hcavolsdsadgadsg
I'm a spammer
Reputation: 26
Joined: 11 Jun 2007
Posts: 5801
|
 Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 8:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Geri wrote: | Xbox360 was outdated already when it came out. It's hardware was ridiculous compared to a higher-end PC of that time. I have checked a few games on it, saw the limitations in graphic etc and never cared about it again. Consoles are for the masses who doesn't want a PC, just plug in something and play. It has bunch of limits, it gets outdated in max a year compared to average PCs but it does its duty, simple as it can be.
It is good if you are an average guy who doesn't even know how is a keyboard working but if you are a regular PC user, console just looks a dumb box which can do nothing, compared to a PC. |
Not really, console hardware was pretty fast at launch, moreso because you can get ridiculous with optimization which is part of their longevity. All the hardware is identical so developers can get zany with cycle counting and all kinds of insanity that has long since left PC for the most part. Consoles also have low level access to all the hardware and can do all kinds of hackery. DX10 / 11 make possible many features that previously only consoles could make use of like threading the draw calls, etc etc. Getting rid of the legacy overhead is good.
The gap is closed quickly but at launch it was probably a pretty fair fight against reasonably high end computers. Now though stuff like multi-gpu has matured along with multi-core processors so PC scaling potential is even more ridiculous. When the consoles dropped PC was probably lucky to have 2+ hardware threads available... consoles have 6+. Of course the architecture is different and so on and so forth blah blah, modern CPU's are at least 4+ and soon 6 or 12 will be the norm.
I doubt the next console would ever compete with a seriously high end PC. PC hardware is getting cheaper and more affordable and the scaling is going up and up. I'd say it's looking up for PC. A ps3 launched at $600.I ran Crysis on the highest settings and beat the entire game smoothly for that price and that was a couple years ago. Not that everyone wants to build computers, but I have seen more than reasonable prices for nice Dell's and shit a few times.
As for piracy, developers and publishers need to embrace the future here. Steam is insanely successful, ridiculously so, actually. This is the way to go. 0 day piracy is completely and utterly eliminated, there's literally no way to play the game before launch since you don't have the needed files. but, better yet, publishers need to be fucking intelligent with their prices. Look at Valve software. They just had an article saying they are more profitable per employee than Google or Apple. That's pretty ridiculous to be honest and their primary market is PC, but a absolutely massive majority. Valve believes pirates are under-served customers, put out a good enough title and cater to people and they will buy from you. If the reason is good enough they will purchase, and those that don't will be lured in with sales. Give game massive discount, HUGE influx of sales, so many in fact that they overall make more than they would have without.
More people get game, more money overall. Word of game spreads easier, more people happy, more money. It works for everyone. I've bought plenty of games for $5 on Steam I would have never otherwise. I bought 3 copies of Super Meat Boy for me and my friends because it was on sale for like $4... guess what the result of that was? The PC version was far and away the most popular and successful version. Idiot publishers can keep trying to push $60 titles but having sane price drop offs over time and good support WILL get sales, lots of them. Valve obviously knows what they are talking about. They are pulling in a comical amount of pure profit straight from PC. If you go into it with a modern mindset and treat customers well then PC is a more than capable platform. Piracy can be more or less a non-issue with the right support.
Tech changed, publishers need to follow. Has there been 'tragic' cases where indie titles or something gets eaten alive by pirates? Sure, but there's a happy ending to be found for the ones that thought to adapt. Look at the popularity of those Humble Indie Bundle packages that have appeared a few times. They let you pay what you want and let you split how you want it distributed, charity or developers. Is some idiot paying 1 cent for your game going to happen? Of course, but look at the fucking statistics on their site:
Total payments: $1,825,795.68
Developers get involved, promise source code, multi-platform versions, etc... people get to set their prices... everyone wins. Don't be the idiot that sets their title at 10 dollars over the norm or never reduces the price or has a sale, ever, it's not going to work here.
TLDR; PC is evolving, a lot, and fast. Tech wise and market wise. To be successful requires a new mindset but the potential is more than there.
Basically everyone should strive to be Valve.
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
