Will you head back to the consoles, or double down on PC gaming ? Fall 2013 - The Great Decision - Page 3

They already do that with multiplatform games, but not by force. They offer the game publishers/developers trucks full of money in order to get time exclusivity or complete exclusivity - this often involves excluding the PC/Mac version as well. When it comes to larger developers and publishers like EA and Activision who make guaranteed blockbusters, Microsoft (especially) will pay them millions just to get DLC 30 days before anyone else - but Microsoft would not be in a position to force them into anything. In fact, EA was the first company to force Microsoft to give up some control of Live so that Live users could connect to EA servers (to get in on the profitable data mining action) - they accomplished this by threatening not to release that year's Madden on the first Xbox.

If that doesn't work, companies will just buy out developers to get control...

Console exclusives are a much bigger threat than minor delays.

I'm thinking about upgrading my cheepy alienware PC from a gt545 to a gtx670. The gt 545 already plays everything better than the xbox 360.
If I do buy the new card then the total price of my pc will be over 1000 bucks. Yikes.
How are the new crop of consoles going to compare to a i7 with a gtx670 and be under 1000 bucks?
I think I've been converted back to PC gaming for 2013 and probly into 2014.. Farcry 3 has been a blast. I just wish I had the PC back when I was playing Skyrim.

No one will know this until they are actually announced .

There will be new video cards out before the consoles launch. You already had the pc so the only real comparison is your $360 graphics card against a $400-$600 console.

They compete by having direct connections to nearly all the hardware and no overhead for a bloated operating system. They just bloat with ads now...

I'm pretty sure that MS requires the 360 version of any multiplatform game release at the same time as or earlier than the others.

I don't expect that to change.

I think that only applies to XBLA titles. I could be wrong, though. The platform holders have a lot more leverage on their own storefronts (since they're technically publishing or co-publishing those titles, as well as acting as distributor and retailer). But I don't see where they'd get the leverage for full retail releases.

That's also why things like timed exclusives tend to apply to DLC and downloadable releases, not to full retail releases.

In contrast, there's much more flexibility on the PC side. Not just with release dates, but also with coordinating subsequent DLC releases, title updates, etc., etc. There's just not the same rush to get a PC version to market "on time" like there is with console releases. Hence the frequently staggered releases for PC.
Edited by confidenceman - 1/25/13 at 9:38am

The longer they delay releasing the game, the cheaper it becomes on Steam, and with the backlog I have (and by the sounds of it many others as well) I fail to see the down side. Speaking of which, I'm tempted to get Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition.

Not at all true.

Check out GOG.com before you get it on steam. I remember it being $10 when I bought it a year or 2 ago. I'm not sure what the enhanced edition adds over the GOG version, but it can't be worth $10.

Not true? Most don't stay $60 for long.

Games launch at $50 or 60. Launching late doesn't have any effect on price.

If anything, it's the other way around. The new sales tactic for 2013 is to give discounts to people who pre-order.

Getting to play or watch something the same time as everybody else stopped mattering to me when I developed a life. I've been guilty of buying games and playing them five minutes and then coming back 6 months later only because of crowd hype. I decide that was wasteful and the Jones' didn't matter anymore.

It depends on if they can do somwething unique and worth having.. For the first time in decades when PS3's came out consoles could do cool stuff I couldn't get my gaming PC to do so I bought one. Until this last year or so there were no cool enough PC exclusives to lure me from just going console only. Over the last year or so I've finally been playing games on the PC again. Since PC's finally seem to have this HDCP thing under control so they don't suck at it anymore I don't see what tech would draw me from my PC this next gen. Guess we'll see....Those console companies have a way of pushing the ultra high tech into new consoles and I am a big sucker for that sorta stuff....

For a lot of people it IS about the Jones' and one-up-manship like mobile phones are now. That type of attitude ruins it for me. Call me crazy. I wasn't directing my comment at anyone in particular and agree with what you have been saying.

At the end of the day, a $500 console (+accessories) that lasts 3+ years and a $800 PC (or upgrades) that lasts 3+ years is a small price to pay for access to so many awesome games.

It seems to me like the new consoles are going to push gimmicky motion control crap or second screen crap. I doubt we will see as extreme of image quality jumps as we have seen with past iterations of consoles.

The gimmicks are designed to hook the non-gamers and the lapsed gamers. But the games are what keep the rest of us coming back for more.

I couldn't care less what gimmicks the manufacturers rope into their next console; I just want to see some awesome first-party games tailored specifically to console hardware (Uncharted, etc.). As long as they can do that, I'm sold. Maybe not right away. But eventually. In the meantime, I'm content with the platforms and games I've got now.

