The initial investment might be higher than consoles*, but most folks need a PC anyway. If you build your own PC (or buy a custom pre-built, if building isn't your thing) and then throw in a $150-200 GPU every generation or so, you gain the benefits of a PC with the affordability of a console.

*Assuming we're buying well into the console's life. $500/600 PlayStation 3 and $400 Xbox 360 at launch isn't much cheaper than a decent PC.

Edit- Not that consoles aren't a good option, just saying that PC doesn't have to be as expensive as folks make it out to be.

THIS!

PC Gaming isn't dying, Console Gaming is just becoming more popular because it is simpler to use.

There a few companies that make games for PC great (Dice, Blizzard, Beth) but honestly? How can you say PC gaming has retained its popularity? WoW is one (huge) game along, but a PC gamer (in my opinion) isn't someone who plays one game on the PC. I have lots of friends who play WoW on the PC but do the rest of their gaming on their console. Of course, by definition they are PC gamers.

Gaming in general has become a much bigger market. Before the previous generation of consoles, even the console market wasn't nearly as huge as it is now. PC gaming isn't any less popular now than it was before, but gaming in general (especially console gaming) has exploded.

DRM definitely doesn't stop pirates, that is for sure.

It's not $700-900 if you want graphics equivalent to a $300 console, at least not anymore. It's actually about the same price now (including the case and power supply, it only costs about ￡50 more here in the UK for a PC than an Xbox 360.) And this is ignoring the costs of a TV, which is usually more than a monitor of equal quality (though they are also generally larger.) Consoles do have an investment advantage when they are first released, being able to offer pre-packed hardware at an economic price (although some consoles launch as high as $500, depending on the sophistication of their features - as with the PS3) but the progression of hardware is so fast that the PC quickly closes the price gap.

Answering the thread's title, people are always saying PC gaming will die, or is already dead and that future are tablets and browser games like Farmville. This is ridiculous since all can coexist. It's a fact that a gaming rig is more pwoerful than consoles and will always be since consoles are built with a fixed price in mind, unlike rigs whose value varies depending on your budget :shrug: As such those who desire the extra features you can get on the PC will always prefer this system imo.

The piracy thing is a bit exagerated tough. It's not like games released on the PC are all ilegally downloaded, they still make a big profit. Look at Crysis for example, a PC exclusive than outsold many consoles exclusives :shrug:

I don't even think that's the point anymore. it seems to be more targeted at the dreaded consumer *GASP*

I think gaming is dying in general, not just on one platform. There's so much streamlining going on, the length of Single Player campaigns are but a fraction of their former glory, DLC is becoming an excuse to release unfinished products, genres series belong to are being changed (X-COM, anyone?), two of the leading consoles have nearly the exact same game library, the stealth and horror genres are completely dead and buried, nearly every game I see these days is a continuation to a series that never [censored] ends, Nintendo refuses to try new things, companies like Capcom and Activision and Square and EA have become nothing but marketing cashcows with no better interest than to make as much money as possible for as little effort as possible...

Bah.

You make me sad with your bleak truths.
There is still hope they may not be major but Firefly Studios did release the entire Stronghold series without any DRM, which was pretty nice.

Quality might not be what it was in your opinion, but the market for games has rapidly expanded in the last 20 years, and it will only continue to get larger.

thank you for that. I'm on the lookout for drm-free games

@Sub_Tonic

games are getting shorter in-part because there is much more that has to be done to make a game hold up in the market than before

I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Yep, The Stronghold Collection, you can find it on Steam but better to order it from their website or pick it up in a store or something.

it's on Amazon.com for $30 so it's in my wishlist for when I have the monies

Bah indeed. How anyone can tell me with a straight face that gaming has never been better is beyond me. However, I've found that if you simply avoid 99% of games and gaming websites (living under a rock), your favorite hobby's demise becomes surprisingly bearable. Ignorance is bliss. ^_^



*sigh*

DRM actually promotes piracy, because cracked games run smoother than DRM games.

back to topic:
PC game is dying. Yes they are still abondaned in the market, but you can hardly found any titles that don't tailored themselves for consoles and disregarded PC gamers experience. Hell, even console games are dying, with the rise of superb graphics from coming "tablets", you can see more console titles are porting to ARM apps.

Consoles are computers ripped with lesser performance and functionalities, "tablets" are giant cellphones trying to play computers, which ended up porting every titles from consoles. So think about it, what will the gaming world become?

As a primarily console player i have to say no PC gaming is not dying. Plain and simple.

It's not dying. Never was. Never will be. Well, unless someone develops the ultimate platform.

I thought the PC was the ultimate platform?

With all the forced upgrading because programmers can't optimise for PC as they are forced to for consoles? Naaah. ^_^

So basically we need a cheap, powerful platform with all the freedom of a PC that developers will abandon all other platforms for?

That literally means, letting only ONE company monoplising every video games, with a standard of its own. Every video game companies have to follow this standard in producing their products. That's the only way you can have a ONE platform to play all games.

Console is not ONE platform, its one GROUP of platforms. PS3 games cannot be played on Xbox 360, nor could it be played on NDS. They are each an individual platform of their own. Computer however, is the congregation of all platforms in its own. It is the only "platform" that could simulate other platforms, simply because, well computer is the root of all consoles and hell most electronics if not all.