Dell reaffirms its commitment to PC gaming

Our colleague Tim Surette at GameSpot recently discussed Dell's take on the future of PC gaming with none other than Michael Dell himself. The gist: Dell's for it.

The interview left us feeling torn. On the one hand, we agree with everything Mr. Dell said. PC gaming isn't dead or dying (ahem), killer apps like World of Warcraft play better on PCs than consoles, playing online in general is a smoother process on a PC, and so on. We're glad that Dell realizes those things, and PC gaming obviously benefits from Dell's continued support.

Our disconnect is with Dell and the newly expanded XPS line, signifying a new commitment to gaming. Two of the three systems are just rebranded Dimensions with a better support policy; the XPS 400 was formerly the Dimension 9100, and the XPS 200 used to be the Dimension 5100c). The XPS 400 is fast enough, but the XPS 200 has a superthin case that can't accommodate a full-size graphics card. Worse, neither comes with the dual 3D-card upgrade path that's going to become a gaming PC standard.

We certainly have respect for Dell, one of the key companies that, along with Apple, helped bring desktop computing to the masses. Its history of innovation continues with the XPS 600, which debuted Nvidia's new NForce 4 SLI 16x SLI chipset for future-minded high-end gaming. If, however, like Mr. Dell says in the article, Dell is trying to find out what PC gamers want, we humbly submit that fluffy marketing and underspec'd systems are not it.