The PC, Console thing...

[madameye]

Since Red Dragon signed up and him being a pure console enthusiast (or so I'm presuming) I just thought we could discuss the future of the PC as a games machine and what we all feeeeel about it. I know it's been covered a million times in other forums but I know in here it will get 'done' properly by people who have more of an idea than most.

Recently I have been looking at the PS3 and some of the games just look incredible. Also the variety. I'm by no means a PC snob and I'd get a console tomorrow if I thought I had time to go on it. The convenience of it being in the living room does attract as well as all my PC's and Mac are in the office so it's like I never leave work. Some of you have the PS3 I believe? So anybody got ideas where it's all going? I still can't imagine playing an FPS on a console. Tried it a few years ago and it felt all wrong. However GTA4, that's another story.

[Maritz]

Having never owned a console (other than the Dreamcast that's still in the cupboard, that I never took out of the box), and coming from a C64 to Amiga to PC gaming background, I suppose I'd be called a PC enthusiast. Not that I've got anything particular against consoles, I've just never been able to justify owning more than one system at a time. I might get the missus a Wii for Christmas though...

Now, I'd like to believe that the PC has a future as a gaming machine, but as consoles gain more and more features that were previously the preserve of the PC (e.g. online play, increased media compatibility etc) at a lower price than most reasonable gaming rigs, I'm not so sure. Of course, there are those who argue that you don't have to spend a small fortune on a PC, and they'd be right, but you buy a PC (for fairness, let's say minus a monitor) for the price of a PS3, and gaming power-wise I think the PC would still lose out. It's not all about pretty graphics, but they certainly help.

At the moment, my PC can still do far more than any of the consoles in functional terms, but for how long? However for those who really care about technology, and that's a lot of people, I think the PC will always be the format at the cutting edge. Couple that with the fact that the PC is more of a way of life for some people, and there will always be a market there.

As for game genres, the few times I played an FPS on console, I hated it. It may have been because it was Halo though    The controls were so much less accurate, and so much slower I found. With the GTA games I use a gamepad for the driving sections, and mouse and keyboard for the on-foot bits. Best of both worlds. I think it would be tricky to use a mouse and keyboard whilst sitting on the sofa, unless you have a tray on your lap or something(?). Anyway, don't you think you get more variety on the PC? As for the convenience of the living room, I think I prefer to disappear upstairs for a bit to get on the PC. Maybe I'm just not a very social gamer, or maybe games wouldn't be so involving if the wife is sitting next to you reading Heat magazine or whatever?

Think I lost my train of thought at the end there ... even thinking about Halo fills me with rage!

[madameye]

I must admit, this year has been the first year I have really wondered where the PC gaming platform is going. For variety, I agree, consoles can't touch the PC but some of those console games look epic. Of course, personal circumstances come into this and for me it would be handy to have a regular gaming rig in the living room. Having said that, how can you really perform accurate maneuvers reclining on the sofa or laid on the floor 7 feet away from the screen?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. 

[SunScramble]

For me, it's a toss up.  I'd consider myself a "PC Gamer", but for the last 15-20 years I've always had the latest consoles under me tele too, and I've loved them all.

On the flipside, everything I truly loved about PC Gaming withered away and died back in 2004, leaving the platform good for only MMORPGS, (A genre that's not in a very good state right now) a handful of indie exclusives, and conversions of games that are designed primarily with consoles in mind. (but will occasionally emerge with a visibly superior PC version, for one of a handful of reasons.)

Coming around once again, since a lot of the major innovations in gaming used to made on the PC, and used to traditionally filter down to the consoles every time a "new generation" came around, I'd question the healthiness of the gaming industry in general. (And that's before we even mention my own personal complaints about the misuse of microtransactions, draconian DRM, or various other shady business practices that have emerged in the last couple of years.)

In short, I really couldn't give a f**k either way. If I see a game that takes my fancy, and doesn't put me off by trying to milk money from me for every last drop of joy I might get from it, I'll make my choice based on the price of it, or the technical specs if there are big differences between the various versions. If that happens to the the PC, then great. If the game's more than a year old, though, it'll probably be a second hand console copy instead.

[Doomus]

Mmmm. I'd say the 'industry' is in pretty good shape commercially, what with fourteen squillion copies of the latest 1st person shooter with pretty higher-res graphics being shifted overnight or whatever. I'd totally agree that in terms of creativity and sheer goodwill, towards and from us, the gamers, things are looking pretty crappy. I haven't seen much that really exictes or interests me in the last few years. In terms of the major releases, I find myself looking at them and thinking 'How bad is the DRM on this one? How consolified is it? How long will I have to wait before a patch comes out that fixes all the bugs?' 'Is it all worth if for a game which I have, essentially, played several times before in various incarnations?'.

I mean the thing I've enjoyed the most recently is the Torchlight demo on Steam, a good example of a lovely PC-centric game if ever there was one, and even that is just a pretty update of Diablo.

[SunScramble]

Yeah, Torchlight is pretty good in a compulsive, just-5-more-minutes kinda way, even if it is quite shallow. It's definitely one of the stand-out releases of the last few months.

The fact that I've only got nice things to say about what is essentially a spruced up clone of a 13 year old game that I found comparatively lacking (when compared to it's peers) the first time around is telling. Especially when you consider that this new version doesn't even have multiplayer...

[CK-iller]

I could probably write pages and pages about this but I'll hold it back to the one main thought I've had.  It seems to me that there's an interesting time coming, pretty much everyone has steam for something or other right?  On the one end you have the massive EA, shiny, pay £5 every time a tiny expansion pack comes out, uber massive brand games; yet online there's a big surge of these much smaller indie kinda titles coming out that seem to be picking up size, quality and notoriety more and more as time goes by, balancing things out a little bit.  Obviously the games in the middle of the 2 are probably what you want but that's life I suppose.

[Doomus]

Hmm, I was chatting with some non-gaming work colleagues who are slightly older than me with kids. The subject of consoles came up in the context of what the kids wanted for Christmas and one guy made quite a telling remark - he said something like 'well, they say you need the latest consoles because they're much more powerful than the previous ones, but I had a look at the games and it's still just running down a load of grey corridors shooting everything you see - nothing has actaully changed!'