Console Porting is killing PC Gaming PQ.

[Kreij]

The thread title is "Console Porting is killing PC gaming PQ (picture quality).
Just giving you grief ShiB.

[ShiBDiB]

O, bahaha i had no clue what PQ was so I figured it was a typo... either way... this thread is stupid!

Shib out!!

[punisher186]

Steam player status: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Around 3.6M Steam users are online right now and nearly 5.5M players were on at once today. I can't find any sites that show console player stats but I'm sure PC takes the cake.

[BumbleBee]

Originally Posted by punisher186

Steam player status: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Around 3.6M Steam users are online right now and nearly 5.5M players were on at once today. I can't find any sites that show console player stats but I'm sure PC takes the cake.

it doesn't.

[Absolution]

With torrent/pirating going down again, maybe PC games will become more lucrative in the near future for developing houses.

In the 90s, almost every game had a demo version available, now its so difficult to get demos, people would resort to pirating/filesharing for "trying" the game out.

[Widjaja]

I believe pirating is a cause for the online exclusive sections of a game which maybe noticed.
e.g achievements or needing to play in a multi player environment to attain certain items which can not be acquired through singleplayer.

[Rei86]

I can't believe how some of you can tell me the difference between RAMBUS, ROP, GFLOPS but be so f'en arrogant and ignorant when it comes to gaming in general.

Originally Posted by Dent1

So 32,000 users online today were playing MW3 on steam. OK

So how many users were playing on Xbox Live and PS3 Online?


Looks like SuperXP has already owned Darkleoco. I have nothing more to add. Enjoy your weekend guys.

You have to be kidding me

You're looking at an avg of 100k + on the PS3 on any given night for MW3 and 150k avg on the Xbox 360.

Let it go, the console market FAR OUTPACES any PC game sales PERIOD. The revenue is in consoles and has been since the start of seventh generation consoles.

And for developers being lazy..nope. It has to do with the Publishers looking at the bottom line.

[BumbleBee]

Originally Posted by Widjaja

I believe pirating is a cause for the online exclusive sections of a game which maybe noticed.
e.g achievements or needing to play in a multi player environment to attain certain items which can not be acquired through singleplayer.

I think that is just a rope to keep you invested. they don't want you to put the game down. I noticed developers are rolling out DLC slower these days.

[xenocide]

If Piracy were really a problem like developers claim it is, Steam would have gone under a while ago as would most game development studios. Instead we've seen an increase in profits from the PC Gaming Industry, which indicates maybe Piracy doesn't have the overwhelmingly negative effects they claimed. Publishers will blame anything they can instead of taking the blame for releasing mediocre products, and with the Digital Era starting Piracy was an easy target.

Console Ports exist for a number of reasons, the least of which is lazy developers. It's mostly because creating games has become so expensive that companies don't want to increase the cost further by having a seperate team devoted to optimizing the game for PC users, which regularly are the lowest contributers to sales (ironically because a lot of PC users just avoid console ports because they are usually sub-par in quality). It's pretty rarely that a PC Game or PC Version of a game beats out the console equivalent in sales. Someone posted an infographic where it compared July 2011 I think it was, with SC2 selling 700k+ copies and the same month the best selling game was NCAA 2012 with like 670k, that's a terrible comparison for so many reasons. SC2 was a game that people waited over a decade for, was one of the most hyped games of the year (or even in several years), and they were measuring a month where traditionally video game sales are low. How did SC2 in 2011 compared to MW3 on either the PS3 or 360?

Consoles make a lot of money with specific titles, just like PC's do. Expansions to MMO's, MMO's, RTS, and specific FPS games make a killing on the PC (Mists of Pandaria, SWTOR, BF3, etc.) and a lot of third person shooters, fps's, action games, and sports games make a ton of money on Consoles (GoW, Assassins Creed, Halo, Madden, etc.). There are definitely games like Skyrim that are in a weird grey area as well, but that's usually because of exceptional (or even above average) game design or with proper PC ports that allow things like Mods.

