Second Take: The PC Gaming Slump

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I think the point stated earlier about DX10 was right. I think MS's Vista push has done nothing for the PC Gaming platform, nothing at all. I still haven't seen a graphics jump or performance jump on Vista DX10 compared to XP DX9 that warrants a format and a purchase of a new OS.

It feels like MS doesn't give two sh*ts about PC Gaming, at all. The entire GFW Live/Vista/DX10 push feels like nothing more than a marketing push just to sell Vista with very little substance to back it up. World In Conflict and Crysis, for example, look and play amazing on my XP rig with my 8800GT. As a PC Gamer, what reason is there for me to go out and pick up Vista? MS could have easily released a service pack that would essentially turn XP into a better gaming OS, which a few here have mentioned. That won't help the bottom line of course, and there lies the problem for MS.

MS is obviously trying to sell Vista, which they've done a terrible job at marketing to the gamer. Telling the consumer that Vista will bring a "console" like experience to the PC is exactly what I'm NOT looking for. This tells me that they are marketing to the non-PC Gamer, existing 360 user for example, not caring about the massive existing PC userbase, and speaking to the casuals. MS would do much better by aligning with STEAM and BattleNet than trying to start up another online service that isn't nearly as good.
 


I dissagree- There are plenty of games out there on the pc that come out and don't push the hardware limits and still have playability. (see www.gamershell.com). Thats the beauty of the PC. On a console, u have to wait 4-6 years for a new platform. Its not an option. And when a new console comes out. All ur old console games and the money invested, might as well go in the trash. Even if u liked the game, odds are, they won't play. On a pc. U have the option. If u like bleeding edge graphics, u can go out and buy a new card, or upgrade. And ur old games still work. If u like playing the most advanced games. Then all u have to do is go out, and buy a few new parts. Yeah, sometimes it's expensive. But, ur old games still work. (99 percent of the time). Besides, lets say u spend 1000 a year on parts like I do when tax time rolls in. that breaks down to about a $83 a month. Thats about 1 1/2 - 2 games. If ur a serious gamer, it's well worth it to save the money u could have spent on games, be a little more selective, and buy better high end games, then it is to waste it on a bunch of ps2, ps3, or xbox 360 games that u won't even play. I buy about 20 games a year. Id rather have 20 really good games, then 40 so so games. But, thats the option. U don't have to spend a grand. U can spend 500, or none. And wait until u find a good game u like, and then upgrade. Or even wait 6 months for prices too drop on hardware, and then get the game u want. Basically, it's ur choice. Ur option. U can do what u want. Instead of being confined to a single console and having too wait 6 years too upgrade.

Also, most of what people say about pc's is only ignorance and not true. Thats why I say they need to educate consumers more about the pc being a viable gaming machine.

common myths-
1. u can't play on a tv - (most cards over the past ten years have been able to hook up to a tv)
2. need high end hardware to play games ( not true, thats why they have settings so u can set it to play smooth
with ur hardware. computers u can choose, uber graphics,and/or framerates. consoles, it's always a trade off [the more they put into a console game, the lower they have to crank down the graphics or vise versa])
3. consoles look better on a television (not true, it used to be true, but not anymore- consoles have lower
resolution, it is the television that is the problem, cuz pc's have much higher resolutions then even a 1080p
television can handle).
4. More games on the console (there are many more games available for the pc, plus mods. just there are more
exsclusive games on the consoles- blame that on money hungry devs, not the hardware. The developers need to
stand there ground, and make there creations available to all the consoles and the pc, cuz it's only the gamers
who suffer.
5. Computers are too big and clunky for use as a gaming console (there are plenty of small form factor cases
designed for toating around, and for use in the living room)
6. Consoles have controllers ( pc's have always had controllers. And while it was a pain to set up, it was possible.
plus u can run multiple controllers at the same time. If u go to superwalmart, they have an adapter to hook up all
the old console controllers, plus, xbox360 conrollers (games for windows- solves the problem- again, games devs
need to get together on this)
7. U have stick in the cd's all the time on the pc (im sorry, i keep hearing this??? I swore that u have to load cd's up
in the consoles too. Am I wrong??) (pc's at least have nocd patch's if only the devs would allow them)
8. consoles have better interfaces (yes, but very limited options- can anyone say "trade off"
9. Price is to expensive for pc's (depends on how u look at it. U can build a decent gaming machine on the cheap if
u know how too shop. Plus- U can actually make money on a pc, and, u only have
to spend what u want, can u do that on a console?)
10. consoles are basically computers too (LOL- yeah, okay, if u completely hack it, and put linux on it, it's close, but
u still have hardware constraints, and u still have limited usability and compatibility issues. If all u want to do is
play games and surf the net, okay. but if u have bussiness needs, are into video editing, cad design, photo
editing, or other needs, then lets see u do that on ur console, the plus's by far out weigh the negatives on a
pc).
11. pc's have too many conflicts, virus's and problems, ( it only takes a couple of hours every 6 months or so to do
a reinstall, but if u have a decent firewall, and do basic maintenence, then it's not a problem- Besides, everyone
knows a geek (yes, i am one) and most will do it for there friends or families for free for fun)

