Will PC gaming ever be dead?

[Paet]

POLL: Will PC gaming ever be dead? (http://www.wepolls.com/p/2008564/Will-PC-gaming-ever-be-dead)

There are predictions that the "PC market" will eventually fall to tablets, smart phones, and the likes of Chrome OS, none of which can pull off something as spectacular as Battlefield 3, for example.

If the PC market does die, or begin to die, then will that be the end of PC gaming?

[buzz_n64]

No. Tablets and smartphones will continue to get more powerful. They will eventually have the performance of a gaming PC. Streaming has already brought high powered gaming to lower power PCs through various services such as Onlive. PC gaming may decline in this generation, but I think a resurgence may occur in less than 5-10 years.

[theclaw]

Not in the conventional sense. What may happen is the user interfaces and form factors used in tablets/etc, become so different from the desktop mold they'll be hard to rightfully classify as still PCs. Software level compatibility I'm not sure is enough. How far down the ultra mobility path counts?

[Baloo]

PC gaming and console gaming cater to such vastly different crowds of gamers that neither can really kill the other in the sense. Many FPS, RPG, and Simulator fans will always go to PC and simply ignore consoles as they don't offer as much as PC games do, especially if you're in it for the community.

[Fatalstar64]

With services like steam where you can get dozens of games for $100 I doubt it. You'd sooner see consoles dying at the ridiculous price points of games and peripherals. If your into PC gaming now you won't change your mind and I do hear it is becoming more of a trend to shift from consoles to PC. Personally I'll do a bit of both get a console only for the exclusives I can't get on PC.

[calthaer]

I thought for sure that we'd discussed this sort of thing before, but it's hard to search because the engine won't take "PC" as it's too short. Best I could find was:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=150828

Anyways...no. PC gaming will never really die, I don't think (unless we're all playing games on a holodeck some day, or something). Some day it might not be on a Windows OS (although with XNA out, they're solidifying their position, I'd think), but people will still make games for PCs. The temptation to make a game for fun, or without having to pay a license and buy a dev kit, is probably too strong for a lot of people. Besides, with Steam and other distribution tools rapidly maturing, PC is the place to be for small indie development. It's almost like the early days of DOS gaming are coming again, and PC gaming has come full circle - now, as then, small teams can make awesome games and turn a profit from them. Try doing that on any of the consoles, and you'll be SOL.

[FxMercenary]

Never. In fact, there are more PC Gamers out there than Console gamers.

I own a PS3, 360, Wii, and 16 other vintage consoles.

I also own a windows 98 desktop with a 3DFX Voodoo 5, a Windows XP desktop with the last best AGP card (nVidia 7800 GS) and a Windows 7 Desktop with and i7, 12 gigs of RAM and a GTX 580.

PC Gaming is actually making a quick comeback as the current console generation does not move forward fast enough.

Graphics, Frame-rates, and variety will always be better on the PC because the hardware can always be upgraded.

Plug and Play consoles have their obvious perks, having the same universal hardware across the board, making game production easier, but also very similar in visuals.

[Mr Smith]

No chance this will ever happen. PC games can reach a depth console games never can making stategy and simulation titles much more PC friendly.

[substantial_snake]

I don't think that PC gaming will ever really die although the markets for both PC and console gaming are changing and will probably effectively merge into either a single shared platform or two very similar platforms at some point.

The current generation consoles are just continuing a trend of adding more and more PC like functionality to their system, with the Xbox 360 and PS3 now serving as very effective Media Center PC that can also play games. At the same time PC gaming has gone from a largely disorganized mess to something that is much more uniform and console-like with huge overarching services like Steam and Games for Windows Live streamlining the PC experience (for better or worse).

I think in the near future withing the next 2 or 3 console generations its going to be difficult to tell what the difference is between each platform from one another.

[kedawa]

Browser games will get bigger, since they can work on tablets and smartphones.
Dedicated PC games will continue to chug along as always, although they may become increasingly a niche product.
If all else fails, emulators get better all the time.