Online Consoles Marginalizing PC Gaming?

MattW writes "The gist of this AP/Miami Herald article seems to be that consoles going online will mutate the MMORPG space. Already, there is word that PC game development is withering, even though as a preferential PC gamer I see the best games ever. Is the console destined for superiority, or will the ubiquitous need and superior user input of the PC keep it as a viable game platform?"

Comments

Been there, done that.

[RatBastard]

In the 16 years I've spent playing games on the PC environment (that is, IBM PCs and their decendants, older non-upgradable systems didn't have these issues) I've had to deal with the following issues:

• New games requiring RAM upgrades.
• Existing games crapping out because of said RAM upgrade (I kid you not).
• New games not compatible with the mix of Extended/Expanded RAM that everything else plays nice with.
• Games crapping out due to a hardware upgrade, like a video card or sound card.
• New games needing the newest video card drivers and those new drivers killing off older games.
• Games malfunctioning due to an OS upgrade.
• Games failing because of DLLs brought in from non-gaming applications.
• Games becoming unplayable when the system is upgraded because said games lack internal speed controls (anyone ever try to play "Wing Cpmmander" on a Pentium 133?).

Every game I have for my three consoles (PSOne, DreamCast, XBox) still works (save for the disc I rolled my chair over and snapped, but that's not Sony's fault). Most of my PC games from the PSOne era no longer work on the beast of a computer I have.

I've given up on PC games (with the minor exception of some FPS games and those cute little Flash/Java games you play in a web browser) because I'm sick of the BS keeping my game system able to play the greatest number of games possible.