Hardware Manufacturers Making PC Gaming Too Elite?

Thanks to AVault for its editorial discussing whether PC hardware/graphics card manufacturers are fragmenting PC gaming too much with constant hardware upgrades, thereby "making it a sport for only the serious few." The author argues: "With the impending release of Valve's Half-Life 2 and id's Doom 3, we're looking at the first required hardware upgrade in gaming history... the reported minimum requirements for these two heavy hitting titles include fully DirectX9 compatible video cards. This demand excludes all low-end and many medium-level computers out there today." He discusses the "partnership" of "hardware manufacturers turning over reference equipment that won't see the retail market for some time to software developers to use in the creation of their games", and queries the "expensive process of habitual upgrades" by suggesting: "If everybody turns to an Xbox or a PlayStation for entertainment, who's going to need new PC equipment?"

Comments

Re:Requirements and PCs

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'd much rather spend less money than more money, neh?"

All right, you can be Japanese or you can be Canadian, but please don't try to make us think that you are some monstrous amalgam of both.

Actually, upon further consideration, the sound you made leads me to believe that you are, in fact, a horse.

These are bad?

[Bri3D]

If these system requirements are bad, imagine the ones for Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:These are bad?

[dthree]

I belive DNF requires a time machine to play.

Re:Requirements and PCs

[zero_offset]

and people forced to upgrade to run the OS

Sounds more like they were "forced" to upgrade to run the "huge levels of spyware/crapware".

Re:What?

[lpontiac]

Pfft, didn't you hear? Computer games were invented in 1999.

really?

[hak1du]

With the impending release of Valve's Half-Life 2 and id's Doom 3

I wouldn't hold my breath--it's probably less "impending" than the author thinks.