Will consoles kill the PC gaming scene?

the PC is going thought a midlife crysis at the moment and things are changing we set the standed for tech and software which after a few year's then moves over to the consoles.
Now many people say PC sales are down and yes they are IN THE SHOP because the PC is changing from a buy from shop system [use a dvd] to a digital shop [download] and sales on all digital shops have grown 100% or more for the past 3-5 years and yet again the PC set the standered which is starting to filter on to the console so now you can buy some 360 games in full and download them.

In short the PC will never die as a gaming platform it just to big and we have somthing the console fan boy dont MOD's for most games that come out which add years of gameplay to our games :)

Yes I Own A Console :
360 and PS3
 
How many times is this thread going to rear it's head per month... and still people post it as though it's the first time someone thought of it. Not to mention the OP was very poor quality even for one of these threads.
 
The only games you may find this happening with are more 'casual' games I suspect, console games typically lack real 'meat' they have simplistic control systems and are much more 'pick up and play' than most of the greatest pc titles, they don't have modding scenes or have great re-playability for years after their release (FFVII accepted). Console games, to me at least, are really missing a whole dimension that defines PC games.

If all you want to do is buy a game, take it home and play it for a couple of hours without having to think too much and then do something else, then I suppose they work well enough. But if you want much more than that, then they fall waaaaay short.

Also, MMO's (which have been on the up for several years now) are the domain of the PC, can you imagine trying to play a game like Eve Online on a console?

I don't much care for FPS games, fightning games, driving games or platform games very much though, I've always been a RTS and RPG player first and formost, these just don't work well on consoles for the most part.

There are quite a lot of people like me out there, you don't see games like Supreme Commander, Total Annihilation, the Baldur's Gate series, Planescape, The Icewind Dale series, Neverwinter Nights, Myth, Sins of a Solar Empire, The Age of Empires series, Toal War, The Homeworld Series, Heroes of Might and Magic series, the Elder Scrolls series ..etc on consoles ...then we come to the MMO's, Eve Online, World of Warcraft, Ultima Online, Lineage, Dark Age of Camelot, Age of Conan ....etc.

I know there is Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution for various consoles, but it's a shadow of the games that spawned it, a sadly lacking shell with a great name sake.
 
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On a serious note, I have been a PC gamer all my life (more or less). Yesterday I headed out to obtain a copy of NFS Shift for it and jesus was it difficult.
A very large ASDA nearby stocked a whopping total of 5 different games. The nearest GAME didn't have it, and also had one tiny shelf dedicated to PC. The same two stores had all 4 walls covered in Console titles.
Most supermarkets and department stores have cut down to nearly nothing for PCs, including the likes of Currys etc.

It is a shame, but I do believe it is the retailers that hold the fate of PC gaming in their hands. Lets face it, they wont stop stocking something if it is selling like hotcakes. There has definitely been a massive decline in people stocking a wide variety of PC games. There is probably only GAME and Gamestation left on the high street. That certainly seems to be the case around here anyway.
 
hideki said:
Short answer: No
Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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Again, this. As long as PCs are needed for other jobs, people will game on them; but very few people buy PCs just to game, and currently consoles are **** at all the other stuff PCs can do. The PC may die at some point, but if it happens it will be for reasons totally unrelated to gaming.


M
 
PC gaming has been dying for years ;)

But now PC is just another console gaming platform (the best obviously!) as most games are obviously multiplatform ports or PC developed multiplatform titles which are delayed until console sales dry up as publishers are very wary of the extreme piracy on PC.

360 has piracy but games still manage to sell 4-5m+ copies which is why Publishers ignore it and carry on regardless.

220M+ gaming PC's in the world and growing all the time yet most PC games struggle to sell 6 figures let alone 7. In fact in the last 2 years only L4D, WOW, Crysis (inc Warhead) & The Witcher sold well into 7 figures. Does no-one ever stop and think why publishers do not mention PC sales but put out financial statements all the time like GOW2 has hit 4M on 360 or Batman: AA just shipped 2.5M etc etc. The reason why is because most PC games sell a fraction of the console versions and publishers will never ever admit to the exact numbers as their investors would view this as a major negative.

