http://www.reghardware.com/2011/09/23/pc_gaming_to_dominate_consoles_financially_by_2015/

all i can say is... \o/ makes my life easier

Meh, does it really matter? It's not like the consoles are going to go away. Not for a long, long time.

I think it's obvious PC Games sell better. Look at how fast PC technology (Video Cards, Processors, and more memory) get even faster. When consoles come out they are already running off at least year old technology and is not up-gradable...to an extent.

While I have noticed PC gaming has increased a bit, their prediction makes me skeptical.

Consoles are popular because they're easy to use and i'd say they're still gaining steam, too. I'm sure the new consoles will be out before such an overtake happens, anyways.

With some computers I've seen you can plug an xbox 360 controller into a special pc monitor, connected to a high-spec gaming pc

I think the news is a double edged sword.

It's great that PC gamers are getting some recognition because there are a few more games turning up that aren't just straight console ports.

On the flip side though, it clearly shows how much console tech is lagging behind. It's a shame because by the time MS and Sony consider the Xbox 3 and PS4, PC's will be over 10x more capable than current console tech. So for all us that have cutting edge PC's, we're not getting the most from it at current gaming requirements.. BUT us PC gamers can count our blessings, because we'll be upgrading long, long LONG after the console gamers decide to.

Based on the last year of game system requirements for PC, and the current technology vs what I have in my machine. It looks like it'll be 8-10 years before I need to upgrade based on current and past trends. That's a record for my Home Built PCs. hell my last one lasted nearly 6 years and even that hadn't quite reached the min specs of 99% of games.

Adding more to that theory though, when you include the costs of building your own PC (if you are capable) and the slightly cheaper cost of PC games (if you buy alot of games per annum), the longevity of choosing PC makes it cheaper in the long term unless console trends change.

So I guess my conclusion is this. MS, Sony and Nintendo will need to pull their fingers out for their next gen Consoles. and pull them out soon too. The clincher though is whether or not console owners would be willing to fork out for the upgrade. Chances are, they wont. The benefit of being a PC owner that is capable of upgrading their own systems is they (with a bit of planning ahead) can choose to upgrade a little bit at a time rather than cough up for a whole new system. Then you're also running the risk of backward compatibility on console while with PC you're not.

This is why I'm upgrading to mac at Christmas. My spec will reach minimum in years to come.

My dad has a mid-2009 2.93 core 2 duo iMac. He has had it for 2 years now, and can play minecraft perfectly.

And I don't mean to jump to conclusions here, but before people say to me 'get a build-a-pc kit, because it will have more power for less' I'm NOT getting a build a pc kit, because

1) they are towers, which include lots of wires
2) dad won't let me have one, why is above ^^
3) I'm too young for this complicated pc building stuff! Im only 13!

And I have asked my dad for a tower before, but he will also say no because of too many wires and building one is out of tge question!

So I guess my conclusion is this. MS, Sony and Nintendo will need to pull their fingers out for their next gen Consoles. and pull them out soon too.

diablothe2nd

The next generation consoles are already in development. Nintendo's next machine is coming out rather soon (The Wii-U), and both Sony and MS have stated that their next ones are under development. I wouldn't be surprised if we heard some news from Sony and MS soon.

As far as Nintendo goes, all we know for now is that the Wii-U will be more powerful (hardware-wise) than both the PS3 and the XBox 360. But it'll probably not be as powerful as next Sony and MS machines.

PC hardware will always be ahead, and you'll always be able to get more out of your games in terms of gameplay and graphics. But honestly? I don't care. I have a few games I prefer playing on the PC (Most FPS games, Minecraft, RTS games etc.), but otherwise, I really enjoy sitting in the couch with a console. So basically, I'll have both worlds. I'm not giving up on either side.

Consoles will proberly always be around, though i personally don't see the point in them when most console owners will also own a PC. Buying both a PC and a Console seems counter productive, instead of paying £200 for a cheap PC and £200 for a Console, it would be better imo to just pay £400-500 for a "Decent" pc (You just need something above a GeForce 8 currently, as GeForce 6/8 is the minimum requirements for most games). Overall it would be cheaper (Due to the cost of Console games) and like diablothe2nd said you can just upgrade parts over the years instead of buying a completely new console which proberly won't be able to run your old games.

