Not really–I admit it’s tough to be completely objective about this, short of seeing a Pixar film using older technology. But let me put it this way: I have no trouble going back to their original stuff, such as the original Toy Story, or even their shorts, and enjoying them as much (or hell, even more) than some of their more recent films.
Calling the games you don’t like “mediocre” isn’t a factual point, it’s just you complaining about things you don’t like. Fair enough, but it doesn’t mean PC gaming is dying, it simply means you don’t personally like the current crop. I don’t like any movies I’ve seen this year as much as I did a lot of movies I saw last year; that doesn’t mean the movie industry’s dying.
Lots of excellent games have been released for the PC in the last few years, and World of Warcraft is not a mediocre game, by the way.
The fact remains that if people have PCs, they will want games. Top notch games will continue to be made. I’m looking forward to them.
I’d tend to agree. Perhaps a better argument could be made that “The Golden Age of PC Gaming” has passed, simply because of the rise of the quality console. But that doesn’t preclude solid games continuing to appear, albeit perhaps at a slower pace than in years past. I’m reasonably impressed with the recent Dragon Age and niche game companies like Paradox seem to keep chugging along.
The golden age of PC gaming is 12.
Et tu, Brute? 
I really hate to disillusion you, but just because games aren’t sucking every ounce of processing power out of your shiny new video card doesn’t mean they suck.
This is the fundamental flaw I see in a lot of your reasoning. Most people just don’t care that much about the graphics of their games. They want their games to be fun. Witness, the Wii, the most successful gaming console of this generation and how it has the least impressive graphics technology of any of them. Witness the PS2, the most successful console ever, which has never featured graphics that were particularly high end for the time. Witness freakin’ Guitar Hero, which looks like arse but which lots and lots of people play and deeply enjoy.
The reason so many PC games are getting ported to consoles is because that causes more people to buy them (Think Modern Warfare 2 would have sold all those copies as a PC exclusive release? I don’t think so either.) That’s business and good sense. Now why are there all those people buying these games for consoles when “all they need to do” is drop $150 for a video card for the PC they already have to get the same game with “improved graphics” and “mods” and whatever other benefits you’d care to tout? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not because they just need someone on the Internet to tell them so. It’s because, even setting aside the huge debate over total cost of ownership of a gaming PC, PC gaming is too much like work for these people. They’re not interested in configuring their resolution for maximum gaming goodness. They’re not interested in dropping onto the tech support forums because the game they’re trying to run has issues with the OS that came on their new PC (coughVista). They’re definitely not interested in having to hunt down patches, driver updates, or mods. They want to get home from work/school/looking after the kids/whatever fills up their day, put in a disc, and get some gaming goodness in. And that gaming goodness might be a game that’s available on the PC, or it might not. But most importantly, they desire as close to zero dithering around with getting the game to work as possible.
Let me reiterate that. Most people just want things to work. They don’t care about polygon counts or bump mapping or dynamic lighting or pixel defrusterization (disclaimer: This last term is made up. I think.) except in the most completely abstract of senses. If a game that they are playing happens to look good, they will think to themselves, “Dang, this is a cool looking game”. If it looks acceptable, and is fun, they will NEVER think “Dang! If only I were playing this on a PC, I could run it at full 1920x1080 with triple antialiasing on!” You need to understand this.
Those console owners? A lot of them don’t really trust computers. They may be people who use them all the time at work, but a lot of them still don’t really understand how they work or why they don’t. (Hell, I think a lot of us ‘experts’ don’t really understand why they don’t.)
Welcome to the world of casual gaming. And I have some bad news for you. It’s not going away. You can blame the Sony Playstation for ruining your hobby by bringing millions of casual gamers into the industry if you want, but it’s not going to help, and neither is telling them “No no, you NEED to play this stuff on your PC!” If it makes you feel better, I’m not happy about it either. I loathe Rock Band and what it and its ilk have done to my hobby. (To sum up: Anytime a video game gets played at a party these days, it’s Rock Band/Guitar Hero. I lack any interest in these games, but they have become the “games that everyone likes”, so say goodbye to any other game being played at a social gathering.) I hate the way the influx of FPS games onto consoles has meant that the genres I buy consoles to play are becoming increasingly scarce. But that’s the way it is. And your lament about how it is ruining your hobby and your misguided attempts to persuade people that “No no, PC gaming is just as easy as console gaming, and also, cheaper and cooler!” just aren’t going to do anything but make you look like a member of an increasing estranged community.