12. pirating is only a problem on the pc (I have seen many modded consoles, and just as many copied games on the
consoles, ur lying if u are a hardcore gamer and haven't seen any, it's just much harder too track on the
console)
13. No one plays on the computer (this is the biggest myth- I have seen some huge lan parties- and it's actually an olympic sport in some countries- it is huge, just, most hardcore pc gamers get addicted to games easier, and stick to that game, cuz, it's such a good game, and so much more playable with keyboard and mouse [battlefield 2- counterstrike- wow- all have huge followings- and, most gamers are modders, just do a google or google image search for pc gamers, lan parties, or pc modders, and u will see,PC GAMERS ARE EVERYWHERE, we just hide in the shadows inside playing most of the time]) Most console players, are just casual gamers, not hardcore. Again, consoles are for children, not serious gamers.


Anyways I'm done ranting and raving, I would rather educate people about it than argue.
 
Piracy numbers don't directly translate to lost unit sales. People pirate because they can, not because it will save them a 50 bucks. So, even if say, Call of Duty 4 magically became uncrackable, all those downloads would not suddenly turn into unit sales, masses of people would simply just skip the game.


It would be much more interesting to compare pc game sales from -04 to -06 to the numbers that we have now. As in, is pc game sales really going down, or has the console market just exploded into such a huge market that pc game sales pales in comparison?


edit: Just to make sure that I'm not misunderstood, I don't condone piracy, but seriously think that its effect has been seriously overestimated.
 
I see two main problems:

1. PC game piracy is rampant. You only have to check out the numbers downloading current titles in BitTorrent etc... thousands upon thousands of downloads. Sure many will argue they are only trying the game before buying, find the need for the CD annoying etc, but I suspect the vast majority simply want the game free of charge. If even 10% of these downloaders actually bought the game and rewarded the developers for their efforts, I am sure PC sales figures would rocket.

Regardless of your view, the Warez kids are definitely doing serious damage. It is far easier to pirate PC games than console games and it is massively more widespread... something has got to be done to reduce piracy or at least provide more of an incentive to buy the legal version. Make it much harder to play online with an illegal copy for example or provide decent manuals and other physical items?

2. The complexity of it all. Minimum specs, installations, OS versions etc, drivers, optimising for performance - for the average Joe who wants some casual gaming it's just too much to keep up with. Computing is continually being dumbed down for the masses and the numbers of us willing to invest the time to keep up is falling. Those that don't mind the fiddling and tweaking generally won't have a problem working out to illegally download the game either... (see point 1). The linking of DirectX to the operating system - is there any good reason why DirectX 10 couldn't have worked on XP? - isn't helping the situation at all.

Not sure what can be done with this as it is inherent in the platform. The online system checking and advice tools (Futermark etc) are a step in the right direct...

---

The PC is a great platform and the best choice for the sophisticated gamer in my opinion, but I don't blame any developer for seriously reviewing the cost / reward proposition of developing PC games. I do blame piracy as the main reason personally, as unlike movies or music there is no cinema or live performances that can pull in revenue... but as said in the video, it's the world we live in now.
 
