Romero: Consoles May Die Out

[Frogacuda]

Yeah because the whole world is loaded with HDTVs.

Most video cards made in the last six years have traditional TV outputs as well.[/QUOTE]

[Drewbacca]

As far as hardware and the way these boxes are put together he may very well be right. But the main difference between a console experience and PC experience is convenience for the average consumer. If they manage to harness the PC like upgradeability and tack on an easy Xbox Live interface it could work. But even then the hardware upgrades would cause conflicts with people who hadn't upgraded or hadn't been keeping up on things. It's easier for them to swallow one bigger purchase every 6 years than it is for them to put up with constant upgrading. Most people don't even want to have to deal with that shit.

Of course it won't. I prefer these things controlled by one company. Too many people pulling the strings makes things in the end, to average users atleast, messy and unuseable.

I also don't think for a second that developers are in as much control as somebody said previously in this thread. It's a symbiotic relationship. Consumers will flock to whatever's new, or it, or offers them something convenient and sometimes they do things nobody can forecast. If you're popular you move units. Developers can't rely on themselves to herald people to gaming. If they tried the top two or three devs to do it well would dominate and nothing would change (except the beginning of a supplier longtail system which is really fucking weird and unnecessary).

Console producers need developers just as much as developers need console producers.

it's the developers that are in control

It was this guy.

[Schlep]

Sure are a lot of people here who are experts at talking out of their asses on PC gaming.

[Rumpy]

You're kidding, right? I'd say good games with good graphics and an experiance that isn't a total glitchy technical nightmare is at least one difference between consoles and PCs.

Consoles ain't goin' anywhere.

Have you played a PC game in the past, I don't know, 6 years? Quality control has greatly improved on all fronts years ago. PC gaming is no where near a "glitchy technical nightmare".

[JMET]

Have you played a PC game in the past, I don't know, 6 years? Quality control has greatly improved on all fronts years ago. PC gaming is no where near a "glitchy technical nightmare".

I would say it is still far more a "glitchy mess" then console games.

[gamevet]

Have you played a PC game in the past, I don't know, 6 years? Quality control has greatly improved on all fronts years ago. PC gaming is no where near a "glitchy technical nightmare".

Have you played the PC version of Halo?

I guess you could say it was a sloppy port, but man, that game had frame-rate issues.

[Frogacuda]

Have you played the PC version of Halo?

I guess you could say it was a sloppy port, but man, that game had frame-rate issues.

Not if your system didn't suck. It wasn't optimized very well, but it worked fine.

And PC gaming definitely used to have it's issues. Like 1997-2002 there was a lot of shit that wouldn't run right, or had major bugs, but I haven't had any issues in a long ass time. Nowadays, PC versions are the way to go, because they're generally more configurable, and look better.

[ElCapichan]

The main drag about PC's is the constant need to upgrade to stay on top of the latest graphics and performance. Every piece of computer hardware (mainly PCU's and GPU's) will be outdated in 6 months or so. Technology is growing way faster than it used to, and more developers are starting to take advantage of the latest and greatest to push their game to the limits. This wouldn't be a bad thing, if the developers optimized the games to run on PC's that aren't quite up to date. Look at Crysis. That game is far and beyond anything we have seen to date, and many people are talking about upgrading their computers for it. I built my PC about almost a year ago with all top of the line hardware, and already wont be able to run the next batch of major PC titles at max settings. Like I said, technology is growing faster all the time and the gap between top of the line and middle grade will come quicker than we can hope.

I will admit that PC games will always have the graphical advantage over console games, but that is only a good thing if you can constantly afford to upgrade your PC. At least with consoles, you have devs pushing the system to the limit with each game and everyone gets to reap the benefits. The 360 is already near half way of its second year, and if MS sticks with the 5 year standard, we will see the next gen in another 2.5 years. To me, it seems much more reasonable to buy a new console every 5 years or so, rather than buying a new vid card and CPU every 2 years or so. Considering that nVidia's latest GPU goes for $549 at the lowest on newegg, that is almost the cost of a PS3. Now imagine if you want to go SLI then you are talking over a grand just to upgrade.

[Schlep]

That comparison makes no sense. You can keep playing games at the same graphics level for a long time if you want. I built my PC in summer '04, and even then it wasn't nearly top of the line. I'm playing Stalker, CnC3, and Company of Heroes no problem. Both CnC3 and CoH look much better than anything that was released back in '04...using the same hardware. Also PC gaming has true backwards compatibility for 20 years of games. I like dragging out Starcraft, Fallout, or even Duke 3D once in a while. Especially since people go back and do mods like the HD pack for Duke 3D.

People who want to take advantage of DX10 will need to, at the very least, buy an nVidia 8600 ($149+), that's true. But DX10 is the first major upgrade to PC games since 5 years ago; everything else was fairly incremental. Hardcore console gaming will always be cheaper than hardcore pc gaming, assuming you only buy 1 game system. Casual is a wash.

[Bojack]

Most video cards made in the last six years have traditional TV outputs as well.

Most pc ~ tv connections I've seen yield pictures that look like shit. Unless the past six years have video cards that have component or above cable outputs then they're still a bad choice. Although the day console developers start releasing games with the "we'll patch this problem later" then we'll see a stronger shift away from console gaming. Hopefully this doesn't happen.