Though you have to remember, Todd Howard also said that he prefers the 360 over the PC, so of course his "vision" would work on his preferred system. The console's age may not be holding Skyrim back because Todd isn't aiming much higher than what the console can do.
You could think of it that way, yes. If Bethesda sets out from the start to make a game for consoles, then there's a good chance their vision of the game will be one that would work on consoles. So it really depends on this question. Does Bethesda decide what game they want to make, and then see if it can be done on the technology available to them? Or do they see what the technology can do and plan out the game they want to make based on that?
But regardless of whether consoles are holding back Bethesda, it may be that they are holding back the industry as a whole, but that's not the fault of the consoles themselves. The Xbox 360 and PS3 had fairly nice technology when they came out, the problem is that computer rendering technologies are constantly improving, and due to the issue of not being able to upgrade consoles like you can a PC, PCs inevitably advance beyond the consoles, this is not something I hold against consoles, before the Xbox 360 and PS3, I had pretty much accepted that if I want the latest in graphics technology, I'd need a good PC. But both consoles and PCs could have games with good gameplay, and still can, and that's what's most important, having all the latest graphical effects was just a nice bonus. But when the Xbox 360 and PS3 came along, things seemed to change a bit. On the Xbox 360, I could play many of the same types of games I might have played on my PC, and when the console was new, those games looked every bit as impressive as PC games could. It seems to me that at that point, the role consoles played changed somewhat, of course, maybe the original Xbox already brought an element of such change, I'm not sure because all the games I wanted to play on it were ones I could play on the PC too, so I never felt much reason to bother with it, but it seemed like it was with the current generation of consoles that the distinction between PC and console games really became blurred, and suddenly, every game I see is multiplatform, if it gets a PC release at all. Of course, I still do see a few PC exclusives, but most seem to be in select genres, like strategy games, or independant titles, I rarely see PC exclusive main stream games now, and really, that's where the problem comes from. I think, I hold nothing against consoles, and it's not really their fault, in itself, that they might hold the industry back. It's by their very nature that consoles will ultimately fall behind PCs technologically, because it's simply not feasible to release new consoles fast enough to keep up with the advancements in PC hardware, even if you only do it when major steps forward in technology become available, and honestly, while this is a limitation of consoles, I'd also say it's one of their advantages. As it makes things easier for both the developers and the players, for developers, it means that optimizing the game is easier since you don't need to account for different hardware setups. For players, it means you don't need to worry about which graphics card or CPU to get, or whether you're hardware can run a game, if you have the console it's released for, chances are you can run it. But it's hard to deny that there are limits to what console games can do, due to the capabilities of the technology they run on. But this only limits the industry as a whole because for most mainstream developers, consoles are the primary focus, Todd Howard is hardly the only one who favors consoles. Because of this, whatever limitations affect the current consoles will ultimately have an impact on what games designed for them can do. That's not so bad if you're content to just make a game that's fun, but if you want to make something that will bring major technical breakthroughs for the industry, you're prospects will be limited unless you either focus on PCs, or wait for the next generation of consoles, whenever that will be.
Even so, "The consoles can't handle it." is used as an excuse for not doing something too often in this community, for one thing, it sometimes comes up when talking about features
that have already been done in other console games. Thus proving consoles can, in fact, handle them. Maybe they couldn't in a game like the Elder Scrolls, but some players seem to automatically assume they can't as long as doing so supports their argument. And when it happens for graphical effects that consoles wouldn't support, you know, you CAN have the PC version include options for graphical effects that won't be supported on the console versions. In fact, Todd Howard already claims that the PC version can run at graphics higher than the console versions, we just don't know how much higher. Now, obviously, Bethesda doesn't want leave out content or gameplay features on the console versions, but they don't really need to ensure that the console versions also look exactly like the PC version on high settings.
Who cares if the cities are closed? I do not mind that one bit. I mean it would be nice to have open cities but I am just glad to get TES5
Judging from the fact that the subject has come up many times on this forum and someone went through the trouble of making a mod to make the cities in Oblivion open, I'd say a lot of people care.
Myself, I can live with closed cities, the main reason I want open cities is because it would allow Bethesda to bring back levitation. If we get open cities and still don't get levitation, then meh. Aside from that, while open cities would be nice, I'd like to see interiors seamlessly integrated into the world as well. If we already have to have loading screens for going indoors, I don't feel having them for entering and exiting cities is too much of a problem. I'll live with whatever Bethesda is doing for Skyrim in this regard.
To me the biggest limitations imposed on the pc by consoles as others have mentioned is on controls. For example loving the obliuon mod hotkeys expanded at the moment 40 hotkeys not a pesky 8.
That's true as well, and the problem isn't just with hotkeys either. In Fallout 3, for example, there were a couple of functions that were done by holding down buttons with other functions, like turning on the Pipboy light and holstering you're gun, a somewhat unintuitive approach, I'd say, it took me a while to figure out how to use the light, and at first, to holster my gun I had to switch to a melee weapon or unarmed, then holster that because I didn't realize you could just hold down the reload button. This was necessary only due to the limitations on the amount of buttons on the console controllers.
But even that wouldn't be a problem if Bethesda changed the console system of the PC version, rather than just adapting an identical input system to a keyboard.
» Sun Jun 20, 2010 4:51 am 
