Support NeoGAF

[Laptop1991]

I agree from a PC gaming port and point of view, PC should always be open source and not a walled Eco system like Consoles, which is why i will never buy or rent games on the Windows Store (GFWL 2), i use mods and want control of my own files, gaming or otherwise, MS is trying to tie the 2 together and i prefer them to be separate like it used to be.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Agreed, OP. Consoles should stay providing only crap resolutions, IQ, performance, input lag, loading times, bugs (no patches), no online, no mods.

Zero options to improve the consumer experiences.

/s

 

[Preseznik]

Funny thing is consoles are already basically walled-garden PCs.
Especially compared to how they used to be.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Funny thing is consoles are already basically walled-garden PCs.
Especially compared to how they used to be.

Sadly, no. You can't do almost nothing more with them than play games the way devs forced/limited you to.

 

[Wolves hunt in packs]

Nah son, we're not in 1999 anymore, why would you want to have less options? you are not forced to use most of them, you can still plug and play mostly, if not for the price i would get the PS5 Pro day one.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Sadly, no. You can't do almost nothing more with them than play games the way devs forced/limited you to.

I still continue to think that Microsoft would have had a better strategy if they had turned Xbox with an OS that lets you use it like a PC. You basically buy a PC box for a defined number of years with guarantee games run well on it for that period. A simple button press to switch between a PC to console like experience. You could use it at a desk, and hell, sell a wireless adapter to stream to TV via wifi 7 with near lossless quality. Don't want that? Plug it on TV and just use it like a console. I think there's a market for that. The problem with steambox back in the days is that Valve went with money hungry fleecing motherfucking OEMs. Do you trust iBuyPower, Alienware, Falcon Northwest, CyberPowerPC, to make a product that is not fleecing consumers? Valve fucked that up, on top of having no OS to show for it back then.

Nowadays I think the idea is totally viable.

 

[rodrigolfp]

I still continue to think that Microsoft would have had a better strategy if they had turned Xbox with an OS that lets you use it like a PC. You basically buy a PC box for a defined number of years with guarantee games run well on it for that period. A simple button press to switch between a PC to console like experience. You could use it at a desk, and hell, sell a wireless adapter to stream to TV via wifi 7 with near lossless quality. Don't want that? Plug it on TV and just use it like a console. I think there's a market for that. The problem with steambox back in the days is that Valve went with money hungry fleecing motherfucking OEMs. Do you trust iBuyPower, Alienware, Falcon Northwest, CyberPowerPC, to make a product that is not fleecing consumers? Valve fucked that up, on top of having no OS to show for it back then.

Nowadays I think the idea is totally viable.

The problem with this is, I think, it would make it too ease to break the "security/closed" aspect of the "console OS" part. One of the reasons Sony removed Linux option on PS3.

 

[awwr999999]

With that said, the biggest differentiator of consoles was that they were PLUG AND PLAY. When you got a NES, SNES, N64, PS1, PS2, DC, GC and XBOX you had to only connect it, put the game in, and start playing. Nothing more needed. Just have fun! Starting with the Xbox 360 and PS3 gen, consoles started to behave more like a PC: They came with a hard-drive, games started to be installed, firmware updates, etc. But people in the majority wouldn't mind that.

I feel like the reason Nintendo is selling so much, is that you don't have to think about anything else, other than enjoying the game.

Switch is a PC running ARM/Nvidia as opposed to the PS's x86/AMD. Both use ordinary HW, share similar multi-user/multi-login PC UIs and lack the ability to boot directly into games.
Everything after PS2 has been a PC - you boot into a PC UI and get a PC UX.
A game console has to have on/off gaming. Pressing a Power button boots directly into the game you were playing last and pressing an Eject button allows you to switch between games.
Using a game console can be as simple as pushing one physical button on the console - POWER. Power on, play game, power off.

I still continue to think that Microsoft would have had a better strategy if they had turned Xbox with an OS that lets you use it like a PC.

MS can still do this as a way to roll Xbox back into Windows. It'd be incredibly disruptive to turn every Xbox into a Win11 PC with good specs and they'd end up selling a lot of their overpriced storage.

