I'm a gamer from way back (remember the Vic 20 anyone?) but stopped gaming a long time ago (The Amiga). Near the end of the Xbox's life, I took the plunge and rediscovered my love for this incredibly fun way to waste vast amounts of time.

When the 360 came out, it was all about which console to get, the 360 or the PS3. I liked the hardware on the PS3 better (on paper anyway) but the 360 had a big head-start, and as it turns out, probably has a better design for getting the most out of games. While I've enjoyed the step-up from the old gen console, I've also been a little disapointed that these new gen games have been clearly pushing the hardware to it's limit so early on in the life-cycle. It's not hard to find reviews that point out Hi end PC's will deliver better frame-rates; higher resolutions; etc.

Recently, I finally upgraded my ancient PC for something alot more powerful and have been gaming on the PC for the first time since the Amiga. I picked up Oblivion for the PC (even though I've got it for the 360) mainly because I was interested in comparing. To be honest, I'm enjoying the PC version a lot more:
Better graphics
Smooth frame rate
Faster load-times
Ability to tweak settings

I'm even able to use my 360 controller, with the help of a wireless game adaptor and Pinacle Game Profiler.

It's just my opinion, but I think the new generation of game consoles should have come out with 1 Gig ram, and in the case of the 360, the hard Drive should have been standard equipment -this is especially so given they stayed with DVD. I've noticed that PC games always load the vast majority of their data onto the HDD, and in fact, I've bought some games off Steam that are direct to drive so I don't have to even load a disk.

I realise it's not a fair comparrison, and I realise that the consoles still offer a great gaming experience with less hassle and less cost, but with everyone complaining about cost, I would rather have seen a slightly higher price-point and less short-cuts. I think the impact on the games would have been more than worth the up-front investment of say an extra $50-$100.

.02

I'm with the caveman on this one "Uh, what???"...

I think a 1GB of ram is overkill for this console generation. There isn't much overhead on a console so they don't need that much system memory. Now for a PC, yes, because you have all those processes running the background.

While I've enjoyed the step-up from the old gen console, I've also been a little disapointed that these new gen games have been clearly pushing the hardware to it's limit so early on in the life-cycle.

Not even close.

It's not hard to find reviews that point out Hi end PC's will deliver better frame-rates; higher resolutions; etc.

High-end PCs that cost far more and becomes obsolete far quicker than a PS3 or Xbox 360 and a 1080p LCD TV. The latter is the reason why I'm essentially out of PC gaming, and I was a die-hard prior to that. I had never owned any sort of console until I purchased an Xbox in late 2003. The cost of keeping my computers somewhat current, combined with few interesting and largely problem-ridden games, got me out for good. I've had the itch to get back into the PC, but then I fire up Gears of War and it becomes a non-issue.

I was a hard-core PC gamer for years, and have stacks of old PCs to show for it. I got tired of tweaking video card settings for every game, adding more RAM to deal with poorly coded games, and defragging my hard drive to get things to run faster.

I develop software for a living, and I realized my gaming had turned into even more work. The 360 cured that ailment!

Do we really need a PC vs Console discussion? After 25+ years, I believe most people are well aware of the pros/cons/expenses of each.

Do we really need a PC vs Console discussion? After 25+ years, I believe most people are well aware of the pros/cons/expenses of each.

Agreed.

I think rts and tbs games are better on pc. I think the fps or racers are better on consoles, because you are still near your friends on a compy sofa. I think consoles are more groop friendly. But both offer much to a gamer. I play on all systems. PC, 360, ps3, ps2, xbox, etc.

Most homes don't even have HDTVs yet. I think that the power in this console is just fine for this generation.

No matter what the subject matter, people interpret what they read based on their own perspective and bias.

This is not a Console vs PC thread -this is a thread that is suggesting the next gen consoles aren't as next gen as I think they could have been. This is of course personal opinion, and for some people, what the new games are offering is everything (and more) than they expected or need. I'm not trying to say you are wrong, because clearly you are not. It's an opinion and therefore subjective, I'm just voicing my own opinion, and have provided a rationale for it.

I can only go back to my Oblivion example. While I enjoyed it on the 360 -I enjoy it a hell of a lot more on the PC, for reason's I've already outlined.

So I'm left wondering why the 360, given it does not have the overhead of a complex general purpose O/S (as commented on earlier) is not competitive. At the end of the day, the answer probably boils down to a single reason: Cost. Just like the PC, if you cut costs in memory, CPU, motherboard, Graphics card, you bottleneck the system. I believe there is such a bottleneck in the 360, but I'm not entirely sure where it is -I theorise it is memory and media limitations, but it could be elsewhere.

I also agree with the comments that the PC suffers from lack of standards. Its strength is also its weakness, because you can never be sure how a game is going to run on it. From this POV, the console is the best choice for gaming, but like I said, the next gen consoles are not competitive.

Much of it is simply cost and timing. PCs always jump ahead, blah, blah, blah. These consoles are the cheapest vs longterm performance balance they chose to go with. They put quite a bit of bang in there, but comprimises are always made. Perhaps bigger memory...cost. Hard drive on every unit...cost. It's all cost related. If they can reach a solid middle ground for the next 5 or 6 years compared to PCs, they've done their job.

Graphics are a major hit this 'gen' and people notice that more than anything. We've reached somewhat of a plateau with graphics and processing power. We either have to figure new ways to do graphics or quicker hardware; reality is obviously in the middle. But, this is the first time graphics haven't had a big leap over the previous machines.

So, what some folks don't see, or realize the effort it takes, is in physics and online compatability improvements, better collision detection, etc. which is making use of new power.

As years pass, developers figure out the tricks to get new things running. I don't think we've seen all this generation of consoles will add to the industry. Opening up additional revenue streams with movies, music, etc. is great and will help with 'costs' in the future.

This is not a Console vs PC thread -this is a thread that is suggesting the next gen consoles aren't as next gen as I think they could have been.

A 360 costs just $400 and includes a 3 core processor, video card with 10MB of eDRAM, 512MB of RAM, hard drive, wireless controller, DVD drive, motherboard to tie it all together, etc....

The 360 also came out 1.5 years ago. It was definitely state of the art at the time, and is still damn good.

A good PC video card alone can cost $400 or more.

There's your answer.

Don't re-post this topic.

Thanks,

Kyser