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

What?

[Pluvius]

He says that this is the first required hardware upgrade in gaming history (boldfaced lie), then implies that consoles don't have this problem? Excuse me?

Rob

Re:What?

[Pluvius]

BTW, it wouldn't be the hardware manufacturers causing the fragmentation of PC gaming, but the game developers themselves. That should be obvious.

Rob

Software developers want less eye candy.

[MiceHead]

One might think Valve would aim lower, given the results of its System Survey:

Video Card Description:
NVidia GeForce4 MX Series -- 15.35 %
NVidia GeForce4 Series -- 12.47 %
NVidia GeForce2 MX Series -- 10.86 %
NVidia GeForce FX 5200 Series -- 7.02 %
ATI Radeon 9600 Series -- 6.11 %
ATI Radeon 9800 Series -- 4.93 %
.
.
.

CPU Speed:
1.5 Ghz to 1.7 Ghz -- 14.00 %
1.7 Ghz to 2.0 Ghz -- 18.33 %
2.0 Ghz to 2.3 Ghz -- 13.82 %
2.3 Ghz to 2.7 Ghz -- 16.62 %
.
.
.

As a software developer, I actually don't want to have to produce a game with that much eye candy. But I feel compelled to concentrate on that, given that gamers and press go (in part) by screenshots and aesthetics.

Regardless of what I'd like to concentrate on, I think the hardware vendors, the software developers, the press, and the consumer are all in cahoots together. You, me, everyone -- we all want to see prettier games.