well the new-gen well help close the gap between pcs and consoles which is good for pc gaming but console gaming has always been more convenient especially when friends come over, pc will only truly win when you can do co-op multiplayer on a pc with every game like console and have mods and private dedicated servers and more pc exclusives
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It has simply made the gap shorter, not anywhere close to closing it. And in a year or two the gap will be the same once again. In 5 years it'll be even further apart. That is why only upgrading once in 6-7 years is silly as hell, technology doesn't just stand still.
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There's one tiny detail: consoles, being build in the way they are build, are more powerful than PC with same hardware. PC equivalent of PS4 is PC with Titan - I'm pretty sure that's the only thing available now that will be able to play PC games in those 5 years, while PS4 and Xbox will still be able to play games.
Just look at dying-gen: X360 and PS3 had GPU that has power of GeForce 7900, but you can't play new games without at least GeForce 9xxx.
I also wonder about all those talks about clouds - it sometimes sounds like consoles will have most nasty DRM ever made - be online 24/7 to play single-player games, but instead of saying "it's DRM" they will say "for game to be played we need to get more computing power from outside".
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I own a 5-year old PC which cost to me 1000 Euros and I can play most games in high settings, or even max., even those FPS games like CoD are a bit of hard... PCs can handle game far more better than consoles, and the more important reason for this is that they can be upgraded... If now I upgraded my PC with 300 Euros, I could play all the newly released games in ultra/max. settings without any risk. PS4 and Xbox1 will do so, but in 5-6 years a new console will be released. Dying-gen is PS2, not PS3 and XBox360... Fifa 14 has been released (or will) in PS2 too... Same for the new PES game.
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My brother use my old PC, so I know you can play games on 6 years old computers. But X360 was released 8 years ago - two years means two new GPU generations and more powerful PCs.
Do you know anyone playing BF4 on PC with GeForce 7xxx (that's what was hot-PC-stuff those days, GeForce 8xxx would be released year later)? You probably also need to use duo-core CPU, as my little googling shows first quad-core processor also came one year after X360.
And X360/PS3 is dying gen, at least in MS case - I recall at-least-rumours that they said something about pulling the plug in two years.
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8800 was already available when ps3 lounched and q6600 lounched in january 2007 so it was available sync PS3 lounched 2007 in EU and not 2006. So technically you can still play the same games that a ps3 can with the same resolution and details.
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My concern is not so much that consoles cannot beat the best a pc can offer. My concern is at equal price points, a console provides about equal performance at the best of times, with no freedom of use and no upgrade path. They're asking a price that is nowhere near the value of the services these consoles provide the user.
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PC equivalent of PS4 is a Radeon HD 7870 or a GeForce GTX 660 or 660Ti. A Titan blows those out of the water, but for three to four times the cost of either GPU, or two times the cost of a PS4 for just the Titan GPU.
When it comes to cloud computing for gaming, the latency alone makes this unfeasible for most games. When your net connection goes down, what happens to all that computing power? You essentially have a rented console that isn't even in your home. If your processing power lies outside of your console, what did you buy?
I'm already playing many new games at high/max settings, and the rest at medium, with a 5-year old GPU, the Radeon HD 5770. It's similar to an Nvidia GeForce GTX 280. The best GeForce 9000-series would be the 9800 GX2, a dual-GPU card. The GTX 280 and the Radeon 5770 I mentioned have higher performance in every benchmark I could find at the time of purchase, and today, by a large margin.
As for DRM, consoles are DRM by nature. For PCs, you can choose games without DRM. If you're really wanting to play those "DRM-protected" games, you can buy the DRM copy and disable the DRM with third-party tools. If you're worried about viruses, use a sandboxing program to keep anything from infecting your system as a whole, and always run updated antivirus software.
The PS3 had a GPU similar to a GeForce 7950 GT with less VRAM. This GPU in a PC would cost you 300 USD at launch. Today, you can get a more powerful card for around 50 USD.
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In power terms, yes, GeForce 6xx is PS4 equivalent. Same as GeForce 7xxx is PS3 equivalent. Now, try to play BF4 or Crysis 3 on GeForce 7950...
If you'll buy GeForce 660 or Radeon 7870, you'll probably need to start saving money for soon-upgrade. That's because consoles - mostly thanks to people having to specialize in coding for one hardware - use their power better. Maybe it will change, but optimization isn't that high on "stuff do to when porting games for PC"...
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The PS4 and XBox One are not fancy tech anymore. They're customized PCs wearing brand names. Porting for this generation mostly involves performance tweaks, if devs are telling the truth. Both consoles are using 64-bit x86 AMD APUs. Both are called 'semi-custom' by their respective camps.
