| (Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) | |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 858 Joined: 2 Apr 2008     | |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3411 Joined: 28 Jun 2008     |
Those are two old games, how old is your PC?
That isn't the PC, it sounds like it's poor games. I had that problem too with old games when I first got into it. Simply because hardware and software weren't as good back then. You think console games never crash or are bug free?
There are thousands of flash games on the web, and hundreds of good, 3D browser games (I believe the escapist did an article on one of them earlier this year). Even then, using the examples you just stated (red alert and SS), you PC can do a little bit of playing games.
First, Eh? Second. I think you are one of those people who get all the press when it comes to PC gaming. You don't seem to know about it. It's not like consoles, where there's just one box that can do 3 things. With the versatility that a modular system like a PC brings, it also brings a rise in complexity. Anyway. Expecting a generalist (and in your case low-level) PC to be as good at games as a top-end games console is ridiculous if you're not prepared to invest the same money into the PC to make it game worthy. You could have invested the £500 that a PS3 costed when it came out, in which case you PC would easily be playing the latest games (Unless it is really, really old.). Even the £300 a newer one costs is enough for a top-end graphics card. That's how a PC works. You want to surf the web and nothing else? Save money on a disk drive and large hard drive. Finally, there is one thing a PC has that is really quite useful. I think it would help you out a lot with all your problems: Free Tech Support. Out of curiosity, what is your system spec? I'd honestly like to help you with this. I really hope this post doesn't offend, I'm just typing the way I speak. |
BANNED  Posts: 4378 Joined: 21 Aug 2008    |
Ohh...Will that support the FragFX? That's *much* better looking. With MAG and now this...I might consider picking up a PS3 now :D User was banned for: Microsoft and the World Domination of Gaming&Communication. (Permanent) |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 858 Joined: 2 Apr 2008 |
That particular PC is long gone, unfortunately.
I think it's always easy to work out why there's a problem. There aren't many games on console where I don't know what's wrong; most of my PS2 games won't run because the PS2 itself is the 1st generation model, and so the disk reader is shot to hell. Console Games are easy to diagnose - half the time with a PC there's no explanation for what goes wrong.
I've pretty much abandoned PC gaming these days, so the problems are entirely past-tense. Now all I need my PC to do gaming wise is run Rome: Total War and flash games. Since PC gaming seems to be increasingly getting fucked over (EA's attempt to install viruses on our systems, and companies like Pandemic not providing patches to PCs yet giving them to console versions of the same game) I see no reason to go back to PC gaming. |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 887 Joined: 14 May 2008    |
I do have some games for my laptop which I play; for example, Dawn of War, Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, Evil Genius, Red Alert 2 and Age of Empires 2. My point is, my inability to play current generation games using what I have available is what prevents me considering myself primarily a PC gamer. Although I am quite annoyed that you suggested that I'm not a true gamer. As for classics, I've played quite a few on a particularly old computer that now lives in my loft. These include Elite, the first ever proper 3D game, Head over Heels, released in 1987, and the original Paperboy. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3796 Joined: 6 Feb 2008  |
Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that you weren't a true gamer; it was a shot at anyone who would try to say that you weren't a true gamer because you are unable to play the latest games. |
BANNED Posts: 4378 Joined: 21 Aug 2008 | I'm in my fourth year at my university and have moved with every year...I still have a massive computer which I also use for gaming :\ I'm not the only one either. And it's not like you're forced to get a massive supertower like I did to play games; one of my professors just built a ridiculous gaming system with this case: User was banned for: Microsoft and the World Domination of Gaming&Communication. (Permanent) |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 3796 Joined: 6 Feb 2008 |
Yet still not particularly apt to take to the library... |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 887 Joined: 14 May 2008 |
Don't worry, I over reacted.
