The PC gaming alliance

J

JonnyK

2[H]4U
Joined
Jul 3, 2004
Messages
2,216
http://www.developmag.com/news/29331/The-PC-market-is-not-dying-says-newly-formed-PC-Gaming-Alliance

Intel, Nvidia, AMD/ATi and Microsoft (along with Alienware, Dell, ACER and Gateway), and publishing giants Epic and Activision as well.

"One of our main major objectives is to provide one voice on PC gaming market. There's no one source that says 'hey this is where the PC market is going'. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are always calling their market share - we're going to call our market through this group."
 
No EA?

Edit: lol - Epic is there too. CliffyB is such an attention whore...
 
maybe their mission statement can be "lets make games that dont suck"
that would help.
 
I'm still putting my money on Valve and Steam... but it will be interesting to see where this leads (if anywhere). With Microsoft being the big kahuna of the Alliance, it's clear they're going to be pushing the Live service - which of course needs a serious retooling.
 
PoweredBySoy said:
I'm still putting my money on Valve and Steam... but it will be interesting to see where this leads (if anywhere). With Microsoft being the big kahuna of the Alliance, it's clear they're going to be pushing the Live service - which of course needs a serious retooling.
Click to expand...

I really, REALLY hope they don't adopt that Live bullshit and try to make it mainstream, because all they will do is kill PC gaming quicker than anything.

I am very very weary of this idea... Epic has given up on the PC, MS has fucked up more times in the last year while trying to "save" the platform (Live for Windows, Vista only, shitty ports of 3 year old games, etc), it seems to be more hardware companies than software companies...

The only good I can see is that Activision (which is more than likely the Blizzard side of things) is a part of this... but really, I don't see this group doing much of anything, because the Games for Windows initiative went nowhere either and that was another wasted opportunity.
 
there seemed to be many misgivings about the group, primarily focused on the fact that no one was sure what it would actually do
Click to expand...

This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.
 
Why can't people just see the obvious? PC gaming is EXPENSIVE and it still takes some techinical knowledge to play PC games. No alliance is going to chage that. That is why it is failing- the best game in the world will not save PC gaming if you have to buy a $1200.00 pc to play it at it's full potential. A $400.00 Xbox 360 or PS3 is a heck of a lot cheaper then a $500.00 8800GTX - and you still have to buy the rest of the computer and BUY the games vs renting them for the console. I have COD4 for both my Xbox 360 and for my PC. I can log onto Xbox live and immediately hook up with my friends and play in a matter of minutes- game is automitically patched, voice chat is congiured for me, can configure a game server than everyone can play on, etc. In order to play with my PC friends I have to make sure my game is manually patched with the same version as everyone else, deal with numerous punkbuster issues, fire up Xfire, then log on to a Ventrilo server for voice chat- and on top of that we have to pay monthly to host a COD4 server because it is a pain in the a@# for someone to host a listen server every night. Aside from the controller differences I can honestly say the gaming experience is the same between the pc and the xbox- matter of fact I kind of prefer the Xbox version.

It is about ease of use and money- something I don't think PC gaming will ever have over console gaming. I have been a die hard PC gamer for years and finally gave in last Fall and got a Xbox 360. Now that I am older and have a family I can't spend a lot of money anymore upgrading my PC constantly to play games like Crysis- console gaming is more resonable for me right now. I am not trying to discredit PC gaming- I am really frustrated that the obvious is out there and PC gaming and hardware manufacturer's are avoiding the big issues.
 
Diseaseboy said:
Why can't people just see the obvious? PC gaming is EXPENSIVE and it still takes some techinical knowledge to play PC games. No alliance is going to chage that. That is why it is failing- the best game in the world will not save PC gaming if you have to buy a $1200.00 pc to play it at it's full potential. A $400.00 Xbox 360 or PS3 is a heck of a lot cheaper then a $500.00 8800GTX - and you still have to buy the rest of the computer and BUY the games vs renting them for the console. I have COD4 for both my Xbox 360 and for my PC. I can log onto Xbox live and immediately hook up with my friends and play in a matter of minutes- game is automitically patched, voice chat is congiured for me, can configure a game server than everyone can play on, etc. In order to play with my PC friends I have to make sure my game is manually patched with the same version as everyone else, deal with numerous punkbuster issues, fire up Xfire, then log on to a Ventrilo server for voice chat- and on top of that we have to pay monthly to host a COD4 server because it is a pain in the a@# for someone to host a listen server every night. Aside from the controller differences I can honestly say the gaming experience is the same between the pc and the xbox- matter of fact I kind of prefer the Xbox version.

