Are consoles holding back gaming tech? (Article inside)

[SubZero.it]

Starting from the 90's decade. The question doesn't need an answer actually but there's a nice article about this over at TweakTown

Is this sending a warning to NVIDIA and AMD? - The development of games on consoles and the requirements for PC hardware on the latest games not being that high? - What happens next year? In two years time? Three years time? When the latest AAA titles are capable of being run off of integrated or APU-based graphics?

[NEOAethyr]

I voted yes.
Because of the consoles, there's only a handful of games made for the pc.

If all games were made for the pc I think things would be a little different.

Tech wise, maybe not so much.
I'm sure they would work on it though as time went on and within a few years things would be completely different.

[Chrono Detector]

Yes, and if we were ever to see more titles released under DX11, Sony and Microsoft better get off their asses and make a new console that actually supports DX11, why is it taking them so long. But I rather if more gaming developers actually developed it for PC first, not console.

[naokaji]

Yes, but it's not the only reason, the second one is the lack of higher resolution monitors, seriously for years we have been stuck with 1920 x 1200 / 1920 x 1080 due to the 30" Screens still being priced out of the market.

[SubZero.it]

why is it taking them so long

Maybe because they aren't doing it?
Don't post about rumours of new consoles being developed. Never believe rumours and never been disappointed then. That's my philosophy

[FischOderAal]

If someone votes "no", he must be living in his own dream world...

[NEOAethyr]

Yes, but it's not the only reason, the second one is the lack of higher resolution monitors, seriously for years we have been stuck with 1920 x 1200 / 1920 x 1080 due to the 30" Screens still being priced out of the market.

You ain't just a kidding.
I was stuck using 800x600 for SO LONG....

After a while I decide to my make my own vga mode, 1120x630 which helped.
It's so much nicer having a 720p or 1080p monitor though.
Even 1024x768 seems tiny to me now.

I'm glad I never have to use an old tube monitor again.
Gaming with 640x480, or 800x600...

Console gaming is like gaming at those old low res'es...
You can't see squat in the distance.

[Jamesrt2004]

Everyone has to remember, the (crap) kinect and playstation move..
Is being used (horribly) to delay the next gem consoles so they can both milk markets that much more and various people have claimed around 2/3 years extra because of it! (lets hope it flops to make them have to rush out) which is crap :/ really!

I really hope we don't have to wait a couple more years though, currently we are being held back already and the only thug challenging our computers is things like eyefinity which is kinda sad :/



But also good point above... Having monitors usin the same resolution and quality... Forultiple years is kind of a joke. Nothing really is Happening in Market apart from the odd 120hz tn panel! (let's see ips 1920x1200 24" 120hz?) but that's another story of them just milking the consumer instead of investing in oled really. (will be interesting to see what happens to the companies not investing in it at the moment as it seems If they wanted to..... Sony and lg could flood the Market with oled (albeit at a high price) but worth it really.

[Russian]

Glad to see a consensus.

[kgk]

What kind of question is that?

Of course they are. The GPUs in those things were barely on par with PCs when they were released, let alone 6 years later. There is clearly a market for high end titles. Even Crysis 1, which was essentially just a game engine demo that chewed up hardware and spat it out, sold well over a million units at $50 a pop.

[PatRaceTin]

i like console as it quick response

[Dahmer]

Voted yes!

Also all this talk about ports and low resolution made me think of one of the first games I played on pc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wolf
Warning : don't read the resolution if you think you can't handle it :p

[ajaidev]

Basically everyone knows this fact in Intel/AMD/Etc. This is no surprise for the powers that be, AMD to a certain extend has a backup but Nvidia is in the fryer. AMD has very creative plans with its Fusion's. Intel on the other hand has a very sneaky plan and plans to surprise AMD in the same Fusion arena.

One thing that i can promises is that Intel will make more CPU intensive designs but the GPU part of the processor will be more efficient design than the AMD equal.

