Proving that Consoles are throttling Game Potential

nesf

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

heh, I'm not one to hold a point when I'm clearly wrong

it would have been a lot easier if you had found the 2008 figures (which I didnt see)

and just compared them to the 2011 figures

top pirated game of 2008: Spore with 1,700,000 downloads

top pireated game of 2011: Crysis 2 with 3,920,000 downloads

on sheer numbers piracy has increased.

not unless the market has increased to match those numbers.

a) Those numbers are not to be fully trusted.
b) You need to remember internet connection speeds, 08 vs 11. Internet piracy in general increased substantially over the past 8-9 years mainly due to most people having the bandwidth to do it now rather than the few who pay out for the best internet. Pirating a game in 04/05 was rarely attractive to most people due to just how long the download would take.

ShadowHearth

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

I would PREFER for a DRM-free system that also automatically updates, but I get more VALUE from Steam because it saves me time.

O PREFER to have pony with a jet pack, but life has a tendency to **** on you, so you can have only pony or jet pack.
All fancy talk aside, you are the person who I was talking about. When offered drm free or steam version, you will go for steam version, unless you will be using your laptop with no Internet connection outside of your home.

the_syco

o1s1n wrote: »

In all seriousness though, it must be really frustrating to build a high end PC only to have things like this happen alright. I know I'd be fairly miffed myself if I'd built something in anticipation of Watchdogs only for things to go the way they did.

When I build a "high'ish end PC", it generally plays the latest AAA title for 4 years. But then I also use the PC for photoshop and some video editing.

Overheal wrote: »

I dont agree that a pirate is a lost sale. Sometimes it's a try before you buy, and that seems to be the case among friends that check games out that way. It's a lost sale if the game sucks, I suppose, but if the game is good, it is frequently bought.

I consider every game sold 2nd hand is a lost sale.

gizmo wrote: »

it also makes it target for higher bittorrent activity which hurts the PC sales more so than its console brethren.

Can you pirate games whilst on the console yet, without needing a PC? Once it becomes easy to do this, you'll see console piracy skyrocket. If you have a good PC, and you want to game for free, it's easy enough to get a pirated game. But with a console, if you don't have access to a PC, I'm guessing it's harder to pirate a game?

EyeSight wrote: »

If i get a game that looks grand I won't notice that the graphics are 10% better unless you show me a side by side comparison. Even then i'm just happy to have a fun game that looks good but not amazing.

Gameplay should always come before graphics(within reason - you obviously need to have a quality bar).

Unless you're playing shooters, then how far away you can see matters. I forget if you can set the draw distance in BF3 and BF4?

ShadowHearth wrote: »

O PREFER to have pony with a jet pack, but life has a tendency to **** on you, so you can have only pony or jet pack.

You give the pony the jetpack, and it won't just be life sh|tting on ye :P

BlitzKrieg

that is a point

one thing that makes the pc are very tempting target business wise is the almost complete eradication of the 2nd hand market on pc.


EDIT:

also it's not much but I did tweet the crowd who did those piracy numbers from 2008 and 2011 and they said in the US piracy of video games was down.

https://twitter.com/torrentfreak/status/479233400172445696

ScumLord

the_syco wrote: »

When I build a "high'ish end PC", it generally plays the latest AAA title for 4 years. But then I also use the PC for photoshop and some video editing.

Maybe if you want to stay at the bleeding edge you need to upgrade something over a 4 year period but you can still play games with pretty decent settings even if you don't upgrade. I got 10 years out of my last PC and usually the only thing I need to upgrade over that time is the graphics card.


I've become a bit sick of AAA titles these days. I've more uncompleted games in my steam catalog, I never really seem to go past 30 hours in most games. That's probably because I've turned pure nerd and gotten into race sims, I have well over 200 hours put into Assetto Corsa and still can't get enough of it. I literally play that game until my arms go weak (using a wheel). That market just doesn't exist on the consoles.


I think the PC will continue to be the platform of innovation, especially with steam giving you early access to games.

BloodBath

There is still more money spent/made in the pc gaming market than all of the consoles combined regardless of piracy.

People like to discount that fact simply because of mmos, but they are games too no?

It's a growing market as well, year in year out, where as the console market rises and falls with generations of consoles.

gizmo

BloodBath wrote: »

There is still more money spent/made in the pc gaming market than all of the consoles combined regardless of piracy.

People like to discount that fact simply because of mmos, but they are games too no?

It's a growing market as well, year in year out, where as the console market rises and falls with generations of consoles.

All true but it doesn't apply to the games we're really discussing here, namely non-MMO, big budget AAA-games.

