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"PS4 is like a 5 years old PC and it’s really holding developers back"

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Cyanity

Banned
Newsflash: current-gen consoles are now and have always been holding the gaming industry back. And they'll continue to do so until the law of diminishing returns slows down gains in GPU and CPU technology.
 

zenspider

Member
What a dumb thing to say.

I can't even. I read the article for context, and now I wish I hadn't. You made one game get over yourself.
 

Lister

Banned
Well, I am primarily a PC gamer, and I'd say it makes reading that kind of crap extra aggravating.

Heaver forfends you have to read something you don't like. Or, gasp, someone else's opinion. Grow up.

How about both of you stop hurling insults like you're 12 over VIDEO GAMES. And join the conversation instead.
 
As someone that worked on a PC Exclusive game. Shit PC hardware is holding developers back... making sure a game runs on your grandma's laptop limits the shit out of you.

I'm not sure of anyone that focuses solely on top of the line hardware. If you did that, your game would never come out because by the time you are done, it'd be outdated again.
 
Heaver forfends you have to read something you don't like. Or, gasp, someone else's opinion. Grow up.

How about both of you stop hurling insults like you're 12 over motherfucking VIDEO GAMES. And join the conversation.
Man, this invisible war you're fighting in sure is important. It's definitely other people that are childish and not the person getting riled up on where people prefer to play VIDEO GAMES (you do know where you are, right?).
 

Lister

Banned
As someone that worked on a PC Exclusive game. Shit PC hardware is holding developers back... making sure a game runs on your grandma's laptop limits the shit out of you.

I'm not sure of anyone that focuses solely on top of the line hardware. If you did that, your game would never come out because by the time you are done, it'd be outdated again.

Most devs working on higher end graphics games on PC tend to target mid range components. Then build scalibility to lower end hardware and to higher end hardware too where possible.

But you knew that already, right?
 
Newsflash: current-gen consoles are now and have always been holding the gaming industry back. And they'll continue to do so until the law of diminishing returns slows down gains in GPU and CPU technology.

It's more the cost of up to date hardware that is holding developers back.
You can make a game for the "r/PCMR" poster or you can target the masses who are currently quite happy with their 5 year old technology. Blame nvidia, intel and AMD for their wholesale and retail pricing structures. Blame the customers for not wanting to spend up on the latest technology. But blaming someone for catering to and complying with those market forces? Bit silly but why not. It's the internet.
 

Estoc

Member
As a person who can only afford to buy mid-range PC each time... Thank god for PS4 being weak. Sony is truly #4theMidRangePCGamers.
 

Lister

Banned
Man, this invisible war you're fighting in sure is important. It's definitely other people that are childish and not the person getting riled up on where people prefer to play VIDEO GAMES (you do know where you are, right?).

One guy called me a PCMR elitist which is bannable, by the way, because I said PC gamers probably wouldn't like your typicla AAA action adventure console exclusive. Somehting borne out by sales stats over and over again.

And i'm childish for teling them to stop calling people names, and maybe say somethign intelligent?

And I'm obvisouly not getting riled up. What would that even entail? But that's the usual tactic of trolls who have nothing to contribute to the discussion and just want to derail.

Proclaim anyone they don't agree wiht is angry.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
What's interesting is I've always been interested in budget PC's, or using yesterday's used parts. The PS4 and Xb0 are pretty good at what they do - simple, straightforward game-on-TV boxes. I approve of that.

PC is in an interesting place. Most of the games that set a PC apart from the console exclusives are the choices that are enabled on the open system. That means weird input options, higher framerates or high resolutions at the expense of graphical fidelity, mods, or a lot of releases that just wouldn't make the cut through the console gatekeeper. So I don't really agree with the developer in the article in regard to holding gamers back - what we've seen on PC is a culture that's built on top of each game. The same culture tends to build on console games too, but without the open platform it just doesn't stick around as long.

There's certainly some games that aren't possible on consoles right now - anything involving heavily simulation and CPU cycles. But I've thought that we've reached the point where any gameplay was possible on any modern platform quite a while ago, and I still think we're there. Even the Xbox 360 received a playable and largely intact port of Crysis 1, which I don't think I've seen too many shooters ever top in terms of systematic complexity.

Next-gen will have a lot to sell us on. I do like playing my games on PC at 60 fps with special ultra settings, but it's not like those will be enough for those who play the grandest AAA games. I'm sure the industry will scale up again whenever the PS5 comes around, but until then I'll enjoy the AF x16 and the fancy effects I can't pronounce or spell, even if it's only a marginal upgrade over the console versions. That's not really why I play on PC primarily though.

