Forbidden Donut

To elaborate:
I own a Wii and a PC capable of playing modern games. I have routine access to a 360 and a playstation 3, but hate their online communities. I am very rarely around my computer with ample time to sit and play.

In my estimation the gaming industry is abandoning the PC as a viable platform. Console is on it's way to being crowned king once again after a 20+ year hiatus.

All that said. I could be coerced into adding some of you jerks as friends. I guess.

If pressed.

I only play on a PC, but I have plans one buying a 360 in the next few months. Just haven't gotten to it. I only really plan on buying it for Rock Band though.

I own a Wii and I am currently playing Mario Bros Wii and Megaman 9, but play it for all my Nintendo nostalgic needs. PC is where its at.

I only have a pc, no consoles yet have plans to get a PS3. I like the Wii but it's more of a multiplayer system, and I have no friends. I currently only play CS with bots, after which I drag a razorblade lightly across my wrist while I weep in the shower.

Although my time for playing games is significantly diminished, I still like to play PC games whenever possible. Console interfaces, while improved, are still not up to PC par. Fucking devs just need crossplatform play and this won't be an issue. However buying a console is a vote AGAINST cross-platform play, so I urge all of you to stop buying consoles and their games!

in a normal world, i would be playing almost exclusively PC games (at least online), but college has turned me to the dark side. i largely play xbox 360 in my spare time, although i can see myself playing more PC online shit next semester when my schedule eases up

also, sports games are far superior on consoles (nba2k10 is my god)

I haven't played a console game since my freshmen year of college (been like 2 years). I sold my wii used for more than I bought it new and built my new pc. Since then its been PC only.

I don't play much of either anymore... but play far more on console then PC. The only PC game I play is still CS, and that's maybe 2-3 hours a month. I play a few hours a week on my xbox, mostly rock band or guitar hero, but also sprinkle in others like left 4 dead 2, borderlands, and sports games.

I really only play games when I'm around friends. Unless there's a LAN (which takes effort to plan and setup) console games are what we play. It's much easier to have friends show up, grab a controller, and play a some games while knocking back a few beers then it is to plan a LAN.

I own a gaming computer, a 360 and a PS3. I've slowly converted with a lot of pople I know from getting games on 360 to getting them on PS3.

Currently playing; Mainly CoD, NHL 10, a little Borlerlands, all on PS3. I boot up the 360 for the occasional Soul Calibur and Viva Pinata.

Haven't played much of anything on my computer since dicking around in EVE Online for a while. I've been feeling the urge to play a new MMO just waiting for something to come out that I can get into (I can't stand getting into a game late haha).

Console gaming has been crushing PC gaming for quite some time now from my experience. Although PC gaming still has its merits. There have been no worthwhile RTS games for consoles, even the Civilization game failed. Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 will both give me far too many hours to pour into my little PC Gamer heart though.

Edit: Oh yeah, the Wii fucking sucks.

So much for that theory.

Go figure. The one time the forum responds to a poll and provides usable data... and it's a resounding "consoles... meh."

Yeah, I don't really care, except that I need to play fps on pc. I can't deal with fps games on a console.

I pretty much hate everything non-Apple.

consoles for get togethers and single player fun, pc games for online action
that's how i'm rolling now at least


well to be honest... i'm actually playing pokemon in an emulator... so... i should go in a corner and die or something

Hahaha!

In terms of the vote it was "I mix it up". Additionally I own a PS3.

It is however getting much harder to justify buying a $1500+ gaming rig, when I can have a laptop AND a PS3 for half that. Its simply not economical to game on PC for me anymore.

I tried to bridge the gap with a $2200 gaming laptop... but honestly, what a waste of money.

Currently competing online is less and less of a draw for me, which means console gaming will likely soon draw me in completely. I'm getting better with the joysticks in FPSs, and lets face it.... I don't need to have pinpoint-pixel aim in single player. So unless a life changing MMO comes out any time soon, I see my sole PC being a laptop with mediocre gaming capability that I use almost solely for internet/business/storage/non gaming etceteras.