[lizardmech]

Half the problem is the xbox 360 and PS3 were crap even when they launched. Neither MS or Sony appear to have any sort of coherent long term hardware strategy, instead opting to randomly change architectures and rush everything at the last minute to try and launch earlier. The result is the poor performing and unreliable xbox360 and the PS3 with its half aborted cell with an outdated mid range GPU grafted on due to some unforeseen cataclysmic failure of the intended design .

[mutantmagnet]

If someone votes "no", he must be living in his own dream world...

Or they may be looking at this from a broader view. Consoles hold back tech but that is by design. They are supposed to represent gradual shifts in tech.

The bigger issue maybe the economics of developing on a PC over a console.

[Sailindawg]

Interesting read. I started pc gaming around '97 with Allied Assault. AA was a Half Life / Quake based game with very good production values. The MP was an afterthought, but it turned out to be a great value added part if the game. The game had a great following of modders which kept the MP going until the first Call of Duty title. But AA represented pc gaming at its best. The developer gave you something that was open and could be modded to your own imagination. The playing styles for that title ranged from mil sim to arcade type play. The same could be said for BF42. At one time, the best games were targeting a more mature thinking audience that was pc savvy, a little programming savvy and one had to tweak the program settings to obtain the best playable experience. The end user was able to manipulate the game to scale performance across his hardware. That was some of the fun / frustration of pc gaming. But around that grew very helpful online communities that made the game playing experience somewhat special and sometimes larger than the original title.

Not so much anymore. Hardware can only develop so fast and software is lagging behind hardware developments. Console's hardware are utilized 100% by its game titles because the specs are fixed. The console market is much more lucrative because of the business model it uses.

It's been a helluva run for the past 14 years, but strict open pc games with released development tools are few & far these days. Bohemian Interactive Studios (ARMA) is one if the few studios left that actually help, develop for & communicate with their end user community. The ARMA series is a scalable pc game that needs to be tweaked / massaged to run at its best on your equipment. It's a mil sim, not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a true pc game in the sense of the early days of pc gaming whereby you have a lot of control over the game. Not sure where it ends, but if true pc gaming is to survive as it used to be, it will be through small independent game developers.

[Manicdan]

the article itself touches on some good points,
but they did not need to make it 8 pages with 20 pictures that cut you off mid-paragraph

[FischOderAal]

[x] ban for those who vote "no"

[purefun65]

bf3 is our field of dreams. If you build it they will come. Dice can prove that the pc is very lucrative if they stick to their guns. developers would get a wake up call. consoles are crap and with laptops getting cheaper and more powerfull these days. why would you not want a piece of that market?

[Chrono Detector]

I find it kinda hilarious that Microsoft isn't going to release a new Xbox until 2015, I mean seriously WTF? If you asked me Microsoft and Sony should have retired the PS3/360 a while ago, I just don't understand why are they continuing to support a gaming console that is outdated and yes it is outdated.

[FischOderAal]

I find it kinda hilarious that Microsoft isn't going to release a new Xbox until 2015, I mean seriously WTF? If you asked me Microsoft and Sony should have retired the PS3/360 a while ago, I just don't understand why are they continuing to support a gaming console that is outdated and yes it is outdated.

They have to stick to what they have especially Sony since they didn't make any money out of the PS3 until recently. Microsoft is just milking the cow now as long as they can. Same applies to Nintendo although the sales of the Wii seem to decrease. I'd guess we will see a Wii HD or some kind in the next one or two years.

[NEOAethyr]

I started with a handful or so of dos games.
And and a few windows games.

MK1 (closest arcade port there was)
MK2
Deathgate? (not sure if this was the title, close enough)
Return to zork (never played it for more then a few mins)
Fairy tale (some old school 386 rpg, fun to mess around with and nothing more)

Doom1, 2 and wolfenstien.

There were a few more puzzle games but I can't remember the names of them.

Rome, the only game I have on 1.2meg floppies, cool game for it's time, reminds me of grand theft auto...

