On the Logic and Sense of PC ports

TwoDashStash: "Online petitions, be they meaningless exercises in sycophancy and the most uninvolved means of activism imaginable or a powerful and accessible tool that allows the will of the people to be heard, opinions of them are quite divided. One thing is for sure though; their impact on policy decisions doesn’t appear to have any relation to the amount of signatures they accrue, not if recent events are anything to go by."

[Corpser]

Why do people want last gen remasters? To play the same game on a more powerful system with better graphics, same reason why people want these games on PC, Sure I'll get Bloodborne on ps4 because i have to, but my PC can run the game so much better

[uth11]

It helps convince some people to switch.

I know someone that sold their PS3, bought a PS4, but then sold their PS4 and bought another PS3 because they wanted to play Borderlands.

[LordMaim]

I guess they look foolish now that the Borderlands Handsome Edition is available on the PS4

[uth11]

I'm sure it does.

It blows my mind because they lost money every time they traded in. They probably could own both systems for the amount of money they lost

I guess some people just live off impulses and don't think ahead or research what they're buying

[Genuine-User]

Bloodborne Port begging is getting incredibly monotonous now. Sony co-developed the game. It won't come out on anything except Playstation.

[Clunkyd]

Or maybe they just don't consider playing on a PC because for what it is, A COMPUTER.

[kraenk12]

There is only one problem..You/we won't get this game on PC.

[PurpHerbison]

Remasters are driving me nuts. Bloodborne is literally the first breath of fresh air on consoles this gen.

[starchild]

Agreed. I think the petition is pointless because in this case it is highly doubtful Sony would allow a PC version to be made.

However, there is nothing wrong with wanting the game to be released on PC.

Some people keep saying things like "if you want the game so bad just buy a PS4" or "if you can afford a $3,000 PC then you can definitely afford a $400 PS4". These people don't get it. I already own a PS4. I already own Bloodborne. I simply would prefer to play it on my PC.

[Big_Game_Hunters]

Honestly every game should just come to PC, that would be a perfect world.

[Eiffel]

Judging from the disagrees I guess people would rather have games disappear with their platforms rather than exist forever on a platform not limited by shelf life. Pity that.

[Timesplitter14]

A disagree on N4G does not mean "I think this is wrong". It means "I wish this was wrong".

I swear I once saw a post saying high-end PCs were more powerful than a PS4 and it had more disagrees than agrees

(seems like many people wish I were wrong!)

[uth11]

If there's any wishful thinking in this it's the statement "every game should just come to PC", not the disagrees.

[Timesplitter14]

what's wrong with "should"?

Just face it, you are being a fanboy and you are more interested in Sony than you are in video games

[huckle]

^
Nothing wrong with wanting something at all, everyone thinks something "should" happen. Including exclusive games existing, owning powerful PC's, and wishing games to come to their platform they play on.

Consumers wanted a cheaper machine, without PC hassles, that plays some of the greatest games. And Sony wants people to buy their machine they made, so they give them incentives to do so...

The idea of want and wish is one put in motion by consumers and accommodated by businesses, and is essentially greedy. Saying one person's want is worse than another's, in our market, is simply wrong. Fanboy is just a term used to downplay their specific wants and wishes.

[Genuine-User]

"Platform exclusives are essential. Especially when the vast majority of games are multi-platform.

Exclusives give them the opportunity to differentiate and persuade people to buy one console over another.

Now, I agree that when they buy up third party, multi-platform titles (like Street Fighter and Tomb Raider this time round) it is wrong, cheap and distasteful. But commissioning, helping to make, paying for, and publishing their own first party games (like Halo, Uncharted, Bloodborne etc) is good practice. It leads to sales of more consoles, more PS+/Live memberships, and more money available to invest in other games. That's the way the system works."

Gayrath

[Timesplitter14]

What I find the most ridiculous about people using the "Platform exclusives are essential" argument is that they don't even seem to realize that it's only essential for Sony, MS or Nintendo, but NOT FOR THE CONSUMER!

