Console gamers say:"$700-$1000 on a good gaming PC is too much"

So lets say you buy a X-Box 360 for $400, then you gotta buy extra controllers, X-box live service, games that are higher priced than PC games, and then you are inclined to upgrade to an HDTV for higher resolution.

With a PC, it's an all-in-one purchase. It's a gaming console, it's computer, and LCD monitor's resolutions go WAY over the capabilities of a TV's and you don't need extra controllers and you don't have to pay for the online gaming service. Not to mention online gaming is A LOT better on the PC. Games for the PC are also cheaper and the library of games is infinite.

You don't have to upgrade your PC every year, that's ridiculous. You spend about 900 bucks on a PC and you're set for at least 2 years without a single upgrade need for new games. And when you do updrade, you sell your old hardware to help pay for the new hardware. Consoles don't even have the option to upgrade, besides going from a tiny hard-drive to a slightly less tiny hard drive lol.

Also, most people have a normal computer already, they can easily use some of the non-performance dependant hardware parts from their current PC to use in a gaming PC such as the hard drives, RAM, power supply(if it's decent), monitor, case, etc... building a new gaming PC costs less than they think. Also most current everyday PC's have dual-core processors which are recommended for gaming.

It all boils down to them not having the know-how to build a computer so they cling to their pre-made Xbox 360 for 5 years while the PC soars over it with more advanced graphics, online gameplay, and customization.

The GPU in the 360 was more powerful than anything on the PC when it came out. This was a first for consoles.

To say consoles are "last gen PC parts" is wrong with this generation (360/PS3). It may be the case now almost three years later, but not when it was released. When the XBOX 1 shipped it was behind PC's power the day it shipped. It had a Celeron 733mhz CPU and a low end GeForce 3 at the time when Pentium 3's were at or beyond 1.0ghz and the Geforce 4 was out.

Not to even mention several developers have stated that because of the locked nature of a console (OS, Drivers, hardware all the same on a single platform) they get between 90-95% efficiency out of console hardware when coding for games compared to something like 60% for PC games because of all the variables, different video cards, drivers, OS....etc. This would mean that even when GPU on the PC side started outclassing the 360 GPU it was still competitive in terms of GPU performance per game because of efficiency.

The way I see it, consoles are just last gen PC parts thrown into a box and given a game pad.

His comments regarding the PC version of Gears of War/Assassin's Creed was better is flawed. When multiple version of a game is released, its common sense that the newest and latest version will always be better. They're building upon something that already exist and adding extra development time. Gears of War had an extra year and Assassin's Creed had at least 6 months of extra development time.

The pc is a multi-purpose machine, but it specializes in nothing. This argument has been repeated generation after generation. As long as consoles continue to bring innovative and entertaining creative games into the livingroom, I don't think pc gaming will appeal to the masses.

The other aspect is that in the past, PC gaming development meant pandering to the lowest common denominator - which meant some poor integrated graphics.

Now gaming development is essentially unlimited in terms of graphics but requires pandering to the lowest common denominator on the interface side - it must be playable using 4 buttons and a mini joystick and without requiring any reading whatsoever.

Look at GTA4. Best selling, best gameplay, best game EVAR!

Past the anti-social graphics polish it's a 16 player shooter with tiny maps, boring vehicles, it even aims for you for crying out loud.

The popularity just shows who never got a chance to play a good mouselook shooter. CS, RTCW, BF series, TF, Rainbow 6, etc. And in the age of the console they never will.

I think enough significant names have chimed in that the latest round of 'PC gaming is DEAD!' has been run face first into the ground yet again. Those who wish to spin otherwise are free to do so.

I think the relevant issues for PCs right now are distribution and DRM. As for developers not bothering with PC-exclusive content, thats quite likely true for the bigger studios who've already tasted console revenue. Medium to small studios like Ironclad will likely continue developing for PC, simply because its easier and has less licensing hoops than consoles. Big studios like Valve and Blizzard who've always had stupendous success on the PC will certainly keep developing PC-exclusives for it.

Pirating, plus the cost of a PC,puts PC on a losing battle.

Exactly, because no one is pirating console games...wait...that's not right.

let's face it! a console is worth more then a PC a price point (for gaming only).
For $400 , a ps3 is worth $800 on components just look at blue ray price , and the Cell processor 8 core 128 bit ,plus a good video card plus 40 GB HDD.
So you are paying a lot more for a PC with less performance.
laptops are only market that is growing by comparison with the PC desktop.
So the powerful desktop that can beat the console, on the performance level , is dieing, but the laptop is beating the console at sales,

Wrong, a gaming PC is a system that comes in various configurations, however it is built for gaming purposes in mind.