 

[bender]

You can't do almost nothing more with....

 

[ArtHands]

i don't want consoles to be like PCs too PCs will always has the many advantages

 

[Roxkis_ii]

I wonder if dev companies will start up charging for pro editions of games.

 

[bundylove]

Time to dust off my 2600

 

[DavidGzz]

Consoles are too cookie cutter for me anymore. I need more flexibility so PC gets 99% of my time. Steam is just too good. Then you have GoG. Plus things like Wemod is like modern day Gameshark. What happened to cheats in console gaming? Also, being able to watch some Youtube or Twitch while grinding in a game is nice. Then modssss give SO much life to some of my favorites like Dark Souls Diablo 2 etc. I just can't go back. Too much freedom.

Still, I bought the Pro. I have to restart all of my games cause no free cloud saves. And then I was looking up how to do the inifinite Souls glitch in Demon's and I see it got patched. FML.

 

[bender]

What happened to cheats in console gaming?

Microtransactions and Achievement/Trophy systems.

 

[pasterpl]

PC games were limited to some fixed stereotypes

That made me laugh so hard. Playing on pc since late 80s/early 90’ and cannot thing on something more wrong.

 

[nkarafo]

Consoles nowadays are like some kind of middle ground/hybrid PCs that only keep the bad aspects of proper PCs.

They have enough bloat and annoyances that distract you, massive patches (bigger than what you get on PCs), install times, badly designed UIs, etc, but none of the good stuff like being able to tinker everything, install mods, install any application you want etc. They are like closed architecture PCs, kinda like the iPhone OS. Hacked consoles that let you run homebrew stuff are a bit better but still pretty bad.

On top of that, hardware/build quality wise they are worse. A custom PC can be as silent as a whisper and cool like a nice morning breeze. My current build is so silent, you have to check the power led to see if it's operating at all. I sometimes press the power button to start it, only to accidentally shut it down (because the monitor is on standby). Consoles are loud and hot. It's like they always operate at their limits. And you can't do much about it, your options are too limited and the difficulty of doing so is much higher.

I liked consoles before they got too complicated. Like the N64. Flip the Switch and bam, the game logos start. There wasn't even a bios screen like the Playstation's. No loud fans either. And it still works like a charm today. Anything more complex than that then i rather just use a PC.

 

[duck_sauce]

I’m not sure… is the OP trying to justify the purchase of a high-end gaming PC or the PS5 Pro?
Honestly, it comes across as a lot of mental gymnastics and defensive rationalization.

 

[MAX PAYMENT]

I dont think I'll ever understand the notion that PC gaming is difficult. I just buy a game on steam, download, install and play. The same way I could buy a game on the PS store, download, install and play.

 

[BlackTron]

He bumped ANOTHER thread lol

 

[Team Andromeda]

I understand that PC gaming is probably in its all time high fame right now. While there's always been a big size portion of gamers playing on it, most of the games used to come to consoles only, and PC games were limited to some fixed stereotypes. Nowadays, every console controller is compatible with almost every game, and almost every game (even PS first party) are coming to PC.

Console aren't like PC's silly, both are very different in actual use and you look over almost every major electronic device needs the internet and updates with new firmware, hell even my slow cooker does that

 

[SweetTooth]

Nice OP for discussion really, thanks OP. Having said that I respectfully disagree with you in a couple of points:

All features that you equated as PC centric and shouldn't be applied to consoles (HDD, VRR, FPS,HDR) are all features that comes from the advancement of technology and I can argue that they are implemented out of necessity plus they haven't affected consoles in being plug and play in any way.

"Also Pro consoles should be PC" point simply doesn't make sense and impossible to be applied in real life.

A console is a "closed" system with set hardware that you can develop games for and optimize on a lower level to PC.

Pros:

• One development suite per generation (even Pro consoles doesn't deviate alot from base machine for this reason, so dont expect PS5Pro with Nvidia GPU and intel CPU.. it would be too different to be considered from the same family)
• You can get lower access to extract more performance vs exact PC setups (if any)
• Room for innovations and leading market trends (used to be more common in prior gens)
• As a dev, you know the ins and you see the outs so you can know exactly the final performance of the game and you can optimize around it.

