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I’ve always been a die-hard computer fan and, although I do own a Playstation, I can’t remember the last time I played it. I recently had a conversation with a guy I work with about the differences between the computer and console industry. The conversation covered things from the difference in games on the systems to the most disturbing part of the conversation, market dominance. The one thing about the conversation that bothered me was the fact that he kept insisting that computer gaming was not mainstream -- not in the sense that console gaming is. This infuriated me, as I have been a hardcore gamer for nearly as many years as I’ve been alive. Sadly, I began to see his logic. Computers themselves are mainstream. Nearly as many households have computers as they do phones. However, gaming is not quite as common on computers as it is on consoles. Quite often, houses with computers have consoles that get more gaming than the computer. Why would someone pass up the often-superior quality of a PC game over the often mundane and mediocre console game? It goes down to two things I dwelled on in my last two columns: how user-friendly it is, and the mentality of console vs. PC gamers.
With a console, the most technical thing you may do is hook the system up. Often, this can prove to be too much for the average consumer, as I’ve received hundreds of calls in the last year from people who can’t seem to follow directions. Directions can become quite overwhelming, but hooking up a console system or a PC isn’t brain surgery...it’s hardly even your standard first aid. Despite the simplicity of system hookups, people get frustrated and refuse to sit down and think about it. Instead, they call up their tech friend, tech support, or tech store. They try to explain their problem over the phone, not realizing that not everyone has the same TV, VCR, Receiver, or nearly any other Audio/Video device, as you do. They think just because they say the magical, “My Playstation don’t work”, that we are obligated to fix it for them, know what the hell they’re talking about, and can see through the phone and know which wire they’re pointing at.
Buying a new computer is somewhat simpler in that you usually only use parts that specifically go with that computer, which means that color-coding is actually useful. Even this proves to be too difficult for some users. The teal-colored plug goes in the teal-colored socket, yet it’s not automatically going to fit just because you push it in. Even electrical plugs are fitted so that they can only be used one way, yet people don’t seem to understand that computer plugs are the same. They push and push until eventually they break the pins off the plug and call someone to get them to fix it, not realizing that once you’ve broken a pin, you’ve ruined your cord unless you have some electronics experience, in which case you would have known the plug is keyed to fit only one way and wouldn’t have that problem to begin with.
Once a console has been hooked up, the problems usually end there. There’s no software to set up, no system requirements to meet, and no illegal operations. The biggest catastrophes come from scratched CDs and systems that people have fallen on one too many times. The computer is a completely different story. Upon turning on your computer, you have endless peripherals to set up, software to load, incompatibilities to deal with, and system crashes to dread. All of these are things you don’t have with consoles, and if they’re to remain successful, you never will. This is where computers fail. They are too complicated for someone who doesn’t want to learn all the intricacies of a computer...too complicated for someone who just wants to hit the power switch and play a game. This is why the console has such a massive user base.
Now, there are a few trends slowly immerging that could possibly counteract this unfortunate truth. First off is the fact that more and more families are getting computers. With more and more computers, there are more and more people learning the Art of PC. This means there will be more knowledgeable gamers, and more people for those who don’t know what they’re doing to call and get help. If those who don’t know what they are doing keep hope, they too will soon turn into knowledgeable gamers and a nice, but painfully slow, evolution will result. Another very recent and not yet implemented trend is the upcoming branding method to be used by Microsoft to brand software, hardware, and entire systems so that people can visibly see that these products will support games that also sport this special logo. The only downside to these PC Life Preservers is that if they are left to work on their own, they will never counteract the much faster adoption of consoles. This means that people, companies, and organizations will have to take an active role in promoting the PC as remaining a superior gaming platform well into the future, despite the future being lined with awe-inspiring consoles such as the PS2, Gamecube, and X-Box.
