Boombloxer
Member
Except you can get Plug-and-Play with a little hassle on PC right now. X-box Media Center/Kodi will do the work of Apple TV or another DVR-like device. Steam will give you a console-like experience of buying and downloading titles.
Is it perfect? No but it can get there.
The little hassle is the basic difference between mass adoption and enthusiast niche. All of things you mentioned as being "almost" might as well not exist. You can stream via your tv or bluray player or PS4 and that's enough for many.
It's not different from high end audio and plasma TVs. Sound and picture being better doesn't always matter, mass market wanted lcds and sound bars. Matters to me, not to most.
He doesn't even elaborate on how they arrived at that data. Was it some kind of market study? Why are Sony and Nintendo researching and investing in ways to make back catalogs accessible?
Pretty funny to actually wonder how they got there--they spent around 100M on controller research alone. If I have to take the word of a platform holder on something like this vs a swath of folks online, I'll take the platform holder, because otherwise it would be in the product. BC being important to the mass market simply isn't true. I'll answer your second question with a different one, if it's so important, why didn't the current market leader bother including it? They did last time to great lengths.
Because the tiny niche of folks that want to play the older titles will pay for it--maybe not a lot, but most folks aren't hopping on to play U2 over Bloodborne. They're playing and buying FIFA/CoD every year.
The context in which I named those small form PCs for gaming was clear. Don't spin it just so you can dance around the fact that billion dollar businesses are building those machines for a reason.
You mean the same manufacturers that make PCs and Gaming PCs? Yes, the context is that they made a variety of machines that haven't driven adoption of anything. There's a monster gaming PC downstairs and I'm typing on one of 2 gaming laptops in my house. Guess what you won't find in here? Steam machine.
What giant hurdle does digital distribution have? Are you going to dance around the growth of it and the implications of it too?
Infrastructure is a big problem. This is the main hurdle, it's not dancing around the growth of to say that the differences in download speed across regions of the country are a larger hindrance than the desire to simply download something and be done with it. Half of my collection is digital, but that's also because I have 300/30 and no bandwidth caps. Everyone can't say the same, especially in the EU.
I didn't say emerging markets, I said emerging game types and a growing variety of gamer preferences, which may drive console manufacturers to find ways to reach that growing audience. I get that redirection is your thing, but don't get lazy on me if you're going to continue doing it.
I misread that, but the growing variety of preferences? Not so much. The way console platforms reach that audience is to simply bring the content over vs making different version of hardware.
All those points you say I'm ignoring are just sweeping assumptions of yours. That's fine, but don't pass them off as facts.
No. Your position from the start has been tethered to an enthusiast viewpoint, while ignoring the larger market realities.
There is nothing to suggest that anyone wants an upgradeable console of any kind--the complete opposite is true, and this is no opinion.
You've also ignored the cost and platform portion and have yet to explain why this actually makes sense for a mass market and not enthusiast one.
People like the current set-up for a reason.