Could it be "possible" to replace consoles with nerfed PCs?

[DalekFlay]

Hmm. That indicates to me that PCs are actually putting distance between themselves and consoles. Could have sworn that a generation or two ago consoles could actually reach parity with PCs for some operations, at a fraction of the cost. Dunno, might be misremembering.

You need a pretty good PC to beat an Xbox One X. The S model is just a piece of shit.

 

[Raghar]

Was not the main reason against PC Gaming that they are far easier to pirate?

Game developers were paid by people who were WILLING to pay. When PC would have perfect copy protection, and initial panic ceases, and addicts either monetarily ruin themselves, or reduce theirs addiction. Then people would start rising questions.
Would I buy one game, or 4 Jack Daniels honey? One game or 3 quality Metaxas? One game or 4 Zufanek OMG gin? One game or 5 Finlandia 1L vodkas?
Would I pay crazy prices just like for game on consoles where was no piracy, thus game prices never dropped after crack release?
Would it be better to pay 132 per year for monthly subscription for humble monthly curated bundles of games?

Frankly even when games would be impossible to pirate, PC releases wouldn't see massive increase of profits, because there alternatives that would become more interesting.

Consoles allows companies to restric access by users. It allows them to keep prices high, and keep profits high. In fact, when they release new console, they can sell game again. Thus in eastern european countries, where wages were kept low at similar level for everyone, consoles were basically just tools of overpaid people. Yea, they could afford multiple consoles, game imports at full prices, big TV, all that stuff.

 

[aweigh]

What's even the point of gaming consoles when every bum these days can afford an adequate PC?

Oh yeah, I remember, locked-in services.

You'd be surprised at the huge number of normies who think an "adequate PC" = 1500 bucks. It's crazy how that image of the pricey PC is still around.

Just check the comments on any Digital Foundry video...

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

What's even the point of gaming consoles when every bum these days can afford an adequate PC?

Oh yeah, I remember, locked-in services.

You'd be surprised at the huge number of normies who think an "adequate PC" = 1500 bucks. It's crazy how that image of the pricey PC is still around.

Just check the comments on any Digital Foundry video...

My latest build came in at around $1000 and going by specs it's certainly not a firebreather but it should be able to handle anything I throw at it pretty well. It would have been even cheaper if I hadn't gone for certain parts (the HDD that was suggested seemed like a prime example of getting what you pay for, so I upgraded to something considerably nicer. Also opted for a more well-reviewed motherboard, though that only added like $20 tops).

 

[DalekFlay]

Unless you want to play in 4k at 60fps it's pretty cheap to be a PC gamer now-a-days. My last upgrade a couple years ago was only $700 or so, without having to buy a case or PSU. I'd guess it'll be fine until the new consoles come out at least. Most console gamers buy at least two consoles per generation, which costs more than that.

The main draw of consoles is convenience and ease of use.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Hmm. That indicates to me that PCs are actually putting distance between themselves and consoles. Could have sworn that a generation or two ago consoles could actually reach parity with PCs for some operations, at a fraction of the cost. Dunno, might be misremembering.

That's just marketing speak, as usual.

Just like how the PS2 was "300 times faster than a Pentium 2" or whatever ridiculous bullshit they claimed.

Consoles cannot, and will not, compete with a computer, simply for cost and heat reasons.

A decent graphics card costs the same or more than a whole console. How can you possibly think they can be equivalent?

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

A decent graphics card costs the same or more than a whole console. How can you possibly think they can be equivalent?

Issue with this comparison is that I've seen some crazy fluctuation on gfx card prices (especially during the bitcoin boom) while console prices were relatively stable.

 

[Zarniwoop]

You'd be surprised at the huge number of normies who think an "adequate PC" = 1500 bucks. It's crazy how that image of the pricey PC is still around.

Just check the comments on any Digital Foundry video...

That's because millennial retards (some even here on the Dex) spread the meme that you need to have some goddamn ludicrous framerates for things to be "playable" and like 100 plus if it's a multiplayer game.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Issue with this comparison is that I've seen some crazy fluctuation on gfx card prices (especially during the bitcoin boom) while console prices were relatively stable.

PS4 at launch cost $400.

A Geforce GTX 770 cost $400 around the same time.