ScumLord

BloodBath wrote: »

There is still more money spent/made in the pc gaming market than all of the consoles combined regardless of piracy.

People like to discount that fact simply because of mmos, but they are games too no?

Also overlooked is the peripheral market, there's a huge market for controllers of all kinds and the likes of the oculus rift. There's a much better spread of wealth whereas with consoles the majority of the money goes upstairs to the big boys.

BloodBath

gizmo wrote: »

All true but it doesn't apply to the games we're really discussing here, namely non-MMO, big budget AAA-games.

Perfectly happy with the big budget AAA titles we get.

You seem to forget that so called big budget AAA titles like COD and BF started life 7-8 years before consoles on pc.

I'd prefer to see an end to consoles and windows driven pc's. Move to an open platform using opengl to allow any kind of os to play any games. It's the way the market needs to go.

nesf

gizmo wrote: »

All true but it doesn't apply to the games we're really discussing here, namely non-MMO, big budget AAA-games.

Like Civ, Starcraft, the Total War series, DOTA2 etc? PC exclusives are hardly limited to the MMO genre.

gizmo

BloodBath wrote: »

Perfectly happy with the big budget AAA titles we get.

You seem to forget that so called big budget AAA titles like COD and BF started life 7-8 years before consoles on pc.

I'd prefer to see an end to consoles and windows driven pc's. Move to an open platform using opengl to allow any kind of os to play any games. It's the way the market needs to go.

I'm not forgetting them, I'm saying in the context of this discussion, none of the above is relevant. We're talking about the disparity between console and PC releases, the reasoning behind why the former is holding the latter back and whether it is necessary to hold one back to make the other look better.

I don't disagree with the last bit mind you, but it's not really going to solve the problem in question. Developers will, at some point, not create assets which fully push higher end machines as it will be more financially viable to push the post popular platform "tier" as hard as it can go.

nesf wrote: »

Like Civ, Starcraft, the Total War series, DOTA2 etc? PC exclusives are hardly limited to the MMO genre.

Again, I didn't say they were, I'm saying they're not relevant to the current discussion.

nesf

gizmo wrote: »

Again, I didn't say they were, I'm saying they're not relevant to the current discussion.

But surely they are? Do they not show the potential of PC without the "shackles of consoles?"

I'm quite serious, can we point to PC exclusive games and really say, look how clearly superior the game and it entails is? I'm not sure we can really. In MMOs we've seen the same dumbing down trend people accuse console FPSs of causing and we can see the common factor is the chase for the big "casual gamer" market not the platform. In RTSs we see the same dominance by a small number of IPs owned by the big players and little room for anyone else. In Strategy in general we see launch day products often being shipped out with plenty of bugs, varying from Civ V wobbles to the Rome II debacle. In MOBAs we can find the same kind of toxic community people mock CoD on console as having (though, honestly we can find the trolls as far back as the first CounterStrike).


If there's a problem with consoles it's that it sets a lower bar for "great visuals" than is possible on PC and ports to PC are often awful things when they need to match up with a release date for consoles. There's little evidence that the PC only genres fare much differently though other than this, except perhaps the greater ease for small and indie developers to do different things but that's getting easier on consoles too from what I hear.

ScumLord

gizmo wrote: »

I'm not forgetting them, I'm saying in the context of this discussion, none of the above is relevant. We're talking about the disparity between console and PC releases, the reasoning behind why the former is holding the latter back and whether it is necessary to hold one back to make the other look better.

I think the disparity is leaving the door wide open in the PC market though.

nesf wrote: »

But surely they are? Do they not show the potential of PC without the "shackles of consoles?"

I'm quite serious, can we point to PC exclusive games and really say, look how clearly superior the game and it entails is?

Pc exclusive titles are often vastly superior products depending on your priorities. ARMA is a superior game to any FPS on console and it takes full advantage of the PC to create something that wouldn't really be possible on a console. Racing sims don't really exist on consoles in the same caliber as you'd get on PC, it's always been the argument that PC sims look terrible next to a console racing game but the latest generation are as good if not better looking than anything on console, but it's the details that PC games take on that is lost on consoles.

The PC can do highly detailed vastness.

nesf

ScumLord wrote: »

Pc exclusive titles are often vastly superior products depending on your priorities. ARMA is a superior game to any FPS on console and it takes full advantage of the PC to create something that wouldn't really be possible on a console. Racing sims don't really exist on consoles in the same caliber as you'd get on PC, it's always been the argument that PC sims look terrible next to a console racing game but the latest generation are as good if not better looking than anything on console, but it's the details that PC games take on that is lost on consoles.

