Microsoft: hardly anyone plays first person shooters on the PC

[Emil]

Microsoft Game Studios manager Kudo Tsunoda has been aggressively talking up Xbox 360 Kinect in the last few days, and while doing so he's expressed his opinion on the current state of PC gaming. According to him, Halo is responsible for "hardly anyone" playing first-person shooters on the PC nowadays.

"Halo did an awesome job of building a first-person shooter exclusively for the console, and now hardly anyone plays first person shooters on the PC anymore," the Microsoft spokesperson told GameInformer (via Neowin). "It's all about the console."

Tsunoda believes that first-person shooters started on the PC, developers then tried to port them to the console, but they only really took off when they were built for the console from the ground-up. Shooters on the console started to be really fun when developers stopped porting them from the PC. His argument is that the same will happen with Kinect: when asked what he thought of Kinect's use in future games, he explained that taking a game made for a controller and porting it over to Kinect will never be as good an experience as taking the time to build a game for the Kinect from the ground up.

In context, his analogy makes sense. It wasn't necessary, however, to take a stab at shooters on the PC. Even if shooters are doing well on the console, there are still many shooters that are developed just for the PC that are great. In the same way, even when Kinect takes off, there will still be many games developed for the Xbox platform that will not be built for it, and they will still be great.

Microsoft is pushing hard to market the Kinect. The first-person shooter quote comes hot on the heels of Microsoft saying that it is targeting more than three million units sold in the first two months and the same representative predicting the motion-sensor gaming accessory will outsell the iPad. The device will launch on November 4 in the US and on November 10 in Europe.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/40345-microsoft-hardly-anyone-plays-first-person-shooters-on-the-pc.html

 

[treeski]

I've never been a console person, and if I ever am, I can guarantee it won't be for first person shooters. That comment makes me

 

[Lokalaskurar]

Unless consoles become a custom-build device just like the PC, there will always be PC-FPS fanboys trying to tweak every little framerate out of Crysis, Far Cry, Brothers in Arms or whatever suits them.

 

[TomSEA]

Just a Microsoft mouthpiece promoting the Kinect (which will ultimately fail because it's a niche item to attract non-traditional gamers just like the Wii did). Traditional gamers will stick with "real games" with a "real controller," not novelty stuff.

The list of shooter games played on the PC is a mile long with millions of active participants, and any gamer worth their salt knows that.

 

[Guest]

If anything, the "downfall" of modern PC FPS games has been that devlopers have been porting them from consoles for the PC.

 

[IamBD]

I hate FPS on the consoles since they can not be as precise and as fast as a PC one. And if I recall, Halo was being devoloped for the PC, but then MS decided to have Bungie finish it as an XBOX launch title, so that game wasnt built from the ground up for them. That statment should have "FPS" switched with "Sports games".

 

[Vrmithrax]

Yah, talk about a company forgetting its roots. Halo wouldn't exist if not for PC gaming, and the original Xbox WAS just a simplified and specialized PC, which (if anyone remembers) was being pushed as one of the positives of that console, when it first launched. Just pathetic that they would sell out their ancestry to try to drum up and justify sales of the lamest "motion interface" product hitting the market now.

 

[Relic]

Tsunoda is a bit of a fruitcake to say the least, but I do understand what he's trying to say. At least you guys properly put him into context unlike many other sites, however his choice of words is still pretty poor. While PC gaming may no longer have that one shooter with a giant 700k+ user base playing at one time, the amount of shooters still active with servers ranging from the tens to hundreds of thousands far exceed that of consoles.

 

[treeski]

Lokalaskurar said:
Unless consoles become a custom-build device just like the PC, there will always be PC-FPS fanboys trying to tweak every little framerate out of Crysis, Far Cry, Brothers in Arms or whatever suits them.

Yeah, because that's exactly why gamers on PCs play FPSers. It has nothing to do with better visuals, better controls etc... *face-palm*

 

[Zilliak]

haha halo killed it for pc gamers and yeah halo started out as pc but ended up being a full blown console game and was ported to pc. It was built from the ground up for xbox.

 

[Wagan8r]

Yeah... tell that to the Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 crowds.

