NVIDIA on the supposed 'death' of PC gaming

What's nice about Console gaming is that everything is designed to work on exact pieces of hardware... Your experience isn't affected by your choice of Operating System, Hardware power, and probably most importantly, price. A PC that can run games decently will vary in price based on your taste in games... I just recently paid about $1000 for a new gaming PC (Hardcore Console gamer), because I want to experience all types of gaming... Not everyone can do that. It's much easier for you to go to the store, pay straight up price for a console you know (with a few exceptions) will work, and a few games you want. On PC, you have to be sure your PC meets the requirements of the games you want to play, and with new games getting better and better, it can be scary to drop $200+ a year just to be able to continue to play new games.

Your mistake was EVER paying that much for a computer. Undoubtedly you could've built it yourself for half the price(no, it's not hard to put together a computer) and even paying that much probably would've been a mistake.
These days you can build a computer for less than $500 that will play every game you might want to throw at it very well, Crysis included. My guess is that it would also do just fine on any game that comes out in the next 1.5 to 2 years or so. At that point you might want to spend probably $150ish on a videocard upgrade.
That PC gaming has to be expensive is simply not true. The computer industry is like any other, they will try to get as much money out of you as they can convince you to part with. If you let them then you'll find it expensive. If you have a brain and can do some research, use a screw driver, fit a processor and ram into a socket and connect some cables then it's not expensive.

I'm upgrading my computer (probably on Thursday if the parts arrive on time... stupid UPS) for the first time in... um... 8 months. And I only upgraded then because I got hand-me-downs from my dad's computer.

My current computer will likely be sold as components to several friends. The myth in computers is that you need a super amazing system to play all the games.

In reality, you just need a computer that will play the games you want to play at a level that's acceptable to you. (Screw Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, and Crysis).

Hardware does not get slower with time. Windows does however, both on it's own and because of spy/ad/crapware that builds up on your system. Almost everything you install will want to start whenever you load windows in some fashion. Over time this will slow your system down. Start button -> run -> type msconfig and you can get rid of the stuff you don't need in the start-up tab. If you aren't sure if you need it use google.
As for the number of cores/slot types, ect THAT'S what you are supposed to be learning about when people say "do some research" so that you don't get screwed. Videocards used the same slot, called AGP for many years. About 3 years ago or so the standard changed and is now PCI-Express. You can still buy a decent videocard that will work on AGP system however(the HD3850.) For many, many years hard drives/cd drives used the same connectors called IDE cables. About 2 years ago the standard changed to SATA cables. This is a non-issue for almost everyone as motherboards still have IDE ports and they still sell IDE hard/optical drives. The things you need to worry about are the sockets for the processor and ram, these actually do change often, especially the processor slot. This is what you need to research and make sure you are getting the newest kind(with-in your price range) so that your computer will be reasonably upgradeable for a while.

Not suprised, my PC pumps out some incredible specs, so playing games can sometimes be even more delightful then playing the same games on my consoles. But you notice now, like PC games, consoles games don't need as many sequels as they used to, simply because of the harddrive, all mistakes etc they've made can be corrected (more or less) with the harddrive and the game can thus be prolonged with updates rather then releasing the next sequel.

Back then, you had just comnpleted a game and already it's sequel was releasing, another £30 to go and spend.

The major problem is that many critically acclaimed titles now are not being released on PC, or take 6+ months later.

Publishers and developers haven't been giving PC the respect it deserves. Put more games other than that **** FPS/RTS/MMO trinity on shelves and ADVERTISE them for crying out loud.

Games like Sam & Max, Peggle, or Portal are awesome. Focusing on diversity, lower system requirements, and less annoying forms of copy protection, can help sales. It works for Stardock.

"Luckily, Taylor believes that PC versions of those titles we always be superior, and as the baseline console versions improve, so too will the PC ports."

When the day comes where I can sit comfortably on my COUCH in my living room and play PC games without having to sit through a 10-30 minute install and, the game automatically updates itself, then I will acknowledge that PC games are superior.

Blah blah blah, they've been saying that PC gaming is dead every few years since 1980.

Videogames STARTED on PCs. They've thrived regardless of the state of the console market ever since. (Nintendo, the savior of videogames? PLEASE.) Finally, and pardon me for taking a big leap here, they'll continue to live on long after consoles have been wiped off the face of the earth.

Consoles owe every bit of their success to PCs; not surprisingly, they've also gained favor in the gaming market by becoming MORE LIKE PCs. It's an interesting way of looking at a format that's supposedly in direct competition.

PC gaming is superior any way you look at it. Unfortunately as games become more and more mass market friendly, the retailers, and dev houses are going to shift over to where the most consumers are.

Beacuse most people are stupid, consoles sell better being so easy a chimpanzee with a ab-normal brain could still use them. Its really all part of the Wii syndrome. Enjoy your hobby while you can beacuse its going to be destroyed by exploitation within the mass market. Unfortunately the golden age of gaming (as far as quality games) has already ended.

PC Gaming is just fine, in fact it's a great time to build or buy a new rig. While there are fewer PC exclusives, a lot more big name console titles and more multiplatform titles are making their way to the PC. Couple that with the fact that just about all new FPS's and RTS's are better suited for a mouse and keyboard, it's a no brainer to PC Gamers.

I game on all, but PC offers the best experience by a long mile.

Or go to Task Manager and go under "processes" and start ending everything that doesn't look essential or at all related to what you're doing.

We like to keep our PC (256 MB RAM) at 30 processes, and it always slides back up to 37-38 at some point, and we have to cut it down again.

I converted to PC gaming recently and what blows my mind is the fact that the average console gamer now has probably a minimum of two current gen gaming consoles. Let's say that those two consoles are an Xbox 360 and a Nintendo Wii--the base price alone is $650, not including the cost of extra controllers. I just built my first PC, which is decent for gaming, for about that much (I already had a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.) I don't have to run games at maxed out settings and don't plan to upgrade for awhile.

Also, as far as difficulty in building a new PC--If I can do it, anybody can--it is NOT hard! I would even venture to say that it was a pretty fun and educational process.

As others have stated, there is some research involved to put together the right components, but there are some great websites out there that keep up to date articles on building PC's on different budgets. You can even click on a link and have everything added to your shopping cart--everything is done for you.

As a side note, I have to admit that I loved Nintendo for many years, but I have to say that the breaking point for me was when SSBB was released and the online component was essentially broken was what made me hang up my hat on console gaming.

In all fairness, I know that online gaming on the 360 works very well, but there is also a subscription that you have to pay for--I can play TF2 online for free! I also think that DLC that you have to pay for on consoles is the biggest ripoff ever!

The PC gaming market could definitely be improved and measures are being taken to do so. Also, Valve, with their Steam service is definitely a step in the right direction and others are following suit. I know that there are some Steam haters out there, but it works great for me.

Having said all this, though, to each his own. I'm not saying that PC's are better--it is just my platform of choice now.