Yes.

Blaming consoles? Read my text again. All I wrote was about dumbing down games and how you must dumb down games when you go down(yes down) from PC to any console. Can you give an example where games have gone another way around(not dumbed down) or series that have been dumbed down when they have been ported from consoles to PC(lol! :D).

Simplifying is dumbing down. Simplifying is happening all the time and only graphics seem to improve.

That compass thing kills immersion quite nicely and yes I would prefer buggy game over (over)simplified game. What is the point of large world to wander around, if you can't get lost or have only one way to go? :)

(Btw, how you can handle real world when theres no nanny to hold your hand and showing the way all the time?)

Well, can you even name any game on any console that is as complex as civilization? :)

If its going to be oblivion with guns, its not dumbing down? The game isn't out yet, but I am sure bethesda is aiming it to similar ppl as oblivion. I don't care if they rip the turn-based system, but when they take all those elements(free movement, free world, rpg elements & so on) away, it will be dumbing down.

1.  You're blaming consoles for the fact that it got dumbed down.  What I believe he's saying is, "How can you be so sure that they didn't dumb it down to try to go for a bigger audience, which merely happens to also be the reason they went to consoles?"

As for your question, how many console series have moved onto PC at all?  It's a serious question, I don't know.  Once that is established we can look for ones that were dumbed down.  Simple ports (like FF7 PC) don't count. 

2.  Kills immersion?  If I were wandering around in the wilderness I would sure as hell be bringing a compass and map and checking my compass constantly to verify my direction! 

Now I have not played Daggerfall or even Morrowind so I guess I'm one of the players you hate, but I really don't see the harm in having a compass do what anybody could figure out except it would take longer to do manually.  This makes it merely a time-saving device and not any kind of "easy mode" unless I am forgetting something, which I may be as I have not played the game much in some time. 

Maybe getting completely lost is fun for you.  I'm not being sarcastic, I know a guy who would probably consider it entertaining if he didn't have to be anywhere soon.  But not for me.  Not for most people, I bet.  So why not let those who want to know their bearings have the ability to do so?  You don't complain about having the quest log, just in case you get so distracted dicking around that you forget what you were supposed to be doing, do you?  That's happened to me a few times. 

As for fast travel, well, no one's forcing you to use it.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I've never used it.  So anyone complaining about that is an elitist plain and simple. 

3. and 4.  Haven't played Civ or Fallout enough to comment.

I love consoles! I have never played a PC game and I probably never will. My computer is a piece of crap anyway and most likely couldn't handle a huge game or whatever from 1995 probably.

This generation was almost prohibitively expensive, but so long as it lasts at least 2-4 years longer than any previous generation, things will be okay.

Hell, if you're developing an ultra-high-tech title for PC, how is that really that much cheaper to develop than if it's on Xbox360 or PS3? At least on the consoles you know that the game will run on the hardware all your customers own.

Crysis - $22 millions budget

Halo 3 - over $40 millions budget

MGS4 - over $70 millions budget

I hope that's only development costs and you aren't seriously comparing two console games with immense marketing budgets to a PC game that received a minimal one. I don't remember seeing Crysis Mountain Dew and Slurpee cups among other things which probably ate very heavily into that 40 million figure.

BTW, I'm not saying you're incorrect. It was just not a good comparison.

Aren't most console games created on a PC anyways? So wouldn't the costs be similar?

When I see all the drama around PC and how much they cost, I thank heavens that I don't like FPSs. As long as I can play Diablo II and Starcraft on my PC I'll be happy. I'll update my computer only when Starcraft II comes.... that leaves me more than enough time to save up.

Actually, console gaming is in some ways becoming more like PC gaming.

Games require patches to work properly -- CHECK.
Games require on-line connections to work -- CHECK.
Small games purchased without physical medium -- CHECK.
Virtual prohibition on used games -- NOT YET, but it could come, the technology exists.

The last point is why software makers tend to favor PCs. They can try to stay ahead of the pirates. But they can't do anything about Blockbuster and Gamestop.

Mike from Morgantown

Halo 3 and MGS4 are definitly going to cost more because they're much bigger titles than Crysis, and they're extremely high-profile system exclusives.  High profile exclusives always cost more.  See: Shenmue, which cost an unbelievable $40,000,000 at the time.  Just because the Wii is the "cheap and easy" console this time doesn't mean that Super Mario Galaxy didn't spend 4 years in development costing untold millions of dollars (or billions of yen).

The average PS3 and Xbox360 game aren't going to be that much more expensive to develop than the average PC game, with the exception of licensing fees, and some general spending when first learning the console-specific hardware.  Again, the upside is that when a developer makes a game for a console, he doesn't have to worry about whether or not all his customers will be able to run it on their hardware.  Console gamers don't need to worry about graphics cards or available RAM.