As a consumer you are free to pick whichever platform is best. Securing exclusives for the PS4 is Sony's concern, not ours

[DragonKnight]

@Timesplitter: Of the amount of concurrent users on Steam (I believe it was 8 million), how many would you imagine actually have even decent gaming rigs? See, PC gamers love to tout all kinds of numbers, but there is one important number to really consider. Actual consumer base. I'm not talking potential consumer base, I'm talking people who, short of something happening or there being other priorities, are most likely to buy certain games.

This is important to companies AND consumers because if more consumers buy a product on a certain platform, more companies will feel better about taking risks and putting product on that platform. So of the 8 million concurrent Steam users, if only 1 million of them have rigs capable of running Bloodborne at better resolution and framerate than the PS4, but the PS4 has 20 million consoles that can all run it equally, which do you think a company would decide to prioritize?

The PC numbers are not meant to be exact in my argument, just a general thing to make an example.

[Genuine-User]

@ Timesplitter14

I'm sure people realize that exclusives are more essential to the platform holders. What are you basing your assumption on?

I never heard of anyone securing exclusives for Playstation, outside of Sony.

[Timesplitter14]

@DragonKnight
None of what you just said actually matters. You are still thinking in terms of "I need to give my soul to my company of choice!!!"

What I'm telling you is that console exclusives should be released on PC because it would make them available to nearly everyone.

(btw, 8 million concurrent steam users means 8 million active users online AT THE SAME TIME. Steam has 100+ million users)

@Genuine-User
I'm talking about people who say things like "Bloodborne shouldn't go to PC because exclusives are too important". Exclusives are important to Sony, but not to you. As a consumer, you choose whatever platform is the best. So Bloodborne SHOULD come to PC because then you wouldn't even need to buy a PS4 anymore

[DragonKnight]

TimeSplitter: I could easily say the same thing to you about you and your PC. Replace a company, with a brand of silicon chips. Yeah, PC fanboys have brand loyalty too, only instead of it being to an entire device, it's to a few nanometers of silicon and plastic.

No, releasing the game on PC is not the same as making it available to nearly everyone. Nearly everyone does not have a gaming capable PC. Releasing it on PC makes it nearly available to gamers with the appropriate hardware to play it. Same as exclusives.

And btw, concurrent users is more important than total account numbers. If it weren't PSN would have Steam beat because, like Steam, you can make as many free accounts as you want but PSN is extended across multiple devices and people have been known to make country, and device specific accounts.

[Genuine-User]

@ Timesplitter14

"None of what you just said actually matters. You are still thinking in terms of "I need to give my soul to my company of choice!!!"

Rather than coming up with a compelling argument, you decide to mock him?

"What I'm telling you is that console exclusives should be released on PC because it would make them available to nearly everyone. "

That's a fallacious argument. Releasing the game on PC will not make the game available to nearly everyone, Unless every game is available on every platform, this argument holds no substance.

"I'm talking about people who say things like "Bloodborne shouldn't go to PC because exclusives are too important". Exclusives are important to Sony, but not to you.

What is important to others should not be of any concern to you.

"As a consumer, you choose whatever platform is the best."

And if you want to play Bloodborne, you play it on the only console it's available on.

"So Bloodborne SHOULD come to PC because then you wouldn't even need to buy a PS4 anymore"

This is based on the assumption that everyone owns a gaming PC or even a standard PC.

[Timesplitter14]

no, imagine this:
You wake up tomorrow morning and find out that every platform ever has every game ever. The only thing that differentiates them now is their specs and their price. In this situation, which platform would be the best?

I'm trying to tell you that console exclusives are the only reason to buy a console. Make these games not exclusive anymore and you remove the need to spend extra money on them if you already have a PC. If you have a PS4 and want to play Halo, it removes the need to buy a X1. You cannot possibly convince people that it would be BAD to release a game on more platforms. Think about it.

-

and does it even matter if concurrent users is more important than total users? if steam has 8 million concurrent users, PS4 probably has 1.5 million. The comparison is the same....

[DragonKnight]

Timesplitter you've argued yourself into an area where all of your points are, at best, speculative and hold no actual merit of any kind. The idea that people will automatically choose PC is based on the idea that people don't have other considerations to take even assuming all games are on all platforms.

Things like ease of use, portability, price, etc.. are all considerations people make.