Yep. Most PC exclusives these days are PC exclusive simply because of the nature of the open platform. They're too small or quirky to get through console gatekeepers. In the cases of some the developer just doesn't have the connections or resources to get published on console. That doesn't mean their games aren't as good. And then yes, you have a few that only work on a keyboard or depend too much on CPU cycles for the Jaguar cores to easily handle.

Arma 3 is kind of a nexus of all those reasons actually. In terms of presentation (story, voice acting, etc.) it definitely doesn't match up to Call of Duty or battlefield. A lot of the game can't really be played with a standard controller. It also calculates a lot of factors on the CPU side console action games don't do, at a scale they don't approach. It's a game that will continue to calculate AI decisions and bullet paths 20 miles away from the player character.
 

Turkoop

Banned
Can someone clarify me. I don't understand his statement.
I don't want to sound like a 12-year old child but X1 is way less powerful than PS4, we all know this. How can he bitch about the PS4 but not refering to X1?
PS4 has been praised at launch for the power... I don't understand.
 
I could probably format my hard drive, load windows, download drivers and a sizable game in 2 hours. Yesterday I updated my bios and it took me less than 15 mins. If it takes hours to update drivers and "settings" you got issues.
My games sure did.

Rage was just fucked, then unfucked after herculean efforts only to get fucked again weeks later. Driver: SF would only run at 24fps. Assassin's Creed - don't remember which one, ran fine in normal play but was a stuttery mess in the modern day/cyberspace parts. Far Cry 3 and GTA 4 had streaming issues, and other games would barely play at all unless I made custom Radeon Pro profiles for them.

When it worked, comfy couch PC gaming was the best thing ever, but it didn't work out that way a little too often for me. Was probably my crossfire setup and hybrid SSD but I really didn't want to swap out my parts and try again (it was a brand new box), so I ditched the platform and went with ease, comfort and reliability instead. Well, mostly ease and comfort with the 360, but the PS4 has been reliable as all hell.

And the only games I feel I'm missing out on are ones specifically designed for mouse and keyboard that the devs don't want to try and rework on a console.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst is used above as an example of consoles being too weak for it, but somehow Dying Light manages to pull off all of those example points in style, with co-op, so I'm going to blame the engine or its optimization, and not the console really.
 

Lister

Banned
Can someone clarify me. I don't understand his statement.
I don't want to sound like a 12-year old child but X1 is way less powerful than PS4, we all know this. How can he bitch about the PS4 but not refering to X1?
PS4 has been praised at launch for the power... I don't understand.

Most people here think he was being more general - he meant consoles in general, it just so happens the console nearby was a PS4. He would have pointed at an Xbone if that had been handy instead.

My guess is he was just frustrated with the difficulty in getting his game to run well on console hardware. I'm sure they'll figure out what they have to optimize to get where they need to get to eventually.
 

Turkoop

Banned
Most people here think he was being more general - he meant consoles in general, it just so happens the console nearby was a PS4. He would have pointed at an Xbone if that had been handy instead.

My guess is he was just frustrated with the difficulty in getting his game to run well on console hardware. I'm sure they'll figure out what they have to optimize to get where they need to get to eventually.

Seems to be a very bad interview/article. His game won't push the console to the limits, at least not the PS4.
but thanks for the clarification
 

FingerBang

Member
...then why don't they fucking go PC exclusive instead of complaining?

Also, I would like to know what they mean, what kind of games we would see if current gen consoles were as powerful as modern PCs. Because "A Way Out" doesn't look anything close to Uncharted or Horizon Zero Dawn and I haven't seen any PC exclusive game blowing my mind yet.
 
Old tech, yes. Holding back the industry? Nah

They're plenty powerful enough for what you'd likely want to do.

In any case, don't let consoles hold you back. Go ahead and make your games exclusively for PC.
 
Holding them back from what - brute forcing everything and if it doesn't run well enough just tell the customer to buy new hardware?

You can't have a commercial games enterprise targeting solely the cutting edge. For one, it's a moving target. And for two, the customer base is extremely niche.

Also my PC is five years old and holding up just fine thankyou.
 

Grief.exe

Member
As a person who can only afford to buy mid-range PC each time... Thank god for PS4 being weak. Sony is truly #4theMidRangePCGamers.

