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Forums - Gaming - Why do specs matter for home consoles but not handhelds?

Mnementh on 03 December 2013
STRYKIE said:
Mnementh said:
STRYKIE said:
Mnementh said:
The Wii and the PS2 were also underpowered compared to the competition. So specs are as irrelevant for home console as for handhelds. What matters is: is it a good overall proposition. And in that specs may have a place as a factor, but not as a major one.


Terrible comparison. The Wii didn't exactly have anything on the scale of GT3, MGS2, GTA3 etc. for it's time. Granted, being European, I suppose I have a little bit of a biased view since we didn't get the original Xbox until 2002, but the difference is, the PS2 was still the most powerful system on the market by a substantial margin with the headstart it had.

Uh, Gamecube and XBox both overpowered the PS2 by a lot. Look at Resident Evil 4 for a comparison.

And Wii didn't had GT3, MGS2 and GTA3 - but still dominated in sales. The thread was about why specs matter or not matter for sales. So what is your point regarding the Wii?

You'd have to be an absolute mark to compare the disparity of the PS2 and GC to that of the Wii and PS3/360. And how many times am I gonna keep hearing RE4 for christ's sake? I've played nearly every version thoroughly. Look up the Splinter Cell games on the original Xbox and then compare them to the GC/PS2 versions. People didn't even need a comparison to see how monumental the difference was back then. That's an example of a system completely crushing the competition, so by your own terminology, the GC was equally lacking.

But my point was, the PS2's hardware capabilities did play a part in it's initial success. This (or the last, depending on how you want to look at it) generation is arguably the only one where hardware capabilities have had nothing to do with the way the market share turned out. Even if the PS4 wins the next generation, I think it's fair to say it'll be because of the brand power Sony have sustained over the years and righted all the wrongs that made a considerable chunk of the market bitter towards the PS3 at launch. It'll simply be a coincidence that it's the most powerful of the three.

I'm a bit confused by your reply. I was saying the PS2 was underpowered and you agreed, while stating the XBox was more ahead. it's irrelevant, the PS2 was still underpowered. Also against the GC. The success of PS2 had a lot of reasons, but not that it had better graphics. Brand power was very important, also all the 3rd-party-support.

I agree that other factors are important for the probably coming success of the PS4. I think how you change the perception of the system in peoples mind does have an important impact on the success. Sony did that very well this last months.



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Mummelmann on 03 December 2013
ListerOfSmeg said:
Here is the thing. Anyone who says specs matter would be a PC gamer.

Now any reason they use to justify not being a PC gamer, only proves that specs are not the most important thing. Whatever reason they use to justify not being a PC gamer, is obviously more important than specs.


What is this nonsense? Are you saying that PC gamers only play on PC due to specs? You do know that a lot of PC gamers have shit PC's, right? And that there are other, legitimate reasons to prefer the PC as a gaming platform? The only ones who think that things work like this are console gamers, the same ones who make noise about PC gaming so complex and too expensive.

The second part of your post makes no sense at all.



STRYKIE on 03 December 2013
Mnementh said:
STRYKIE said:
Mnementh said:
STRYKIE said:
Mnementh said:
The Wii and the PS2 were also underpowered compared to the competition. So specs are as irrelevant for home console as for handhelds. What matters is: is it a good overall proposition. And in that specs may have a place as a factor, but not as a major one.


Terrible comparison. The Wii didn't exactly have anything on the scale of GT3, MGS2, GTA3 etc. for it's time. Granted, being European, I suppose I have a little bit of a biased view since we didn't get the original Xbox until 2002, but the difference is, the PS2 was still the most powerful system on the market by a substantial margin with the headstart it had.

Uh, Gamecube and XBox both overpowered the PS2 by a lot. Look at Resident Evil 4 for a comparison.

And Wii didn't had GT3, MGS2 and GTA3 - but still dominated in sales. The thread was about why specs matter or not matter for sales. So what is your point regarding the Wii?

You'd have to be an absolute mark to compare the disparity of the PS2 and GC to that of the Wii and PS3/360. And how many times am I gonna keep hearing RE4 for christ's sake? I've played nearly every version thoroughly. Look up the Splinter Cell games on the original Xbox and then compare them to the GC/PS2 versions. People didn't even need a comparison to see how monumental the difference was back then. That's an example of a system completely crushing the competition, so by your own terminology, the GC was equally lacking.