A commonly heard complaint about gaming today is that it's becoming too much like PC gaming. Whereas in the past one could turn on a console, pop a game in, then play it; today you turn on a console, pop a game in, install the game to your harddrive, download and install updates, then play the game. This annoys people.

A very real problem PC enthusiasts have is the idea that everyone is like them. That's not even remotely true.

Consoles have one configuration only, and even though they are being introduced to the more annoying aspects of PC gaming, the fact that you don't have to mess around with your games to make them work is a HUGE consideration people take. You also don't have to worry that in 3 or 4 years your console will not be able to play the newest games at good settings without having to upgrade it.

So no, if all games are on all platforms that would not mean an instant win for PC because everyone would automatically choose PC. Steam Customer support would be enough by itself not to.

And as for the concurrent users, given that you know nothing about the number of concurrent users on any console, you'd do best to refrain from talking about it.

[ZombieGamerMan]

@ Timesplitter14 so in short you just want PC gaming to succeed and leave consoles to die is that right, you're just another PC elitist complaining that consoles get games PC don't

[starchild]

@Timesplitter14

I completely agree with you. I've argued this point before, but fanboys will defend the idea of exclusives to the ends of the earth with the most specious arguments you can imagine. I think these people actually derive more enjoyment from cheering a brand than actually playing games.

Exclusives may help the platform holders gain more share over their competitors, but they are not good for gamers in general.

I've used this example before, but I'll use it again because I think it illustrates the point pretty well. Imagine if the makers of Blu-ray and DVD players--companies like Samsung, Panasonic, LG, etc--suddenly began paying to make certain movies exclusive to only their Blu-ray/DVD players. Would this be a good thing for consumers?

Sure, it might help certain companies with more desirable lineups of exclusive movie titles capture a larger share of the market, but how would it help movie lovers? Instead of being able to buy your movie player of choice, suddenly you are confronted with the fact that if you want to watch all the movies you love you are going to have to buy many different players. This would be a nightmare scenario for movie watchers.

But in the gaming world this is exactly the sort of situation we find ourselves in. It's sad that, in order to play all the games we love, we have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on multiple, largely redundant, gaming devices. Is it the end of the world? No, but it certainly isn't an ideal situation for gamers.

[Big_Game_Hunters]

@ Dk so 8 million is always the same 8 million despite timezones ect? Also hardware loyalty like Nvdia vs AMD is different because it still is all one platform.

The reason why everything should come to PC is because PC gamers have the choice to have whatever hardware they can afford. for most PC gamers that means something stronger than PS4. With PS4 however if Bloodborne runs at 30 frames with dips i don't have the option to improve that via my own methods, same applies to xone.

[freshslicepizza]

it's frustrating enough that some publishers still don't take pc gaming seriously but what's even more frustrating are loyal fans who are actually advocating against ports. why? why does the possibility of bloodborne or any other game getting a later port bother them? it all boils down to one thing, they want the hardware company to be prosperous at all cost, even if it means restricting access.

the irony is these same people will be the first to cry fowl when they think console parity is at play because the developer isn't using the hardware to its fullest. this is why many enjoy pc gaming, to get better performance.

we all know why hardware companies have a vested interest in keeping games exclusive, they want to sell hardware but for the life of me i don't understand how the consumers have been brainwashed into thinking that is what's best only because it suits them.

@ZombieGamerMan
"Timesplitter14 so in short you just want PC gaming to succeed and leave consoles to die is that right, you're just another PC elitist complaining that consoles get games PC don't"

if console gaming dried up it wouldn't be because the pc got ports. it would be because consumers don't see any value in it if there are better alternatives. this has yet to be the case so why would it be true now? there is a large enough market to support console gaming over and above what happens on the pc. you are suggesting that pc would thrive too much if all games came to it but fail to admit in your own argument that if that was true then console gaming doesn't offer enough incentives unless they restrict access. that's not really a consumer friendly approach to success is it?

