the pc game market is self-damaging

Slashdot | Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo Released: Great! Another game that won't run on my less-than-one-year-old PC. This sub-thread points out

There must be about as many PC's that can actually handle this game as there are macs. It's not like my dad's P-II 400 with a matrox G200 is going to be able to handle this.

That's actually an interesting point. The specs on games these days are pretty insane compared to the average PC in the family home. Even if a family has a, say, 1.4GHz machine in the home (and I'd guess way less than half of homes is at that level), it probably has a really crappy video card in it.. or even on-board video. This means that 90%+ of machines out there can barely play these games at 20fps in 640x480.

Given this, it really seems like the PC games industry is propped up by gaming die-hards.. whereas the console gaming market is propped up by everyone who owns one. Perhaps we should all remember this when we start bitching about the gaming freaks who mod their cases crazy all the time.. it's these guys who keep the PC industry in games ;-)

I disagree with this stance. I think PC games makers need to realize that by requiring bleeding edge technology, they're limiting their potential consumer base to the people who are willing to be caught in an endless cycle of hardware upgrades, replacements, patches, and Windows reinstalls. Basically, PC hobbyists, as opposed to console owners, whose demographic more likely resembles a standard consumer group. When I first loaded HalfLife on my 333MHz PC, which had not been altered a lick since I'd purchased it, it wouldn't run. I had to install new graphics drivers for my videocard, and the latest version of Direct X. The moments spent downloading and installing those over dialup, then crossing my fingers during the reboot, hoping that it hadn't flonked my machine, were very harrowing -- and I'm reasonably comfortable fooling around with my machine! How do tech-normals feel about messing with their machine? Most people who buy a PC are going to get a few games from that season, then never play PC games again, because developers are shooting for TOO HIGH a spec.