True but the statement I was referring to clearly separate PC markets and notebook markets despitet he fact that notebooks are PC and while some games will scale down not a lot of them design for a notebook trying to exclude the desktops.

They are the same machines but the capabilities are vastly different.

I agree with you but as a power user I differentiate the two.

Neither market is anywhere near dying though.  They used to say netbooks would take over the laptop market, yeah we're sure missing that less than 1% of the market.  Woo.  Tablets?  Will probably do some damage, given more time.

The market is certainly evolving but it'll be a few years before it matters.  Not much point in spouting doom and gloom yet.

I'll get in line for the death drums when virtual reality and holodecks show up... course I remember when that one cowboy hologram [?] game was supposed to change everything years ago too.

No one is making anything new.  WoW1, WoW2, Wow3, WoW4.  Sim1, Sim2, Sim3, Sim4.  FFI, FFII, FFII...FFIIX.  FPS's 10 years ago are the same.  RTS's 10 years ago are the same.  Dungeon crawlers - same.  Hey!  How about those environmental effects promised to be cutting edge 15 years ago with Dungeon Keepers?  Some guy got bored and made Minecraft and needs some help because the BIGBOY UNNAMED DISTRIBUTORS are just doing cut/paste and hope that no one notices.  How many pigs can you kill so you can pvp (Make love not WarCraft)?  How many games of Madden can you play?  Let's add all the bugs they don't want to fix like ninja looting, Windows 7 has a games tab that says it keeps track of game revision and patches and doesn't.  Alot of games today, they don't want to hire artists, writers, can cinamatographers so they can pocket the difference, and there is no campage, story, lore.

In short, nothing new here.  Nothing to buy.  So...nothing on the shelf.  Blame hackers/priates.  Blame funky people. 

So todays kids are just too damn stupid or lazy to be able to use computers....

This means that the PC will continue to be a special gaming market where you play one game for like 5-10 years (Age of Wonders series, Half-Life & CounterStrike, WarCraft & StarCraft, Heroes of Might & Magic and the latest and coolest shooters).

I'm perfectly fine with that. Belonging to an elite instead of being one of the 100.000.000 sheep. All that's needed is crossplatform and I'm set.

With three of my best friends, the only reason any of them has a dual core machine (the others are back on P4s with a gig of RAM) is I sold one to him for cheap.  They have several Xbox 360s which are more powerful than anything they've got in computer land...they play League of Legends, but that's it.

I gotta admit, computer gaming is expensive and I'd be better off if I wasn't set on it.  I just have no desire to go console only.

Whenever I see a statement like this, I want to go find a cane for someone or give them a number that says they can get a scooter for all those medicare folks. Seriously though, if you can't make a point without trying to categorize a bunch of people, most of whom are not actually kids, check the average age of gamers again, then I would say your point started off too weak to begin with.

You don't need to leave your name like a tool, we can all see you by your name right beside the post.

Every day these forums remind me just a little bit more of the WoW forums.....

I just use website warehouses  like mightyape. These guys stock pretty much everything and don't actually have a brick and mortal store. I am one of those who still likes something physical with my purchase but I do get downloadable games that are relatively small.

Along the "evolve or die" thing Brad said, I think Brad's already on the right track:   mods.   Games that are mod-happy can be wildly fun, and consoles will probably never be able to do that.   PC's are playing a leg down from consoles.   First, consoles are designed for gaming.   PC's are designed for the enterprise market, because that's where the big money is.   Also X86 machines are stuck with an extremely outdated instruction set, which is an albatross around their necks.   PowerPC, MIPS, etc. are able to evolve their ISA sets much better and are more up to the times. 

That said, I would argue to do the exact opposite with PC gaming:  go retro and bring controllers back.   A long time ago we used paddles and joysticks to play PC games.   Why not just bring them back?   Develop a Kinetic for the PC.  People have been trying to retrofit games to work on a mouse and keyboard.  Halo is just not as good on a PC.  But if I had a USB Xbox controller and played on a 36" TV set, I really wouldn't care that it was a PC.   You could do all that now if you really wanted to, but it's going to run you a lot more than $300 like you would pay for an Xbox 360.   For that matter, just integrate your PC with your TV.   You can do all kinds of snazzy things on your Wii, but a Unix-like interface to program your Tivo or do all manner of on-demand viewing is clearly going to be much more powerful than a console will ever do.

I don`t care how badly PC games do at retail anymore.  I usually buy games on steam during their crazy sales.  I was interested in Alpha protocol, I was going to buy it at retail.  Then steam put it up today for $7.50.  Retail cant compete with that.

If PC games do die(Never going to happen).  I`ll find a new hobby.  I have a guitar sitting near my desk, I haven`t learned to play yet.  I have a new hobby waiting for me when the time comes.

You mean you won't just buy a console and play Guitar Hero?  

Ahh...No.  I`ve tried guitar hero, Not good.  That is clever though, I like it. 

If PC gaming isn't dead, why are almost all the games I buy loaded with console design choices? whether its an FPS locked to 60 degrees or retarded control configs or simplistic gameplay options or total lack of mouse support, many games today stink of console. there will always be exceptions sure, but on the whole i've felt like ive been playing console games on the PC for much of the last ~5 years. all i can say is thank god for european RPGs and various RTSs. console design dominance has even ushered in the death of entire genres, like the glorious space combat/trade sim.

yeah we're all still playing PCs, but other than graphics and input options, its really hard to tell platforms apart anymore