Sure, to play Crysis with visual fidelity worthy of its design team's ambitions you pretty much need a PC designed by extraterrestrials, teleported back from the future, and cooled by liquid nitrogen to stop your desk (your furniture, and maybe even your house) from igniting. On the other hand, Crysis is -- for my money -- the most significant advance in home-PC 3D technology since a $10 shareware 3.5" floppy-copy of Doom hijacked my 486DX2/66 in 1993.
On Tuesday, we reported that Crysis had only sold around 87,000 copies in the U.S. so far. Compare that with the figures fueling the Xbox 360 shooter Halo 3, which had 1.7 million in pre-sales, and has to date sold 4.4 million copies.
Console games sell better in the U.S. We know that, and we pretty much know why. Even after you figure in the HDTVs and receivers and Dolby 5.1 setups, and even based on the assumption that consumers are willing to drop $500-$600 on the console component alone, it's still dramatically less expensive to game across the 5-6 year lifespan of a console than to keep up with thousands upon thousands of dollars in perennial PC upgrades.
Games on the PlayStation 2 had access to the same basic hardware in that console's twilight days as they did when the PS2 debuted in 1999. Design tweaks aside, a PS2 is a PS2 is a PS2. The games looked a smidgen better toward the end -- they always do -- but in the grand scheme of things, not by much. Aesthetics notwithstanding, when you pop in an Xbox to GameCube or PS2 game, your visual expectations are set. You're paying attention to the gameplay, not the fact that they managed to squeeze five guys onscreen at once in game-whatever instead of only three or four. You're also probably buoyed by the fact that you can say the game looks and plays as well on your PS2 as your friend's down the block.
Now remember what you were playing on your PC in 2000? Try these, if your brain can rummage that far back:
Baldur's Gate 2
Unreal Tournament
Deus Ex
Diablo 2
The Sims
Half-Life: Counter-Strike
Thief 2: The Metal Age
No One Lives Forever
Take Baldur's Gate 2 and Diablo 2. I can run any of those on my Macbook Pro, loading Windows XP in emulation under Parallels. What's more, I can run them as they were intended to be played, without trading detail for speed. If you haven't used Parallels, it's better than Virtual PC, but hardly a barn-burner, and certainly not when it comes to games.
If, on the other hand, I try running Crysis in native "Boot Camp" mode (yeah, forget Parallels altogether for another decade or two) I'll be lucky to pull low-side double-digit frame rates. That's with a detail mash of "low" and "medium," i.e. "plain" and "slightly-less-than-comely."
GamePro asks the question "Are gamers abandoning the PC?" after suggesting the upgrade costs to play Crysis were in the $1500-$2500 range. It's a glaringly obvious but key point.
Boom or bust, high prices scare away consumers. PC gamers today are in particular far more savvy than they were a decade ago. They know the "minimum requirements" on a PC game are absolutely useless. They know the "recommended requirements" are barely half what's actually needed to get something running that looks anything like a product's marketing screenshots and gameplay videos. They know that having an experience as good (or better) than their tricked-out-boutique-PC friend's is going to cost something on the order of a year's worth of health and dental.
According to NPD, overall retail sales of PC-based games in the United States exceeded $970 million in 2006, an increase of about one percent over previous year sale of $953 million, which represented about a 14 percent drop from $1.1 billion in 2004. Thus we speculated earlier this year that PC-based games were ever-so-slightly on the rebound.
Now I wonder.
We know that optimized software and vendor drivers are absolutely essential to make the latest hardware toys go "vroom!" In a console, that's a process gradually winnowed over the life of what amounts to an entirely predictive architecture.
PC game development on the other hand is an asymmetric nightmare, with its upgrade windows and compatibility stipulations and Heisenbergian fixes-that-depend-on-bugs-that-depend-on-fixes.