It is about ease of use and money- something I don't think PC gaming will ever have over console gaming. I have been a die hard PC gamer for years and finally gave in last Fall and got a Xbox 360. Now that I am older and have a family I can't spend a lot of money anymore upgrading my PC constantly to play games like Crysis- console gaming is more resonable for me right now. I am not trying to discredit PC gaming- I am really frustrated that the obvious is out there and PC gaming and hardware manufacturer's are avoiding the big issues.
Click to expand...

There is a console section of the forums, maybe you should go post in there.
 
Diseaseboy said:
Why can't people just see the obvious? PC gaming is EXPENSIVE and it still takes some techinical knowledge to play PC games. No alliance is going to chage that. That is why it is failing- the best game in the world will not save PC gaming if you have to buy a $1200.00 pc to play it at it's full potential. A $400.00 Xbox 360 or PS3 is a heck of a lot cheaper then a $500.00 8800GTX - and you still have to buy the rest of the computer and BUY the games vs renting them for the console. I have COD4 for both my Xbox 360 and for my PC. I can log onto Xbox live and immediately hook up with my friends and play in a matter of minutes- game is automitically patched, voice chat is congiured for me, can configure a game server than everyone can play on, etc. In order to play with my PC friends I have to make sure my game is manually patched with the same version as everyone else, deal with numerous punkbuster issues, fire up Xfire, then log on to a Ventrilo server for voice chat- and on top of that we have to pay monthly to host a COD4 server because it is a pain in the a@# for someone to host a listen server every night. Aside from the controller differences I can honestly say the gaming experience is the same between the pc and the xbox- matter of fact I kind of prefer the Xbox version.

It is about ease of use and money- something I don't think PC gaming will ever have over console gaming. I have been a die hard PC gamer for years and finally gave in last Fall and got a Xbox 360. Now that I am older and have a family I can't spend a lot of money anymore upgrading my PC constantly to play games like Crysis- console gaming is more resonable for me right now. I am not trying to discredit PC gaming- I am really frustrated that the obvious is out there and PC gaming and hardware manufacturer's are avoiding the big issues.
Click to expand...

First off you don't need a $1200 PC to play games at the level of a Xbox 360. You don't even need $600. Second, you're assuming that people have never owned a PC before this, and thus need to purchase a monitor, mouse keyboard and speakers. I have been using the same peripherals for about 8 years now. And also by that logic we would need to figure in the cost of a 1080i TV for the consoles + controllers.

Second, even if you do spend the dough for the high rez TV, you're still using lower quality textures, and the frame rates will still be worse.
 
Diseaseboy said:
Why can't people just see the obvious?.....
Click to expand...

Drama queen.

I will agree though that something needs to be done about the price of video cards - as they've long gotten out of hand, and they're probably the biggest barrier to entry into the PC gaming market. I really hope these new $250 high end Nvidia cards mark the beginning of a new era. Personally, I'm done spending $400+ on these things.
 
Roufuss said:
I really, REALLY hope they don't adopt that Live bullshit and try to make it mainstream, because all they will do is kill PC gaming quicker than anything.

I am very very weary of this idea... Epic has given up on the PC, MS has fucked up more times in the last year while trying to "save" the platform (Live for Windows, Vista only, shitty ports of 3 year old games, etc), it seems to be more hardware companies than software companies...
Click to expand...

MS isn't trying to "save" anything,. They are trying to get people to switch to the Xbox. Microsoft is a PC gamers worst enemy. They bought Bungie to make Xbox games, they try to make PC developers make Xbox exclusives, or make xbox exclusive content.
 
I do like the idea of having Hardware developers and Software developers on board but I think having Microsoft would be detrimental to the cause-- considering their recent efforts in boosting PC game sales. Needs more Valve and maybe EA just because they own Bioware, Pandemic, Maxis, and Crytek.

Also, Console owners need to spend about as much on a TV as a high end PC to get the maximum amount of usage out of it. If I wanted to play games at 640*480, I could just fire up my parents old Dimension P3 box. Not to mention the price on peripherals like 60 dollar wiimote-nunchucks that will set you back almost 200 dollars if you get 3 of them.
 
Diseaseboy said:
A $400.00 Xbox 360 or PS3 is a heck of a lot cheaper then a $500.00 8800GTX - and you still have to buy the rest of the computer and BUY the games vs renting them for the console.
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No one said you had to buy an 8800GTX, or gold-plated killer-nic's. Sure, a good gaming pc might cost about twice that of an Xbox, but you're trying to make it seem like they cost $5,000.00 :confused:. Might have been true in 1980, but it hasnt been so in about the last 10 years.

