You are right on. I've been gaming for 30 years, and for the last 15 or 20, every 5 years or so "PC Gaming is dead..." then the consoles technology gets stale and Nvidia or ATI starts blowing them away and PC's get hot.

Then a few years later, the next gen consoles come out and "PC Gaming is dead" Repeat, lather rinse...

For me, its all about a keyboard and mouse. Haven't found an FPS or RTS that works half as well on a console without them and those are the 2 genres I play most.

Regarding games written Indie and then went commercial, remember a little game this year that won just about every best game of the year award called Portal??

I do enjoy the keyboard and mouse for most every game. The only problem is that they require a fair deal of desk space. And my keyboard tray fell, leaving me with 30 sq. in. for my mouse, max, so I have a fair deal of lift and dropping.

The last time I suffered an actual BSOD on Windows (across 4 computers) was two years ago when I was playing around with sound drivers. If you're getting frequent BSODs on WinXP or higher, it's either a malicious driver or you've got some malware on your machine.



Yes, and it was built by Valve. The original game, Narbacular Drop, was considered by all to have interesting gameplay, but that's about it. Besides, what Portal is most remembered for is its writing and voice acting, neither of which would have been possible in the indie game (since it was written by Valve's writing staff, and no indie developers could have hired a skilled voice actress).

No, it's because I screw around with Alt-F4 and games. Trust me on this. It's not frequent, unless I'm screwing around with games. Notably, The Sims 2 likes to crash at least every hour, BSOD'ing 33% of the time, and I only save 33% of the time beforehand.

Valve definitely does not count as Indie, and Narbacular Drop falls in the "Education", not "Indie" category. If it's not made for cash, and instead is made for a grade, it's not an "Indie" game.

I used to have to use Red Hat at work. Programs regularly crashed and I was even forced to manually reset the computer fairly frequently. No doubt this was because I didn't know much about how to use it properly, but then I don't know much about how to use Windows either, yet I find it *much* more stable.

The reason PC gaming is dying is because a Console will last you 4 years, and its dirt cheap compared to a PC.

When you have NVIDIA and ATI charging you $500 bucks for a damn video card, you can bet your ass people are gonna buy consoles for $300. I seriously dont get it. How can a top of the line console(dvd drive/processor/video/controller/etc) be worth $300 and a top of the line video card (1 component) is worth $500 when the graphics are just as good?

The main reason to buy PC games was online play, those days are over. Consoles do multiplayer just as good.

Next month Im "forced" into buying a new pc because mine cant handle it anymore. I might jump ship on the next generation of consoles if the insane video card pricing keeps going on.

no, the reason PC gaming is dying is because people don't know how to buy a PC, indicated by the following sentence:



When you have Mercedes Benz charging you $3402384398 for a damn car, you can bet your ass people are going to buy a bicycle for $20!

The 9600GT is $130-$150. The 8800GT is $175 or so. Consoles don't use "top of the line" equipment. Please do research on your claims before you post.

I can't afford a $100 graphics card. I need something cheap, unless I'm making a gaming computer. Consoles don't beat out computers on updates, though. They simply repress quality, not have excelling hardware.

Integrated graphics?

Don Quijote is tolerable, but I'd rather read Dr. Seuss. You use the same argument everyone else does. It's useless, but I'll convince myself it has deep meaning and people that laugh at my purchases just don't understand. Museums operate off charity for a reason.

A joke, one I suspect is more accurate a description of high art than any attributed by the experts.

A couple attending an art exhibition at the Kentucky Gallery were staring at a portrait that had them completely confused.

The painting depicted three very black and totally naked men sitting on a park bench. Two of the figures had black weinees, but the one in the middle had a pink weinee.

The curator of the gallery realized that they were having trouble interpreting the painting and offered his assessment. He went on for nearly half an hour explaining how it depicted the sexual emasculation of African-Americans in a predominately white, patriarchal society. “In fact,” he pointed out, “some serious critics believe that the pink weinee also reflects the cultural and sciological oppression experienced by gay men in contemporary society.”

After the curator left, a young man in a Kentucky T-shirt approached the couple and said, “Would you like to know what the painting is really about?”

“Now why would you claim to be more of an expert than the curator of the gallery?” asked the couple.

“Because I’m the guy who painted it,” he replied. “In fact, there are no African-Americans depicted at all. They’re just three Kentucky coal miners, and the guy in the middle went home for lunch.”

That's the beautiful thing about true art, though - the intended meaning given by the creator of that piece doesn't have to have anything to do with your interpretation of it. So the curator is fine to think that it deals with the emasculation of black society, and he's right; just like the painter can make jokes about blow jobs, and he's right.