[freshslicepizza]

dk,
"So of the 8 million concurrent Steam users, if only 1 million of them have rigs capable of running Bloodborne at better resolution and framerate than the PS4, but the PS4 has 20 million consoles that can all run it equally, which do you think a company would decide to prioritize?"

why only talk about pc hardware better than the ps4? i am sure people will gladly play bloodborne at 720p if it means not having to spend another $400 just for the hardware. psn on the ps4 has never had 8 million concurrent users, or on the ps3. sony amalgamates all platforms with psn access when giving out stats. they never isolate the actual numbers like steam does. your numbers can also go the other way, just because 20 million ps4's are out there doesn't mean any game, let alone bloodborne, is going to sell anywhere close to 20 million copies. that's why pc publishers don't concentrate only on top end users, why would they. many pc gamers play games less than top settings so don't just focus on one group because it serves only your interest to debunk why this game shouldn't come to the pc.

"A commonly heard complaint about gaming today is that it's becoming too much like PC gaming. Whereas in the past one could turn on a console, pop a game in, then play it; today you turn on a console, pop a game in, install the game to your harddrive, download and install updates, then play the game. This annoys people."

so you are blaming games that had terrible launch issues like driveclub and halo collection on the pc even though that game never came to the pc? go ahead and blame the pc then for the explosion of online gaming but don't blame that platform for bugs, connectivity issues and releasing games too early.

"A very real problem PC enthusiasts have is the idea that everyone is like them. That's not even remotely true."

no it's not true but it still doesn't stop sony from porting console games and handhelds back and forth. why is pc gaming all of the sudden the red-headed stepchild because you don't want to support it?

"Consoles have one configuration only, and even though they are being introduced to the more annoying aspects of PC gaming, the fact that you don't have to mess around with your games to make them work is a HUGE consideration people take."

did you also know the patch process takes longer on consoles because they have more hoops to jump through in the authorization process? this delay is due to corporate processing.

"You also don't have to worry that in 3 or 4 years your console will not be able to play the newest games at good settings without having to upgrade it."

the upside is in 3 or 4 years the games have become more advanced, unlike on consoles where they just get more optimized. in 3 or 4 years you can still play the latest multiplatform games with the same settings the ps4 and xbox one will offer of you wish. it has nothing to do with the need to upgrade. people upgrade because technology gets better, that doesn't really happen on consoles, they have a certain headroom only. in 3 or 4 years maybe people want to play those multiplat games in 4k, doesn't mean they have to upgrade. the same pc hardware now will allow the same settings the consoles will offer even 4 years from now.

not very good counter arguments by you but nice try.

[Malice-Flare]

well, in that hypothetical world, MS will achieve their always online dream earlier than they would without any actual alternative to stop them...

Windows 10 is a step to a subscription-based OS where if you want the most updated OS you'll need a yearly subscription like Office 365. it is the reason why online multi-player will be 'free' while console-based gamers will still have an XBL subscription. it wouldn't matter if your game came from STEAM, Origin or the Windows Apps store, MS will get the cut from the users directly...

*removes tinfoil radiation protector*

[uth11]

"and its (PS4) operating system is based on the FreeBSD 9.0 kernel, a Linux distribution."

Misinformation, BSD is not Linux.

So his logic is that because they have similar hardware, they should do the port, it isn't hard. Then by that logic every Windows game should get a Mac and Linux port, right? It isn't hard...

But ports were never ever about technical difficulty. They are always about business reasons.

[pyroxxx]

It is called product differentiation ,.. And it is only reasons why PlayStation always wins,.. they differentiate their products with having better games,.. It is not a rocket science

[mysteryraz11]

get over it its not coming to the pc, pc gamers nothing but beggars and jerks who brag about their specs but only wanna play console ports instead of their own games

[Pandamobile]

God forbid players show interest in games on another platform.

Just because I might consider playing Bloodborne, doesn't mean I'm going to go out and drop $400 on a machine to play one game.

[MasterCornholio]

Why cant people accept that Sony owns the IP?

You want it?

Buy a PS4.

Problem solved.

[Master-H]

The PC master race is clearly going out of its way begging for this one. Sell your super duper GPU and join the peasantry ranks by getting a ps4 if you're that interested, geez.

[urwifeminder]

SOE is no longer but Sony pc games are welcome be a good cash maker for sony , put them on pc a year after they publish console versions that way the hard fanny not so up in arms. But I think sony fans would prefer they go broke before that happens.