Have more people started playing on the PC?

[Googenstien]

PC gaming has slowed massively.. you can barely find game copies for PCs in stores now. It will make comebacks here and there, especially now because the 360 and PS3 are so dated but when the next-gen consoles come out it will most likely dust the PC again in almost all category's.

I think consoles will always be the bigger game sellers because of their ease of use.. load in/up game sit out couch and go. PCs are like muscle cars and need to be tweaked and messed with to run properly and most people don't want to invest that effort. Plus things are more controlled on consoles so cheating is less rampant for multiplayer games.

PC will always have its niche.. MMOs, RTS and most driving/flying sims can not be topped on PCs - due to button useage and needing mouse, keyboard to control things. I used to prefer FPS on PCs but find things more fair and as fun on my PS3.

 

[Pat8u]

I became a pc gamer earlyier this year now I have 50 games on the pc compared to 20 on console
and it all started with Mount and Blade

 

[Rawne1980]

The price for a PC that can run pretty much any game on high or medium has dropped considerably.

You don't need a monster rig to run games on playable settings and can get a decent mid range PC between £400 and £700. If you can find a place that buys in bulk and sells cheap then you are on to a winner and literally can get a decent gaming rig for around £400.

Or you can be a tool and spend a small fortune and buy a rig that literally eats games for fun but could have got away with spending a lot less. That was me for the record.

I'm not going to get into the whole "PC's are better than consoles" argument.

I do prefer my PC due to mods for certain games. But consoles are okay for relaxing on the sofa and playing.

 

[Kinokohatake]

Being a child of the 80's, I fear getting into PC gaming. I remember the 90's where you constantly had to upgrade your computer. I'm also not computer technical, so I don't know how to upgrade anything on a computer. I will stick with my consoles.

 

[Outright Villainy]

That's a subjective opinion. If you want to be objective about it, the best platform is PC.

Why would you want to even try to be objective about such a subjective experience as gaming?
Consoles offer huge convenience, as well as split screen multiplayer, used games, and many exclusives.

Whether a PC or console is better depends on your priorities, nothing else.

 

[Robert Ewing]

The PC industry has realized it was going a bit stale, so I guess it invested into defibbing itself. And it looks like it worked.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

All my friends are converting to consoles. I have always preferred consoles.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

I don't know. I switched to PC about a year and a half ago, and when my PS3 broke it wasn't that much of a loss to me as it would have been 6 months earlier (I mainly missed the TV record and Blu Ray functionality).

I know a couple of my friends have moved over more towards PC gaming, but is it an overall trend? I'm not sure.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

PC is by far the best platform. You have more keys at your disposal, as well as the whole internet, older games, an infinitely wider selection of indie games, mods, the ability to mod games, much better textures ... it's just a much better platform. I'm glad more people are coming to the PC. Yes, it costs more, especially for a good rig, but it sure does pay off when you first step out of Vault 101 with full AA, AF and everything at maximum, playing on a 1600x900 monitor ... and it isn't even a "beautiful" game by today's standards!

I've recently gotten my PC minimally upgraded ... well, minimally in the sense of what's currently cutting edge. A 3.0Ghz dual core CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a GT 250 isn't much, but compared to the single core 1.5Ghz CPU, 1.5GB of DDR RAM and GeForce 6600GT machine I had been playing up until this past Friday, it's a huge jump ... and I am loving it much more than if I had decided to spend less and get an XBOX 360 or PS3!

On that note, if you guys could help me, I'm thinking about getting Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad on Steam. How is it? Is it worth the $39.99 price tag?

Yeah, it has been a good year for pc gaming. Some big names are back, and it certainly isn't dead anymore.

It never was dead. PC Gaming has always been alive to one extent or another.

Remember to clean your keyboard after "gushing" man

OT: It seems to me that pcs aren't going anywhere and that's actually a good thing for both pcs and consoles. Competition and all that.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Judging by all the noobs in my randoms- yes.

 

[wooty]

I play both consoles and PC, whenever I can. This rig is 4 years old now, so I cant play the "higher end" titles. I wanted to get BF3 on pc, but got it for PS3 just to be safe.

Needs an upgrade, but I dont have the cash/patience to go through each individual part and work out compatibility again.

 

[Vault101]

blah blah blah PC gaming is best balh blah blah

so when Im on PC....its dead...when I get a console...its back again!! dammit

not sure when I might upgrade, though I right now I supose i can play those games i never got a chance too...like read dead and infamous

 

[ms_sunlight]

It is a cycle thing to a certain extent, in that the 360 and PS3 are heading towards the end of their lifespans and are looking a little dated, but I think one of the big differences are there are so few real exclusives these days.

