"The King of Gaming" <king.of.gaming@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ac7171ff-f590-47a5-841e-44a301937bff@r19g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
> Wow, interesting that this debate has continued on. You would think
> the PC died as a gaming platform yesterday, as opposed to a decade ago
> when it actually kicked the bucket.
>
> As "N" said, obviously there is some hyperbole when saying PC gaming
> is completely dead. You can still play some great games (as long as
> the publisher feels like porting them) and even some exclusives (in
> niche genres), and regardless of what other platforms they appear on
> any setup where you can play Modern Warfare 2, Fallout 3, Mass Effect
> 2, and others is not bad at all.
>
> But if you make a list of the gaming franchises that don't appear on
> the PC in any shape or form, it's staggering. This wasn't always the
> case. PC gamers used to sit pretty with their Deus Ex, their Half
> Life, their Fallout 1 & 2, while still getting the most important
> console games (just ran across my PC version of Final Fantasy VII the
> other day). Now they get no original games and minimal effort ports
> (no leaning in MW2, wtf?).
>
> Really, the only PC game of any significance in the last five years is
> WoW, which isn't really a game but an addictive, social chat room/
> grindfest that can be run on a five year old Celeron laptop.
>
> Finally, I'll simply say this. Two of the most (if not the most) over-
> saturated, often published, overexposed franchises in history, Madden
> and Guitar Hero/Rock Band, cannot be played on PC. EA pulled the plug
> on PC sports games last year, and after GH III flopped it never
> returned to the PC. So two games I can get on my *phone*, published
> by two huge, greedy companies who would make games for calculator
> watches if they thought they could turn a buck... yet they don't
> appear on the PC. Now that is what I call dead. I'll even make a
> slogan out of it: "If you can't play the current Madden on it, it's
> dead."
But the point is, that it isn't dead, just that ports go both ways now. PC
gaming started going down long before Half-Life, and the earlier Fallouts as
PCs back then at the high end were way more costly than the high ends now.
PC gaming started a serious slide when NES hit and the mass of games on NES.
Hell I remember Doom in 93 on a decent rig that would cost well over 4K
then. I remember the first HDD cost $1K for just a 20meg drive back in the
late 80s when they came out. As I stated before, the games I listed sold
well on the PC and are clearly superior, those are the type that are doing
the business anymore, shooters lost their way when the PS2 and og Xbox came
along, especailly the Xbox introducing XBL really waa a game changer for
online multiplayer..
Almighty's point, and a valid one, is that most don't care about PC gaming
because the console versions are good enough now and the cost is cheaper for
the hardware. Throw in HDTVs getting cheaper with nice resolutions, and you
have the recipe. There's still well enough of a market out there for these
PC game and ports, otherwise we'd see Nvidia and ATI calling it quits, yet
their stocks are still doing well. As long as I have this PC, there will be
no RPGs for the 360 for me. Dragon Age simply shits on the console version
by miles. Oblivion, the same way. I didn't get ME for it, but it is far
superior And ME2 is a definite PC purchase with this rig I bought. Maybe ten
years from now, PC gaming will either have to get into line price wise while
challenging the graphics of consoles or certainly die. I do think in a sense
that ultimately, PC gaming will go down the tube within the next decade or
two.
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