Good for you, but quite frankly I've looked at student accomodation and based on what I've seen there is no way I could have a proper PC and still have room on my desk unless I got really lucky. Also I'd quite like the ability to take it to lectures, the library and so on. |
BANNED Posts: 4378 Joined: 21 Aug 2008 |
I'd rather take a netbook than a clunky jack of all trades laptop to the library. Oh wait, I don't like studying at the library :p
I really doubt your school has smaller rooms than mine. That would be going against housing codes in most developed countries...Unless of course, your school isn't in a developed country :p
Then get a netbook as well! A gaming PC and a netbook will cost you less than the typical laptop most clueless freshmen take to college. User was banned for: Microsoft and the World Domination of Gaming&Communication. (Permanent) |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 887 Joined: 14 May 2008 |
Or I could just use the laptop I have right now, which is cheaper than just about anything on account of being free. |
Press Junketeer Posts: 440 Joined: 10 Mar 2008    | Well I finally broke down and got a console, but I still can't really enjoy it like an enjoy pc games. It might be because I use jointly used TV or it might be that I feel more immersed into PC smaller monitor. I have seen the crap PC gamers are getting from developers. Eventually console gamers will start seeing DMR (To fight the evils of used games) and they will for the most part be in the same boat as the pc gamers. Betrayed. This is to you PC Gaming company! I am sorry that people would rather spend money on a dime bag then on a PC Game. I am sorry that you don't realize that making online content the central focus of your game will effectively minimize piracy (You got to be smart and make it difficult to run pirate Dedicated Servers). I am sorry that people will copy their floppy disk and share your hard worked on 16bit games between friends and then copy the code pages from your books... wait that was 10 years ago sorry, you fixed that problem. . . |
BANNED Posts: 4378 Joined: 21 Aug 2008 | That's true as well. *shrug* Everyone has different needs. User was banned for: Microsoft and the World Domination of Gaming&Communication. (Permanent) |
Paperboy  Posts: 45 Joined: 7 Jul 2008     |
It seems however that the recent Endwar had a pretty unique take on console RTS, was adapted to console controls, and was still compelling. And please don't start with the PC vs Consoles debate, as developpers can very well work for all the platforms and perform well in sales with PC exclusives (Remember Starcraft : 9 million units sold, or the first Half Life : 8 million units). The problem is that as the console market was growing, despite the fact that the total number of computers available was also increasing, it seems that the PC Gaming market is gone, judging on the sales of recent games. Some games go above the 1 million mark as PC-Exclusives, but I don't remember a PC exclusive game, going above 5 millions in recent years, except for World of Warcraft and The Sims. So, I think that the answer is very simple : PC Games don't sell well anymore. It that's sad for us PC gamers... |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 68 Joined: 29 Sep 2008    | And the dead horse is flayed skinless... Developers are moving towards consoles for one simple reason: MONEY. For example, let us say the average 25 year old gamer has between $300.00 and $750.00 American to spend on his/her gaming entertainments. That gamer is going to look at the options and try to get the most value for the money. Now I know that it is possible to make a good gaming rig for $750.00, but the gamer has to consider how much money will be left to buy the games he/she wants to play. Developers are going to run the above scenario through their heads and realize that our frugal gamer is more likely to invest in a console, especially considering the current economic downturn most are dealing with. With that in mind, can we really fault developers for focusing their attention on the console market? |
BANNED  Posts: 1891 Joined: 26 Mar 2008   | Seems like the only people complaining on here have never owned a half decent PC. User was banned for: Poll: Round 4 - North: (1) Turbine vs (2) Valve. (Permanent) |
BANNED  Posts: 3535 Joined: 11 Oct 2008   |
Most of the people I know who know jack squat about PC's usually buy a pre-made Dell and we all know how good those are huh? Life expectancy of 2 years and the worse performance in the hardware world. Oh and awesome tech support! User was banned for: FUN FORUM GAME THX FO PLAYIN :3. (Permanent) |
Paperboy Posts: 45 Joined: 7 Jul 2008 |
I don't know how you do the maths, but even if a console is fairly cheeper than a gaming rig, there are two other points to consider : So it's cheaper to play on the PC, especially with all the mods that add great replay value to your games. But PC users tend to stop buying games, strangely... |
Copy Clerk Posts: 79 Joined: 10 Nov 2007  |
