Ubisoft: Apple Could Be In The Console War

[Soleron]

bardicverse said:

1337 Gamer said:

bardicverse said:
The article touches lightly on a thought I had a while ago - What if consoles were more openly mod-friendly. In other words, instead of buying a new box, make it easy to swap out the GPU and put a better one in as tech gets better, upgrade the ram easily, swap out cpus quickly. Make it a mod box that keeps the parts under control by the console designer, allowing for compatibility among games, just played at different quality settings, basically an easy access micro pc

that is exactly what a computer is.

Yup, but with controlled hardware development, to ensure compatibility with the game libraries. If they make it simple enough to swap parts, its a lot more eco-friendly.

I don't see how they could 'control' it more than a PC while still allowing swapping. The most crucial parts of a PC for compatibility (OS, CPU, GPU, Motherboard) are already compatible forwards and backwards to the maximum extent while still allowing new features. PC game developers will in general make games that 95% of PC owners can play at a given release time.

The historical advantages of consoles are: no hardware swapping at all; constant OS; no patching; moderated software environment; and no additional hardware requirements. All of which are being eroded by the current gen, especially PS3/Xbox 360; new to this gen are: multiple SKUs with big hardware changes (HDD/no HDD; BC/no BC), OS updates, the ability to patch games, partial custom software running and needing an HDTV to play properly.)