These consoles literally have desktop PC tech in them. They're using the same exact GPU tech as PCs have available to them. If that tech could produce better performance than PCs have now, they would already be doing so on PC. So we have tech X producing performance Y in a desktop. Due to everything running at lower clock speeds, tech X can only provide less than performance Y in a console.
Explained in the other direction, Desktop PCs have the same tech as these consoles have. If tech X creates performance Y in a console, tech X will also provide performance Y in a desktop pc. And if that desktop pc can provide more power and better cooling, that's performance Y+. Understand?
A non-PC metaphor. Both PC and console are running the same engine under the hood this generation, but PCs can reach higher freeway speeds since they're running better fuel and better engine coolant.
Want another metaphor? PC and console as a set of speakers. PC goes to 10. Console has a 10 as well, but it sounds about as loud as when a PC goes to 7.
And another. Generic PC painkillers come in 200mg dose, 80 per bottle. You can get some name-brand PS4 in 200mg, but only 50 per bottle for the same price. Which is the better deal? Which one will last you longer before you have to buy another bottle?
And yes, another. If the Euro were a PC, you'd need 35% more PS4 USD to match its value, and that's after the PC Euro fell in value from being 38% stronger than the PS4 USD at the start of November this year.
But wait, there's another one! A bottle that someone has written PS4 on the side with a marker can hold a liter of water. Another bottle, someone has written PC on the side. The bottle labeled PC can hold a gallon of water. Both have the same contents, but one has more of that same contents. You can only take one bottle with you into the desert. Which one is more likely to get you through the desert alive?
And one last one. I'm mostly a PC user. I will be cooking hamburgers tonight for family dinner, and I have a 12-inch frying pan, large enough to cook four at a time comfortably, with room left for some onions and sliced jalapenos. My PS4-owning friend is also cooking hamburgers tonight, but only has a 6-inch frying pan, barely large enough to cook two at a time. Assuming a family of six who all want two burgers each, whose stomachs finish loading first?
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Power alone is not everything. You forget about some important details. Biggest being resource-eating Windows. Supported in this feast by dozen off-screen software, like Anti-virus.
So which family will get dinner first: 12-inch over a box-of-matches, or 6-inch on oven?
Hopefully SteamOS will take this one big problem for PC gaming, without making new ones...
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When I say power above, I am speaking of the power necessary to 'power' the hardware. Hence, the reason why I use the word 'performance' to refer to actual performance, or the visible output of the device in question.
Windows is a far smaller performance hog than people think. Moving from a Windows 7 install to a stripped-down Ubuntu install resulted in an fps gain around 5-10% for me. If I got a 20% performance boost from a console over a PC, it still isn't worth it due to the lack of all of my preexisting software and the massive cost of re-buying all of my games for a non-backwards-compatible platform.
If OS bloat is a major concern that consoles don't have, we shouldn't see much more than a 5-10% performance increase. Assuming those consoles have the same electrical usage, of course, which they don't. They just have the same hardware, running at far less than 90% speed, with their own operating systems.
If a console's only difference from a PC were OS bloat, we'll see around 110% of PC performance with 25% of the feature set.
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Windows is one bloat. And not only because it's "big and fat". It's also because there's one Windows for every PC in the world. That means developers doesn't use hardware at it's best. But to do that, you'd need to code for every CPU and every GPU. So, biggest advantage of Windows (and DirectX) - one system to make all hardware work with every software - is also it's biggest fault.
In consoles, devs are using hardware in 100%. Just look at new PS3 exclusives - there's no way PCs from 2007 will start Battlefield 4 with that level of graphics. But not because it's weak - but because of things like Windows, DirectX and developers "laziness", among others.
All those little things are making consoles more "powerful" - or more correctly, more efficient in using their hardware.
When X360/PS3 were released, PCs bought in same time needed upgrades after few years. And while I'm hoping against it, I'm pretty sure devs again will dig hidden power of hardware in consoles to make graphics better, but they will skip that on PCs, instead saying "get yourself a pair of Titans"...
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Developers don't code for Windows. They code for graphics APIs. DirectX is what Windows users normally use, but OpenGL is another option. AMD is coming out with its Mantle API, which offers direct hardware access, something that eliminates any latency issues the OS would have caused with regard to graphics. There is the concern of balancing for CPU/GPUs of varying performance, but that is already left to the player in the form of an options menu. If you can't run at Ultra settings (no console has yet), you can run at medium, which is what most consoles approximate.
