What is so taboo about the PC anyway?

[x0ny]

Gaming PCs are decreasing in price every year, you can get a 500GBP desktop which will play this year's and next year's games at a medium to high standard. After that, upgrade the graphics card and PSU for approximately 150 to 200GBP, because with these "low end" PCs, they normally cheap out on the PSU.

Though I can fully understand not everyone has the money to do this. But for an overall better gaming experience, an extra hundred odd quid makes it all the more worthwhile.

 

[Ralen-Sharr]

The main reason is that people don't like upgrading their PCs for High end games every year, and with a console, it serves approximately a 5 year life span. Possibly more due to the Pointlessness to upgrade the hardware.

You don't have to upgrade your hardware every year, My pc is 3 years old and still plays everything just fine. Until I can't run what I want (or it simply runs like crap) I'll stick with the hardware I have.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

It's called an exclusive man. I don't see what your problem is. This is like a ps3 owner whining because they can't play halo or an xbox owner whining because they can't play metal gear solid. Either buy the game on the ps3 or get over it. I see these threads quite often actually. It's weird to me that PC owners think they're entitled to be able to play every game on the planet.

 

[Alarien]

Boils down to support and money, in my opinion. Obviously, you make more on consoles due to higher pricing, lower piracy, and lack of after-release support. Making a game for PC on the other hand is essentially making a game for the Operating System and then having to make sure that you provide whatever support you can for the infinite number of varieties of machine running it.

You also don't have to deal with the higher specs/capabilities of a PC, which can run games faster and at higher resolution, meaning the expectations of PC gamers is higher.

 

[AWAR]

Pick and choose from any number of the following:

1. Consoles make more money.
2. Consoles reach a wider demographic.
3. No worries about varying system specs.
4. Less piracy.
5. Console market has lower hardware requirements to sell well.
6. Less hacks, cracks and mods.
7. Microsoft will pay money for exclusive titles .

You must be clueless to include mods in your "black list"...

because it's easier to make sure noone hacks yor game and starts putting it on the net for free...

I dare you, go to piratebay at any time and search for XBOX360 games.

 

[sootyuk]

You also don't have to deal with the higher specs/capabilities of a PC, which can run games faster and at higher resolution, meaning the expectations of PC gamers is higher.

This is definitely a bigger factor than most people realise, if you have a gaming pc, try a little experiment. Temporarily replace your monitor with a big 1080p tv (i did it with a 40inch one) although it's an experience, especially an FPS, you also realise pretty quickly that it's very, very low resolution for the size!

It usually boils down to a matter of taste in games, some are inherently suited to PC's and some consoles. FPS games, and RTS games are generally unsuited to consoles, and before you whip the halo card out, there's a lot of fudging that goes on in the background so that it's actually possible to play it with a control pad, from 5-10 feet away, as an analogue stick isn't nearly accurate enough on it's own. On the other hand, platformers, driving games, beat em up's, etc. are usually unsuited to pc's, even if you get a gamepad, you can't really get a group of people sat around playing them together.

As has been said, a lot of it is cost/benefit as well, if you develop a game for all 3 systems, you have to make sacrifices somewhere, on all 3 platforms, to make it work. If you develop specifically for one platform, you can get the best out of a game and the hardware, but you need to spend a lot to port it to the other systems properly. Going from 360 to PC gets away with this somewhat, due the common API's and the generally greater resources a pc can throw at a game.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

It's because the console market makes more money for them.

That's it. As much as I might hate it.

While true I still can't fathom why these publishers, cause it is publishers who make the decisions on these things, don't realise twice the market means even more money. Sure consoles are easier to program for so you waste a little bit of money pathing the game from console but there is a whole market out there to bleed dry. Why not do it is all I fathom....

 

[Anticitizen_Two]

Because the PC, unlike consoles, is not guaranteed to run every game released for it, most developers don't bother. They can make more of a profit by only selling their games on consoles.

 

[Daggermonkie]

it's more effort to make it compatible with different types of hardware, I think that's it.

yup that is the only reason.Developers for consololes have a way easyer time than PC developers

 

[Danny Ocean]

It's because the console market makes more money for them.

That's it. As much as I might hate it.

While true I still can't fathom why these publishers, cause it is publishers who make the decisions on these things, don't realise twice the market means even more money. Sure consoles are easier to program for so you waste a little bit of money pathing the game from console but there is a whole market out there to bleed dry. Why not do it is all I fathom....

While the direct re-compilation costs may be low (Which is true for platform to platform ports.), the additional costs incurred by that are high. You need to adjust the control system, open up the settings in an additional menu, perhaps add extra features like minimisation and other such things. The list is long, and I'm sure you can think of a few more. Paying the coders to do this is yet another cost.

