There are nearly three million people online on Steam for most of the day. The peak traffic in the last 48 hours is closer to four million. One hundred and fifty thousand of them are playing Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2 alone, with hundreds of thousands playing other games at this very second.
The word ‘dead’ can mean no longer in use, existence or operation. ‘Dead’ can mean no longer having significance or relevance. ‘Dead’ can mean lacking all activity and being physically inactive. These are dictionary definitions for ‘dead’; it can mean a lot of things, and PC gaming certainly isn’t any of them.
[boxout]So said Razer, in their latest advertising campaign – PC Gaming is not dead, they claimed; it was all marketing, of course. The V for Vendetta-esque tone has been done to death long before this, however, and the message itself – which was obviously an attempt to stir up some interest for the Razer Blade – was completely off the mark. Console gamers as whole don’t want PC gaming to die out at all and claiming that is ridiculous.Particularly when the product being advertised, the one to “save” PC gaming and bring gamers and developers back to the platform, is priced at $2800. Now tell me, in a world where we base many decisions on money and, as we’ve seen, an industry in which people will settle for the cheaper gaming options – how is anyone going to be converted to PC gaming with a product that will cost around £2000?
People with a lot of money and a love for high-priced, shiny pieces of technology might buy one and I’m sure they’ll love it when they’ve got their hands on it, but that’s where Razer have got it all wrong; they’re trying to market it to the wrong people, trying to sell the “first true gaming laptop” to those who don’t have an interest in PC games. They want console gamers to drift away from their relatively cheap consoles (even a $600 PS3 seems cheap by comparison) and spend more than ten times the price* on buying a laptop. That is not how you reinvigorate a platform with a “bleak” future, Razer; that’s how you make it even more niche.
[drop2]This entire advertising campaign has just missed the point, in fact if Razer had said this (still very expensive) laptop was for the elitist PC gamers looking for a laptop that can out-do most things available, then it would have been somewhat easier to understand – though still far too expensive for what you’re getting. The hard drive is too small for a gamer’s needs, the processor doesn’t quite make the mark it intended to – quad core, for a start, would have helped – and aside from the nifty Switchblade Interface and compact size, there aren’t many killer features that set it apart from other, cheaper laptops and PCs.Another problem is the question of whether it’s future-proof or not; we PC gamers like to upgrade and tinker with our machines to keep them up to date, something that you can’t really do with a laptop. I’m sure it’ll run top-end games for the next few years, I’m just questioning whether it’s completely future-proof, because if a laptop is costing you $2800, I’m sure you’ll want to keep it for the rest of your life.
Still, it’s got a nice name, an undeniably awesome alternative interface and it’s a good size… it’s just nowhere near worth the price tag they’ve set and the advertising campaign that claimed they could “save” PC gaming would only apply if we lived in another dimension where games consoles cost thousands of pounds.
Oh, and PC gaming doesn’t need saving from near-death; claiming that was their first mistake.
*Ten times the price of a console right now. Ok, maybe it’s five times the price of a launch PS3, but that’s still a lot of money.
MrTwP
In my opinion the processor is more than enough, it’s a very high end i7 and doesn’t need a quad core. The Hard Disk Drive size is fine although a SSD would have been nice. You don’t need terabytes of memory in a gaming laptop, the only reason people buy terabyte drives is because they are so cheap. This laptop was built for gaming and nothing else. I saw the prototype a while ago, it was 3G and all of the keys were LED so you could change and modify the keys for the games you’re playing.
I never see how you can game with a laptop, the battery doesn’t last long, you can’t really upgrade them, touch pads are so hard to use while playing FPS. We already have Alienware for overpriced laptops. You’d get better use from a chocolate teapot.
Also from what the guy was saying at the prototype they were aiming for affordable netbook price, and insisted the OS would be Windows 7, i would have liked an Android OS.
MrTwP
Oh wait, i’m talking about the Razor switchblade. Not the blade.
rossthebassist
wow 2k. slow clap
wick15
Totally agree with what Blair has said here. Razer have been very stupid with this laptop and their ad campaign. This is not what will “save” PC Gaming. If anything this will just discourage people.
I think the specs of this system are ok. When it comes down to it the price is just too much. If I was going to spend a £2000 on a laptop, I want a quad core at least and an SSD or a hybrid drive. A better GPU or even dual GPUs is needed to warrant the price. The whole reason it will cost so much is purely for the aesthetics.
Deathbrin
Why hasn’t anyone covered the “right side of the keyboard” display thing?
mynameisblair
I did, twice in this article and once in the news post.
The Lone Steven
I agree with you Blair. PC gaming is not dead. Piracy has done a lot of damage to it over the years but it still lives on. It’s mostly gone digital.
The Razer Blade is not ideal for many reason. At that price, i would expect it to have at least a TB harddrive and a strong battery.1-2 hours is crap. Anyone with a bit of computing knowledge would be able to build themselves a decent gaming PC. I doubt that the average PC gamer has £2800 to spare. In fact, i think you can get a desktop PC with those specs for £500
Excellent article Blair. :)
hazelam
even without the price, which is a big enough obstacle to the success of this thing, i think you’ll always be better off with a proper desktop or tower pc, unless of course you absolutely have to be able to play your games on the train, providing it has an electrical outlet to plug the thing in.
a cased pc has several advantages, upgradability, heat dispersal and price.
a laptop case doesn’t have room for the airflow needed to cool the machine as well as a cased pc.
and upgrading is virtually impossible due to most of the components being surface mounted to fit them in such a small space.
cramming all the component needed for a modern pc into a laptop case is always going to require a bit of compromise, and will almost always cost more.
while it looks like a nice piece of kit, with some cool features.
i suspect it’ll be a well off users second machine rather than anybody’s primary games pc.