There are zero PC devs coding for every CPU, because it isn't necessary. There are only two CPU types out there that are used for PC gaming. I should say there used to be two, because Macintosh computers have used Intel CPUs since 2006. So there is only one CPU that devs are concerned with on the PC side. As for multiple GPUs, this is also mostly false. There are only two GPU architectures out there today, AMD and Nvidia. Access to these cards is mostly handled by an API, such as OpenGL or DirectX. These can be treated like a common GPU type, with only optimization being necessary for each GPU manufacturer, of which there only two to be concerned with. So PC ends up being simpler to develop for. Consoles are a little closer to having a PC's level of easy programming, because the PS4/XB1 are using x86 CPUs and AMD GPUs.
When a developer decides to program for a console, they need to learn how to program for that new hardware. This is why games released near a console's end cycle are so much better than the early titles. With PC, we don't have this problem. Developers have been working with the same architecture for a long time, some for their entire lives. PC hardware tricks are already known to the entire world.
Once upon a time, consoles used special tech. Today, they're having trouble staying price competitive with PCs of similar performance. They're using basic PC parts now. No magic here, no hidden power to unlock that isn't already available to PC users of those same parts. You don't get a Titan by putting a PS4 sticker on this year's mid-range gaming GPUs, and I won't pay a 25% premium for those parts.
When industry commenters say that console devs unlock the true potential of the hardware late in the console's life, it's because console devs don't have anything else they can use. They have no special driver tweaks, no OS alterations, just the same parts the console launched with. Players can't disable parts of the console OS that they don't need for a particular game. As a console ages it becomes better documented, making it easier to program for but still not as easy as a PC. The x86 PC architecture has been programmed for since the 1980s. As for GPU architecture, developers communicate with the hardware through an API. DirectX 11 in most cases on PC, which means they're working with something PCs have had since 2008. The first DirectX 11 games appeared in 2009.
We'll see a patch to enable Mantle support in BF4 this december, which will improve PC performance on that game even greater, allowing even cheaper hardware to patch PS4 performance in BF4. Other Mantle-enabled games will theoretically see similar gains. Mantle also makes cross platform coding easier, giving us better ports.
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I agree that the new priority of games is the graphics, but let's be honest... They always were... The thing is that people wouldn't buy CoD:G or BF4 if they had the same graphics. Well, maybe BF since it is a great game, but CoD? Who would be that dump? I notice in general that new gamers get excited with newer games mostly because of their graphics. GTAV is an example. I've seen people who have not even played it and say that it is the best game ever. That was even said even before launch.. And why's that so? Because Rockstar wasted so much money on the environment and on the graphics... For no damn reason... I remember when Skyrim was released, or when Diablo III was. No-one really cared that much for the graphics than for the games themselves. People just don't realize that if companies decide to do this all the time (giving in their games more and more graphics), they will have to buy a new console, or PC, which will handle all of those graphics. And at least a PC can last for 4 years and then spend around to 300 Euros for a way better graphics card and be "GG"... But in a console? You will have to buy a new one. I have a 1000 Euros PC which I bought 5+ years ago and I am still playing with it newly released games, even in max settings, but it is almost impossible to play in max settings games like CoD or BF or too demanding games... And why's that so? Because they decided their games would be better with more awesome graphics... Well, I just find this ridiculous. But at least I have a PC, and not a console, but console users will be in a bad position in a few years.
Lastly, I think that gameplays would be totally superior if developers stop improving graphics... But this will never be so for a certain reason, the fight between NVidia and AMD/ATI. The more they improve and support games, the more those games will have to adapt...
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don't think your pc as a static thing, think that every year or two you can upgrade your gpu and play with very good graphics at 1080p 60fps (you don't need the best one, the middle end is more than enought)
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The PC equivalent of the PS4's AMD-made GPU is the AMD Radeon HD 7870. Its PC equivalent will cost you around 175 USD. It's similar to an Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 which will cost you about 185 USD, or a 660Ti which will cost you around 250 USD. An AMD R9 270X is slightly more powerful, and costs about 200 USD. With AMD's Mantle tech (available on R7/R9 series), which is being compared with DirectX or OpenGL implemented at the hardware level, will AMD pull forward on PC as they have on consoles?
Comparing the PS4 and XBox One GPUs, they're both made by AMD. The XBox One is going with a GPU based on the AMD Radeon HD 7790, which uses a lot less power than the PS4's GPU. The XBox One's GPU might require less power than the PS4's GPU, and may also reduce the dangers of overheating seen with the XBox 360's Red Ring of Death.
