EXODUS: millions of console enslaved flee to the promised land of PC gaming ..what will the Console Pharaohs do now?

That console gaming has reached it's end of days is a dominant Internet meme. This is the time of year I usually debate why the latest iteration of Assassins Creed is going to be more collectible than this years flavour of  Call Of Duty and yes there are going to be record sales of these games .. but for the first time in gaming since the console casual hordes descended,  record sales of these games are going to be on the PC platform. And  there are going to be record sales of the PC as a gaming platform, desktops, laptops and all manner of Windows 8 surfaces.  

We are experiencing the emergence of a new PC gaming generation, with so much invested in so many gaming options via the cloud, digital distribution, independent and traditional PC  classics, upgraded console games that this could also mark the death of PS4 and Xbox 720 even before they are launched . And so it will be for Wii U ..  dead before launch... gathering dust next to your Wii very soon..you will not be waiting for PS4 or the 720 with baited breath. By the time those release the PC , Mac and even iOS and Android formats will offer the gamer one thing the consoles cannot ..constant evolution. 

For if nobody went and told you on the mountain yet the gamer nations are in exodus ... millions of console gamers greener than the green circle on their original Xbox  when they first sampled a First Person Shooter ( with a Joypad) have grown up and out of being chained to their consoles...

PC hardware and software,the cloud,Steam,Gaikai,onlive and Windows 8 all available right now or a year before the next gen of consoles hit make the next generation of consoles totally non starters. 

Of course the likes of Sony and Microsoft are not going to take this lying down. And it is going to be fascinating to see these giants fight for our gaming time and try to counter the console to PC exodus.

So how do the old console manufacturers continue ? Well there is a short window of opportunity in which Sony have the draw of PlayStation Plus which if expanded could give you access to the entire Sony PSone, 2, 3 catalogue. Marry this with Gaikai and deliver instant access to 1000s of and a couple of decades of back catalogue and then you truly have something unique that maybe just maybe might turn a few gamers back from the PC .. 

Microsoft have their own less than subtle link to Windows 8 through the Xbox Live companion app, ready to give you access to some games, their approach is going to be to nurture both Windows and Xbox 720 gaming, but by the time the console releases the exodus from console to PC gaming may be irreversible.

I come back to my opening comment about the staple console gaming releases like Assassins Creed, Call of Duty and even Snake .. A year from now PS4 fans or 720 fans will be waiting for the next iteration of these games ... and that says it all about console gaming . In the end it killed itself ... How many of your coding heroes just had their shop shut by Microsoft or Sony this year?

Gaming has grown up , had kids who have had kids but developers and publishers still lock themselves behind walled gardens releasing for limited platforms and with now stale IPS ... where will the next COD be set ? Outer Space? Will there be COD vs HALO or Gears once the ideas run out ..soon to be followed by the coders?

Frankly by the time the next generation of consoles arrives  the exodus from console to PC will have been completed and Sony , Microsoft , Nintendo and their developers will find it impossible to pull back gamers from their gaming rigs ,tablets , pcs , macs or iOS and Android devices  with the promise of yet more drip fed console releases as and when developers can be bothered and re re releases of games that should have been put out to pasture decades ago.. 

PC gaming has always been dominant and always the form of gaming to aspire to but there has been one stubborn barrier preventing it's progress and no I do not mean piracy... the barrier was the greed led dogged insistence of retail stores to stock shelves full of console staples like Fifa every year and diminish or end PC game stocking altogether. 

The death of retail, high street retail was absolutely necessary for PC gaming to take off , because 500 million PC owners are not going to stop gaming because the local oik at whateverchainofgamestore says PC games do not sell so we do not stock them.

Today the most valuable games across any platform are rare PC games , the boxed ones trashed by whateverchainofgamestore and thus made rare . The most respected games are on PC , and developers are finally waking up to the fact that digital distribution , browser and cloud gaming offer them markets full of hungry gamers freed from their console Xbox Live and PSN chains and now mature enough to have ventured out of their moms cellar in to the great PC beyond...

All dominant platforms today from Android , iOS to Windows all share one other thing that the consoles do not , the dominant coding and games on these now more successful devices is done by newer, smaller , independent coders with high turn overs in releases. 

Along with the exodus from console to PC gamers , there has also been an exodus of old coders , so it is no surprise to see Psygnosis /Studio Liverpool go , no surprise that legends of old like Molyneux and Warren Spector are about as name drop-able as Lord British or the Erin brothers these days ... Though many of our other  heroes Tim Shafer , even David Braben thrive on embracing the changes in gaming audiences. 

This exodus or exoduses are healthy for any art form or form of media .. all the great artists, singers etc had their eras , that is why they are remembered with fondness and like them it is time for the console era to fade into feedback and exit stage right ... 

What's that ? there's a guy in the back row screaming for an encore? Casuals.... they get everywhere...

check out the legend that is Yul Brynner who's Ramses adorns the top of this post ... Pharoh was of  course an early example of a walled garden platform holder who experienced his own slave exodus to a twin tablet adorned newer and liberated  (life) operating system.. so let it be written...

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