Innovation often times starts out being a bit gimmicky. I'm not a fan of the motion controller stuff as it is currently implemented but at least some game developers and console developers are looking at a different way to interact with the virtual environment. Graphic jumps are just eye candy that gets old, there's no creativity in it, it's just the same ole make a console that has superior computing prowess. I still have a blast playing the N64 Mario Kart, moreso than a lot of newer and much much prettier games. I don't have a Wii but I give Nintendo credit for not just making a system that's faster than their older system but to really think about the end user and attempt to create a new way to play games.

Playing games using motion is a step towards VR and holographic gaming and I'd rather see a push for creative gaming than just iteration after iteration of the same stuff but faster CPU and GPUs.

The problem with motion controllers is that they get extremely tiring, which for workout games is good. Anyone try to use the wii for a shooter? It's agonizingly painful. I think the voice commands in mass effect 3 were cool but I never got to use them b/c I wouldn't drop $100 for a kinect when I will only use the microphone .

I think virtual reality is a bad idea. I have no real desire to have to put something on my head to play a game. I really have no desire to have a socket in the back of my head to jack into the matrix. Don't enslave the human race with your new-fangled ideas.

Second screen crap is fundamentally flawed as it is hard to watch 2 screens at once.

Only time will tell if these gimmicks stick. If they do I might not be playing games at all in a few years.

I think calling these things gimmicks - when they define an entire genre - is not giving credit where it is due. Motion-based games and peripherals sold well and continue to sell for the Wii, WiiU, 360, and PS3. Tons of mobiles games rely upon accelerometer data to play. I think that the idea that you can control everything with biometrics is flawed, but they definitely serve their purpose effectively. Just like how I would never want to use a keyboard+mouse for a platformer, a controller for an RTS, or a Guitar Hero guitar for an FPS, I wouldn't ever want to play a game like Dance Central or Wii Fit without biometric input.

I think you'll change your tune if Microsoft's IllumiRoom takes shape, taking "surround gaming" to the next level:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2202062/Microsoft-files-patent-bring-Star-Treks-Holodeck-future-Xbox-consoles.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NahTTEQBVu0

Good points. I'm still addicted to Wii Tennis. Motion controls can be good for casual gaming. Illumiroom looks like an extreme wallet buster. The army already uses surround gaming for Humvee and tank training. I got to do the Humvee training it was kind of cool.

Second screen and surround gaming are two completely different things though .

OK, when you say "second screen", you mean as in Nintendo DS and WiiU where you have to use another screen to control stuff? Yeah, I personally hate that crap.

I would call IllumiRoom an evolution of multiple-display surround/eyefinity gaming. The goal of surround/eyefinity gaming on PC is to fill your field of vision with the game. I've never been sold on surround/eyefinity simply because the bezels always take me out of it. I went back to single display for that very reason.

Using a projector to fill in the space around a normal display though... that seems like a sweet option. You can buy 720p projectors for about $500 - that's cheaper than the number of monitors to fill your vision (and a GPU to push them) would ever cost. Since your vision is always focused on the action in front of you, the top/bottom/sides are really there just to feed your periphery vision anyway, so resolution/clarity doesn't matter nearly as much. It wouldn't be flawless, but damn it would be cool!

I think he's referring to these new things, that I agree are a bad idea, to use a tablet as a 2nd screen. Or the WiiU controller, which all the others will probably mimic now. WiiU is different in that you're already holding it, so it's better than a tablet. You have to completely remove your attention from the main screen to look at this thing on your lap or wherever you're holding it. It's going to be a bigger distraction than a benefit. I admit it can be used well depending on the situation, but it's not like you're going to be playing a FPS and use that second screen to be able to do anything useful. Only as a paused game screen, but then you're paused, why do you need a second screen now.

Yes this is what I meant by second screen.

I've been messing around with SmartGlass on my iPad with Forza Horizon. Its neet, but that's kind of where it stops. It's sort of functional, but no more so than keeping a "mini-map" option up in the corner of your game screen.
The geek factor is what sells it, "Look at my Xbox talking to my Ipad over my WiFi connection! Its Witchcraft!!"... but its still not anywhere as functional as the simple SPEAK GPS commands built into the Kinect for this game.

I look forward to Sony's announcement in February, I'm curious to see what direction they will head.

Unfortunately I also know after the past two generations of system launches that nobody gets it right out of the gate, and the smart buyers wait 2 years for the first few hardware and software revisions to gel-up. By that point in time
the system has dropped a bit in price, the games-quality has matured, and by then people are seeing if the system can live up to the hype originally set prior to launch. Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft.....all are known to be blatant liars when
it comes to what their boxes can do on paper versus what they can do in the wild. When I was about 20 and the Genesis and SNES and TG16 were battling it out, that kind of hype was exciting to me.....today, decades later, I'm over
empty promises.

Seems we have too much of that going on in Politics, Media, etc.....I don't need it in my fantasy entertainment

I mean, imagine if you watched the trailer for Star Wars, but when you sat down at the movie and "Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn" started playing....you'd be going "I want my money back, this isn't what was promised".....
Gaming needs to get out of that mindset.