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[Mod]

The thread is throwing off complaints.

If people can't discuss the merits of consoles and PCs without getting into a tizzy, it will have to be locked.

I'm not doing that now because I think the thread has value.

If you disagree with what someone has to say, disagree with what they are saying not with them personally.

I've been saying since the PS2/Xbox days that consoles were killing PC gaming as a whole.

PC gaming has taken a back seat to consoles, and subsequently has been constantly losing reputation as the gaming powerhouse that it really is. Just take a look at your local Gamestop or EB Games. How big is the section for computer games? How many of your friends think that you're an odd person for preferring to play shooters with a keyboard/mouse than a controller?

Honestly, I think that Valve has been the sole saving grace for computer gamers in recent years. Steam has single handedly changed how I buy games, and certainly done more than its fair share to encourage developers to continue making PC games.

Dr_Wasabi wrote:I've been saying since the PS2/Xbox days that consoles were killing PC gaming as a whole.

PC gaming has taken a back seat to consoles, and subsequently has been constantly losing reputation as the gaming powerhouse that it really is. Just take a look at your local Gamestop or EB Games. How big is the section for computer games? How many of your friends think that you're an odd person for preferring to play shooters with a keyboard/mouse than a controller?

Honestly, I think that Valve has been the sole saving grace for computer gamers in recent years. Steam has single handedly changed how I buy games, and certainly done more than its fair share to encourage developers to continue making PC games.

And as soon as Playstation Network is up, Steam is on the PS3. Get a copy of Portal 2 for PS3 and you get a free voucher for a copy of the game on PC or Mac when you register a playstation account with a Steam account. If you play halfway through on the PS3 and save your game you can hop on a PC and finish it. Don't know if they'll update TF2 though.

halonachos wrote:And as soon as Playstation Network is up, Steam is on the PS3. Get a copy of Portal 2 for PS3 and you get a free voucher for a copy of the game on PC or Mac when you register a playstation account with a Steam account. If you play halfway through on the PS3 and save your game you can hop on a PC and finish it. Don't know if they'll update TF2 though.

I do like the cross-platform support that Valve has started to implement on the PS3.

I wonder what the implication for the future of the PS3 would be. Maybe using steam systems to digitally deliver games directly to the PS3? I doubt Sony would allow that, but it'd definitely be interesting to see.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Melissia wrote:And In a thousand hours of TF2, I saw less than twenty aimbots... none of whom lasted more than twenty minutes without a ban.

You play on some damn well moderated servers. TF2 sees almost the amount of hacking that cs1.7 saw. It's ludicrous how poorly VAC works.

I'm going to have to agree with Melissa I've seen surprisingly few hackers on TF2 compared to other PC games. Mind you I might be on better regulated servers.

Cheesecat wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Melissia wrote:And In a thousand hours of TF2, I saw less than twenty aimbots... none of whom lasted more than twenty minutes without a ban.

You play on some damn well moderated servers. TF2 sees almost the amount of hacking that cs1.7 saw. It's ludicrous how poorly VAC works.

I'm going to have to agree with Melissa I've seen surprisingly few hackers on TF2 compared to other PC games. Mind you I might be on better regulated servers.

Maybe it's better now then when I was playing last year. Part of the problem with the source games sharing the same engine and netcode is that hacks require little updating to work across titles. Noclip and aimbotting were quite prevalent in the frontier of non clan servers for the entirety of the time that I was playing the game. They weren't in every server mind you, I could go a week or two without seing one. On bad days though they could be hard to avoid.

Dr_Wasabi wrote:I've been saying since the PS2/Xbox days that consoles were killing PC gaming as a whole.

PC gaming has taken a back seat to consoles, and subsequently has been constantly losing reputation as the gaming powerhouse that it really is. Just take a look at your local Gamestop or EB Games. How big is the section for computer games? How many of your friends think that you're an odd person for preferring to play shooters with a keyboard/mouse than a controller?

Honestly, I think that Valve has been the sole saving grace for computer gamers in recent years. Steam has single handedly changed how I buy games, and certainly done more than its fair share to encourage developers to continue making PC games.

Since the early Nintendo days, consoles have outsold PCs for gaming by a good margin. You only need to look at the sales figures.

PCs have kept going as games machines because lots of homes own one for Dad/school work, etc. which could also be used for game playing. It would not often be the hottest overclocked processor, newest graphics card, etc because it would usually be an off the shelf model. Most games being developed have to accommodate these older models in order to achieve good sales.

