Skyrim - The Elder Scrolls V

[Rub'Rum]

I'm not sure better hardware must necessarily be attributed only to better visuals that cost a lot of money to create. But it seems gameplay of AAA titles has stagnated too. Anyway, welcome to the forums.

 

[Maniacal]

The X-Box is severely limited in what it can handle with how many AI can be running at once, how complex it is, and the same goes with physics. Games like Battlefield 3 show that you can develop the game for multiple consoles but still put the effort into making better use of the different hardware. It looks bloody awesome on the PC even with a mixture of medium and high settings (and I was running it with a bunch of stuff on high/ultra, it just dropped to 1 FPS completely at random too often).

I'd argue that Bastion's visuals are much better than many other games out there that are about as long (7-8 hours), and cost less to produce.

 

[Mustakrakish]

I think the Xbox gets more blame for this than it probably deserves. Certainly multi-platform design plays a role, but I think a bigger factor is growing game budgets. Higher fidelity visuals are necessarily more expensive to develop; and the sad truth is that there just isn't a big enough audience out there to support a lot development of the types of games that take full advantage of today's high end PCs without increasing the price of games.

Certainly it would help if the consoles would refresh their hardware to create a larger customer base with high end capabilities, but that's only part of the picture.

What a weird choice for a first post... But welcome.

 

[Double A]

Giant budgets that get blown on graphics make me sick. "Pretty" should be the last thing on a designer's mind unless the visuals have to go with the game (Valkyria Chronicles is the only example I can think of off the top of my head).

 

[salty mud]

Giant budgets that get blown on graphics make me sick. "Pretty" should be the last thing on a designer's mind unless the visuals have to go with the game (Valkyria Chronicles is the only example I can think of off the top of my head).

You must really the hate the last 3-4 years of games then.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

yeah I also think they should focus on the actual damn gameplay MOAR.
graphics are good for fapping when you don't have any better options I guess, but they only go that far and no more.

 

[Maniacal]

I think he meant that he hates games that don't have any real new or innovative content besides better graphics, something people have complained about for more than 4 years.

 

[salty mud]

It seems that some people *ahem PC nerds* are never able to be pleased.

 

[Mustakrakish]

You should all definitely see this... I'm speechless, I fear I might die of joy on 11.11.11

P.S. Watch in on youtube for better quality.

EDIT: Oh wait, you can do that here too... oh well, you can make it bigger on youtube.


Link to video.

 

[salty mud]

Public executions?

 

[DaemonDD]

Great. Because of that video, I just preordered it. :|

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

I think gameplay and unlimited graphic improvement capability in all games across all platform may get better when crapbox 360 and gaystation 3 is discontinued, and be replaced by something where people can upgrade their hardware parts that is not much different than how we PC gamers do with our rigs.

 

[Rub'Rum]

It seems that some people *ahem PC nerds* are never able to be pleased.

Well THAT's something not at all generic that I haven't read a million times before. Yeah that's a very reasonable thing to say.

You know, there is something between having zero expectations and being impossible to please?

Obviously since I prefer PC gaming (despite the fact that I own several consoles and considered getting a PS3 last month) and have had some level of higher expectations in the past couple of years out of the 6 years life cycle of present consoles (considering and comparing to how I saw games evolve in the past 25 years) I am really an annoying PC nerd who complains for no reason.

Anyway, it seems we're past the point where we should expect big AAA gaming companies to do the "creative evolution of gaming" thing. They've basically become the size of hollywood studios for movies, and hollywood is doing what? GI Joe remakes, Fast and Furious 12, Transformers 4, etc.

 

[salty mud]

I play as many PC games as the next guy, but in my experience I have never heard or seen a console player complain about the games they are getting. For the most part they find them 'fun.' A word that is barely ever used now it would seem. Instead of pinning the blame on consoles and their restricted hardware, I pin the blame on the developers for sticking to consoles.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Instead of pinning the blame on consoles and their restricted hardware, I pin the blame on the developers for sticking to consoles.

So we basically agree then. Although I'm pretty sure it's a shared blame between developers and console companies. I mean I'm pretty sure they devs must lobby to Microsoft and Sony to upgrade their hardware soon, to some extent. I'm pretty sure they could do it more seriously. On the other hand I'm pretty sure Microsoft and Sony see no reason to upgrade their hardware yet. Last I heard the next generation of consoles wasn't even planned before 2014. I wish we could stop getting useless features and peripherals as the "new innovations" each years. 2014, that would be 9 years of the same generation of console.

Kind of reminds me of this extremely misleading and inaccurate graphic. But it's the same general concept of "delay".

Spoiler :

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

@Thug: hilarious pic, but did it ever cross your mind that maybe not everyone wants to spend an arm and a leg of daddy's money for a toy?

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

I play as many PC games as the next guy, but in my experience I have never heard or seen a console player complain about the games they are getting. For the most part they find them 'fun.' A word that is barely ever used now it would seem. Instead of pinning the blame on consoles and their restricted hardware, I pin the blame on the developers for sticking to consoles.

I guess it is a matter of different perspectives. I think that giving people the ability to upgrade their consoles, may encourage developers to improve a lot more and at a faster rate in a digital age where technological improvements in hardwares occur in an average of 16 months or less/more. That there - far exceed the lifetime of consoles of today.

 

[Rub'Rum]

@Thug: hilarious pic, but did it ever cross your mind that maybe not everyone wants to spend an arm and a leg of daddy's money for a toy?

Once you have a computer (which can be used for other tasks too, it's my main spot in the house too I mean, I could live without a TV and cable TV), games are much cheaper to buy on PC than consoles, especially with digital distribution and their awesome sales. Considering the amount of games I own now, and the number I bought for less than 10$, I'd probably be at around the same level of $ had I bought the same amount of games on consoles.

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

@Thug: hilarious pic, but did it ever cross your mind that maybe not everyone wants to spend an arm and a leg of daddy's money for a toy?

Not a kid, bro...

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'm just fed up of elitism vs console gamers like they are some kind of subhuman race, that is all.

we can all agree that the fact that current consoles have outdated hardware is keeping videogame progress down, but this is not console gamers' fault so you should place your blame on Sony or Microsoft and stop calling people names.