It would be interesting to see the trend in sales of gaming PC components like graphics cards compared with the trend in games sales figures themselves... might give some insight into the increasing problem of piracy in the industry. If games sales are going down but hardware sales are the same or going up, might be interesting to speculate on why that is... NVIDIA arn't concerned with how many 8800GT's they sold are they?
 
Honestly i really think its the piracy thats the main issue here. Personally i would like to see something like steam for every game, where you have to log onto a web server to verify your copy of the game before you can play it. To all the people who want to argue that they should be able to play a single player game offline. Go back to 2001, constant broadband connections are far too prevalent to use that excuse.


Another thing i would love to note is this. People complain about the price of upgrading computers, but what console gamers dont realize is that PC gaming is what is driving the development of the hardware that eventually ends up being used in their oh so special little consoles that they tout so highly. If PC gaming goes the way of the dodo's, i can assure you things are going to get really **** really quick for further development of new graphics technologies. And lets be honest, we all know that graphics is always the number 1 thing on any console gamers list.

I wont lie, i used to pirate a lot of games several years ago that i was only moderately interested in, a good example was NFSU. Now, i buy every game i play simply on principle and to in some way make up for my previous ways.

Anyone else not find it amusing that consoles are basically desktop pc's with fancy cases and ports for controllers? I mean honestly, look at an xbox360...

On a complete side note, i'm still bitter and pissed at MS for making the original HALO sbox only after purchasing bungee. bastards.
 
Oh, i also wanted to point out that i firmly believe that MMO's are going to be the last bastion of PC gaming if developers dont get a hold on piracy.

Notice how nobody pirates WOW? Or look even at other MMO's, it wasnt even mentioned in the video that Vanguard SOH, which was overall considered a bad launch failure, has still sold over 100k copies. What about games like LOTR:O?

Same thing with steam games, you can't pirate CS:S, or HL2, etc.

I really believe that all game companies are going to need to go with a similar setup in order to acheive success...
 


engaging titles??? where some of us hate 1st person shooters that leaves nothing else some of us are rpg nuts and name one good rpg out in 2007??? 1 witchen.

Final fantasy is still not out for ps3 either the lack of rpgs and rts's are to blame for lack of pc game sales and good quality software.

There was what 13 1st person shooters out in 2007 we need variety thats why i still have not bought any new games other than witchen which is ok but it crashes very often.

I also like rts type games also the lack of those in 2007 any good one anyways.
 

No steam is bad, bloatware!
 
Ok some points here, many have been covered

1: Piracy. I hear people posting numbers about piracy this piracy that, however are people not thinking piracy isn't an issue on consoles? I think it should really be looked into numbers on that as well before piracy is screamed at as the culprit. Piracy on the PC side requires that you circumvent the copy protect with each game that is out there, piracy on the console side simply requires the end user to have a mod-chip or something in his console and a fast enough internet connection to download a dvd or more worth of video game.

2: Numbers, consoles really are a dominate force for the younger age group (and by younger I'm talking college age and younger) simply put to run the stuff you need to invest heavily in a PC to bring it up to snuff, ok sure you can get ram for dirt cheap now, but the fact is the latest and greatest needs power everywhere, and after it's all said and done it makes something like the PS3 look like a cheaper alternative just to have a little fun. People can use the PC to internet to their hearts content and don't need much under the hood, in the same fashion they can buy an Xbox360 and know that they never need to upgrade their hardware to play another game for it.

2b: Numbers again, most parents buy their kids consoles for presents not computers, simple fact right there.

3: Location, Location, Location: Where does one buy PC games anymore? Walk into a CompUSA recently? It's more like CellPhoneUSA, with PC games way in the back corner. How many game"shops" mall outlets are there? how many computer game shops are there? Those places that do have both, take a look at what gets priority shelving in the front of the store, and what's in the way back, hell last time I was in a game store used N64 cartridges were closer to the front than PC games.

4: Size does matter. How many people have their computers hooked up to something bigger than 20" to 25" ?? Probably not many, but every next gen console out there is hooked up to the living room tv, people want to play a lot of games with stuff going on in size, so the resolution is worse?? Who cares, it's so big and moving so fast the actual resolution is irrelevant.

