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PC Gaming Alliance formed at GDC

by Scott Bicheno on 20 February 2008, 14:28

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Unholy alliance

Prior to today, if I’d told you that Intel, AMD and NVIDIA were clubbing together, as were Acer and Dell, and games publishers Activision and Epic, and they were all going to make a great big gang and all help each other out and generally be nice to each other, you would probably have concluded I’d finally lost the plot put HEXUS.channel on some kind of Nutter list, to be pitied and avoided.

However, that’s exactly what’s happened in the form of the PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA). The above companies, as well as Microsoft and gaming peripherals specialist Razer have all got together to further the cause of PC gaming.

This is presumably in response to worries about competition from consoles, as reported by HEXUS.gaming when rumours of the PCGA circulated a week ago.

It seems that the PCGA will attempt to be the common voice for all stakeholders in PC gaming and give it the kind of collective strength and economies of effort enjoyed by the three consoles. The fact that the PS3 contains an NVIDIA GPU, the Wii an AMD/ATI one and the Xbox 360 is made by Microsoft doesn’t seem to be a problem.

In fact, this isn’t quite as unprecedented as I made out. Organisations like the DNLA have been around for a while and the technology industry is, in fact, usually quite grown-up and pragmatic when it comes to cooperation if it’s clearly in everyone’s interests to do so.

Let’s hope that the PCGA is an effective organisation and does achieve at least some of its stated aims. In the era of the £300 Tesco laptop, the channel can only benefit from any uplift in the popularity of PC gaming.

Press release: Worldwide Technology Leaders Launch Industry Consortium to Advance PC Gaming Platform

Related reading: Official announcement: PC Gaming Alliance confirmed



HEXUS Forums :: 4 Comments

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Posted by bradyjames - Wed 20 Feb 2008 15:31
Well it's about time. I'm fed up with reading articles saying the PC is dead as a gaming platform. I must admit that the amount of AAA titles is droping off on the PC so I would hope that this sort of alliance spurs developers on to produce more games.

Consoles have their place and many game formats suit a console better than they do a PC. However the way people interact with a console and a PC is completely different and certain games will suit a PC better.

In my case I find that most strategy games tend to work far better on PC's because the control interface is easier to manipulate with a mouse and keyboard combination whilst sitting at a desk. I also find First Person Shooters suit me better when I'm using a keyboard and mouse. I accept that you can potentially use a mouse and keyboard with a console but this is often not practical when it is sitting in a TV unit with no desk etc.

Cost is often used as an example of why consoles are more popular than PC's. I've recently built a PC gaming platform that cost me £340 all in with VAT and delivery. It is fast enough to play virtually anything with high detail settings. This was actually far cheaper than buying a current generation console and upgrading to a HD TV. You might argue that consoles have a longer lifecycle between upgrades but my previous PC was 6 years old and still capable of running most games with reduced details.
Posted by DR - Wed 20 Feb 2008 15:33
I also hope that it doesn't become a marketing alliance - DNLA is pretty much all about a logo on a box - I want there to be some substance to it….
Posted by kalniel - Wed 20 Feb 2008 15:37
bradyjames
Well it's about time. I'm fed up with reading articles saying the PC is dead as a gaming platform. I must admit that the amount of AAA titles is droping off on the PC so I would hope that this sort of alliance spurs developers on to produce more games.
I highly doubt it. Several steps could have been taken years ago to address some of the issues but as I explained in the other topic about this it's not actually in several alliance members interest to push things that could help this. We've missed Vista now so we have to wait for the next OS from MS for the next real opportunity to do anything about it. 5+ years down the line we might have a result. Too late for AAA games.

Cost is often used as an example of why consoles are more popular than PC's. I've recently built a PC gaming platform that cost me £340 all in with VAT and delivery. It is fast enough to play virtually anything with high detail settings. This was actually far cheaper than buying a current generation console and upgrading to a HD TV. You might argue that consoles have a longer lifecycle between upgrades but my previous PC was 6 years old and still capable of running most games with reduced details.
I don't think anyone in their right mind would suggest consoles are more popular than PCs, only that more people buy AAA games on consoles than PCs.
Posted by Lord Midas - Tue 26 Feb 2008 16:01
A lot of the talk about PC games not selling is due to the fact that more console games are bought in shops compared to more PC games bought online, and the stats don't show online sales.

I'm sure I read that somewhere :embarrassed: