PC or not PC: that is the question...

For a good few years now, industry watchers have been waiting for the PC to rise to what they see as its rightful place: that of the premier games machine in the world. It hasn't yet, and I'm going to outline why I think this is the case:

1) Distribution. This is the biggie, in my opinion. Because the PC itself and its games have been traditionally sold at higher prices and in lower volumes than consoles, they have been locked out of what I term as 'gaming-lite' emporia. These are shops like Woolworth's and Curry's in England, which stock games but not by any means as their main business. It is more economical for them to sell lots of cheaper PlayStation games than a few costly PC games and products (and how many times do you see PC's themselves being sold in this type of store?). They do deals with the console makers, resulting in PC lockout. 2) Market fragmentation. The PC is not a stable development platform in the same way as a console, so developers have to decide what technological level to pitch their games at, meaning that software cannot run on all PC's. This in turn makes people wary of buying PC software; you cannot, in the same way as you can with consoles, buy a little box and know that the game in it will run. There are advantages to being a consistently developing system, but also many problems related to it. 3) Price. PC's are hugely expensive compared to consoles. Fact. This gives them much smaller market penetration; if x people can afford a PC then 5x people can afford a PlayStation. They cost too much. 4) The "work aversion" theory. 80% of people now come into contact with a PC regularly in their work environment, and because of that they are unlikely to want to boot up a PC during their own relaxation time. A Playstation or Dreamcast, in contrast, is sufficiently different that it doesn't make the same neural connections, and does not suffer from work-related stigmata 9no, not the film. Jesus, that was crap). 5) The PC game manufacturers, much more so (for no apparent reason) than console developers, are really lax when it comes release dates and slippage. Yes, PC's are more complex than consoles, and games do need to work with many more different components, but there are no excuses for games being four years late (Prey) or even two years late (Duke Nukem 4Ever, Daikatana) or being released with more bugs than a malarial swamp (Ultima IX, Devil Inside or, God help me, Sin).

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