Nvidia: 'Consoles Don't Threaten PC Gaming,' Enhanced Console Ports Provide 'Exciting Future'

I've been playing nothing but my 360 for a year and I've just recently been getting back in touch with my PC roots. I don't want to hear anything about it dying right now. At least give me Fallout3 first. =(

Of course he's gonna say that though, his company makes(most of their?) money off selling PC parts. I'm pretty sure the stockholders would vote him out if he purposely said something to damage their bottom line.

Sounds like bad news for Nvidia. I continue to find these types of comments and their ilk showing a lack of comprehension of the PC market's evolution. They remind me of the RIAA insisting the CDs still cost $16.

The fact of the matter is the PC environment is thriving. Blizzard, Valve, GameTap and FunCom all prove highly successful. The fact is, you cannot plop out another Generic FPS/RTS and expect to make money. You have to be innovative, you have to be good and you have to be interesting.

I don't think many PC gamers get excited about ports.

Consoles certainly threaten PC gaming. If anyone needs proof look no further than Call of Duty 4. It sold alot more on console than PC, and that's alot of people that would have added to making the PC community vibrant and longer lasting. Off the top of my head let's add RB6 Vegas 2... a shotty PC port kept the framerates slower than console even on good machines. It's been happening for a long time now, wonder what Deus Ex 2 would have been like if it hadn't been "consolized".

"If you look at Gears of War or Assassin's Creed...the PC versions had additional aspects to them that also made them attractive, whether you owned the console version or not. The PC version was better. That's an exciting future."

Yeh, I particularly liked the 'enhanced feature' in Gears of War that deleted all your save games and other settings without warning. The notion that porting brings about better games is one of the most absurd suggestions I've ever heard. Most transitions from console are still usually train wrecks, and that's just the technical side, nevermind the fact the gameplay has been designed for a different type of gamer using an entirely different interface playing in a different environment (living room vs bedroom/study). It is true that you can do some interesting new things when bringing a game from console to PC, but if the game has been designed with the original platform primarily in mind, that will be the most attractive place to play it, which is a worry for the sustainability of PC gaming as we've known it in the past.

No, no and no. Stop with this computer-software-as-service crap..

It's unfortunate to say, but it happens in all businesses.. companies go under. But for some reason, the PC and it's associated gaming industry seem to not give a damn if such a failure ALSO invalidates the usage of every single product they've made if that were to occur. It began with the bullshit with XP "phoning home" (or forcing you to call India..) in order to validate itself, and it's just going to get worse. While Microsoft is unlikely to go out of business anytime soon, what'll happen if they decide to just STOP validating XP someday? Get a new version of Windows? Ok, sure, but now apply that logic to your games. Games by companies which went under, or are so deep in the red that they're taking years to get out; Interplay comes to mind.. There is no "new version", so does that mean the hundreds of dollars you spent on their titles is wasted?

If Sears vanished tommorow, my couch, washing machine and 'fridge don't suddenly lose the ability to seat people, clean clothes or keep my food cool. Stop this bullshit with "as service" software EXCEPT when that software demands it to function, such as an MMO..

I'm a big fan of the PC when it comes to FPS / RTS... but really, was Assasin's Creed better on PC? I plan on picking it up when the price drops a bit more but it seemed more like a console game to me.

Since I write my own bit for a game development site every morning, I absolutely love when PR talk-filled stories like this come out. They just make me so happy.

I'm not surprised by NVidia's stance since they have such a large stake in the computer videogame business, but they conveniently left out any mention of sales comparisons between consoles and PC's. The answer to every question is "money". Why will PC gaming continue to decline? Money. Developers are driven by sales, not by "additional aspects".

Never bet against a trend.

That sounds like a pretty sensible thing to say.

I'm happy with both! Holy Crap, you can have both and enjoy life.
PCs in my opinion handle RTS and MMO's the best.
Consoles I find are better in regards to racing games and the like.

These simple points don't cover all genres but it's enough to keep me having both. :P