Heyyo,
Provided that the game is actually finished. Arkham Knight wasn't a finished product on the PC. Even the devs acknowledged it by pulling the game from Steam.
To be fair, the devs of Arkham Knight outsourced the PC port to a really small game dev studio and they messed up the release day port... so the problem there was rushing a small game studio... and check their website:
http://www.irongalaxystudios.com/
Iron Galaxy is a Chicago based game development studio founded by industry veterans who have worked closely for years. Each of our team members average over eleven years experience in various senior roles with a gameography that boasts published titles on every major gaming console since the original Sony PlayStation. With a focus on big console technology including the Xbox 360 and Playstation3, our clients and partners rely on Iron Galaxy’s expertise and track record to execute on their most trusted brands.
... so some fluff about consoles and not PC. Yeah... they sound like the perfect game studio to do a PC port.
They also did Batman: Arkham Origins port to PC... which also had serious performance issues on PC on release.. hmm... yeah, they don't seem to have good luck with the Unreal Engine and PC ports.
To be fair, he does make a point. Rockstar didn't release GTA V until nearly two years after the consoles because 'that's how they make the money and PC people would pirate it anyway'. Okay, I do wanna say that it's absolute bull**** that they still charged us full price for a 2 year old game when it came out, while most of us had already bought it on a console at full price as well, so I could see where people came from if they were to pirate it. But saying that all PC gamers pirate everything is a stupid thing to say.
Sure we did pay full price, but we also got a solid game... they could have pulled a Square Enix and promise a port that does 60fps on PC but in reality only does 30fps... dammit FF XIII and XIII-2... heck! On release it was locked to 1280x720 resolution and required the third party hack by GeDoSaTo Tool in order to up the resolution hahaha... but hey, that's I guess what I get for $20 instead of a full-priced PC port like GTA V eh?
Anyway, whatever way you want to look at it, the console game purchases do provide a steady cashflow to the developers for them to work with. Whether they do that, or just put it in their pockets and bring out a second crappy game is not the point here :lol:
Also the consoles don't have platforms like Steam and their Steam Sales, nevermind CD key websites, so console users generally have to pay full price for any game.
There is no denying that the inferiour hardware of the consoles is forcing developers to make the compromise of lowering the standard for graphics so that they can keep up. But he makes a fair point in saying that this also forces developers to try very hard to make games look good while still running on low-end hardware, cause even console players keep having an increased expectation of pretty graphics.
With stuff like DirectX 11.1 and 11.2? Yeah I agree that since those aren't supported on consoles that game developers don't even bother on PC... but I say DirectX 12 should be another leap forward since it'll bring consoles and PCs back into API spec together since they've been using async compute for a while and we haven't been which is good.
Otherwise? Rockstar delaying the PC port? Obviously they wanted to milk the console market it just makes sense. As much as I hate saying it? Piracy is still a big issue on PC and is a deterrent to many game devs unlike consoles since their piracy rate is a lot lower (how many people do you know with modded consoles?). I do find it funny when game devs sabotage pirated versions like Arkham Knight's non-gliding Batman or the irony of game dev tycoon's devs going under due to piracy... the best is when they compalin about it on the official forums for the games hahaha.
I really don't want to get into the long argument but to say PC gaming has not been held back by the consoles is just too ridiculous for words.
As soon as the Xbox came out Microsoft threw all of their PC dev stuff in the bin (and there used to be lots of it) and realised that with a console they could make a licensing fee per game. As soon as they realised that it was all over (they tried with Windows but due to the fact that they stole DOS they weren't allowed to, or something like that going back years and years).
They even openly admitted that Alan Wake on the PC was going to come out but they gazumped the devs and forced them into keep it a console exclusive. Only a couple of years later did they actually release the game.
And the same will go for any game that is worth having. Both Sony and Microsoft want their exclusives, so will pull any dirty trick they can.
And that, briefly, covers just the games. The rest would take weeks to fully debate over and the bottom line would be the same.
DX11 was nothing but a console designed API that we guinea pigged with for X amount of years.
That's right. Not only do we get screwed over with the games we also play guinea pig for console designs.
PC gaming was never ever as expensive as a console. Ever. For £15-£30 you got a game in a large cardboard box with all sorts of other stuff.
Then it went £25-£30 for a PC game in a plastic case, now we're being hit up for exactly the same amount of cash a console game costs. Only there's no licensing fee so some one is having it large off of us.
We've only seen all of this exciting new stuff since the Xbone and PS4 came out and we are probably only seeing it because they are some sort of X86 arrangement so anything made for us can be used to benefit the consoles. Before that? we were stuck on DX9 for god knows how many years.
And yes Feronix I completely agree with you. Due to the cheap and quite rubbish construction of these consoles in hardware terms we are going to be hurt and held back. The big payday is still the consoles. They get all of the big titles and exclusives first. I can't even remember the last big exclusive on the PC. Crysis, perhaps? Since then everything has been derpy derp console rubbish.
It's definitely true that Microsoft stopped caring about their own PC game development minus Age of Empires III which wasn't that great compared to the last two games in the series...
As for DirectX 9? At the time it was still leaps ahead of OpenGL which was a joke back in the late Windows XP era which is too bad since I remember in GoldSrc Engine and many others back in the day when OpenGL was the undisputed king of optimized performance compared to DirectX 7... another way to look at it too? Microsoft was focusing so much on Windows Vista and its ability to multi-task and DirectX 10 with WDDM 1.0 which was aimed to replace XDDM which Windows XP used and improve upon it in every possible way. To me? It makes sense that they wouldn't limit DirectX 10's abilities by doing backwards compatibility with XDDM since that would have potentially crippled our performance. Much like at the time of Vista's release? Dropping the Hardware Acceleration Layer of Direct Sound in favor of XAudio which was aimed to fix all the blue screens caused by Direct Sound.
Yeah, Windows Vista didn't achieve all its goals it set out to do and wasn't the true replacement for Windows XP... but they did manage to do that with Windows 7. Windows 10? Eh, so far it's not all it's cracked up to be but I still love the subtle improvements like the Notification centre for popups from the system tray and of course DirectX 12, as long as it delivers what we are all hoping of course.
So I wouldn't attribute to the lifespan of DirectX 9 to Consoles, oh heck no, I'd attribute it to the elongated development time of Windows Vista and the lack of competition from OpenGL. I know a lot of people were pissed that Windows XP didn't get DirectX 10, but at the time of Windows Vista release happened? Over seven years passed! That's a long-ass time. There's not many hardware parts in a PC that have warranty or support after seven years lol. NVIDIA drops software driver support on GPUs after about six years to give you an idea... heck, Android manufacturers drop software support usually after only TWO years hahaha, and those easily cost more than double or triple than the price of an Operating System.
GTA is kind of a law unto itself though, name another game that made as much money as that did, and sold as many copies as that did. They only solidified their statement about coming to PC after they made bank with the consoles, then they had the resources to tart it up for a full phat PC release.
Err yeah they did, they added the never done before (in GTA) full first person mode, which changes the gameplay pretty drastically actually.
I for one am glad they still have a spot in their heart for PC and I'm blown away by how darn good GTA V is on PC.
As for first person view? I freaking loved it. They did such an amazing job with it... except for gunning from inside a vehicle in first person. Not being able to shoot through passengers was annoying... could've just made them transparent or made them duck when you aimed near them... and certain angles couldn't be done... yet third person of course you can shoot through passengers no problem... so that's the only parts I did in third person, required drive-by shootings.
