Coming console armageddon: consider PC.

[Mr Bean]

*Edit left out the CPU but as Tom's Hardware has detailed you can get a 3 ghtz CPU for 60$ that will only cost you two or three FPS in anything under 1080p gaming.

[Starglider]

Starglider why do you factor in monitor price into a pc's purchase cost? Do you factor in TV cost into a console purchase cost?

The vast majority of the population affulent enough to spend $500 to $1000 on a gaming device already have TVs (if not full blown home theatre). This is indisputably useful for non-gaming purposes. They may or may not have a monitor left over from some previous PC, which if they are upgrading on your suggested 6 year cycle will probably be a crappy worn out 720p LCD. In my experience, non-techie people tend to buy a new monitor with (and only with) each new PC.

If so the PC might win the value war since a 4k monitor with nice specs can be had for 370$

The cheapest 4K monitor I'm aware of is about ten times as much. I think you mean 1080p.

*Edit left out the CPU but as Tom's Hardware has detailed you can get a 3 ghtz CPU for 60$ that will only cost you two or three FPS in anything under 1080p gaming.

Firstly, under 1080p isn't worthy of mention, that's netbook territory. Secondly current PC games are badly / barely threaded (this is partly an API problem, partly coding to lowest common denominator, partly just lazy). Even current consoles tend to use the primary thread / background theads model due to SMT contention issues. The new consoles both have eight full x86 cores; multithreading just got a whole lot more popular with devs and the days of 'dual core / more clock always wins at FPS' will soon be over.

Minor point of correction. They'll dominate sub-$1000 PCs for graphics

Also audio, which after languishing at commodity status for a while is getting a big boost with this hardware refresh. There should be a noticeable step forward in environmental audio, which is of course much better appreciated on a home theatre setup vs tiny USB speakers. The latest high-end Radeons just got equivalent hardware audio acceleration blocks, everything else on the PC is trailing (i.e. making it up for it with software processing, if you have a high-end CPU). Much better physics and procedural generation are also a given although the impact is debatable, better AI is possible but how much investment the IP will get this round is hard to predict...

I've already said that if all you want to do is play retro/casual games you're not relevant to the debate, since you can do that on a cheap tablet. What we're talking about here is really the push to realistic full blown virtual reality, one hardware generation at a time, with 'enthusiast gamers' early adopting and 'core gamers' buying in bulk. We will dispense whatever game mechanics and marketing gimmicks are necessary to make them continue funding our research... ah, sorry, got carried away for a moment there. Anyway, the time has come to raise the console baseline so that the PC elite have to buy a new round of expensive hardware to feel sufficiently smug and superior

[Mr Bean]

The cheapest 4K monitor I'm aware of is about ten times as much. I think you mean 1080p.

Yes and no, I did get my mind mixed up
The monitor I was referring to was a 29”, 2560x1080 IPS monitor, in my memory that asus-mx299q was a 4k monitor it was not. Still 400$ is what my local Microcenter wants for one.

[AniThyng]

One thing that I think is a major benefit for PC's that no one has yet mentioned is that unlike consoles a PC is not a one time all or nothing investment. Yes, you need something like $2000 for a top end gaming PC. But you can easily stretch that over several years by replacing part after part as money comes along and the situation allows it. Which is a very big thing.

My experience in 2007 is that a one time investment into a 360 was in fact still cheaper then the cumulative investment into my gaming rig, and the 360 still plays games today, while the rig I had in 2007 is now a general purpose machine...

[Purple]

Quite. But as it is distributed over a longer period of time it is actually easier to pay off. $1000 at once might be less than $200 per month over say 10 months. But it is also harder to pay. (numbers are hypothetical)

[Zaune]

I've already said that if all you want to do is play retro/casual games you're not relevant to the debate, since you can do that on a cheap tablet.

I'd like to see you try and play any of the games I listed as examples on a cheap tablet without going insane.

What we're talking about here is really the push to realistic full blown virtual reality, one hardware generation at a time, with 'enthusiast gamers' early adopting and 'core gamers' buying in bulk. We will dispense whatever game mechanics and marketing gimmicks are necessary to make them continue funding our research... ah, sorry, got carried away for a moment there.

Well, good for you, I guess. Just keep in mind that some people would like the result to be fun to play as well as pretty to look at, please?

[Losonti Tokash]

KSP could easily be done on a tablet. DF could as well, but it would require an actual user interface. They're also not exactly pretty games so you're sending a bit of a mixed message.

[AniThyng]

Actually in that case I'm actually in favor of consoles locking the specs down, forcing cross platform developers to have to rely on better at design and optimization rather than just asking users to upgrade their gpu.

For indie games that don't rely on graphics, you don't need a gaming pc, just apPC, and don't sell tablets short, there are some very artistic games I keep a smartphone and iPad around for. Take world of goo or knights of Pen and paper.