Also my PC is five years old and holding up just fine thankyou.

That's a good point actually.

When the generation started I was using an outdated, cheap build, but my CPU help me run current gen games at 1080p/60 easily. I've since upgraded to focus on high resolution and >120 FPS.
 
If you really feel "held back" as a developer by consoles then why not only release your game on PC? Plenty of successful games are PC only.
 

Lister

Banned
Can't say I've seen anything more technically impressive than Horizon or UC4, so I'm not sure why this matters.

It depends on what you mean by technically impressive.

I would say Total War is more technically impressive as is AC Unity when it comes to the complexity of putting a lot of AI and path finding etc to bear.

UC4 on the other hand takes a natural space and fucking sells it. It's mostly a path, but it's a gorgeous one. Obviously during cutscenes, when the devs can control for all sorts of things, they can turn things up to 11 too.

There's a give and take and the game knows how to exploit it's style to do crazy shit with shaders and lighting.
 

Kssio_Aug

Member
I never said either of those games were the best looking or best playing. Please do not put words in my mouth. The only thing I said is that they were better looking than the witcher 3 which isn't an accomplishment because of how average the game looks.

I mean... telling that HZD is top tier and saying Witcher 3 on Ultra settings on PC is "avarage" is such a bullshit. I can't take what you're saying seriously... for real.
 

AmyS

Member
AMD's Richard Huddy and separately, John Carmack in 2011 talking about ~5 year old PS3 and Xbox 360 vs high-end PC.

Richard Huddy said:
We often have at least ten times as much horsepower as an Xbox 360 or a PS3 in a high-end graphics card, yet it's very clear that the games don't look ten times as good. To a significant extent, that's because, one way or another, for good reasons and bad – mostly good, DirectX is getting in the way."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-21-pcs-have-10x-console-horsepower-amd

John Carmack said:
But the downside is, despite a high-end PC being ten times as powerful as the consoles, we suffer a lot from API overhead. Because of the way id Tech 5 works, where we're breaking it up into so many texture pieces and uploads, on the consoles we're just like, I'm going to stick this in that memory right there and we just go do it

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-06-16-john-carmack-the-future-now-interview
 
There's a give and take and the game knows how to exploit it's style to do crazy shit with shaders and lighting.
Yeah, ultimately its all sleight of hand and trickery, and a balancing act to materialize a game's vision within any platform and market and time and budget constraints. That some games don't pull it off doesn't often lead me to think that the hardware is the culprit.
 
Consoles will always hold developers back until they starting making new ones every year.

Anyone not on a top of the line gaming PC with all the newest shit is technically holding developers back.
 
I mean... telling that HZD is top tier and saying Witcher 3 on Ultra settings on PC is "avarage" is such a bullshit. I can't take what you're saying seriously... for real.
Yea well whatever you say. I don't share your view point and I guess you'll have to deal with it? Probably not based on your response.
 

g11

Member
He [Fares] isn't wrong, but for the type of game he's trying to make, consoles are a necessary evil. Console hardware "holds back" the industry on the technical level, but it's still the driver or sales for the type of games we're talking about. 2015 total PC digital game sales were $25.1B. Of that, $17B was from f2p MMOs, and social network games accounted for another $8B. Add those up and you see the remaining sales figures for "AAA games" including COD, BF, FF, AC and every other franchise you can name are but a sliver of total sales and a fraction of sales on console. In that same year digital sales on console were $4B.

Unfortunately no breakdown was given as to how much of that f2p MMOs accounted for, but assumably much less than PC as the majority of and the biggest f2p games are not on console (obviously console has it's share: Warframe, FFXIV, Smite, World of Tanks, etc). The majority of console games sales still comes from physical media though, a market that is a barren wasteland for PC. So yeah, console hardware holds games back but it also kind of funds a significant share of the AAA market, probably in large part because console hardware is cheaper and thus less powerful.
 
The best game released this year was designed for the ancient Wii U hardware.

The best selling game of this generation once ran on an Xbox 360.

The only thing holding developers back is their reliance on tech and total lack of ambition in every other area.
 

Leb

Member
I think people are losing sight of the bigger picture here. When Nielsen surveyed consumers regarding their platform preferences, they asked respondents to identify the first word that came to mind when presented with the various gaming platforms. The three words most commonly associated with PC gaming are, "arrogance, conceit, hubris.' The three words most commonly associated with console gaming, meanwhile, are, "piety, family, faith."