5: It's expensive, I'm not talking about the games, I'm talking about making games, and it's a helluva lot more easier to program a game to a single hardware console than it is to be adaptable to a multiple range of hardware devices (PC).

6: As mentioned, if someone owns a copy of CoD4 on the Xbox360 why are they going to buy it for the PC? We've gotten to the point where people most always have a console of some sort (sometimes multiple ones), and a PC (maybe not up to snuff as far as hardware). Games are around the same price, you can buy one version play it on the living room tv, it requires no special computer items (mouse/keyboard), and will play flawlessly all the time, or you can buy another version, have the option to use a mouse/keyboard, and it might run ok on your hardware. It really becomes a no brainer. So for the sake of doing reporting, compare what sells on either side of the equation, not just the same game vs same game. WoW Burning Crusades sold what? Over 2 million copies within 24 hours of it's release. I'd say that's a pretty big for the PC world, I mean only Halo3 sold more (IIRC), so there still is some PC push.

I think we'll continue to see PC games come out, but the ones that will shine on the PC will be those that are more suited to the PC and there are games that can be equally suited for consoles and PC but naturally they'll get bought on the console side of things if anything for the simplicity of getting it to run well.


 

100%. Console games are tailor made for that hardware, and optimised so they work as good as possible in the short time given to develop the game. For PCs, you need to be scalable, and that is a PITA.
 
Oh I was only kiddin about the Halo2 poster. Sorry for that. I guess I am just optimistic. I've been a PC gamer since Zork and Kings Quest, and I've never seen so many nice options available for play as I do right now. Maybe it was the long lull and the letdown that was COD2 a few years back... I dunno. Maybe it's simply the circles I roll in. But we're all a bit siked to play and a LOT poorer than we've ever been lol.

One thing I will point out and you guys can see if this makes any sense, is Competition. When's the last time there has been THIS many options since maybe the mid 80's when Atari, Intellevision, Nintendo and arcades were competing against one another?

The options right now are outrageous! Sales for what was the "norm" seem like they couldn't help but go down with all these new, fancy options, at least for a while. But the cat always comes back.

PC gamers will ALWAYS be PC gamers. Like me they may pick up a Wii or PS3 but they will be up till 1am playing COD4 or WoW regardless. This initial "shock" of all the new console hardware is going to wear off. It has to. The PS3 and 360 are RAPIDLY becoming light years behind in technology. Heck, if the 360 wants to get any better it's going to have to BE a PC. When the novelty wears off the devs are going to be begging to push pixels on bada$$ hardware. We will be there to buy it up and WE will have the machines to play it on. MS and Sony will be off scurrying around trying to cram even more multiprocessors into smoking hot plastic cases.

And MS Live! is crap. Who even cares about it. I think I saw that logo on one or two of my titles and was like "meh." Like I say, technologies are going to settle in over the next few months. The Nvidia 9xxx's are going to come out, Tri-Sli, Quad Xfire, Starcraft 2, Fallout 3, HL2 Ep3, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King,
Operation Flashpoint 2, Warhammer Online, Spore, .... shux, I ain't worried a bit about this "slump."

As for my consoles, I'll work on going pro in Wii Bowling when I have to sit around my nursing home waiting for my kids to show up for the holidays. (another joke)

Oh, and as for the piracy hurting PC gaming issue, that's highly debatable imho. Bono and Greenday lose literally millions of fake dollars a year in piracy and they are still rollin around in their limos. I don't like when that get's tossed around like a main reason. Bad PR, like the ones from GameSt#p, "Ohhhhh! We don't take PC games anymore because the key might be STOOOOLLLLEN! booogiewooogiewooogie!" is what MAKES folks think that. Heck, for all we know Sony could be torrenting all the PC games to try and hurt the industry...I dunno, but that IS a great conspiracy theory eh! lol. Granted, publishers should strive to better protect their stuff. I think they seem to be getting a bit better at it also, mostly by making us log into master servers.



Oh man I hope so. God hates ports even more than I do.
 
I want to chime in on this heated debate.

First off, I have been an AVID PC Gamer for the better part of 20 years. Starting out on Gamestar Baseball back in 1983 on the Commodore 64. I also was a first gen console user of an Atari 2400 back in 81'.

As i see it I have seen many trends and shifting ways in games over the years.. as follows..