The PC can do highly detailed vastness.

Yeah, we can pick out stand-out console exclusives too though, no? I agree there are some breathtaking games on PC, the Total War series has many times over the years made my jaw drop during a particularly large battle with just how much it being simulated/rendered at once and the visual quality.

My thinking though is, in general what trends do we see in PC only genres vs cross platform genres? Is there a significant difference to the average game or only the top examples?

ScumLord

nesf wrote: »

My thinking though is, in general what trends do we see in PC only genres vs cross platform genres? Is there a significant difference to the average game or only the top examples?

The major thing I notice in the PC games I play is detail. They go to extremes replicating things in great detail, especially in sims but even in ARMA every detail is in there.

PC games also don't hold back on complexity and I think that's the attraction for a lot of people. The core physics can often have much more depth to it too. You can spend days driving around the same track with the same car in Assetto Corsa and always be finding new debts to the way the game works.

Although we're probably talking about two completely separate markets. The kind of person that likes a detailed complex PC game isn't going to like the fast paced gaming style of consoles and visa versa. The hardcore PC gamer probably doesn't list AAA titles too highly on their list of must have games. The console gamer that likes pick up and play titles isn't going to want to actually learn how to fly a plane before loading up a flying game.


But at least the PC gives you a good compromise, you can play AAA titles and obsessive sims. On console you're stuck with the games they want to sell you.

Robert ninja

Don't want to seem spammy by copy-pasting my previous post but this is as equally a relveant to this thread so I'll just go ahead and link it instead.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=90930211#post90930211

Taylor365

Just thought i'd leave a video to watch what real next-gen graphics look like.

And from a 3 year old game no less.

o1s1n

Still looks like a boring yawnfest of a fantasy game to me :pac:

2Mad2BeMad

I don't understand why pc gamers hate consoles so much
Sure some ports of games are awful but pc community can mod most games, and find ways of graphic updating, e.g. watch dogs

I mean think about it lads
do you guys really want consoles gone? cause that's really the type of argument that is always had
if all consoles were gone and pc was the only way
imagine all the bloody 10-13 year old kids playing with you guys screaming down the mics :L

if anything you guys are blessed that consoles are the favourite choice among many young people or you'd have the same problem I do, which is having too mute every time I go into a game, I can't even mute in fifa until after the game is played

I also have a pc which is quite capable of max settings on any game out at the moment but I prefer console myself for most games, only like my pc for strategy games or counter strike

ScumLord

2Mad2BeMad wrote: »

I don't understand why pc gamers hate consoles so much
Sure some ports of games are awful but pc community can mod most games, and find ways of graphic updating, e.g. watch dogs

I don't so much hate consoles but the marketing behind them. I've had a few consoles growing up but always had access to a PC at the same time. All my best gaming memories are of PC games though, the consoles always came with a load of hype behind them but PC games would just appear out of nowhere, cost nothing and tended to present something brand new you'd never seen before.

Consoles now are like hollywood, they focus more on parting you with your money through massive advertising campaigns than they do on the actual game, which is easy enough as the game is just an update on last years version.

johnny_ultimate

ScumLord wrote: »

But at least the PC gives you a good compromise, you can play AAA titles and obsessive sims. On console you're stuck with the games they want to sell you.

I think it's a very limiting argument to suggest this all boils down to 'PC gamers are from Mars, console gamers are from Venus' type of situation - it's a disservice to the vast variety of reasons why different people play games on any platform. There's also far more to it than AAA games vs hardcore simulators. Certainly I have tonnes of console games, but increasingly little to no patience for all but the most exceptional of AAA titles. Likewise many of my favourite games are on PC, but I have no time (literally, given the vast time commitment required) for the hyper detailed simulator titles.

I just love any game that illustrates a developer's talent, imagination, intelligence, originality, style etc... Whether that's through art design, mechanics or storytelling. It could be Papers Please or Journey or Jazzpunk or Bayonetta, Kentucky Route Zero or Shadow of the Collossus or System Shock 2 or Mario Galaxy - I could go on and on and on. While PC is always by its very nature going to offer a dizzying variety of titles and will always be one of its key strengths over the 'competition', console gaming is also far more than just the franchise titles. When I look forward to the future of PS4 and Wii U and Xbox One it's not for Assassins Creed '18: it's titles like Splatoon, Last Guardian (although not getting my hopes up that'll ever show up :pac:), Below, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture... Not to mention the platform agnostic titles - so many great games are great regardless of how they're played. The Witness is one of my most anticipated games, for example, but I'm pretty sure PC, console and mobile gamers alike will get a fundamentally similar experience (controller preferences aside, which are less of an issue for more serenely paced games) despite varying resolutions.

