In the future, PCs will be able to officially play console games with the full blessing and support of major console manufacturers Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, believes PC Gaming Alliance president Randy Stude.
"I predict that all of the console makers over time will recognize that it's too expensive to develop the proprietary solution and recognize the value of collapsing back on the PC as a ubiquitous platform," he told GamePolitics in a recent interview.
Stude, also the director of Intel's gaming program office, explained that "the guts of every console should tell you that the capability is there for the PC to act as the central point for all the consoles," asking why a PC powerful enough to emulate the PlayStation 4, for example, shouldn't be able to run games specifically developed for that platform.
"[Sony is] certainly not making any money on the hardware," he added. "I mean, can't they create a stable enough environment to specify that if Dell's going to sell that notebook and say that it's PlayStation 4 [compatible] that it must have certain ingredients and it must meet certain criteria? Absolutely they could."
As for publishers who cite piracy as the impetus to halt PC support, Stude labeled that reasoning as "ridiculous." He explained:
"If someone wants to leave the PC market, we'll miss you. We'll watch with admiration as your titles ship in a diluted fashion without a whole lot of game play innovation, at least until you copy the innovation that occurs on the PC. Well find the great games on PC and we'll play those."
In his closing statements, Stude declared that "PC gaming will survive. It will adjust. Certain publishers will say we're done with PC gaming. Whatever. When you leave there's six new success stories coming right in to replace you."
"The PC is still the easiest platform to develop for and it will continue to be. It certainly is the most ubiquitous device worldwide. [PCGA] is here. We're talking about [PC gaming]. We're going to address the weaknesses and come out with an industry voice for the continued health of this industry."
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/56342
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I totally agree. There will be a point in time where consoles will be "absorbed" by PC, and everyone wil be under the same roof. Even today some consoles like Xbox 360 are dependending alot on PC gaming, PC developers and PC games. Your Xbox Live and PSN can now be accessed on PC. Wii is the last stronghold of good, old-fashioned, accessible console fun.
I also understand the bit about "for every company leaving PC, there's six new success stories coming right in to replace it". A good example is in the RPG genre: Lionhead and Bioware left PC to make Fable and Kotor on consoles, but then came ALOT of developers to replace them like CDProjekt, Tale Worlds, CCP, ArenaNet, Obsidian, Phenomic, etc... Hell, even Bioware is switching to PC now, and placing consoles below.