 

[Guest]

I think he got hit by the sticky grenade on his b***s . FPS on PC > on CONSOLES(PERIOD).

 

[Archean]

Such an foolish comment by this Mr. Kudo Tsunoda ...... sometimes I do wonder what will happen to Windows if people stop playing games on PC? One of the most compelling reasons for windows constantly being the most used OS is PC gaming, so do he really wants to shoot himself (or MS for that matter) in the foot?

 

[Cueto_99]

"Hardly anyone plays first person shooters on the PC anymore"... Really? in what planet are you living Kudo? Probably Reach... News on Earth is most FPS Gamers play on PC, and a mouse is the best weapon for us, not a controller and neither will be kinect...

 

[SilverCider]

Archean said:
Such an foolish comment by this Mr. Kudo Tsunoda ...... sometimes I do wonder what will happen to Windows if people stop playing games on PC? One of the most compelling reasons for windows constantly being the most used OS is PC gaming, so do he really wants to shoot himself (or MS for that matter) in the foot?

I can almost guarantee this never crossed his mind! Haha!

 

[Tekkaraiden]

There has to be something in the air or in the water in Redmond.

 

[Hazard]

omg ... is this guy genuinely high?
ok paragraph 1 : sooo your saying that HARDLY ANYONE PLAYS FPS ON PC ANYMORE ... Half-life, Unreal Tournament, Left 4 Dead, and say that to the ( i qoute, source Steam ) '' 67,64 (players online) Counter-Strike: Source, and another 65,378 (players online) Counter-Strike.

Par 2: same as par 1

par 3: ''Tsunoda believes that first-person shooters started on the PC, developers then tried to port them to the console, but they only really took off when they were built for the console from the ground-up. '' yeah especially doom...

par 4: Now... dont think im some type of pc all the way fanboy i own a ps3 and wii... and personally prefer my pc... but in a way its like microsoft back stabbed and spoke straight outta there ***.

Par 5: i personally think kinect wont sell as much as theyre hoping the average 40 year old is going to think... '' qmm this new technology sure is complicated, i might stick to my wii '' yes i know its very easy to use but old people tend to think that...

conc: sorry i made this really long but 1 no word limit and 2 im actually pissed at how such professional companys/people are able to talk outta there ***.. thank you

 

[BabyFaceLee]

Guest said:
If anything, the "downfall" of modern PC FPS games has been that devlopers have been porting them from consoles for the PC.

Absolutely true. Half-hearted 'ports have emasculated the PC versions of console games. Bring back the days when highly capable PC games were developed and subsequently 'ported to console i.e. trimmed back.

 

[Eddie_42]

Halo had a PC version, I played it.

Graphics of a PC are far superior to anything a console can kick out, and as such i will stick with my PC, play some LFD2, CoD, and TF2

 

[IamBD]

"haha halo killed it for pc gamers and yeah halo started out as pc but ended up being a full blown console game and was ported to pc. It was built from the ground up for xbox"

That statement is contridicting itself.

 

[Guest]

That is probably a "marketing" statement. I maybe the few, but PC FPS is still the one for me.

Why no FPS on the console for me...two reasons:

1. I hated Bungie cause I waited up to 3hrs at E3 to watch their Halo intro only to learn later they turn it into a Console :-(

2. I can't...ever...get used to those controller.

Now, if they can make Kinect to work right on FPS and get a 60"+ screen, then maybe........

nah...probably not, haha.
-ks

 

[EXCellR8]

i'm getting a kinect so i can step on it...

the guy obviously has no idea what he's talking about, like most microsoft employees for that matter. the steam community, while not quite as big as XBL, is massive now and most of the games on there are FPS. if that's "hardly anyone" than seriously how many people are signed up for XBL? 3 trillion?

 

[Per Hansson]

For me racing games etc work great on a console (with the controller)
FPS is just wrong, so imprecise and slow movement, it really does not work for me
He may well be right when looking at total sales numbers tho

And that really makes me sad, because these companies care nothing for the people anymore, it's all about how much money they can milk out of a franchise, nothing else

 

[red1776]

if they are going to drop the PC versions, they had better start making i7 crossfire/sli consoles...oh wait...

 

[fwilliams]

A PC hooked up with a wheel and pedal is awesome for racing games.