I think people underestimate how little freedom Developers have--a lot of them are completely at the mercy of their Publishers. I read The Trenches web comic quite regularly and they have mail sent in from people who work for game developers in QA and other fields. A recent one mentioned that when he was in QA he hated watching games come through that were tons of fun and really interesting, and then at some point the Publisher would sent a "Producer" in who 99% of the time would butcher up the entire story and make the game a shell of what it previously was. I think that's the biggest problem in the industry these days, Publishers listening "market research" more than the actual target audience. They always try and streamline games and make them more accessible--which from what I've learned is removing any interesting features and filling them with two dimensional characters.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by Rei86

I can't believe how some of you can tell me the difference between RAMBUS, ROP, GFLOPS but be so f'en arrogant and ignorant when it comes to gaming in general.



You have to be kidding me

You're looking at an avg of 100k + on the PS3 on any given night for MW3 and 150k avg on the Xbox 360.

Let it go, the console market FAR OUTPACES any PC game sales PERIOD. The revenue is in consoles and has been since the start of seventh generation consoles.

And for developers being lazy..nope. It has to do with the Publishers looking at the bottom line.

care to provide a source for those numbers?

[eidairaman1]

IDK about Weak Drivers. But the other options definitely

[Rei86]

Originally Posted by Mussels

care to provide a source for those numbers?

I'll do you one better, its Sunday Night and the PS3 version ALWAYS has lower number than the xbox 360. I no longer own a copy of the game on the 360 but here you go





And that's just for one game

[BumbleBee]

you guys have no idea how many people play Call of Duty, Fifa and Halo lol

[entropy13]

Oh My God! That's a lot of players in one game! That's as many as the players online in one MMORPG in one country alone (and it's free too)!


Ok, seriously now, it goes without saying that the console gaming peasants would outnumber the PC gaming nobility. That's natural.

[BumbleBee]

Minecraft on the 360 is actually the top game right now haha it has sold over 4 million copies. 17,000 a day. it might even outsell the PC.

http://majornelson.com/2012/10/24/li...of-october-15/

[Rei86]

which makes crazy no sense

Besides that update is old. NBA 2k13 is out and Halo 4 is right around the bend.

EDIT: I take my statement back about money in the console. So far indie games have been champions on the PC. Same could be said for XBLA games and iOS/android too.

[BumbleBee]

Originally Posted by Rei86

which makes crazy no sense

Besides that update is old. NBA 2k13 is out and Halo 4 is right around the bend.

EDIT: I take my statement back about money in the console. So far indie games have been champions on the PC. Same could be said for XBLA games and iOS/android too.

people like Minecraft I guess. Call of Duty has been at the top for many years.

I think it's just been a really slow year for AAA games. a lot of them got pushed to 2013 so indie games got more attention.

look how stacked Q1 and Q2 2013 are

Aliens: Colonial Marines
Dead Space 3
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
Bioshock Infinite
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Arma III
Tomb Raider
Crysis 3
Company of Heroes 2
Metro: Last Light
Remember Me
Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Patriots
Gears of War: Judgement
God of War: Ascension
Sim City
South Park: The Stick of Truth

[nt300]

Originally Posted by punisher186

Steam player status: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Around 3.6M Steam users are online right now and nearly 5.5M players were on at once today. I can't find any sites that show console player stats but I'm sure PC takes the cake.

Think about this, how many people own PCs? (Notebooks, Laptops, Desktops etc). and how many people own gaming consoles. I would say almost every single house hold in the world owns a Personal Computer

Originally Posted by Kreij

Other than the fact you are completely wrong on everything, it's not a bad post.

No developer wants their game to be poor on any platform. They are not lazy.
They are constrained by the publishers deadlines and budget restrictions.

There is way more to it than just graphic quality.
You can't just write a game for the PC and simply port it to consoles. They are completely different.
You have to rewrite the game for other platforms to optimize the performance and playability.
The same is true in the other direction (Console -> PC) if you want to make use of the power of a PC.

The games that are great on both have teams dedicated to the individual platforms to ensure they meet specific standard for their intended platform. These developers have gotten the publishers to pry open their wallets so that can happen. You will usually see this only with IP that has a proven track record of high sales across all platforms, because publishers will not fork over the development costs for a particular platform if they feel the ROI is questionable.

Toss into the mix that the publishers can come in an say they don't like something and trash months of work in a heartbeat.

