Game magazines facing extinction?

GameSpot talked with 1UP vice president for content Simon Cox about the closing of Games for Windows magazines and the demise of gaming magazines in general:

"I can tell you that GFW closing is a direct result of dollars and eyeballs moving from print to online way more quickly in the PC space than they are, from our reckoning, in the console space. Part of it is, [on the PC] you can surf the Web and play a game without leaving your seat. These guys are obviously more connected online, they tend to be more into the community aspects online...I think it's sort of a natural fit to have PC content where PC gamers are hanging out, which is more online."

...

"This is a sad day here, no doubt about that. A 27-year old magazine has gone away and it's sad, and people are definitely pissed off here about it, but we're also kind of going, 'You know what, we kind of saw it coming. It makes sense, and it's where the business needs to go.' It was really hard for me to watch these guys work their a**es off month after month [on a magazine] that fewer and fewer people were reading and fewer and fewer advertisers were advertising in. It was very tough to watch that."

More info over here. For me it's not really a surprise that PC and gaming magazines are having trouble to stay alive and I think more of them will disappear over the next couple of years as gaming websites offer the same content for free. Additionally, these sites often publish their articles or reviews weeks sooner than magazines and are in some cases the content is much more indepth.