OK, so a few JRPG series are exlusive on one machine or another, and you still have your Marios and Zeldas and Halos, but most AAA titles are multi-platform now.

It makes it a lot more convenient to have one machine that does everything, and if you're going to have a PC for internet / downloads / managing your media collection anyway, why not game on it too?

I've always been a PC gamer anyway so it makes no odds to me personally

 

[Joccaren]

While I do agree that PC has some technical, undeniable advantages over consoles. For instance, just the plain variety and versatility. On the other hand, computers have BSoDs(and don't use "I've never gotten a BSoD/I don't have computer problems as a rebuttal, it's not)

Red Ring of Death. Consoles have technical problems too.

OT: Yeah. The people at my school have always been console players, yet recently they have begun looking into PC gaming, as they are starting to realise how much more expensive console gaming is, and how much better games are on the PC. In all honesty, when the next generation of consoles comes out, I'm gonna try to get them to upgrade their PCs instead of buying the new consoles. It will likely be cheaper, and more powerful/capable, and more versatile.

I remember way back at the end of the PS2/N64 Era. My father refused to buy me a PS3/Xbox because another one would be coming out in 6 months that would be better. My, he was wrong, but it did show me how utterly crap consoles were compared to PCs for me. Not being able to use them because someone wanted to watch the TV, how bad their games looked in comparison to PC games, how much more variety in games there were on the PC, how much better the PCs control scheme was.

Back then I felt left out, now I am glad I didn't get those consoles. It would have been $350/$700 wasted, those same $350/$700 that went into upgrading my computer that six years ago was more powerful than any console so far.

Slowly but surely, people are seeing the advantages of a PC over a console. Sure, it takes a little more management, but it can do far more. Get a laptop and you can take it anywhere, without needing to plug it into screens. You can do work, or pretend to do work, on them. You can upgrade them any time you want, rather than having to wait six years for anything other than a Hard drive size upgrade. It is these advantages, and more, I believe that people are starting to recognise, and thus think that making the switch to PC gaming is a good move.

 

[Treblaine]

PC gaming has slowed massively.. you can barely find game copies for PCs in stores now.

I don't see any iOS games in stores, that doesn't make the iOS marketplace dead.

Everywhere online you get ads and references to PC games, the likes of WoW, LoL and Minecraft. PC has made almost completely the leap to digital distribution or mail-order, people have cottoned on to how brick-and-mortar retail do nothing but jack up the price by 30% for the inconvenience of spending gas and time for a narrower and less informed selection. Retail stores were a necessary evil in the past, but with the internet they are quite redundant and now where near fast and efficient enough.

I can't begin to describe how lucrative services like Steam and GoG.com are for extracting money from people's wallets. You can advertise games, directly serve a demo and if they liked the demo then sell them the game! It's the one stop place for so much media, information and convenience, I have spent an obscene amount of money on Steam... but I can never get myself to fork out $60 for a console game at a store... it's still Sixty Bucks!

And other models like Free-to-play and Minecraft's premium-alpha/beta access + pre-order are making bank on PC.

I can think of a lot of reasons for veteran PS3/360 gamers getting into PC gaming:

-things like Portal 2 PS3-Steam copy give-away
-All the games that are free to join
-Steam sales, which you CANNOT miss
-Increasingly widespread Realisation of the importance of dedicated servers (mainly only an option on PC)
-How regular "I just want a PC" are powerful enough to keep pace with console standards
-How many PC games will run on ANYTHING, like Minecraft. Or are at least more CPU than GPU heavy.


Myself, I have great love for both PC and console. I think it is likely I will get MW2 for both PC and 360 and play both, they really are just so different.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It never was dead. PC Gaming has always been alive to one extent or another.

One could say the same thing about iron-lung patients.

Though I'd like to think of PC gaming as a tortured dog that gets fed table scraps who will turn on its owner at the first sign of weakness. Of course, we're also looking forward to seeing just how long the effective console cycle can last. Microsoft and Sony are dragging their heels as hard as they can, stalling out the market, while Nintendo is so backwards that it's content just selling last-generation's hardware.

But PC has been slowwwwly moving away from the stranglehold of useless Facebook games and WoW. It's still highly dependent upon half-assed ports from the consoles. It appears we will see at least a few more PC-centric titles that aren't steeped purely in graphical bling, but substance.