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Editorial: Late 2003 E3 and Beyond: Bright Year End for PCPosted on Thu, May 29, 2003
Things are looking up for the PC gaming industry. Looking at the current E3 lineup, the PC will gain massive ground this year. Of course the biggest hype of all being the 2002 E3 best of show game Doom 3. There's nothing the PC industry needs more than a graphically demanding game. It not only shows what the pc can do, with its more stunning than console graphics, it also helps boost the sales of high end graphic cards and computers.
The last 2 years have truly been the years of the console. Sony, Microsoft,
and in part Nintendo (don't forget they have GameCube AND GameBoy Advance)
have dominated the gaming market. Even more recently, with sony and
Microsoft's ventures into broadband multiplayer gaming, they have taken more
and more out of the computer gaming market. The more you can do with a
console, the more likely people are to buy it. It really started with the
ability to play CD's on your early Sega CD and PS1's. Next came the PS2 and
it's DVD playability. People started to but the PS2 instead of the DVD players because for maybe a little extra money you could have a dvd player +
games. I know my family at one time considered getting a PS2 because of it's
dvd and it's ability to have a lcd screen hookup, it ended up being much
cheaper than any protable dvd players that were available at the time(at
least that we found). Next came the xbox, hard drive, built in network
capabilities, DVD player. It was like having a little pc that you didn't
have to know about really to get it to run.
People like simple things, otherwise how could you explain the succes of
fast food. It's not like you're going there for the quality of the food.
People could take the console home, hook it up to there TV and voila you
have high quility games in the comfort of you living room, no installing, no
drivers, no fuss. Soon all they had to do to have multiplayer expierince was
have a credit card ready and ability to connect to broadband. The PC in a
way lost its advantage.
The PC needed something more.
Here come the graphic monsters.
Games like the last year announced Doom 3 and early april announced Half-Life
2, are sure to prove the beauty of a high end graphics card.
Also massivly multiplayer games for SOE, like Planetside and Star Wars
Galaxies (hopefully coming out soon) show destic advantages of being on pc.
I know what your thinking, 3 of the 4 games i've mentioned (D3, HL2, and SWG)
have been rumored and/or confirmed of being ported to Xbox. I personally
think its not going to be as much of a factor as some people think.
Although the graphic card in the Xbox is good, it doesnt compare to the
current high end cards (GeForce 4 and FX / ATI 9700 and 9800 series cards) i
have no doubt you'll see a distinct difference in graphic quality between
the high end PC version and Xbox versions.
Plus i cant imagine alot of people (at least those with pc's allready)
wanting to play a Massivly Online Multiplayer game on there TV. The controls
alone would be confusing. Not only that but people also like to watch TV and
some MMO games require longer amounts of play time.
I think alot of developers are getting (or should be) excited about the
advantages of the high end graphics cards and should be looking more for the
games that can use the sheer power of the PC.
A big advatage to the PC is that it can always be upgraded. The Xbox and PS2
will be the same (except retail addon's) until they get to there eventual
next versions. You can easily improve the preformance of you pc anytime you
want.
Anyway.. i know there will be people forever loyal to either PC or Console,
and i dont know the exact figures of sales of PC games vs. console games but
i do know what the general feeling is, and the feeling for that last couple
of years is that pc games haven't really been up to par with the quality of
the console games, and the only real high quality games have been ports from
consoles (GTA3, Splinter Cell)!
I can't wait for E3 and the return of PC gaming.
_________________________________________________________________
Updated : Post E3 2003
While we're still awaiting the awards to be handed out (ala best of E3)
It's pretty clear who will be winning best of show.
Half-Life 2
I watched the movies.. I was blown away. Personally, i think it will blow away Doom 3, but thats for a different article.
PC looks to be coming out with a great return like I stated above. Games like HL2 and Doom 3 were joined by acouple other very impressive games.
Far Cry's massive eviroments and lighting effects are very impressive.
Call of duty looks like medal of honor to the next level (strangly enough it
was
made by twenty or so split offs from the MoH series.
I mean a good number of the more impressive games seemed to be on the PC this
year
(asidefrom Halo 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, True Crime, Grand Turisomo being some exceptions). Duex Ex: Invisible War, Middle Earth Online, The Sims 2, Rome:
Total War,
SW: Knights of the Old Republic, Vampire The Masqurade : Bloodlines (which by
the way uses
the Valve source engine), Everquest 2, and the list goes on and on.
Things are looking bright indeed.
Viva La PC! Posted By: Aaron Reed - 1448 Reads
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