Are consoles taking over gaming, or just catching up?

[brockly]

Are consoles taking over gaming, or just catching up?



Our PC guy steps away from playing his MMO betas to talk about why the consoles are taking away all the good exclusives, and why it shouldn't bother PC gamers.

The predictions that PC gaming is on the way out seem to be fairly common these days. It's an argument that's easy to support with a seemingly endless stream of statistics showing console ownership on the rise and a shrinking number of PC exclusive A-list titles. Hell, this morning 360 owners are already playing the Bioshock demo, and us PC gamers are hoping they haven't forgotten about us.

Personally, I think of console ownership as being less "on the rise" than just "catching up with PC ownership." How many console owners do not have access to a PC in their homes? Console owners certainly seem to be more likely to game than anything else with their hardware, but in terms of units sold, the PC still has an incredible advantage over the console market. I seriously doubt the number of console sales will ever overtake the number of PCs sold globally.

PC exclusives being on the decline is a fact, but the root cause is not the loss of developers' faith in the PC platform. It is simply a byproduct of console systems finally—though briefly—achieving some parity with PCs in the CPU and GPU categories coupled with the side-effects of rising software development costs. Consoles have straightforward SDKs, a homogeneous hardware platform, and an installed base large enough to make it worthwhile in the first place. It is much easier for a dev house to develop for a platform like the 360 and then port the game back to the PC once they know it will be a profitable title. It's just good business.

I do not, however, believe it will be this way forever. I have been thinking for a while now that Microsoft will develop a slimmed-down Vista Kernel/DX10 build for the Xbox 3. This will allow software developers to develop Vista and Xbox software on a single development budget with no porting after the fact. One software architecture to rule them all, if you will. If developers must choose between a future Sony platform, Nintendo platform, or Microsoft’s Xbox-and-Windows-in-one uber-platform, why wouldn't they choose the two-for-one special?

We may also see the Xbox Live and Zune Marketplace eventually merge, enabling purchasing, downloading, and transferring of content from your Xbox or PC to a Zune. Opposable Thumbs has talked about the merging of the Xbox and PC business, and it's something we'll see more of in the future.

If all of this becomes a reality, wouldn't that basically make the Xbox an extremely locked-down small form factor PC? If so, aren't console gamers basically becoming PC gamers at that point? The PS3 is already getting mods for their version of Unreal Tournament 3, and consoles are finally getting first-class RTS games like Universe at War. While PC gamers may be losing exclusives, the platform still has many, many cross-platform games that look great to look forward to.

The differences between PC and consoles are becoming fewer, not growing. You can even see it in Microsoft's DirectX software, where the 10.1 version features a sound API from the Xbox 360. While Sony is making strides with their more open online system, Microsoft is in a much better place to make sure all the big PC games come out for their OS and their console. Easy ports mean there will be more games that look better coming to and from the PC in the 360's library. That's a powerful weapon.

Source: Are consoles taking over gaming, or just catching up? We investigate