sam.benskin.co.uk - am i missing something?

First of all, no I'm not crazy (although some may comfortably argue against this), so let me explain why I'm so happy when a game gets released on the PC after it's been released on the Xbox 360, PS3 or insert-new-console-here-if-you're-reading-this-way-in-the-future. The easiest way to explain in most situations is to give an example.

Let's take the eagerly anticipated game Assassin's Creed (note the apostrophe). When I first heard that the simultaneous release on the PC and consoles was no longer viable, and that it would be the PC version that was going to be delayed for some months, I was understandably a bit miffed. Now that the game has been out for a number of months on the consoles, the release date for the PC version is fast approaching (April 11th for those that don't know) and the developers have decided to listen to all the fans comments (of which there are many cries of "repetitive gameplay"), and make a few changes. Fantastic! They're addressing the main issues, and doing the usual enhancements to the graphics, because as we all know, console graphics will never ever beat or even match that of the PC market due to something we like to call "upgradability" (which of course isn't a real word, although it really should be). The result is going to be so different, that they want to draw attention to this, and will be referring to it as a "Director's Cut". They've added 4 new "Investigations" to bring the total to 9, allowing the user to skip between cities to avoid lengthy terrain navigation, the beauty of which quickly disappears after the 3rd or 4th time. They're also improving the AI of the guards and allowing the use of either the Xbox 360 game pad or the mouse and keyboard combination for ultimate flexibility.

Assassin's Creed isn't the first title to do this; it's happened for the Grand Theft Auto series for many years and it's always been a better product on the PC because of the extra time they spend on tweaking the game and graphics. Jade Empire, the fantastic but lesser known title on the original Xbox also eventually came out on the PC also with the suffix "Special Edition", which included the following: Increased graphics resolutions and new visual effects, new monsters and enemies, new fighting styles, improved combat AI and difficulty levels and a new world map interface. I'm sure you'll agree that's a lot of changes to make.

I'll be the first to admit that some games have suffered from console-conversion-itis. The Godfather game came out of the PC with so many problems with the controls it takes me hours to get used to whenever I try and play it. Generally this only happens to the lesser known games.

So it seems that Consoles, with the ever closing gap in electrical design to that of the PC market, appears to becoming a huge beta-testing facility for the PC market, and I couldn't be happier. So I have to wait a few months or half a year (or longer in the case of the GTA series), but with all the benefits we get, I'm more than content that it will be worth the wait.

I'll probably still get an Xbox or PS3 one day...

Edit: Thanks for all the interest in the article and the comments in reddit and digg. I'm so annoyed that I forgot to mention Mass Effect! That was one of the reasons I went to write this article.