Question - Is pc version being curtailed because of console versions?

[Sylveria]

That's irrelevant. Means nothing.

OK. Assume it's irrelevant if you wish... but the fact is that if consoles were "king" there'd be more games available for them than there would PC games.

More people would own consoles- and all games would be designed strictly for consoles before PC's.

That's not rocket science, either.

The current "trend" to include multiplatform is ALL about money... not which platform is "better".

 

[Ulaidian]

Just you pc monkeys keep on trial testing our games for us, thanks: p

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

OK. Assume it's irrelevant if you wish... but the fact is that if consoles were "king" there'd be more games available for them than there would PC games.

More people would own consoles- and all games would be designed strictly for consoles before PC's.

That's not rocket science, either.

The current "trend" to include multiplatform is ALL about money... not which platform is "better".

While that maybe true, what has that go to do with anything. Most people who own a PC the PC is not fit for gaming, and the majority of people who do game on their PC they are average at best, and likely not as good or as good as the consoles. Very few gamers have super high-end gaming PCs.

Where games do suffer on PC is when they have been.ported over from a console. Luckily ED hasn't been and all they need to do is reduce some of the graphics settings to get a goodish framerate on consoles.

 

[Vasco Sapien]

I can't see how it makes any sense to look at the recommended specs. Frontier said the game will run on minimum specs. They must make sure that the game runs on minimum specs. It's not rocket science or brain surgery.

minimum specs with fidelity caveats. Tuning back the games visuals to maintain performance and with limitations on resolution and FPS.

If a console exceeds the minimum specs for a PC then great that means the console version of the game will run better than a potato PC build. The pro version of the consoles may achieve 30 to 60fps at 4k, but a PC that exceeds the maximum specs can push the game much further visually.

If at 4k the Consoles bearly manage 60fps while a PC can go much much higher, then FDev and ED are limited by the Glass ceiling set by the fastest console and not the fastest PC.

If the current generation of Consoles where to last for 5 years or even 10 years like the Xbox360 did. Then Ed is limited in that time by what these consoles can achieve.

Games with long lifespans like MMO's... (Like ED which is 3 years into a 10 year expected life cycle) do push the minimum specs upwards as the game evolves and PC gamers incrementally upgrade as the years pass by.

Just take a look at World of Warcraft over ten years. If WOW was on Xbox 360 and maxed on that platform... would WOW have evolved as much as it did?


https://kotaku.com/world-of-warcraft-system-requirements-have-changed-a-lo-1638506551

 

[babelfisch]

OK. Assume it's irrelevant if you wish... but the fact is that if consoles were "king" there'd be more games available for them than there would PC games.

More people would own consoles- and all games would be designed strictly for consoles before PC's.

That's not rocket science, either.

Not sure what you are trying to say. There are quite a lot console games and some of them are even exclusive, like Read Dead Redemption for example.

The current "trend" to include multiplatform is ALL about money... not which platform is "better".

Of course it's all about the money, since when is the discussion about which platform is better?

minimum specs with fidelity caveats. Tuning back the games visuals to maintain performance and with limitations on resolution and FPS.

If a console exceeds the minimum specs for a PC then great that means the console version of the game will run better than a potato PC build. The pro version of the consoles may achieve 30 to 60fps at 4k, but a PC that exceeds the maximum specs can push the game much further visually.

If at 4k the Consoles bearly manage 60fps while a PC can go much much higher, then FDev and ED are limited by the Glass ceiling set by the fastest console and not the fastest PC.

If the current generation of Consoles where to last for 5 years or even 10 years like the Xbox360 did. Then Ed is limited in that time by what these consoles can achieve.

Games with long lifespans like MMO's... (Like ED which is 3 years into a 10 year expected life cycle) do push the minimum specs upwards as the game evolves and PC gamers incrementally upgrade as the years pass by.

Just take a look at World of Warcraft over ten years. If WOW was on Xbox 360 and maxed on that platform... would WOW have evolved as much as it did?


https://kotaku.com/world-of-warcraft-system-requirements-have-changed-a-lo-1638506551

You are not very good at applying logic, aren't you? Elite is also limited by what they sold as minimum requirement. Since that's below the specs of consoles you don't have a point.

 

[RagingxPenguin]

That awkward moment someone thinks game designers go for maximum in terms of PC capability.
They aim for the middle. So 80% can buy the game 20% will have equipment far exceeding the "requirements"

Its about sales. End of story.

You build a product only 20% of people can buy and ill show you a failed project.

 

[Vasco Sapien]

Consoles existed long before the Xbox 360. Do you even have a point?

