Console games and PC games

[Griffin McKorn]

One thing I often wondered is why some console games never make it to
the PC market. From what I understand console games are coded on a PC.
Also, aren't most of the modern console boxes equipped with Intel
processors as well as modern video card chipsets? My friends all have
consoles,well Xbox's anyway, and I've noticed that alot of cool games
coded for consoles aren't ported to the PC.

Just looking for some info regarding the process.

Thanks.

 

[Mangyrat]

marketing is the reason.
console's are fixed systems and easy to program for. pc's are a wide range
of systems and hard to program for.
one day the console will be dead but the pc will live. did you know they
devlopers have to pay to make a game for the x box or what ever but for pc
its no charge

 

[Blahguy]

One thing I often wondered is why some console games never make it to
the PC market. From what I understand console games are coded on a PC.
Also, aren't most of the modern console boxes equipped with Intel
processors as well as modern video card chipsets? My friends all have
consoles,well Xbox's anyway, and I've noticed that alot of cool games
coded for consoles aren't ported to the PC.

Just looking for some info regarding the process.

Thanks.

More to do with marketing than anything. The publishers usually want to
maximise thier profit so they might do an exclusive deal with console X, and
maybe have the right to release the game on other platforms later on. If the
game fails on a console then it's less likely to see a release on another
platform.
There are also a few technical issues, to do with controls and timing of
events in the game. Most consoles I see the enemies are a bit slower because
the gamepads aren't as easy to be precise with, also things like menu
layouts, font sizes the size of savegames, how will the savegame occur
(checkpoint or user choice).
Generally consoles are considered a different market and you avarage PC
gamer would consider most console games "dumbed down", (see Deus Ex:
Invisible War for proof of that!), the game might flow differently as you
play consoles further away from the screen than with a PC, so all of these
things need to be taken into account.
Don't forget the X-box is a few years old, PS2 even older. I hear the next
X-box won't have a HDD.
I'm sure there are other issues, but porting isn't as straight forward as it
sounds.

 

[Inglo]

One thing I often wondered is why some console games never make it to
the PC market. From what I understand console games are coded on a PC.
Also, aren't most of the modern console boxes equipped with Intel
processors as well as modern video card chipsets? My friends all have
consoles,well Xbox's anyway, and I've noticed that alot of cool games
coded for consoles aren't ported to the PC.

Just looking for some info regarding the process.

Thanks.

Haven't you noticed how crappy some of the console ports end up being.
It's not easy and it's hard to get it right, so it ends up not being
worth the money.
There are an awful lot of good games that end up on both XBox and PC:
Halo, SWKoToR, Deus Ex: IW, BloodRayne, Return of the King, Max Payne
1&2 and Prince of Persia. Those are all games that I've played on both,
and except for Halo and RoTK, I think all were designed with both in mind.
That's the key to success on both platforms, dual development. Games
that are designed specifically for one platform and then are ported over
are usually not as good.

 

[J. Clarke]

One thing I often wondered is why some console games never make it to
the PC market. From what I understand console games are coded on a PC.
Also, aren't most of the modern console boxes equipped with Intel
processors as well as modern video card chipsets?

In a word, no. Nintendo uses PowerPC and Sony's picked it for the next
generation Playstation two take two examples. As for video, on PS2 Sony
designed their own--not sure what they're doing for PS3. XBox is a
crippled PC (if one is being uncharitable one could say "typical of
Microsoft"), but it's not typical of game consoles.

 

[Tom Brown]

One thing I often wondered is why some console games never make it to
the PC market. From what I understand console games are coded on a PC.
Also, aren't most of the modern console boxes equipped with Intel
processors as well as modern video card chipsets? My friends all have
consoles,well Xbox's anyway, and I've noticed that alot of cool games
coded for consoles aren't ported to the PC.

Just looking for some info regarding the process.

Thanks.

Historically, console games ported to the PC tend not to sell well because
PC gamers expect much more from games than the typical console game can
deliver. Since the console developers would have to do much more work to
please PC gamers (save anywhere, mouse/keyboard support, higher resolution
textures), it normally isn't worth it to them.

Only the XBox is the equivalent of a typical (underpowered) PC. XBox games
could be easily ported, except for the issues mentioned above...

 

[DaveW]

It's often too expensive for the company to port them over.

 

[hg]

Don't worry about games never making it officially to the PC...... that's
what X-box,Gamecube,PS2 and Dreamcast emulators are for
Alright, only the Dreamcast emu is fully 'working' at the moment but others
are well on their way to being fully playable - the X-box emus already run a
couple of games perfectly.

 

[Brad Houser]

One thing I often wondered is why some console games never make it to
the PC market. From what I understand console games are coded on a PC.
Also, aren't most of the modern console boxes equipped with Intel
processors as well as modern video card chipsets?

Only the X-Box has an Intel processor in it. It is a Pentium III at 700Mhz.

Brad Houser
<Not speaking for Intel>