Windows Future of PC gaming?

With all the hype, news and facts regarding the new consoles from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo I am wondering where this puts the future of the PC for gaming. The new consoles have supposed mega powerful cpu's and gpu systems incorporated which are said to be better than any pc can possible have (at any reasonable cost anyhow). Without any drastic improvement in the way components such as video cards are priced for consumers I wonder where the PC gaming market will be in the next few years. With the word that dual core cpu's will cost over a £1000 where is the advancement gonna come from?

 

not sure on this one, maybe if a new form factor is released, this would alow computers to catch up to the consoles sooner, but as it stands now, these consoles are far far more powerful than anything a pc owner can dream of

 

i agree looking at the specs of the x-box 360 and PS3 the PC will have to develop pretty quickly to catch up.. although i think more intence games might come out on the PC the power layed out by the new consoles will produce higher quality games :S but another thing a console has is the mobility to be moved from place to place with ease unlike a computer with its bulky case and monitors..

should i be woried as im 99% a PC gamer? i dont no..

 

as it stands now you cant buy either an xbox360 or a ps3...
and you wont for at least 6 months
who knows what we'll have PC wise by then, certainly dual core chips will be available as will the next gen graphics cards, and we havent seen any numbers from them yet...

 

the who which is better a PC or console use to be so different before... the PC use to always win over the console in power, performance and graphics.. but when the PS3 and X-box 360 get released it will all change for a few years..

but like Hamish said... all could change..

 

Have they made any mention about how much these things are going to cost? If they are far above our current PC hardware, I get the feeling that it might cost a few extra nickles.

 

i dunno, when the Xbox was released i was still running a duron 800 and gf2 mx

 

You forget, these powerful graphics chips are made by companies that will end up making graphics cards for PC's using the same technology soon anyway (going to happen, just to make lots of money), and a PC is far more flexible (due to having a keyboard), than any console will ever be.

Also, some of us actually prefer keyboards for control, rather than a joystick or gamepad

EDIT: Also, these consoles don't imporove for years, PC's do

 

The 360 has equilivant to 2 x 6800 vid cards - they can cost this by enormous sales. This will not mean that vid cards for pc will be lower in price.

My other concern is that Bill wants to make the new xbox a media center etc - whereby users can actually buy character enhancement for their in game characters, buy new paint jobs for there in-game cars and to be given a front end on internet sites et al. It worries me that this will be another control on the user much like AOL wants to give people a filtered and restricted view of the net.

I'm a pure pc gamer and shy away from a restrictive and un-upgradeable systems like a console but see that pc component manufacturers will soon need to reduce prices or offer pc owners an advantage so as they will not emigrate to the console.

 

I doubt it, they will probably cost what the last gen (well ps2 anyway, gc was about 100, not sure on xbox) did (about £300) at first and then they will eventually drop from there.

Death

 

Sorry but you mis-read (or I misprinted). My comment was that the console had these expensive cards but due to large volumes of sales the consoles will still be low priced.

 

As far as what though? The hardware? It's mainly the software of them that evolve even with limitations of hardware do they? Capability wise though, I'd have to agree.

I will agree there are games I prefer a controller and other games with a keyboard and mouse.. Quite frankly, I prefer my FPS (unless it doesn't involve very precise shots and fast paced) served with a keyboard and mouse aswell as RTS, but beyond that, I don't mind the controller so much. Also, I have heard indications more over for PS3 thus far that games could go as high from $60-$80 from the start. Games will be expensive anyways when the next gen starts to roll out in the mass market. I still think it will be some time for some money conscience like myself will pick up one of the next generation consoles for PC gaming to have an impact so soon...

But with more developers turning to consoles (porting over and what not), I'd have to partly say that PC might have an impact somewhere along the line as it is harder to pirate console games, but still not impossible none of the less... But who knows... Only time will tell how everything will turn out.. PC will in time find ways to out match console with hardware specs anyways and just move right on a head...

 

i bet the ps3 and xbox 360 will cost something like £400+ for a while.. then drop it down like they do all the time.... ill probably buy one a few months after once the price has dropped alot..

 

i think we will all agree that a pc is best for some games, (such as rpg and fps) but the consoles are now being made internet accesible and it wouldnt surprise me if better control systems were introduced for the consoles to help with this. Although pcs have their advantages, consoles also have theirs (low price, ease of use, size (excluding xbox )). These next gen consoles are gonna dominate the games market for a while after they come out, although probably for only about a year

 

Consoles being based on PC technology is really wasting the technolog, and is limiting what a console can really do. The reason I say this is because if you tried to get the technology for say, the 8 bit consoles, and based it on the hardware available back then, it wouldn't work. Well, in a way it would, but for it to work like so, you'd need some big chunky thing.

You know what I mean. PC technology is for more than just gaming, it's for word processing, coding, hax0ring, pr0n surfing, things like that. Also, you can't exactly just try to make a game use the full potential of the processor, because the processor is based for more than just gaming. I know it won't be a direct PC/Mac processor, it will be modified, but still...

Making a custom gaming processor would probably be a lot more beneficial to framerates, graphics, things like that. If we wanted a computer in our consoles, why not just develop PC games? Get rid of the console producing companies and focus just on PC? It'd be a lost faster, lot better, lot more mainstream, and we won't have to buy a $300 (higher at launch) separate piece of hardware to play it on. (and if you don't own a computer by now, my god, get with the times)

Meh, that's just my opinion anyway...

As for the PC gaming, it'll nebver die, it'll just be continuously crap. Look at Counterstrike FFS...

 

Personally, I think the next gen consoles are gonna bring about a good bit of interesting change. We'll see more and better games being released on both the PC and the console. Physics in games is going to be more and more widely employed now that consoles will have the processing power to handle it. The Xbox 360 has a dedicated physics processor according to the last sheet I took a look at. PC's 'll have this sweet thing http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/05/20/physx_ppu_details/ and the PS3 has more than enough processing power to murder whatever you send it.

Whatever way it goes, whether consoles take over gaming, one thing is for certain:

The gamers win.

I couldn't be more exited about next gen hardware. The Killzone gameplay video has my mouth watering still:

http://files.filefront.com/Kill_Zon..._Zone_E3_2005_Trailer/;3854124;/fileinfo.html

 

When I will be able to simply plug my mouse, keyboard and monitor to a console then I will consider buying one. As for now I need my PC's power for various Adobe, Macromedia and Video editing programs, and with good pc hardware comes good Pc gaming. Aiming with mouse is what I'm doing for last 13years and I will not change that to analog stick.

 

I think you guys are forgetting that when ps2, xbox came out they were saying that would be the end of pc games. And we all know that, all that did was get more people into playing games. And once they started playing they wanted more, so computer part makers gave them what they wanted. All I can say is that ati, nivida, DFI, and all those companies that push for the gamer market share will not give up. Theyll make thangs cheaper and better to compete with sony and microsoft. The more firms there are in a industry the better it is for consumers. So think of this as a way to bring down prices and even things out for us true gamers. And beside who really wants to mod an xbox come on now.

 

I will NEVER change that to an analog stick, it's just not possible to aim well at all.

Death

 

Give it 1-2 years or so after the consoles have been released. PC hardware will once again be more powerful than the current consoles. Same as it has been in the past.