Yes that the success of the XBOX360 and the PS3 stagnated the gaming market in general during their specific (10+ year) life cycles.
No PC was maxed to it full potential with anything that got ported across from console and many different gaming genre's faded out because the larger console market was locked into a mindset of COD clones and racing games.

For ten years the console market held back PC's and gaming development in general.

 

[babelfisch]

Yes that the success of the XBOX360 and the PS3 stagnated the gaming market in general during their specific (10+ year) life cycles.
No PC was maxed to it full potential with anything that got ported across from console and many different gaming genre's faded out because the larger console market was locked into a mindset of COD clones and racing games.

For ten years the console market held back PC's and gaming development in general.

I'd say many gaming genre's faded out because EA and Activision thought there wouldn't be much money in it. No need to blame the consoles as long as you can have greedy Publishers and CEOs. Indipendend studios could've just continued to do what they did before, how did consoles stop them? That's how we got The Witcher and ArmA BTW.

 

[Vasco Sapien]

You are not very good at applying logic, aren't you? Elite is also limited by what they sold as minimum requirement. Since that's below the specs of consoles you don't have a point.

You have not read my post.

ON PC....... FDEV ISNT LIMITED BY MINIMUM SPEC!! THEY CAN AMEND IT!! I GAVE WORLD OF WARCRAFT AS AN EXAMPLE. (THE LARGEST AND MOST SUCCESSFUL PC ONLY GAME...)

With consoles stuck on their hardware for decades at a time... the game is limited in its evolution if that game has a long lifespan like an MMO.

 

[babelfisch]

You have not read my post.

ON PC....... FDEV ISNT LIMITED BY MINIMUM SPEC!! THEY CAN AMEND IT!! I GAVE WORLD OF WARCRAFT AS AN EXAMPLE. (THE LARGEST AND MOST SUCCESSFUL PC ONLY GAME...)

And what stops them from saying we no longer support Xbox 360 in 5 years? Just like I said, you don't have a point.

 

[Cervantes01]

Except that is not the when or the reason. The main reason was that planets took a massive fps hit no matter what system you were in even if you had a 1080ti. I would go from 200fps in space to about 40fps on planets on my PC. It was for all systems that they made the change.

But again people conveniently forget about these things. Now with the new shaders, they are not getting the same slowdown as before and planets will look better then ever. And it's going to be seen on the consoles too.

Seems to me it was an issue with the original shaders and not the consoles.

I think you'll find that FD's official response to the beige plague was that their improvements were to make the earth like worlds and non land-able planets look better.

This means that FD deliberately nerfed the planets that you could land on to make the ones that you couldn't land on look better.

 

[GraXXoR]

I bet you are at least partly responsible for them going bankrupt!

getting personal. Nope. The boss embezzled funds. Let’s just say he’s no longer in a position to run any more companies. But again nice try. Are you not getting enough at home or something, that you feel the need to take pointless digs at other people?

 

[Sylveria]

While that maybe true, what has that go to do with anything. Most people who own a PC the PC is not fit for gaming, and the majority of people who do game on their PC they are average at best, and likely not as good or as good as the consoles. Very few gamers have super high-end gaming PCs.

Where games do suffer on PC is when they have been.ported over from a console. Luckily ED hasn't been and all they need to do is reduce some of the graphics settings to get a goodish framerate on consoles.

Most people who own a PC or console for gaming aren't fit enough to move from their chair to the fridge without heavy breathing, IMO. They need to get out more and enjoy the sunshine! Less Doritos and Monsters!
(oops, was that my "out loud" voice?)

I totally agree on the console-> PC porting issue. This was evident with DA:I when they (EA) swore up and down it wasn't developed for consoles first yet the movement controls were all based on stick directions from a controller- rather than K&M and they had to release a patch later to accommodate PC users that weren't using a controller. They got caught lying their butts off- and had to account for it later. It's also evident in quite a few other games that get ported over clumsily.

I don't have a "super high end PC" either... mine actually still has only 16 GB of RAM and an Intel i5 5th Gen and AMD Radeon RX 480 but plays almost any game at Ultra settings without having a heart attack. Doom, Fallout 4, ED, Skyrim, whatever.

Let me get this straight... I have NO issue with people who want to use consoles or controllers. That's your thing? Go for it! Where I take issue is when games get ported over from a console to PC and clearly show how clunky they are because of their limitations on the UI or navigation with controllers. My "beef" is with publishers/developers that want to be multiplatform for the money but half-a** the implementations so that everyone pays for it. Do it right the first time, or don't do it at all.

Oh and BTW I've owned an XBox for playing Halo (which became Xbox-exclusive after Halo 2), I'm well aware of consoles/controllers as well as experience with PC's. This isn't an "ignorance" issue.