As the PC vs console wars seemingly only ever amplify in intensity, it seems disappointing to me that it's as if the the parameters of what many gamers are willing to play narrow significantly too (not referring to anyone in this thread incidentally, just generally from what I read online). Like many PC exclusive gamers dismissing all console games off hand, or a Playstation loyalist refusing to consider the possibility there's worthwhile games elsewhere. Every platform has its share of great games - some shared, some exclusive. The sheer bulk on PC is on a different scale, yes of course, but there's still many, many great and unique things going on exclusively in the console sphere or right alongside PC. And thankfully no-one, even if they only have the one machine under a monitor or TV, has to endure one type of game and one only.

Penn

I think PC and Consoles basically need each other, and neither would have gotten to where they are without each other.

Yes, PCs are capable of much greater graphics. But, games would simply not be as popular nowadays without consoles. Consoles levelled the playing field. Everyone with the console could play that consoles games. The controls were much simpler. The game on my console was the same as the game on yours. Yes, they're not on a graphical level with PCs, but they appealed to who would become casual gamers.

At the same time, the multiplayer and online of PCs eventually transferred over to consoles, helping to grow the games industry.

Without consoles, games companies wouldn't have the same amount of money to build huge games (which might look better on PC). Without consoles, the games industry wouldn't be at the same level it's at now. Without PC gaming, multiplayer on consoles wouldn't be where it is now.

Consoles aren't throttling game potential because that potential wouldn't be there without consoles in the first place. The same is equally true for PCs.

Consoles Vs PC.
Playstation Vs Xbox.
Street Fighter X Tekken.

nesf

Penn wrote: »

But, games would simply not be as popular nowadays without consoles.

You say that like it's a good thing and yes I'm completely serious.

o1s1n

nesf wrote: »

You say that like it's a good thing and yes I'm completely serious.

'Games are too mainstream!' said the videogame hipster :pac:

People seem to forget that videogames have been a popular passtime for many years now. They're not a new thing.

The NES sold 61 million units worldwide.

The Atari 2600 30 million units worldwide.

The C64 up to 17 million units.

The Speccy 5 million.

The first home games ported from the arcade were to consoles. People were playing games on things like the Magnavox Odyssey, Pong clones and the Atari 2600.

You could try to create some alternate universe where only PC gaming exists, but it wouldn't make very much sense in the overall history of gaming.

dreamers75

2Mad2BeMad wrote: »

I don't understand why pc gamers hate consoles so much

They put a limit on potential.

johnny_ultimate

Popularity > emergence of niche markets. The emergence of niche markets > a greater diversity of games.

There are genres and franchises that have suffered from the mass market explosion (or at least commercial influence) of gaming, but then there's endless others - whole new genres and endless 'unclassifiables' - that have emerged in their wake and continue to do so. And while there's a whole load of blockbuster games out there dominating the market, the rapid emergence of the independent and experimental game has nicely countered that. The huge market for them has only increased the chance of them gaining traction and visibility

The appetite for franchise titles has never been higher, but there's a huge amount of us out there who are driven to the alternatives because of that.

2Mad2BeMad

dreamers75 wrote: »

They put a limit on potential.

only on ported games
their are far more games out their for pc which are pc only
even in ported games their are mods to help upgrade

so again I don't see the problem
its really only a case of we have the better hardware lets moan at people who don't buy a pc:pac:

2Mad2BeMad

dreamers75 wrote: »

They put a limit on potential.

only on ported games
their are far more games out their for pc which are pc only which limit themselfs in potential if it wasn't for mods to help them upgrade
even in ported games their are mods to help upgrade

so again I don't see the problem
its really only a case of we have the better hardware lets moan at people who don't buy a pc :pac:

Pixelbastardo

Overheal wrote: »

Considering you just named the 3 companies that account for the largest portion of titles on the market...

And largest portion of repetitive ****e titles on the market too. Watch Dogs is ok, nothing special.. if the guys in high places in these companys decide to deactivate features/effects the devs have already programmed into the game, just pointing your finger at consoles in some witch hunt will get us no where, the problem is politics.

dreamers75

2Mad2BeMad wrote: »

only on ported games
their are far more games out their for pc which are pc only which limit themselfs in potential if it wasn't for mods to help them upgrade
even in ported games their are mods to help upgrade

so again I don't see the problem
its really only a case of we have the better hardware lets moan at people who don't buy a pc :pac:

I dont think you get it, consoles are a closed limited system. So you cannot push beyond what it can do so you limit the potential of games.