Full Steam Ahead

[alpha_dk]

Well, vaio, even if noone else cares about this article, I found it very interesting, so thank you for posting it.

In reference to the article, most of it was fairly standard, but I found the following very interesting:

the decentralised management structure of the PC platform means that there’s no PR army on hand to put a positive spin on any story. “The people who traditionally drive these messages, like Intel or Microsoft or Apple, are not very effective for various reasons,” he explains.

I had never really thought of it like that. I mean, people who look at games sales (cough us nerds on this site) know that the PC is a remarkably healthy system if you look at it in its entirety, not cherrypicking retail or looking at non-factors (like piracy; if the game sells well, why care that it was pirated a bunch?).

But I've never really thought about the reason that there is the ability to give so much incorrect, bad press to the PC. There's noone there to defend it, other than us sales nerds -- and who listens to us?

Whereas when you look at a platform like the PS3, it almost certainly doesn't sell even retail software as well as the PC; 14% of NPD 2007 (the most recent data PC gaming has, unfortunately) was PC; IF PS3 was another 14%, then Wii + 360 + PS2 + DS + PSP would have to be < 60%; obviously not the case in the US.

Yet, you (rarely) hear (rational) people talk about how the PS3 is doomed as a platform (at the very least, people admit it will continue to receive ports); so why, when someone claims the same about the PC based on the decline of what is becoming quickly obsolete, do we take them at face value?