Is the death of PC gaming on the horizon?ADHERER

Okay, I admit, I shamelessly worded that title to get you to read this.  I don’t believe PC gaming is dead.  But I certainly see how it could be, if a few things were put in place.  Please… read on.

As I see it, there are a small handful of things keeping PC gaming alive.  If the Xbox or the Playstation were to assuage these issues, then PC gaming could, conceivably, vanish.

The first thing is the FPS (First Person Shooter) style games.  Many (myself among them) believe that the controller will never be able to match the keyboard-and-mouse style of controls for this type of game.  Of course, some feel that the controller gives a superior (or at least equal) experience.  Bull-oney!  No one will ever convince me of that.  Where I got my idea for this was way back when the first “Medal of Honor” game came out.  The experience of storming Omaha Beach was visceral and sticks with me to this day.  I thought it was nigh-on impossible to make it up the beach.  Then I got the same game for a friend for his Xbox.  Well, it was a pitiable substitute.  I was able to pretty much stroll up the beach, dancing and prancing and sticking out my tongue at the German MG42 emplacements.  I realized pretty quickly that they had to dumb it down for the console because the controls make movement robotic and far less intuitive.

In the end, if Microsoft or Sony could come up with a good keyboard-and-mouse setup (or perhaps a new, un-thought-of solution) for their consoles that FPS game designers could get on board with, I think we could see FPS games moving away from PCs and to the consoles.

The next barrier I see to the PC gaming demise is another classification of game: the flight simulator (sim).  Many of us out there love our flight sims.  There are no flight sims on the consoles (some would disagree, but they’re all flight games and not true sims) as they are all dumbed down for the controller (see the next point).  But far more is the ability to add on hardware items to enhance the experience.  Think joysticks, throttle quadrants, rudder pedals, flight yokes, and the list gets ridiculous fast!  As well, multiple monitors and IR head-trackers (so cool!) also make the flight simming community love their hobby all the more.

If the console manufacturers could get on board with the hardware add-on community, we might just see some more sophisticated flight sims move to the consoles.  Of course, this might throw the consoles into driver hell, which is one of the biggest reasons that many prefer gaming on consoles instead of PCs.

Another large factor in the life support of PC gaming is the idea of gaming in the living room.  Consoles are meant to be played on TVs, preferably large TVs such as are found (only) in the living room of most houses.  But therein lies an issue.  What if Junior wants to play a game while Dad wants to watch TV?  Now there’s a fight for the limited resources in the home.  Likewise, what if Dad wants to play his latest zombie-hunt game that’s unsuitable for children the age of which he has?  A friend of mine is in this very situation.  If he games on his PC in his den, he can close the door.  But if it’s a mature-rated Xbox game, he has to either wait until the kids go to bed, or else keep one eye trained on the door for curious juveniles.  That’s not an ideal gaming scenario.

Obviously, a potential answer could be to have multiple consoles with multiple TVs throughout the house.  That’s certainly viable as the cost of a good gaming PC these days could buy 3 Xboxes each with a 40+” LCD TV.  Believe me, I would way rather save the $3000 bi-annual gaming PC upgrade in favor of duplicate console-related hardware.  In fact, that’d save me a lot of dough in the long run.

There are assuredly many other reasons why PC gaming isn’t dying anytime soon.  But I think if the points above are met by console manufacturers, we could see a large exodus away from the PC as a gaming platform and toward the consoles.

What do you think?  Weigh in in the comments below.  I want to hear your thoughts.