Some reasons why consoles wont beat the PC
May 23 '00 (Updated Aug 19 '00)
Back in the days when Microsoft didn’t exist and IBM was king there were the mainframes. Those things were a sort of huge supercomputer located inside a building, full of circuitry attached to the walls, monitors everywhere and thousands of hundreds of cables all over the place. A sort of SHODAN from System Shock, where the big computer brain controlled everything. As time went by, these huge monsters were replaced by others (still huge for us now) that took up less room and were faster in addition.
Then the personal computer came (PC) a couple of decades ago, for the home user. They have been in continuous development since then until they reached the state as we know them today. And now many new things have come saying they will finish the PC’s reign. One of these innovations are the consoles, which claim will substitute the PC as the massive interactive entertainment system (gaming).
All PC fanatics don’t worry! This change won’t happen; at least it won’t until two decades more or so! Why am I (and many others) so sure? Well let’s discuss these facts more in deep.
The compatibility issue
Consoles were created based on the idea that if you produce machines created all with the same specifications (same video card, same internal speed, etc) then, when a company creates a game for this “model” of machine (lets say a Dreamcast) it will work in all of them. That happens because as the hardware is the same for all of them, there won’t be any compatibility problems.
PCs, on the other hand, have a problem: as there are so many different manufacturers, game developers not only have to program their games, but also make their title compatible with all the countless sound and video cards, the outdated drivers, etc.
Consoles: 1 PC: 0
Yeah, maybe that was a good point back in 1995, but now, with the development of DirectX, a software that allow programmers to create their products without having to take care of all the driver stuff, this is no longer a valid point.
It’s not very simple to explain this the easy way but let’s try it. Suppose I’m a video card manufacturer and developer, the year is 1998 and I release a new card named the Terminal-Destruction-too-many-frame-per-second 2000 (TDFS).
Now I’m a game programmer that wants his product to be compatible with all 3D cards out there. If I am going to do the things the dinosaur way (before DirectX), I would purchase every distinct card available on the market, try them one by one and then program my code so its compatible will all of them. If I were smart, though, I would go to the Microsoft’s site, download the last DirectX version, and start working.
Back to the manufacturer guy, he wants to sell his TDFS card to as many people as possible. So he releases the driver for the thing, then he goes to the Microsoft page and says: here you are Mr. Gates. Then the DirectX workforce put the driver into the new version, waits until many other manufacturers release their product’s drivers, and then they put them there too. When they have a descent amount of new drivers available, they give out the new version for free (they aren’t just kind people, there is a dark strategy behind it, but this is not the point of this article).
And back to the game developer (this is the last time, I promise), he downloads the new version, DirectX 5.0, and start programming using it. He now knows that no matter the circumstances, his game will be fully compatible with the Terminal-Destruction 2000.
And the point is? No matter how many different hardware developers there are, if their products are into the DirectX software, you can rest assured they will be 100% compatible with every game programmed since then.
Consoles: 1 PC: 1
Storage Space
Here the PC wins without hesitation.
On the consoles when you want to save a game you have to use a diskette like thing with less space than the arcane 5 ¼ disks (Playstation disks for instance, can carry just 128K).
That means if you have many saved games you should catalogue them and put them in a sort of archive to find them later!
On the other side of the coin, PCs have the mighty HDDs (hard disk drives) that can carry from the average 6.4 Gigabytes up to the scary 75 GB capable of storing much more space that you would never dream.
I know Sony is planning to include a HD on their U.S Playstation 2 release but this factor on its own will by no reason damage the PC. (And remember that the Playstation 2 is not the only console).
PC: 2 Consoles: 1
Against the code
I’m not a game programmer, but some people I have met know the difference between programming a game for the PC and doing the same thing for a console system.
I won’t start bothering you with DirectX again, but I read that programming for any of the consoles is so cute that some Japanese developers actually use DirectX to get the job done and then they “translate” their creations to console language.
PC: 3 Consoles: 1
Multiplayer
Anybody that played something in multiplayer mode in his life (whether it was a LAN or on the Net) knows which piece of hardware is needed for the magic job: the modem (or an Ethernet NIC in a LAN).
Multiplayer on the PC can be frustrating, slow, vulnerable or whatever you say, but at least it is possible. The only console I know that ships with a modem is the Dreamcast, and the amount of users who pay for playing Dreamcast games online is nothing compared to all the PC fans logged in all day, taking out the challenging part of the things. While this article was being written, an Australian manufacturer came with the brilliant idea of MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). This is not just another EverQuest but something much more exciting. The guys came up with the excellent idea of building a HUGE server dedicated to handle so much info that it will be possible to play online for as many as 500,000 people at the same time (yes, its not a mistake, five hundred thousand people!). They are featuring a completely new game for this event, it’s a futuristic RPG called BigWorld. But imagine all those medieval films you watched on TV, now imagine a battle, the Hastings Battle for instance. Imagine you are one of these Scottish soldiers and you are fighting with your “team” (they could be almost 1500 people) against other 1500 composed English army, all at the same time with the latest 3D graphics without the system dropping to four frames per second! You have to see it to believe it! And then imagine the same kind of system but on other genres, such as playing a basketball game being one single player, or an action-racing game (like Carmageddon) in a very big city fighting against hordes of other players. This new technology is now in its infant stages, only future will tell where all this is heading to.
More info at: http://www.gamespot.com.au/news/stories/0036.html
PC: 4 Consoles: 1
The $$$ issue
Most important of all, our pockets. I don’t wanna start a pricing discussion but let’s see if there are differences between PC and Consoles prices.
Let’s go from the cheapest to the most luxurious. Firstly, the Playstation (PSX), here I have to admit the platform wins without hesitation. An average PSX game sells for $30-$40, and when some time has gone by since the release date they drop between $10-$20 or sometimes even more! DC titles are a bit more expensive, between $30-$50 each, and tend to drop quickly compared to the PC and the other platforms, but these prices are almost equal to the average PC game.
Paradoxically, Nintendo 64 (N64) titles, which are the most kiddy-oriented, less graphical-appealing, run around $50-$60 each, mainly because of the hardware implemented to store the products, and prices don’t change very much in months. The only thing that make them drop faster is the game being so bad that nobody purchases it.
All in all, DC vs. PC ends in a draw, and the PSX beat the computer while the N64 doesn’t. Both sides have their strong and weak points, so I think there is no winner on this field.
Massive thanks to ActionFreak for this part!
PC: 5 Consoles: 2
Quality work
Of course the PSX and the DC have good titles, but in a very reduced number. There is many more people into the PC gaming business for one reason: broader audiences. And in diversity you find quality.
More people doing PC games mean more innovation, more art, more work, more products to choose from.
PC: 6 Consoles: 2
I wish I had more time...
If I had more time I would put a couple of points more, maybe I write a second part about this in the future.
So if you have an old PC and you don’t know whether to upgrade it or keep saving to purchase the next Playstation when it ships, I say you should keep saving.... wait until 3dfx releases the Voodoo 5 and Intel the Willamette chip, only then upgrade your PC.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
duke_nuker
|
|
Reviews written: 77
Trusted by: 85 members
About Me:
I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more
specific.
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.