When we talk about PC gaming, what we’re really talking about is Windows gaming. Or at least, that’s the dominant operating system for those who choose to play games on a personal computer. My good friends who own Macs will be quick to remind me that they do in fact have some games to play. I’m just reliably informed they’re not particularly worth writing home about and practically all of them are released on Windows anyway.

Developing games on computers was always going to be. Some 18 years after the first electronic computer was developed (The ENIAC) the PDP-1 was produced and programmer Steve Russel gave us Spacewar, possibly one of the first digital computer games. As new systems were developed, there were always those who decided that the most natural thing to do with this new technology was to get some serious gaming done. With this in mind, I’d like to debunk any myths that gaming for the PC is dying and by implication, is going to find itself six feet underground one day.

It is clear where the money is to be made in gaming. Consoles offer you a quick ‘fix’ with minimal issues. You don’t need to worry if your hardware is up to speed, because for the most part it’s all standard. Whilst it is possible to install games on the latest generation of consoles, it’s not necessary. You don’t really need to worry about updating your system, keeping directx up to date and the problem of viruses or malware. On the consoles you have a dedicated controller and don’t need to buy any extra peripherals. All you need is a TV, and unless you’re living in the dark ages, eating stale bread by candle light, you’ll be sure to have one and essentially you’re good to go. Although it’s worth mentioning the Xbox fail rate is startlingly abysmal, so I suppose console gaming is no longer a completely stress free experience. I remember the days when to fix an issue where a game wouldn’t load up, all you had to do is blow the dust away from inside the cartridge and make sure it’s jammed in there real good. Oh how things have changed! 

PC gamers used to have a huge advantage, and that advantage was the internet. The deathmatch was born on the PC with FPS games like Quake and Unreal and now kids seem to be all over it as if it’s a hot new thing in the form of the Halo series for the xbox. The Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox360 all have internet capabilities and console owners have been happily shooting each other to bits, mouthing off at each other like Hitler on helium for a number of years now. One aspect of the internet though where PC gaming is notably superior is modding. I don’t imagine games like The Sims would have worked quite so well on the consoles for this reason. It also adds a huge amount of longevity to PC games long gone. There are still people who play modded versions of Quake and games like Starcraft have been played for over a decade and even have regulated professional competitions.

The PC’s power to emulate other consoles is also a serious advantage for me personally. Whilst some PSX games do take a little tinkering to get right, it’s perfectly possible to play them on your PC, whilst the PS3’s backwards compatibility is surprisingly limited, only working for a small number of games on the PS2. Why, today I played a little Alex the Kidd and Sonic the Hedgehog on my Sega emulator, followed by a level or two on GoldenEye 007 on my N64 emulator and finished it off with a few boss fights in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on my PSX emulator. Well, I tell a lie, I didn’t do all that today, but you get the idea. I did consider playing a bit of Pokemon Silver on my Gameboy emulator, but thankfully I avoided the painful delights of ‘catching them all’. With this in mind, even if developers pull on the plug on developing anything for Windows ever again there is a wealth of games on many consoles that we can play.

                   

Windows backwards compatibility is strikingly better than that of the consoles, but it’s nowhere near perfect. For certain games it can take some time searching through the depths of google to find a fix. Invariably though, someone has thought of a way to solve any issues. And beautiful things are made possible with things like Dosbox (if you can get it to work). Needless to say, this gives the PC over a decade’s worth of games that can still be played in XP and Vista. You could not say the same for any console.

It strikes me, that to kill Windows as a gaming option, console developers would have to develop their own operating systems that essentially do the same thing but better. When you consider that one of the console developers is the developer of Windows, then this possibility is, forgive the pun, pretty much thrown out of the window. For this reason, Windows future as a gaming system is assured. Microsoft are not going to stop developing Windows since it clearly makes them a lot of money. If Windows is going to be supported continually, then you can bet there will be someone out there making games for it, even if the majority are year late ports. Even if that is the case, there are plenty of indie game developers out there, free from corporate pressure. Generally this means they have a very low budget and the games reflect this, but at least they’re being developed.

Slowly but surely, consoles are indeed becoming more like PC’s.  I can just imagine years down the line, Sony developing the ‘PS-OS’. I mean, we can already install Linux onto the PS3. As you can see, the dividing line between console and PC is slowly blurring and I suppose soon the distinction may become meaningless. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing; I personally could live without Microsoft’s dominance. 

So in short, in one form or another PC gaming will always survive. Perhaps one day I’ll be playing old Windows Vista games emulated on my PS6, whilst watching a few classics on Blu-ray.

Oh, and no matter what those Halo kids tell you, you can’t beat a good old keyboard and mouse PC shooter. And RTS games shall forever be where the PC simply kicks ass.

- Del