An undeniable fact is that in general the PC just does not sell as many games as other platforms nowadays. Some exceptions are WOW & certain Valve games but they are more PC centric nearly everything else is a multiplatform title. Piracy is probably the biggest factor but equally you have the drivers update hassle factor (which puts many prospective gamers off as they just want to play the games!!) or pure ignorance. How many mainstream gamers who own a PC (and most probably several consoles) realise that its so easy to connect your PC to a HDTV and game on it with a far superior experience to current consoles. All you need is a HDMI or DVI to HDMI cable to connect which can be bought for well under £10 now! Then you can buy PC games online for 25-30% cheaper than the console version and its usually superior technically & or includes the DLC for free. Not many and thats another part of the problem no-one is the platform holder for PC. MS could & should be but they have the 360 so it does not leave anyone else to take up the reigns & promote the PC as a mainstream gaming platform. MS have made some effort with GFW & GFWL but they are obviously not looking to invest much more until or if ever they decide its a worthwhile investment for their shareholders instead of funding the hefty R&D on their next console

Right now PC has an uncertain future as a gaming platform it will never ever go away but it will also not thrive as it once did like its heyday in the early to mid 1990's when PC games sold 1M+ all the time and several sold 3M+. If were lucky the multiplatform ports will continue to flow and right now they are improving a lot as MS, Intel & Nvidia have developed several developer tools which translate X360 code into PC friendly code very quickly with little performance loss then you have publishers like Capcom with their MT Framework engine (MT stands for multithreaded) which scales very well across older hardware and delivers some pretty graphics.

So yes consoles have killed the PC gaming scene to a large extent but you also need to consider that modern games cost vast sums of money well into the £15M+ range for a decent title so to spread the risk the companies that fund that are going multiplatform and PC is not that high a priority to them when other platforms deliver much higher sales numbers.

Personally I think DX11 is a waste of money right now unless you must upgrade your existing card do you really think that there will be a healthy flow of DX11 games in the next few years as unless Nvidia or ATI sponsor some its unlikely to reach double figures as DX9 is still the console standard and thats driving the mainstream for the next 3-4 years.
 
Never, its not all the gaming side though, its Pc vs Console, and on that note, Pc will allways be on top, you can do too much on a pc with gaming that you will not be able to do on a console in the forseable future.

it will all be pc's in the future, not consoles, Pc's are getting smaller and smaller each year, you can make a computer smaller than a console these days which is more powerfull, you can use a pad on a computer too, and allso you can pretty much say every household will have a lcd or plasma tv in the near future meaning you can use a pc and hook it up in any hosuehold instantly.

why people buy consoles instead of a computer is mainly for the plug and play aspect, and atm the computer versions of some games dont cut it, but like i said all of this is slowely getting better for computers, and will get better and better.

thats my opinion anyway, but i have no clue so nevermind. :p

in the last month theres been a increase in
Sinque said:
Oh my god, not this AGAIN...
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the same topics coming up over and over again :(
 
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There are a couple of reasons that I won't ever switch over to consoles. First is price. Seriously, do devs expect me to pay £40-£50 for a new game? It's awesomely expensive, especially for a student.

Second is control - with my laptop, I have the choice of playing Fallout 3 or other G4W titles with either the keyboard and mouse, or with an Xbox 360 controller. I usually use the controller over longer periods since it induces less RSI in my wrists, and it allows me to sit back and relax a little. Alternatively, if I need precision, I can move over to the mouse. With a console, this flexibility is taken away - my only option is the controller.

Thirdly, there is the case of moving towards a disc-less ecosystem. On my laptop, Steam has solved many disadvantages of physical media, including the one of damaging discs or losing the booklet with the CD key (this just happened to a friend who bought CoD:WaW!). I don't have to carry discs around with me, I can keep a backup of all my Steam games on my external hard drive. With a console such as the Xbox 360, even if you install the game to the hard drive, you still have to fish round for the disc and insert in just to confirm you're not pirating the game. And woe betide thou if your disc gets scratched and cannot be read properly - even if you made a backup, that won't be accepted either due to copy protection (ignore the case of modded consoles). There's not much in the way of download services either (though I admit this is changing).

