(I do not know about the _I.Q. Remix+_ product that was subsequently put out for the PS2, but from what I understand it is not on par with the original.)

I think you misspoke, somewhat — can you rephrase your comments? MSFS is indeed a Windows PC game.

Obviously, de gustibus non est disputandum, but I stand by my statement that the PC has little to recommend itself as a gaming platform, even if you factor out the “costs an order of magnitude more than a gaming console” issue. I’ve written about this quite a bit here:

http://www.tgr.com/weblog/archives/000038.html

Yes, at any given moment the latest and greatest PC is likely to have more “eye candy” than the latest and greatest console; it’s also true that _most of us don’t have the latest and greatest PC_, and _most game developers aren’t writing games that make use of the latest and greatest eye candy features_. I can run half-life 2 on my PC. Most of the DirectX 9 and 10 features won’t work on my videocard. If I want to make them work, I can buy a new videocard. That alone will cost more than an Xbox (and the game will still run unacceptably slowly, at any resolution above 640×480). And it’ll take me 3 hours to install. And will probably crash to desktop. And so on, and so on, and so on.

The pixelation argument I’m not sure I buy. Does anyone who has an Xbox think to themselves “Damn, if only this game were at 1600×1200, everything would look that much better?” Maybe it’s just because I grew up looking at TV resolutions — they look just fine to me, not pixelated at all. But maybe my eye isn’t good enough — is this an issue for anyone else?

I think there _is_ a small argument for having a PC for games (and let’s be real: “PC” and “Windows PC” are interchangeable in this regard; Linux and FreeBSD are not serious gaming platforms). I think the argument for having a PC for gaming is the exact opposite of the one you make. You don’t want a PC for the big marquee games like Half-Life 2. Those games are, sooner or later, going to come out for the consoles, because the big software developers like taking treasure baths and rolling around in fat sacks of cash (Bethesda, for example, made _much much more_ from _Morrowind_ on the Xbox then they did on the PC). The reason to own a PC for gaming is in fact to be able to play the _small_ games, the independent shareware games like Escape Velocity, A Fool and His Money, Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, Breakquest (thanks, misere!), and others. Those games are being produced by talented developers who don’t have the bureaucratic resources needed to break in to the console market.

It turns out that most of those games will play perfectly well on the 5 year old PC you already own, or on the $300 lowest-end Dell PC you can buy.

Thanks for your interesting comments,

Peterb

Seeing that MSFS is the only non-PC game you recommend, I think what you really
meant to state was that it’s become harder to justify the PC as a gaming
platform. And I have to say that just ain’t so.
If you’re into real state-of-the-art ‘eye-candah’ and care about how big the
pixelation on your screen is you play a PC platform game, especially for all
kinds of FPS’s.

It’s only $20 and there’s a demo. I haven’t played Halo 2 since registering it.