Cons:

• Have to be relatively cheap to achieve market penetration (affecting their final specs)
• The closed system and low level access can affect the machine ability to achieve BC with old consoles.

As for PC you can basically reverse what I said about consoles and that doesn't mean that one is better than the other, they simply can coexist and I can argue that consoles are a necessity to the success of PC gaming because:

• Consoles are what makes high end GPUs look good, because majority of games are made on console specs as a baseline so cranking up the res/fps will be easily doable on a high end expensive GPU. Now imagine a world with no consoles and one dev decided to target the highest end GPU with his game (Crysis), this GPU will suffer keeping good performance for the countless configurations and you needs years before said game can run good on a future setup, also mid to lower GPU will not be able to run the game or needs major sacrifices to get good performance.
• Consoles by their nature can open games to wider audiences helping support games dev costs and what not.

My point is the current set up we have now - as much as we have a lot of lines blurred between PC/Consoles - is actually serving both segments greatly. If we start analyzing market trends, supply chain costs, buying behavior changes we can get a lot of valuable data and this post will be ×10 longer.

 

[DanielG165]

Consoles are

A custom PC can be as silent as a whisper and cool like a nice morning breeze.

Very true. My PC has so many enormous vents on the case, that it never goes above a whisper while under heavy load, despite having 5 case fans, nor do the temps go above lukewarm. The only “real” noise is from the GPU fans, but even then they’re hard to hear over the game onscreen.

That said, I will disagree with your assertion that consoles run hot. Neither my One X nor new Series X run noticeably hot, even when playing demanding titles. Warm, sure, but even that’s a stretch on the Series X in particular. It’s probably the coolest and most silent modern console to date, with even titles like Jedi Survior, and Aveum never getting its fan above inaudible status.

 

[Lokaum D+]

if u cried back in the day as a kid in this scene u have 99,9% chance to be part of LGTV4KHDR+ community

 

[David B]

Yeah well at this point in the console life cycle, systems will go away completely. Consoles have reached the point of the same teraflop performance as PCs. Therefore I see Sony letting go of consoles. Sure there will be a PS6 in 2026 or 2027 depending on how Sony wants to do it. But after PS6 and Xbox next, consoles will be dead because they will be at the 20 to 25 teraflops mark. At that point it will be seen as well everybody will just say oh hey, consoles look the same as PC graphics now. Now Nintendo will still make consoles because they really really keep there games exclusive and don't release them on PC at all. But Sony is going ok alright, our games are going to PC. Therefore there won't be any more Sony and Microsoft consoles after PS6.

 

[Parazels]

Yeah well at this point in the console life cycle, systems will go away completely. Consoles have reached the point of the same teraflop performance as PCs. Therefore I see Sony letting go of consoles. Sure there will be a PS6 in 2026 or 2027 depending on how Sony wants to do it. But after PS6 and Xbox next, consoles will be dead because they will be at the 20 to 25 teraflops mark. At that point it will be seen as well everybody will just say oh hey, consoles look the same as PC graphics now. Now Nintendo will still make consoles because they really really keep there games exclusive and don't release them on PC at all. But Sony is going ok alright, our games are going to PC. Therefore there won't be any more Sony and Microsoft consoles after PS6.

Where will I play games, if Sony and Microsoft stop releasing consoles?

 

[HogIsland]

Consoles are just PCs that you don't own. I'd rather have a PC I do own.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Yeah well at this point in the console life cycle, systems will go away completely. Consoles have reached the point of the same teraflop performance as PCs. Therefore I see Sony letting go of consoles. Sure there will be a PS6 in 2026 or 2027 depending on how Sony wants to do it. But after PS6 and Xbox next, consoles will be dead because they will be at the 20 to 25 teraflops mark. At that point it will be seen as well everybody will just say oh hey, consoles look the same as PC graphics now. Now Nintendo will still make consoles because they really really keep there games exclusive and don't release them on PC at all. But Sony is going ok alright, our games are going to PC. Therefore there won't be any more Sony and Microsoft consoles after PS6.

