revenue). WoW alone makes more profit than sony and microsoft currently are.   WoW is the exception, not the rule. WoW makes a lot of money bot those people play mostly WoW and won't buy a lot of new games as they already pay 30$/month (or something like that) to play it. The PC gaming market is completely cannibalized by piracy (except for MMO which is what truly thrives on PC). It's no wonder even Epic and Valve started to support the consoles.   OT: I don't think much will happen. Most popular games on HD consoles are not PC port such as Halo, GTA, Final Fantasy, Rock Band, etc. However, PC will never have an impact on consoles. Just look in the past if you want a confirmation. While we're playing games such as Super Mario World on SNES, computers had games like Myst which looked so much better than consoles. Yet, the PC gaming never really stopped the expansion of the console market which grows yearly (and even without the Wii). Besides, programming games for Xbox360 is really similar to program games for PC. In that case, it's in those companies best interests to release games for both PC and Xbox360 (at least) even if the graphics are not as good.

Playing Wow costs 15$ a month, not 30$.

It's true some of the Wow players do not spend a lot of time playing the game but if you look at the hardcore wow population ( the raiders especially, not those that spend 7h a day online doing nothing) they spend a fair amount of time playing others games. Fact is, if you are organized Wow end game isn't that time consuming ( a few weeks of hardcore raiding when the stuff is released and then back to 3 days of raid a week ...

sc94597 said: XGamer0611 said: sc94597 said: XGamer0611 said: The only reason PC gaming isn't number one platform or will ever be is the cost of hardware. In PC gaming you have to upgrade your hardware every 12-18 months. That isn't something people want to do or can afford for that matter. With the price of high-end video cards exceeding the price of the PS3 and 360 (combined). There is a reason consoles stay the number one form of gaming. But the consols rely alot on pc games. There is no doubt the pc games will stay on pc as the developement costs are cheaper, and the software sales are pretty good for the install base. I agree with you. PC games are great. My point is unless hardware prices take a steep drop the PC will always be the alternative to the consoles. That doesn't make sense.There is a very large userbase of pc gamers that will buy the games, and the attach rates are probably alot higher than those on the 360 and ps3. So I don't see how price would affect it unless the userbase was small, and games don't sell which it's isn't and they don't.

lol wut

define "attach rate" because you must not be thinking of the same thing I am thinking of. 

Final-Fan said: sc94597 said: XGamer0611 said: sc94597 said: XGamer0611 said: The only reason PC gaming isn't number one platform or will ever be is the cost of hardware. In PC gaming you have to upgrade your hardware every 12-18 months. That isn't something people want to do or can afford for that matter. With the price of high-end video cards exceeding the price of the PS3 and 360 (combined). There is a reason consoles stay the number one form of gaming. But the consols rely alot on pc games. There is no doubt the pc games will stay on pc as the developement costs are cheaper, and the software sales are pretty good for the install base. I agree with you. PC games are great. My point is unless hardware prices take a steep drop the PC will always be the alternative to the consoles. That doesn't make sense.There is a very large userbase of pc gamers that will buy the games, and the attach rates are probably alot higher than those on the 360 and ps3. So I don't see how price would affect it unless the userbase was small, and games don't sell which it's isn't and they don't. lol wut define "attach rate" because you must not be thinking of the same thing I am thinking of.

I'm talking relative to the pc gamers, rather than everyone who owns a computer.

@ Slimebeast agreed, I may have uderstood the pont of it incorrectly before.

 

1 - PCs are already past PS3/360 are top end PCs were the day the 360 launched.

2 - the answer based on GoW and UT3 would seem to be develop for console first then release graphically enhanced version later on PC

@ Zero until now I've been ignoring your post bedcause of the ignorance of what I've been saying. I am in now way saying that the consoles will go anywhere, but I am saying they rely alot on pc ports. Also name me some games that were developed on consoles first and ported to pc. Of course the games that were earlier ported to consoles and suceeded will stay but most new pc games won't be ported. Gears was put on the 360 because of it being graphically superior to high end pcs at the time, and will stay on their but we won't see to many games like gears that show off new engines anymore. I was just proving that without alot of the pc ports the consoles will lose alot of third party, but will also gain new exclusives to them specifically. Never has there been consoles so dependent on pc games. That was just the top ten rated btw, should I show the games rated below that?

I think there's a couple of points that has not been brought up in this argumentation and that probably should be.

The first is the galloping costs of making games.

The second is the fact that this generation is entirely unlike other generations because of the Wii.

These two will also play a major role in what will happen.

Maybe it's possible to make monstergames for the PC right now. Actually, it IS. Crysis shows us that. But it's not happening, and there's nothing on the horizon that will beat Crysis in graphics (to the best of my knowledge). Why? It's too expensive, you do not really gain anything by it. It's better to make a game that has lower graphics-quality and release it on multiple platforms. It'll sell many times more (Far Cry 2 was a good example). So I think that unless PC games starts to sell much more things will stay centered around PCS360 as a unit.

Also, the nintendo factor. It's really messing things up with the way things are expected to play out. Suddenly, graphics is no longer everything. Things have started to really turn away from that. If the major reason for the PC being better starts to be less valuable, what will happen?

