With the next generation of consoles, will our PC VC's be...

[corruptrelic]

obsolete?

Has anyone else seen the previews (by EA) of what they say is their next generation (Xbox 2 and Playstation 3) football game?
Also I think in PSM - they said the next playstation will make games look incredibly realistic, it will blow everything away.

Of course there's no way the PC market will let consoles take the lead, and so ATI and Nvidia will push out video cards that match, if not beat, the video technology in the next generation consoles.
Which is great of course, it's always good to push forward with graphics. Hell I'd love to strap on some VR goggles and take myself into a virtual world (not porno, although that'd work too) and actually feel like you're right there in the game. Where maybe you're the King of a castle in the middle of a forest that is haunted by cannibals who come to your villages and eat your villagers. When your people die, they start coming into your Castle, sometimes disguised, eating your guards and working their way closer and closer to you. You no longer know who can be trusted and who can't be trusted.
It'd be a battle of survival and if you truly feel you're right there in the game.. anyway back to the subject (I'll keep dreaming in the mean time).

I have what I believe to be an excellent computer - p4 3.4ghz, 1gb ram, 60gb hard drive (plus a 160gb external) and a radeon 9700 128mb.
Problem is it's a notebook (gateway) and the video card isn't upgradable. It's my main gaming machine and lets just say it cost a LOT of money.. much more than any decent desktop you see on the market today.
I'm getting a little worried with Xbox 2 coming out next year, and Playstation 3 soon afterwards, that with the consoles pushing graphics to their limits, some of the newer PC games will start requiring video cards as those seen in the consoles.

What does everyone else think? I know it won't happen over night.. but it seems like not that long ago the regular Radeon 32mb was a decent card. Now days most games REQUIRE a 64mb video card and recommend 128mb. Some of them are even starting to require 128mb now. (Battlefield 2 is one of them.)
I guess I learned my lesson on getting a laptop, but still, I can't help but to feel like I'm going to be missing out on a lot in the coming two years or so. Hopefully with the introduction of the PCI Express to the newer laptops (Sager) we mobile users can finally upgrade our video cards. I tried my best to get a 256mb radeon with the gateway but the sales guy said they "Simply don't offer any video cards with 256mb." I wanted the 17" widescreen display though so went with gateway instead of dell.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what this year brings us with the next XBox. Maybe the "Xbox PC" or whatever they call it might be worth looking into.

[Caine]

same thing was predicted with the last generation, specifically the xbox.  it didn't happen then and it won't happen now.  here's why:  the consoles will use either nvidia or ati video cards in them, and through the consolidation that a console has over a pc, games will look and play better than what's currently out for pc.  all that stuff about not having to code to the lowest common denominator.  but, as the years go by, the console slowly becomes outdated compared to current pc tech.  

look at the xbox now.  games that were considered beautiful at the systems launch are no longer seen as having the greatest graphics.  even when developers learn all the tricks and we get better looking games as a result, eventually they get to the end of what is possible for a system.  meanwhile, the pc has slowly been making its way up the upgrade ladder and games end up looking better for it than a console.  

it's pretty much inevitable with the current system we have.  

oh, and you should have gotten a dell instead.  i can upgrade the video card.  when they bring out the mobile x800, i'll get me one.

[vagabond]

When you say obsolete you mean obsolete for gaming. This likely will never happen, for a couple of reasons. The main one is people need and use their PC's for tons of other things besides games that a console cannot do.  Many people can write their PC off as a business expense. If people have these PC's around they will play games on them.

This said I think PC's are already obsolete for most gaming. People play bejeweled and texas hold em on their laptops but the last strategy or roleplaying game I bought for the PC was civilization 3, which was a couple years ago. The vast majority of games come out for the consoles and any that come out for PC, like the sims 2 will be on all the consoles soon thereafter. They are even porting Gothic over to console, which is the only game in 2 years I would even like to play that I cannot. They may develop different types and styles of games for the PC's, but the time of the PC being the primary game machine are already over, there are just those who fail to accept defeat.

[Devil]

This problem for consoles is that they are only cutting edge on Day 1. From that point on, a PC is upgradeable to the latest hardware advances and a console isn't.

[vagabond]

This problem for consoles is that they are only cutting edge on Day 1. From that point on, a PC is upgradeable to the latest hardware advances and a console isn't.

Most people are not willing or capable of upgrading a PC. I did tech support for awhile, most people think they will get a fatal shock if they open the case. Also, the time where publishers are willing to make a game that is cutting edge and just expect everybody to get computers to play it is over. They will make them so most computers will run them. Sony also created a harddrive for the Playstation 2 so upgrading a console is not completely out of the question. They could design them with upgrade slots just like a computer.

[CeeKay]

Don't forget the theory that QA would be better on consoles since everyone has a uniform system.  They've definitely blown that out of the water with a few games.

[Destructor]

Has anyone else seen the previews (by EA) of what they say is their next generation (Xbox 2 and Playstation 3) football game?
Also I think in PSM - they said the next playstation will make games look incredibly realistic, it will blow everything away.

From what I read, these shots have been proven to be doctored or 'drawn based on possibilities' and nothing more.

What will the next gen games look like? Personally, you won't see a giant increase in graphics at all.

Why? Take a game that looks the absolute best in your mind. What can be done to that to make it look better?

More polygons? The average person is still using a normal TV set, limited to 320x240 resolution. They won't see it.

Farther draw distance/no more fog? Whoopie.

Bigger/better textures all the time? See above.

Better framerate? Personally, I see all next-gen games being locked at 60fps all the time.

Anti-Aliasing? The low resolution and very high dot pitch of your TV set makes this nearly pointless. It'll be done, but you'll only see the effect on games that don't do it.

The main reason that PCs will look so much better (for the devs who do the hard work, anyway), is the resolution of your monitor. Your average game is played at 1024x768 or higher resolution.

Your TV set? 320x240 is what it truly displays at. At Progressive Scan (480p), your TV set is now 320x480.

720i is 720x480 resolution and 1080i is 1080x480.

But, who really owns a 720i or 1080i TV set? A very, very, small number of people. Yeah, quite a few games will support this resolution next generation (if I had to make a guess), but how many people will actually see it?

There's your food for thought. Please correct me if I'm wrong on some of the technical details though.

[Jumangi]

"Also I think in PSM - they said the next playstation will make games look incredibly realistic, it will blow everything away.

They said the same thing before the PS2 was released.

The PS2 was going to kill the PC off years ago anyways. Sony is the king of hype.

[Jumangi]

"Better framerate? Personally, I see all next-gen games being locked at 60fps all the time. "


So? A constant 60fps is perectly fine.

"720i is 720x480 resolution and 1080i is 1080x480. "

720p is the VGA equivelent of 1280x720 & 1080i is like 1900 x1280(not sure about that but its around there).

[Dinkytoy]

comparing pc gaming and console gaming is like comparing People magazine with National Geographic.