[Zaune]

KSP could easily be done on a tablet. DF could as well, but it would require an actual user interface. They're also not exactly pretty games so you're sending a bit of a mixed message.

KSP maybe, if it was a pretty expensive tablet, but DF? Really?

[Purple]

KSP could easily be done on a tablet. DF could as well, but it would require an actual user interface. They're also not exactly pretty games so you're sending a bit of a mixed message.

I am not so sure about that. DF might not have fancy graphics but it takes up a lot of processor time and memory in comparison to what you would expect at a glance.

[Losonti Tokash]

KSP could easily be done on a tablet. DF could as well, but it would require an actual user interface. They're also not exactly pretty games so you're sending a bit of a mixed message.

KSP maybe, if it was a pretty expensive tablet, but DF? Really?

I play it sometimes on an old general purpose laptop that cost twice as much as my Nexus 10, so, yes, I think it could manage just fine.

[Imperial528]

KSP could easily be done on a tablet. DF could as well, but it would require an actual user interface. They're also not exactly pretty games so you're sending a bit of a mixed message.

KSP maybe, if it was a pretty expensive tablet, but DF? Really?

Even if the tablet could run KSP, the UI would be horrendous. There's a game called simple rockets that just barely manages to be playable, but it's in 2d.

[TheFeniX]

The 4k point of the article was really about how 1080p isn't anything special anymore. Saying you need a $1000 PC to run a game at around 60fps at decent resolution doesn't mean much when the lastest crop of console games will be running at 1080p or less while struggling to maintain 30FPS. People are already expecting frame drops in large engagements in the new Battlefield.

Skyrim isn't a pretty game, but it does manage to look pretty stellar on a high-end PC. However, even using older hardware (stuff not much newer the the 360 original specs) the game could easily pull 60FPS with the graphics toned down to console levels, and this is taking into account overhead.

And a $1000 to run WoW? That shit will run on a toaster. My 5 year old laptop, that was $450 new with a shit Intel graphics card can run it at low. When it was new, I could run it at medium with ~40FPS. The graphical "advancements" of the game can lead to steep FPS drop, but that's to be expected when neither Dell nor Intel have release a driver update for the card in 3 (almost 4) years. It mainly has issues when there's lot of shit going on which is always an issue with consoles.

And maybe developers are getting a jump start on this gen, but it took years to finallly get modern looking games on the 360, besides maybe Fight Night which suffered from horrendous framerate drops.

[Crown]

I'm playing the Batman Arkham games (first two) on my MacBook. I just had to go out and buy a damn PS3 control, because the game was so fucking dumbed down in controls I actually felt uncomfortable playing with a keyboard and mouse (fucking strange I know), plus it is nice to chill on a couch to play every now and then.

Never owned a console in my life.

[TheFeniX]

I prefer controllers for beat-em ups. It's generally because the action (thus your attention) is focused on your character and overall awareness isn't nearly as important as what's happening in the vicinity of your PC. Blizzard had a neat little write up on it.

The convenience of the mouse, of quickly pushing an arrow across the screen, is native to home computers. Thus, usability is a naturally occurring element in Diablo 3 for PC. “You click somewhere and your hero will go there automatically. You have time to use a potion. You have time to use a skill,” Berger tells me. As a result, players are less dialed in on their brightly-plumed witch doctor, following the cursor. “You’re eyes are darting all around the screen,” he says.

The opposite is true of Diablo for consoles, where the player’s eyeballs stay glued in place, ne’er wandering far from their brazen warriors. You have direct control, and that requires your undivided attention. So much attention, in fact, that the team pulled the camera in tighter. They dumbed down the enemy artificial intelligence, the throngs growing too dense. The testers couldn’t keep up. The players were so zeroed in that they didn’t even notice when their health was low. They decided to flash a potion icon above their characters’ heads. “They’re really focused,” Berger says.

In FPS or TPS, I've noticed this same thing. The current crop of gamer who grew up on controller has to focus more on just getting a reticule over an enemy and even more so to focus on head-shots. Whereas in M/KB games, you're generally more aware of what else is about to happen (enemies coming into view, etc) because getting on target is rather easy, only making headshots something that requires more concentration.

Anyways, Rare is in some kind of damage control / quit whining about graphics mode

"I think everybody always looks at numbers," responded Isaac. "If you think about photography and cameras, it's just megapixels, megapixels, megapixels. Can anyone really tell the difference between a 41 megapixel shot and a 21 megapixel shot? Probably not.

Yes. Yes, you fucking can. Just like I can notice a huge difference between 1280x720 and 1900x1080. 320x240 games were standard forever. When the jump was made to 640x480 and 800x600, it was insane. 1024x768 was even crazier. Even for a desktop resolution, I had no idea what I would do with all that empty space on my Windows 98 desktop.

The jump from 720 > 1080 isn't nearly as big due to diminishing returns, but it is very noticeable once you've been gaming consistently at high resolution and you're forced to downgrade. Just upping the resolution on many older games can vastly improve the graphics quality with no extra work being done by the developers.

