Prebuilt PC

[Deleted User]

You've just described every online game that there is and has been for the last ten years, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

What hardware are you talking about that is going to emulate? Do you think any of the hardware producers are going to license their games for this 'hardware' and lose revenue with the sale of accessories?

superscaper

be_alright wrote: »

You've just described every online game that there is and has been for the last ten years, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

What hardware are you talking about that is going to emulate? Do you think any of the hardware producers are going to license their games for this 'hardware' and lose revenue with the sale of accessories?

Got to agree with this, there's been MMOs for ages, I even remember Forgotten Realms Neverwinter Nights on AOL being advertised (didn't play it myself) back in 91, so thats 17 years ago. I think the whole persistent world type of game is really a separate issue since we know they've existed as a "type" of game pretty much almost as long at the other game types. Not to mention I can't think of a popular MMO that doesn't need a client installed anyway on hardware capable of running it on the end user's machine.

Of course I suppose there could be "emulations" etc for some game types but I can't see it really taking off beyond legacy systems and the practicalities of how the developers license out the games and the hardware developers license out the midware for the development of those games seems to me like a big can of worms.

magyar

superscaper wrote: »

Got to agree with this, there's been MMOs for ages, I even remember Forgotten Realms Neverwinter Nights on AOL being advertised (didn't play it myself) back in 91, so thats 17 years ago.

My word that is impressive. I remember playing MUD in about 1993 and I thought I was an early adopter!

Seriously, I'm not pretending I had it all worked out, merely that I think we're heading towards more compatibility, not less. For example, WoW has proved that a pay-monthly model is acceptable to a mass market, and several games have demonstrated that episodic payments are also workable (the new Sam and Max, for example).

As the population becomes comfortable with this sort of payment structure, so hardware manufacturers can become more comfortable with the idea of selling platforms you can play any game on.

superscaper

magyar wrote: »

My word that is impressive. I remember playing MUD in about 1993 and I thought I was an early adopter!

Seriously, I'm not pretending I had it all worked out, merely that I think we're heading towards more compatibility, not less. For example, WoW has proved that a pay-monthly model is acceptable to a mass market, and several games have demonstrated that episodic payments are also workable (the new Sam and Max, for example).

As the population becomes comfortable with this sort of payment structure, so hardware manufacturers can become more comfortable with the idea of selling platforms you can play any game on.

Just to note I've been completely and utterly wrong before.

We'll have to see but at the moment I'm saving up for a major PC upgrade.

Never played WoW, not really played MMOs much for that matter. But I know what you mean about the episodic content (as a slightly different thing to subscription). Got seasons 1 and 2 of Sam and Max myself, and of course the Half Life 2 episodes.

If I was any good at predicting trends I'm sure I'd be rich by now. Although I do remember bringing up the subject of blue laser based optical discs (i.e. Blu Ray) in a Cambridge interview back in 97/98.

Arch_23

be_alright wrote: »

It's a wonder that set up could even start up on 420w!

yes of course, I forgot add a 850w PSU to my post.


regarding the pc gaming debate...

A lot of things you guys are talking about here are mentioned in these videos:

http://www.tomshardware.com/crytek-crysis-piracy,video-276.html

&

http://www.tomshardware.com/second-take-did-piracy-kill-iron-lore,video-23.html

&

http://www.tomshardware.com/gta-rockstar-game,video-259.html

[Deleted User]

I only managed to catch the first video about Crysis before I left this morning. I've just been reading the extracts of the interview over at IGN about how Crysis has shifted ~1million copies and how the president compared that to Halo 3 shifting ~3million copies within the first two weeks.

I don't agree that piracy is hampering the PC Gaming platform, it's been happening for well over 20 years and it's probably going to happen for the next 20 years. Anyone who bought Halo 3 is guarenteed a good experience, it's going to look good and keep a constant frame rate, whereas Crysis was and is still the most demanding game. Maybe they should take into account that if you make a game that only a fraction of PC gamers can run then you can't expect runaway sales. I'm not surprised that people downloaded the game to see if it ran on their set ups to be honest, I'd feel pretty miffed if I'd spent £30 on something I couldn't use.

magyar

be_alright wrote: »

I only managed to catch the first video about Crysis before I left this morning. I've just been reading the extracts of the interview over at IGN about how Crysis has shifted ~1million copies and how the president compared that to Halo 3 shifting ~3million copies within the first two weeks.

I don't agree that piracy is hampering the PC Gaming platform, it's been happening for well over 20 years and it's probably going to happen for the next 20 years. Anyone who bought Halo 3 is guarenteed a good experience, it's going to look good and keep a constant frame rate, whereas Crysis was and is still the most demanding game. Maybe they should take into account that if you make a game that only a fraction of PC gamers can run then you can't expect runaway sales. I'm not surprised that people downloaded the game to see if it ran on their set ups to be honest, I'd feel pretty miffed if I'd spent £30 on something I couldn't use.

I agree with you - although of course that's exactly what the demo's for.

Actually 1m sales of Crysis sounds quite good to me: as you say only a Ninja PC can play it and.... shh, don't tell them but ... it's not very good. It's very pretty but if the Wii etc. is proving anything it's that gameplay is what's important to most people. And Crysis was more about showing how powerful your PC is.

Personally I love the PC as a platform simply because I don't play many games, but those I do are things like Civilization and occasionally FPS, both of which are simply far better with a mouse. So, since I need a PC anyway, I am happy to pay, say £200 extra for a decent graphics card and maybe £100 on extra RAM (neither of which I need for other PC uses) compared with £300 on a PS3.

[Deleted User]

The physics of every object that Crysis brought was immense and it did bring a new aspect to the genre, it's just a shame that it was inaccesasble to the masses. Compared to Half Life 2 when that came out and could run on a large spectrum of pc's, Crytek made a bad business decision in my opinion.

With regards to the demo, if you've ever tried to download demos from sites like EA's homepage, Fileplanet, Gamespot etc then it gets really frustrating when everyone is clambering on to get it and you're downloading at such a slow rate it's no wonder you can visit any of the illegal sites and have the full game in an hour or so.

The Wii has done fantastically for Nintendo and they have bridged a huge gap in the gaming market that now engages whole families. Gameplay is hugely important, but with the same merits graphics are too. People will look for different things what they want out of their gaming experiences and they'll always be catered for.

I'm happy to throw money at my PC to keep it as powerful as I can do because there's games on it that either aren't suitable for consoles or I prefer the keyboard/mouse combination over my Xbox 360.

superscaper

Although games consoles are certainly becoming more "PC like" anyway, or certainly much more media centres than simply pure gaming machines. Things seems to be converging a lot more than they used to. Not sure if we'll ever see a complete merge but there's advantages and disadvantages to both consoles and PCs.