I'm just heading back to London after a quick visit to the Develop in Brighton conference, where some of the gaming industry's biggest developers are banging their heads together.
I was there to hear Mark Rein of Epic (they make games like Unreal Tournament) railing against Intel's dangerous influence over the PC market - and in the most extraordinary manner.
"I'm concerned about the level of growth in the PC games business," he told the audience, pointing particularly to the strategy of rolling out integrated graphics in computers rather than dedicated ones. "A $900 PC is nowhere near as capable as a $299 XBox 360 console: we're losing PC gamers in record numbers."
Rein placed the blame firmly at Intel's door, for an approach to the computer market that tended to go for the lowest common denominator . He suggested that the lack of graphical power was holding back further developments in all kinds of software, not just games, and claimed Microsoft had "capitulated" to Intel by not enforcing 3D power on the desktop. Such a change would cost very little - he suggested between $5 and $8 - but the result is that the gaming industry is now thinking of abandoning PCs completely in favour of consoles.
"The high end is getting higher and the low end is getting lower," he said. "But even if somebody spends $1,000 on a graphics card, we're still only making $25 from them."
The audience response was mixed - certainly many people took issue with what they saw as a high-end games developer spitting out sour grapes when the consumer market didn't really care about graphical capabilities. Rein's answer was clear: "It sickens me that Intel's going to sell a four-core processor next year, with *this* much graphics."
What do you think? Are you a PC gamer? Have you given up playing on your computer? Are you a developer who thinks he was talking nonsense?
