Saturday, August 21, 2010

Is PC Gaming dead?



Hi my nerdizzles, sorry about not posting for a while. Life changes etc and being lazy is no excuse for not posting so I am truly sorry.

Anyway, I would like to discuss the current state of PC gaming. For one I love the PC, it has brought me much entertainment and has such versatility that can not be matched. It spawned the internet fandom, is the forefront of gaming technology. You can just do just about anything with it. In the early 2000's is was the most popular gaming platform and in front of any other console on the market in terms of games and technology, so why are people saying it is dying?

Well, I have been involved with computers for a very long time and this sort of thing happens all the time. You had the Amiga and it was one of the best gaming platforms around, then it died to the consoles and eventually to the PC. So is it time for the PC to just give up on its old motherboard and die? certainly not. There is still more PC's out there than consoles either for personal or business, it all depends on how you look at it.

The PC has some of the best developers out there, look at Valve and its Steam platform. It is proving that there is still a market for PC Games and that piracy is not an issue when you can create a quality game that people will buy, also with Valves Steamworks for the PS3 and allowing PC and PS3 players cross platform will be amazing and improve sales on PC and PS3 titles across the board. Valve has some A+ titles coming out that is going to blow the socks off of everyone. We have Portal 2, Half Life Episode 3 and probably some others we dont know about.

Then we come to Blizzard, oh Blizzard how I love thee. They have proven you can still make a bucket full of cash just on the PC alone. I am not just talking about the obvious World Of Warcraft either. Starcraft 2 was the second fastest selling PC game ever (behind its own WoW expansion Wrath of the Lichking) and it continues to sell by the truck load everyday. When cataclysm comes out it will sell and more than likely beat Wotlk in sales.

Yes that is only two developers you might say, but they are but a few out there that is keeping PC gaming alive and with these developers the PC will never die to just being a Business machine it once was. With your consoles, you will have to buy a new model just to keep up. With a PC buy a new graphics card and you are good, or just turn the graphics down a little and it will still run on a machine that is 5 years old. A good graphics card could run you $70, where as a new console will run you $499 on release and even then if you are lucky to get one opening night and wait in a long queue all night for it to release.You will have to buy games that are $60+, PC games with equal or better graphics will be $50+ so $10 cheaper.

So for me, with piracy aside, I feel the PC still has long life and something will come along that will breath new life into it.

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