For awhile now I’ve been thinking about upgrading my PC since the poor thing was built while the earth was still in diapers. No problem right? I’ve been building computers since I was in the 7th grade (I’m beginning to think the dinosaurs were still around then). But every time I head over to Newegg or check out a new hardware review over at Tom’s, I begin to ask myself the same question… Why the hell am I doing this?
I remember 10 years ago there being a tremendous PC arms race. Everybody wanted the new videocards, the greatest memory capacity, or even the biggest CPU cooling fan (How big was your ZIP drive?). But back then, the reason we wanted all of those things was to play games. Pure and simple. Sure I had an occasional thought about how quickly I could run a Photoshop function (you know when digital photos and desktops ran at an astronomical 800x600 resolution) but most of my thoughts focused around how fast or pretty I could make games like Tribes or Quake.
What happened?I remember thinking that PC gaming was just going to keep getting better and better with the technology and that console videogames were just doomed as PC technology was advancing so rapidly. Seemed like a logical conclusion. WRONG!
Now I don’t play MMOs so maybe my opinion doesn’t matter, but I don’t use my PC for gaming almost at all anymore. My gaming needs are taken care of through my consoles. It’s not like I’m missing out on all the cool stuff, most games nowadays are ported across the spectrum so you find very little that is PC exclusive. There are occasional exceptions, or even games that simply run better on PC like Real Time Strategy. But the point is that the lines have blurred. Now when you buy a console you’re essentially getting a locked up (at least until the mod community breaks through) PC with great gaming functionality along with various web and multimedia functions to boot. And with the great popularity of retro, indie, and 2D titles on services like XBLA or Wii’s Virtual Console the ability for raw horsepower in gaming just ain’t what it used to be. You won’t see me complaining.
Yessir, nowadays I use my PC for precious little. It’s been relegated to a glorified storage box that serves files to the rest of my devices including my Xbox which now runs all my music, video, and games. And how about those damn mobile devices? Every single new smart phone or netbook comes with an incredible amount of connectivity combined with a relative ease of use in terms of interface and operation (yet not even a thought about computing power). The questions are more like “can I update Facebook with the flick of a finger” rather than “can I maintain 60 frames per second in Crysis?” Thanks to API’s of most online services like Last.FM and Netflix, most of your internet services can be accessed right through any of these devices. So what room is there left for the PC at all?
With cloud computing expanding along with the ease of use and expansion of function on free software like Google docs, it's clear the game has changed. And how about those open source folks! Boxee can run my media functions any day of the week (this sounds so dirty in a Commander Data sort of way). The point is, the primary functions for my PC are web surfing and email (other than the file serving function I named before). So is it worth it to throw down hundreds of bucks to have a faster browsing and email machine? I think I’d rather just get a smart phone or save my money, cause I had a PC fully capable of that stuff in 2002 just as much as in 2009.
And please don’t misunderstand me to be anything other than a fan of the direction we’re headed here. I would love to conceive of a time when I can truly have one device that can take care of all of my computing functions. I don’t think we’re that far off folks. It sure as hell won’t keep me from lusting away for that terabyte SSD. But I think I’ll be just fine without a new PC any time soon.
Commodore128
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