Can PC be the leading platform?

(Do you play *any* games on the PC? Even if you wouldn't consider your PC your primary gaming platform, if you do *any* gaming on your PC join our PC gaming clan and help us grow the PC community on 2old2play! click here for more information!)

There was a post by ImMrPete in the PC section (you can find here) where EA was talking about PC become the leading platform for gaming. Do you think that's a possibility?

We're getting closer with steam, but I'm not familiar with all steam can do enough to know if we're fully there yet. I've spoken about this before in here but I'll break it down here again.

On PC you used to have to download the game, find the patches, download the patches, install the patches in a certain order. If the game supported punkbuster, despite the fact I believe punkbuster was suppose to automatically update itself, I would still have to go to punkbuster.com, download pbsetup.exe and keep punkbuster up to date that way. Then if you wanted to do some sort of voip you'd also have to install teamspeak or ventrilo and it was not the easiest to configure for those who weren't tech savvy. If you wanted some way to connect with your friends you'd also have to download xfire or steam.

On Console, you put in the disc, if there is an update it says there's an update, it downloads the update, installs the update. voip is built in ready to go, friends list is built in ready to go. It's really hard to argue against how easy this is.

The only true downside to the console is that you're having to invest money in something that is just meant for entertainment purposes. With a PC you can justify the expenses if you're on a budget by saying well, you're going to keep your budget on it! or a number of other things that would help you with non-entertainment needs.

Steam is helping though. Based on my experiences I believe Steam will automatically update games you've at least purchased through them, if not at least easily make the update available. I'm debating re-buying battlefield 2 for the *third time* because I dont' know if I remember how to patch it anymore and I figure steam will automatically patch it for me! :lol: I don't know if Steam has a voip solution or not as it's been a long time since I played a PC game with other people. I know xfire has it but xfire's solution was clunky. So I'm sure steam could add it if they haven't already.

Another point I wont' talk about much is the ability to group game. typically it's easier to play split screen on a wide screen TV than it is for multiple people to hover around a computer monitor. We do have the ps3 in the living room but I play my 360 on my gaming machine's monitor so I don't fall into this category, but it could play a factor.

But I do think PC's will have to get that easy to game on and I think they're going to have to offer lower spec requirements to accommodate most computers being sold today before PC will become the leading platform for gaming. If I can install battlefield 3 on my gaming machine and it look absolutely beautiful, but then install a "budget resolution" version of battlefield 3 on my wife's $400 laptop so my son can play with me, wouldn't that be great?

Or you could look at it another way... with the mindcraft's and the farmville's and the world of warcraft's more and more people are playing games on even their budget PC's these days. maybe it already is the leading platform and it's just no one has done the official numbers yet. :)