Michael Dell plays WOW

Michael Dell – the bloke who runs ubiquitous PC manufacturer Dell, obviously enough – reckons the PC gaming market is "still pretty strong and pretty active," particularly in the area of online gaming, and is backing it to remain alive and well – by launching more high-powered XPS gaming PCs and trying to muscle in on Alienware's gamer-hardware patch.

Speaking to GameSpot recently in New York, Dell also admitted to playing a bit of World of Warcraft now and then. "Online gaming is still basically a PC concept, yeah there are consoles, but they're still a bit more cumbersome," he said, having claimed earlier that online gaming was "particularly interesting" to his company.

As for the market itself: "When we talk to the gaming publishers, they tell us that they're totally committed to PC gaming." And so's Dell. He also expects people to continue buying PCs over high-end next-gen consoles, shrugging off the supposed development benefits of a stationary set of console specifications by arguing that the PC's malleability is a good thing. Why buy Dell instead of an Xbox 360, for example? "Because maybe you want to do more than just play games."

So where's PC gaming going then? "It doesn't take too much imagination to see four [processor] cores," he reckons. "We have a good idea of where this technology is going." Which is probably a good thing for a direct sales outfit (chortle!). His comments are pretty interesting though when contrasted with what Microsoft said last recently. Which was: "We've been killing PC gaming."

Still, both companies reckon there's lots of PC gaming still to be done – Dell reckons online gaming's a key factor, and Microsoft reckons Windows Vista will help all over. Whatever you think, the fact that both of them have lots of money and want PC gaming to succeed is undoubtedly a good thing. Even if it is because Michael Dell wants to go home and play WOW.