Widescreen Gaming Forum

Sure, but you could never do the things that you could do on the PC on consoles. You obviously could never ever have pulled off Wolf3D or Doom on a console at the time of their release.

Wolfenstein 3D, sure you could.


DOOM, ok, maybe not, but that was basically the Crysis of its day. And if you go back as far as ten years, you're not going to find much that wouldn't be technically feasible on consoles.

Now days that is really the only redeaming quality for publishers/developers.

Ten years ago, that was enough.

Carmack is a different beast though. He was pioneering C in games, it took quite a long time for everyone else to catch up with him.

No, I don't think that's true. I'm looking through this list of open source games, and I have yet to see a single one that's mostly in assembly. ADVENTURE, for instance, was written in FORTRAN way back in 1976. Nethack, back in 1987? C. Duke Nukem 3D? C. The side-scrolling games from Apogee? Turbo Pascal. And if you read the manuals of Might and Magic II, which was made in 1988, it references Turbo C.

Why would the studios change over so quickly once the PS1/N64 were released? They still had all of their veteran assembly engeineers.

Because they *had* to. Even if making Super Mario 64 in assembly was practical, and I'm pretty sure it is not, you can't just take a veteran SNES assembly programmer and have him work in N64 assembly. It doesn't work like that - the architecture is completely different, and therefore, so is the machine language.

Cranky, just to interject. Doom was ported to the SNES by id. I can't remember how good it was, but it was done.

EDIT: it used a separate graphics chip in the cartridge called FX2.

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It's never been a secret that console games sell better. If that was the reason, they would have been making multiplatform games from the start. It's really not like people suddenly realized that multiplatform games sell better. Or that they suddenly became possible.

It is that they suddenly became possible though, or at least "good enough" as I said before. Halo proved you could do a real FPS on a console and have it work well enough. GTA3 proved you could do open-world games. Morrowind and those PS2 Baldur's Gate games proved you could do Western RPGs. As you said consoles have always sold more games, have always been more mainstream... the reason why FPS and Western RPG games were mostly PC only was because no one figured out how to get them working "good enough" on a console. They figured that out now, and so now those genres are multiplatform.

Once they figure out MMOs for the consoles we'll lose that too.

Halo proved you could do a real FPS on a console and have it work well enough.

So did Goldeneye. Neither game resulted in PC losing the shooter genre to consoles - we still got five years worth of post-Halo shooters oriented to PC, such as MOHAA, Call of Duty, Max Payne 2, Doom 3, Far Cry, Half-Life 2, FEAR, and Prey.

GTA3 proved you could do open-world games.

GTA 1&2 were on consoles too. And I can't really say that this "genre" truly existed prior to GTA 3, so I don't see how one could list this as something the PC had that was lost to consoles once GTA3 proved it possible.

Morrowind and those PS2 Baldur's Gate games proved you could do Western RPGs.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance isn't really an RPG - it's a Baldur's Gate game by name only. And it's not like Morrowind caused PC to loose RPGs to consoles either - we still got PC oriented RPGs for years after that too, like The Temple of Elemental Evil, Sacred, Gothic 3, and The Witcher.

the reason why FPS and Western RPG games were mostly PC only was because no one figured out how to get them working "good enough" on a console.

If that was the reason, then all FPS and RPGs following Goldeneye and Morrowind should have been console-oriented. But that's not what happened.

There's a bit of transition time you know cranky, it's not like the day after Halo everything changes. For one thing the Xbox wasn't as popular as the PS2 until the Xbox 360 blew out of the gate, and for another it just takes time for people to adjust.

When you think about it there really is no reason for a company to ignore platforms their game works on. Why make a PC only FPS that isn't an MMO? What would the motivation be? As much as I might personally wish for it I can understand why it makes no sense for developers and publishers.

It took more than ten years to go from "we proved FPS can work on console" to "screw PC gamers." That's an eternity in the gaming industry, not a transitional period. It didn't take long at all for a flood of half-assed FPS's to arrive on consoles in the wake of Halo, and that includes PS2. Goldeneye inspired some console shooters too, like Medal of Honor (the first one, not MOHAA) and Perfect Dark. And yet, PC devs kept making PC oriented shooters, even though there was more money to be made on consoles. So, why make a PC oriented shooter? Ask the developers of the games I mentioned. Clearly they had reasons.

Well Halo was 2001... give it 2 years and we're talking 2003. I guess there were still some high profile PC only FPS games in 2003 but I can't really recall specifics. FEAR was 2005.

Anyway it's a combination... I'm pretty sure I said that. Controls got good enough, piracy increased on PC, Xbox 360 was HD which consoles had been lacking forever, Xbox Live came into its own, etc. etc.. I can't tell you how many times I read "stopped PC gaming when I got my 360" and similar comments. And again, most importantly, WHY make a PC exclusive right now? There is no real reason to. To turn down money from other platforms you need a good reason.

I guess there were still some high profile PC only FPS games in 2003 but I can't really recall specifics.

Call of Duty, Max Payne 2, Postal 2, TRON 2.0, Unreal II, XIII. And I know some of these were ported to consoles, but PC was the primary intended platform for all of these games.

And again, most importantly, WHY make a PC exclusive right now? There is no real reason to. To turn down money from other platforms you need a good reason.

Again, why make a PC exclusive ten years ago? There have to have been reasons. My take is that the PC offers freedom, flexibility, and depth that isn't possible or even welcome on consoles. That's why PC was the platform of choice for some ten years ago, and it still holds true today.

Call of Duty I'll give, but Postal 2 is hardly a shining example of why a game should be multiplatform... it would have given the game more exposure, which would have increased the chances of it being banned.

As for the others... I saw console versions of Tron 2 and XIII before I saw PC versions, for better or worse. Unreal 2 I'll give as well, but that was almost universally hated for some reason, so they probably ported it in the vain hope of making some money back, then saw how much cash they could make off a game on consoles that did poorly on the PC. ;)

I'm pretty sure Postal 2 was moderately successful. For what it's worth, it *was* banned in New Zealand and Australia, effectively banned in Germany, and brought to court in Sweden. Unreal 2 seemed to be moderately successful as well - the PC version has a mean rating of 75% on Gamerankings, while the XBox version is only 64%.

And Tron 2.0 and XIII were definitely released on PCs first. Tron 2.0 didn't see consoles until a year after its PC release. The important thing, though, isn't whether or not console versions ever existed, but that development was first and foremost for the PC. After all, Deus Ex isn't any worse for the existence of a PS2 port, is it? Nor is Starcraft worse for the existence of an N64 port?