Sim city 2000... classic, never played any of the other for more then a few mins except for the original port on the snes.
I prefer the dos ver over the windows one, the windows one came with a map editor though that was fun to play around with.

Win32 stuff like outpost, the original copy of myst.

And the older mech warriors .
1st one I got was for win95, the rage pro edition.
I had all the expansions, ghost bear legacy was the only expansion that was exclusive for dos, no win9x ver for that one.
Awesome game, I don't like the microsoft ver's at all , they ruined the franchise I personally think, dumbed it down.

Then there was the original Unreal tournament .
Etc etc...

There were 3 diff flight sims I used to play.
I wish there was more decent flight sims these days .
Always wanted to have a lan party with flight sims.
Also wanted to have a lan party with arcade racing sims, with custom controls so you could skip gears, etc.

For the longest time most pc games were totally diff then consoles.
But these days, it's pretty much the same stuff you get on the console, it's just you don't have to deal with some of the nasty graphics or res'es that the console puts out.

One recent, well kinda recent port, farcry, when I saw it on the xbox I was like wtf... .
Game was ok'ish though,not great, but something to play if you're extremely bored.
If you ask a console gamer what they thought about farcry..., don't bother lol because it's not even the same game.
Same goes for most of the unreal tournaments.


Edit:
Speaking of the Wii.

That thing is a gamecube with a different case, drive and bios, same exact hardware being resold for a profit (also has card slots and usb, but really it's just a game cube).
If they did that again lol, I wouldn't be surprised.

As for the 360.
Some people just bought it last year, and if they find out a new console comes out 1 year from now it's gonna tick them off.
A newer one should wait for another 2 years then I think it would be fine...
Normally they would of put one out soon, but what's the point really?
They could make it on par with the ps3 I guess but so what.

If they put out one using the latest tech right now.
It wouldn't look much different in terms of graphics.
It least not for another year.

One more edit:
The thing I find disturbing about laptop tech is they are putting out to many 1.8ghz dual core laptops.
My cousin just bought a new laptop, it's got a dualcore 1.8hgz celeron and intel gpu :\.
He asked, hey can this play some games?
I said, some maybe, but most of the latest, no sorry dude, that cpu is just not gonna cut it, you need at least a 2.4ghz dual core.

[CedricFP]

It's the reason why I haven't moved on from this archaic, power-guzzling 4870x2 yet.

[deathman20]

Voted Yes

Of course. Sure the consoles this gen are trying to pump out high res but 1280x720 is all they can do when at least on PC's when they where released they where doing 1920x1080/1200 res. Sure they upconvert but still its limiting. So texture, model quality is getting hurt, not only that the limited amount of memory (512Megs) for the program and textures TOTAL is killing it for consoles when games today can use nearly a gig in just the graphics card if not more.

As well limited disk size at least for the 360 is holding things back as well.

Overall being stuck on DX9 erra graphics, with older gen GPU's is killing it in general. Update the hardware, and push out a new console and we should see improvement, but don't skimp at least on the memory onboard since that seems to be the biggest limiting factor at this time. Give it 2Gigs of memory, let the GPU have its fair share and the rest the system can use. Make sure the GPU can hold its own and is newer tech at least. Sure the box might be in the 200W range when released but after the years it will come down in power.

[bfar]

I think people get confused by new APIs like DX. DX11 doesn't necessarily make things look better, it merely enhances the dev library. Whether that can be used to make things look better totally depends on how the game engine is built. There are plenty of DX9 games that look far better than supposed DX11 games. For all its faults, DX9 Crysis2 looks a hell of a lot better than DX11 AlienvPred, or Dirt2.

Games with high power graphics are way more expensive to build than they used to be. Many experienced gamers don't have a real grasp of just how complicated it is. It takes month/years to learn efficient programming with APIs like DX or OpenGL. Devs can't just 'move' over to DX11 overnight. It takes quite a long time for a company to realign it's whole infrastructure/knowledge.

As for high res 30' displays - they've been available for years!!

People are dead right to expect more, but I think they need to be realistic. Rome wasn't built in a day!