And, again, no one said you had to buy computer games. Rent them if you want.
 
Go play call of duty 4 on your 640x480 tv while I sit down infront of my 22" monitor with my q6600 system I built for less than $1k, and get much better resolutions, textures, and tweaking options.

Pc gaming is obviously not for your average Joe, or maybe once bestbuy starts carrying decent cards with decent stock at a decent price.....
 
and you still have to buy the rest of the computer
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I'd still have to buy the rest of the computer even if I never played games. I'm usually satisfied with a $200 graphics card, which is half the cost of a console. And it's better graphics also. If you are satisfied with 720 resolution you could get by with a $100 graphics card.

Plus I spend about half as much on PC games as I would on console games. New console games are $60 on not usually on sale. New PC games are $30-$50, and I usually find them on sale, even new. I can stock up last years PC games when they are on sale. Like I just did last week when I got 6 games at CC for a little over $50.
 
You dont have to spend a fortune to play games, my old computer before I updated could play anything I put towards it, I might not have had all the eye candy on but it was a careful balance of FPS vs Pretty and I really enjoyed it. That system lasted me 3.5 - 4 years. My new system was not super expensive and will last me the same. Minor upgrades will keep it going strong. Hardware and cost is not the issue, look at most of the consoles, each time you have to buy all new equipment instead of a new base. Like others have said my mouse and keyboard last for years, speakers even longer, and monitors as long as possible.

Whats hurting the PC gaming market right now is not piracy, which I would say has calmed down some, its not WoW or other like games. Its the lack of substance to the new games. Crysis is very pretty, and has a neat story but its not as good or in depth as it could have been, I still enjoy it though. Same goes for a lot of new games, bad story bad quality and bad support = no buy.

And comparing cost vs cost...how? How fun is typing up a report or resume on that PS3 with its keyboard? My expensive computer gives me so much more value per dollar than a console could. Nothing against buying a console to play games but seriously saying its better because its cheaper is a weak argument. If I did not do anything in graphical programs or video editing I wouldnt have as much ram as I have now, nor such a pricey PSU saving myself a lot of money, but again I get more use out of my computer. Convergence only goes so far...

If they go into this alliance with the ability to see their mistakes and listen to their community I think they will make the money they are missing back. I personally dont mind if the graphics are not cutting edge as long as they dont hurt gameplay which needs to be solid and backed by a sound story.
 
coolxboxgamer said:
Go play call of duty 4 on your 640x480 tv while I sit down infront of my 22" monitor with my q6600 system I built for less than $1k, and get much better resolutions, textures, and tweaking options.

Pc gaming is obviously not for your average Joe, or maybe once bestbuy starts carrying decent cards with decent stock at a decent price.....
Click to expand...

Or the major manufacturer's shipped their standard PC's with half decent cards.
 
I hope this alliance thing ends up being good for pc gaming because i do like to play games on my pc more than i do console.

I do think pc gaming is on the downers though and everyone is going to keep buying consoles in the future. I just hope that if this is the case, they build in full mouse / keyboard /computer monitor support to future consoles so i can set it up on my computer desk and play on my computer monitor with headphones and a mouse / keyboard for every game. If they did this i would be happy with buying all my games on a console. I think it would also be cool if microsoft built in something to the next xbox where you could hook a PC in to it and then you can stream in ventrilo stuff and alt-tab out of the game console over to the pc for using a web browser and all that. Then i could build a nice cheap pc and an xbox and get the benefit of a high end pc and all the things i like about a pc in general.

I dunno, something for this alliance / next gen consoles to think about.
 
LOL @ fanboys

Stop artificially limiting your gaming experience by going exclusively PC or Console. Be [H]ard and do both. Buy a nice widescreen DLP and use it for your PC and console.
 
coolxboxgamer said:
Go play call of duty 4 on your 640x480 tv while I sit down infront of my 22" monitor with my q6600 system I built for less than $1k, and get much better resolutions, textures, and tweaking options.

Pc gaming is obviously not for your average Joe, or maybe once bestbuy starts carrying decent cards with decent stock at a decent price.....
Click to expand...