The sad truth is that if the gaming industry keeps running the way it is, the PC Gaming market will slowly become smaller and smaller, and consoles will become closer and closer to rivaling the performance of a PC, and even the quality of PC games. Already you can find some absolutely wonderful games that, if they do cross over to the PC, it could take well over a year. While Sony have unleashed Dino Crisis 2 on the Playstation, the PC will only be getting the first one in the next several months. A game that's over a year old is already getting a sequel on its home system, while it’s yet to make it to the PC. Combine the quality of system and games with a price that makes buying a computer a sin and you soon have a population that has trouble justifying £800 to £1500 for a high-performance PC over a £200 to £300 system that can come pretty close to a PC. If the console manufacturers ever pick up on the idea to market productivity software such as word processing for a console, the PC market could suffer even more. To save our beloved PC, gamers, industrialists, and evangelists alike must make an aggressive attempt to inform the public and make the computer a safer and friendlier place to game.
Thanks for Reading,
o(^_^)o
With a console, the most technical thing you may do is hook the system up. Often, this can prove to be too much for the average consumer, as I’ve received hundreds of calls in the last year from people who can’t seem to follow directions. Directions can become quite overwhelming, but hooking up a console system or a PC isn’t brain surgery...it’s hardly even your standard first aid. Despite the simplicity of system hookups, people get frustrated and refuse to sit down and think about it. Instead, they call up their tech friend, tech support, or tech store. They try to explain their problem over the phone, not realizing that not everyone has the same TV, VCR, Receiver, or nearly any other Audio/Video device, as you do. They think just because they say the magical, “My Playstation don’t work”, that we are obligated to fix it for them, know what the hell they’re talking about, and can see through the phone and know which wire they’re pointing at.
Buying a new computer is somewhat simpler in that you usually only use parts that specifically go with that computer, which means that color-coding is actually useful. Even this proves to be too difficult for some users. The teal-colored plug goes in the teal-colored socket, yet it’s not automatically going to fit just because you push it in. Even electrical plugs are fitted so that they can only be used one way, yet people don’t seem to understand that computer plugs are the same. They push and push until eventually they break the pins off the plug and call someone to get them to fix it, not realizing that once you’ve broken a pin, you’ve ruined your cord unless you have some electronics experience, in which case you would have known the plug is keyed to fit only one way and wouldn’t have that problem to begin with.
Once a console has been hooked up, the problems usually end there. There’s no software to set up, no system requirements to meet, and no illegal operations. The biggest catastrophes come from scratched CDs and systems that people have fallen on one too many times. The computer is a completely different story. Upon turning on your computer, you have endless peripherals to set up, software to load, incompatibilities to deal with, and system crashes to dread. All of these are things you don’t have with consoles, and if they’re to remain successful, you never will. This is where computers fail. They are too complicated for someone who doesn’t want to learn all the intricacies of a computer...too complicated for someone who just wants to hit the power switch and play a game. This is why the console has such a massive user base.
Now, there are a few trends slowly immerging that could possibly counteract this unfortunate truth. First off is the fact that more and more families are getting computers. With more and more computers, there are more and more people learning the Art of PC. This means there will be more knowledgeable gamers, and more people for those who don’t know what they’re doing to call and get help. If those who don’t know what they are doing keep hope, they too will soon turn into knowledgeable gamers and a nice, but painfully slow, evolution will result. Another very recent and not yet implemented trend is the upcoming branding method to be used by Microsoft to brand software, hardware, and entire systems so that people can visibly see that these products will support games that also sport this special logo. The only downside to these PC Life Preservers is that if they are left to work on their own, they will never counteract the much faster adoption of consoles. This means that people, companies, and organizations will have to take an active role in promoting the PC as remaining a superior gaming platform well into the future, despite the future being lined with awe-inspiring consoles such as the PS2, Gamecube, and X-Box.
