It required specs above the consoles to match it too. Either way not exactly "a lot of effort" if it was heavily single threaded. It was poorly optimised for PC in any case.
PC no longer gets big exclusives I’ve realised
- Thread starter RetroGamingUK
- Start date
Topher
Identifies as young
Well if we are going to point out "fanboy narrative" then that too is a two way street. The entire premise of the OP is a "fanboy narrative" response if we are going to look at it like that. So which is more "prevalently stated" in this case is the OP who actually is the one actually starting the argument in the first place. And none of this is new. This "PC has no exclusives" is an old console "fanboy narrative". It is all part of the PC vs console debate than has been going on for a while.
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
This is almost always the case.
There was at least effort put into the visual upgrades, not so much into the optimization.
clarky
Gold Member
Yeah my brother has one.
I had been looking at an analogue stick for the left hand and a vertical but im on the move alot and its just less hassle to play with a pad these days.
TGO
Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Crayon
Member
Everything you are saying is mostly true but you been around long enough to know forum dynamics. At this particular point in time, op 'claiming' the narrative, is causing a lot of pearl clutching because pc gamers are supposed to be the ones who get to claim all multiplatform games and that doesn't summon so much consternation. It could be different at another time and it could even have been different now, because it's just stories we tell ourselves.
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
hououinkyouma00
Member
hououinkyouma00
Member
Topher
Identifies as young
Eh....a lot of the responses to the OP from the PC crowd has been "no shit". OP has only been here since 2023 so maybe his revelation is genuine. Either way, these things always disintegrate into rehashing the same old arguments.
The textures/models were created for the console res and a lot of it didn't look right at higher res. It did have the usual settings benefits though like draw distance. It was a low effort port. I don't remember any specific visual upgrade that required any work.
rodrigolfp
Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
TGO
Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
I mean this applies to most releases, and day & date wasn't really a thing back then.
Senua
Member
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Shadows, textures, texture filtering, draw distances, water, reflections quality, and traffic density were all improved on PC. It wasn't a "low-effort" because the visual improvements were large. However, the performance left a lot to be desired.
Unknown?
Member
Well closer to top of the line PCs. The last time PC had a huge visual difference where it wasn't even close was PS3/360 era. Every console gen from then on and in the future the difference is less and less because of diminishing returns and the fact that GPUs are not increasing as much each release either. GPUs used to be a big leap each release but now, not so much. I'm just talking about visuals, obviously frames are a different thing all together.
Angry_Megalodon
Member
Oh, look, another thread where the 1% of PCs is put as example of mainstream gaming PC versus consoles power.
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Topher
Identifies as young
The difference is less now than PS3/360 era, sure, but console still has not caught up with a top of the line PC. The difference there is going to be noticeable just as it is noticeable on my 9070 XT vs my PS5 Pro.
But what I'm asking you is what PC you are personally using in comparison here.
Crayon
Member
Ugh I feel obliged t Co look at the first page again to make sure I got it right.brb
Nope actually, you're right. As far as I could tell with some very fast scrolling, fighting didn't really start till the third page.
As usual, it's just 4 or 5 people and 3 of them are
rodrigolfp
.
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Mortisfacio
Member
Satisfactory, DOTA2, Starcraft and WoW I've spent more time on than pretty much any other game.
I don't need some big game with a $200mil+ budget filled with "Cinematic experiences". They're nice and I play them, but at the end of the day the best looking versions of games are PC. The mods. The games I spend the most time on are PC exclusive. So I stick with PC gaming.
I don't need some big game with a $200mil+ budget filled with "Cinematic experiences". They're nice and I play them, but at the end of the day the best looking versions of games are PC. The mods. The games I spend the most time on are PC exclusive. So I stick with PC gaming.
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But that's the thing, shadow quality, texture filtering, draw distance, traffic density are not improvements that require effort those are settings that are sliders or numbers that I'm referring to. Making them run well on lower end hardware might require effort but simply having the options for say increasing draw distance isn't exactly "work" or effort.