Retail Stores: 4 walls, with floating islands for sales.

1985: 3 Walls Commodore // 1 Wall Apple - Island for Atari/Intellivision/Colecovision.

1990: 1 Wall Commodore // 1 Wall IBM (DOS/WIN) // 1/2 - Apple and Nintendo/Sega.

1993: 3 Walls IBM (DOS/WINDOWS) // 1 Wall Consoles // 1 Island Apple (Budget) - COMMODORE GONE

1995: 2 Walls IBM // 1 Wall Nintendo // 1 Wall Sega // Other Consoles (NeoGeo etc) in Kiosks/Displays. APPLE GONE.

This trend contunied to today:

2008: 1 Wall XBOX/360 // 1 Wall PSX/PS2/PS3 // 1 Wall WII/Gamecube // 1 Wall Condole Hardware // 1 Small Island floating WINDOWS/PC.

Its a never ending upgrade cycle. The PC has been fazed out of gaming. But their is more...

1) BLAME THE EXCLUSIVE LICENCES - I blame certain companies for killing the pure backbone of pc gaming. The PC gaming industry was built on SPORTS games, simulatons. Back in the 80's and early 90's there were 8-10 Baseball titles alone PER YEAR coming out. From the early days of the PC, Earl weaver baseball, Tony Larussa's etc were the king of the industry. Each year many many people waiting or the new version and updates and such..

To me, PC SPORTS gaming DIED in 2005.

When EA / Take 2/ 2K Sports signed EXCLUSIVE rights with the respective sports, all parties decided to STOP making PC Sports games, to which WE ALL KNOW were ALWAYS 100% better then the console games.. Create your own player, leagues, teams, etc.. things you just couldnt do on the consoles (some which you still can not do today, which were in PC games as long as 15 years ago!!!).

Do you realize (and i dont mean to make this only about Sports, but it provers my argument) the LAST Baseball game (besides ones like OOTP and text based sims) was MVP Baseball 2005... and SINCE 2005, mvpmods.com and other sites have had to rely on UNGodly talented people to update that game every year to a "modded" MVP 2007? What does that tell you?

The companies just dropped pc gmaing like a bad habit. Too hard to program for, too many configurations..

That brings me to my next point:

2 - BLAME MICROSOFT.

Microsoft has gone out of its way to Promote Windows Vista as its next major gaming platform. Now as i write this I am using Vista Ultimate, on an 8800 Ultra SLI machine that is STATE of the ART... and i'll say this, if i didnt get this machine for under $500, I wouldnt even have it. Gaming on Vista is nice for a beast of a machine like this, but the average person isnt shelling out $3000 on a gaming rig.. Heck, the 8800 SLI cards are a whipping $1400!!!!!

Microsoft is cutting ties slowly with XP and forcing everyone onward, when they also made one of (i think) the biggest blunders in Computer Gaming.

(again with a Sport title)..

3DO was the designer of High Heat Baseball.. The best PC Baseball simulation ever.. When 3DO went under, microsoft bought the gaming rights to it.. Many were excited that Microsoft would take the engine pr parts nad integrate it perhaps with Inside Pitch and create the DEFACTO best baseball game ever made.. the End all..

A pipe dream it was.. http://xbox.ign.com/articles/433/433996p1.html

look at that link.. 2003. 5 YEARS of nothing.. They took a great game, and buried it never to come alive again. A pure shot to the solar plexus of the PC Gaming platform.. If a company with the financial backing of a microsoft could do that to a great title like High heat Baseball... Then the platform has no future.

3) WHAT WERE LEFT WITH.

FPS's have made the jump to consoles, and while they still are superior on the pc because of controls, it is only a matter of time before the console replaces the pc with a mouse (wiimote?) and takes the FPS crown away. Whats left after that? Guess well all be playing Chess...


4) BLAME THE SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS..

EA Sports.. boy where do i start with this one..

How bout a chart:

MVP BASEBALL 2005.. Er... no 06..07..08...09...
NBA LIVE 06... Same game renamed to 07... SAME GAME renamed to 08?!?!
NHL HOCKEY 06... Same game renamed to 07.. SAME GAME RENAMED TO 08 !>?!?! WTF??!?!
MADDEN .. OH dont even go there...