People are already reporting PS4 Blue Ring of Death. Last generation's consoles were already pushing the envelope of what's possible with such low wattage. Has Sony pushed it too far this generation? Are they too ambitious? And if so, will Microsoft take advantage of this properly?
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I wonder why they struggle to get that hd7870 performance out of PS4. I can play BF4 60+fps/1080p on high with this card, 40+fps on ultra, while PS4 version is 900p and is comparble to slightly enhanced medium pc settings (while still struggling to maintain stable 60fps in some areas). Ps4 capabilities look more on par with HD7850 right now. Even lower-tier if we count the possible performance gain with Mantle.
HD7870 is 2,5Tflops (more if you overclock, and this card is an OC beast) while PS4's GPU counts 1,8 Tflops. Why do people compare these cards?
Fun fact: Hd7870 Ghz Edition is 179$ on newegg, and is a midrange, last-gen card.
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They don't have the wattage necessary to run the card at full power, I suspect. It really is a 7870, at least physically. It's just horribly underclocked.
I'm watching the R9 270X prices this christmas. Performance is above the 7870 for 20-25 USD more. All of the R9 series are able to crossfire without a bridge.
All of AMD's GCN series cards are able to use their Mantle tech, which improves cross-platform compatibility between PCs and all consoles using AMD GCN GPUs. Yes, this means we likely won't see massive slowdowns in as many poorly ported console games.
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Cutting deadlines to beat the competition to market, resulting in sub-optimal code optimization and allowing more bugs to leak into final builds
Cutting deadlines to beat the competition to market also results in less intensive hardware testing, allowing things like system overheating or disc lens errors to appear when users begin using the console as gamers always will - 24/7 uptime.
Misleading advertising.
Stricter customer service.
More inventive marketing lingo to mask deficiencies that shouldn't exist.
Packing more hardware into a smaller box, retaining more heat and reducing component reliability.
Compensating for greater heat retention by reducing wattage to components, thereby artificially reducing performance output on hardware otherwise identical to PCs.
I guess I wasn't just talking about non-performance related areas. Call it a mixture of concerns.
If this is what they did with the PS3 era, and are doing moreso in the PS4 era, imagine how much worse it might be in the PS5 era if AAA consoles survive. This must change for consoles to survive in the long run. I want to see consoles survive, but they can't do that by continuing down their current path.
As it stands, the lowly tablet PC is becoming an increasing threat to consoles. You can already take a 1080p-capable Android tablet, hook it up to your HDTV running at 1080p, connect a bluetooth gamepad, and have HD gaming that's also portable. Sure, it costs more than a console, but expect that to cease to be an issue since Nvidia's Tegra GPU chips are getting better and better. The quantity of games also aren't quite there yet, but they will be.
If a Tablet PC can function as a portable FULL HD console before dedicated consoles can, and still provide massive functionality outside of gaming, why don't we expect the same from consoles if they want to ask for similar prices?
In five years, buying a console for PC prices will be like buying a go-kart for SUV prices. Today it's like buying a car that can only take you to preset destinations while someone else's car goes wherever he wants to go, as long as he knows how to get there.
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I don't entirely agree with the visuals raising the budget. If that's the case how come we see amazing graphics by small developer teams or even indie game companies? Trine 2 looks amazing and it's indie. Stalker and Metro also raised the graphics bar.
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Small developer teams tend to spend a lot longer on their games. Their games tend not to be created to fit a market niche, instead growing to fit whatever niche the game naturally falls into. Their games are more a labor of love than a big production title with investors expecting a timely return on the money they loaned to the developer. Small teams tend not to have much, if any any, development-related debt to pay off before their games are profitable.
Tomb Raider 2013 sold somewhere between 2,920,000 and 3,400,000 copies. Square Enix lost money on it. They spent over four years developing it, sold 3,400,000 copies for 49.99 USD, and Square Enix lost money on it. How did they piss away so much money?
Capcom reported that they lost money on Resident Evil 6. They sold somewhere between 4,210,000 and 4,900,000 copies to date across PS3/PC/360. I can't find any figures on how much money they lost, but it was enough for them to cut their profit predictions for the following year by 37,000,000 USD.
EA hyped Star Wars: The Old Republic greatly. They spent 500,000,000 USD to make SWTOR. They only made 420,000,000 USD in sales by the time they switched to a Free-to-Play model. They lost 80,000,000 USD on STAR WARS. How do you lose money with the biggest Science Fiction license in existence? By being Electronic Arts.
There is no good reason for a game from these publishers, from these franchises, to lose money.
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While I mostly agree with your broad sentiments, there's no way Tomb Raider sold that many copies at that price. Lots of those purchases would have been while the game was sold at various different sale prices, and Steam also takes a big chunk of PC sales cut too.