There was a list of differences and it was clear that the PC version was missing the finer details that required work even though brute forcing numbers on PC may result in the "definitive version" based on image quality alone:
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tcrf.net
Guilty_AI
Member
RodriGames40
Member
It's not like we are missing out much. The 4090 is barely 3.5 times faster than a PS5, just cut the resolution on PS5 to 720p and anything "PC centric" can run on consoles, next gen the gap will be even more insignificant.
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Bojji
Member
There are games that run like this in "PC centric" settings in 1080p
360p for PS5?
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RodriGames40
Member
Honestly, if Switch 2 can get away with that for Fast Fusion, PS5 also can (unfortunately no DLSS does mess things up...)There are games that run like this in "PC centric" settings in 1080p
360p for PS5?
BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
I don't really know where you're going with this but my point still stands. There is an entire forum dedicated to malding about Sony PC ports. Nobody cared when BG3 or Civ got console releases.
BlueManifest
Member
Half life alyx was exclusive and is still exclusive and really is the most ground breaking game in the last 5 yearsI remember getting my first PC back in 1997 (an IBM Aptiva with Windows 95). While it wasn't the best at running the latest 3D games it was something I still dabbled in (buying Computer Shopper and trying the demos).
Back then there were so many exclusives which, if you had a 3DFX card absolutely blew consoles out of the water
Half-Life
Quake II/ Quake 3 Arena
Thief: The Dark Project
Tom Clancey's Rainbow Six
Homeworld
System Shock 2
Grim Fandango
Unreal Tournament
These games would remain exclusive to PC for years and, if they ever did get ported to console, they would either be severely diminished or something that barely resembled the PC version at all.
Now these types of game all come to console on the same day and, apart from some small resolution differences are exactly the same game.
Then there's online, while you have to pay for console online, consoles get online capability day 1, just as they do on PC.
Many here keep pushing PC due to it having more console games without realising that it's a two way street, consoles now have all the big PC games.
When did all those change, was it the PS3/360 generation?
PC's glory years
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Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
They're the main thing influencing how a game looks. Ultimately, what matters is that the PC version looks a lot better than the console version and it does. If you want to talk about low-effort ports, look at Tales of Symphonia or Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition that literally do not scale and in the case of Dark Souls, even the resolution is fixed. So, no, I wouldn't call GTA IV a low-effort port any more than I'd call the base console version bad because it dips to the low 20s.
Guilty_AI
Member
BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
Are you refering to iconera? It's funny there
THERE IS NO TIME LEFT!
I haven't looked in months and it's always the same topic of discussion. It's sad tbh.
Yeah those settings ultimately influence look but the point was that they required no effort especially if enabling them required beefy PCs. My main point was on the effort required and not so much on which ultimately looked better.
This was my initial post:
So it was the definitive version if things like higher res, higher draw distance, higher AF etc determine this but that too was debatable because a lot of graphical effects were broken on PC as well. What it certainly wasn't in my opinion though was "high effort" because most of the assets (textures/models) and effects were created with console in mind. effects were broken/missing on PC despite options to brute force those scalable higher numbers in options/ini file or whatever. The only thing that required some good effort on the PC version was, if I remember correctly, some kind of video editor that the consoles didn't have.
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LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
I'm not normally one to defend PC at every corner but are you aware of how many breakout hits are on PC only? Perhaps maybe some don't have a pulse but given I have kids in the house l, I can tell you that he is gravitating towards things like Repo and continues to hit up Gary's mod. There's a newer and older game as an example. There are quite a bit of PC exclusives that are unfairly ignored.
Crayon
Member
I think you are just pointing fingers at whoever started it. Yes, ps fans aching over lost exclusives is part and parcel with pc fans rubbing it in their face. Op is throwing a bit of water on it.
I agree with op and I was even saying something veeeeery similar just yesterday....
...
I should say a little further up, I was thinking this thread was more confrontational than it was. Maybe thinking about one of the others that are floating rn. Probably the one I mentioned from yesterday. So tha makes my reply to you that were quoting worthless lol. Sorry need coffee.