Given the latter, and with all we've heard about Microsoft Vista's foibles (including the operating system being named our #1 "Biggest Tech Disappointment of 2007") what I want to know is:
1. Is Windows Vista actually harming PC gaming? Is it driving consumers away from buying PC games?
2. Should games have second lives? Millions of people have computers, and some ten million alone are playing an online game like World of Warcraft. But less than a tenth of a million have bought Crysis so far despite the game earning critical accolades from nearly everyone. It probably won't be any less amazing in a year or two, when the competition is finally catching up. Given the sheer number of people who won't have played it (but who will eventually upgrade to hardware that runs it properly) should games like Crysis enjoy secondary releases, i.e. Director's Cuts or Absolute Editions? Is it conceivable that a game like Crysis could eventually outsell itself (in a second marketing push) or are we locked into a consumer mindset that equates "year old" with "has been" whether we've played the game or not?
wow . . . an admitted Mac user " I can run any of those on my Macbook Pro" asking is PC based gaming being hurt by Vista?
I'm sorry Matt, that has to be the stupidest conclusion you could possibly come to. It's not even a valid question, a complete non sequitur. The only reason PC gaming is dying for non WOW applications is due entirely to the fact that gamers and parents can't justify a +$599 purchase of a gaming system (see failure of $599 PS3). And when a family can get a perfectly fine home PC for $500 with monitor, how does a kid grow up with a PC good enough to play anything other than spider solitaire? This all comes down to money. And also - I'm not sure what you're smoking, but Vista runs fine on my system and I love the upgrade - maybe you should learn how to trouble shoot your computer and quit calling the geek squad out for your pop-ups.
As for #1 tech dissapointments of 2007 . . how can you ignore the $599 PS3? Sony do a lot of advertising with you is it?
Now, now, settle down jsimons. I'm just asking the question (actually two), not indicting Vista or smoking anything or, as you imply, operating unethically by taking Sony bribes to "ignore the $599 PS3" in a tech disappointment list. I've taken plenty of flak for *not* going easy on Sony all year, something you can easily see for yourself if you but scroll back through the last couple months of posts.
Anyway, that tech list isn't mine, and to be honest I'm surprised we didn't include Sony. They wouldn't have been first on my list, but they would've been in the top five.
Well then to answer your second question in a civil way - I think yes, games should offer rereleases as the hardware capable of running them becomes more mainstream.
I think the future of PC gaming is not hurt by the Vista operating system, but actually hurt by not differntiating itself enough from console gaming. Sure the mouse and keyboard are not rivaled as input devices, but someone who has grown up on controllers thinks the M&K are too hard. As more and more "PC only" games (C&C3) move to consoles, the more and more PC gaming will die - due to low cost and ability to play on 60"TVs
Another issue currently is that people have limited budgets and in this case they can't spend $500 on a console, and then $50 every week on new games. I believe what you would see if you looked at historical trends in PC game sales, is that their growth/decline is directly inverse to new console releases. This being a big year of consoles, people's budgets are depleated, and PC is the loser.
I wonder if World of Warcraft is actually responsible for the sharp downturn in sales for other pc titles. If you look at the numbers there are 6 million people playing WoW. That means there are 6 million people with computers capable of playing current pc games (some might have to turn the graphics down a bit). So it doesn't seem to me that the issue is a declining pc gaming population or even outdated hardware.
Given my experience with my own time with WoW, as well as my friends who currently play, it seems plausible that the 6mil who are playing WoW are so hooked on it they just don't have time to play anything else. When I was playing WoW I never bothered to pick up new releases, because every night I was logging in to grind up my character and hopefully get some new loot. And when I try to talk to my friends who are still playing about other new releases it seems as though they respond with indifference.
Could it be that WoW is the perfect drug that killed the industry?
I know that I haven't bought many games released in the last 2 years because of WOW, but that only makes producers salivate over the money they could be making.
To the question being asked, no, Vista is not harming PC gaming.
PCs have the opposite market response of a console. Consoles have a huge up-front sales boom. PCs, however, have a warm-up cycle. Window's has a notorious history of needing and releasing patches for its OS and the hardware catches up as well, making gaming on the pc more stable as time progresses.
Jsimons, although apparently ranting in a drunken rage, pointed out another cyclical trend. Whenever new consoles are released you can expect about 2 years of pc naysayer hayday's. Vista and new consoles came out close enough that the problem is compounded.
However, because of High-def tv's, modable and internet ready consoles, if any console included a mouse and keyboard and some basic software for writing and web; bye bye pc, I think that is on the way.