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Good points on the price cuts. They would have sold fewer copies without the sales, bringing in less money overall, resulting in an even bigger profit loss from Tomb Raider 2013.
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I think the biggest chunk of money for these AAA games went to publishing costs and marketing, while having a giant team of developers also played a role.
I personally don't like to see games as a product to make money. The best games are a labour of love as you said. Spending ludicrous amounts of money doesn't seem to improve gaming as a whole.
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Visuals are almost entirely the reason for game companies like THQ going bankrupt, shallow, uncreative gameplay dedicated toward trying to rope in as many different kinds of people and the typically linear or generic level, story and character design that plagues modern games.
For an example. A game developed for the PS2, Xbox or Gamecube would have a total budget of anywhere from 3 to 6 million dollars, games these days now require a budget of nearly $15 million on average. Games haven't been getting longer (and in most cases have gotten shorter), music hasn't really improved at all since orchestrated work could be done back then as well, voice acting is done at nearly the same rate, etc. The nearly $10 million additional tacked on is nearly solely due to improved graphics. In fact, they usually have to cut down on the other areas (like the actual gameplay) in order to reduce costs. It's very likely that the graphics arms race is going to cause an implosion in the industry due to companies already exceeding costs vs profit in most cases.
There is a reason that indie developers rarely push for graphics beyond 6th gen capabilities, it's just that more affordable and they, due to not being under company obligation to sustain certain criteria in the same way as a AAA, can take more artistic freedom in their gamestyles at a fraction of the price.
From the fourth generation to the seventh generation, budgets had increased by nearly 60-fold. For the PS1, a 5th generation console, the cost of game development is about a 40-fold difference from one being built for the PS3 with nearly the same value per disc sold. It's really gotten crazy.
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I love Darksiders 1+2, Saint's Row: The Third, Red Faction, Warhammer 40k Space Marine, even Homefront despite the story being kinda weak. These games were worth their launch prices, in my opinion. But THQ was still unable to profit as a company.
They shouldn't have invested so much into the uDraw, but that wasn't their only mistake.
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Some entertaining/informative/useless infographics. Bitches love infographics.
1 This mentions some historic data, trends over the last decade, and some predictions by industry insiders.
2 To be fair, These are 'best single-gpu computers' being compared.
3 More and more online gamers are PC gamers, and fewer are console gamers.
4 At least console prices have fallen over time, when you factor in inflation. You'll want to zoom in on this image, it's a bit small.
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Microsoft actually has never broke even with the Xbox line (the Xbox Membership actually isn't as profitable as it might seem, despite all the ads, due to huge maintenance costs), which is why so many investors and potential CEO candidates want Xbox to be axed and sold. Sony barely broke even as a whole with the PlayStation line after the massive profits from the PS1 and PS2 were completely thrown away by the PS3 and Vita. Unlike Microsoft, which still makes hefty profits from it's other business, Sony has been struggling to make a profit on all fronts. (That's why Sony had to sell headquarters)
Nintendo is the only one of the three that makes actual profits with their hardware, the DS, 3DS, Wii and Wii U are intentionally made to be weaker (though the Wii U is not as weak as people claim compared to the PS4 and Xbone) in order to make a profit since when they went the power route with the N64 and GameCube, it bit them in the ass.
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They're still in the hole after PS3/360. Sony over 4 billion, microsoft around 3 billion.
Publishers and Devs didn't do much better.
This is partially because of the gaming crash we've been struggling to prevent since at least 2005, but the incoming crash is mostly affecting consoles and AAA pc titles due to how much money these things require to create.
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My reasons are marked below.
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What are people talking about? Obviously PC have available better cards but an average gamer still sits on something like an old 560 and a 7870(ps4) is still a good card to be able to play games. Heck even the most used video chip on Steam is Intel HD Graphics 4000.
Most used video cards on steam:
Intel HD Graphics 4000 4.75%,
Intel HD Graphics 3000 4.60%,
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2.29%,
Intel HD Graphics 2000 2.16%,
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 2.12%,
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2.06%,
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 1.48%,
Intel Ironlake (Mobile) 1.42%,
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 1.40%,
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 1.39%,
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Where did you find this out?
EDIT:I see from the steam hardware survey
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When you use Steam Hardware, list of GPUs aren't the best to use, as there's too many of them to give quick example. Much better numbers are for example cores in CPUs - over 50% of Steam users doesn't have 4 cores yet. Or that still over 50% of PC gamers doesn't have more than 4 GB of RAM. Or less than 50% of PC gamers has more then 1 GB of Vram.
