So you’ve never had a problem with a console game? Never a patch that screwed things up? never a game that was never patched and needed it? People are still asking Bio to patch the console version of Dragon Age.
Again, it’s a problem of perception, or rather mis-perception based on ignorance.
I’ve been playing PC games since time immemorial. It used be a bit of a hassle, for sure, specially back in the 90’s and before, though it was still worth back then, because the consoles just did not offer the types of games the PC did.
But now, it’s a cakewalk. I haven’t had any PC gaming related issues with games or hardware in at least 2 years, probably more. And the only problem I had before then was a hard drive failure… which I’m sure NEVER happens to consoles, right? They’re hard-drives are made of magical stuff that never fails :rolleyes:
No, I never claimed it was the norm, I merely related an example. If a console title jumped me through the same hoops I’d return it to the store but aside from a red-ring failure (fixed for free by MS) I can’t recall having a console game problem since blowing into my SNES cartridges. For every flawless PC install I’ve done, there have been a significant number of hassle installs. You’re probably too young to remember tweaking config.sys files, the early DirectX versions that would brick your OS, or maybe even too young for the recent SecureRom and related DRM crapware and adware installers interfering with the play experience.
It’s nice that you’ve never had driver version conflicts, unsupported hardware that meets the advertised minimum requirements, DRM registration problems, MS patches that break their own OS, or an install that has lasted more than 5 minutes.
I’m highly computer literate–just am now making gaming choices with my time factored into my cost/benefit purchasing decisions.
I’m old enough to remember a few of those things. I’ve been playing PC games since Commander Keen at least. But again, these are old issues. Downloading and runnign a modern game from say Steam is something so trivially easy that my Grandma could do it. In fact she did. She liked Peggle, and I didn’t have it installed. She figured out how to install it (with only a little help from my wife) and was running it in minutes. A 70 yeard old woman who grew up in a farm in a third world country.
I’m not saying there are NO issues with PC games. Occasional you will run into some strange, rare issue or into the incompetence of developers and/or their Q&A staff. But THE SAME THING happens on consoles. Just now you sort of glossed over the red ring you had. I don’t know a single person that owns an xbox and did not suffer from a red ring issue. And they all had to wait WEEKS for a replacement.
That’s not inconvenient?? I’d take tweaking my config.sys file (something that I haven’t had to do in the last oh, 5 years or so - and then only because I WANTED to tweak something, not because I needed to - yet another plus on the PC side, moddable, tweakable games) over having no game system for a few weeks any time of the day.
And I mentioned Dragon Age and bugs on the console version of that game. I’m not completely ignorant of console games you know, some of my friends play them, and I hear about issueas all the time. Frame rate drops, consoles shutting off, bugs in the game, etc. Don’t give me this BS about console games not experiencing issues.
I’ve spent most of my life being a PC gamer through and through, considering it generally superior to consoles and all the rest of it, and I still do (aside from the fact that I hardly do any gaming anymore…), but I must admit, over the course of my life, I’ve had far more headaches with configurations and hardware and idiosyncratic bugs and whatnot with PC games than whatever minuscule issues I’ve ever had with console games.
I’m not disputing that PC gaming had it’s share of headaches in the past, but now a days? Hell I remember games on my NES suddenly stop working, no matter how hard I blew into them. And don’t get me started on my zelda cartridge’s battery going dead!
Thing is, I’m not sure what that has to do with modern console gaming. Just like I don’t know what the hell issues with a 10 year old game have to do with modern PC gaming.
Steam is a great boon to PC gaming, I agree. They seem to do a very good job of vetting poorly configured or supported games and I’ve also had next to no problems with them. Like I said, given the factors of time vs configuration vs hardware, my consoles are bringing me more gaming enjoyment these days (and I’m a hardcore PC gamer who snidely refused to ever acknowledge their worth until very recently).
Ironically though, when checking my Steam account today, it told me I needed to upgrade Flash and when I went to do so, my installed version was actually more current than what they claimed I needed. So I did what any good PC user does and figured (correctly) that the error message wasn’t telling the whole truth. I uninstalled flash, reinstalled from scratch, and everything worked fine again (the magic PC configuration elves were kind this day). Thumbs up for the PC experience
Nope. Well, okay, once I had to turn a console off and then on again. And I’ve had my Xbox for two years without an RROD, so scratch off that “don’t know anyone who has an XBox with an RROD” too.