Well I mean comeon seriously Verbal . . . VISTA killing PC game sales??? I've not heard anything as far fetched as that since someone told me Humans caused global warming . . . I mean what were they burning in 1100 to cause Greenland to be . . .well Green (hence the name)???
I disagree with the common conception that PC gaming is more expensive. Over the five year span of a console, you will probably want to upgrade once, at about the mid-point of those 5 years, but roughly speaking, that upgrade doesn't have to cost a fortune either. Take a good look at the recently released 8800 GT, a videocard that retails around $200-240 but rivals the best videocard on the market, the 8800GTX for sheer power and capability. When you factor in some excellently priced CPUs and the fact that high-end memory can now be had in 2 gig sticks for a mere $75-100 these days, and you're looking at building a high-end gaming machine (with a 20-22" LCD monitor, I might add) for around $1000-1300 at the most. Compare that to the long-term cost of paying $10 more per each console game, over time, and the fact that extra controllers cost $$, memory cards will ding you, larger hard-drives, Xbox Live has a yearly fee of $50 (times that by 5 years) ...(CONTINUED NEXT POST)...
(CONT FROM PRIOR POST) and you can see that a Console costs far more in the long run, with games that are much-more tightly limited by developers concerning player options as well as overall depth. Just to show the math, even if you only buy 6 games a year over those 5 years of owning your "next-gen" console, you're looking at paying about $180 more than a PC gamer for your games, $250 more than your internet bill for Xbox Live (if you're a 360 gamer), and let's not even delve into the cost of a high-end, larger HDTV. Ouch.
I think it's time to put that little gaming urban legend to rest.
The sad fact of the matter is that console gamers want simplicity and comfy-couch ease-of-use and they'd rather have it at the expense of gaming options, game depth, and variety. Glad I'm not a console gamer, primarily.
Vista may not be killing pc gaming, but it is deffintly slowing it down. Here is the thing, I'm a very active gamer. I have a 360, PS3, and Wii (mainly for my gf, but eh). I hardly every actually even play consoles unless friends are over. Beyond that, I'm a very experienced PC Technician and have been for years. I've also been gaming for years. Here is the thing about vista, using the same hardware, same software and editing the registry and startup.ini file to fix all those programs you install from all starting up when you computer starts, Vista gets on average 15 - 20 frames per second less then XP Professional SP2. This is with an 8800GTS 640MB version, 4GB DDR2 800Mhz, Intel E6750, and a WD Raptop 160BG Sata Drive. And thats running vista in classic windows mode (no aero interface or any of the other resource heavy features). I may end up going to Vista a few service packs down the road (XP was horrible till SP1 and even then it was very vunerable to attacks). (Continued Below)
The thing is console gaming is huge, everyone is getting into it. Its incredible easy (Put disk in, game starts, begin playing). When most people sit at their computers its so full of virus', apyware, ad-ware, and resource heavy software (Norton comes preloaded on most computers) that even if the computer can handle something like World of Warcraft, it's so bogged down, that it looks horrible. PC Gaming is for the tech elite, always has been, always will be. By the way, as amazing as HD is on a tv (1080p) thats nothing compared to what a HD LCD Monitor can put out. Even outputting your video to an HDTV, I still perfer an LCD monitor. Most people use their computer to write email, send greeting cards, and get on myspace, they use console to play games because giving them the option to set antialiasing, texture depth, resolutions, and other graphical features, and they have no idea what any of it means. Console gaming is just easier for the technoretarded and Vista is just a horrible OS
Echoing some of the above comments, consoles are gaming *appliances.* Consoles are the toasters of gaming. Stick something in, push a button, it works. It's been that way since the Atari 2600. The games are not that complex.
Of *course* PC gaming is more complex. PCs evolve more over time. The RTS game? Started on the PC, and still (IMO) better there. Flight sims? When's the last time you saw a *real* flight sim (not a shoot'em'up involving airplanes) on a console?
PCs, unfortunately, still have the DOS days reputation of being "too complex" (remember boot disks?) - which isn't anywhere near as true these days - and too expensive, which is true. Then again, you pay more for a performance motorcycle than you do for a bicycle. The PC is still more capable - and the capability tends to scale with cost.
As for vista, the only thing it's put me off are "Vista only" games (especially those with false "Vista only" requirements like Shadowrun.) It requires more, but delivers less than xp.