Impact: A survey just released from Steam, Valve’s gaming download service showed that only 2% of users currently have a DX10 video card. With the gamer market becoming divided between Windows XP and Vista, developers in the PC game space once again have to decide whether to develop for the lowest common denominator or limit themselves to the core early adapter. It comes back again to the same debate. There is only one thing that drives the sale of new PC hardware and that is content. Until that cycle changes, unfortunately PC game developers will have to continue to bite the bullet here. For now anyway, hardcore AAA titles like Bioshock, Crysis and Spore will have to support the very high-end hardware.
A great discussion of this topic was presented at the “When Worlds Collide” panel moderated by Wanda Meloni.