With the huge rise in sales of mobile devices (tablets for instance) you once again have another market segment that the developers may have to target and there is no guarantee that the publisher won't rob Peter (PC development) to pay Paul (Mobile development).

What I'm saying, is don't blame the devs. They work stupid long hours under unrealistic budget and release deadline constraints. Blame the publishers.

So we will see shift in better PC gaming PQ when the new consoles come out. Too bad they can't just make a PC game to look the best in PQ.

[3870x2]

I chose 'lazy game developers', but the actual issue is not that the devs are lazy, but rather that they are not given the resources (money, time. Mostly time.) to accomplish a competent port.

Never worry that the Devs are not doing their job, they are just like you and me. You need to worry about the executive board members and other asshats with a business degree.

[BumbleBee]

Ubisoft said it cost $1.3 million to port a game to the Wii U. I think Pachter also said it cost about a million.

that's a lot of money!

[Super XP]

Originally Posted by BumbleBee

Ubisoft said it cost $1.3 million to port a game to the Wii U. I think Pachter also said it cost about a million.

that's a lot of money!

Yes a lot but the selling potential if vast. They can make a dump load of cash.

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

I blame DirectX. So I vote none of the above. People should stop patronizing windows based games, and Steam should release their own OS complete with developers having low level access to hardware.

And I also wish pigs could fly in real life.

You can also factor in Publishers having a tight grip on developers for pushing them to deliver within the deadline. They should know that creativity is directly proportional to development freedom (or whatever that term is lol).

[FreedomEclipse]

thing about steam is they have massive discounts and deals.... Name a high street or online retailer that is willing to do the same thing? I bought the GTA pack for the price of hot meal. If i was to buy the games separately I would of had to pay significantly a lot lot more.

Its these deals that IMO keep piracy at bay. Of course pirates are always gonna pirate just like haters are gonna hate. I will openly admit that I do pirate games, but only for demo purposes. If i find i like the game enough I will either purchase it right out or wait for a steam deal to purchase it at a lower price.

Steam does a lot more then just support Indie devs. So long as steam keeps doing what they are doing, the PC gaming community will grow... Slowly but surely. Whats the point of pirating games when you can get them cheap from steam in one of their random deals?

one of the major things I hate about steam is their deals tend to be a regional thing.... a deal thats advertised on steam in the U.S wont be available anywhere else or if it is advertised then there are some differences in pricing

[tacosRcool]

I haven't really played my PS3 as much as I used to. I mainly use it for Netflix but that all will change when I decide to become a Playstation Plus member. They gots games for cheap plus free ones too. I do blame developers and publishers for crappy pc ports but the current generation graphics and other limitations hurt as well.

[xenocide]

Originally Posted by Rei86

And that's just for one game

According to Steam Stats DotA 2 peaked at 147k players today, that's a game in Closed Beta. Granted it's the most popular game on Steam, but so is MW3 the most popular game on consoles. The difference as I see it is that games on Consoles are either packed, or empty. MW3 may have 175k people playing, but I guarantee most games other than FIFA or Madden are nearly empty. Companies shut down servers for Console games like a year after release because there are only a few hundred people playing. Compare that to Steams peak users for the day;

DotA 2: 147k
TF2: 102k
CS1.6: 57k
L4D2: 49k
Borderlands 2: 40k

That's the top 5 games for the day, and it amounts to 395k people. The peak amount of users online for Steam alone of the day was 5.4 million. Hell, the top 10 games only account for 566k users. MW3 on the PC had a peak of 35k users today, which isn't all that bad considering it was a pretty lame console port, and according to VGChartz only sold 1.52m copies (the PS3 version did just under 12.5m and the 360 version did about 14.6m).

Now, this is only Steam. This isn't factoring MMO's, Origin users, or games that do not apear on Steam (SC2 and Diablo 3 come to mind). So needless to say, I highly doubt Xbox Live or PSN have more people actively playing daily than the PC does as a platform, and there is a big reason for this. Platform Diversity. That is, with a PC, you can play any game that is made for PC's, with Consoles, you can only play games made for your console. Imagine if PSN and XBL were combined, that's basically what the PC is. If you're playing MW3 on the PC, you're playing against everyone who has a PC Version of the game, not just the people with a 360 version or PS3 version or Wii (LOL) version.