I understand why he says what he does, Gaming is Nvidia's highest margin business area so they have a large vested interest in talking it up but PC gaming still going down the pan, I expect it to be gone as we know it now in the next 3-4 years possibly less.
The thing that has really killed it is HDTV and consoles ability to perform at as high a (or a higher) level than PC's although there are many other factors. Customers vote with their wallets:
A decent gaming PC costs £600-£1000 and requires a £200 refresh every 12 months or a £300+ refresh every 2 years. You can't rent PC games in the same way as console games (although I expect you will be able to soon as the market continues to slide and desperation creeps in).
A console will cost you a maximum of £350 and lasts for 4-5 years with NO NEED to buy upgrades. That makes it MASSIVELY more cost effective for everyone which is particularly important when parents are wondering what to buy their kids. Over the life span of a console, evening upgrading at the most cost effective rate I would still spend nearly 4x as much on keeping my PC current JUST TO PLAY CURRENT GAMES.
Why worry about wether my PC system can handle "Assasin's Creed"? When I KNOW my Xbox 360 can, and it looks great at a higher res than my PC is capable of (my 19" monitor is maxed at 1280x1024 as opposed to my 40" tv at 1920x1080p). In fact it's likely to look and play WORSE than on my 360 even with a GFX card that cost almost as much as an Xbox 360 (8800GT) itself. In any case I've already played and completed the game way before it's out for PC anyway, as has anyone else that really wanted to play it, old news.
There are loads of other reasons why console games make more sense now (I've been meaning to write an article myself on this) to developers, customers and publishers and the market is starting to correct.
I will still own a PC, but for Office work, programming, Browsing in fact EVERYTHING else other than gaming I will probably never need to upgrade my PC again which is why I'm moving to consoles for the majority of my gaming and have pretty much stopped buying PC games. (I bought 5 last year, down from ~8 the year before and ~10 before that).
Darkheart
The thing that has really killed it is HDTV and consoles ability to perform at as high a (or a higher) level than PC's although there are many other factors. Customers vote with their wallets:
A decent gaming PC costs £600-£1000 and requires a £200 refresh every 12 months or a £300+ refresh every 2 years. You can't rent PC games in the same way as console games (although I expect you will be able to soon as the market continues to slide and desperation creeps in).
A console will cost you a maximum of £350 and lasts for 4-5 years with NO NEED to buy upgrades. That makes it MASSIVELY more cost effective for everyone which is particularly important when parents are wondering what to buy their kids. Over the life span of a console, evening upgrading at the most cost effective rate I would still spend nearly 4x as much on keeping my PC current JUST TO PLAY CURRENT GAMES.
Why worry about wether my PC system can handle "Assasin's Creed"? When I KNOW my Xbox 360 can, and it looks great at a higher res than my PC is capable of (my 19" monitor is maxed at 1280x1024 as opposed to my 40" tv at 1920x1080p). In fact it's likely to look and play WORSE than on my 360 even with a GFX card that cost almost as much as an Xbox 360 (8800GT) itself. In any case I've already played and completed the game way before it's out for PC anyway, as has anyone else that really wanted to play it, old news.
There are loads of other reasons why console games make more sense now (I've been meaning to write an article myself on this) to developers, customers and publishers and the market is starting to correct.
I will still own a PC, but for Office work, programming, Browsing in fact EVERYTHING else other than gaming I will probably never need to upgrade my PC again which is why I'm moving to consoles for the majority of my gaming and have pretty much stopped buying PC games. (I bought 5 last year, down from ~8 the year before and ~10 before that).
Darkheart