Submitted by: Matt Benoit at 05/11/06
I'd like to mention before you begin reading this is about the mass-market appeal of the PC, not select hardcore gamers.
*End note*
Many discussions have been sparked and inflamed over the fate of the PC.
The once superior gaming system, but wait was the PC actually superior, at all?
Let's look at the ages, Personal Computers weren't popular until about the mid 80's and they were terribly expensive, sometimes running up through the thousands.
On the other hand consoles like the NES were only running a upwards of 199.99. [$350 in 2006]
So obviously the NES,SEGA Master System,and C64 would have more mass market appeal than a few remote "indy" PC games.
The same happened with the fourth generation consoles, such as the SNES, and SEGA Genesis.
As they had popularity among the mass market because of price.
Then the fifth-generation of games which launched systems like the N64, and the Playstation.
The 5th gen rallied 3D-gaming into the market at relatively the same prices, while PCs prices started to climb down at this time, they still were not as powerful,cheap, or accessible as new consoles.
Then came the sixth generation with the Dreamcast and Playstation 2.
By this time PCs were cheap, and more powerful.
Games started to be released for the PC like wildfire and become densely popular because familys often would buy a expensive computer around this time.
Still not catching on, but grasping the market the PC dropped prices, new technologies came out, and other factors.
This lead to the past 2000 era which brought along the Gamecube and Xbox.
By this time PCs were used for the internet by almost every person the North American market.
Games like Age Of Empires three which could play on a somewhat low-end PC caught on, which brought with it a whole new fan-base of PC gamers.
Various low-end PC titles were released between 2000-2003, in 2003 the AMD Athlon 64 was released.
Which at the time was expensive, but offered high performance in gaming to its Intel counterpart.
Games like Battlefield 1942 played on mostly broadband connections could be played with a low-end PC.
I personally had a computer with a 1.3ghz Celeron and Geforce 3 card that could run Battlefield 1942 on the highest setting.
This and sites like Newegg.com which offered direct-from-manufacturer computer components at lower prices and easier to acquire than finding your local PC store that usually didn't service what you wanted for components.
Recent PCs prices have been rising however especially since manufacturers like Dell and HP have realized they can cater to the gaming market, at often inflated prices.
Right now if your savvy enough you can build a pretty impressive PC that can blow away games like Battlefield 2, Age Of Empires 3, and FEAR.
For only about 900 dollars including a 19' screen.
However the PC often requires trouble shooting and doesn't usually last long for gaming, being able to play games for the next 2 ,1/2 years isn't usually good enough for some people.
Still the fact remains that the PC does have a very large library but it doesn't contain many adventure games and is mostly condensed of FPSes and strategy games.
If you do the number crunching most gamers can cough up to around 300-700 dollars for a new machine.
Which considering all you can do with a PC would make it the wiser choice of spending the extra for a monitor.
But we're talking about building one, not many console gamers don't have a computer all-ready, or are willing to sacrifice their current HDTV plans to learn about how to build a computer.
A new age of PC Gaming is coming in with Windows Vista and Direct X10, they will be costly but tech has been improving steadily and lowering it's prices.
Soon there may just be a manufacturer that doesn't have over-priced systems.
But until the PC can prove itself affordable and have exclusives more impressive than the next-gen consoles, the PC will be taking a backseat in it's current minority of players.
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Personaly I think that the PC is alive and well. After all, just look at the amount of games that come out each year (on ign release dates, the pc one is wayyyyyyy bigger than any of the others
I like the article. Back off people
N barley grow.
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