Will a PC comeback include Apple?
I've been as guilty as any doom and gloomer over the noticeable downtrend of the PC gaming market in the past few years, but there's no doubt to me that PC games are about to make a comeback.
Hello Spore, Left4Dead and Dragon Age. There are significant PC games on the horizon. The MMORPG market has exploded, thanks to WoW's high subscriber rate and I believe WAR will hit big and expand this even further. Plus digital distribution is finally poised to push brick-and-mortars into irrelevance.
The question is how much Microsoft will continue to botch it up and will Apple grow some PC gaming balls to take advantage of the missteps of Vista + DirectX 10?
Apple's PC marketshare is on the rise again. They've got some gaming fanbois despite themselves, thanks to Blizzard's stubbornness to give triple-A quality to their treasured platform. If they just tried a little, they could capitalize on the discomfort PC gamers are feeling from Microsoft's squeeze to push Windows Live.
Apple needs to do what Microsoft did once-upon-a-time and support PC game developers in a big way, flat out cater to them. This isn't Apple's strong suit, I think they like absolute control even more than the Redmond giant, but if they're going to do it, they should skip their usual tendencies and wrest the steering wheel away now before Microsoft realizes what they've screwed up.
They just need to convince one man really: Gabe Newell. He may not like Apple much, but he's an opportunist too. Partner with Valve, let them take the reins of a new gaming initiative for the Mac. If Apple was smart they'd realize these are the PC gaming savvy guys, they're the ones that get stuff done.
If Apple doesn't clue in quick, they'll still trickle in more marketshare, but they'll be missing out on an opportunity to grab the whole shebang while it's sitting right on the table being neglected.
Jealous snub from my old PC
Pain and I were discussing the possibility of a new PC in the nearish future and it seems the talk of dual-cores and PCI-Express videocards made my aging P4 box jealous.
It gave me a big fat fuck off, BSOD-style. It took me awhile to figure out what the problem was, but when my PC is giving the 'ole blue screen of death not only in safe mode but during an attempt to reinstall Windows, well the reason is obvious: it hates me.
The upgrade path feels a bit forced, which steals some of the sweetness out of the deal, but it's hard to stay frustrated with a bright shiny new PC under your desk. I'll be doing the install-reboot-install-some-more dance for the next day or so.
For the curious, the specs on the new machine:
- 3GHz Core 2 Duo (E8400).
- Nvidia 8800 GT.
- Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer.
- ASUS P5K SE Motherboard.
- 320gig SATA harddrive.
- 2gigs of RAM (for XP, I won't bother with Vista, probably just leapfrog to Windows 7).
Seems pretty zippy so far.
Long live PC gaming
Not only has Penny Arcade sussed the whole Portal as Game of the Year thing, but Tycho's end of the year musings have me floored.
It's not that Tycho is saying anything I didn't already understand, in fact we're so much on the same page his words have stamped all over me like tattoos. He says it so perfectly: elegant and foot stomping (slamdance steel toe boot style, not a hokey cowboy dance) at the same time.
I'm gonna yank out and dissect quotes like a madman, but summing it up is kinda overkill, because you could just read the whole article in a more linear fashion to get the picture correctly.
The transfer of PC gaming's richest, most vital blood to the console is almost complete. Where our best hopes have not died out completely, they've directed their vigor at a platform that has rewarded them with riches beyond imagining. If you told me that Pandemic, Irrational, Bioware, Raven, and Infinity Ward would be devoted to creating console entertainment years ago, I'd have pressed a button that sent you down to a kind of subterranean foyer where you could better acquaint yourself with my Rancor
Yeah, that's pretty much half the paragraph, but if you count yourself as faithful to me in any sort of way, whether it be as a casual reader to this blog, or in some sort of more intimate scenario, then you'll grok what's there.
Now some good old fashioned bold for emphasis:
More than anything else, I think it was installing Vista that made me hate PC gaming. The constant, system-level interruptions, the impaired compatibility, and most of all the savage kick to my framerate's exposed groin made me wonder what precisely in the fucking fuck I was doing screwing around with this onyx monolith. I knew I was just going to have to upgrade eventually (no), and I wanted to see if there was anything to this DirectX 10 thing (no), and I wanted to see what the Windows version of Live was like (a warcrime) so I bit the bullet.
And the final sad truth and reiterated conclusion:
For mainstream games, I don't think you can beat today's consoles
I'm one of the diehards, I'm not giving up on my PC. I may not want to be one of those out-of-touch dinosaurs stubbornly refusing to move forward, but I'm feeling trapped in a corner. I want to move forward, but the future of gaming on the PC has been looking steadily bleak since 2003 or so. 2007 has been a harsh kick in the teeth. I can play games on consoles, but I don't get the same visceral fun that I've gotten from my PC.
the proximity of the monitor and the fluid, richly analog pointing device
A key part of why I'm stuck away from the transition: I love my desk, I love my mouse, I love my ability to multitask my music-listening, web-browser, etc. while I'm playing my games. I love going to Fragapalooza and sharing that experience with a few hundred other PC boxes under the same roof.
I do NOT want to give that up. I have more than a few friends who don't want to either. I've been a computer gamer since the day I unwrapped my C=64 (and threw my 2600 & Coleco in the closet).
I'm not about to stop now.