This is an interesting take on the relationship between consoles and PCs. Although I think he has an optimistic view of SLI.

Something I thought of in the last round of PC vs consoles threads and news stories, is that consoles are becoming much more PC-like. They have hard drives, internet (including browsers), the PS3 can even run linux. In a generation or two of consoles, the only way to tell them apart from a PC might be the chip architecture.

Well he's certainly not going to say anything bad about PC gaming. He has a vested interest in 1) not pissing anyone off (companies, fans, superiors) (playing the corp people game right) 2) not telling the public that PC hardware is a wasted investment. Traditional PC gaming is not thriving or advancing really at all, even if the MMO groupies are diggin' it right now. By traditional, I mean everything other than the MMOs.

The ports of the crap games he brings up aren't really worth being proud of or any sign of PC gaming being as exciting or as adventurous as it once was.

Yeah lets start with HYDRID design which is really timely and useful.

I can't wait until the external video cards that are being made for PC's and laptops hit the console market. Make them easy to use and cheap, so a 7 year old can plug em into their XBox, and certianly there be more than one nail to put into the PC gaming death coffin.

Honesty what is this guy going to say. "PC gaming is doomed, I have my resume out there looking for a job".

How about some facts brother. Just last week it was announced that COD4 has sold 10 million copies, less than 1 million of that was on the PC. That is what I call a fact.

GTA just went past 11 million, I going to go out on a limb here and say the sales of the PC version are in last place when compared to the 360/PS3.

Sure a game can be better on a PC...or worse.

SLI is not ever going to become mainstream unless they really force it down people's throats.
and they are trying hard enough to do that as it is. :(
making high end cards not fast enough to play latest games/vice versa is one of the biggest examples of this. (crysis)
basically it suckers people to buy the extra card, and then whoops, it still isn't enough.

Digital distribution and "game as a service" doesn't interest me.
In fact, it's repulsive.
All drm does is hurt the paying customer, as it restricts the way you can use what you paid for.
I have been boycotting a LOT of new games as it is, because of DRM, and if it gets worse, I won't be buying any.

PC DRM needs to go the route of the dinosaur, like Microsoft's DRM music service.
At least music companies are now finally waking up and realizing that to sell a product, it must be free of annoying restrictions.
I wonder how long it will take the PC market to do the same.
It will get worse before it gets better, and then it will have a massive collapse due to people completely refusing to buy DRM infested products.

Of course it would probably take some heavy drm like the sony rootkit, to cause the backlash, but it'll happen eventually, since companies are never satisfied with the level of DRM already out. It must always be more.
Once a game totally wastes your OS, or acts as a backdoor for viruses, that'll be the last straw.
(not like that hasn't happened already, but it's never been wide-scale enough.)

He also thinks high-end solutions like SLI will eventually break out of the enthusiast market and become "more mainstream in terms of . . . adoption."

Come on, the price of some consoles, like the PS3 is hurting mainstream adoption, never mind the price of a SLI'ed PC.

I'm tired of this BS from all corner's of the PC industry. Just make cheaper video cards, better games, better patches (no major bugs on first release), and lower system requirements.

One point of #17 can't be made strongly enough. The idea that PC games should actually work seems to be completely lost on the developers.

I tried to get several games running on a decent PC rig and have now given up ever trying again. Maintaining the patches, drivers, and hot fixes was taking more time and causing more aggrevation than a bad job. And still there were bugs. Claims of HDR+AA turned out to be outright fraud. Maybe dozens of hours monkeying with settings would get it to work but the conflicts between driver and game settings presented just too many possible solutions to find the needle-in-the-haystack solution.

Just compare people's experiences with Splinter Cell:CT versus Splinter Cell:DA and you get an idea what went wrong.

Pc is just not for gaming but a whole lot more things that are impossible to do on a console. It's an well rounded platform.

They are the same already consoles and PCs, same basic stuff more or less. It's the software, and software compatibility that make'em different.

Pirating, plus the cost of a PC,puts PC on a losing battle.

Microsoft is the only company that could save PC gaming in my opinion. Maybe if console games could be played on a PC without having to purchase it twice, or PC companies made another line of PC's that where more like a console in terms of standard components and a special easy to develop for OS that could use PC video cards, and some PC software.

hmmm

PC gaming FTW and for FTL....

So PC gaming is going be like what the Phantom was going to be. What visionarys!

I have to agree with Taylor to a certain extent. But I wouldn't say PC is an improved console so much as consoles becoming a PC that's controller-based.

Yes, the baseline for consoles is becoming higher but it's not like PC hardware is stopping and waiting for consoles to catch up. Digital Distribution will contribute to save PC gaming, and despite popular belief, PC as a platform is still far greater than consoles.