Valve to release next gen PC to compete with consoles.

[Firewind]

Re: Valve to release next gen PC to compete with consoles.

I don't know, a lot of third person games work well with KB/M, there are a lot of MMOs out there that show that, plus there is always the option to remap your keys.

One problem with PC gaming is that games are being designed for consoles first and the interface and controls show it. Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Battlefield 3, just about every Call of Duty from MW2 onwards, Assassin's Creed and many more that would take way too long to list are great examples of this. Skyrim and Dragon Age are the most notable examples as in those games it is a downright disadvantage to use KB/M unless you like pausing often (Dragon Age) or really like clunky and unresponsive menus instead of modding the entire UI (Skyrim).

[Icemage]

Re: Valve to release next gen PC to compete with consoles.

I don't know, a lot of third person games work well with KB/M, there are a lot of MMOs out there that show that, plus there is always the option to remap your keys.

Most MMOs aren't aim-specific nor positionally-specific, though - specifically because KB/M movement controls are so awkward. Chicken or egg?

One problem with PC gaming is that games are being designed for consoles first and the interface and controls show it. Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Battlefield 3, just about every Call of Duty from MW2 onwards, Assassin's Creed and many more that would take way too long to list are great examples of this. Skyrim and Dragon Age are the most notable examples as in those games it is a downright disadvantage to use KB/M unless you like pausing often (Dragon Age) or really like clunky and unresponsive menus instead of modding the entire UI (Skyrim).

Generally speaking, as long as a controller-based market is out there in force, games will be designed with controllers in mind. Partly because it's simply superior to KB/M in many game types, and partly because it's obviously less effort (and testing and money) for developers to create only one UI instead of two.

That's why I say that it would take a significant amount of sales of this breed of PC-on-your-TV product in a sufficiently homogenous configuration to get developers to design game elements like UI around it.

There's also the elephant in the room of digital piracy; while Steam is fairly secure and does a good amount of sales, it's not the only digital download service, and doesn't actively preclude someone pirating software - which more than anything else has been leeching the market for high budget AAA games on PC for quite some time.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Valve to release next gen PC to compete with consoles.

If Valve can get around some of these issues, I think they'll be successful, but I don't quite see this completely eliminating the traditional console market, any more than I see the Ouya doing so.

We used to think arcades would be around forever. If you play Steam games at home, owning a home console with strong third party support is kind of redundant with the exception of some first and second party exclusives. If you don't own those exclusives, you bought the console for convenience and this generation consoles lost a tremendous amount of their convenience over PC by becoming more like a PC.

PS3 is kind of a pain for PSN having a slow network for downloads and the frequency of firmware updates, in addition to how games are patched. 360 makes the matter seamless and often quick while firmware updates are quarterly, but its still there in your face when stuff like this could be backgrounded. I'm curious to see how Nintendo manages it in the long run. With 3DS its been fairly painless, but Wii U having an hour-long patch and Iwata said that was unfortunate but needed and the patch will be pre-installed into the consoles after the first quarter of next year. Its still there for now, though, and that's kind of obnoxious.

The good news is, however, such a patch can be backgrounded so if you want to just play NSMBU while it downloads, you can.

If consoles can make that part of the experience seamless - which Steam does manage to do on PC right now - that's great, but if it they still have all the games a PC does, they're still rather redundant unless you really care about first party stuff from Sony and MS.

I like Halo, No Heroes Allowed and Ico/SotC - but that's where my love for MS and Sony first party stuff ends. After that its mostly stuff I could have just bought on PC.