1) they are towers, which include lots of wires

"itsme"

Thats a poor excuse imo. Your Dad's proberly just used a Mac for a long time and as a result wants you to use one as well. Overall a PC is a better choice for the average person due to PC's costing less(Both buying/making one and repairing one) and being able to run far more software/games.

The consoles have an advantage in one way. There cheap. If you havn't got much money why pay out loads for a pc? When by the end of it you may not have enough money to get any games.

Consoles will proberly always be around, though i personally don't see the point in them when most console owners will also own a PC.

That's the thing right there. Most console owners DON'T invest in a PC capable of gaming - they do that on the console. Many of them probably has a laptop that is good for two things: MSN and Facebook. They don't need their PCs to do anything more as they're doing their actual gaming on the console.

I am one of the few that choose to have everything from both worlds. I like having a high end computer capable of running the games I wish to play on my computer, as well as the consoles to play the games I prefer to play there (as well as console exclusives). But that's just me - there may be more like me out there, but we're not a big bunch I reckon. Sure, it costs more, but this is what we decide to put our money into. We don't invest in a large ass house or big fancy cars - we invest in electronics. Hell, I even have a girlfriend that does console gaming, so she'll be investing in consoles too, cutting my share in half. Which means more money to put into the PC.

Computers are computers
Consoles are consoles
if you want to play games, get a console
If you like to surf the web, and play a few Internet games like minecraft or on game websites get a pc or mac

I make the best of both worlds by having an xbox 360 and a laptop as well

Computers are computers
Consoles are consoles
if you want to play games, get a console
If you like to surf the web, and play a few Internet games like minecraft or on game websites get a pc or mac

I make the best of both worlds by having an xbox 360 and a laptop as well

itsme

In my opinion I think PCs are far supirior to consoles.

I fully understand why you would get one. Most of my friends have xboxs and playstations so there would be reason for me to get one so i could play games with them. There is a huge social aspect to consoles that PC generally not captured.

However I cant not have the power of a PC id happily pay the price of a new console twice over for a good pc.

I think, as has already been stated lots by many pc gamers, consoles are for children as a rule of thumb and most pc gamers are older.

But I quite like that because I dont like children screaming at me when i play computer games

In my opinion I think PCs are far supirior to consoles.

That they are. There is no doubt about that. They're also more costly though. And that usually gets to people.

I think, as has already been stated lots by many pc gamers, consoles are for children as a rule of thumb and most pc gamers are older.

But I quite like that because I dont like children screaming at me when i play computer games

LowRezz

Are you high? You don't actually think that is so that mostly kids play consoles, and grown ups on computers?

On the comment about the "social side" of gaming, i've actually made more like minded gaming friends through Steam and Games for Windows Live in the past month than I ever did on my 360. Infact I've since deleted the friends I once had on my profile that play 360 simply because their game interests have separated from mine.

As for the gameplay and screaming kids comment, well I've had my fair share of mic hogs and ragers on the PC but I have noticed (once they're muted) that the gaming experience is alot more mature. So far my multiplayer experience for F1 2011, Dirt 3, F1 2010 and TDU 2 have been nothing but awesome and (mostly) free of retarded idiots wanting to spoil somone's game.

Unfortunately I cannot say the same for my 360 gaming experience.

Lol I have TDU2 as well diablo! I preordered it from game with a bugatti veryron and the casino codes for it as well!

Anyway, anyone can play on consoles, anyone can play on pcs. But I agree with the fact that kids will rage and scream at you for not letting them go on your computer lol. This is another reason I'm getting a mac. ATM i share a laptop with my brother and now my bros buggered it up its gone slow. Can't wait till I get my mac lol

Are you high? You don't actually think that is so that mostly kids play consoles, and grown ups on computers?

Kahr

Id imagine that the average is proberly lower(Don't have hard evidence but everything would indicate its lower). Though there are more adults that play consoles than people would expect.

Wii will have done alot to get the consoles average age up(Casual games will have a higher average age than something like COD).

if you want to play games, get a console

So wrong. PC's offer the best gaming experience. PC Games don't need built in aim bots so that you can hit enemies in FPS games, you just use a mouse. You also have access to a far larger collection of games. There are more PC Games available than you can get for a single console.