We’ll have to agree to disagree here. I quit Mario Galaxy after a few hours largely because of the terrible camera controls. The bland level design also entered into it but I suspect that would have gotten better later in the game. The 3d Zeldas also make me yearn for a mouse.
Neither have I, other than myself anyway. But ever since playing some of the more platformer like quests in Dungeons and Dragons Online I can’t go back to using a stick for complex jumping puzzles. Might as well have one hand tied behind my back. Just watching others who use gamepads trying to follow through the jump puzzles in that game is painful.
Really any 3d game with an orbiting camera that dictates how your character moves has the same control scheme as an FPS, it’s just zoomed out. I can’t see why a mouse would be good for one and not the other.
In an FPS, you’re using the mouse (or in my case, the right stick) to control the line of sight of your character. In a third person platformer, you’re using the right stick to control the camera angle relative to your character and their surrounding environment.
In my opinion, they’re two very different skills.
In most of the 3rd person games on the PC(that I’ve played, at least) the character faces the same direction as the camera, unless you specifically tell him not to anyway. Often something like: hold right mouse button- turn character & camera, hold middle mouse button- turn camera. With the second only being used to look around corners and the like.
I’m pretty sure that character facing and camera angle are independent in most 3D games that are not FPS’s.
PC gaming: RTS, FPS, MMO
Consoles: Fighters, Sports games
PC vs Console is not an either/or thing, its a “what kind of games do you enjoy” thing. Can you honestly tell me there’s anything on the PC for people who like Tekken or Street fighter? or Civ 4 on consoles? there will never be a Zelda on the PC or a World of Warcraft on consoles, people who argue about which is better don’t get that they are both for completely different things and one is never going to satisfy the other any more than being handed a baseball bat when you want to shoot hoops would satisfy a sports fan. Thats why sugesting a PC on a console thread is met with resistance.
Street Fighter IV, developed by Capcom, is available on the PC.
Civilization: Revolution, developed by Sid Meier, is available on the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Yes i know this, that doesn’t mean you get the same level of enjoyment and playability. Telling someone who bought an Xbox just to play the new street fighter that they could have just bought it for the PC should get you smacked in the head.
True, but Capcom is one company that PC gamers should love as they have committed to the PC platform in recent years and have made every effort to make their PC games play just as well as the original console versions. SF4 supposedly nailed it: http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/943713-street-fighter-iv/index.html
And i applaud the effort but if you can’t sit around a TV with two controlers and a friend so you can play while talking shit to each other then you are not really playing street fighter. I own a gaming PC (the cheap variety this thread was based on) and several consoles, because one is simply in no way a replacement for the other.
These comments always baffle me. You can easily hook your computer into any modern TV & soundsystem and bluetooth in as many gamepads as you want. Most gamers I know do just that.
And if it was the same then most people would be doing it. Nobody wants to go through that hassle when it doesn’t have to be any harder than picking up a controller and playing.
And what exactly is stopping you form doing just that on the PC? The Pc version supports two gamepads/controllers, and if sitting by the monitor is not good enough, you can always hook it up to your TV.
You can but why would you want too when you get a better experience with less hassle using a console? Why would someone who wants to play street fighter want to play it on a pc over a console? is it POSSIBLE, yes of course, but there’s simply no reason to do so. Let me put it this way, if im walking the aisles at best buy and you come up to me and ask me what kind of games i’m looking for and i say “Street fighter, Tekken, football and Zelda” why would you EVER point me towards the PC section over the console section?
People seem to be missing the fact that, in fact, Street Fighter 4 is not the only fighting game, ever.
In fact, I’m a big fan of the genre, and I’m actively avoiding SF4. For a variety of reasons, many of them aesthetic, but the fact is that I put down money for Arcana Heart and Blazblue (and only narrowly avoided KOF9 or whatever it’s called) but have given SF4 the pass. That means I’ve given the pass to the only mainstream Fighting title on the PC.
Same thing goes for Civ on the console (which, by my understanding, is not really the same game as the PC version). Just because you can point to a single instance that breaks the rule does not mean there is SUFFICIENT presence in that genre on the platform to merit a purchase by people interested in the genre.
Also, DigitalC has a point again - most people are not interested in hauling their PC out into the living room and fighting with setting up bluetooth devices. It’s funny how even that small amount of work can completely disqualify people from being interested.