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PS4 games have access to around 4.5GB of system ram, from what is being said. The remaining 3.5GB is reserved for the OS. This probably is to keep a lot of the OS resident in memory, improving menu response time. A good idea.
It's outdated for irs price/performance, not because of the average PC owned. If someone can afford a PS4, they can afford a PC of the same price, obviously. 400 USD is 400 USD.
People were already building similar PCs for the same price months ago. They were pretty close to the same price when the PS4 specs were announced. Now that the PS4 has launched, we're seeing that Nvidia was right. Except for with BF4 and COD:Ghosts, those games are seriously tweaked for those AMD video cards. I blame Mantle.
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In a nutshell you don't like consoles and you're letting us know why.
A desktop PC is ever evolving. At a blink of an eye a piece of hardware is obsolete and you can upgrade just as fast. A console does not have that luxury and have to make use of what it have. Plus they have to make use to at least 4 years of use. There will be a lot of people here doing the same old PC is superior mantra, but console gaming is the dominant force in the gaming market and they have to keep hardware cost low to maintain that.
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I don't dislike consoles. I only care about what games they offer, what services they offer, and what the price is. If you offer me less of what I want for more money, it isn't a smart idea for me to buy the overpriced item.
If the PS4 were priced around 300 USD, and the games no greater than 49.99 (usual pc price), I'd consider a PS4. It would then be offering better gaming for the money, and I'd just use my PC for all the non-gaming things.
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These conversations are pretty lame. There's so much wrong with this, including the fact it is a one sided circle jerk.
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Never ever buy a console day 1. Did no one learn from the 360 fiasco?
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i buy consoles just for the games...
is like getting a nintendo when you also have an x360 or a ps3... you are not going for graphics... u are going for the games that only nintendo have.
if microsoft, sony and nintendo games can be played in a pc... well... why to buy some of those? i can improve my pc and its done.
i know a lot of games are better in pc (and thats why i never buy games for ps3 when they'r on pc), but o well... i know its trick... but i'm good with both pc&console for now.
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I bought consoles for the games too, but today I can get most of the same games for PC. The exclusives just aren't interesting anymore.
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It's going to be interesting to compare PS4 BF4/Warframe/Blacklight to their PC versions.
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The productivity PCs I speak of are what I played games on from about 1988 to 1995. Graphics didn't really pick up until standalone video cards got cheap enough. Consoles beat PCs easily without worry back then.
Hardly any 80s speech in that paragraph, let alone the post. Just type tl;dr and be honest.
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Many gamers who only know console gaming think they need to spend 1200 USD on a gaming pc that will beat their favorite console's performance. They don't need to spend even half of that amount.
If you're just upgrading your current PC, you can reuse your RAM (saving about 8 USD per GB), hard drive, case (saves 35 USD), disc drive (saves 40 USD), and possibly your power supply (saves another 40 USD). You can also keep your current operating system in most cases, so if you're using Windows 7, you'll save 80 USD retail. You can often get Windows 7 on sale for 20 USD, and you can go with Ubuntu Linux for great performance as well. Most can also reuse the motherboard, saving another 40-60 USD. Potential savings here come to 200-350 USD by reusing your current components, something which every smart PC builder does, and every console gamer is locked out of.
This leaves just CPU and GPU to purchase. A console-competitive PC should use the same tech as a console. It's all AMD parts for this generation. AMD sells 8-core CPUs for about 140 USD, while Intel only has 6-core desktop processors available, and they start at 560 USD. An AMD Radeon HD 7850, while slower than the 7870, is still faster than the console version of the 7870. An Nvidia card of comparable performance costs about the same, maybe 30 USD more, but we'll assume equal price for this performance level. 140 to 180 for the GPU. So we're almost up to 300 USD if we try to match PS4 specs while reusing some older parts we already own.
If we aren't reusing any parts, the cost will be around 500-650 at current parts prices. Waiting for sales on each part and keeping an eye out for rebates and bundles cuts the total build price to about 50-60% average, or about 250-390 USD.
This gets you free online multiplayer, access to more of Netflix than consoles provide, websites that don't fail to render properly in a console browser, unrestricted youtube access, unrestricted access to every PC game you have ever purchased (for me this goes back 30 years), upgradeable specs, and the ability to add as many external parts as you wish, with no need to look for a Sony/Microsoft compatibility sticker.