The sad truth is that if the gaming industry keeps running the way it is, the PC Gaming market will slowly become smaller and smaller, and consoles will become closer and closer to rivaling the performance of a PC, and even the quality of PC games. Already you can find some absolutely wonderful games that, if they do cross over to the PC, it could take well over a year. While Sony have unleashed Dino Crisis 2 on the Playstation, the PC will only be getting the first one in the next several months. A game that's over a year old is already getting a sequel on its home system, while it’s yet to make it to the PC. Combine the quality of system and games with a price that makes buying a computer a sin and you soon have a population that has trouble justifying £800 to £1500 for a high-performance PC over a £200 to £300 system that can come pretty close to a PC. If the console manufacturers ever pick up on the idea to market productivity software such as word processing for a console, the PC market could suffer even more. To save our beloved PC, gamers, industrialists, and evangelists alike must make an aggressive attempt to inform the public and make the computer a safer and friendlier place to game.
Thanks for Reading,
o(^_^)o
Naa... people have been prophsising the demise of the PC as a games machine since the eighties (before people even looked at it as a gaming maching)... and still it manages to hang on...
With any competition from the Mac dying away, there isnt really anything standing against it as THE general purpose 'Office' machine and as long as it is being used as the standard office machine it will still sell by the bucket load...
Also as long as there are millions of machines being sold, there will always be enough to make games for...
A strength of the PC is that it isnt, has never been and never will be a cool beast to own... as such it can never really become 'uncool'.. It has become almost a standard in most people homes... TV, Video, Telephone, PC...
From the Speccy to the Amiga to the SNES to the Playstation to the DreamCast, PS2, GC, X-Box etc... its never been a dominant force in gaming, but its always been there, its adapted as times change, with soundcards, better graphics, 3D cards, CD-ROM/DVD, etc... In Amercia, every year, the best selling games of the year are still PC titles (the Sims, Roller Coaster Tycoon, etc...) ...
The answer to your argument, at the end of the day, is that PC's and consoles are very different beasts, they servre very different functions for different people... Its like comparing a toaster to a microwave?
With any competition from the Mac dying away, there isnt really anything standing against it as THE general purpose 'Office' machine and as long as it is being used as the standard office machine it will still sell by the bucket load...
Also as long as there are millions of machines being sold, there will always be enough to make games for...
A strength of the PC is that it isnt, has never been and never will be a cool beast to own... as such it can never really become 'uncool'.. It has become almost a standard in most people homes... TV, Video, Telephone, PC...
From the Speccy to the Amiga to the SNES to the Playstation to the DreamCast, PS2, GC, X-Box etc... its never been a dominant force in gaming, but its always been there, its adapted as times change, with soundcards, better graphics, 3D cards, CD-ROM/DVD, etc... In Amercia, every year, the best selling games of the year are still PC titles (the Sims, Roller Coaster Tycoon, etc...) ...
The answer to your argument, at the end of the day, is that PC's and consoles are very different beasts, they servre very different functions for different people... Its like comparing a toaster to a microwave?
Do you read GamesMaster Pob?? Only I posted a similar topic about the PC 'dying' and being replaced by the next-gen. consoles, only a few months ago.
No, I'm not saying you've copied it, as it was a long time ago, and your's is worded a lot better!! Mine was so long they had to cut out about half of it! And they missed the good parts about how on-line gaming's competition.
No, I'm not saying you've copied it, as it was a long time ago, and your's is worded a lot better!! Mine was so long they had to cut out about half of it! And they missed the good parts about how on-line gaming's competition.
I’ve always been a die-hard computer fan and, although I do own a Playstation, I can’t remember the last time I played it. I recently had a conversation with a guy I work with about the differences between the computer and console industry. The conversation covered things from the difference in games on the systems to the most disturbing part of the conversation, market dominance. The one thing about the conversation that bothered me was the fact that he kept insisting that computer gaming was not mainstream -- not in the sense that console gaming is. This infuriated me, as I have been a hardcore gamer for nearly as many years as I’ve been alive. Sadly, I began to see his logic. Computers themselves are mainstream. Nearly as many households have computers as they do phones. However, gaming is not quite as common on computers as it is on consoles. Quite often, houses with computers have consoles that get more gaming than the computer. Why would someone pass up the often-superior quality of a PC game over the often mundane and mediocre console game? It goes down to two things I dwelled on in my last two columns: how user-friendly it is, and the mentality of console vs. PC gamers.