I have agree. Just from my experience of being a fairly devout PC gamer and then getting burned horribly by the constant ridiculous graphics push, I've had to pour far more money into keeping a PC up to date in comparison to a console. Unlike many hardcore PC gamers, I tend to like quality in my parts. Sure, you can build a computer for $500-$750... but the amount of trouble and tweaking quickly negates any cost benefit to using those parts. The key cost factor many people leave out when calculating the cost of a system is the cost of their own time. That's why I don't overclock anymore, the true cost in the end wasn't worth the amount I saved by not just buying the next step of processor. Keep a running total of all the parts and pieces along with the time you've spent. The trend starts to emerge soon enough. People keep on pointing out that PC's are harder to develop for than Consoles. There's a lot of truth in the matter. All DirectX and OpenGL does is simplify the interface to the hardware. That's it. When it comes to shader programming and other kinds of optimizations, you still have different optimization branches for each chip out there. DirectX nor OpenGL do little else past getting the basic interfaces standardized. And you have to consider the architecture of the hardware you are programming for even with DirectX and OpenGL. The same shader code going to one chip will perform differently than another chip. They should have the same theoretical statistics, but just how the individual compilers optimize for that architecture makes the difference. In comparison to a console... Very little deviation in specifications, consistent architecture, and sometimes you get access to features and systems not available on the PC. The Xbox 360's PowerPC chip actually has an instruction for Dot Multiplication, which is a HUGE majority of the calculations done for 3D processing. The Xbox 360's system memory is directly accessible and shared by the processor and GPU. The PS3's Cell processors are wonderful for physics calculations and other small parallel operations. A nice thing is about a console is that the hardware doesn't drastically upgrade on you. This saves you time and effort in redevelopment in order to make use of it. If you don't, you lose in the "Pretty graphics" race. And the end-user benefits by not loosing out in the experience from not seeing the extra "pretty" stuff or getting a performance hit since we have to emulate it, because their graphics card doesn't support Shaders 2.1 in comparison with 2.0. As for resolutions, many people are getting way to hung up on the raw resolution numbers. 720p (1280x720 @ 16:9 aspect ratio) and 1080p (1920x1080 @ 16:9 aspect ratio) are damn fine resolutions to play at. The textures and models are optimized quite well for these resolutions. Those that play at higher resolutions, while you get a higher degree of fidelity... Most of the time you are taking a 16-bit number and placing in a 32-bit number spot. Sure, you have a 32-bit number technically, but it's from a 16-bit source. Anyway, there's a lot more to consider when viewing games like the display's pixel size, pixel density, viewing distance, the prescription of the contacts and glasses you wear... Too many factors to draw any conclusions just off raw resolution numbers. Consoles are far easier to get into than a PC and in the long run... the console is going to win out when it comes to maintenance, upgrades, and updates. When you control the platform completely, you can automate and simplify so much. It's basically the same plan Apple uses for their computers. As for piracy. It's the same on both sides. With PC's, it is over-dramatized. With consoles, it's keep on the down-low. (Xbox 360 and Wii piracy is quite rampant, but Microsoft and Nintendo keep very quite about to avoid spooking publishers and bricked and banned consoles just make them more money.) And really it's the Publisher companies that make a big deal about it, since they are the "Money Assholes". But, the PC has many benefits that a console can't compete with yet. The level of customization the user can do themselves lends itself to the modding communities (the source of many great games), MMO's (where customization is key and the large number of content updates would load up an average console storage system), and user content driven titles. I believe that the PC market could be recaptured by games that make use of these advantages and fixing a few things. One big thing that'll help PC development: "Develop for the middle of the hardware Bell Curve... not the ends." This is one of the principle reasons why World of Warcraft has such a wide, varied following... very minimal hardware requirements. I've yakked enough for one post. :P |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3147 Joined: 12 Nov 2008   | I don't think piracy has anything to do with it. That is a symptom of the problem for PCs, not the cause of it. The problem is that game developers are idiots. It is that simple. Firstly - almost everyone with a PC has an internet connection. Developers have been using this feature increasingly to release games that are only half finished. Games these days are coming with masses and masses of bugs, many of them breaking the entire game. Now that consoles have hard drives and a lot have internet, developers are getting lazy about console games too. Secondly - game developers with extremely limited intelligence. If you make a game (like Crysis or Fallout) that can only run on the top 10% of PCs the game will die. I have got a duo core E6600 processor, an 8800 GTS graphics card, with 2GB of RAM. This, when I got it about a year and a half ago, was pretty top notch. Overall my PC system cost me around £600 (thats well over $1000 USD). A year and a half later? For Fallout 3 I am below the recommended system requirements. My Xbox360, a machine released three years ago and costing one third of my PC, is still in it's prime with games coming out week in, week out, that run properly and I don't need to go buying more upgrades for. I hate to go on a tangent for a second but in every console vs PC thread I ever see the PC afficianadoes always say that PCs have better graphics. They don't. Your PC has better graphics. My PC has worse graphics. I simply don't have the inclination, the time, or the cash to buy the latest and the greatest every time Cliffy B decides he wants to include bigger explosions in a game. If go to a big city, New York or London, look out over all of those buildings... there are literally millions of PCs out there but merely thousands of consoles. A good PC game, one without vicious anti-piracy malware, which would run on all of those PCs without creating issues, would sell magnificently. One that is broken, needs urgent patching, needs you to update 10 different drivers, uninstall daemontools and nero, clean your registry, then buy a new graphics card, won't sell more than a few hundred. And which kind of game are developers making? This is why I firmly believe that games developers either:- 1. Secretly hate us. 2. Are complete idiots. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 3411 Joined: 28 Jun 2008 |
Thanks for responding so sincerely to what I thought ended up as a quite flamey post. I'll stop trying to persuade you now :) |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 414 Joined: 9 Jul 2008  | On the topic of game sales: Yes it is a fact that cross platform titles sell better on consoles these days than PCs, but it is not because PC gamers are a dying breed. It's a matter of economics. Console games cost $60-70 as new releases, while PC games cost $40-50. Therefore developers have taken to releasing for the colsoles a couple months ahead of the PC to maximize sales on the more expensive platforms. Because most PC gamers have a console or at least have access to one, those who like to play new games are likely to pick them up at their earliest availability, rather than wait for the PC versions. |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 858 Joined: 2 Apr 2008 | Someone mentioned about Laptops, I think that's a really good area to look at. A lot of people want or need a computer they can carry around. University is a good example. Laptops are rarely great for gaming. I sure as hell wouldn't attempt an FPS on a Laptop, but they run Dawn of War just fine. The problem I see is that, once again, it's about hardware. It doesn't matter if you bought a First Generation PS2, or the last one ever built, they will both run EVERY GAME released for the PS2. I could go out and buy a Laptop tomorrow, but there's no guarantee it won't be obsolete (from a gaming perspective) in six months time. It'll probably be obsolete before I open the box. The PS3 is now £300. The 360 is much cheaper. We should have at least five years of gaming left in these consoles - five more years where they will run every release as perfectly as they do all modern games. How many PCs can make that claim? Buy a £300 PC, even a £300 GAMING PC, and you won't have it in 12 months time. |
BANNED Posts: 3535 Joined: 11 Oct 2008 |
Mine, I've got this 8600 gt for a long time now and it won't die. I eat up any games on high settings with shaders on minimum and I play at 1650x1080. You see there's this things called drivers and well that keeps your graphic card from getting obsolete. Why do people keep enforncing their ignorance as a general rule? If you don't have the knowledge to know which hardware to buy and how to maintain it why do you keep on spreading stuff like "hur hur a pc is obsolete after 12 months"? Honestly it pisses me off. If I wanted to upgrade my desktop now I would have to buy a new graphics card and one of the best ones out there a 4870 is fucking cheaper than a xbox and that card would easily maim any game that even came close to my computer until the next generations of consoles shows up or maybe the next 2. You don't seem to get this but my 8600 has been running now for almost 2 generationn, how many consoles can claim that? The PS2 certainly can't. Neither the xbox. Fuck it, I did some tweaking to a school computer and THE INTEGRATED GRAPHICS CHIP SET ran Left 4 Dead on 800x600 on minimum, and that thing must be older than me! User was banned for: FUN FORUM GAME THX FO PLAYIN :3. (Permanent) |
