Microsoft: Hardly anyone plays FPS games on the PC anymore

[Drac]

This from Microsoft's Kudo Tsunoda, creator of Kinect.

If you think about the way that first person shooters evolved, they started on the PC. People for the longest time tried to port shooters from the PC onto the console. And people said the same things that they are saying now about Kinect – “It’s never going to be responsive enough to do this,” or “You’re never going to get a fun first person shooter on the console – it’s only made for a keyboard and mouse and that is the way it is supposed to be played.” And as long as everyone was just porting the existing shooters over to console, they weren’t as fun as the PC ones. Of course, they were built for the PC.

Halo did an awesome job of building a first-person shooter exclusively for the console, and now hardly anyone plays first person shooters on the PC anymore. It’s all about the console.

Full article: http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archi...With-Kudo.aspx

Alas, the naughty word filter on these forums won't allow me to properly express my view of those words.

However, I doubt you'd ever hear Gabe from Valve say anything like that. It's sad really because if Microsoft wanted they could be making a fortune out of PC Digital games sales. If they'd put even half the effort of Xbox Live into Games For Windows Live as a full digital-store-plus-gaming-service like Steam (which really, steams features should have been built-in to Windows a decade ago) they'd turn a handsome profit from online game sales yet it seems the people in charge at Microsoft clearly just don't give a shit about gaming on their OS anymore.

[Jigoku]

Well considering the PC version made up about 10% of total CoDMW2 sales ....

[Chief]

Yeah, I'm sure we'll see a lot more people playing FPS games via Kinect Dude is a total douchebag. And I'm not saying that because of this article, he seriously is just in general.

None the less, FPS titles are more popular on console these days. Videogames in general are more popular on consoles these days.

Don't really see what his point is though, I mean I find most games, especially FPS titles, much more enjoyable on PC due to many things, such as a decent framerate, better graphics and in particular the vastly superior controls. I can't think of a recent FPS title that had a better console version than it did PC version.

Seems like the guy is just trying to convince people Kinect will be great for the 360s core audience (which seems to be mainstream shooter fans) but after what we've seen of kinect so far....

[Drac]

Originally Posted by Jigoku

Well considering the PC version made up about 10% of total CoDMW2 sales ....

There are a heap of reasons for this. They charged console game prices even though they didn't have to pay licence fees to release on PC and the whole business of hiding that there were no dedicated servers until a few weeks before release (and only when pressed in an interview) certainly didn't encourage PC gamers to purchase it.

Also, Bad Company 2 sold more copies on PC than consoles.

[Atrayo]

Hi Guys,

Let's just hope those are Mr.Kudo Tsunoda personal opinion than the stance that Microsoft is taking as a whole. Notwithstanding the poor track record that Microsoft has with the FPS genre. (lest for Bungie studio house)

Another thing is Mr. Tsunoda may be in his own self-imposed bubble aka "Ivory Tower". If his world is 24/7 consoles, than his bias will lean in that direction.

[Drac]

Originally Posted by Atrayo

Let's just hope those are Mr.Kudo Tsunoda personal opinion than the stance that Microsoft is taking as a whole.

Oh but it's not.

This is why I'm so sour about this.

Microsoft have been shitting all over the PC gaming landscape for half a decade now. Why do I say that?

Well, what was the last 1st party MS Game Studios title published for the PC?

Shadowrun in 2007 by FASA Studios.

If you can't recall that game, it was a terrible FPS game that allowed both PC and 360 players to play with/against each other on the same servers. The result was as "epic fail" as it sounds.

MS Game Studios has both 1st party game development studios (which Microsoft own like Activision owns Infinity Ward) and 3rd party publishing agreements (like Epic with Gears Of War series). 3rd party publishing partners usually publish to the 360 and the PC. MS Games Studio will not publish a game for the PS3, Wii or any mobile platform which is why Epic Games published Unreal Tournament 3 through Midway games as they wanted to release on PS3, PC and 360.

My beef isn't with their 3rd party pubslihing business though, it's their 1st party (Microsoft owned) gaming strategy that cannibalizes PC gaming innovation in pretty much every genre that really gets my goat. Here are some examples:

FASA Studios - Produced all the Mechwarrior series for the PC. Was snapped up my Microsoft who pushed them away from Mechwarrior and into making a cruddy FPS with the Shadowrun IP licence MS had acquired. Shadowrun released in 2007 to terrible reviews, FASA disbanded shortly after.

Ditigal Anvil - the developers of Freelancer (space trader/combat game) lost their publisher toward the end of their bloated development cycle. MS Games Studios snapped them up and rushed out Freelancer for PC. DA wanted to do a PC sequel as even their rsuedh game was fairly popular but MS wanted a space combat game as a launch title for the 360. That game never made it out of early alhpa stages and disbanded in 2006.

