Two problems with that strategy:
1) I don't have an Xbox
2) If I did have an Xbox I'd still wait for the PC version

I don't have a 360....thought I mentioned that.

that MS would stick to their guns and keep 360 exclusives on 360. This polygamy between the two platforms while still crying "IT'S EXCLUSIVE, TRUST ME!" is why people with PCs will never make the jump to 360. It's not worth it; the games almost always come out on PC.

Hey, vulcanproject, I have been interested in getting into PC gaming and I have a few questions. How much do you think I will have to spend to get reliably better performance than on the consoles? I have heard of some games like Chronicles of Riddick AODA and Assassin's Creed require a pretty powerful rig in order to get better performance than the consoles.

The other thing that bothers me is the fact that when I watch videos on youtube of PC versions of games being played the camera panning always seems jerkier than what I am used to on consoles. Now, I know that the actual FPS is usually much higher on the PC, but I am really talking about the smoothness of the camera panning. Is it down to the keyboard and mouse controls that PC games often use? Is that what gives the games a jerkier appearance?

The last thing I wanted to know is how many games allow you to use a standard controller?

http://www.tomshardware.com...

This is a guide for a machine you can build yourself, minus operating system, screen and peripherals etc. Expect to find a bit more money if you want a pre built machine with similar performance.

You really dont need much of a machine these days to consistantly beat out console performance comfortably. Just see how call of duty modern warfare 2 runs 70 frames a second with over THREE TIMES (1920 x 1080) as much resolution than the consoles, higher settings and more filtering to boot....

A lot of titles support the 360 pad these days, but not all. Games that do include stuff like crysis, fallout 3, just cause 2 etc. As for the 'jerkiness' that you might see, it could be a number of things. Mouse smoothing might not be enabled, and a lot of people run underpowered systems when recording, also running a recording programme on the Pc itself instead of a capture card massively reduces performance, so its probably capture problems. You will see that a Pc game at a consistant 60 frames a second will look and feel so incredibly smooth compared to a 30 frames version on a console.

Now is a great time to buy a gaming PC. Midway through the console lifespan, you will see a good difference between the versions as Pc is now leaps ahead. It will also be several years until the new consoles appear and surpass a gaming PC purchased now.

Thanks a lot, vulcanproject. I really think I am going to go ahead with building a PC for gaming. I am pretty technically minded and good with computers so I think I should have no problem building my own.

I don't need a monitor because I can just connect it to my HDTV. However, my tv is only 720p and I'm not able to upgrade to the 1080p set I want just yet. If I am only running the PC games at 720p that will give me more performance overhead to increase things like anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, right?

All I am really looking for is to be able to run multi-platform games with zero screen tearing, decent anti-aliasing and strong, stable frame rates. These are the negatives that really bother me about most multi-platform games I play on the PS3 or 360.

It has nothing to do with piracy, Microsoft are on record as stating they hold games OFF the PC to boost sales on the Xbox 360. They know that in places such as Europe the PC is dominant and if they allow European users to choose between the PC version and the Xbox version people will choose the PC version.

Don't believe me ? Then here is the exact quote :-

Peter Zetterberg: On a global scale the Windows Vista business is as important as our Xbox 360 business. But in Germany for example, we want more gamers to buy our Xbox 360. If we launch a game that is on 360 and PC simultaneously, we basically shoot ourselves in the foot by allowing the German market to choose to play the PC version � because they are more likely to buy that than spend their money on the Xbox 360. On a global scale the PC is very relevant to us. And I would say that 90 per cent of the games that are pitched to us are on console. We're strongly perceived as a console publisher because we're the first-party publisher even though the Windows operating system is equally important to us. If we launched a Halo game on PC and 360 in Germany simultaneously, 80 per cent of sales would be on the PC. So we need to pick and choose our formats.

http://www.ggmania.com/?sms...

So there you go, it has nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with combating competition from the PC.

funny thing is Charmers, PC will and still rule Europe. they arent as fat and lazy as us americans. they want more from their gaming expirence. i dont see Europe, or Asia accepting consoles like america anytime soon.

but 360 games are almost always pirated earlier than their pc counterparts. torrents proved this to be true most of the time