BANNED  Posts: 12958 Joined: 30 Jan 2008  | I think that piracy is not the issue, but many developers are using it as an excuse to jump ship to the more profitable console market, where the standards of quality for some genres are much lower (the console market still maintains high quality in Adventure games, RPGs, Hack and Slash games, Racers, Sandbox games, yada yada yada, only console FPS's, TPS's and huge strategy games are crap) and the possibilities for profit are much greater. User was banned for: Poll: What is your opinion on the Metal Gear Solid storylines?. (Permanent) |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 706 Joined: 8 Sep 2008  |
and the two are mutually exclusive because why? its true, consoles have standardization, and they do OCCASIONALLY get patched, but when a buggy console game gets released it gets a few patches a few months later, then the support dissapears, for console games... didnt SC get a patch a year or two ago? i know warcraft three got one earlier this year... how old are those games? and to wargamer: you seem an awful lot like either a PS3 fanboy who has signed a temporary ceasefire with the other consoles to flame PCs, please stop talking you sound like a troll. or get some food/sleep in you, i find that always helps me when im acting like an idiot. |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 858 Joined: 2 Apr 2008 |
I do agree with that. My friend has Battle March, and I find it painful to watch. I can't help but think "what RETARD thought this would make a good 360 game?". The title SCREAMS for a mouse and keyboard. Watching him fumble with the counter-intuitive controls, desperately trying to select three squads by dragging a selection box over them was just embarrassing. There's no question games like Dawn of War, or the Total War series, belong on the PC. Unless, I suppose, you buy a mouse and keyboard for the Console. |
Muckraker  Posts: 328 Joined: 8 Jul 2008 | Developers have probably realized that we don't wanna keep udating our hardware every month. Either that or they know that hardcore PC gamers have seen everything already and now developers see the MMORPG crowd as the majority now. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 3411 Joined: 28 Jun 2008 | Oh! I forgot! There's also the potential of cloud computing, which will render this whole argument obsolete. Look it up, it's awesome. It basically takes any spare processing power your PC isn't using, and uses the web to use it to help other PCs with intensive tasks. It'd be like a world-wide supercomputer. Of course that's when computers will rise up and destroy us all, but damn if I'll be getting some good FPS for a month beforehand, it'll be awesome! |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 94 Joined: 29 Oct 2008    | As has been touched upon, but not in depth from this perspective, is that PCs are hard to develop for because of their variable hardware. PCs are a family of different assemblies of hardware designed to run Windows (and Linux, etc.), but my PC's hardware is probably nothing like your PC's hardware and is nothing like your neighbor's PC's hardware... this makes Quality Assurance/playtesting a bitch, because they can playtest on 50 different rigs, and it'll all seem to run okay..... but then they release the game, and someone with yet a different setup from what was playtested on will discover some weird software/hardware conflict that creates a crash-inducing bug. The reason why PC games in particular require patching is NOT because Developers are "lazy" -- it's just simply impossible in the current PC market to try and design a game that is guaranteed to work on every permutation of hardware combinations possible. Some bugs just aren't going to be found until release... although fortunately, as long as there's detailed bug-reporting out there, devs can eventually get out a fix. But this in turn requires support for a product long past release date. And while I generally appreciate long term dev support for a game, from a business perspective, it's a sink of time and staffing--and therefore, money--so it's something many publishers want to spend less and less time on. (Especially when all you get for your trouble is a bunch of gamers calling you a bunch of lazy dumbasses for not getting it right the first time... regardless of how much work you might have put into it.) Bottom line: PCs are a pain in the butt to develop for. A console has a fixed set of hardware, so most bugs are likely to be caught in the QA stage, well before release. All that being said, the PC game industry may be smaller compared to the console industry, but I don't see it going away entirely. As long as people continue to own PCs, there are going to be PC games. What are you posting to this message board with? A PC, most likely (yes, I am sure someone's being clever and posting via their homemade PDA/coffeemachine, but hopefully you get my general point). And maybe it won't run Crysis (what will?) but there's probably a huge hoard of games you could be running on it right now, old, new, independent, major, freeware, shareware, from Minesweeper to The Sims to Fallout 3. Any console you buy is an added expense to the machine you already own that can be easily used for at least some degree of gaming (in addition to netsurfing, word processing, graphic design, etc. etc. etc.). Heck if nothing else, all games have to be developed ON a PC