"Is Console Gaming Over?"

There's an editorial piece over at Business Week by David Ferrigno explaining why he thinks console gaming is going to be swept away by PCs.

The right combination of cost, portability, performance and ease-of use will allow the PC to re-shape the gaming landscape. The technologies are out there to make the PC fun and easy to use for all forms of media and living room entertainment.

I hate these sorts of arguments. I don't want my PC (well, in my case, Mac) to be "living room entertainment," and besides, the fact I have a Mac cuts me off from a ton of software support - and I'm not going back to a PC just so I can take full advantage of products designed for "casual gaming." I use my PC for two main things: internet and word processing. I don't like playing games with other people, which means most of the MMO draws are a non-issue for me & while I have a handful of "casual games" like he refers to in this piece, I don't want to spend a couple of hours immersed in Diner Dash.

I've always liked my consoles because I plug them in, stick a disc in, and know that it's going to work, and there's a wide variety of games I like to spend a few hours with. While this piece argues that PCs are become ever easier to use (I guess ...), and there are a number of good points (easier dissemination of the game equivalent of indy movies), and more people have PCs, I bristle at the thought of my computer as a complete jack of all trades that can do everything well and/or being able to magically replace my consoles (or handhelds). I have games in my library that simply don't have PC equivalents & probably never will, because they're just not popular enough in America.

The casual gaming market isn't going to shell out for a spendy Xbox or PS3 package, but they're not going to replace the people who are also console gamers. If I felt like my computer could do everything, I wouldn't have bothered shoving my PS2 in a suitcase and dragging it half way across the world with me. I notice these articles never point out the people who spend incredible amounts of money on a machine 'appropriate' or set up for gaming, or on hardware upgrades and so on and so forth ....

Is Console Gaming Over? [GameDAILY via Business Week]