Week 22: The GDC

After poking around looking for events to do with the GDC I stumbled across an article that made me ponder and think of the relevance that it has to do with me.

Here is said article. Click
It’s all about the future of PC gaming, which sparked my interest as I’ve always thought of myself more as a PC based gamer rather then console however luckily I have an assortment of consoles and a high end gaming PC so I’m not in the situation where I only have one or the other.
They say that PC games are becoming less and less popular and aren’t making as much profit as they used to, in some cases I do agree as since many games now aren’t limited to just strictly PC or console, it is more affordable to have a console that costs £300 instead of a PC which can cost over £700. So why get a PC when all the games you want are on the other consoles?

If I was writing this about 2 years ago then I could of answered that with this answer; Well computers games have Internet gaming, better graphics and not to mention you can listen to your mp3’s whilst playing –wonderful.
However that answer simply won’t suffice anymore since the next gen consoles also allow you to have a lot of the freedom that a PC has. You can place music easily on the 360, the DS has Wi-fi capabilities and the PS3 graphics could rival that of a top-performing computer.

I would agree that a PC is costly, it takes up room and gives you the blue screen of death when your right in the middle of something. It’s a bit of a temperamental piece of technology however that doesn’t mean that PC’s have had their day.

I use my PC for everything, work, music, videos and games. Some games are just meant to be on the computer, some of the games I’ve played in my lifetime appeared on computer and consoles and the console versions just didn’t live up to PC ones – I believe that this is partially true for MMO’s, RTS’s and simulation games.

The keyboard and mouse would beat any controller in terms of complicated games where there is a lot of buttons and stats to press, these type of games wouldn’t work on consoles so I believe that the PC is still safe for a little while longer.

If I had to pick between a computer and a console I would still opt for my computer despite the drawbacks such as having to upgrade your system and paying for the expensive software, which you won’t get with a console.

So what am I trying to say?

Well the bottom line is that there is a decline is the PC market due to the affordability (PS3 aside…) and simplicity (just plug in and play, no installation required) of consoles. However due to social and addictive games for example World of Warcraft, The Sims etc I doubt that the market for PC would grow so small that it would jeopardise PC gaming.