PC Phobia - Is the pc dead as a gaming platform?

Blogger rant that the strength of PC Gaming is waning. With stiff competition from Xbox 360, PS3 and the amazing Xbox Live service, PC Gaming is in for a tough time. And with crashes, viruses, and buggy online gaming, this post might turn out to be true.

[Bonsai1214]

NO

[JsonHenry]

Two of the most popular genres of video gaming, Strategy and FPSers, are MUCH better on the PC.

And this is why not only is the PC dead, it is an AMAZING platform with more functionality than any console could dream of having.

LONG LIVE PC GAMING!!

[Bonsai1214]

you can add mmorpg to that list too. they work so much better on pcs than they do on consoles.

and yeah, starcraft 2 anyone?

[kishan420]

to all those who hates pc gaming this what i say and Loves pc gaming

FIRST PERSON VIEW IS I SEE

HEAD SHOTS IS ALL I TAKE

STRATEGY IS ALL I FALLOW

i mean to say this can be done at best in pc gaming

[socomnick]

Pc gamings fun and its not dieing but developer interest in it is decreasing they are focusing more and more on consoles.

[ReBurn]

It takes too much money to keep up with PC gaming. At least for me. You have to pay pretty much the cost of a console every couple of years for video cards, hard drives and RAM upgrades. And in the past you only got about 3 years out of a CPU before that had to be swapped out, too. It seems to have slowed down some in recent years, but it still seems more costly overall.

[SabreMan]

NO !!!!

move on nothing to see here

[Lotto]

Rofl no this comes up every time there come a new console " AMAGED PC GAMING IS DEAD!!oneone1"

[Quickstrike]

na it hasent even started yet lol

[Bloodmask]

PC gaming will always be king. It is constantly eveolving and you get all of the latest and greatest GPU's.

The second consoles hit storeshelves the technology is already outdated. Most PC gamers know that you don't need "the latest" graphics cards right when they come out. Because a lot of the new games when first released for PC's don't even use most of the features of the newer GPU's.

You only need a new motherbord when the slot types change....AGP, PCI Express...etc. And you can tranfer ram.

If you are smart and don't always go with the "highest" end parts of the time. PC gaming isn't as expensive as most would think.

[Clinton514]

Where do people come up with these articles?

[Snukadaman]

also with ease to convert pc games too the xbox360 make it a win-win situation.

[Daxx]

HELL NO.

[OmegaKulu]

even if they share some games, PC and consoles are 2 completely different market.

[Charlie2688]

Title should be renamed to "PC phobia, our incorrect assumptions and generalizations"

I think some one should send this article to the author

http://www.extremetech.com/...

[Boink]

but it just gets far too expensive to keep up. my PC is barely a year old, but cannot play 1/2 the new games out there, at least not at their best. and it would cost me the price of another console to upgrade it, that's not gonna happen. I think you will see many more people switch to console games, especially if we start seeing more MMO's coming to 360/ps3.

and if they could perfect an RTS system for consoles I think that would about do it.

[Lotto]

Yeah Boink i know how you feel. I got a new PC a few months ago. I think its called "IBM PC model 5150" I payed 700$ and i cant even install windows XP on it I mean wtf!!!

[OOG FunK]

I believe this is when the pc is starting to come back and enxt year looks brighter then ever with cheaper more powerful vid cards and cheaper strong procs we shall see what happens

[xc7x]

but always goes thru a slower change when consoles pick up speed then when they are dying,pc's come back in force,it's the gaming cycle,it happens just like all these predictions lol

[Antiomo]

Sorry but it will never die.

Its like saying ferrari is going to go out of business tommorow.

[ulath666]

... isnt close to dying. Its the biggest plattform.
No other console can stand up against the PC in sales. The problem is that they always compare the PC to CONSOLES, which is like one plattform vs 10.
Here in Sweden pcgames stand for 51% of the overall gamesales, so here the PC is bigger than all consoles combined. Several other countries in europe got about the same statistics.
And COME ON! The PC graphics are always one step ahead. Hig res, better textures, AA+AF and SCALABLE. You can play the newest games on a 2-3 year old pc if you turn the graphics down. People whining that they cant play the newest games on their one year old computer is either incompetent, "omgineed100fps"-peo ple or they bought a crappy gfxcard.
Yes playing on a computer requires a little more than playing on a console. But we get it back tenfold in patching without verification processes, mods and more.