This is before the shitcoin craze and mid-high graphics cards have been around 300-400 for ages (until the shitcoin craze made them ridiculous)

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

Issue with this comparison is that I've seen some crazy fluctuation on gfx card prices (especially during the bitcoin boom) while console prices were relatively stable.

PS4 at launch cost $400.

A Geforce GTX 770 cost $400 around the same time.

This is before the shitcoin craze and mid-high graphics cards have been around 300-400 for ages (until the shitcoin craze made them ridiculous)

A PS4 is also a complete ready-to-go package with all components you'd need installed. A nice GPU is going to account for a significant portion of your build's cost, to be sure, but certainly not all of it and you can't open up your GPU's box and slap a disc into it. Even assuming you had an existing rig that you were upgrading with a new GPU, unless your existing rig was pretty well future-proofed wouldn't your GPU get at least slightly bottlenecked by your other, older components?

 

[The Decline]

Issue with this comparison is that I've seen some crazy fluctuation on gfx card prices (especially during the bitcoin boom) while console prices were relatively stable.

PS4 at launch cost $400.

A Geforce GTX 770 cost $400 around the same time.

This is before the shitcoin craze and mid-high graphics cards have been around 300-400 for ages (until the shitcoin craze made them ridiculous)

A PS4 is also a complete ready-to-go package with all components you'd need installed. A nice GPU is going to account for a significant portion of your build's cost, to be sure, but certainly not all of it and you can't open up your GPU's box and slap a disc into it. Even assuming you had an existing rig that you were upgrading with a new GPU, unless your existing rig was pretty well future-proofed wouldn't your GPU get at least slightly bottlenecked by your other, older components?

Not really, an i7-2600k from 2011 is still perfectly viable to game on assuming you have a decent gpu. There is a bottleneck, but it's only at 1080p, but you wouldn't notice it unless you are gaming at 144hz. Hell ddr4 only provides low single digit percent performance increase over ddr3 for gaming. Honestly getting a decent gpu and a ssd is good enough to push any computer built in the last decade past what current consoles can do.

 

[DeepOcean]

Without mentioning that console manufacturers are really in love of the idea of selling you new hardware with shorter life cycles, it took 10 years from the launch of XBOX 360 to the XBONE and they are already talking of unveiling the new generation next year what is even worse as the number and diversity of releases fallen to ludicrous low levels as all publishers are on the game as service fad right now and released pretty few decent games that were worthy to be played on this generation. So, they force you to buy hardware to play five or so good games (pretty much all casual action games so zero diversity of releases here) and then you will have to buy new hardware again, that doesn't look like a decent deal.

The only "advantage" I see from consoles right now is support to high resolutions. Yeah, any low cost PC can run pretty much all releases on 1080p without problems on ultra, PC gets more expensive if you wanna run on 1440p or 4k as you will need an intermediate to a high end graphics card respectively to get a decent performance, however this is more of a problem of terrible optimization on PCs releases than an actual hardware advantage from consoles, if the pc releases were actually optimized, you could pretty much run all modern games on an intermediate graphics card on 4k. If you don't plan to run your games on a 4K TV (kinda questionable here too because if you have a 4k TV, you probably have the budget for a high end graphics card and a HDMI connection), there are zero reasons to own a console unless you really like the exclusives.

 

[The Decline]

Without mentioning that console manufacturers are really in love of the idea of selling you new hardware with shorter life cycles, it took 10 years from the launch of XBOX 360 to the XBONE and they are already talking of unveiling the new generation next year what is even worse as the number and diversity of releases fallen to ludicrous low levels as all publishers are on the game as service fad right now and released pretty few decent games that were worthy to be played on this generation. So, they force you to buy hardware to play five or so good games (pretty much all casual action games so zero diversity of releases here) and then you will have to buy new hardware again, that doesn't look like a decent deal.

The only "advantage" I see from consoles right now is support to high resolutions. Yeah, any low cost PC can run pretty much all releases on 1080p without problems on ultra, PC gets more expensive if you wanna run on 1440p or 4k as you will need an intermediate to a high end graphics card respectively to get a decent performance, however this is more of a problem of terrible optimization on PCs releases than an actual hardware advantage from consoles, if the pc releases were actually optimized, you could pretty much run all modern games on an intermediate graphics card on 4k. If you don't plan to run your games on a 4K TV (kinda questionable here too because if you have a 4k TV, you probably have the budget for a high end graphics card and a HDMI connection), there are zero reasons to own a console unless you really like the exclusives.

