Sony Playstation 4 - Impact on the PC games industry?

[RedStarRiot]

Originally Posted by WingZero30 View Post
Yeah this is what I thought aswell. What would be classed as a mid-high end gfx though, in today's terms ?

Amd gfx cards in the 79xx series or Nvidia GTX 660 or higher.

The 79XX series as mid/high? Hmmm try the 78XX series as mid/high. I would certainly regards the 7970/50 as a high end gaming card.

 

[oddsbodikins]

I read on here, in the console section that the Nextbox is about 25% less powerful and is going to focus on the Kinnect side of things. If there is any truth to that then you can bet the Ps4 will dominate this generation.

During the first and second gen consoles the playstation and playstation 2 were the dominant consoles and both were less powerful than their competitors the saturn and xbox respectively.

 

[HeX]

From specs i've seen the Xbox will use the same core cpu and graphics as PS4, the main difference being Xbox is rumoured to use 8GB DDR3 rather than GDDR5, and that Sony are letting developers have unfiltered access to all of the PS4's low level functions, while the Xbox will limit developers to DirectX (so they won't be able to get as much from the hardware).

Plus the Xbox is meant to have a heavier OS.

Again however, this is all speculation and rumour and could be complete bobbins.

 

[RedStarRiot]

During the first and second gen consoles the playstation and playstation 2 were the dominant consoles and both were less powerful than their competitors the saturn and xbox respectively.

The Sega Saturn was not more powerful that the PlayStation. Plus devs had a nightmare getting effects such as the transparent vapor trails in WipeOut to work. The Saturn version more often that not looked worse. If I remember it did beat the PlayStation at 2D....

 

[malachi]

The Sega Saturn was not more powerful that the PlayStation. Plus devs had a nightmare getting effects such as the transparent vapor trails in WipeOut to work. The Saturn version more often that not looked worse. If I remember it did beat the PlayStation at 2D....

Yep, Saturn was designed as an 2D console then Sega slapped on the extra CPU's at last minute to do 3D once they saw the PS1. Hence why it was hard to dev for and emulate.

 

[Wucked]

Give me a mouse and keyboard with my next gen console and I'll probably quit PC gaming altogether. I think its unlikely though. So instead I'm settling for the hope of better quality console left-overs for the PC. In short better graphics, quicker dev times for PC, games that are larger in scale i.e. ported MMO's etc. And more Haribo as I continue to pile money into my gaming PC.

 

[spoffle]

I read on here, in the console section that the Nextbox is about 25% less powerful and is going to focus on the Kinnect side of things. If there is any truth to that then you can bet the Ps4 will dominate this generation.



Indeed, but my point was, because Blizzard are going to consoles, that'll hopefully open another door for some quality porting, hopefully bring PC back into the developers good books etc.



People seem to think the opposite.

I wish the term "console port" was a ban-able offense here due to the large amount of ignorance it carries.

Console ports aren't what the vast majority of people here seem to think they are.

Consoles using x86-64 hardware, and a standard PC type GPU will not make "ports easier", it'll have little to no bearing on "ports", firstly because ports don't technically exist.

What actually happens is that the lowest common denominator gets a massive boost (the consoles) so the quality of all the console games goes up loads, meaning the baseline quality of games for PCs go up, in terms of graphics.

It doesn't mean that developers aren't going to be lazy, and release half arsed PC versions of games (they're not ports!).

PC games are that, PC games, they aren't built from the ground up "for consoles" then "ported" using the magical "port" button, PC builds of games are made specifically for PC, what people like to attribute "console port" to is when they aren't happy with a game on PC and it's a multiplatform release.

Any multiplatform release that has bugs, you can guarantee that a load of people will start screaming "console port" about it. Or low res textures, = console port. No graphics options = console port. Poor control options = console port.

It's rubbish. All the above happens because of lazy development, some developers only want to the bare minimum so on a PC build, most of the time because they're lazy, sometimes it's due to other constraints, but mostly laziness.