The final one is upgradeability - I can build a rig far more powerful than any console, and over its life I will be able to play games at much higher quality than will ever be possible on consoles. Also, certain games such as ArmA 2 and Crysis that require masses of computing power are just not currently possible on consoles. Only the PC can put through the required horsepower.

I'd say - let the gaming proles stick with playing PES on their consoles all they want. We're still superior ;) Consider yourselves the gaming equivalent of Porsche enthusiasts, you're several strata above the equivalent of chavs in souped-up Novas :P
 
I don't see why this debate continues? People say yes, some say no. No conclusion in the 500000000000000000000999999999 threads has been reached. :p

Personally I say no, games are evolving. But in 20 years time who knows, there might not be consoles or PC's, just entertainment / work systems. Impossible to know for certain.
 
Rich said:
On a serious note, I have been a PC gamer all my life (more or less). Yesterday I headed out to obtain a copy of NFS Shift for it and jesus was it difficult.
A very large ASDA nearby stocked a whopping total of 5 different games. The nearest GAME didn't have it, and also had one tiny shelf dedicated to PC. The same two stores had all 4 walls covered in Console titles.
Most supermarkets and department stores have cut down to nearly nothing for PCs, including the likes of Currys etc.

It is a shame, but I do believe it is the retailers that hold the fate of PC gaming in their hands. Lets face it, they wont stop stocking something if it is selling like hotcakes. There has definitely been a massive decline in people stocking a wide variety of PC games. There is probably only GAME and Gamestation left on the high street. That certainly seems to be the case around here anyway.
Click to expand...

Some of those stores have a massive online catalogue of PC games even tho the shelf space is tiny as they know that is easy for PC users to shop online.
 
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I think consoles will take front stange and have done already but the PC will never die, there will always be atleast some demand and it isn't hard to make a crap port.

Worst case scenario.


If anything we will eventually see computers being built into televisions, we are already seeing Atom PCs stuck to the back of LCDs, this is going to happen as TV on demand takes off. combine that with steam and you have a nice platform for noobs.

The problem is intergrated graphics, which 90% of pc owners have thanks to laptops but intergrated graphics are getting better faster.
 
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Final8y said:
Some of those stores have a massive online catalogue of PC games even tho the self space is tiny as they know that is easy for PC users to shop online.
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+1 Cheaper and larger range online.

Also online sales aren't counted atm and its seem like the place the PC is slowly being transistioned into.
 
YES





The above is a lie



Can we not just sticky one of these threads? might make them less frequent, we can only hope
 
I agree with Anksy that PC's will always be on top and with tech getting smaller and more powerful the trend will continue, but just a couple of points I would like to make.

In the last 3 years, the internet has blown up. More and more people are getting connected and in doing so require a computer. There are more PC's in people homes now than all the consoles ever sold. You can buy a PC for £400 which would kill any console in terms of CPU and GPU processing power. There are so many more genre's of games that can be enjoyed on a PC.

The problem I see with PC gaming is the never ending search for newer more dynamic games engines.

Over 2 years ago Crysis was released, its still challenging the latest hardware from Intel, ATI/AMD and Nvidia to run it at high settings with decent frames. Its throttling the 5870 and the i7 :)

The continuous jumps by developers from one games engine to another has a very detrimental effect to PC gaming community. The quake 3 engine was superb and was improved upon time and again. Developers I.D. used a new engine for Doom 3 and it killed most peoples hardware at the time. With each major release us PC gamers have to reach for our wallets, don't get me wrong... most of us love upgrading, but it can become hugely expensive.

As gamers we want great graphics and improvements in gaming but does it have to be so damned expensive.. I dont believe it does. The Havok engine used by Valve for HL2 is a brilliant example of the point I'm trying to make.

Lots of developers chose to use the Havok engine and its been hugely successful due to the fact that it can be run on most home PC's. It has been around a while and loads of games have been developed using it. I believe there could have been lots of other game engines that similarly could have been improved upon before moving to newer tech.


I may be way of the mark, this is just an opinion formed from what I have read over the years, I don't know that much about games engines and to many of you that do; that may be completely apparent, but please correct me if I'm wrong!!
 
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