With a console, the most technical thing you may do is hook the system up. Often, this can prove to be too much for the average consumer, as I’ve received hundreds of calls in the last year from people who can’t seem to follow directions. Directions can become quite overwhelming, but hooking up a console system or a PC isn’t brain surgery...it’s hardly even your standard first aid. Despite the simplicity of system hookups, people get frustrated and refuse to sit down and think about it. Instead, they call up their tech friend, tech support, or tech store. They try to explain their problem over the phone, not realizing that not everyone has the same TV, VCR, Receiver, or nearly any other Audio/Video device, as you do. They think just because they say the magical, “My Playstation don’t work”, that we are obligated to fix it for them, know what the hell they’re talking about, and can see through the phone and know which wire they’re pointing at.
Buying a new computer is somewhat simpler in that you usually only use parts that specifically go with that computer, which means that color-coding is actually useful. Even this proves to be too difficult for some users. The teal-colored plug goes in the teal-colored socket, yet it’s not automatically going to fit just because you push it in. Even electrical plugs are fitted so that they can only be used one way, yet people don’t seem to understand that computer plugs are the same. They push and push until eventually they break the pins off the plug and call someone to get them to fix it, not realizing that once you’ve broken a pin, you’ve ruined your cord unless you have some electronics experience, in which case you would have known the plug is keyed to fit only one way and wouldn’t have that problem to begin with.
Once a console has been hooked up, the problems usually end there. There’s no software to set up, no system requirements to meet, and no illegal operations. The biggest catastrophes come from scratched CDs and systems that people have fallen on one too many times. The computer is a completely different story. Upon turning on your computer, you have endless peripherals to set up, software to load, incompatibilities to deal with, and system crashes to dread. All of these are things you don’t have with consoles, and if they’re to remain successful, you never will. This is where computers fail. They are too complicated for someone who doesn’t want to learn all the intricacies of a computer...too complicated for someone who just wants to hit the power switch and play a game. This is why the console has such a massive user base.
Now, there are a few trends slowly immerging that could possibly counteract this unfortunate truth. First off is the fact that more and more families are getting computers. With more and more computers, there are more and more people learning the Art of PC. This means there will be more knowledgeable gamers, and more people for those who don’t know what they’re doing to call and get help. If those who don’t know what they are doing keep hope, they too will soon turn into knowledgeable gamers and a nice, but painfully slow, evolution will result. Another very recent and not yet implemented trend is the upcoming branding method to be used by Microsoft to brand software, hardware, and entire systems so that people can visibly see that these products will support games that also sport this special logo. The only downside to these PC Life Preservers is that if they are left to work on their own, they will never counteract the much faster adoption of consoles. This means that people, companies, and organizations will have to take an active role in promoting the PC as remaining a superior gaming platform well into the future, despite the future being lined with awe-inspiring consoles such as the PS2, Gamecube, and X-Box.
The sad truth is that if the gaming industry keeps running the way it is, the PC Gaming market will slowly become smaller and smaller, and consoles will become closer and closer to rivaling the performance of a PC, and even the quality of PC games. Already you can find some absolutely wonderful games that, if they do cross over to the PC, it could take well over a year. While Sony have unleashed Dino Crisis 2 on the Playstation, the PC will only be getting the first one in the next several months. A game that's over a year old is already getting a sequel on its home system, while it’s yet to make it to the PC. Combine the quality of system and games with a price that makes buying a computer a sin and you soon have a population that has trouble justifying £800 to £1500 for a high-performance PC over a £200 to £300 system that can come pretty close to a PC. If the console manufacturers ever pick up on the idea to market productivity software such as word processing for a console, the PC market could suffer even more. To save our beloved PC, gamers, industrialists, and evangelists alike must make an aggressive attempt to inform the public and make the computer a safer and friendlier place to game.
