Those who claim PC gaming is dead mainly blame Microsoft. Ever since the company launched the Xbox, it has let the Windows PC gaming platform fall over the wayside. Since the software giant's number one product is Windows, the company's number one gaming platform is still the PC, no matter how much of a success the Xbox platform becomes. Rumors are now suggesting that things will really start to change with Windows 8.
"Windows 8 will represent a real new push into PC gaming," an anonymous source told TechRadar. "Gaming will be a key component for the whole OS."
Of course, we've heard things like this before: PC gaming was supposed to get a boost with the launch of Windows Vista, and there were definitely improvements, but none were particularly noteworthy. Meanwhile, multiple games from Microsoft did not receive PC versions, including Gears of War 2 and every Halo game released after Halo 2.
Two months ago, Microsoft said that it was "doubling down" on PC games. The company launched a browser-based Windows store for PC games called Games for Windows Marketplace, but it hardly made a big splash.
The fact of the matter is that Valve's Steam dominates the PC gaming market already, and it's thus difficult for Microsoft to do anything revolutionary. Including features directly in Windows, while making sure to avoid anti-trust issues, is the only way the software giant could really make a difference. The company of course currently refuses to talk about Windows 8, so as with most rumors, we'll just have to wait and see till the time is right, or till something leaks out.