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| PC gaming, about to die or experience a revival? |
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| Wah:
18 and hard-core PC gamer, sure bob whatever you say. |
| Wah:
oh and over 25 friends on steam (that I know) around my age. |
| Ian Sane:
Anyone that thinks that tablets will replace PCs obviously never uses a computer to do anything resembling real work. At the very least a work "tablet" would have all the functionality of a proper computer with mouse and keyboards and multiple monitors and the whole shebang. At that point is there any real difference between a tablet and a PC? The OS certainly would need the flexibility of a proper OS. There's a reason Windows 8 wasn't just Metro. When people talk about tablets replacing PCs they make it sound like everyone is using that phone/tablet style interface where you can only see one program at a time and all interaction is with the touchscreen. That's ridiculous. You couldn't do **** in the real business world if you were restricted in that manner. If anything the differentiation between tablet and PC will blur. Windows 8 being both a tablet OS and a PC OS is probably more what the future will hold. As for PC games, I don't think PC gaming will completely die. If there is a piece of electronics people will create games for it. Now how big that market will be is unknown. Of course PCs have been well past the point where whatever PC you buy at Best Buy will play the current games. Since the 90s you've needed a half-decent video card for example. A work PC does not need a powerful graphics card unless you're doing something with graphics specifically so it has been normal for quite a while for run-of-the-mill PCs to not be worth a damn for games. So those playing PC games are enthusiasts and have been willing for decades to upgrade their hardware beyond what an average mainstream user would have. I think the threat is that PC gaming is losing it's uniqueness in comparison to consoles. The two formats were quite segregated in the past. But now developers tend to make multiplatform games that include the PC. In that case the PC gaming scene and the console gaming scene are one in the same. It's just a videogames scene. The way things have gone in the future someone identifying themselves as a "PC gamer" is going to sound silly as their experience is no different from console gamers. With the rise of smartphones and the "games" that pollute them any threat of PC gaming dying equally applies to console or handheld gaming. In such a hypothetical scenario the casual users will have enough buying influence to make the interests of dedicated gamers too niche to be worth investing in. If tablets truly take over to the point where PCs are niche for any use then I figure dedicated videogame consoles and handhelds would be even more niche. |
| UncleBob:
--- Quote from: Lucariofan99 on February 11, 2016, 07:29:46 PM ---18 and hard-core PC gamer, sure bob whatever you say. --- End quote --- --- Quote from: UncleBob on February 11, 2016, 10:40:09 AM ---PCs themselves are dying. Folks in their late teens, 20s and early 30s pretty much grew up with a PC in the home - so we're gung-ho on PC gaming. --- End quote --- Reading is FUNdamental. --- Quote from: Ian Sane on February 11, 2016, 07:59:13 PM ---Anyone that thinks that tablets will replace PCs obviously never uses a computer to do anything resembling real work. --- End quote --- Agreed. I can't see doing my job on a tablet. But, I feel the number of people who would need a computer at home for work (and be able to let the kids install/play games on it) is not going to be significant over the next few years. |
| michaelbaysuperfan616:
That was pretty much the point I was making Ian, if the only people buying PC's are professionals that use them at work and enthusiasts is the enthusiast market left enough to maintain support? I am talking about if those hard core PC gamers start buying into not just Steam Machine but whatever else comes along to further fragment that market. Out of everyone in my family two of us have traditional PC's, me with my laptop and my mom with her desktop. Mom is a business woman, she needs Windows she needs the productivity Windows provides but she also has a tablet for all of her non-work related stuff. If Tablets get to a point where someone who uses their desktop or laptop for that other stuff is equal then will those people just shift to tablets? I am sort of with Uncle Bob, I think work is a different market than home. I know that professionals will continue using some sort of personal computer for a while but how many people soup up their work computer for pc gaming? I am betting pretty close to zero. Console gaming and PC gaming have blurred and now with Steam Machines, sure the current crop might suck or they might not live up to expectations but with as much effort as Valve has put into them I doubt they will walk away, I mean Windows is the corner stone of Microsoft's empire yet they constantly jeopardize that part of the business to grow their mobile and gaming divisions. I guess what I am wondering is will we see a future, like ten years or even less, where "PC gaming' just disappears because the person who normally would have purchased the dedicated gaming computer no longer has the need to do so. Hell the reason PC gaming existed in the first place was because PC's were in their home anyways and they wanted to soup them up for gaming but also used them for other things, the young generation is not going to see the need to buy a computer for gaming when they can get a console or a steam machine or something equal and get all their other non-gaming computing done elsewhere. Kind of like how in the early days of computers an enthusiast would buy a computer for the hell of it and gaming was all they did to justify buying a machine. In the 90's they became multipurpose and people outside the niche market found a need but if you take away all the other needs do you still have enough of a benefit owning a dedicated PC or does it make more sense for the average person to stick with a tablet and smart TV device and get their gaming on the console? The reason PC gaming worked was because in addition to the enthusiasts who had to have powerful machines to keep up with the current games were offset but the masses buying computers to keep costs down. Even if you bought an off the shelf computer for home office stuff you could still play some games with very little effort and get semi-current games on low to mid settings with some fiddling, for most people that was always good enough. But if that segment of the market is gone or shrinking then the costs of a dedicated PC especially a gaming or even mulitmedia rig, increase then that market shrinks further. Hell it has been six years since I have owned a desktop and I don't know when I will ever buy another one again since laptops tend to meet my needs. I used to be more of a PC gamer back when it was worth it to spend money on an all in one entertainment device that I could also game on, browse the internet, stream videos, listen to music, and even type a word document. Now I do my word documents and productivity on my laptop, I get my music on my iPod and smart phone, I get most of my gaming between my PS3/PS4 and Wii U, my PS3/PS4 have taken the mantle for all of my media needs outside of my ipod/Smartphone with pandora and spotify handling my music on the go needs. Even if I didn't have all those other devices taking the gaming off my laptop I still cannot see a reason to buy a desktop and I grew up on them. I use a desktop at work sure, but it's a ten year old mac mini that we will use until it dies and then find some refurbished 8 year old mac mini to dust off and take it's place. I imagine I am not alone in this and I am the PC gaming market, I just don't game on the PC as much, Ian be honest with yourself DO YOU? Based on your fondness for the past I see you personally maybe keeping a desktop PC around for nostalgia but be honest man, do you really have a need in your house for a desktop machine that serves as your primary gaming rig? does anyone? If you can get steam on a relatively cheap dedicated gaming rig wouldn't it make more sense to buy that than buy an off the shelf box and soup it up? Let me be clear here, I was not referring to the enthusiast who builds their own machine, I already included them in the market that will keep buying those machines, but if you remove every other segment does that leave enough market left to make traditional PC business model sustainable? I guess the heart of the question is, is there a future without dedicated Windows desktops? If everyone stops making desktop machines for gamers to soup up then they have to go back to the build your own route, those people have always done so but there are millions of "PC" gamers that are not the typical PC gamer enthusiast but more the typical PC user who happened to game on their machine, are there going to be enough of them left in five years to sustain that segment of the market and keep costs down? I know PC gamers who spend upwards to $5000 every five years to get a new gaming machine, are those same people, or people like them, going to do so if the cost for a medium grade gaming rig becomes $12,000 entry level? I doubt it. |
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