Keep in mind that console manufacturers normally sell their hardware for less than it costs to create. Sony lost an estimated 307 USD on each PS3 sold in the first year. In 2008, the loss was 36 USD per PS3 sold. By 2010, this was down to about 0.25 USD. Microsoft lost 126 USD on each 360 sold the first year. It was down to 100 USD in late 2006. They made up most of the cost from game sales. They didn't make much back, however. Some internal leaks suggest that Sony lost 4.9 billion USD on the PS3 after all of their income is accounted for. Microsoft is around 3 billion USD loss. They were the best consoles of their generation, but they failed to make either company money. Combine this with so many game publishers losing money, and console gaming might be in trouble despite the fact that more people than ever before are gaming.
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If I wanted to write an opinion piece instead of copy/pasting details from a conversation I had with a friend, as mentioned in the post, I would have written a decent opinion piece instead.
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very long, but i did read. while you are partially correct, there is a LOT in this that i would retract. the console market has a great amount to offer for the companies involved, mostly the average consumer STILL looks to computers in terms of multimedia and productivity. Gaming computers to them seem like a dream only a geek or rich person could have, so consoles are the closest and next best thing especially considering that they would never imagine understanding how to control a game with mouse and keyboard! (being a console gaming refugee i can say i still prefer a controller over m&k but can swap back and fourth easily)
"Graphics research used to be console-centric"
Graphics research started with the pc and since has always started there. Lets not forget where game development starts!
"Because they're chasing graphics over gameplay, the art budget increases. This is the most expensive part of game development today."
This is partially untrue, while yes the art budget does increase when we think in terms of higher details. it is not the most expensive part unless we talk in terms in cost of time. if you took the time to look at 3D design techniques the real challenge and expense is in coding. there is a number of techniques that are used in post and pre processing that help create the realism seen in games today, a lot of which stems outside the rendering pipeline when it comes to terms of models and textures. but a team of design artists handles that and i can tell you, with a team of people it becomes farrr easier and cheaper to do over time than it does with a single person! lol (Game Design & Development Minor)
"Today's PC gamers tend to view 1080p as scraping the bottom of the barrel."
Only a few do, Those who don't understand true definition that is. lets not forget 4k TVs are VERY VERY new to the market and while yes some people can push that. its all hot air as it's humanly impossible to tell the difference between that and 1080p on a screen of general size lets sayyyyyyy 60 inches unless we are talking monitor sizes which would be more around 20. that's just like saying AA at x16 is easily distinguishable between x8 on a 20 inch screen at 1080p. just hot air for a want to be flashy ego. :)
"The internet is all that is required for a PC to have multiplayer capability."
I don't like this statement at all. not really offended, it's just pointlessly WRONG! there are so many tunnels and protocols that go to networking; services, protocols, port forwarding, server hosting, coding, address management. hell if there was one whole entity to organize that all they would charge for it on pc too! (oh wait we PAY for our windows and ISP :D!)[Network administrations major] XBL and PS+ are both services that expand on the OS of the system, we pay for the service which would otherwise be non existent in consoles such as media and friend management as well as new content and active development! (you look at me and tell me you ONLY game on your pc -_-") people expect all this great function out of a console that makes it more pc like because it sits in the center of their living area so why shouldn't it? but consoles aren't media centers, thats only icing on the already generous cake!
annnddddd finallyyy
"Today's new consoles have the power of a similarly priced PC of four years ago."
Buy a pc with 4 year old parts and keep it under 500 and run ohhh lets say bf4 on lets sayyyyyyyyy semi full graphics (not exactly full but fairly close). you'll find it very hard to play :) mostly because of the number of cycles you lose just from your host OS! :))
(edit here: make sure to research the cost of said parts back 4 years so you are spending based on that price even if you aren't exactly paying that price today)
TL:DR
Do a great amount of research before trying to make points. not just about base tech but about the whole spectrum of computing, game development, consumer market trends, consumer expectations, and networking. :)
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I had a conversation with a friend on facebook that was beginning to get a little long, and decided to post it here.
The subject that started this was the fall-on-your-face Playstation 4 launch.
These comparisons are with a PC in mind that is similarly priced to the new consoles.
Consoles used to be a lot better, back when PCs were geared toward productivity and gaming was just a happy secondary
ability.
Today's new consoles have the power of a similarly priced PC of four years ago. They have to rush to market with less
testing so they're not quite as obsolete as they already are. Fans of modern console gaming just keep eating up the false
advertising of modern console superiority.
Because of their chasing of graphics over gameplay, console makers are forced to include higher priced hardware, but cut
corners elsewhere to keep the price from going even higher than it already has. Because of performance deficiencies,
programmers must cut corners in non-graphics-related areas. Gameplay and writing suffer.
