Xbox 360 and PS3: death to PC gaming?

What I am willing to predict, however, even at this early stage, is that the real loser in all of this will be PC gaming. Let’s start with Quake 4, which uses the “old” Doom 3 engine but still came across as one of the more impressive PC titles I saw at the show. Id, Quake 4’s developer, was also showing an Xbox 360 version of the same game behind closed doors, and those reporters I polled at the show confirmed what I thought: they really couldn’t discern any difference between the two versions. —David CarnoyXbox 360 and PS3: death to PC gaming? (C|Net)

I’m still thinking about how to recognize the importance of the gaming machines when I teach the course on videogames I’m planning for this January.

If I were to teach this course in a regular semester, I’d have the class play a long-term role-playing game like EverQuest, but since the class is jammed into three weeks, that won’t work. If I were to teach this as a regular in-person course, rather than an online course, I could set up lab sessions where students could sample various games. How about having a row of computers running Grand Theft Auto I through the present?

Since it’s an online class, if I assign a PlayStation game, and the student has an Xbox, or I assign an Xbox game and the student has a PlayStation, or if I assign any console game and the student (like me) doesn’t own a console, that’s a problem.

For now, I’m planning to spend the first week with small web-based games or classic downloadable games. The second week we’ll focus on gaming franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, SimCity, Civilization, and other games that have been around long enough that plenty has been written about them, but will still seem relevant to today’s gaming. My goal is to get the students used to reading and writing about games as an academic subject, and to have them write a “close playing,” supported by academic research. Then, in the third week, students will pick a game or issue to examine in more depth, via an online project (hopefully with annotated screen captures). The whole course is online, which means that they’ll be blogging regularly.

The course isn’t a programming or design course, and neither is it a history course. It’s a cultural studies course. I’m going to assign a little less formal writing than I would if this were a lit course, in part because the students will already be writing a lot in their blogs, but also because I’ll have some expectations for some kind of multimedia presentation. I’d love to have students put together a PowerPoint that features their own narration, or do an anthropological study of a LAN party, or use the photo albums from The Sims to compile a narrative that makes some significant (or touching, or hilarious, or shocking) point about human nature.

5 thoughts on “Xbox 360 and PS3: death to PC gaming?

  1. PC gaming is still doing fine today. And did you know that games like dargon age: origins on PC has better graphics?

  2. For older console stuff, you’ll want to use Emulation. It’s a legal grey area, but you truly have “fair use” on your side. The advantage to emulation is that you could give students access to a HUGE number of platforms: NES, Super NES, Atari 2600 and all other models, Commadore 64, Apple…
    It would take a long time to assemble a collection of reliably working consoles and games. With emulation, you could assemble an entire canon of games in an afternoon.

    A note on the Grand Theft series: the first 2 games are now free downloads from the RockStar games website. GTA3 and Vice city are about $20 each from Amazon. San Andreas is still full price ($40). They are fantastic games, but are not for anybody with tender sensibilities.

  3. Retrogaming is big, and I’d love to teach a whole course on the history of videogaming. I’d probably restrict it to American games, and thus hope to pick up some students looking for a core “American Studies” course. We’ll see… I’ve got plenty on my plate as it is.

  4. I like the idea of doing an “anthropological study of a LAN Party”. This topic is rife with potential! Other places they could go might be a video arcade (malls/airports still have them, at least, but there’s also places like Dave & Busters), a computer game store, an online discussion board devoted to a particular game, or even just some kid brother’s living room slumber party.

    You could probably get “ancient” consoles (Atari, Nintendo ES, etc.) and strange artifacts (like those early handheld football games — see http://www.peterhirschberg.com/handheld/ledhead/ — or DVD interactive games) cheap at Goodwill, eBay, etc. for an historical show and tell (and play). Plus there are “emulators” nowadays for everything under the sun…

    I’m eager to see how your class comes together! Best wishes and remember to have fun with it.

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