[ahem]
Nope.
George raised the argument over on his blog that, with the introduction of the X-Box 360, Microsoft is going to torture, maim, bleed, and kill the PC.
Granted, he didn’t use all those words, but that’s pretty much what he’s saying.
The argument can be summarized as:
– Gamers buy expensive PC’s
– The X-Box is a cheap expensive PC meant only for playing games
– Gamers will no longer buy PC’s
– Gamers will buy X-Box 360’s
– The PC will die
I’d argue that the PC isn’t going to die – at least not because of products like the X-Box 360.
What we’re seeing is some specialization. It turns out that it’s a much better idea to produce games for a gaming machine rather than a general purpose desktop. You know what the hardware is, you’ve got your dev kits, and you have your market. Gaming on the PC involves a lot of guesswork – Is our game going to run on [X] machine? Is the three gig storage requirement going to deter some customers? What range of video cards will we have to support? Will we have graphics features that require the latest and greatest? Do we really want to have to write an engine that will scale down for all these different platforms? Are we going to piss off Mac users (again) by releasing for their systems a year after the PC release?
What do you have to think about with the X-Box 360?
Not much: Is this game going to suck?
Specialization is a good thing.
But, what’s it going to do for PC’s? I certainly don’t have any clear idea, but I imagine that consumers will be a little less confused about requirements. If they can plunk several hundred down on a kick-ass dedicated gaming machine, then they might actually be more willing to pay for a PC. No longer feeling that they’d have to go for the top of the line ($2,500–$4,000), but rather a machine that was just “good enough” ($800), a lot of pressure would be taken off. Then there’s the benefit of owning a gaming machine and a business/net machine for about $1,100 rather than three times that. It would also be nice for families that have little territorial battles over the PC – some bastard kid wants to blow up zombies, but mom and dad want to browse the web for a car. Problem solved with the gaming machine/PC scenario.
‘Course, I personally believe we’re going to see cell phones take the place of the PC over the next decade or so. That might seem a bit soon, but we don’t need a whole heck of a lot to make it happen. You could have your “phone” docking station at home/work, and just take some small, portable peripherals with you on the road along with some compact display (glasses that work as a monitor/HUD/whatever).
I’m a little groggy from a bad night of sleep, though, so I might just be spouting loonericities.