The majority of console games don't actually run at true 4k. They are upscaled internally from a lower resolution or with checkerboard rendering.

 

[DalekFlay]

The majority of console games don't actually run at true 4k. They are upscaled internally from a lower resolution or with checkerboard rendering.

I watch a lot of Digital Foundry analysis videos and you'd be surprised how high a resolution the Xbox One X runs most games. Not native 4k all the time obviously, but well above 1080p or even 1440p. Of course it's doing it at 30fps, and PC gamers tend to shoot for 60. My lowly GTX 1060 can run Witcher 3 at 4k 30fps, but I keep it at 1080 for 60fps.

 

[Beastro]

Joystick is more annoying than keyboards and mouse.

FTFY

Played Oblivion while staying with my cousins for our grandmothers funeral and couldn't believe how bad the analog sticks were. I got used to them eventually, but the controls remained poor compared to the upfront ease of KB&M that only gets better the more you're used to it.

I couldn't imagine playing a FPS and can see why they have aim assist while the experience did bring back the frustration of playing RTS' on the PSX with a controller.

That was like 12 years ago, and from what I've seen control schemes haven't changed one bit. Playstation and Xbox's controllers haven't had major alterations in 20 years, while Nintendo's experiment with Wii went nowhere and it looks like they've effectively reverted back to the Gamecube one as their default which is just as old.

I take that as controllers hitting a ceiling they can't get past, rather than becoming a well adapt tool like KB&M's PC dominance.

 

[Sigourn]

Joystick is more annoying than keyboards and mouse.

FTFY

Not really. A lot of console ports play like shit because they were designed with a joystick in mind.

 

[Sacred82]

if you think consoles used to be nerfed PC's, think again. As a Westerner, you've probably never seen a real console.



hint: ever wondered why consoles for the entire Asian market are supposedly region locked as "Japan"?

 

[Beastro]

Joystick is more annoying than keyboards and mouse.

FTFY

Not really. A lot of console ports play like shit because they were designed with a joystick in mind.

I can get that, my issue is with games that, designed for console or not, would be better for suited for a KB&M given the inherent limitations around a controller.

FPS' are a good example, as are any top down games where you're controlling a bunch of stuff, like an RTS-type game or grand strategy. I've heard Paradox wants to port their Grand Strategy game Solaris to console. I can't see it being done given the controller limitations, and even if someone eventually does design a GS around a controller for a specific console release, I can see it only hobbling the player with them requiring extra help to make up for the demand on them in the same way console FPS' have always relied on autoaim (which I assume is still ongoing given how little controllers have changed).

hint: ever wondered why consoles for the entire Asian market are supposedly region locked as "Japan"?

Then do explain what they have over in Japan that their equivalents elsewhere lack.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

There might be room for improvement with the keyboard part of the equation. There are (or were, anyway) specialized programmable controllers designed to supplant the keyboard for most non-typing functions in any given game. I imagine they simply didn't catch on because of costs and because when you get down to the nitty gritty a decent keyboard is usually good enough. The mouse, however, is an amazing input device and pretty much every upgrade to it tends to consist of finding ways to slap more buttons on the damn thing. The mousewheel and the transition to optical were probably the last major upgrades to the mouse as an input device. Everything since has pretty much been win-more.

 

[Beastro]

There might be room for improvement with the keyboard part of the equation. There are (or were, anyway) specialized programmable controllers designed to supplant the keyboard for most non-typing functions in any given game. I imagine they simply didn't catch on because of costs and because when you get down to the nitty gritty a decent keyboard is usually good enough. The mouse, however, is an amazing input device and pretty much every upgrade to it tends to consist of finding ways to slap more buttons on the damn thing. The mousewheel and the transition to optical were probably the last major upgrades to the mouse as an input device. Everything since has pretty much been win-more.

I could see modifying the KB to suit consoles more, kinda like those weird palm shaped ones designed to focus on key accessibility for hotkeys rather than word processing.

I'd add to the mousewheel and optical the thumb button. Yes, it's just another button, but it's a crucial one. The rest you can do without, but without that one you feel crippled. It's something very much akin to the mousewheel, that once you got a mouse with that feature you couldn't go back.

