DirectX Creator: 'Consoles Are Doomed'

PC gaming is due for a renaissance and console gaming is going the way of the dinosaur, according to Alex St. John, CEO of WildTangent and one of the creators of DirectX.

The PC will always have more power than any console, said St. John in a recent interview with ExtremeTech.

St. John believes that Epic Games' Tim Sweeney is wrong when he said recently that consoles have surpassed PCs. The two gaming platforms are converging so rapidly that there won't be any difference between PC and console gaming in the near future, he said.

St. John points out why he believes digital distribution will not only boost PC gaming, but also cause the downfall of retail gaming stores. He feels particularly strongly about the idea of pre-orders, a sales tactic that generates immense amounts of cash for brick and mortar game sellers.

Recalling a recent trip to Gamestop, St. John noticed "a whole rack of empty boxes that say 'coming soon,' which he describes as "selling futures on unreleased games."

Instead of agreeing with retailers' claims that this is the only way to guarantee you'll get a copy of desirable titles, he offers an interesting metaphor on why it's almost guaranteed to drive gamers further towards digital distribution:

You can think of it as walking into a grocery store and saying, "Hey, I'm a customer for some chocolate, do you guys have any chocolate?" And the grocery store says, "Yeah, we have 50 pound barrels of it over there. They're a thousand bucks a barrel." You say, "Well I like chocolate, but not that much." The store says, "Well go to hell, that's all we've got. A thousand bucks or no chocolate for you." That's how retail games are sold. And it's an extremely inefficient business model. It's very crude.

Instead, St. John cites digital distribution's ability to provide gamers with exactly what they want when they want as the key reason behind it's eventual domination.

See Also:

• Unreal Creator: 'Consoles Have Left PC Games Behind'
• Gears Of War Creator: PC Gaming Is 'In Disarray'
• Id Losing Faith In PC Gaming

Alex St. John: "Consoles as We Know Them are Gone" [ExtremeTech]