I don't know anything about it, and my analysis is probably pretty shallow, but I still think these two issues should be taken into consideration.

zero129 said: sc94597 said: @ Zero until now I've been ignoring your post bedcause of the ignorance of what I've been saying. I am in now way saying that the consoles will go anywhere, but I am saying they rely alot on pc ports. Also name me some games that were developed on consoles first and ported to pc. Of course the games that were earlier ported to consoles and suceeded will stay but most new pc games won't be ported. Gears was put on the 360 because of it being graphically superior to high end pcs at the time, and will stay on their but we won't see to many games like gears that show off new engines anymore. I was just proving that without alot of the pc ports the consoles will lose alot of third party, but will also gain new exclusives to them specifically. Never has there been consoles so dependent on pc games. That was just the top ten rated btw, should I show the games rated below that?   Well then instead of ignoring my posts you should of read them and you will see how you're points are pretty much invalid and have no substance to them imo.. I have giving you good points each time to show how it will not matter, and yet you keep replying with the same stuff. The is no proof to show that them developers will stop making games for the Hd consoles but yet you seem to think they will just stop, that is a very good base to start your argument on -_- . By the time UE4 *Epic* comes out im sure the next Xbox and maybe even the PS4 will be out. The UE3 (That alot of devs etc are using) Is very scalable so almost all games made for even high end PC's with this could in some form also be ported to the HD consoles. I agree with you that the Will be PC games that won't come to the consoles, but when has that not been the case?? that still does not mean them developers are just going to "Leave" the HD consoles..

I'm talking about in a year or two though when it will be like porting a game from hd consoles to the wii.  It's possible, but would it be worth it?Not really.  ALot of the sequels will come to hd consoles, but most new games aren't going to be ported the way they have been. #rd parties would have to compensate for this lack of games able to port to the consoles, and will have to make more console exclusives, and console only mutiplats.

 

Killergran said: I think there's a couple of points that has not been brought up in this argumentation and that probably should be. The first is the galloping costs of making games. The second is the fact that this generation is entirely unlike other generations because of the Wii. These two will also play a major role in what will happen. Maybe it's possible to make monstergames for the PC right now. Actually, it IS. Crysis shows us that. But it's not happening, and there's nothing on the horizon that will beat Crysis in graphics (to the best of my knowledge). Why? It's too expensive, you do not really gain anything by it. It's better to make a game that has lower graphics-quality and release it on multiple platforms. It'll sell many times more (Far Cry 2 was a good example). So I think that unless PC games starts to sell much more things will stay centered around PCS360 as a unit. Also, the nintendo factor. It's really messing things up with the way things are expected to play out. Suddenly, graphics is no longer everything. Things have started to really turn away from that. If the major reason for the PC being better starts to be less valuable, what will happen? I don't know anything about it, and my analysis is probably pretty shallow, but I still think these two issues should be taken into consideration.

 Nice post , but you fail to recognize that while crysis was expensive to make in 2006-2007, that isn't the case for 2008-2009. Developers learn new tricks, and most of the time it's cheaper, especially on pc. Some games are even starting to rival crysis as you've said farcry 2 is one, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R seems like one that will fall just below crysis standards at higher settings. 

 

Yes the nintendo factor works, but only for consoles. Do you know why most pc developors ignore the wii? Because of its graphics of course. That is why epic ignores it. ONce the difference between a high end pc and the hd consoles seems to be the difference between them and the wii do you actually believe these developers would care about consoles anymore? Not really. If they do port games the ports most likely won't be good such as the port of half life 2 to the original xbox. 

Your points  are considered though. 

zero129 said: sc94597 said: zero129 said: sc94597 said: @ Zero until now I've been ignoring your post bedcause of the ignorance of what I've been saying. I am in now way saying that the consoles will go anywhere, but I am saying they rely alot on pc ports. Also name me some games that were developed on consoles first and ported to pc. Of course the games that were earlier ported to consoles and suceeded will stay but most new pc games won't be ported. Gears was put on the 360 because of it being graphically superior to high end pcs at the time, and will stay on their but we won't see to many games like gears that show off new engines anymore. I was just proving that without alot of the pc ports the consoles will lose alot of third party, but will also gain new exclusives to them specifically. Never has there been consoles so dependent on pc games. That was just the top ten rated btw, should I show the games rated below that?   Well then instead of ignoring my posts you should of read them and you will see how you're points are pretty much invalid and have no substance to them imo.. I have giving you good points each time to show how it will not matter, and yet you keep replying with the same stuff. The is no proof to show that them developers will stop making games for the Hd consoles but yet you seem to think they will just stop, that is a very good base to start your argument on -_- . By the time UE4 *Epic* comes out im sure the next Xbox and maybe even the PS4 will be out. The UE3 (That alot of devs etc are using) Is very scalable so almost all games made for even high end PC's with this could in some form also be ported to the HD consoles. I agree with you that the Will be PC games that won't come to the consoles, but when has that not been the case?? that still does not mean them developers are just going to "Leave" the HD consoles.. I'm talking about in a year or two though when it will be like porting a game from hd consoles to the wii.  It's possible, but would it be worth it?Not really.  ALot of the sequels will come to hd consoles, but most new games aren't going to be ported the way they have been. #rd parties would have to compensate for this lack of games able to port to the consoles, and will have to make more console exclusives, and console only mutiplats.     But you see it's always been like that, this gen will be no different. It's like with Wii owners they don't expect to get games that look as good as HD console games, HD console gamers won't be expecting to get games that look as good as Top end PC games. And some games wont be expected at all. It just means the consoles will get more Console Exclusive games, downgraded ports etc..

Which is fine, and that is what I've been asking. I've been asking what will happen when this does, and you are the only one who has had a complaint with my question.I just feel there will be more effect since the hd consoles rely more on pc games than others in the past. 

 

Nobody mentioned what they think the main developement console for multiplats will be. I believe it will be a mix between all three.

 Wii- FOr games that don't neec good graphics, but would benefit from low developement costs. 

 360= For games that will utilize good graphics, Slightly less developement costs than ps3, and for games that will be downgraded for the wii, not the ones that will be for both ps3 and 360 but not for the wii. 

Ps3-  FOr games that are ps360 multiplats exclusding wii. Advantages are games running better for ps3 owners than a 360 port will.