Not the response I was expecting from someone with a handle like yours. :D
 
would be interesting to see what they actually do, something makes me feel not too much will come of this :(

the RPG genre is mostly dead with MMO's taking over, with the exception of Source-based fps not many good fps has been released lately (crysis, ut3, etc not huge sellers..)

its the RTS games that i love the most right now
 
Diseaseboy said:
Why can't people just see the obvious? PC gaming is EXPENSIVE and it still takes some techinical knowledge to play PC games. No alliance is going to chage that. That is why it is failing- the best game in the world will not save PC gaming if you have to buy a $1200.00 pc to play it at it's full potential. A $400.00 Xbox 360 or PS3 is a heck of a lot cheaper then a $500.00 8800GTX - and you still have to buy the rest of the computer and BUY the games vs renting them for the console. I have COD4 for both my Xbox 360 and for my PC. I can log onto Xbox live and immediately hook up with my friends and play in a matter of minutes- game is automitically patched, voice chat is congiured for me, can configure a game server than everyone can play on, etc. In order to play with my PC friends I have to make sure my game is manually patched with the same version as everyone else, deal with numerous punkbuster issues, fire up Xfire, then log on to a Ventrilo server for voice chat- and on top of that we have to pay monthly to host a COD4 server because it is a pain in the a@# for someone to host a listen server every night. Aside from the controller differences I can honestly say the gaming experience is the same between the pc and the xbox- matter of fact I kind of prefer the Xbox version.

It is about ease of use and money- something I don't think PC gaming will ever have over console gaming. I have been a die hard PC gamer for years and finally gave in last Fall and got a Xbox 360. Now that I am older and have a family I can't spend a lot of money anymore upgrading my PC constantly to play games like Crysis- console gaming is more resonable for me right now. I am not trying to discredit PC gaming- I am really frustrated that the obvious is out there and PC gaming and hardware manufacturer's are avoiding the big issues.
Click to expand...

You couldn't pay me enough to play COD4 on the X360. It would be an exercise in frustration and disdain.

Inferior graphics.
Inferior performance.
Inferior controls.

No thanks.

PC gaming may require more investments (time and money) to initially get into it, but it is also more rewarding in many ways than console gaming.

Also, cost-wise, its not that much more expensive. This may have been true several several years ago, but it's an ever-growing misconception these days. A sub $1000 PC would tear the X360 a new one in terms of sheer graphical prowess/capabilities.
For that matter, everytime you pay $60 for a new console game, I pay little more than half that price for a new PC game, usually by the 2nd week post-release. Those dollars add up surprisingly fast over the course of 2-3 years, enough to actually cover the entire cost of say a $300+ video card with the purchase of 10-15 games in that time frame.

Then of course, consoles such as the X360 are notoriously infamous for turning into $400 doorstops after a few months, as most people I know who own one, are on their 2nd if not 3rd units, all within the period of 2 years.
Most of them also had to pay that absurd $150 repair fee when sending it back to MS -- pathetic.

*Que Master of the Obvious Pic*
Also, a PC can be used for literally infinite things.
I actually use my PC to make money to buy more PC's. In other words, my PC basically pays for itself, whereas a console is a sunk cost no matter what.
 
PoweredBySoy said:
I will agree though that something needs to be done about the price of video cards - as they've long gotten out of hand, and they're probably the biggest barrier to entry into the PC gaming market. I really hope these new $250 high end Nvidia cards mark the beginning of a new era. Personally, I'm done spending $400+ on these things.
Click to expand...

Gotten out of hand? I've been here since the beginning (voodoo1), and I hope I'm not incorrect on the history (I might be), but the voodoo1 was ~$150 when I bought it. Adjusting for inflation, that's about $300 today.

I mention this as the next stuff to come out were the voodoo2 (SLI-capable) and I believe NVidia now had the TNT out in 1998. My only memory of both was that for me at that time they were both NOT affordable...

I finally bought a voodoo3 in 1999 (along with a real monitor, tax return and car insurance check for a totaled car sure helped), but that was because some of the mods for Quake2 were an absolute slideshow (basically unplayable) on a voodoo1...

To play them was an absolute mandatory upgrade from the voodoo1...

So, the voodoo1 back then was $300 (adjusting for inflation), and I feel confident in saying that, adjusting for inflation, that anything above a voodoo1 would cost you more than THE top card available right now...

How can prices be out of hand if they've gone down?

If anything today, it's just confusing as to what to buy... If you're not shooting for THE top card, well, they are just too many mid-range cards to know what to buy... Everything seem to be within a $20 jump to the next level (which would make me consider the next one), until you hit a GTX, with a $100+ jump, which is where I'd stop considering, unless I just want the best...

But, while games are made today to scale better for other hardware, an entry-level voodoo1 at $300 (adjusted) couldn't handle Quake2 mods very well... While a $200 video card today can arguably play Crysis acceptably from what I've read (or at least better than a voodoo1 compared to Quake2).