Edit: Also, good thread.

$1500 for a gaming rig? What the fuck computer are you buying? The computer we got Phil for his wedding was $600, and it games well (from what I hear).

The main difference I see between a gaming rig and a console is that a gaming rig you can upgrade parts when games come up that are too advanced for your rig, while a console you need to buy a whole new console. Plus, I can't stand playing any FPS or RTS on consoles. The noobstick just doesn't suit me.

my macbook pro hasn't had any problems running the latest games so far haha

Unfortunately the gaming industry seems to be increasingly disagreeable towards this attitude.

More and more games are designed for consoles and being ported to PC afterwards. Infinity Ward just swift dicked it's PC costumers by excluding Dedicated Server functionality (an exclusion that likely comes from porting from 360 to PC). With the dawn of (useful) internet connectivity and online play in consoles not too far in the past we're already seeing a shift in priorities by developers.

PS2 reigned supreme last generation, but PC still blew it out of the water in terms of releases, patches, release dates, mechanics, and visuals. Now developers have all but said that programming for the PS3 is worse than dabbling in photoshop's codebase. 360 sees releases first, patches first, dlc first... but has worse hardware. Yet the hardware is made better use of since it's easy to program for. Wii just got it's motion + shit, but nobody wants to program for it yet.

Cross platform (PC and console) online play is likely impossible to accomplish with FPS's and RTS's as you have so much more control on a PC. Any equalizing tweak would ruin play for one or the other platform... defeating the purpose.

Meanwhile, yeah. 1500 bucks is steep, but not ridiculous if you want to keep playing the newest games. If I want to do that on a 360, I drop the $10 extra for the game and let the developers optimize it for the console. No upgrades necessary. And consoles have a life cycle of about 5 years, versus 2 or 3 years for a PC that is meant to be a power gaming rig. SO you don't need to buy a new console. And if you do, it costs about as much as the latest video cards do, so if you wanted to upgrade and needed a new motherboard, you've spent more money than you would on a brand new PS3 slim/XBox360.

/all over the place post is all over the place.

If they let me hook a keyboard and mouse up to my ps3, then I don't need a computer for gaming anymore. Until they do that, it's just not a viable option for fps or rts, or even rpgs in my opinion.

I understand FPS (click accuracy) and RTS (Action speed), but what advantages do RPGs have on PC? Besides the fact that RPG's in general have a tendency to blow, and JRPG's are worse, but primarily don't get released on PC for a while, thereby limiting the number of shitty RPGs.

i think that consoles are making very nice strides in terms of rpg games that are available, a prime example being dragon age... gotta love bioware... sigh it's 3:30 am and i just got an urge to go back to dragon age... this means only one thing... i shall have to duel my alarm clock in the morning... the last time that happened i had to get 13 stitches down my leg.. the fucker fought dirty and brought a knife..

p.s if any wants to buy me a present for christmas, i'm going to need a new alarm clock

I'm curious, how do consoles handle hotkeying for things like spells and abilities? I have never played the current generation consoles (besides the wii), so I'm not really sure what their controller setup is.

I'm thinking back to WoW, and I used a ton of hotkeys. A good number of my keys were custom bound to something. If console controllers only have a dozen buttons, how do they handle that sort of complex functionality?

Kind of what court said. I'm not entirely sure how, say, the PS3 handles inputs for Dragon Age, but on PC it's just easy. It's a question of control customization, and speed and ease of use, even when not required. The mouse is simply a better directional pointing device when you're doing anything except fighting games, flying games, or driving games. If you've got a hot bar with 15 skills on it, how the fuck can you manage those in one or two button clicks with a controller? Whereas on the pc it's as simple as 1-0 number keys, or maybe having to hit the alt button before clicking the number key. That's at most 2 buttons to activate a skill. Or you can simply run the mouse pointer over the skill.