Thanks for Reading,
o(^_^)o
With a console, the most technical thing you may do is hook the system up. Often, this can prove to be too much for the average consumer, as I’ve received hundreds of calls in the last year from people who can’t seem to follow directions. Directions can become quite overwhelming, but hooking up a console system or a PC isn’t brain surgery...it’s hardly even your standard first aid. Despite the simplicity of system hookups, people get frustrated and refuse to sit down and think about it. Instead, they call up their tech friend, tech support, or tech store. They try to explain their problem over the phone, not realizing that not everyone has the same TV, VCR, Receiver, or nearly any other Audio/Video device, as you do. They think just because they say the magical, “My Playstation don’t work”, that we are obligated to fix it for them, know what the hell they’re talking about, and can see through the phone and know which wire they’re pointing at.
Buying a new computer is somewhat simpler in that you usually only use parts that specifically go with that computer, which means that color-coding is actually useful. Even this proves to be too difficult for some users. The teal-colored plug goes in the teal-colored socket, yet it’s not automatically going to fit just because you push it in. Even electrical plugs are fitted so that they can only be used one way, yet people don’t seem to understand that computer plugs are the same. They push and push until eventually they break the pins off the plug and call someone to get them to fix it, not realizing that once you’ve broken a pin, you’ve ruined your cord unless you have some electronics experience, in which case you would have known the plug is keyed to fit only one way and wouldn’t have that problem to begin with.
Once a console has been hooked up, the problems usually end there. There’s no software to set up, no system requirements to meet, and no illegal operations. The biggest catastrophes come from scratched CDs and systems that people have fallen on one too many times. The computer is a completely different story. Upon turning on your computer, you have endless peripherals to set up, software to load, incompatibilities to deal with, and system crashes to dread. All of these are things you don’t have with consoles, and if they’re to remain successful, you never will. This is where computers fail. They are too complicated for someone who doesn’t want to learn all the intricacies of a computer...too complicated for someone who just wants to hit the power switch and play a game. This is why the console has such a massive user base.
Now, there are a few trends slowly immerging that could possibly counteract this unfortunate truth. First off is the fact that more and more families are getting computers. With more and more computers, there are more and more people learning the Art of PC. This means there will be more knowledgeable gamers, and more people for those who don’t know what they’re doing to call and get help. If those who don’t know what they are doing keep hope, they too will soon turn into knowledgeable gamers and a nice, but painfully slow, evolution will result. Another very recent and not yet implemented trend is the upcoming branding method to be used by Microsoft to brand software, hardware, and entire systems so that people can visibly see that these products will support games that also sport this special logo. The only downside to these PC Life Preservers is that if they are left to work on their own, they will never counteract the much faster adoption of consoles. This means that people, companies, and organizations will have to take an active role in promoting the PC as remaining a superior gaming platform well into the future, despite the future being lined with awe-inspiring consoles such as the PS2, Gamecube, and X-Box.
The sad truth is that if the gaming industry keeps running the way it is, the PC Gaming market will slowly become smaller and smaller, and consoles will become closer and closer to rivaling the performance of a PC, and even the quality of PC games. Already you can find some absolutely wonderful games that, if they do cross over to the PC, it could take well over a year. While Sony have unleashed Dino Crisis 2 on the Playstation, the PC will only be getting the first one in the next several months. A game that's over a year old is already getting a sequel on its home system, while it’s yet to make it to the PC. Combine the quality of system and games with a price that makes buying a computer a sin and you soon have a population that has trouble justifying £800 to £1500 for a high-performance PC over a £200 to £300 system that can come pretty close to a PC. If the console manufacturers ever pick up on the idea to market productivity software such as word processing for a console, the PC market could suffer even more. To save our beloved PC, gamers, industrialists, and evangelists alike must make an aggressive attempt to inform the public and make the computer a safer and friendlier place to game.
Thanks for Reading,
o(^_^)o