So either the price of video cards have been going down, or they've always been out of hand...

(and don't get me started on the fact that back then you were stuck at 640x480, IIRC... I think voodoo2 was the same, although maybe not the TNT... I do remember the voodoo3 at 1600x1200 on my new monitor was jaw-dropping, even if it was a slideshow... Just puts today's standards into perspective...)

But yeah, I've never once groaned about GPU prices, as to me they've gone down in price over the years...

(FWIW: the GPU SLI config I put into my machine two years ago cost me ~$1,500... The GPU SLI upgrade config I put in just two months ago cost ~$900... Both times I just bought the very top model available... I'd argue that $600 savings is enough to also upgrade to a quad-core CPU and new mobo and RAM if I wanted to...)

I'm wondering what Intel will bring to the GPU market...
 
I am not going to argue that PC gaming is a better experience graphically- but personally it kills me to play a game on the PC knowing I have to turn down settings because I don't have a fast cpu or a high end video card- that's like getting married to a real hot wife and all you can do is kiss her on the cheek;) I said you have to have an expensive PC to play a game at it's FULL POTENTIAL. If you want to play Crysis on a AMD 3200 with a 8500GT that's fine- but you're missing out on a lot. I don't blame companies to go where the money is- which are consoles. The online mulitplayer experience that used to be exclusively PC is now available on the consoles- and the graphics gap between console and PC games has narrowed greatly. I game on both the PC and consoles- and I agree you are doing yourself a disservice if you don't game on both.

PC gaming is still a niche market and it is unfortuante. No alliance is going to change anything. Most people on HardOCP are here becaue we are all hobbiests and are very computer literate, but we are a small group compared to everyone else. If you are going to promote a product you are going to do it to the masses to make $$- I don't blame companies to go strictly with consoles. I am not trying to downplay PC gaming- I'm just telling it how I have seen it so far. The modern consoles have essentially made the "PC gaming experience" plug and play- that is going to appeal to more people. Nobody said you have to buy games either- you can always rent console games. You don't have that option with PC games. And the argument that people already have computers is no different then saying people already have H-Def televions for their Xbox 360 or PS3. I will always be a PC gamer first but we all have to come off our high horse and realize things are changing and they are not in the PC's favor when it comes to gaming. Although....It will be interesting to see how the web based Quake developes- I can see that being very successful.

BTW- you can have your 22inch monitor- I game on a 92 inch projection screen.
 
Diseaseboy said:
I am not going to argue that PC gaming is a better experience graphically- but personally it kills me to play a game on the PC knowing I have to turn down settings because I don't have a fast cpu or a high end video card- that's like getting married to a real hot wife and all you can do is kiss her on the cheek;) I said you have to have an expensive PC to play a game at it's FULL POTENTIAL. If you want to play Crysis on a AMD 3200 with a 8500GT that's fine- but you're missing out on a lot.
Click to expand...

Thing is games like Crysis on max settings look about 5x better than what we get on consoles. When games are cross developed on both the PC and console platforms ultimately the console version looks equivelent to medium settings on the PC with 720 res, maybe 1080 if you're lucky.

People need to avoid this sort of reasoning because it's unfair to the PC platform. The settings in Crysis all high is vastly superiour image quality and graphical fidelity compared to even the most powerful console, so not being able to run it in max settings isn't a reason to go crying to consoles.

This is more of an ego thing...people feel inadequate when they can't have max settings which is just completely and utterly retarded, can we all stop with the little dick syndrome please and judge these things objectively and fairly?

To get the same kind of graphics as a console like the Xbox360 for example, you need a mid range card at best, with the 9xxx range out in a month or so that will drop closer to low end range.
 
Draax said:
LOL @ fanboys

Stop artificially limiting your gaming experience by going exclusively PC or Console. Be [H]ard and do both. Buy a nice widescreen DLP and use it for your PC and console.
Click to expand...

Now thats something I can't afford, multiple gaming platforms with game collections for both. I can't even afford the LCD monitor or TV.
 
Frosteh said:
This is more of an ego thing...people feel inadequate when they can't have max settings which is just completely and utterly retarded, can we all stop with the little dick syndrome please and judge these things objectively and fairly?
Click to expand...

I had a blast playing crysis at 1680x1050 with everything on LOW. I can also guarantee that there is no console game that even looked near as good as that. I bought GOW for pc, because i'm getting tired of playing with joysticks, and I can't bring myself to play it on he 360 anymore, the higher res textures alone make it worth it. And my old ass video card has no problem running gears "max3d out!!"
 
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