This reminds me of a small statement that was pinned on the wall in physics class.

"Art is not useless but bakers are much more important. They have to get up really early and bake bread so people can eat. If suddenly all bakers were gone that would be really bad. That's why bakers are much more important then artists."

That statement is art on its own It brilliantly shows that "art" is nothing but a form of entertainment, praised to have some intellectual value which is has not by people that have too much free time on their hand and want to have some argument to thing they are smart because deep down they know that they are not. If they were they would be nuclear physicists or something like that.

It's a little like book clubs. People get together for those book clubs and think themselves to be super smart and intelligent because of it. Here is some news: A lot of people can read. Wow, you can read, too! You are so awesome!

Bottom line: All the fuss behind art is just that - useless fuss. So in a way people claiming that computer games are art are right. It's just the other way around: Art is nothing more then games. It is fun to those who like it but let's be honest: It is no intellectual challenge, there is nothing special about it. It's entertainment for the masses, nothing more. The fact that the old forms of entertainment for the masses (theaters, paintings) are not appreciated any more by most people doesn't make them superior art to the modern entertainment possibilities. That would be like claiming PacMan is superior art to Sins just because it's older and less people like it these days.

Yup, and as the proud owner of one, it'll handle every game on the market right now. It'll even do Crysis decently at High settings.

Just played a little bit of Halo 3 on another person's Xbox 360, and I'm very disappointed. Just like the games in the store, it's not antialiased. The stair step effect is everywhere. I'm sorry, but even my old GeForce 6800 was plenty capable if pulling off 4x AA with most games, and 2x with the most demanding ones (except Crysis, which I wouldn't even try on a 6800).

My 9600 can pull off some AA with everything, and I'm pulling 8x or 16x in some games. I can even pull 2x AA with Crysis and maintain a playable game.

There's simply no excuse for not having antialiasing in games anymore IMHO. If the consoles aren't able to pull it off, then I'm not impressed at all with their supposed graphical "power."



Nope. Online play, especially with MMORPGs, is as popular as ever on the PC. Consoles are brand new to online play, and I think they still have a ways to go before they're competing with PCs in games like MMORPGs.



You can get them as cheap as $20 if you don't want to play recent DirectX 10 games. In addition, I seriously doubt you can afford a console if you can't afford a $100 graphics card.

I spent $100 for my MSI NX7600GS and am very happy with it. OpenGL is more important to me than DirectX.

I agree with the statement that PC Gaming is dying, even when we get that handful of developers and publishers that say "all is well; look the other way". A decent deal of those saying "all is well" are also well-within still viable genres and-or with strong influence with consumers (powerful brand(s)).

We do still get that once in awhile magic seller that gets consumer attention (Sims, etc.), but should we base PC Game Industry health around the exceptional few or what the rest of the industry is feeling on a regular basis? You know the ones that have been closing shop after a single game (even when good), the ones barely making even after many games, and-or the ones that hinge the survival of their company with each project that must be available near immediately after the last.

Considering how less saturated the PC gaming market is in some of these genres compared to years ago, and we have no greater count of game sells. Instead, we have observed declining sells in various genres for years. And, as of late some sold far below the original sales projections, which might be a showing that the recent console generation might be taking a greater impact on PC game sells then before.

Of course, looking at profit/revenue reports that broadly cover the PC Industry wont tell you this, as they include the profits and revenue of Pay-to-Play games (MMORPGs). Most of us know, those games consume more money and generate far greater profits. Leading people to believe all is well. It just really isn't. We have watched a total decline of game unit sells ranging from nearly five-hundred thousand to eight-million per year for at least five years (cannot remember exactly when this trend started).

There is no denying this, stick your head in the sand if you want to, but the viability of the PC for selling games is eroding away. While console viability is on the rise. The acceleration of this decline is due to console platforms now providing the (greater) viability of pay-to-play gaming (MMORPGs and the like), Real-Time Strategy Games, and First-Person Shooters. The recent trend shows that console gamers are now starting to buy these more then the PC counterpart, and some of the port are becoming more sophisticated adaptations (not just some silly half-baked control scheme for either or parallel platform development like some).

Further evidence, some of you older gamers remember what the old game retailer was like, walking into those stores and seeing dozens and dozens of PC games of many genres on those shelves. Now compare that to the retailers of today, tell me, how many PC games are on those shelves? What genres are missing? How many games does the largest genre have? How many does the least available have? How many of those games came out within the last year, two, three? Compare that to years ago from memory and tell me things are "Okay".

Ultimately, I could list many reasons for why this is all happening, but think this post is getting a wee-bit long for most readers. I hope it was informative.