 

[GraXXoR]

Killer hangover. I apologise for being rude. I don’t normally like to be rude to people. Sorry Graxxor!! Was a dumb, tongue-in-cheek rude cooment which i totally didnt actually mean! .

No worries. It happens to the best of us!

 

[Sylveria]

getting personal. Nope. The boss embezzled funds. Let’s just say he’s no longer in a position to run any more companies. But again nice try. Are you not getting enough at home or something, they you feel the need to take pointless digs at other people?

Check out the latest news on the System Shock Kickstarter.

 

[babelfisch]

getting personal. Nope. The boss embezzled funds. Let’s just say he’s no longer in a position to run any more companies. But again nice try. Are you not getting enough at home or something, that you feel the need to take pointless digs at other people?

Sorry, that's just me failing at being funny

I think you'll find that FD's official response to the beige plague was that their improvements were to make the earth like worlds and non land-able planets look better.

This means that FD deliberately nerfed the planets that you could land on to make the ones that you couldn't land on look better.

That wasn't the official response.

 

[babelfisch]

Most people who own a PC or console for gaming aren't fit enough to move from their chair to the fridge without heavy breathing, IMO. They need to get out more and enjoy the sunshine! Less Doritos and Monsters!
(oops, was that my "out loud" voice?)

I totally agree on the console-> PC porting issue. This was evident with DA:I when they (EA) swore up and down it wasn't developed for consoles first yet the movement controls were all based on stick directions from a controller- rather than K&M and they had to release a patch later to accommodate PC users that weren't using a controller. They got caught lying their butts off- and had to account for it later. It's also evident in quite a few other games that get ported over clumsily.

I don't have a "super high end PC" either... mine actually still has only 16 GB of RAM and an Intel i5 5th Gen and AMD Radeon RX 480 but plays almost any game at Ultra settings without having a heart attack. Doom, Fallout 4, ED, Skyrim, whatever.

Let me get this straight... I have NO issue with people who want to use consoles or controllers. That's your thing? Go for it! Where I take issue is when games get ported over from a console to PC and clearly show how clunky they are because of their limitations on the UI or navigation with controllers. My "beef" is with publishers/developers that want to be multiplatform for the money but half-a** the implementations so that everyone pays for it. Do it right the first time, or don't do it at all.

Oh and BTW I've owned an XBox for playing Halo (which became Xbox-exclusive after Halo 2), I'm well aware of consoles/controllers as well as experience with PC's. This isn't an "ignorance" issue.

I absolutely agree with that but I can't see how this is relevant to Elite Dangerous.

 

[Cervantes01]

Sorry, that's just me failing at being funny



That wasn't the official response.

It was actually, there's a wholesale thread about it on the forums...

 

[Vasco Sapien]

I'd say many gaming genre's faded out because EA and Activision thought there wouldn't be much money in it. No need to blame the consoles as long as you can have greedy Publishers and CEOs. Indipendend studios could've just continued to do what they did before, how did consoles stop them? That's how we got The Witcher and ArmA BTW.

Or because consoles like the Xbox360 had a control pad.... only.

Consoles for ten years set the bar and a mindset was formed in part by hardware limitations, input limitations, Licencing limitations and greed. The largest market for any developer to make a game and profit from was the console market which was a limited and walled garden for ten years. PC gamers got the table scraps.

Steam (for example) helped provide a platform for the indi developers and crowd funded titles in an open PC market place and managed to keep alive and resurrect alot of these game types. Now we see Indi games appearing on consoles as they play catch up, but still limited by the above mentioned ingrained limitations of the console cosm.

Consoles are cheap, they are easy and they are popular. There limitations shaped the gaming marketplace for ten years. The Xbox 360 generation is a good example of how a gaming platform can hold back the progress of gaming technology.

 

[Ethaidan]

Holding back, or providing much needed forward development funding which is growing. Like it or not, gaming statstics have been slowly changing for years, and mostly in one direction. Here's the 2016 stats...

Devices the most frequent gamers are playing on:
PC: 56%, dedicated game console: 53%, smartphone: 36%, wireless device: 31%, dedicated handheld system: 17%

Every year that margin closes a little, and as long as the prices for hi-spec gaming rigs keeps rising while consoles remain generally consistent, I cannot foresee the next generation (the majority of which are being raised on consoles?), suddenly switching to PCs - consoles are just too convenient and relatively affordable. Every one of my RL gaming friends has switched from PC to console in the past decade - I was the last holdout. I still have an ok laptop, lovely 27" external monitor, gaming kb & m... I could afford a new laptop or PC, but I'd be relegated the box room upstairs, and my big comfy chair is downstairs... so my kids (and every one of their friends) are being raised on PS4 pros. PC gaming will never die, and will always have certain hi-end advantages, but business is business.