WTF is this?!? EA Sports, the biggest game developer on the planet with its Madden/NHL series selling MILLIONS of console copies.. has put out the SAME GAME (even TOOK SOME FEATURES OUT!!!!) in 07 and 2008 for the PC... Don't believe me? Go read the EA forums at people demanding their money back for NBA Live 08..errr 07.1 Alpha, for the BROKEN, UNFINISHED product.

They have given up developing for US, the PC Gamer.

PC GAMING. RIP. It was a 20 Year ride.

I wonder if my commodore still works...

LOAD"*",8,1
LOADING
READY
RUN
 
Ok then. Let's just fire out some future predictions. Here's mine:

2009 - MS turns the 360 into something like an Alienware that doubles as a media center PC and can be upgraded. We're all like huh, interesting.

2010 - Sony can't figure out which PS3 to settle with, the 40gb, 60gb, 12gb or the 6gb flash version. Publishers leary. Everyone ditches. End of line.

2011 - Nintendo Releases a chrome DS Lite, finally releases Smash Bros. Brawl, is still top seller and is still under produced.

2012 - rta is playing COD6 with 4 Sli'd Nvidia 9900Ultras running on a Dual Quad Core Phenom/ Asus with 8GB of 3200mhz RAM. booyah!

 
I agree with totaldarknessincar, the margin of performance between the PC and console is getting closer and closer with every generation. I like the feel of PC games but being able to rent games vs. strictly buying adds even more. Not to mention the lasted games on PS3 and 360 are very close in performance with great downloadable content. I think the next gen console game machine will put the final death blow to the PC market. Maybe even the current gen might put it on the canvas. I own an e6400, 2gig, Corsair c6400, eVga 680i, 3x raptor drives, sound blaster music,XFX 8800 GTS OC 640mb. I built it and I love it but I haven't played a game in months on it. It plays games like a beast, however Microsh*^t has killed my desire with the required upgrade to Vista. And quite honestly I would love to play crysis but why bother, go through all that b.s. to upgrade just for an average gameplay game. Microsoft has really nailed the final blow in the PC market. As I have said I love PC games and thought of my consoles for playing the occasional game. Now it the other way around and it not going to change back any time soon. The reliability, compatibility, ease of use, and minimal graphical advantage makes it hard to put much stock in PC. I love PCs and love building fast ones but most people want me to build them one only want to spend about 500.00 and they want to play games. I can build one for that but it's not going to be as good in my opinion as a PS3. It will play most games ok but will choke on the more advanced games beating the graphics back to a point that the eye candy is almost nil. Out of all the games I have played in the last 3 years, hand down would be COD 4, it's the sh*t and I've played it on all platforms the most being on PS3 and really find no reason to play it on any other platform. i prefer PC games in feel but the margin of performance in the latest gen consoles makes it mute point to even mess with PC. Not to mention the fact that the day is coming to when developers will put all their resources into designing consoles and as an after thought will port for PC...maybe. And after 5 or 6 patches they might get it running right but then again they won't care either way because their real income is coming from console gamers.
 
Well I think it's many different factors coming together. First, the PC gaming crowd is dying off. Even computer science enigneering majors now are usually playing consoles. The reasons for this are many. First PC games are looked at as antisocial now when it easy to play with your friends in your living room or link up with them in online play.

I remember when lan parties used to be common cause your SNES or N64 just didn't cut it for graphics or multiplayer.

I think the graphics card market is moving way too dam fast. I bought a 6600GT 3 years ago with a dual core AMD and now I can probably on watch crysis stutter if I wanted to try. They used to set up games to run on different versions of direct x or even opengl now they don't even bother.

Yes piracy is there but you can never assume that everyone who pirated it would have bought it if they couldn't download it.

I think another overlooked problem is that gaming on vista requires even more horsepower than before and I don't think most of the gamers like it. It used to be you could game just fine on 1 gb ram and now it's 2 gig and just having a new video card may not be good enough for some high end games it's a mess it used to be as long as your we're not using integrated you had a good shot of the game running ok. Personally I've switched completely over to linux and just keep a small xp install around to game.

