The state of consoles post-Moore's Law

[Grey Acumen]

Garnett said:

Grey Acumen said:

The real problem with this whole idea is that it's NOT any technical achievement that allows consoles to remain viable despite the presence of PCs.

Consoles have and ALWAYS will have certain key features that NO PC will EVER have:

1) Hardware specs that remain consistent through every console of the same type. Every Wii can play every Wii game, Every 360 can play every 360 game. There is no minimum specs, or incompatible graphics card because they are designed SPECIFICALLY for that system.

That can be applied to consoles as well,"OMG I CANT PLAY GEARS OF WAR ON MAH XBOX 1 WTFBBQSAUCE"

And with a high end PC you wont need to upgrade for 10+ years more than a console life,but people are gonna say "TEH PS3 10 YEAR PLAN" there will be a PS4 released in 6 years into the PS3 life so yea...

Totally missing the point.

I have a Gamecube. I have a Gamecube game. Knowing just these 2 facts, can you tell wether or not my game will work? I can say with 99.999% certainty that I will be able to put that game in, and it will play.

Now, same scenario; I have a PC, I have a PC game. Knowing just these 2 facts, can you tell wether or not my game will work?

Fact is, without asking both what the game is, as well as what type of specs the computer has, which will include, ram, harddrive space, proccessor speed, graphics card and OS, you will not know for certain if a game can play at all or correctly(with or without a patch) on that PC. That's why PC games have a "minimum specs" category. Even then, just because it's playable doesn't mean it looks GOOD while it's playable.
Wow, I saw my friend playing this awesome game. It's only $40 for that and it looks great. I'll go buy it and put it on my PC, it says I meet the minimum specs. Why does it look like crap on my computer? Oh right, just because I CAN play it on my computer doesn't mean it'll look like what I was willing to pay $40 for.

 

Say what you will about how cheap and easy it is to build a high grade PC or how cheap it is to upgrade, the average consumer doesn't want to be bothered.

Consoles will ALWAYS be here.