Gaming:Is the PC Dead ?

[stefcep]

With the high specs, low price, ease of use and and uncomplicated setup of the new generation of consoles, will the PC no longer be the platform of choice for gaming?  And as PC hardware upgrades are largely determined by games where does this leave the future of the PC in terms of hardware advancement?  Ditto for Microsoft?  Is Nintendo dead either way?

[Karlos]

People said this with each generation of consoles that emerged since the PS1. Wait and see, I guess...

[Ilwrath]

With the high specs, low price, ease of use and and uncomplicated setup of the new generation of consoles, will the PC no longer be the platform of choice for gaming?

I don't think so on any of the counts.  For the most part, the games people play on PCs aren't the same style of games as are played on the consoles.  People have been predicting that consoles will overtake PCs for several generations.  Yet PC sales are as strong as ever.  

And as PC hardware upgrades are largely determined by games where does this leave the future of the PC in terms of hardware advancement?

Well, I think the biggest threat here is that video card manufacturers may be pricing themselves out of market.  Who exactly is willing to spend $800 (two $400 SLI cards) to have the greatest video for 6 months until the next gen chipsets are released?  I might expect to see video card development cool down a bit.  But that's not really related to your question, and honestly, I don't think it'll matter a bit.  As Longhorn (or Vista or whatever it's called this week) will dictate plenty of upgrades and new systems sold.

Ditto for Microsoft?

Why would it matter to them?  Outside of DirectX, has Microsoft ever done anything to attract game companies to come to Windows?  Their market is e-mail, web browsing, and office.  Offering some new glitter features and a promise of more security should be all that is needed to get the masses to update.

Is Nintendo dead either way?

I don't think so.  They'll remain as a niche player.  And, with their strange innovations and such, they will distance themselves from the XBox 360/PS3 war coming up.

[Cymric]

There was a recent article about this on Tom's Hardware a few weeks ago. The answer: no, the PC is not dead, because by its modular nature it inherently offers the state-of-the-art in games, plus that it can cope with games of much higher complexity than a game console. I really cannot imagine playing RTS games on those.

[itix]

PS2 and XBox already rule the gaming market with help of handhelds (PSP, Nintendo DS).

On the other hand PC is still needed for word processing and Internet but consumer market is moving toward portables.

[CodePoet]

I WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!

[c64_d0c]

i dont believe consoles will take over completly. but everyone should be aware of that pc games will bring very little new invention to gameing as we know it. for a long time gamer like my self i find the most pc games boring and i found out why when i got a xbox(ofcoz it was a modded xbox). its now clear that the consols brings a new breath of life into games(just look at nintendo and its reviolution). on a consol you can bang the hw all you want to, on a pc there is alot thing you must think of before doing this and that. on the consol they dare to try out new things on a pc they just go the old safe path.

in the future the pc will be build in the tv and other product you can interact with, so the pc we know today will not be the same. for games you will have your own box becouse of its hw banging, everyone know running a game on a hw sucking os is not ideal.

if you want to have fun gaming again, the consoles is the way to go. and if you are a cheap ass as me you buy consols when there is a new one around the corner, yesterday consoles have still alot of good thing going and they are not expensive as the new ones


________
LovelyWendie

[Cymric]

I very much doubt even games on consoles bang the hardware as much as you think they do. The reason: games have grown far beyond the capabilities of hardcore assembly hackers; in other words, ease of programming is a major factor in deciding how to tackle a certain problem. In addition, there is almost no need to spend months upon months trying to optimise routines: any half-decent optimising C/C++ compiler produces code of sufficient quality. There will of course be shortcuts, but from the programmer's point of view, these can just be hidden behind an API. They program the API---supplied by the manufacturer of the console---and the API itself handles the rest. That things are operating much faster than on a PC is of course obvious: the API doesn't need to handle the intricacies of a full multi-tasking environment.

[kd7ota]

...As long as you have Counter Strike for the PC, no.  :-)

[CaptChaos]

Flight Simulators, RTS, homebrew games, Emulators... long life left.

[Lando]

The PC will never die as a gaming platform.  As a programmer I've only worked on console games, but we all still used to play PC games at lunchtime / after work, even though we were surrounded by consoles.  The experience of playing a PC game and playing a console game are so different.  PC games are, in general, much more sophisticated.  The problem with PC games is that most of them lose money, with many selling as few as 4-5,000 copies.  As a PC games publisher / developer, you absolutely need a top-selling game if you want to stay in business.

Nintendo will not disappear either - of the top 5 selling consoles in history, 4 are Nintendo:-

• Gameboy Series, Nintendo, 110million
• Playstation, Sony, 74million
• NES, Nintendo, 62million
• SNES, Nintendo, 49million
• N64, Nintendo, 28million

Nintendo's saving grace is their catalogue of franchises - Pokemon, Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Donkey Kong etc.  These are Nintendo exclusives and people will always want to play them.  I do think that the PSP will have a detrimental effect on sales of Nintendo handhelds, as will the new generation of mobile phones.

Many people consider the Gamecube to have been a flop, but Nintendo were / are still in profit throughout the life of the 'cube, while Microsoft lost billions on XBox.

[aMIGA_dUDE]

The next big thing to happen is Open Source games.  It hasn't as yet realy happen but it will.  All that need to happen is good game engine (which is open source) and few mod's doing some levels in open source then things will start to happen.

Some very big things could really happen this way.  Sadly so far the Open Source games are way below what people today are expecting to see.

[Ilwrath]

The next big thing to happen is Open Source games.

Not necessarily open source.  In fact, probably NOT open source.  (Free models don't work as well for entertainment as they do for productivity...)  But smaller community development teams.  You start to see it happening out at the cutting edge of driving simulators.  Sims like netKar and rFactor have a small team of developers and no real label backing.  These are programs that major players won't touch because they are too realistic and detailed to sell to mass markets.  (See the pathetic offering that is EA's SimRacing compared to Papyrus NASCAR Season '03.)  

There are plenty of niche market vacuums in catering to the several thousand enthusiasts in various markets.  Small community development teams can fill those voids with quality products.  

[logicalheart]

@Lando, you are right that gaming is more sophisticated on a personal computer.

 I don't ever plan to buy a gaming console because I have personal computers to use for games.  For my children, I would have an old computer instead of a game console because the educational value is much greater.  For a console, my preference would be Nintendo or Sony instead of Microsoft.  Microsoft has a reputation of unethical activity with the companies it does business with.  Stealing technology, backing out of contracts, and much more.  The X-Box games cost way too much and a higher percentage of them have vulgar or violent themes.  - Lars

[Louis Dias]

PC games sales rise as consoles end their life cycle and dip as new consoles are released.  History repeats itself.

Nintendo's Revolution controller could eliminate the PC mouse advantage on FPS and RTS games.  To bad it may be limited to 720x480 progressive scan unlike the other 2.

Nintendo knows how to make money, release a quality product that doesn't break ... and stay profitable.