Lionhead Studios - developed Black & White (I & II) and Fable for PC but is now a 360 exclusive studio. Lionhead studios lead designer is Peter Molyneux, the brainchild behind such PC gaming classics as Populous, Magic Carpet, Syndicate, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper ect. The PC will most likely never see another game from this great designer as Microsoft have him humping Kenict's leg for table scraps.

Ensemble Studios - developers of the awesome Age of Empires series was tasked with trying to cash in on the Halo hype by making a Halo RTS for the 360. Not long after Halo Wars made bugger all money the studio disbanded - no more Age of Empires games for PC.

This isn't a complete list of the developers Microsoft has dragged away from the PC, just the major ones.

Microsoft are like the Boogiemen of PC gaming. I wonder which PC development studios will be sacrificed on the altar to appease Kinect. I have a feeling this is also why Bungee decided to distance themselves from Microsoft, they saw the marble altar being constructed behind the crimson curtain and fled the cult before it was too late.

[Chief]

Originally Posted by Drac

The PC will most likely never see another game from this great designer as Microsoft have him humping Kenict's leg for table scraps.

Well Fable 3 is supposed to be on both 360 and PC, however the 360 release is about a month from now while PC version is still TBA since it was delayed. The idea behind this happening at all was to advertise Windows 7 as a gaming platform.

[Ange]

As a long time PC, console and FPS fan I have to state that I will never touch another console ever again. Console have become want to be PC. They have limited control, sound and graphix. This means that any game writen for a console is a shadow of what it could have been if writen soley for the PC. Take the 2 most sucesful games of recent time. Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Borderlands. Both this games are fun but I keep getting the feeling that the game has heavly restricted. Vehclies are hardly any use in these games as the map is so small. A design limitation due to restricted system resources of the consoles. Compare these to games such as BF2 or even Tribes. Both old games but in alot of ways still much more advanced then any FPS released in the past few years.

It will be intresting to see what BF3 is like especially if its PC only..

[Drac]

Originally Posted by Ange

As a long time PC, console and FPS fan I have to state that I will never touch another console ever again. Console have become want to be PC. They have limited control, sound and graphix. This means that any game writen for a console is a shadow of what it could have been if writen soley for the PC. Take the 2 most sucesful games of recent time. Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Borderlands. Both this games are fun but I keep getting the feeling that the game has heavly restricted. Vehclies are hardly any use in these games as the map is so small. A design limitation due to restricted system resources of the consoles. Compare these to games such as BF2 or even Tribes. Both old games but in alot of ways still much more advanced then any FPS released in the past few years.

It will be intresting to see what BF3 is like especially if its PC only..

Arr now see that I disagree with (I'm fickle, I know). I think without the popularity and massive consumer base of the console market we'd not have anywhere near as many PC games, nor would many games have the multi-million dollar budgets most of them now have. Sure, there are some standout PC only games/genres, but they're rare, really rare.

I also think hardware speed is a non-issue. You can always simplify the visuals and make the environments larger if you wish. There are plenty of massively open world type games on consoles, it's not "impossible" because of the hardware, it's largly a design choice. There is also a somewhat exponential increase in manhours required to produce HD level content in games. Way back when screen resolutions were 800x600 you could slap down a height-filed for terrain and a few boxes for buildings and a handful of grass/dirt textures and your big open world is done. Nowadays it's much more complex and takes a lot longer, you have static models because old height-field based terrain is boring - you'll want overhangs, underpasses, rock outcroppings, lots of foliage/tree models ect and all of those will need three texture maps each - one for color, one for specular and one for normal/bump mapping and of course a larger variation of all of those textures too because display resolutions are higher so you need even more variety ect ect ect.

Back in the SNES days the sound for a game took maybe a few days messing about with a single midi synth. In modern games you're hiring an entire orchestra for several weeks to learn and record the score.

Those kind of differences have happened in every area of game development. Without the income consoles pull in for multi-platform titles we'd never see anything like Bad Company 2 or Borderlands, not in 2010 anyway.

I also think the limited control input of consoles has helped focus certain genres nicely in some areas. Sometimes it's for the worse, sure, but for some areas the simplification of certain mechanics has given birth to more pure and refined forms of "play".

Lastly, I can't see BF3 being a PC exclusive title for all of the above reasons. There's no way DICE could afford to make it PC only unless it's half the size of Bad Company 2 which would suck almost as much as Microsoft Games Studios does... almost....

[caydn]

He develops games for consoles only what did you expect.