News for week ending 8th November 2009.
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1 comment
The Abbot Ansel says:
December 1, 2009 at 7:11 pm (UTC 0 )
Commenting on this show a month late, but Im catching up on old episodes. I wanted comment one the first section in this episode, about console games v. PC games and market share etc.
Recently, the Federal Reserve over here in the States came out and said that its most likely that we will be in this recession for another 5-6 years.
Now keep that in mind when I tell a short story about visiting an old chum of mine. He is a confirmed "PC games are dead" person. We were debating the issue (as Im a confirmed "consoles are a fad and only fools would choose to play games on one,") and pointed out to him that he had two of the three console rigs (X-box 360, Wii) with tons of peripheral devices, several dozen games for these consoles, AND a netbook and laptop PC. So we were looking at at least $1500 worth of kit in his living room. I then pointed out that he could have all the functionality of all that tech gear in one system for less money, and that its called a PC.
I dont think my friend is a rare case. I think most console gamers are like that. And while times were good, they could justify buying a console and their over priced games – despite that fact that you cant do anything other than game of those pricey dust collectors. You cant do wordprocessing, you cant edit your family photos or vids, you cant do you email, you cant interface with your mobile media device, you cant burn CDs or DVDs … I could go on and on about the things you cant do on a console but can do on a PC.
There are only two appealing aspects to consoles. Once, they come complete and ready to play – i.e. theres no messing with vid cards, processors, drivers, etc. etc. You plug it in, in the disk and it works (most of the time); in short theres no annoying PC upgrade issues. Two, you can play with pals in the living room and yuck it up. But honestly, arent consoles also demanding in terms of hardware/peripheral upgrades (new Playstations/X-boxes appearing every few years that "you just have to have"), and how often do people really gather face to face in their living rooms to play console games together anymore – hell most console games seem to be phasing out splitscreen modes (console FPS games at least).
All this brings me back to the state of the US economy and the economy around the globe. I think in the next few years we are going to witness the demise of the latest (and in my opinion most ridiculous) console boom. People will make the simple economic choice of playing games on a PC that can also do all the other media things they want to do. The console boom the last few years was driven by marketing and a largely youth market – and I think we’ll see as those kids are now graduating (with huge college loan debts) and having a tough time finding work, the last thing they are going to be buying are console systems and games … but PCs … who could live in todays world w/o a PC at home?