But my point was, the PS2's hardware capabilities did play a part in it's initial success. This (or the last, depending on how you want to look at it) generation is arguably the only one where hardware capabilities have had nothing to do with the way the market share turned out. Even if the PS4 wins the next generation, I think it's fair to say it'll be because of the brand power Sony have sustained over the years and righted all the wrongs that made a considerable chunk of the market bitter towards the PS3 at launch. It'll simply be a coincidence that it's the most powerful of the three.

I'm a bit confused by your reply. I was saying the PS2 was underpowered and you agreed, while stating the XBox was more ahead. it's irrelevant, the PS2 was still underpowered. Also against the GC. The success of PS2 had a lot of reasons, but not that it had better graphics. Brand power was very important, also all the 3rd-party-support.

I agree that other factors are important for the probably coming success of the PS4. I think how you change the perception of the system in peoples mind does have an important impact on the success. Sony did that very well this last months.

Well in that particular scenario, it was more that the original Xbox was overcooked in the respect it may have been TOO powerful, not that that's a bad thing, but it did take a lot of unnecessary risks with the accolades of a built-in HDD, ethernet/LAN capabilities, internal online infrastructure, Intel Pentium based architecture etc., and only retailed at under $300 to stay competitive, which Microsoft had the financial backing to do so more than SNK did with the Neo Geo. And I guess I'm just tired of hearing the RE4 argument as some sort of grounds for the PS2 being a weak console for it's time when the original Xbox left both with egg on their faces, I don't view either as weak consoles with the exception of the Gamecube's relatively limited storage medium.

But I can honestly say I'd never witnessed anything like GT3 in 2001 beforehand, and this is coming from someone who was trying to relentlessly downplay the PS2. Now compare that to the Wii being behind Gears of War 1 for the entirety of it's lifespan.



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NightDragon83 on 03 December 2013

Since the 16-bit wars, specs for home consoles have been a huge factor in the PR wars fought between console manufacturers, and specs have sold more than their fair share of consoles over the years.

With handhelds it's an apples to oranges thing. First of all it's an entirely different audience that traditionally skews younger than consoles. Second of all is price... every single generation the cheapest handheld has won, bar none. GB was the least powerful compared to the Lynx and Game Gear, but those handhelds cost nearly double what the GB did. Oh, and they ate batteries like a fat chick at a buffet.

GBA beat, well, er, the Game Boy because it didn't really have any competition (aside from the short lived Neo Geo Pocket Color). And the DS was much less powerful than the PSP, but the PSP was double the price, and we all know how that turned out.

Now here we are again with the 3DS and Vita, both of which started out expensive and sputtered in sales, but the 3DS has since come down $100 in price (down to just $129 for the 2DS) compared to the still $250 Vita. Oh, and the 3DS has a ton of games, as do all of Nintendo's handhelds. That always helps.



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wangjingwanjia on 03 December 2013

For me it's about specs and games, not so much about the price. I wouldn't mind to pay €1 000/10 000 RMB if the specs and games met my demands for that specific price.

For the average customer it's about popularity, trends, price and games.

For families it's about the price and which console that's shown mostly on the TV commercials between their children's favourite shows, which their kids will later point out that "I want this!".





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Mythmaker1 on 03 December 2013

Firstly, there's the price/value of the systems themselves that accounts for much of the discrepancy. As far as why specs aren't an issue for handhelds, it's fundamentally an issue of people not looking for a powerful gaming experience on a handheld.

Quite simply, handheld gaming will never be on the graphical "cutting edge" compared to the rest of the industry, so the people who care most about being on the "cutting edge" likely focus that impulse elsewhere.



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Cobretti2 on 03 December 2013
Mummelmann said:
ListerOfSmeg said:
Here is the thing. Anyone who says specs matter would be a PC gamer.

Now any reason they use to justify not being a PC gamer, only proves that specs are not the most important thing. Whatever reason they use to justify not being a PC gamer, is obviously more important than specs.


What is this nonsense? Are you saying that PC gamers only play on PC due to specs? You do know that a lot of PC gamers have shit PC's, right? And that there are other, legitimate reasons to prefer the PC as a gaming platform? The only ones who think that things work like this are console gamers, the same ones who make noise about PC gaming so complex and too expensive.

The second part of your post makes no sense at all.


It isn't nonsense what he is saying is that if the most important thing that mattered to you was specs then you would get the best of the best PCs avaialable at the time.

Ofccourse most gamers are logical and have various reaons to buying a system other than just specs like games, input devices (i.e. controller vs KBM) etc...