It's past time for your meds.

 

[Topher]

Consoles are just PCs that you don't own. I'd rather have a PC I do own.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

*edit* Nevermind, old thread.

I agree 100%: consoles should stay hassle free but, sadly, that's Internet and Online that made them no more hassle free as they used to be, not really the fact they are similar to PC.
Devs know that they can update their game unlike before and Manufacturers (Sony, Microsoft...) relies on firmware update also. Only Nintendo games and studios around Nintendo, for now, still release game almost bug free.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Consoles are just PCs that you don't own. I'd rather have a PC I do own.

 

[Euler007]

Take it into a box, plug it in to the TV and play it. That's a console to me.

Got a slightly better budget and a setup that justifies it? Here's the mid-gen refresh. Take it out of the box, plug it into the TV and go.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

i like consoles
i love consoles
i want to buy consoles
i want to touch consoles

but i need a reason to get one.
not going to when my 800 CPU core $5k GPU behemoth PC can raw dog every console game into oblivion

gotta retain exclusives--extra points if they take advantage of unique hardware (i mean, think about what ps2 games did with its juicy fill rate)

 

[David B]

Exactly. You own a console. You own a PC. OMG it's Steam you own it! Oh I'm sorry on Steam it's digital just like digital buy on PlayStation and Xbox. OMFG! DUH DUH DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DIGITAL PURCHASES ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE CLAIMED AS YOU DON'T OWN. YET YOU DO.

 

[lachesis]

There are so many in-game options these days - to turn on and off certain things. Such thing used to belong to PC games, but it bled to consoles from a couple gens ago...
Personalization is good, I guess - but sometimes I just want to put in the game and play at the optimal setup that the creators chose it to be like old console games. Just put in and play.

One of the things that bothers me with PC is that I have to play around and find the right settings. A lot of times, I end up spending half an hour to an hour playing around with just the settings, then end up not playing the game at all...
Never had to really worry about anything like that (to certain degree)... console games didn't have no graphics mode, no performance mode, PSSR on and off or Raytracing on and off etc - and half of the time, I don't even know what all the anti-aliasing is about or what it does to image quality or whatnot. I mean, I wouldn't mind for any games on consoles to have a very very optimized version of the game in both graphics/performance combined, not turn this graphical feature on and off or whatnot.

And releasing the game half baked, and fixing as you go along. Don't like it and that's one of the reason that discourages me to play any games on day1. But I guess that's just how the development of any video games are these days...

 

[Brakum]

PC gaming is becoming very big (or it already is), so they should separate the two markets when it comes to hardware. Keep the plug and play console for the average Joe, and need the PCs for all the smart people who want all the bells and whistles.

I mean i disagree with this. You dont need much of an IQ to play on PC. Dumb people will watch streamers play on PC and want that and just do it. And they wont know about any bells and whistles. I mean a lot of us used PC's to play games 20 years ago when we we're like 12 and we didnt know shit about fuck.

 

[HogIsland]

Exactly. You own a console. You own a PC. OMG it's Steam you own it! Oh I'm sorry on Steam it's digital just like digital buy on PlayStation and Xbox. OMFG! DUH DUH DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DIGITAL PURCHASES ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE CLAIMED AS YOU DON'T OWN. YET YOU DO.

you buy an AMD computer from playstation, and it only runs software playstation lets you run.

you buy an AMD computer from valve, and you can run whatever you want on it.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Exactly. You own a console. You own a PC. OMG it's Steam you own it! Oh I'm sorry on Steam it's digital just like digital buy on PlayStation and Xbox. OMFG! DUH DUH DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DIGITAL PURCHASES ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE CLAIMED AS YOU DON'T OWN. YET YOU DO.

 

[Kacho]

Exactly. You own a console. You own a PC. OMG it's Steam you own it! Oh I'm sorry on Steam it's digital just like digital buy on PlayStation and Xbox. OMFG! DUH DUH DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DIGITAL PURCHASES ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE CLAIMED AS YOU DON'T OWN. YET YOU DO.

