eSports and Livestreaming Buoy PC Gaming (hopesandfears.com)

An anonymous reader writes: PC gaming seems to have fended off the threat from consoles, and it's due in no small part to livestreaming services and eSports. The PC gaming hardware industry is undergoing a resurgence, contrary to the predictions of even five years ago. The community that has sprung up around livestreaming self-promotes far better than any individual gaming company could hope. It's gotten to the point where developers are starting to think about the "streamability" of their game as they're building it. "There are plenty of things to avoid when building a game for livestreaming as well—specifically, anything that slows down the action. ... A good streaming game can't waste too much time in confusing menus or with difficult setup, either." One of the big questions now is whether VR technology will fit into this growing niche. A spectator mode that uses VR could be as much of a killer app as a great VR game.

Comments

Always the same nonsensical "reporting"

[gweihir]

PC gaming does not need to be propped up and it never has needed it. Consoles are still limited special-purpose devices that do not do most things a PC or do them badly. PCs can not only be gaming machines, they are still general-purpose computers with general-purpose OSes. And they can be much more powerful than consoles, just as desired by the owner. They have a far better user interface. And the time where consoles have been programmed to fit the raw hardware are long over. It does make sense these days to develop for Console and PC at the same time. It can also make sense to develop PC-only to get around the limitations consoles have and always will have. But it makes no sense at all with regards to technology to develop console-only.

The nature of the PC appeals to enough people that PC gaming will stay around until some really fundamental change (not what the press calls "fundamental" these days, but a real game-changer), and consoles will not be what replaces the PC.