With Crytek claiming its going to start developing games for consoles, only to then announce a PC exclusive, people have been talking about whether there will be more PC-only games released in the future. While there may technically be more PCs in the homes of consumers, the number of consoles is growing, and your 360 or PS3 is much better at playing games than your average home computer, an argument Roy Taylor, NVIDIA's VP of Content Business Development, can't ignore. He sees a trend in gaming: titles begin life on consoles, and are then improved for the PC.

"In the past, PC gaming development meant pandering to the lowest common denominator—which meant some poor integrated graphics," Taylor told Eurogamer. "Today, developing a PC game means starting at a console, and console graphics are way above integrated graphics. That means the baseline is getting better. Now we're going to add to that version additional features, additional content, to make the PC version even better."

The way he explains it, the console version of a game is almost the first draft. He brings up games like Gears of War and Assassin's Creed, saying that they began on consoles, only to be made better when ported to the PC with features like improved graphics and level editors. "That's something that people need to get their heads around... the PC is going to be an improved version." I'm not sure that's the case with Assassin's Creed, which suffered from a host of problems on the PC, but certainly with games like Mass Effect we're seeing this theory being proven out.

The console as proving ground



The problem is that this strategy means that consoles will basically be the proving ground for titles before they come to PC, which means fewer games will be built from the ground up to take advantage of what the PC can do. Taylor is blunt on this point: he simply doesn't see a future for PC exclusives. "I think we have to face the facts—the value of consoles is such that no one is going to make a PC-exclusive game in the future. Why would they? Why would they ignore consoles?" Of course, there is still room for the industry. "That said, PC gaming is changing—and consoles don't threaten PC gaming. They're just different."

Taylor also has some chilling words for people who like to pretend they own their games. "I think that we're going to see more digital authentication, and we're going to see more of an approach that says that PC games aren't products—they're a service. You're going to start out with a basic service, which is the game, and then increase the value of that service through patches, mod packs, expansions, maps and so on." The reason is simple: piracy. Taylor brings out a now often-heard argument, that "the pirates are just killing the developers—and I think it's really unfair what they're doing."

The first few pushes into this type of PC-gaming experience have been mixed. Gamers reacted in outrage when it was announced that Mass Effect and Spore would "phone home" to authenticate every ten days; EA subsequently loosened the DRM restrictions in reaction to the bad press. Team Fortress 2 was released looking like a finished product, but now patches have begun arriving, with more announced, that beef up the character classes with new achievements and weapons. The game is changing, with the patches and new content keeping players interested.

PC gaming isn't dying, it's merely changing, and Taylor has some intriguing ideas about how the industry will react to the sales power of consoles. The problem is that these may not be things that the PC gamers themselves would like to hear.