The number of people who buy top line PCs configured for games is fairly small compared to the number of console owners in any generation. (PS2 has recently passed 150 million sales.)

There's nothing to stop PC developers making kick ass games for the top 10% of PC owners, but it would cut them off from 99% of the games market as a whole. I don't know if it would be a viable business model to spend so much resources on really high end graphics and so on. It depends on how many PC game users are in the top 10%. The plus point is that they would by definition be the keenest and spendiest gamers, so they would snap up good titles.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Cheesecat wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Melissia wrote:And In a thousand hours of TF2, I saw less than twenty aimbots... none of whom lasted more than twenty minutes without a ban.

You play on some damn well moderated servers. TF2 sees almost the amount of hacking that cs1.7 saw. It's ludicrous how poorly VAC works.

I'm going to have to agree with Melissa I've seen surprisingly few hackers on TF2 compared to other PC games. Mind you I might be on better regulated servers.

Maybe it's better now then when I was playing last year. Part of the problem with the source games sharing the same engine and netcode is that hacks require little updating to work across titles. Noclip and aimbotting were quite prevalent in the frontier of non clan servers for the entirety of the time that I was playing the game. They weren't in every server mind you, I could go a week or two without seing one. On bad days though they could be hard to avoid.

Actually I have seen quite a few snipers use aim bots on TF2 now that I think about it, however no clip hacks would be harder to detect. Yeah I think your last 2 sentences some up my TF2 experiences with cheaters

pretty well.

Kilkrazy wrote:Since the early Nintendo days, consoles have outsold PCs for gaming by a good margin. You only need to look at the sales figures.

PCs have kept going as games machines because lots of homes own one for Dad/school work, etc. which could also be used for game playing. It would not often be the hottest overclocked processor, newest graphics card, etc because it would usually be an off the shelf model. Most games being developed have to accommodate these older models in order to achieve good sales.

The number of people who buy top line PCs configured for games is fairly small compared to the number of console owners in any generation. (PS2 has recently passed 150 million sales.)

There's nothing to stop PC developers making kick ass games for the top 10% of PC owners, but it would cut them off from 99% of the games market as a whole. I don't know if it would be a viable business model to spend so much resources on really high end graphics and so on. It depends on how many PC game users are in the top 10%. The plus point is that they would by definition be the keenest and spendiest gamers, so they would snap up good titles.

Oh, I don't deny that console gaming certainly outnumbers PC gaming, like you said, the numbers don't lie. However, developers as a result have been putting out games with a focus on consoles, with PC ports more of an afterthought. Years ago, there was a steady stream of developers putting out games for PC, and putting out games for consoles, developed separately, with PC ports of console games or console ports of PC games often developed apart from one-another.

However the more recent trend has been to develop all the ports of a game together, with the PC ports receiving the least amount of time and effort to develop simply because exactly as you said, PC gamers make up a tiny percentage of the earnings that a video game brings in. The majority holds the power, and as a result, PC gaming has suffered.

But also as a result, the quality of games has suffered, certainly. Developers can't create games targeted specifically at PC gamers to take advantage of all the bells and whistles a modern gaming computer has. The amount of time and money it would take to develop a title that takes advantage of all this would be far greater than the amount that your bog standard console game costs to make, and would make far less by merit of PC gamers not having the profit margin of console gamers.

Kind of a weird limbo.

Kilkrazy wrote:[Mod]

The thread is throwing off complaints.

If people can't discuss the merits of consoles and PCs without getting into a tizzy, it will have to be locked.

I'm not doing that now because I think the thread has value.

If you disagree with what someone has to say, disagree with what they are saying not with them personally.

I think you forgot the '[/mod]' Killkrazy, the text isn't red.

There will be a day when consoles and PC's will run with each I think, I don't know when or how but one can always think.

One also has to remember that a portion of the PC gaming community goes straight to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, and MMOs, meaning that many other games tend to be swept under the dust rug. (No, I'm not SURE of this, only guessing). Meanwhile, Orange Box, while good on Xbox (unsure if this was for PS3), did not trump other games as much. Thus, consoles are a good selling point for many games, and, while they may be holding developers back, they offer a greater selling point...(again, unsure of the numbers here).

I haven't really seen any numbers to suggest that the PC is any more beholden to the trend of bluckbuster-only syndromes then the consoles are.

We can buy a console for around £200 mate but a PC which will run battlefield on max gfx and smoothly is gonna cost aalot more than £200