PC Gaming what state will it be in 10 years from now.

I don't see how consoles and PC's can merge really. I can see consoles becoming more and more functional (we already have music players, film player, web browsers. Next it may be word processors and the like) But for a PC to be more like a console it would have to be a set specification I think, I just can't see that happening.
 
Welshy said:
You can get a slightly better res on my monitor! 1440x900 :D

In all honesty, I either see PC's and consoles merging, or gaming no longer being a profitable business on PCs. Personally, I believe more and more people are switching to consoles because of their ease of use, and developers because they only have to develop to one hardware specification.
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There is is a least 5 types of console specifications they must develop for.

On the PC the HAL means you can make to one specification, if the programmer chooses to go out side of that to use specific feature only available on limited hardware that's upto them.

Don't think for second that some games run poorly because of more than one brand of GFX card & CPU.
You have good code & bad code & demanding games & non demanding games.
Bad code is easy.

When consoles ship with key pad & mouse then i will call it ease of use.

There are games that run well on all brands & its not because they coded specifics for every brand.

Microsoft API`s standards are to make things easier.
 
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I think that PCs will always rule. and its most people fastion statment and a stamant that some get paid too much :D
 
more powerfull computers prettier games, better physics, better AI, and better controls/ vision

hopefully 3d goggles/screens that dont need goggles, and maybe some new controlers.,
 
Not sure how thing swill be in 10 years, but what I don't understand is why now? Why now does the PC gamer have to really on shoddy console ports more than ever.

Sales Figures
According to sales figures posted on other threads PC gaming is way behind consoles, but those same graphs and charts reflect the same issues since 'forever'. Okay PC gaming has gone down and Consoles have gone up, but the divide was always huge.

Hardware
PC hardware not as easy to develop for as the dedicated hardware in a console? Again what's changed since the days of the PS2 or even Sage systems. If anything it's surely easier to develop for PC now as it's pretty much all Direct X

Piracy
I'd have thought Steam and other digital distributors have reduced piracy. Not sure on the facts though. As for consoles I knew a few peeps at work that use copied console games. Unlike the days of the megadrive and snes where piracy was pretty much limited to PC and the Amiga

Big name publishers have there eyes on huge costly sequels. PC gamers get a slice. It tastes okay but not as good as it used to. The trend now is to not include 100% of the console game. How things have reversed. It used to be consoles missing the multilayer component of PC games. Ghostbusters is a sign of things to come I believe.

There are PC games that you can almost guarantee are going to be shadowy watered down flawed gems, never matching the former glory days. Max Payne 3, Deus Ex 3, A possible new Thief game. Unfortunately I can see Valve going down this route too.

So where does the PC shine and where will it shine in years to come. Certainly not with 1st person shooters like it did 1996-2004. Those days are long gone. Maybe with the likes of Steam really taking off we'll begin to see more and more innovation from small developers and some really awesome gaming times are ahead on the PC. Having said that I think the big budget developers have one thing in mind and it just ain't the PC, with one exception of course - Blizzard

Thankfully we can expect quality polished titles from Blizzard, but as for the rest it's just a matter of time.

What separated PC games and console games in the 90's
Shooters, Strategy, Adventure and Flight Sims

What separates them now
Strategy, MMO's and Indie games
 
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bumped? been 10 years already? ^^

It is pretty silly to talk about 10 years from now, as if anything it is consoles that are destined to lose this in the long run -- especially when things like Gaikai come to mainstream use and any requirement of gaming hardware for individual computers becomes pointless. But even today.. look at the technology Cryengine3 or Tech5 is built upon, a single engine scalable to any platform without any need for redesigned of assets or code. That is almost certainly going to become a main feature of almost all engines in their early stages of development today and will put and end to almost all problems related to any platforms from a developer standpoint.

Also, as always, sales is the high street retailer's problem, not the PC as a gaming platform. It extends well above people buying or not buying the latest RTS title for them.

Now that we have this months "omg pc iz ded yo!" threads out the way, I bid thee farewell ^^
 
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RumbleBee said:
What separated PC games and console games in the 90's
Shooters, Strategy, Adventure and Flight Sims

What separates them now
Strategy, MMO's and Indie games
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Good post overal, but pc still seperates itself from consoles with FPS.

Playing FPS games with an analog is, and will always be, fail...
I can't see L4D or TF2 being remotely good on the consoles.
 
PC's have the big advantage over consoles in development. Just about every initative in gaming has developed first on the PC; FPS, mmo, multiplayer.

Consoles have their place, but PC's are niche and tend to be more for the enthusiast. A forum like this is a bad place to ask this sort of question, most here are tech geeks so are going to favour the PC and think its under threat from the console market.

The console makers would be in severe trouble if PC gaming was finished.

What will kill PC gaming if it does happen is the community. For me in the last 4 years the community isn't what it was say 1997-2001, but it seems thankfully to be going back that way again. Most PC enthusiasts don't have the wool pulled over their eyes that easily, and are less likely to fall for gimicks or trends.

The really massive difference to 10 years ago is connection technology and almost every house NEEDS a PC to function, it went from a hobby tool to a requred household product, the PC isnt niche any longer, but PC enthusiasm still is.
 
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snowdog said:
Good post overal, but pc still seperates itself from consoles with FPS.

Playing FPS games with an analog is, and will always be, fail...
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Yet funnily enough they still sell very well and almost always more than the PC counterparts. The reason being the amount of people that agree with your last statement is a minority.
 
RumbleBee said:
Piracy
I'd have thought Steam and other digital distributors have reduced piracy. Not sure on the facts though.
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I think the problem is that piracy is now much more mainstream than it was 10 years ago. It wasn't really until the rise of P2P (and in particular bittorrent) that your average PC gamer would be downloading much. Aside from a few people using FTP/XDCC/NNTP there wasn't much going on back then.

Plus of course it seems like every Tom, Dick and Harry has broadband these days as well. So while that means a lot of people downloading via Steam etc, it also means a lot of people downloading via dubious sources.
 
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