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

Oh no!

[MMaestro]

This demand excludes all low-end and many medium-level computers out there today.

Does this mean I won't be able to play Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 at 1600*1200, AA and AS cranked up, while having Winamp play in the background, while burning a DVD, and hosting a Quake 3 Arena server? This is outrageous (sarcasm).

Considering "low end" PCs at the cost of roughly $500 come standard with 256 megs of RAM and at least 1 ghz of processor speed, plunk down an extra $100~200 (depending on where you look) for a good video card and you're good to go. You'll average about 25~40 FPS depending on the game assuming you have nothing major running in the background. A couple clicks at Pricewatch and you could build a mid-level gaming PC for under $1000.