Not Just 'Not News,' Just Plain Wrong

This post was mentioned on Twitter by gretchenglas: Not Just 'Not News,' Just Plain Wrong: There's another non-story over at Ars Technica about Windows 8, supp.. http://bit.ly/5Z7yYG

Yes, that Microsoft would be looking at what Google and Apple was doing in the consumer space and what Linux was doing with Enterprise. As we say on this side of the pond "stating the bleeding obvious". :-)

@rrode: AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel all would beg to differ with your statement. They all have vested interest in delivering next-gen Direct3D 11 products next year (AMD already has some shipping), and they're not going to let consumers miss the message about the capabilities of those products. Take a look at this fact: every AMD processor-based notebook shipping now has a games-capable GPU in it, because it will ship with either an AMD or NVIDIA chipset in it, and both have integrated GPU's. HP is a huge seller of AMD-based notebooks too. The AMD Vision platform is selling in full force. I looked at a recent Future Shop flyer, and out of 12 laptops listed, only 2 were Intel, and they were Atom netbooks. Everything else was AMD Vision (AMD+AMD chipset) or AMD+NVIDIA chipset. Most systems were under $800.

@plantarian let me rephrase. PC gaming is not dead. Its dead as we knew it. My kids play computer games (on Macs) but they are flash games, hence not just PC games. There are thousands of these games on sites like bublebox.com and they are OS agnostic....console like really since the developers just need flash installed. PC games ruled say 7-8 years ago. The PS2 started the FPS migration to consoles but even then PC were vastly better at it. The PS2 graphics vs PC were night and day. Now that gap has closed for joe gamer. Closed so much that gaming at 1280x720p is good enough for most. Drop in the disc and go. All of the little problems with PC gaming are gone with console gaming, like installing the game, constant video card upgrading, driver issues with different games, cheating in a huge way. If there is a cheat, everyone can use it, unlike on a PC where people could create their own cheats and have advantages. Patching a PC game is a pain. Where do you get the patch, do you get the full patch of the incremental? Does the download site require you to pay to use it at full speed or do you get a gimped connection for free...after waiting for 10min? Patching on a console is a single button to ok the whole process. For developers of 360 and PS3 games, pirating is much harder than on a PC, so they lose less money. Developing a game on a closed platform is 1000X less complicated. You know every 360 or PS3 user will have the same hardware, OS, and drivers. Supporting it is made much simpler for the same reason. My biggest problem with console gaming is price. Development and support are less, yet the games cost more??? For developers console gaming is cheaper and makes more money because of its closed nature. The PC platform is harder to develop for (lots of hardware, drivers, OS levels), harder to support, you lose more to pirates and you charge less per game. Its a simple money issue. CODMW2 is a blast on the PS3.

I think Paul makes the same mistake in his analysis that most console gamers make; they assume that PC Gamers want or need xbox live or similar constructs. These nothing more than marketing tools designed to sell my kids avatar clothing and lightsabers. Which is fine. But PC gamers tend to build their own communities and are much tighet knit that anything I've seen in the console world. Clans use and prosper with tools like xfire and ventrillo, and when a game doesn't offer all that they feel it should, they modify it. That's the beauty of PC gaming. Some developers are abandoning the PC community, but not because of the platform variety (that's easily managed and has been for quite some time). They are leaving becasue they can charge $60 a title for a console game, where a PC is 39 or 49 on average. They can sell downloadable content (DLC), whereas the PC gamers build their own. Halo 3 map pack = cost. COD4 MODS and Maps = free. If you like consoles, thats fine, I have no problem with that; but let's be honest and say that the reason is all about money, not platform conformity or the "advantages" of achievments and networks. (FYI, I own two xbox 360s, an original PS3 and a WII, all used by my 3 sons along with the PC. I'm strictly a PC gamer). The developers also thought that moving to the consoles would allow them to limit piracy. And well all know how that's worked out. Pirates always find a way, and always will. Probably shouldn't bet the farm you're going to outwit them. Instead, be loyal to the customers who have been loyal to you. But, there I go with that idealism again.

Ah, memories. I had a Voodoo 3, then mistakenly upgraded to a Voodoo 5 just before they went out of business.

Avro said:"Yes, that Microsoft would be looking at what Google and Apple was doing in the consumer space and what Linux was doing with Enterprise. As we say on this side of the pond "stating the bleeding obvious". :-)"" Or maybe it's the reverse... Microsoft has released the 7 and Apple and Google and Linux checks done in the consumer space... There are still two way of seeing things...