Because they're chasing graphics over gameplay, the art budget increases. This is the most expensive part of game
development today. Because today's consoles are unable to utilize their art assets as-is, and because of a lack of enough
GPU power to do much post-processing, these art assets are largely wasted. This waste is passed onto the customer as
higher priced games and day-one DLC, and passed onto 'underperforming' development staff with day-one layoffs.
Today's consoles upsell their visuals, touting HD Gaming when the average TV can't display the image sharp enough from
across the room for anyone but an army sharpshooter to tell 480 from 720 from 1080. They deceive their customers into
believing that this increase in visual fidelity is noticeable and is a requirement for great gameplay. They were doing
back in 2008, at a time when a large portion of PC gamers were running at 1080p or higher. Today, 1080p is the low-end
standard of PC gaming. Console makers make excuses to back up their claim that higher resolutions are required for great
gameplay, and their devoted 'wool over their eyes' fans eat it up.
At PS3/360 launch, it cost us 250 USD to get a graphics card that could deliver 720p 60 fps gaming at PS3/360 visual
quality, ignoring the fact that many of their games ran at 30 fps. Today, it costs us 80 USD to get a similar graphics
card. Today, it costs us around 250 USD to get a graphics card that produces 1080p 60 fps at the settings guessed at by
watching advertising videos and making various assumptions based on advertised technical specifications.
1080p gaming is not a requirement for PC gamers. It's dirt cheap for us to have it, so we use it. Today's PC gamers tend
to view 1080p as scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's a non-issue for new rigs. A new gaming rig will do 1080p if you
turn your resolution DOWN.
Graphics research used to be console-centric. Today, the breakthroughs are coming from Nvidia and AMD, and they're coming
to PCs years before consoles are even produced with these capabilities. These PC graphics cards require a lot of power,
something that the power supply in a console just can't provide in the small space expected of a console. When you skimp
on power supply, you need far more efficient technology to produce graphics equal to a PC, let alone better than. Because
consoles today are using bleeding-edge PC tech without supplying the same amount of electricity required from their PC
versions, they get less performance for the same money.
Console makers tried to work around the faster Desktop PC RAM speeds with memory management tricks in the PS3. They tried
to work around high bandwidth PCI bus speeds of the PC by skipping anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering on the PS3 and
XBox 360.
The PS4 and XBox One should have never been made. They're going to end up loss leaders. The developers will be blamed for
the downfall of console gaming when instead it's the console makers who should have bowed out and avoided pissing away
money to retain a market share in a market that is no longer profitable for them to participate in.
I miss consoles. Mostly, I think I just miss the old SNES/PS/SMS days. These were days when having a PC that could match a
console's performance cost three or four times as much as the console did. These days are over for new consoles. For old
consoles, we have emulation and hardware clones.
Software services provided by console makers are already available on PC with fewer restrictions. Software licenses are
less restrictive on PC than on consoles. Traditionally console-centric publishers have decided to create their own digital
distribution storefronts, but have included their own DRM, which has been more intrusive and less reliable than what PC
gamers have grown accustomed to for nearly a decade. For current PC gamers, we've grown used to the idea that if you have
DRM, either it 'just works, period,' or we'll avoid your storefront, sometimes choosing to pay more for the same game from
another source.
I've also heard console gamers complain that they prefer consoles because they don't think a keyboard and mouse are very
good for gaming. PCs have had gamepads since the 8-bit NES was launched. They can even use input devices from every
console out there, with the right adapter if necessary. A PC gamer can remap his controls to his liking, even if the game
doesn't offer that ability.
The internet is all that is required for a PC to have multiplayer capability, while the PS4/XB1 require another payment on
top of this. Meanwhile, Nintendo continues to drop the ball altogether when it comes to online capabilities.
When it comes to backwards compatibility, PCs have always had this. It's a non-issue. For consoles, it's only an issue
because each new console lacks the hardware necessary to run the old software. Each console is a RISC CPU, containing only
what the developers decided would be necessary for that generation's game developers. For a PC, every new generation
retains all of the capability of the previous generation, if you can define any concrete generation lines at all.
Backwards compatibility is inherent to the PC platform. Consoles, being stripped-down, purpose-built gaming specialist
PCs, cannot do this.
Console makers seriously have to step their game up. At first, I thought that this last generation (the one we're moving into now) would see people move to PCs near the end. Now, I'm thinking it may happen largely within the next year.
SON(y), (and Microsoft + Nintendo) I AM DISAPPOINT
ALSO
CORRECTION: This morning, EA has retracted their statement regarding PS4 firmware update 1.50 causing game instability. Claims of bricked consoles on launch day still continue, with no comment by Sony yet.
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