Itchy Tickles
Member
There are absolutely tons of pc exclusives, both timed and permanen, but maybe because they arent the most popular genre so people don't notice. Then some games only work on mouse and keyboard and genres that are best suited to them like a lot, not all, but a lot of MMOs. There have been many massive game hits recently that were on PC before anywhere else e.g Balatro, Inscryption etc
Steam alone get so many releases on PC first that aren't just streamer bait or chasing that viral reception.
Then you'd imagine it's more of a straight forward process for either indie or new devs to make a game on pc with all the tools available and the cost of using them.
Devs probably make more per sale on console going by price alone. Then of course its so much "easier" to develop a game for 2 systems with hardware that doesn't change (well in theory it should be, we all know the state of a lot game are way below what they should be).
I personally don't care about exclusives on PC, but I absolutely want my game to be polished and perform well over anything. I appreciate on console they say that exclusives are key to their success, but on PC it doesn't matter, outside of shitty exclusive deals to store fronts / launchers which is worse as its software locked vs hardware.
Steam alone get so many releases on PC first that aren't just streamer bait or chasing that viral reception.
Then you'd imagine it's more of a straight forward process for either indie or new devs to make a game on pc with all the tools available and the cost of using them.
Devs probably make more per sale on console going by price alone. Then of course its so much "easier" to develop a game for 2 systems with hardware that doesn't change (well in theory it should be, we all know the state of a lot game are way below what they should be).
I personally don't care about exclusives on PC, but I absolutely want my game to be polished and perform well over anything. I appreciate on console they say that exclusives are key to their success, but on PC it doesn't matter, outside of shitty exclusive deals to store fronts / launchers which is worse as its software locked vs hardware.
forsakkenSoul
Member
But that makes total sense, and I'd be surprised if the opposite were true.
You only keep games exclusive to PC when it's not viable to release them on consoles, like in the case of niche titles. If a game is exclusive to PC but has a market on consoles, why wouldn't the company release it there too? PC doesn't have a parent company like PlayStation has Sony or Xbox has Microsoft to say, "No, this game is PC-exclusive, and that's final."
PC is an open platform, and since we live in a society where money talks the loudest, why would a company pass up the chance to make more profit?
You only keep games exclusive to PC when it's not viable to release them on consoles, like in the case of niche titles. If a game is exclusive to PC but has a market on consoles, why wouldn't the company release it there too? PC doesn't have a parent company like PlayStation has Sony or Xbox has Microsoft to say, "No, this game is PC-exclusive, and that's final."
PC is an open platform, and since we live in a society where money talks the loudest, why would a company pass up the chance to make more profit?
Kvally
Member
I bonded good with Bryan the site owner. I know they are PS centric. But I'm good with that. I enjoy both even though I prefer Xbox. I don't bother with debates there.It's bizarro forum world.Kvally I see posts there by you a lot. How are you not banned? lol....not that you deserve it, but an Xbox centric guy like you has to really mind your Ps and Qs, I'd imagine.
dragonyeuw
Member
I got into the PC scene about 10 years ago, but aren't consoles nowadays pretty much closed PCs with off the shelf parts? It's not like the days of bespoke cell processors and things like that. At this point a publisher would be denying themselves revenue by keeping a game PC-exclusive, and for what?
DryvBy
Member
GTA 3 wasn't on PC at first. As a PC gamer at the time, I was super bummed out and loved that my cousin brought his PS2 over so I could try it. I don't believe the others did either after that.
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Buggy Loop
Gold Member
For TRIPUUL AAYY maybe
There's a mountain of exclusive things on PC that you just can't have on consoles. A lot of it is also community made and that is fine. Assetto corsa without mods is almost nothing. More serious sims are PC exclusives, iRacing comes to mind, automobilista 2.
The best rally game of all time is still Richard Burns rally and community has been updating it all this time, for over 2 decades.
Or even being ABLE to make a sim rig like that to begin with. Every single input in a game can support some crazy setup for either motion, switches or visual feedback.