And none of this is the least bit surprising. Indeed, a close reading of the gospels of Mark and Matthew suggest that if the Christ were alive today, he would very likely regard PC gaming as an ostentatious extravagance, an indulgence most injurious to a supplicant's relationship with God, serving only to the weaken the will of the supplicant and hasten his descent into mortal sin.
 

8byte

Banned
When games evolve to a point where I'm not playing prettier builds of games I played last generation, I'll agree with him.

Until then, nah, games haven't evolved enough that visuals are what's "holding them back".
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
As someone that worked on a PC Exclusive game. Shit PC hardware is holding developers back... making sure a game runs on your grandma's laptop limits the shit out of you.

I'm not sure of anyone that focuses solely on top of the line hardware. If you did that, your game would never come out because by the time you are done, it'd be outdated again.

http://steamspy.com/app/578080

Released in mid March. Rapidly approaching 4 mil sales. Never went on sale. WIll not run on anything near your grandma's laptop.
 
Base PS4?

OG Xbone?

I'm confused. Is this game not meant to run on these systems? Article is weird.

Yes, most likely a base PS4, since they will still need to make the game run on that.

It's not confusing, the developer is just saying that the consoles are quite a bit weaker compared to PC, that's the simple point. He's saying that if they weren't weaker (or if they just didn't exist, I guess?) that the types of games would be very different. He's probably right.
 
The best game released this year was designed for the ancient Wii U hardware.

The best selling game of this generation once ran on an Xbox 360.

The only thing holding developers back is their reliance on tech and total lack of ambition in every other area.

I disagree with a lot of your posts, sir, but I couldn't agree more with this. We have all the tech in the world to make incredible games, even on the hardware that is supposedly holding developers back. I'm all for tech advancements, but a lot of devs still need to learn how to design good fucking games more than anything.
 

Kssio_Aug

Member
Yea well whatever you say. I don't share your view point and I guess you'll have to deal with it? Probably not based on your response.

Nevermind, I take back what I said. It wasn't you who said HZD was something else, I made a confusion, and for that I apolgize. But yeah, let's agree to disagree about The Witcher 3.
 

Laughing Banana

Weeping Pickle
It just can't be some stupid, on rails action adventure game with whack a mole third person shooter mechanics and juvenile writing. PC gamers aren't going to buy that.

First you insulted console players by saying that PC gamers are so much more intelligent than them because of course they are above buying products designed to please people who loves "stupid" games with bad mechanics and juvenile writing, unlike console gamers who oh so love that kind of products... unlike console gamers, PC gamers won't buy low-quality games!

Heaver forfends you have to read something you don't like. Or, gasp, someone else's opinion. Grow up.

How about both of you stop hurling insults like you're 12 over VIDEO GAMES. And join the conversation instead.

After you hurled insults, you are now preaching other people to stop hurling insults and "join the conversation" and tell them to grow up, even though you were the one who first hurled childish insults towards console gamers... lol.

One guy called me a PCMR elitist which is bannable, by the way, because I said PC gamers probably wouldn't like your typicla AAA action adventure console exclusive. Somehting borne out by sales stats over and over again.

And i'm childish for teling them to stop calling people names, and maybe say somethign intelligent?

And I'm obvisouly not getting riled up. What would that even entail? But that's the usual tactic of trolls who have nothing to contribute to the discussion and just want to derail.

Proclaim anyone they don't agree wiht is angry.

Maybe you are the one who need to grow up.

These kinds of threads always gets so ugly :/
 
The best game released this year was designed for the ancient Wii U hardware.

The best selling game of this generation once ran on an Xbox 360.

The only thing holding developers back is their reliance on tech and total lack of ambition in every other area.
z9VF5AE.gif
 

Lister

Banned
He [Fares] isn't wrong, but for the type of game he's trying to make, consoles are a necessary evil. Console hardware "holds back" the industry on the technical level, but it's still the driver or sales for the type of games we're talking about. 2015 total PC digital game sales were $25.1B. Of that, $17B was from f2p MMOs, and social network games accounted for another $8B. Add those up and you see the remaining sales figures for "AAA games" including COD, BF, FF, AC and every other franchise you can name are but a sliver of total sales and a fraction of sales on console. In that same year digital sales on console were $4B.

