Is PC Gaming Dead? And what does this mean for the Future?

With the rise of consoles, or more rightly the first pressing of AAA game titles going to the consoles, I have been wondering/worrying if the PC is going to be relegated to a terminal for World of Warcraft, or the next MMORPG.  This seems to be a belief only held by me, game developers, gaming press and the odd blogger.  As for my friends - there is a strong belief that I'm very, very wrong.  To the point of heated name calling, and and the sharpening of pointy knives.

As a PC gamer my heart wants to bow to the peer pressure, but the realist in me keeps shouting "Follow the money".  And that money, the dirty great big mountain of money, is moving to and from the army of console owners and their disposable incomes.  And who can blame the starving developer in this cut throat industry?  It might start with a small and annoying casual game for Xbox Live Arcade, Wiiware or whatever Sony may end up with.  Then once you have had a taste of the code and the protenual audience, next thing you're sucking down mana potions on all-nighters in an effort to ship the next Call of battlefield 18.

Why would PC developers move to the consoles?

One case would be that of the Crysis from EA.  In a interview for IGN Chris Taylor probably hit the nail on the head by pointing to the poor sales of games like Crysis being related to piracy.  We all know that piracy on PC happens, but maybe now with the console and PC angle we can get a better idea of the impact.  Not saying that there is no piracy on the consoles, but it is a lot harder than on the PC, for proof, check out The Broken-Episode 4.  Plus the demographic with consoles aren't full of hackers.

Crysis also shows up the whole hardware issue still plaguing high end gaming on the PC.  To play Crysis you need to look at dropping $300 - $400 AU on a video card to run it.  That is, if you are lucky enough to already have the rest of the hardware to support that video card.  I bet the developers for the consoles are happy they don't need to program for some obscure sound card from a small province in China that happens to be the new Via standard.

For the longest time, if you wanted to be cutting edge you would need to develop for PC, and although Crysis proved this still sort of true, the gap is beginning to close.  If you look at the quality of game that they were doing for the PS2 towards the end, can you imagine what they will be doing by the end of the PS3, and again with the next generation?  Not that too many can really tell the difference now.  And if you can get all those graphics and game play goodness on a $600 - $700 device that sits under your TV, why would the average consumer race out and spent $2000 - $3000 just to get Vista ?

So why the consoles?

1. Less piracy through design and consumer ignorance.
2. Easier to develop because there are less hardware models to deal with.
3. This is where the consumers are, the ones who are buying games.

But what about the traditional PC titles and genres? What about WOW? What about the future???

Wireless keyboard and mouse anyone? Now I may be oversimplifying the answer, but really, is there anything else we need?  It may not be in this generation but I could see Blizzard doing a pack with a keyboard, mouse and a WOW pre-installed HHD.  I'm not ignoring the fact that some TV may not be able to display the detail, but have you seen the quailty of some the new LCD TV's ? Mark my words, MMORPG gaming from the couch is not for away.  It has to be to tap into the new gaming markets.  Our young no longer hack around with computers and electronics, because they are being conditioned by the consoles, mobile phones, and Apple into a pre-packaged universe where innovation is changing in the colour of the iPod from white to black.

There, I have said it, the death of PC gaming is the the beginning of humankinds decline into Idiocracy.

Jason.