Or Falcon 4.0 from 1998 updated by community all this time to support modern rigs and even VR
DCS for flight sim
I know printing a >700 pages manual to fly a plane is not open world 3rd person cinematic experience sexy but on a daily basis these games retain thousands of hardcore players since 2008 in DCS' case and there's nothing like it.
Or some of the best steam reviewed game of 2022 that is FREE if you own Half Life 2?
Mods on PC are insane and give life to games beyond just what you paid. Enderal, nameless mod for deus ex, black mesa, anomaly (stalker), entropy zero 1 & 2, falcon BMS, rallysimfans for RBR, FS2 for freespace 2, AM2R Metroid 2
GZDoom, Dark mod for Thief 1 & 2, black parade mod for Thief, Vampire bloodline modded to be actually playable along with KOTOR 2, etc.
Along with the biggest daily peak games being Counterstrike 2, Dota 2, Escape from Tarkov
The biggest indie scene, the retro shooter and immersive sim renaissance is PC, too many to list.
I have empathy for peoples who can't go and play these insanely good retro shooters
Should all this remain PC exclusive? No, why should it. Why consoles insist on not having a dual boot or open their ecosystem to have infinite mod support or PC games. Why not plug an HOTAS into a console and have DCS. Why still insist on a X86 PC locked with an OS for a bunch of games that are not even really exclusives anymore either but timed exclusive (except Nintendo).
There's a mountain of exclusive things on PC that you just can't have on consoles. A lot of it is also community made and that is fine. Assetto corsa without mods is almost nothing. More serious sims are PC exclusives, iRacing comes to mind, automobilista 2.
The best rally game of all time is still Richard Burns rally and community has been updating it all this time, for over 2 decades.
Or even being ABLE to make a sim rig like that to begin with. Every single input in a game can support some crazy setup for either motion, switches or visual feedback.
Or Falcon 4.0 from 1998 updated by community all this time to support modern rigs and even VR
DCS for flight sim
I know printing a >700 pages manual to fly a plane is not open world 3rd person cinematic experience sexy but on a daily basis these games retain thousands of hardcore players since 2008 in DCS' case and there's nothing like it.
Or some of the best steam reviewed game of 2022 that is FREE if you own Half Life 2?
Mods on PC are insane and give life to games beyond just what you paid. Enderal, nameless mod for deus ex, black mesa, anomaly (stalker), entropy zero 1 & 2, falcon BMS, rallysimfans for RBR, FS2 for freespace 2, AM2R Metroid 2
GZDoom, Dark mod for Thief 1 & 2, black parade mod for Thief, Vampire bloodline modded to be actually playable along with KOTOR 2, etc.
Along with the biggest daily peak games being Counterstrike 2, Dota 2, Escape from Tarkov
The biggest indie scene, the retro shooter and immersive sim renaissance is PC, too many to list.
I have empathy for peoples who can't go and play these insanely good retro shooters
Should all this remain PC exclusive? No, why should it. Why consoles insist on not having a dual boot or open their ecosystem to have infinite mod support or PC games. Why not plug an HOTAS into a console and have DCS. Why still insist on a X86 PC locked with an OS for a bunch of games that are not even really exclusives anymore either but timed exclusive (except Nintendo).
amigastar
Member
Oh yeah, Falcon BMS is a reason alone to play on PC. As is DCS. Love those.
metareferential
Member
PC still gets exclusives, in the form of online-only games, or really niche ones.
And more importantly, some games are de facto exclusives, when you can only benefit from the community (mods, etc.) while playing on pc.
And that's without mentioning the infinite amount of AA and indie games that never arrive on consoles.
And it's retro-compatibility with everything ever produced.
Big games pc-first? Well, the most important one is still and exclusive, and it's the first example in OP's post: Half Life Alyx.
And more importantly, some games are de facto exclusives, when you can only benefit from the community (mods, etc.) while playing on pc.
And that's without mentioning the infinite amount of AA and indie games that never arrive on consoles.
And it's retro-compatibility with everything ever produced.
Big games pc-first? Well, the most important one is still and exclusive, and it's the first example in OP's post: Half Life Alyx.