Achivements? Take a look at the orange box. Its on its way to pcgaming even though it adds absolutely nothing. Xbox live? It isnt needed on PC. You can get way more content from any gamingsite. The PCs serverbrowsers are vastly superior to the "matchmaking" and other crap that live uses. Granted it takes 20 seconds longer to understand it but you got to be goddamn lazy not to prefer having a wide selection of servers with the ability to play on the same server as many times as you like.
Stat tracking has been on the PC for many years. Live doesnt have anything on PCs. Heck, Steam is infact vastly superior to live.

If anything i think we will se a rise in pcgaming in the years to come. You can get a good dx10 compatible card for ~300-350 €. Pc got some mayor titles coming and Once youve had the MP freedom of a PCgame Live seems so very clumsy.

As i said PC gaming requires a little more from you as a gamer, its not just inserting a disk and play, but if my sisters 5 year old daughter can learn how to install and start up a game, so can you. Lazyness and ignorance doesnt get you anywhere but into the line of gray people that are being forcefed whatever the large companies like MS spew out.

[BezerkerX]

Most people bicth about upgrading their computers every few years,i know its a pain i have to do it myself,I am a firm believer in PC gaming, consoles cant come close to my pc as far as strategy,FPS and RPG's are concerned,PC will never die,there are too many loyal pc gamers that wouldnt go near a console. If you really are annoyed at changing hardware every couple of years, buy an alienware computer for the extra 300-400 pounds, and those computers are built for like 10 years, who the hell is gonna need 5 gigs of ram,seriously? I was looking at an alienware computer only the other day and it has a 2Gb graphics card, that will last a dogs lifetime easy.

[duckman2470]

The real problem with people having to upgrade there computer to play these games are the systems there buying. Most people have no clue about a PCs hardware, they walk into a department store and get advice from a 19 year old salesman who should be flipping hamburgers. They spend under $700 and walk out with a basic HP,compaq or gateway computer package deal (monitor,printer,computer,$400 of included outdated bundled software that is useless and system restore disk)

The bottom line is you get what you pay for. These companys are not giving you a free monitor,printer and free out dated software, its all included in the price. They cut major corners by manufactering the cheapest possiable mainboard with just about everything built on board which is alot cheaper but reduces performance. Regardless of what the pretty box says these package deal systems are only suited for basic internet and spreadsheet applications not next gen gamming.

As for AlienWare systems, Yes there built with decent parts but they are also extremely overpriced by at least 400%. I have built systems that are at least equal and in many cases simply blow alienware out of the water for less then $1,500 (including a real Windows vista OS disk).

When it comes to high performance systems it not about how much you pay its about what hardware you use and how well each one performs/works together.

To give you a good example, I just got done building a cheap gamming system with a total cost of under $700 (including Vista Prem) This basic systems runs, bio-shock, World in conflict,Arma,Flightsim-X,BF2 and the new COD4 demo at 1280x768 flawless, most if not all ingame video settings/options maxed out. And for comfort I do not use a keyboard & mouse instead I use my wireless 360 Controller (with pinnacle game profiler) to play all my games. I bet your wondering what the specs are on my system, are you ready to be amazed lol

3.4Ghz Pentium 4 w/Ht, 2Gbs of DDR 400(duel channel mode), Nvida AGP 7600Gs 512mb,500 watt PS and Windows Vista Prem.
Like i said before its all about how its built not some fancy name or flashy case.

[ulath666]

This was written i JUNE!
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
reported...

[jorellpogi]

i bought my ps3 and 360 is the high price of constant pc upgrade that entails when playing new pc games. game console is the cheaper alternative. drm can be circumvented with software hacks.