[nfitzsimmons]

Originally Posted by captainFlunky

Good point. But I think that given the state of PC gaming vis a vis console gaming we are at a transitional point as consoles 'catch up' to PC's as far as sophistication is concerned. Unfortunately, I think the writing is on the wall and there will be less and less complex simulation games coming out in the future because of the potential earnings from developing the 'Britney Spears' for consoles that cater to a younger demographic with more time and disposable income to dedicate to games. It's sad really and makes me long for the good old days of the late 80's, early 90's when Dynamix was putting out games that couldn't possibly be rivaled by the SNES or Genesis. Back then I think, PC gamers had deeper, richer games then their console brothers could ever hope for. (Not that I didn't waste many an hour in college playing Madden, PTO, or Aerobiz on Ye Olde SNES.)

Lets face it- games like SH4 are a dying breed, and not to sound overly fawning I think we should enjoy it while we have it, shortcomings and all. I too wish there was "more" to it, but it's not like there are oodles of sub sims out there as opposed to the seemingly thousands of mindless FPS.

I agree with your point here. Let's face it, it's a whole lot easier to develop for the console market because you have one hardware platform you have to work with. Unlike the PC market where you have a huge number of possible hardware/installed software/OS combinations.

To illustrate this point, I'm not seeing some of the 1.2 issues that a number of people have reported here, but I am seeing some others. Does my 7600GS behave differently that someone else's 7600GT? Or is it due to different CPU, or BIOS version, or OS patch level, or whatever?

The unfortunate point is that gaming companies are seeing a huge increase in households that have both a PC and a dedicated gaming console of some flavor, and they are going to gravitate to the market with the most profit.