I don't see how it's enjoyable on a console. I know I tried Oblivion on a friends 360 after I'd beaten it on PC and I wished the controller had a cord so I could hang myself with it. And that was a game where the interface was designed for consoles.


Edit: Forgot sports games. Consoles are good for them too.

Fair enough.
The interface issues of a console are pretty insurmountable. My point would just be that it seems like bit by bit, developers are embracing those limitations and designing simpler, dumber, easier to play games and making shit loads more money on it. I also think that piracy has driven this change a good amount. It's a bit harder to steal a console game.

I donno. I've seen a shift for a while, and am somewhat surprised that this shift isn't more manifest here.

But I guess it's PC gaming still.

I agree with bill on the inout issue. The only things that annoy me about consoles is that you have to use a controller, and the way they handle servers. i hate how xbox makes you use match making to play a game like halo. Servers build communities not match making. The day that a console lets me use a mouse and a keyboard on any game i want is the day that i can stop playing games on my pc.

Wasnt unreal 3 for the ps3 supposed to let you use both or did that not end up happening.

Confirmed. It games quite well. Now I just need to manufacture more time to game :-D

And I agree. They are making dumber games for consoles and making tons of money. There is not money in smartness, or all my favorite TV shows wouldnt have been cancelled.

Oh, and sports games are the death of our children. Go throw the fucking football or shoot some hoops!

qft

1500$ for a gaming rig make non sense unless you want all the newest stuff and you have a ton of money to waste for nothing, i could easily get a good quad core with minimum 4gb of ram, one of the best graphic card right now and all the rest you need for less than 1000$ which is less in USD around 950$ i think.

you can easily build a decent gaming computer right now for a little amount of cash maybe approx 600-800$ unless you want to buy extreme quad core, go sli or crossfire or pay 400$ for a graphic card over an other one which is just a little worst which you can get for half the price

Man, Sports games have absolutely nothing to fucking do with it.... Bad parenting imo

I can't stand when I hear someone bitching about how today's children aren't getting enough exercise because they're inside playing video games. Take it the fuck away if it's that bad...

P.S. None of the agression is in your direction Phil, just to the topic.

Anyone pointing out the price in my post, and then quoting gaming rig prices as less is missing the point. Perhaps I should spell things out.

The prices you all are quoting for a good gaming rig are still roughly twice that of a PS3, which is the most expensive console available. This is pretty much exactly the point I was attempting to convey in the first place. So lets see, do I want a purpose built gaming rig which isn't top of the line, that may have compatibility problems, will require driver updates and general maintenance for all its life, and then upgrade it yearly to continue playing the nicest games?

Or do I want a purpose built gaming rig (with blue-ray capability, when referring to the PS3) that I know will play every game that is released for it flawlessly (with few exceptions) that auto-patches itself when connected to the internet, and has a shelf life of roughly double a gaming PC?

From a practical standpoint, gaming rigs are retarded. Granted, FPS, RPG, and RTS games play better on PC, but that's something that I'm sure the console developers are working on in order to push PCs out as completely as possible. And the fact is that for most people, that's simply not enough to keep them away from the consoles.

The ONLY reason I still game on PC is because I agree that there are serious interfacing issues with current consoles. I was shocked that PS3 and XBOX did not allow kb/mouse controls for all games. However, with online gaming blowing up, and the release of those mini-chat-keyboards for the consoles, I could see the next gen making that move.

I had a shit load of disappointments with this latest generation. That's pretty high on the list.

Also, people tend to already have a 600 dollar PC sitting around these days, so that overhead isn't as high then... But I'm pretty much in your camp. It used to make sense to keep up to date with PCs. But I don't think high schoolers are saving up a thousand bucks over the summer to buy that sweet new gaming rig anymore. Likely they are using that 1k to get the console they don't already have and some games.

