[citation][nom]usersname[/nom]But all console titles are linear and frankly, generally, unimaginative despite the millions poured into them. They have such constraints imposed upon them. What artist wants caging? Okay, masochistic ones. Necessity should be the mother of invention, but that simply hasn't happened with console titles. IMHO the very best games are still exclusively Personal Computer titles. And with each year more developers are suckered into console because that, they believe, is where the money is. But Valve is making money for itself and developers. Heck, soon it will be virtually impossible to pirate them because the whole game purchasing/playing loop will tied into their SSA. Great for developers because you don't have a second-hand market to cannibalise your sales nor widespread piracy. Great for consumers/gamers because they hopefully get fewer linear games dependent on paddles and twaddles. With MS you have an autocracy which stifles creativity.So what if Apple Mac users have to switch to lower resolutions/features or drop some fps, it will be their choice, they wont mind, they are not that fussed. My partner plays Valve games on a MacBook at well over 65fps (all features on) and it's more than adequate. On the iMac it's over 100fps. On my MacPro/GTX285 I can get over 150fps on some games. Most PC users (98%) had settle for poor settings in order to play Crysis…it's the nature of the beast.I'm not a fanatical technologist, I am a passionate gamer and there isn't a best platform. There are only good games and bad games. I play good games happily on different OS's. Each to their own.[/citation]
The xbox is a mixed bag for the Win PC gaming community imo, it increases sales quite abit that attracts developers but it also requires them to stupidify/simplify the games since the console's normal controls can't coup with advanced control schemes like fast paced shooters, rts and the like without using cheat like methods (auto-aim ect.. what happened to real player skill?). Many developers choose to make a title that suits both markets. The DX9 limitation is also keeping back the advancement in gfx usage (DX11) in the titles. Cant wait for a refreshment in the xbox with Dx11. Tessellation ect will allow quite insane scalability.
I think Steam will be the future of game distribution and it has clear advantages for the developers/publishers however their prices needs to be adjusted to increase the euro sales, its plainly wrong when a retail box with manual, media ect costs about 60% (sweden) of the steam title where you get no manual ect.
Valve games haven't ever been that demanding in gfx (not even when the orginal Halflife was release) and i have no idea what fps is reachabe with my 2x480gtx (sli) with the 2560x1600 i usually run all games with the exception of the few titles where the hud don't scale well with that resolution, then the lower resolution with high AA is preferred.