 

[hououinkyouma00]

There are so many in-game options these days - to turn on and off certain things. Such thing used to belong to PC games, but it bled to consoles from a couple gens ago...
Personalization is good, I guess - but sometimes I just want to put in the game and play at the optimal setup that the creators chose it to be like old console games. Just put in and play.

One of the things that bothers me with PC is that I have to play around and find the right settings. A lot of times, I end up spending half an hour to an hour playing around with just the settings, then end up not playing the game at all...
Never had to really worry about anything like that (to certain degree)... console games didn't have no graphics mode, no performance mode, PSSR on and off or Raytracing on and off etc - and half of the time, I don't even know what all the anti-aliasing is about or what it does to image quality or whatnot. I mean, I wouldn't mind for any games on consoles to have a very very optimized version of the game in both graphics/performance combined, not turn this graphical feature on and off or whatnot.

And releasing the game half baked, and fixing as you go along. Don't like it and that's one of the reason that discourages me to play any games on day1. But I guess that's just how the development of any video games are these days...

Yeah, I like having the graphics and performance modes but I do miss when there was just one version. The simplicity was nice.

I mean i disagree with this. You dont need much of an IQ to play on PC. Dumb people will watch streamers play on PC and want that and just do it. And they wont know about any bells and whistles. I mean a lot of us used PC's to play games 20 years ago when we we're like 12 and we didnt know shit about fuck.

I started playing games on a shitty pc in the late 90s. I was like 6 or so and I didn’t know any better. I was probably playing a lot of games at like 20 fps on a mouse and keyboard but I didn’t know any better.

It’s just how we played games and we enjoyed them anyways.

Some of the best games of all time ran like absolute shit and we loved it.

 

[BacklashWave534]

If anything Steam OS will make PCs more like consoles. Quick interface to access games, save states, etc. Yet you will be able to choice your own hardware and still tinker if you desire. Best of both worlds.

 

[diffusionx]

There are so many in-game options these days - to turn on and off certain things. Such thing used to belong to PC games, but it bled to consoles from a couple gens ago...
Personalization is good, I guess - but sometimes I just want to put in the game and play at the optimal setup that the creators chose it to be like old console games. Just put in and play.

One of the things that bothers me with PC is that I have to play around and find the right settings. A lot of times, I end up spending half an hour to an hour playing around with just the settings, then end up not playing the game at all...
Never had to really worry about anything like that (to certain degree)... console games didn't have no graphics mode, no performance mode, PSSR on and off or Raytracing on and off etc - and half of the time, I don't even know what all the anti-aliasing is about or what it does to image quality or whatnot. I mean, I wouldn't mind for any games on consoles to have a very very optimized version of the game in both graphics/performance combined, not turn this graphical feature on and off or whatnot.

And releasing the game half baked, and fixing as you go along. Don't like it and that's one of the reason that discourages me to play any games on day1. But I guess that's just how the development of any video games are these days...

yes it's horrible, and I will die on this hill if need be

 

[BennyBlanco]

David B rules

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

Some of the best games of all time ran like absolute shit and we loved it.

 

[awwr999999]

gotta retain exclusives--extra points if they take advantage of unique hardware (i mean, think about what ps2 games did with its juicy fill rate)

PS exclusives post-PS2 have been devalued without the proprietary HW making a visual difference in PS games.
Unique HW providing a unique look (IRL still unmatched) to exclusive games makes PS2 the last true PlayStation console.

I liked consoles before they got too complicated. Like the N64. Flip the Switch and bam, the game logos start. There wasn't even a bios screen like the Playstation's. No loud fans either. And it still works like a charm today. Anything more complex than that then i rather just use a PC.

That's the long lost "power button UI/UX" - booting up fast directly into games without having to pick from a PC home screen menu.
The PS2 boots into games in around half the time it takes the PS5 to boot into its home screen.
The biggest difference between the PS2 and every PS since are the number of actions (buttons pressed) required to play a game.
Being one POWER button press away from playing games makes console gaming more attractive by some magnitude.
Being one POWER button press away ending gaming (without getting an error at next boot) makes console gaming more attractive by some magnitude.
Consoles requiring more steps and more user input to arrive at the same end result (gaming) is bad UI/UX design.