 

[Omaeka]

May not be technically right no, but it's still a good way to describe bad console orientated games that have little to no improvement when bought to PC. If a game is blatantly built around the use of a gamepad over a keyboard & mouse, and doesn't run all that well despite running flawlessly on the infinitely inferior consoles with barely any graphical improvement, it deserves the brand of a 'port' even if it was built alongside with PC in mind.

i.e Skyrim.

 

[spoffle]

Well it doesn't because port isn't an accurate description, in fact, it's completely incorrect.

You should just call it what it is, lazy development, and bringing up Skyrim, well I can tell you haven't been in to games very long as the state that Skyrim was is, well that's normal for Bethesda titles. All the Fallout games they made, Oblivion, Skyrim, Morrowind and so on.

Can you claim Oblivion was a "console port" because of the issues it had on release and for a time after, that were fixed by the "community"?

 

[Omaeka]

Yes, Oblivion was blatantly built with consoles solely in mind, the UI, graphics, inefficiency of the view distance (Morrowind had huge view distance and ran great). Since Oblivion (including Fallout 3) Bethesda has completely screwed up their ability to make games for the PC.

 

[spoffle]

I didn't say it wasn't built with consoles in mind, I'm saying that isn't what makes a game a "console port".

Bethesda have a long track record of not being able to ship a finished game properly, consoles or not, that's the issue.

 

[=XDC=FluphyBunny]

Skyrim, my beautifully patched Skyrim, is one example why I prefer PC's for gaming and that's MODS 20 or so third party mods later and it looks and plays the way it should have.

Just a shame BF had the option removed

 

[Davepen]

Fact of the matter is people.

PS4 = X86 architecture = PC

It IS a PC, just with a different OS.

 

[FrenchTart]

Fact of the matter is people.

PS4 = X86 architecture = PC

It IS a PC, just with a different OS.

A PC isn't defined by the processor architecture.

 

[spoffle]

A PC isn't defined by the processor architecture.

Honestly, I'm finding it really bizarre the amount of assumptions people are making about games development.

 

[Mr Men]

PC games are that, PC games, they aren't built from the ground up "for consoles" then "ported" using the magical "port" button, PC builds of games are made specifically for PC, what people like to attribute "console port" to is when they aren't happy with a game on PC and it's a multiplatform release.

Have a mate who works in the industry, and the software they use outputs the code for various consoles and PC, they do not write the code individually for each console or for PC it's all done in 1 go, so therefore one system might well suffer from the outputted coded.

 

[FrenchTart]

Honestly, I'm finding it really bizarre the amount of assumptions people are making about games development.

Unfortunately that's what people do. They do the same for pretty much anything that they don't have much knowledge of - not just games development.

At least...I assume so. I don't know much about those people

 

[FrenchTart]

Have a mate who works in the industry, and the software they use outputs the code for various consoles and PC, they do not write the code individually for each console or for PC it's all done in 1 go, so therefore one system might well suffer from the outputted coded.

It's not as simple as that.

Yeah, some code and obviously a good deal of content is shared and development for multiple platforms is usually done in concert. However, work is required to optimise the product for each platform (not just for PC - the consoles too). The consoles are generally the platforms that the majority of dev time go into due to a) them being the platforms that generate the most income and b) the platforms that require more extensive work on optimisation (you can get away with a PC title being terribly unoptimised most of the time). It's not as simple as even this, but those are often some of the most prominent factors in deciding development priorities.

 

[Wucked]

A PC isn't defined by the processor architecture.

You're right, an abacus is also technically a PC. But people are hoping a shared architecture will make for quicker development times and better quality PC versions of multi-platform games. Either way the quality should improve somewhat, just because of upgraded processing power and memory cap.

And just to annoy spoffle a bit. Spot the PC version.

Console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, pc version, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port, console port.

 

[spoffle]

Have a mate who works in the industry, and the software they use outputs the code for various consoles and PC, they do not write the code individually for each console or for PC it's all done in 1 go, so therefore one system might well suffer from the outputted coded.

I know, it's called compiling, a build will be compiled for each platform specifically, but that isn't the extent of what coding is done.