I also have to say guitar hero and rock band are amazing to play on console as well as the duffy WII games but I still love FPS computer games. I mean just look around joysticks for comps are exstinct if it wasn't for RTS and RPG games I wonder if this would have happened sooner.
 
You kind of proved my point in the video with Bioshock. Didn't Bioshock sell over a million games for the PC? My brother has it for the PC and the console doesn't even compared in graphics. You also mentioned playing it on your computer. Are we talking people that have 10 year old PC's. Any PC in the last three years should be able to play the games. Graphic cards aren't that expensive for the midrange products. I also think that 3 million copies of WOW expansion selling in the first week shows people play the PC. I am not saying that console is bad. I liked Assasin's Creed and Racket and Clank for PS3.
 


You can run Crysis buttery smooth with your current rig. You DON'T need Vista, I enjoyed the heck out of it in XP. I'm not down with Vista either, but that's not an excuse not to play the game.

Second, there's a big reason why I wouldn't want to play COD4 on PS3/360, mouse and keyboard of course. I played the beta on 360 and playing it with thumbsticks negates any sort of advantage playing it on my 50" TV and comfy couch. I would be just as happy playing it in my comfy leather chair and 24" LCD especially using a better control scheme.

The living room argument is weak too, at least for us older gamers. When you get married, you just can't hijack the living room TV every night to play video games, and I don't even have kids. The wife's cool, but it's just not practical when ya get older. The home office is the way to go, imo, especially for an escape..
 
Andrazz90, The old "y u G, yoz, dbw" -- followed shortly by the "Cost is to much". Well tell ya what, I bet the price wouldn't be significant to you IF you spent some more time on your communication skills -- pretty sure you'd find a job that paid better and could afford the retail price.

PC Gaming has declined, and the fact that some big titles hit the PC gaming shelves this Xmas 07 and sales were still FAR below expectations, you can conclude the situation is worse for PC gaming -- it has been a steady decline for many years now, you just have to go to your local software store and count the folks roaming the PC gaming shelves vs. the console games shelves (if there are any shelves left dedicated to PC games).

PC's have the ability to play on really big screens for a long time now?? I run my gaming PC on a 42" Westinghouse HDTV at 1920 x 1080 (aka 1080p) and have also added a PC to the living room that hooks into my 62" HDTV, works fine. HDMI already got that, this is old news. Why can't you put a PC in the living room -- we've had PC cases that look like other stereo components for many years now, where have you been?

Man, you folks are missing the real issues completely.

1. Cost
2. Technical knowledge required to get a PC to work and keep working

As far as pirating, nothing new, this has been going on for years and is also happening on the XBOX360 and PS3, it's not limited to PCs. But it doesn't matter if you pirate a PC title, if you need a $500-$1500 worth of GPU power to get acceptable frame rates then it's pretty meaningless as those who do pirate software probably don't make much money anyway and it's unlikely they have the GPU/CPU power to run these titles in their full glory.

The Feds are currenlty passing tougher piracey laws that target schools and universities (the current big source of pirated software/music/etc.) where they can go after the students in addition to the school admins.

As far as I'm concerned, if you steal software and/or music and/or video, you're a theif and should be prosecuted as such. And the "Robin Hood" mentality just does NOT apply. I find it humerous that people post stuff like "it cost to much so I steal it" -- yeah, I feel the same way about a Ferrari, but I just say, "I'll live without one" rather than stealing one. Oooow, there's a thought, living without game - OMG what would the world be coming to -- I have to live without something!! Just WAY too many people think that they have some "right" to consumer goods even if they don't have the money to pay for them.

People that live and entertain their life in such a way (stealing) NEVER accomplish anything, they just exist like blood suckers on the feet of those of us who contribute time and effort to producing and accomplishing something. Every title I purchase I know some of that cost is to compensate for these losers of life that steal/pirate, it's sorta my contribution to the bums of life so I don't feel so bad when I step over them in the streets (the pirate's ultimate destiny).

Life owes you NOTHING.

As far as improving PC games sale, get Microsoft, nVidia, ATI, Creative Labs, RealTek, etc. etc. to produce a trouble free PC that doesn't NEED constant updates and troubleshooting. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT ONE.
 
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