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Apparently we are all going to get an announcement at GDC about a new alliance to keep the PC platform alive as a viable gaming platform. Compared to the days of old, the PC has lost considerable favor in the gaming world with most switching to consoles such as the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 due to the fact they don’t have to upgrade near as often in order to play the games they love.
AMD is another manufacturer that is mentioned as being part of this alliance as well. I suppose we’ll get the full list at the GDC though, I’d put money on Saitek and Razer, and a few others being on the list as well.
I have no idea whether this will affect prices, will cause hardware components to be better optimized with other hardware and with software, and I have no idea what the affects of this new alliance will be. But, you can bet your ass it will likely start with marketing.
[via developmag]
I wish I could afford a serious gaming PC, I really do. I only have a PS3 for the types of games that such consoles excel at (racing, tps, etc…) FPS’ will always be for PC’s only, IMO. I just can’t afford the constant upgrade costs…once DX10 cards become a norm, and prices start falling drastically, then maybe so. But nah, I’ve gotta make rent and car payments lol.
Morne
It’s rare that these “alliances” ever amount to much more that a marketing expense. Trying to keep all these companies in line is like herding cats.
What they could do:
1. Set a maximum standard for specs and requirements for at least 5 years(more?) to compete with consoles. That way a user wouldn’t have to upgrade it’s pc so often to match the latest games.
2. They could also opt to create legal emulators of consoles or a match up development kit such as Microsoft’s XNA (which theoretically produces games that run on both the XBox360 and the PC without (much) modification).
3. Find a way for the PC to load up on a light kernel (preferably on the BIOS or ROM) instead of the whole OS, so it leaves all the resources for the game.
What they should do:
1. Leave Microsoft OUT! They have totally fumbled the ball and screwed up with their new shiny OS, called Vista, which gives lower frame rate for FPS type games, compared to XP.
2. Develop a new free software graphics standard with driver support, e.g. like OpenGL. I assume that ATI and Nvidia want to sell graphic boards also to Mac-, and Linux users?
3. All new PC games released today should be supported by at least 85% of the PCs out there. Today
it’s almost the other way around. The latest games released in the FPS genre supports, maybe 15% of the PCs.
4. Make it just as easy for developers to release their games for Mac and Linux that it’s, currently, is for them to release them for PC and multi-platform.
For the price of a new gaming rig that can run Crysis, decently, I can buy myself one PS3, one XBOX 360 and one Wii, + games, and have money to spare.
And people ask why PC-gaming is loosing to other platforms?