Unfortunately no breakdown was given as to how much of that f2p MMOs accounted for, but assumably much less than PC as the majority of and the biggest f2p games are not on console (obviously console has it's share: Warframe, FFXIV, Smite, World of Tanks, etc). The majority of console games sales still comes from physical media though, a market that is a barren wasteland for PC. So yeah, console hardware holds games back but it also kind of funds a significant share of the AAA market, probably in large part because console hardware is cheaper and thus less powerful.

First, the highlighted: this is GOOD for PC. Digital is what makes PC so lucrative and attractive. It's why almost everyone who isn't a first party or Rockstar, puts their games on PC. It's also why the revennue isn't truly 1:1 comparable. There is a LOT of money that goes into the retail rabbit hole that developers will not be seeing. That's not the case for a good chunk of the market on PC.

Also, your numbers are close to what I've heard...

Steamspy estimated, JUST Steam sales in 2015, not counting DLC or other digital transactions, not counting blizzard or EA, or any other digital market place, or MMO's, etc, etc, at over 3.5 Billion for 2015.

Overall PC Market was also estimated at 27 Billion. Steamspy estimates Steam makes up only 15% of the overall PC gaming market (after taking DOTA and TF2 into account) at least bakc in 2015.
 
Wasn't this said in the past generation of consoles as well, yet we got games like God of War3, Uncharted 2,3, The Last of Us, that looked infreakingcredible!
 

Lister

Banned
Wasn't this said in the past generation of consoles as well, yet we got games like God of War3, Uncharted 2,3, The Last of Us, that looked infreakingcredible!

The last of us looked pretty good remastered, It did not look incredible on last gen consoles.

You could tell there was an incredible looking game in there trying desperatley to get out of sub 720p though. A testament to the artists.
 
Edit:

This is Untrue. The proof of this is Ubisoft's Steep which essentially fulfills the promise of what an open world Mirrors Edge game should be. A Large open high fidelity platforming sandbox where you can either follow tightly scripted missions or enjoy making you own path/own fun. Its a not a new gameplay idea, we had skate last gen. Yet Steep is the best itteration this generation and uses the extra power of modern consoles to make the world larger and more detailed. In a place where atmosphere is important, this is greatly appreciated. Yet Steep for all its positives is noticeably empty and is pretty light on snow physics.

This is the issue. Right now Devs can either make large empty worlds or they can make full worlds. This directly effects gameplay. For instance Steep's chairlift is a static object. With more CPU power it could be in motion. Going from static platforms to moving platforms in a platformer is a pretty big "gameplay" change.
Sorry, when I talk about gameplay, I'm referring to the mechanical stuff that players interact with. Does steep offer a mechanically superior experience to skate or ssx? My answer to that is no. I also don't buy the idea of large worlds vs full worlds and for the most part, neither do consumers. For the most part, a game's player base tends to shrink significantly after about 3 months which means that these games are not offering deep enough gameplay to engage the players. I also don't ascribe to the belief of "making your own fun". When a developer says that, it's usually a signal that the game is poorly designed. GTA V is both a large and full world. It's known as a game that allows you to make your own fun and yet it's exceptionally designed to keep players engaged. Making your own fun means the developers provided the players with tools that link together in a way that makes sense in the game world.

The most popular games have something about their gameplay that keep users coming back. Gta, COD, LOL, DOTA, CS:Go, minecraft, etc. These games do not require tremendously powerful machines to run. They're well designed with gameplay as the primary focus. Other games that are technological marvels often prioritize technological advancements over gameplay and many suffer as a result. There was a time where I felt developers were limited by hardware but that time passed. From a visuals perspective, developers are limited but from a gameplay perspective, they're limited only by their imagination. I can't believe I'm saying this but concessions can be and should be made on the visual side to the benefit of gameplay if necessary. Ps360 game MAG gave us 128 player multiplayer games. Ps360 game red faction game us a fully destructible world. Bfbc2 and bf3 gave us multiplayer destructible worlds in multiplayer. Ps360 game fifa gave us pro clubs 11v11 and nhl gave us 6v6. Skate gave us an open world to skate in. Everything I've seen this generation has been prettier iterations of everything last gen. I'm still waiting for next gen to arrive. I'm sorry that I don't agree but I see things differently.
 

Dmented

Banned
That shit is some way outdated stuff man.

We're talking DX9 level stuff. It's really not releveant to modern PC gaming.

No, it's still relevant, but not to the same extent as the quotes state. There is still a decent overhead. Enough that say without it would grant a pretty large performance increase.

Vulkan and DX12 are supposed to help with this, but if they actually will remains to be seen still imo.
 
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