On top of that with PC Games you get Mods. So on top of however long a game takes to complete you can also download community mods to extend the life of the game. With console games once you have completed it, thats it, unless they try and sell you some DLC's to extend it.

Are you high? You don't actually think that is so that mostly kids play consoles, and grown ups on computers?

Kahr

Id imagine that the average is proberly lower(Don't have hard evidence but everything would indicate its lower). Though there are more adults that play consoles than people would expect.

Yeah, that's the point. There's probably a lower average, but those are just statistics. The friends I have that I play consoles with aren't kids, at all. And we aren't running into like a million screaming, angsty teenagers playing CoD all the time - mainly because we don't play CoD, but that's beside the point. If you throw yourself at the "kids games", that's what you get. But you can always take precautions to avoid having angsty teenagers yell nasty words at you for killing them. It's called mute. And that enhances the experience tenfold.

Just to use an example of what I said earlier; yes, the average is probably lower, but from my point it's actually the opposite. When I was younger, I was all into PC - I kept upgrading it, building new PCs to play the state of the art games, often along with my friends (first in LAN's, then over the net). As we grew up, spending this much money on the PC became less and less important, and most of my friends slowly became casual gamers instead of hardcore ones. Hell, some of them even had families - in came the wives and the children, and suddenly they barely had a PC at all. They traded in the PC for the console, so they could play casually. They grew older, and went from PC to console. How's that for statistics?

Hell, my father - 50-something years old, has never touched a computer game. But he does let himself enjoy a console game once every odd year (mostly Mario Kart - he loves those games).

I'm not denying that PC has the better build, capacity and experience. But that's not what the consoles are about either. It's a different thing. You play what you feel comfortable on.

Hell, my father - 50-something years old, has never touched a computer game. But he does let himself enjoy a console game once every odd year (mostly Mario Kart - he loves those games).

Kahr

I guess my parents (both in their 60's) and their friends living in their village are the exception to the rule. They all play casual PC games. None of them are at all interested in consoles.

I think you're forgetting that if you buy a pc, you're not only getting a gaming system, but a fully fledged document/picture/video everything media accessible machine.

To my parents it's better value for money spending a little more on a pc so it games as well as it writes letters and watches youtube, than buying a low end pc and a console separately.

of course this argument wouldn't have stood true if sony had kept their "other OS" option. At one point in history I was seriously tempted to get rid of my PC hardware and go PS3 as I love Linux and it would play native games too.... I'm VERY glad I didn't fall into that trap. Ahhhh which brings me onto the EULA for consoles where at any point they can completely change what you've paid for without notice. Take the 360's backward support for xbox original games on disc for example. No Thanks Microsoft, and same to you Sony.

im getting an imac and also keeping my 360. ive heard imacs are good at gaming, despite thier 512mb graphics card and my bro plays the 360 a lot.

i know 1GB graphics cards are better but in terms of computer gaming ill do little of it, like minecraft, for example. the main reason im going mac, is because of it's proccessors and software that comes as standard (like iLife) with the mac as well. plus, it is also a luxury for a kid my age to own one personally as well. so no sharing it with anyone else

I guess my parents (both in their 60's) and their friends living in their village are the exception to the rule. They all play casual PC games. None of them are at all interested in consoles.

My dad's the same. He would never buy a console just for games when he can do them on his PC. He never buys the most expensive PC's on the market as he doesn't care about "perfect graphics" games. Alot of people between 40-70 are proberly going to have a similar view.

Funnily i actually started with consoles, with a NES as my first console. Though at the time PC's were rapidly evolving so fast that one year a PC would have 100MB hard drives and the next 1GB (I may slightly be speeding up the evolution) so PC's were really just for people who could afford to constantly upgrade. They were also expensive, IIRC around £1000-1500 would proberly be the rough price for a decent PC. Compared to today where you can get a decent PC for £500.

Consoles back then were the gaming platform. The Internet wasn't something that most people had, so to play games with other people you really needed a console.

Meh i feel old now that i can talk about the past.... (Im only 26)