 

[anvi]

Xbox already did this 20 years ago or whatever. It is just PC components in a standardized box. It is the standardization that is the most important thing of all with consoles. It lets everyone develop for a single set of specs. I saw a 20 page thread on some big game on Steam (Watch Dogs or something) where someone was going ape shit because the game kept crashing when it started. Turns out the guy had some sort of digital painting tablet thing plugged in which was not compatible. Console devs have such an easier time.

Also, the Steam Box looks to do the same sort of thing.

Most of those common arguments stopped being valid about 10 years ago since computers have been getting more and more easy to use. You don't have to do shit like defragment your hard drives manually anymore, or hunt down drivers for your peripherals or any of that shit. Plus, the whole willful stupidity thing that led to "not knowing if a game would work on your PC" isn't really there anymore - most people who play video games know what hardware their PC has.

I disagree. Half the people who use PCs are super nerds that like micromanaging their machine, the other half have no clue what is in their PC and why it is making that noise, why every game crashes, why it keeps running out of space, etc. You do still need to defrag regularly, yes you can get some software that can schedule it but you still need to know what it is and make sure it is running. You also need to have both an anti virus and a malware scanner, and preferably a shield too. You need to run Windows Update almost daily, and update all these other tools as well. Drivers are still a pain in the ass, still need to be kept up to date and if your game crashes you may need to get an old one which is not that easy. Although I admit Windows 10 does a great job of drivers. Temp files still build up, and errors happen like installing an Anti Virus + Malwarebytes and it eats up your RAM, and it takes a savvy PC user and googler to solve things like that.

Also I think Windows in general is just too complex for lower IQ people. Just finding files and basic shit is way harder than it needs to be. Microsoft edges closer to a good situation each time, but it is so slow and still so far away. And in some ways there is not a lot they can do about it because PCs have to be complex. You have to be able to plug in any peripheral, format external hard drives and stuff. It needs all this. Consoles don't need 99% of the features a real OS has and that allows them to be a lot simpler.

Stuff like Steam does help, but even still, it is too much for a lot of people. It is asking me what drive do I install to? Where are the mods? And if something goes wrong, people are screwed. Consoles are so childproof, they just work, mostly.

 

[DalekFlay]

Not really. A lot of console ports play like shit because they were designed with a joystick in mind.

Some people say this about multi-platform FPS games, but you'd have to pay me a considerable sum to play them with an analog stick. I have an Xbox controller but the only games I really use it for are third-person ones with shitty mouse controls, like Assassin's Creed.

 

[Zarniwoop]

There might be room for improvement with the keyboard part of the equation. There are (or were, anyway) specialized programmable controllers designed to supplant the keyboard for most non-typing functions in any given game. I imagine they simply didn't catch on because of costs and because when you get down to the nitty gritty a decent keyboard is usually good enough. The mouse, however, is an amazing input device and pretty much every upgrade to it tends to consist of finding ways to slap more buttons on the damn thing. The mousewheel and the transition to optical were probably the last major upgrades to the mouse as an input device. Everything since has pretty much been win-more.

Negative.

Making a wireless mouse that actually doesn't suck is also a MAJOR improvement. Things like the Razer Mamba or Logitech G900.

 

[aweigh]

just want to chime in to say that your GPU purchase does not equal the price of the hypothetical console here:

you can output 1080p 60fps with a $175 gtx 1060, hell you can actually do 1440p with it in most games! Add another $150 for the cpu, say an entry-level i5 or ryzen of some sort, $40 bucks for a stick of 8gb ram, $60 bucks on a mobo and $50 bucks on a PSU and voila: a better-than-a-PS4 budget PC.

it won't do 4k because of the VRAM limitation on that 1060, but it'll do 1080p 60fps with ease, settings on high (which is something consoles DO NOT DO, console versions of games always have their "settings" on LOW); and on MOST older games (like your witcher 3 or MGS5 for example) you can easily do up to 1440p at 60fps as well.

so just to sum up I'm saying for $475 bux u can equal a ps4 pro.

EDIT: Hell, replace that gtx 1060 with an AMD rx580 and you'll have enough vram for 4k output too.

TLDR all i'm saying is that you do not need to buy a flagship GPU to "compete" with consoles. More like an entry-level part instead.

 

[DalekFlay]

The 1060 can definitely play some older stuff at native 4k 60fps. I was playing Dishonored in 4k recently, at 60, with no issues. It's kind of random though, because another older game like Batman Arkham City will only do 30. Depends on the engine. It's good for Unreal Engine 3 games that had no AA though.