Consoles vs PCs --- stating the very obvious... but from an interesting source.....

[Paul Moloney]

Consoles are cheaper and more easily accesible. Parents can have thier PC
and buy thier kiddo a console and don't have the cost of buying two pc's.

I was talking with my wife about consoles and our future child (we're at the
planning rather than gestation stage, mind) and we both, gamer and
non-gamer, are really wary of buying a child a games console. We've just
seen relatives' kids get sucked into them, with no education value
whatsoever.

Now, I do remember myself being a kid and, ahem, using the old "education"
argument to persuade my auntie to buy me a rubber-keyed Spectrum 48K, and
spending most my time being edumakated about Horace Goes Skiing instead. So
I'm not so naive as to think that you can just sit a kid down in front of a
PC and they're bound to become a software architect.

But with a PC, as they game, at the very least, they'll become familiar with
using a PC, and will probably get interested in other possible activities
(especially if gaming on it is time-restricted by software). Certainly, I
did a fair share of basic programming on my Speccy, and I wouldn't be
working in the career I am now without it. I doubt I could say the same it
if had been an early console I got instead.

--
-pm

http://oceanclub.blogspot.com

"I was staring at the mirror when I had a religious experience.
Which is unusual. Normally when I have a religious experience,
the mirror stares at me."

 

[CJM]

I'd MUCH rather see some more fun games at "Far Cry" or HL2-level
graphics. No need to go bigger.

But HL2/Far Cry were pushing the boundaries when they first came out... very
few machines could run them at full tilt.

Why stop at that level? What would have happened if people said the same
thing about VGA (640x480), or even 4-colour Spectrum games or 16 colour C64
games?

What did you like about HL2? The graphics? Is so, why would even more
realistic graphics be undesirable?
Perhaps it was the scale of the game? So presumably and even bigger game
would be good.
Perhaps it was the physics? Wouldn't the extra bells and whistles that a PPU
(physics card) be cool?
Perhaps it was the multiplayer aspects? Would it be better to be able to
interact with even greater numbers of users? Why not 320 rather than 32?
Perhaps it was the theme and the immersion? But wouldnt better
graphics/physics/etc add even greater immersion?
Perhaps it was simply the storyline and the imagination? But why would a
similar game with better graphics/physics/etc be anything other than more
enjoyable?

The bottom line is, that there is something in these games that you liked.
There is no reason that can't be improved on.

There are also people with better machines that would be wasted on these
games, and yet more people who still today can't run these games...

Surely the best route is to let the market decide... which is precisely what
happens.

 

[johns]

Surely the best route is to let the market decide... which is precisely what

happens.

Cho made had created the decision to ban these M games altogether.
If that happens, Crytek will bail on Crysis. They are already saying
that. And that will put me one up on John Lewis.

johns

 

[jwb]

Surely the best route is to let the market decide... which is precisely
what happens.

And the market is doing just that.

 

[CoinSpin]

|
|
| From an Asssociate Press Technology article published today:-
|
| Chris Donahue, group manager of Microsoft's Games for Windows unit,
| admits that DX10 is an example of the PC surpassing the consoles. The
| company's own Xbox 360, for example, uses a custom version of the
| older DX9 standard that can't be upgraded.
|
| "Consoles are a snapshot of where the PC is at the time they were
| made," he said. "The consoles are a step that stays flat for five
| years. The PC is basically a 45 degree angle."
| ============================================
|
|
| I like the 45 degree angle analogy.............
|
| Consoles..flat for 5 years......... unless, of course you decided to
| buy a Xbox360 two years ago, then sell it on Ebay and buy a Xbox360
| Elite, then sell it a year or so from now on Ebay and buy a Xbox720
| (with a new Dx10-compatible GPU and integrated HD or BluRay drive).
| And as for upgrade accessories instead of unit-swaps.......Add a
| HD-DVD drive for $200, Swap out a wimpy 20Gbyte drive for a
| slightly-less-wimpy $175 120Gbyte drive. Swap the HD-DVD drive for a
| Blu-ray drive... $200. Nickel and dimed to death..held ransom to a
| particular console family by the software purchases. At least
| hopefully the hardware evolution in a particular console-family will
| preserve software backward-compatibility....
|
| Gets kinda expensive... comparable with upgrading PC graphics-cards
| and CPUs, but without the wide range of functionality and
| price-choices available to the PC upgrade purchaser... with Dx10
| hardware now ranging from $99.99 to $599, and with comprehensive
| video decoding silicon even on the least expensive graphics-cards.
|

Ah, but just look at one little thing... Look at who is responsible for the
Xbox... MS gets neck deep in consoles, and suddenly the old PC upgrade
curve starts showing up in the console world...

Coincidence?

 

[CoinSpin]

| Why don't they take the obvious next step, and make the
| console games pc-compatible ?
|

That's a not much covered little detail in the Vista / Games for Windows
drive that MS had been touting as an advantage to developers... Program a
game for Vista, and it's (supposedly) easy to port to Xbox360... And vice
versa.

Whether that whole goal ever made it to the end product, I don't know...
But it was one of the carrots MS liked to dangle in front of developer
companies to entice them to move to the Games for Windows licensing.

CoinSpin