Exams

It's that time again!

Arg.....

I'm having so much trouble focusing. I'm not used to really NEEDING to study. Like, if I don't study a lot for Ag Markets it will not be good. But I can't focus, I'm freaking out. My Dad and his wife are coming to stay with us this weekend, which I'm really looking forward to, but we need to clean up a lot. We have to finish Christmas shopping, the dogs are pretty nuts, Katy is sick, and we now have a Nintendo Wii, which is of course a distraction. Then just plain, old-fashioned, ADD-induced, Jason procrastinating. Doing things like, oh, I dunno, posting to my blog.

Again I say:

Arg.....

The Decline of PC Gaming

There was a time when most households did not have a computer. Many of them did however, have a Nintendo. Then the PC's started to become more popular. With Windows 95 it became common, and by the early 2000's and Windows XP, they were in almost as many homes as a telephone or a TV. We saw games for all platforms, but there were a lot that weren't really doing as well on the consoles. They didn't have the graphics and processing capability, they didn't have the controls, and perhaps most importantly, they didn't have the Internet. I actually started to think that the PC gaming was going to eat away at consoles enough that they would fade. But instead it started moving the other way. I had friends tell me they didn't worry about what their video card was because they used their XBOX or PS2 for games, not their computers. One of the biggest changes was Halo. Suddenly someone figured out how to make a First Person Shooter work with a game pad.

Now with this generation it gets even better. The Wii has what perhaps could be a better system than keyboard and mouse for things like first person shooters and point and click systems like command and conquer. The online setups are in place. Nintendo's online system lacks the ability to find people that people probably want, but with the consoles connecting to friends will be consistent among different games. All three new systems feature wireless controllers. Another huge pointer to the shift is Call of Duty 3. This is a major FPS, and so far they aren't planning to release at all for the PC. At this point it's hard to argue as much cause to stick with PC games. The big MMORPGs are still on PC, but that will change with time.

Time will tell which one of these three systems will rise to the top, but I certainly think the Wii will do better than the Gamecube did against its competition, and I think we will see less focus on PC gaming.