Another reason is that the PC market is much more fickle. As another poster said, the console market can pretty reliably sell hundreds of thousands of copies of a game with a bit of advertising on launch day. For PC it's less reliable. We tend to be more careful. Perhaps it's the nerdiness, who knows? I know that I, at least, read reviews and do a bit of research before I buy. Perhaps it's the DRM making it difficult to re-sell the game, or the inability to rent?

And on top of that there are no doubt contracts with certain companies which bind them to a particular platform for a particular game. Shady business is this publishing.

 

[TPiddy]

Pick and choose from any number of the following:

1. Consoles make more money.
2. Consoles reach a wider demographic.
3. No worries about varying system specs.
4. Less piracy.
5. Console market has lower hardware requirements to sell well.
6. Less hacks, cracks and mods.
7. Microsoft will pay money for exclusive titles .

You must be clueless to include mods in your "black list"...

Many developers don't want people modding their games.... I know mods are a good thing, but sometimes developers don't want that. This list is from the developer's perspective. I am not 'clueless'.

 

[veloper]

it's more effort to make it compatible with different types of hardware, I think that's it.

yup that is the only reason.Developers for consololes have a way easyer time than PC developers

True for the xbox and xbox360.

Untrue for the ps2 and ps3. Those consoles are a pain to code for.

Also, porting a xbox360 game to the PC is relatively easy.
PC land is already relative simple and is becoming even simpler and more standard with every passing year.
It boils down to some differences between nvidia and amd/ati. It mostly just directx, directx and directx.

 

[iTeamKill]

Pick and choose from any number of the following:

1. Consoles make more money.
2. Consoles reach a wider demographic.
3. No worries about varying system specs.
4. Less piracy.
5. Console market has lower hardware requirements to sell well.
6. Less hacks, cracks and mods.
7. Microsoft will pay money for exclusive titles .

Glad to know you are for sale... What will 20 bucks get me?

also, I'm confused about the "Less Mods" statement. You are telling me you dont like free user created content and a solid gaming community? (xbox live is NOT a gaming community)

 

[TPiddy]

Pick and choose from any number of the following:

1. Consoles make more money.
2. Consoles reach a wider demographic.
3. No worries about varying system specs.
4. Less piracy.
5. Console market has lower hardware requirements to sell well.
6. Less hacks, cracks and mods.
7. Microsoft will pay money for exclusive titles .

Glad to know you are for sale... What will 20 bucks get me?

also, I'm confused about the "Less Mods" statement. You are telling me you dont like free user created content and a solid gaming community? (xbox live is NOT a gaming community)

No, this is a list of reasons why a DEVELOPER would choose to develop on a console over a PC. I appreciate modding communities... some developers, not so much.

 

[Pingieking]

The main reason is that people don't like upgrading their PCs for High end games every year, and with a console, it serves approximately a 5 year life span. Possibly more due to the Pointlessness to upgrade the hardware.

Actually, this is a common misconception. I built my PC in early 2008, and aside from minor tweaks and cheap RAM upgrade, it still runs perfectly well on the newest of the new games on high settings.

And I built it for less than ?700.

I built my PC for about $850 (American) in Dec 2007. It runs Mass Effect 2 on max. I don't plan on upgrading for another 2~3 years, since it can likely still run most 2012~2013 games on standard settings. I may stick another 4 GB of RAM in there now that I've upped my OS to 64 bit, but it's not really necessary.

OT: Most people have already said what I was going to say. Slight compatibility issues + business issues = no game for PC.

 

[dazdex]

Because they are there to make money, I'm sure they had a meeting with the people higher up and asked "Should we port this game to the pc"
"How much money will you expect that to make in relation to the console market?"
"I don't know, 10%?"
"Well what's the point then, why don't we spend the money that could be used to port it to the pc on another project that will return alot more money than the 10% pc market".

Of course I'm exaggerating with the 10%, but my point is they might have had the option to put it on the pc, but there could be other options available to them which will return more money. Aslong as the games return profits, the higher ups couldn't give a crap about gaming communities. Sure the people designing the game and coding it think about the gamers and what they want but the people who make the final decisions care more about money. That is my point of view anyway.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

snippy.

True, I know I have been burnt one too many times by listening to hype... to the point I refuse to pick up a game till a few weeks after release, at best, when I can see for myself if it is worth my time and effort. Guess they have to take that into account too. A game released on console would have to be released at the same time or else we would form a more solid opinion from watching it play out on console. Most publishes hate waiting the time it would take to make the path when they have the original that can be released right then and there, so it probably is easier to wait till a game proves to be a success before re-releasing it on PC.