Consoles... more like PCs every day

Used to be that if you wanted to play on PC, you had to install the game, sometimes across several diskettes/CD's, occasionally install patches that you had to manually download, etc... and your graphics card would be a piece of junk within 12-18 months. With a console, you just jammed the cartridge in the slot and powered on, and you were good. That's all there was to it. And you were guaranteed that your console would be supported for at least five years (unless you were an unlucky soul who bought a Dreamcast, Virtualboy, Jaguar, etc). That was the general way of things.

Now, if you want to play on a console, you need to install the game, update the game, etc, just like on PCs. And to add insult to injury, no longer are you guaranteed your five years of hardware currentness, because there are iterative updates to hardware. You don't want to use your POS 1ish TFLOP console do you? Don't you know there's a 4ish TFLOP version now? Etc.

It all started with the "NEW" 3DS, and now we have "NEW" PS4 and soon, "NEW" Xbone. When will the madness end? Eventually everything will just converge into one box that does everything, which will inevitably be monopolized by somebody and the customer will lose.
I predict that the monopoly will be under Microsoft's belt, and that M$ will be purchasing Steam/Valve in the next 4 or 5 years.

The problem is people are expecting a $300 console to run 4k at 60fps.
A $600 graphics card has trouble with that, I wouldn't expect a $300 PC to run anywhere near that.
To get a console to run 4k content decently, the price will need to go up and then everyone will complain about the price.

Does anybody care what the console peasantry expect? They are a largely technically uneducated and disinterested bunch. Their expectations have always been unrealistic. What's going on here is ridiculous IMO and can only have the end game of convergence with PCs, which is fine with me. I'd love to be able to play some of those console exclusives on my PC-Station-One or whatever that box will be called. I just think, as a person who knows people with consoles, that what MS and Sony are doing is crazy and anti-consumer. The landscape of gaming is changing too fast for anyone who's not an enthusiast. From 1978 until 2005 we were all playing games at NTSC standard def. Then the next ten years were 720 and 1080P, and now we're stepping into 4K.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that consoles are supposed to be CHEAP. Nintendo had the right idea with their $99 Gamecube. If you charge someone $400 for a PS4, then a couple of years later you charge them another $400 for an updated PS4, and you charge them $$$ every month for the right to play games online, and you charge $10 more on avg than the PC price for new releases, and it doesn't take long for the console to cost MORE than a PC would have. That's absurd, unacceptable, and anti-consumer and it disgusts me.

Jeff G said:

The problem is people are expecting a $300 console to run 4k at 60fps.
A $600 graphics card has trouble with that, I wouldn't expect a $300 PC to run anywhere near that.
To get a console to run 4k content decently, the price will need to go up and then everyone will complain about the price.

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Many +1.

I have many friends that have a PS4 or a XboxOne and boasted loudly that it's better then any PC for gaming purposes (much laughter was had by me every single time), only thing i can do is invite them to my place, have them play on my rig for a bit and observe with a certain amount of smug satisfaction and a glint in my inner child's eye while their collective jaws hit the floor... Hard. Money is an issue like Jeff stated, not everyone can fork out $1000-$2000 for a top of the line gaming PC but i would think the main issue is that not many people know they can match performance with a BUDGET PC ($250-$400), so they make do with a console and convince themselves its "the best" while crying to sleep every night holding their precious controllers...

Theocnoob said:

I just think, as a person who knows people with consoles, that what MS and Sony are doing is crazy and anti-consumer.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that consoles are supposed to be CHEAP. Nintendo had the right idea with their $99 Gamecube. If you charge someone $400 for a PS4, then a couple of years later you charge them another $400 for an updated PS4, and you charge them $$$ every month for the right to play games online, and you charge $10 more on avg than the PC price for new releases, and it doesn't take long for the console to cost MORE than a PC would have. That's absurd, unacceptable, and anti-consumer and it disgusts me.

Click to expand...

Go PC!

PC:1
console:0

My gaming currently stretches across multiple platforms, from mobile (and tablet), to handheld (3DS), to console (now PS4), to PC and VR. I picked up a new PS4 slim in the Black Friday pre-sales and have yet to give it a good workout. I don't buy into the PCMR thing and believe there is room for different players in the gaming market.

The PS4 Pro vs. std is a bit more PC like now as games will have two target quality levels rather than one to deal with, but the standard PS4 is not going away and will still be valid. This is no different than altering settings on a PC depending on hardware level. I decided against paying extra for the Pro in this case.

The variations of 3DS/2DS again are all compatible, so there is no need to replace one once you got it. I really hope Switch will replace it relatively quickly as the display really needs an update. I just got Pokemon Moon and the graphics they get out of it are amazing given the hardware, but it is overdue a platform update that will break compatibility to achieve.

Microsoft are the more interesting player. It does look like they're converging Xbox and Windows Store gaming but it remains to see how that goes. I hope it fails as hard as their mobile strategy as what I want from MS is a Desktop OS that is optimised as such, and not turned into some hybrid jack of all trades, master of none.

I'd disagree to a point that you can build an effective gaming PC to match the PS4 basic price point as new gaming PCs just can't be scaled down to that price level. In UK the 1TB PS4 slim costs about the same as RX480 8GB. Having said that, I sold my old 2600k-GTX960 system to a friend for not much more than that last year. You would have to look at used previous-generation parts to compete with console price-performance levels. I would only go as far as to say, if you spend a bit more than a console, you could have a better experience, but I would not stretch it to the same cost levels.

"Microsoft are the more interesting player."

Completely agree. Finally

I think we might differ on the reasons. Looking back at OP, I think MS taking over Valve unlikely short of some major disaster happening. Valve's head is publicly anti-MS so they would have to be forced into such a scenario. Right now, Steam is probably the biggest PC game store/management platform, and MS are trying to directly compete through Windows store. Valve's backup plan of SteamOS could be argued as turning PCs into consoles!

What MS has is still the old advantage of being the majority desktop OS, and arguably their consoles aren't doing bad either. Could Windows store, combined with the promise of buy once play on either, give them some leverage? With Vulkan, could we even see the OS' importance relegated and eventually see AAA games more multi-platform than ever? Apple enabling high end gaming on Macs could rock the boat. Steam is well positioned there, already offering Mac support.

Consoles use AMD CPU and Graphics chips now, so I think they are a lot like the PC equivalent.

PS4 / XboxOne hardware specs and comparison vs PC : http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/156273-xbox-720-vs-ps4-vs-pc-how-the-hardware-specs-compare