As a side note on price...
A 600 dollar PC will play the games that are out *right now* perfectly fine. Not all of them, but most. The cycle of constant upgrades has subsided a bit since PCI-e advancements leveled off. Even still, I've never had or seen a gaming rig that lasted more than 2 years without needing a serious hardware overhaul to keep up. I often left it the way it was for far too long, chugging along with the games I had, perfectly content. But I've had friends who would drop about 100 to 150 a year on their PC, and I know some of you folks do too. Maybe 1500 bucks is a touch high, but I'd wager that many of you have spent exactly that much on your current gaming rigs.

I got my PC in the winter of '05 and it's still playing things that are current. I can run borderlands, smooth, at medium settings. The only upgrades I've done are a better sound card, because the onboard soundcard was dookie, and putting in a second HD for storage.

I heard that someone is using a bunch of PS3's to build a supercomputer because it was way cheaper than trying to get actual computers to do it. Not sure what this has to do with this thread but w/e

As for allowing mice/keyboard on consoles, sure that would be sweet, awesome in fact. But lets say you go over to your buddies house to play a game. You grab a beer and sit down on the couch, take your keyboard and mouse, and put them on your lap?

Maybe with increasing number of people playing games with their console online this scenario isn't as common as it used to be, but I doubt that everyone is going to have a setup that allows for mouse/keyboard play, and there just isn't a way that people using a controller are going to be happy playing against someone with a mouse.

I got mine in the summer of '07 and I'm starting to notice compatibility issues. Big titles like Borderlands are fine, of course. But I recently picked up a DotA clone that can't get more than 3 FPS on my machine. I also recently purchased a copy of BioShock, and I have to set it down to about 1/2 the quality of the 360's version. I bought a middle of the road video card, quality everything else. Total Cost: $975.

I could have bought all three modern consoles instead.

I just bought a new computer for about $1500 a couple of months ago. So far it runs every game I've put into it, (Oblivion, COD4, Dragon Age, BF2, Eve) at max settings easily. I know they aren't all really intensive games compared to some other titles, but I believe they do the trick in regards to this topic. The only upgrade I plan on putting in it in the next year is a second video card, just cause I can. We'll see how it goes but I do plan on it lasting me more then 2 years.

A 1500 dollar machine damn well better last more than 2 years. But what about one that would've cost half the price? Why did you spend that much?

I ask because most of the rest of the comments here seem to indicate that spending that much is unnecessary, and I've always felt that a solid price point for a gaming rig is right around a grand. Not criticizing the decision, just hoping you can shed some light on the matter.

I dunno why I spent that much. I didn't have a budget per se, so I just went with what seemed to work really well and was the best bang for the buck. Plus, I
I've never really had a powerful computer, always just went for what would get me by, so this was kind of a gift to myself.

Somehow in this thread I also completely overlooked the relevant fact that I bought a gaming laptop for $2200 about 3 years ago, and its now practically useless. Mind you I would never defend that decision. It was a stupid purchase I regret considerably. Ironically I sold my brand spanking new XBOX 360 Elite (just released at the time) to get a chunk of the money used to buy it.

Ugh. Just thinking about it makes me a sad panda.

Because Bill doesn't have enough things to hate about this world.

wow... (referring to the link)

Stealth, about Dragon age.

It is a proven fact Bioware is teh awesome.

In this case the PC is far superior to console, the pc's ai is boosted dramatically to the point where the difficulty is around 2 times harder than the same difficulty on a console. The PC version is geared around a heavy use of tactics.

If you could see me right now, you'd see that my hand has slapped my head, and I'm now sitting resting my head in my hands and rubbing my temples.

i'll have to find myself a pirated version and try it out, i just played the game on the hardest setting on the console to get a challenge

How hard can they make listening to 27 hours of cut scenes?


/OH SNAP

well you see they have quizzes that they give you periodically through the game to see how close you were paying attention, and for each correct answer you get a cookie, and for each incorrect answer one of your fingers is broken....

Ah. So it's a lot like tiddly-winks?

i am currently addicted to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on PS3

idk about MW2 but the original MW was better on PC. The PC version was updated more, and you could have more players playing in a server. The only thing the PC version didn't have was that restart rank shit.