Support NeoGAF

[grandwizard]

Sure. Especially after a generation switch has made it obvious how much better the PC/Steam is for preserving old games. I have a shelfload of last-gen games that are close to worthless right now and will not run in my new console. Would have much rather had Steam versions that I could revisit at any time and with better settings/mods and my choice of inputs.

 

[gelf]

For me personally, consoles would be pointless if I can get their respective exclusives on pc and make them run and look better.

And as much as I gravitate towards gaming on a pc in recent times... I'm conflicted on this. I want these games on pc but I still like the concept of dedicated gaming-machines with fixed specs and their individual controllers and individual "game-culture", they may still be profitable and relevant if they have no exclusives anymore but they wouldn't be for me!

Yeah I feel this conflict. I'm getting excited by the prospect of new PC Sega ports right now and in my ideal world every game I ever wanted would be on one platform. I like the backward compatibility of PC mostly. But another side of me wants consoles to keep going, they have their place in this world if only if it keeps the PC hardware business honest by having something low cost to compete with, it possibly also keeps the software side from inflating requirements too often like used to happen back in the days when there were more high end PC exclusives. If consoles need exclusives to stay relevant then I accept this tradeoff of possibly missing on on some games so that they may continue.

On back compatibility I really think Sony need to get PS1 and PS2 games at least on PS4 via emulation, and possibly with some upscale options. They are sitting on a treasure trove of a back catalogue for their systems and could really get in on the kind of long tail games on Steam enjoy if they did it properly.

 

[rjc571]

That is correct if you get 60fps without sacrificing anything else.

Unfortunately, for fixed hardware, regardless of how powerful it is, getting 60fps always means making a compromise everywhere else.

So no, it is not undeniable and clear cut at all that designing these games at 60fps would have made for a better experience, because a compromise has to be made somewhere.

We're not talking about fixed hardware. Nothing would need to be sacrificed for 60 fps if any of those games were ported to the PC (or any non-gimped piece of hardware from this century).

 

[donutzsick]

First post nails it. I understand console manufacturers wanting to be relevant, but I'm more interested in developers being financially stable to make the games they want to make. That means as many people as possible play the best product possible. I am all for a one console, or no console but pc gaming only, future.

 

[Jack Videogames]

Those sales would only hurt the platform and not the developer right? Cause they would still make money

Given that 99% of all my Nintendo games are first party, I think that going multiplat would hurt Ninty too as they have invested money into their hardware. Also, before someone says "well but those companies wouldn't be producing hardware at all!" I'm pretty sure Sony wouldn't be in the videogame business at all if they weren't a hardware developer, so many games funded by them wouldn't exist.

 

[Dictator93]

I wonder when people wil realise that non-technology barrier exclusives are just ways for companies to bring people over to the platform and then "stockholm syndrome" them into staying with that platform.

If a game isn't techonologically locked to a platform, I see no reason why it should not be elsewhere.

 

[F4r0_Atak]

Those sales would only hurt the platform and not the developer right? Cause they would still make money

If it hurts the platform, it directly hurts the developers under the roof of these platform holders (SCE, Nintendo, Microsoft), the devs rely on the sales on those exclusives. If they were also brought to PC, a big chunk of the sales would move to the PC and the results of these sales would mostly go to the Publisher/Platform holder instead of the devs because they have to deal with the logistics of working with a different ecosystem and economy. Hence, if you add the PC sales, the Platform holders would take bigger chunk of the profits to balance the cost of working with, like I said, another ecosystem. Therefore, taking away some of the profits a dev team/studio would usually make.

To make this clear, a console exclusive is guaranteed-money (not counting the sales of the games on long periods) for the development teams. Although, for a platform holder, when working as the publisher of said team, that usually ''guaranteed-money'' would be greatly impacted due to the PC sales, lowering their profits of said teams (first-party studios).

 

[Gaogaogao]

Yes, unless you have a reason not to