KingsGambit
Caldari Knights
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Posted - 2009.03.25 10:49:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: ReaperOfSly
Quote:
The personal computer is king in the world of games, according to a new report by the PC Gaming Alliance
That was precisely what I first thought.  It's hardly a conclusive or definitive study and even excepting a lack of any sort of stats, you can see in the real-world that it simply isn't true. While the PC does undoubtedly dominate the MMO market, the great games we took for granted are now almost always released on console first (or simultaneously). Also, I think a report published by a PC Gaming Alliance saying PC Gaming is supreme isn't quite as credible as it would were it say, published by a console manufacturer 
The thing is that consoles make gaming far easier and more accessible than a PC does. PC games have minimum hardware specs, install requirements, copy protection/CD-Keys, patches, drivers, opengl/directx 9.0b/c/10.0/10.1, openal, eax, hardware t&l, resolutions, anisotropic filtering, etc. Consoles have round, shiny things that only go in one place and come in boxes with the console's name on, guaranteeing it will work with your system. The controls consist of a stick or two and some coloured buttons...the Wii goes further by making you wave your hands in the air (wave em like you just don' care) which even young children and housewives can get on with.
The advent of DVD storage for games meant consoles could play bigger games than the paltry amount previously stored on cartridges, the fact more people have TVs than computers, the cost of a console compared to a games-capable PC, more recently, online play (Live!/PSN) all mean consoles are far more prolific and thus profitable. I think MMOs will remain dominant on the PC (because of the keyboard and necessity for constant updates and patches) but for the rest, we'll have to put up with the scraps publishers offer us after their console customers are finished.
Still, it's not all doom and gloom...we have Dragon Age, Bioshock II, Hitman V, Deus Ex III, Star Wars: Old Republic and apparently Duke Nukem: Forever (cough) to look forward to this year. Sure, our console cousins have Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil V but that's why some of us have both 
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