And I don't really give a shit about any of this except I constantly see online (and have a few gaming buddies in RL) who crow on and on about how these consoles are cranking out $1000 PC graphics for half the cost and they fucking aren't in any way shape or form. When you call them out on their bullshit, they say stupid shit like "Graphics don't matter."

[bilateralrope]

COD: Ghosts seems to by lying about how much ram it actually uses. It's almost as if the developers don't want people playing it on PC.

[TheFeniX]

Another bit of CoD news is that it's performing poorly on the PS4 when compared to the 360 and PS3 versions.

I have to say, I'm actually surprised to see this kind of sub-par optimization out of Activision. As little as I care for a lot of the games they've been releasing lately, they've always run smoothly on pretty much any hardware if you're willing to deal with reduced graphics, LOD, draw-distance, etc. Let's face facts, you can only pretty up the decade old Idtech engine so much and I can't see why this kind of bullshit is going on. Someone needs to slap up GPUZ or something and see what's it's using WRT VRAM. I doubt it's a whole lot.

Still:

– Maps too large
– Overly complex

Never change IGN. Never change.

[TheFeniX]

Literally ever developer and marketter is trying to convince us there isn't a difference between 30FPS and 60 FPS or 720p vs 1080p (or upscaled). I'm not much of a graphics whore, but I've already stated that modern graphics with stable performance shouldn't be a "thing." We've had posts from Sony and MS marketers telling us that PC is dead and their new hardware will kill it even more to death. Seriously though: Dead Rising 3 at 720p 30fps. But more importantly:

That said, the real issue here is that fans feel like they’ve been sitting through 720p, 30FPS games for nearly a decade now on current generation consoles. I think it’s fair to say that the general gaming public assumed that 1080p, 60 FPS would be the new standard across all new consoles, and now that it isn’t, they’re upset. The technology hasn’t evolved as much as it should have. How can an entirely new console generation still have the same baselines as the old one?

We're heading towards another 7 years minimum of outdated resolutions and half of PC FPS. And with so much being dedicated just to maintain those specs, we're still getting shorted in other (arguably more important) aspects.

[DaveJB]

I'd like to think it's a case of the developers being incompetent and/or having trouble getting to grips with the new hardware - after all, the Wii U already has a few 1080p 60fps games confirmed for next year, and that's a system which combines a mediocre graphics chip with an absolute turd of a CPU.

Having said that, the PS4 and Xbox One are much closer to PCs in their architecture, so there's not really any reason they should be turning out such poorly optimized games, unless developing crappy x86 versions is just second-nature to developers by this point.

[bilateralrope]

Dead Rising 3 at 720p 30fps.

I read the line 'locked at 30fps' and think the same thing I do whenever I hear the same of a PC game. A big fuck you from the devs to anyone with hardware capable of running the game at better framerates.

[TheFeniX]

PS4s were made by Foxconn (didn't know that) and the failure rate seems to be nearing 1%. XBones seem to be eating more than a few discs (never saw that coming), but nothing on hard numbers. We'll likely have to see how things pan out after the first 6 months, then the end of the year when warranties are up. No big deal right now.

I've been trolling Forbes a bit more for some general information and I have to say, the trend into free gaming still annoys me. The other problem is even Forbes doesn't understand why so many people have iphones and other $600-$900 cell phones. People need phones these days. Arguably, more than they need a TV. Also, you aren't forced to pay $600 for a new phone unless you're that trendy asshole who buys every new thing even though your old device worked just fine.

You march down to the "fuck me with a smile store" (AKA at&t, Sprint, Verizon, whatever) and you sign a contract for shitty service and get a phone for either free or a nominal fee + the stupid amounts of money they charge you for "activation." You're literally creating a "gaming" market just by giving people an upgraded device they already need. Like if you built pong into your toaster.

There also seems to be the idea that games going "free" (NOTE: not actually free) is some kind of benefit to the end user. Except that model is rarely ever used WRT to quality. You can't "compete" with the mobile market if you're not in the mobile market. "Gaming" is not one genre. I will say I hope the devs constantly cranking out shit will finally go mobile and leave some room for developers who actually give a shit, even though all the old hat guys either left or sold out already.

[TheFeniX]

So, Xbone has some kind of FRAPS video editor built in where you can upload videos to the cloud. And they're banning potty-mouths. You think they'd ban me for posting a Gear of War playthrough? The "Free Speech" whiners have their own issues, but I do have to laugh at this kid gloves shit when they push hardcore violence, language, and themes onto kids non-stop with games like CoD and GTA. You can't label a video NSFW? Sony is getting in on the action as well.

"Horrific, Deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words!"

There's also a localization thing going on. So, I guess there's going to be teams of people scouring videos and going all Kodachrome on our asses. Is crap ok to say yet on paid services?