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RADAR GLADSTONED<br />
GLADSTONED<br />
Great moments in gaming punditry<br />
COLUMN<br />
Every five years, some alleged game<br />
industry “expert” earns a berth on the > short bus with this half-witted assessment:<br />
“PC gaming is dead.” I know I touched<br />
upon this briefly in my last column, but I’m<br />
pissed. One such clown in the mainstream<br />
media recently wrote of his willingness to predict<br />
that the real loser to the emergence of the<br />
Xbox 360 and PS3 will be PC gaming. Buddy,<br />
PC gaming isn’t dead. Not by a long shot. OK,<br />
so the new consoles demoed at E3 look pretty<br />
interesting (even though the Xbox 360 was<br />
> You<br />
running on an Apple G5 workstation and the<br />
PS3 demo was running on...wait for it...a PC<br />
with two GeForce 7800 GTX cards in SLI<br />
mode) but what those consoles can do now, a<br />
PC will do better in six to eight months.<br />
Some refer to Moore’s Law, but I like to call<br />
the console-versus-PC battle “The Five Year<br />
Itch.” In 1996, the original Playstation<br />
launched for $300. It had a 32-bit RISC CPU<br />
(33.9MHz), 2MB RAM, 1MB Video RAM and<br />
proprietary technology to handle 3D graphics.<br />
At the time, a $3,000 gaming PC packed a<br />
200MHz Pentium CPU, 32MB DRAM, and 2MB<br />
Video RAM, and the first good 3D cards were<br />
coming out. These numbers seem a little<br />
skewed, but since a console is streamlined for<br />
gaming, it can operate faster and requires less<br />
horsepower than your standard-issue PC rig.<br />
Over the next five years, programmers tried<br />
to eke as much as possible from the PS1<br />
before hitting a technology wall. After all, you<br />
can’t upgrade a console.<br />
When the PS2 neared U.S.<br />
shores, promising a 300MHz<br />
CPU, 4MB DRAM, 4MB<br />
VRAM, and another proprietary<br />
graphics engine for<br />
$300, gaming PCs similarly<br />
beefed up. A lean machine<br />
sported an AMD Athlon 750,<br />
128MB SDRAM, and a<br />
64MB graphics card for<br />
about $1,500. Fast-forward<br />
another five years to mid-<br />
2006 and the PS3's arrival.<br />
The PS3 may shock you<br />
with its power when it<br />
launches but I’m willing to<br />
bet my graphics card you<br />
can expect low- to midlevel<br />
computers to easily dwarf<br />
the power of the new con-<br />
24 > COMPUTER GAMING WORLD<br />
soles within a year (two, tops) of their launch.<br />
And soon, thanks to XNA, you’ll finally be able<br />
to play a game on your PC as you do on the<br />
consoles, simply by sticking a disc in the<br />
drive—without having to perform an actual<br />
installation. XNA promises developers it can<br />
easily standardize game coding (and allow you<br />
to use Xbox 360 controllers on your PC). And<br />
with the coming gaming/consumer-friendly<br />
new Windows OS, code-named Longhorn,<br />
Microsoft is making a broader, more aggressive<br />
case for PC gaming in general.<br />
can expect low- to mid-level computers<br />
to dwarf the power of the new<br />
consoles within a year of their launch.<br />
Yes, your average PC will cost more than a<br />
console. But really, how much more will it<br />
cost? Speculation has it that the Xbox 360 and<br />
PS3 will be a little pricey—possibly as much<br />
as $400—and they can do only a fraction of<br />
the things a PC can. You can get a great performance<br />
PC for under $2,000, and I know<br />
plenty of other things I can do with it beyond<br />
gaming, pr0n downloads aside.<br />
PCs have the market cornered on MMOs,<br />
FPS games, and countless strategy and RPG<br />
titles. Consoles have their strengths, obviously—ease<br />
of use and couch-potato gaming<br />
being at the top of the list. Point is, there’s<br />
enough room in my house for a PC and a console.<br />
How about you?/Darren Gladstone darren_gladstone@ziffdavis.com<br />
THIS IS A CONDENSED VERSION OF<br />
THE RANT DARREN SPEWED FORTH ON<br />
CGW_GIZMO.1UP.COM.<br />
NAME THAT PLATFORM<br />
QUESTION: Three games on three platforms,<br />
all using the same engine. Which is which?<br />
A b c<br />
ANSWER: EPIC’S UNREAL 3 ENGINE PROVIDES THE BEST<br />
EXAMPLE OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE ON EACH PLATFORM.<br />
TECHNICALLY, THE XBOX 360 DEMO OF GEARS OF WAR (SHOT A)<br />
WAS RUNNING OFF AN APPLE G5 WORKSTATION. THE PS3 DEMO<br />
OF UNREAL TOURNAMENT (SHOT B) WAS DONE ON A HIGH-END<br />
PC WITH TWO NEXT-GEN NVIDIA CARDS IN SLI MODE.<br />
MEANWHILE, THE PC’S UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2007 (SHOT C)<br />
LOOKS EQUALLY FANTASTIC, BUT CONSOLES DON’T EXACTLY<br />
IMPROVE WITH AGE—PCS DO.<br />
REGULAR<br />
CONSOLE CORNER<br />
A LOOK AT THE REST OF<br />
THE GAMING WORLD<br />
There are plenty of good games out<br />
there beyond what’s on the PC. Whether<br />
you also own a PS2, Xbox, GameCube,<br />
PSP, DS, or—heaven help you—an Ngage,<br />
we’re here to help. So here’s our<br />
pick for the best of the console world<br />
now shipping to store shelves.<br />
SONY’S PSP<br />
> NORMALLY, THIS IS THE SPOT WHERE<br />
we single out a console game that we<br />
feel you simply have to pick up. This<br />
month, though, it’s a little different. Sony’s<br />
handheld, the PSP, could very well be the<br />
next Walkman. We are not exaggerating<br />
here—every editor at CGW has a PSP, and<br />
we’re hooked.<br />
There are already a bag load of good<br />
games—which we’ll get to in a second—<br />
but Sony’s new handheld is capable of a<br />
whole lot more. We’ve used ours to read<br />
comics, listen to a couple hours’ worth of<br />
music, and even watch DVDs ripped onto<br />
Memory Stick Duos (tip No. 27: Buy<br />
SanDisk’s 1GB memory card if you can find<br />
one—its cards are reliable and relatively<br />
inexpensive at $150). And the PSP is quickly<br />
becoming a hacker’s dream machine, as<br />
people are finding ways to put console<br />
emulators, Web browsers, and more onto<br />
the new portable.<br />
As for what should be on your play list:<br />
Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Wipeout Pure,<br />
Ridge Racer, and the digital crack known<br />
as Lumines. Also promising at press time<br />
are Rockstar Games’ PSP versions of GTA:<br />
Liberty City Stories and Midnight Club 3:<br />
DUB Edition./<br />
>> Sony’s handheld,<br />
the PSP,<br />
could very well be<br />
the next Walkman.<br />
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