14 DAY TRIAL // One of the most persistent images regarding games and gamers in the last 10 years has been that of the hardcore FPS player, with one hand on the WASD keys and the other on the mouse, playing one of the more iconic FPS games, be it Quake II or the most recent Unreal Tournament.
Recently a shift of FPS players from PCs to game consoles like the PlayStation 3 or the Xbox 360 has been noticed. Even the people that created FPS legend games like Doom and Quake are noticing this and even experiencing the trend themselves.
id Software's director of business development, Steve Nix, recently declared it is more a matter of preference than of anything else. "I know that I have friends who are considered core gamers, who years ago were just keyboard and mouse guys - now, when a game ships on all platforms, they buy the console version, even though the PC version is sitting there and they have a PC that would run it perfectly well".
Even if PCs retain a clear edge when it comes to performance and image quality on the highest settings the consoles are much easier to get, set up and use. And more and more gamers see the costs associated with keeping a PC gaming rig up to date as to much for them.
Nix also said that "you still have PC players, and some players are just console guys, but have players moved over? Absolutely. We love PC gaming, and we continue to support PC gaming - but you can't ignore the market realities and the size of the console market these days". His approach is remarkably similar to what Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney says when explaining why the next Unreal engine is going to be more console focused than the current one.
So, could it be that we are witnessing the slow death of the FPS genre on the PC? News of that might be a bit exaggerated. After all console shooters suffer from a variety of issues themselves. Graphics are getting more dated as new PC hardware is gaining in power and losing in cost. A good control scheme is harder to implement on consoles and there's always a bigger chance of getting a head shot while using a mouse-and-keyboard setup.
But the trend of FPS players getting their fix on consoles is definitely there. Just not as big as it would appear at first sight. And the PC people must think of new ways to keep the platform viable for games. PC Gaming Alliance, are you listening?