before they're ported and packaged for a console, so it's easy enough to design a game that can be played on the machine you designed it with. That being said, of course PC developers and publishers would do far better for themselves to develop games for "average" PCs rather than slightly more top-of-the-line gaming rigs, but I suppose they feel torn between accessibility and being able to flex their own design chops using the best of what's available. And of course the top-of-the-line gaming rigs are owned by hardcore gamers who demand games with the best the current technology has to offer. For a long time, I think PC game developers have worked to please that demographic when really, they would be much better off designing slightly less shiny games that are accessible by a far larger number of consumers. (And then the top-of-the-line gaming rigs would not seem as "necessary" to the people who seem to think that they are.) Consoles will still win more sales because they are at least presented to function more simply than a PC. That's the basic end of it. And, I will posit the rebellious and unthinkable notion that PC games and console games can and will exist peaceably side by side for many, many years to come, and that people can in fact play and enjoy both (or play a port from one to the other). The gamers that prefer one or the other may not exist peaceably side by side because many (though of course not all) gamers seem to feel they need to be "right" about what are in reality, truly personal gaming preferences, but the games themselves will keep coming. Some may be marketed more zealously than others, that's all. (As an aside, for the record, I'm a fairly hardcore PC gamer, but I think consoles have their place and I can certainly understand why console gamers are in the majority. Oddly, the only console I own is a PS2 and indeed, I like it for its plug'n'play simplicity. I haven't invested in a next-gen console precisely because if I want a machine with a shiny graphics card and internet access and online interaction and does my taxes for me... well, I already have a PC. I don't feel a desire to spend $300 on a second one, particularly one that will look crap hooked up to my old analog TV) |
BANNED Posts: 3535 Joined: 11 Oct 2008 |
Really? That sounds sci-fi-ish. Oh wait no it doesn't: http://folding.stanford.edu/ Anyways that system you described is different but it sounds very intrusive to me, I'll gladly help out other people while my PC is idling or just running utorrent, but what stops other people from abusing the system and gain access to my PC? The trojan, a known PC virus was originally meant to be a helpful programming tool that would help the Internet community as a whole, look at how that turned out huh? User was banned for: FUN FORUM GAME THX FO PLAYIN :3. (Permanent) |
BANNED Posts: 4378 Joined: 21 Aug 2008 | Cloud computing != distributed computing User was banned for: Microsoft and the World Domination of Gaming&Communication. (Permanent) |
BANNED Posts: 3535 Joined: 11 Oct 2008 |
NO! You change your avatar back or I'll thrown a tantrum >:| User was banned for: FUN FORUM GAME THX FO PLAYIN :3. (Permanent) |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 3796 Joined: 6 Feb 2008 |
How would that be any different to you normally RGP? What would a 'tantrum' entail? |
BANNED Posts: 3535 Joined: 11 Oct 2008 |
You ain't seen nothing yet. And since when did people started calling me RGP? Anyways I point my finger at you!
Good day Sir. User was banned for: FUN FORUM GAME THX FO PLAYIN :3. (Permanent) |
| (Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) | |
Reply to Thread
|
|
Not registered? Sign up for a free account! |
Alright, let's go by example.
Of all the PC games I've owned, only two ever ran perfectly - Red Alert, and Small Soldiers.
Most had minor problems one way or another, such as Ascendancy having sound issues on occasion, or when Mechwarrior 2 - Mercenaries froze and crashed when you beat a certain level for no explainable reason (yet consistently - every time the same place and in the same way). Some games caused the whole computer to slow down and thus were removed. Some games were just royally fucked and had to be removed because they were totally unplayable. All bar one should, in theory, have run flawlessly (Dark Forces II was the one game I didn't meet the system requirements for).
And all of this really adds up to PC gamers being for obsessives - I've never bought a computer SPECIFICALLY for gaming. Why should I? I didn't buy it JUST to download music of iTunes, or JUST to make excel spreadsheets. I expect a PC to be able to do a bit of everything, and that includes playing games.
This is why consoles are so much better - you buy it, it does everything. Best of all, it has a very clear transition point. You have a PSX, PS2 or PS3. There's no "PSX with v4.01 Cellshade Graphix Card and DirectX 7.2" Consoles are an all-in entertainment system. PCs do a lot more, yes, but even when I've had just two games on a computer I've had issues with one of them. The PS3 runs everything on it regardless of whether I've got no games installed or thirty. PCs don't seem to have been built on that basis.