I think rather that this is what you’d like to think the problem is. Fundamentally, people clearly find consoles easier than PCs. It’s not really debatable unless you can come up with some alternative explanation for why consoles are so successful. Just saying “it’s a perception problem” isn’t sufficient.
I am skeptical. You haven’t updated your video drivers in two years and you can still run new games? Or is it just that you routinely keep this stuff up to date? Which is something most PC users don’t do.
Hell. Just LAST NIGHT I tried to reinstall Sword of the Stars, since I haven’t played it since my Windows 7 upgrade. Base game seemed to install fine, Born of Blood expansion pack install inexplicably vomits with a “install is corrupted” error. Subsequently trying to run the base game caused the screen to turn black for half a second then returned me to the desktop. Score. PC experience working flawlessly as ever.
Another example, last night after ordering ARMA II, I decided to fire up Operation Flashpoint and play through the campaign for old time’s sake. It doesn’t work so well on my current PC, it just comes up to a black screen unless I run at 640x480. I worked on it for an hour before I gave up. Usually I’ve been very successful at fixing problems like that.
I guess my point is consoles have an advantage because their hardware is standardized. Rarely do you boot up a console game and get a black screen. Still doesn’t detract from the experience of a game like Fallout 3 on a kick-ass PC, and nor would I want to play a FPS game on a console. But they do have their uses. It’s all good.
I don’t own a Wii or Playstation or Xbox, etc. I thought about getting on the other day after watching some friends play Rock Band and realized that just to play I would have to outlay something like $1,000 for the console, software, and band equipment.
Makes my WoW investmet of ~$100 (original plus 2 expansions) seem pretty minimal.
$300 for console, $150 for Rock Band 2 (which comes with drums, a guitar, and a mic), $50 for another guitar, you’re done. If you buy Rock Band 2 used you can spend $20 or less for the game, $20 for a mic, $30 for drums from eBay, etc. I pieced together my set.
It’s lots of fun if you have a couple friends to play with. But really at this point I’d wait until Rock Band 3 comes out this fall, either to buy Rock Band 3 with it’s more realistic instruments or to pick up older instruments cheaper.
And once you have the console like a PS3 you can also play Blu-Ray discs, display photos, play MP3 files, and play video files on your television. Pretty handy to finish shooting digital camera photos and plug the card into your PS3 to display them.
OT: Is there a way to headset everyone? My biggest concern would be noise for my neighbors since I live in a Townhome - but wasn’t sure that headphones for all 4 would be an option.
I can’t really imagine playing Rock Band quietly, even if you have the game turned down there is a lot of chatter between the people. If you’re determined you could pipe your TV/receiver output to something like this:
I’m not saying that PC gaming doesn’t have it’s share of headaches. But any serious issues that might crop up are a rarity now a days. The situation on a modern gaming rig with modern games is NOT anything at all like the situation was back earlier in the decade.
For MOST PC gamers, the experience of playing games day to day and installing new ones is as simple as a download and clicking play. No hard drive partitioning, no tweaking of files (unless you want to and a lot of PC gamers WANT to teak things), no 2 hour installs. That’s just misinformation that console gamers love to spread around as though it were a fact of every day PC gaming. It’s not.
Now, I’m not surprised that there are people out there with 6 year old eMachines that fell of the back of a Wal-Mart truck who constantly have to battle their rigs to get something to work, but for these people it’s a minor miracle that those things can, with some work, still manage to play modern games. It’s like rigging up your PS2 to play KillZone 2. Try that on a console. And regardless, it’s not indicative of PC gaming for most PC gamers.
Poverty means that I don’t buy new games at all. I’ve had CnC3 for a long time but I’m pretty bored with it now. My current crack is Ikariam, which I’ve been playing for 2 years.
With regard to FPS games, I really miss the tactic of setting the monsters against each other that was so useful in Doom.
When you’re poor you can spend wisely. Buy games like Half-Life 2 and Unreal Tournament 3 that have lots of mods. Moddb.com is a good place to start on mods.
Also look for used games on Amazon.com, you can get many PC games a year or 2 old for less than $10.
I am also 40, and my gaming has dropped off remarkably in the last few years.
I think this is just an artifact of having less time and more responsibility.
I am very hot for SC2, but have drifted away from the peer group that used to regularly play until the sun came up, ages ago – and I have a hard time imagining where I’ll be able to invest the time to set aside a few hours here and there to play.
But seriously, PC games just keep getting better and better.
