Consoles once represented predictability, stability and ease of use. Do they have much left beyond the set top form factor, 10 ft UI and a bit more flexibility on how often you're required to be online?
I don't see this evolution of the console market as positive for consumers. But according to the article people will complain online about anything good or bad, so fuck them, right? Using your adult brain to ask if something is in the interest of consumers is not necessary when children online irk you.
I'd say console still have all of these properties. Also, some of these things like set-top form-factor should not be underestimated. Other important advantages are that the buying experience is much nicer (only 1 online store, or a disc), you can expect any game that runs to at least run well enough for a decent experience, every game is optimized for the control scheme that comes with the console, and initial cost of buying a console is a lower than a capable PC.
Really, the only downside is lower graphical fidelity, and lack of games that are not well suited for controller input.
I have a PS4 and a PC with Steam BPM hooked up to my TV, and while I enjoy both I still can't cease to be amazed by the abysmal experience playing some PC games, it really is hit & miss. Even though my PC far exceeds the system requirements of some games they still run like crap (screen tearing, framerate spikes/drops, crashes), they have poor to no controller support, tiny fonts that are unreadable from the couch, they like to pop up mouse-only launchers, popups, updaters, whatever.
PC gaming can be great but let's not pretend any of the advantages of consoles are suddenly lost because they will have mid-cycle HW upgrades (which I personally think are a great thing, if executed well).
Right now GSync is more expensive (custom electronics) and has a better experience (consistent, often wider sync ranges) but long-term FreeSync is going to win because it's a VESA standard (VESA Adaptive Sync) and cheaper. You can often get a FreeSync model for the same price as an old plain monitor, GSync is usually a $200 increase in price.
The points you raise are all true though, the PC experience is not optimized for a 10 ft UI, and the performance tuning is often not as good (although PC is usually pushing a lot more pixels - many consoles render at 720p and upscale, whereas 1080p is standard and 1440p/4K or supersampling are common on PC). The other thing that bothers me is that every PC game is tied to an account somehow, so you can't buy/sell used games.
not really. Even ignoring that decent at this point should be minimum 1080p60. A great many games don't even try for that, and they still experience stutter.
Still I'm going to go home and play WiiU. Although I am upset at Nintendo for messing up the WiiU so badly. Basically a generation with no new Zelda. >:( It doesn't count when it's getting released for the NX at the same time.
I don't want to buy a new console.
I probably wouldn't mind such thinking about consoles if, and only if, the manufactures used the cert processes to really held the developers feet to the fire and prevent the version targeting older revisions from slipping in quality on non-graphical aspects. And not letting them just drop the support for an old version like a phone developer because "Oh my god, the APIs aren't identical, and you even want me to test on multiple pieces of hardware WHATEVER WILL I DO!?"
It does a lot more than 'just about works'. For example, what is regarded as one of the most visually impressive driving games on current gen consoles - DriveClub, works in VR
In Sony's case upgradable has meant forcibly downgradeable.
Many bought a PS3 solely because it ran Linux, this was removed by an update.
Sony's famous battle over removing 'other-OS' and its shameful tactics against Hotz exemplified a culture of mistrust of end users and disdain for 'off-label' uses.
Sadly it has a long history of this culture, q.v. the 1990s software removal of Digital-Video-in for European digital video cameras - preventing one dumping back to digital tape - removing much of the value.
Sony, itself, has expressed regrets, like the loss of the digital Walkman market with their near unusable proprietary music codecs that took hours to transcode & upload.
Sony, genius engineering hamstrung by legal.
Explicitly, by their vast media catalogue & the piracy boojums entailed.
When the superior Betamax lost the format wars to VHS because of selective media licensing in the 1980s, Sony responded by becoming a media empire.
Sony has broken its own tech ever since.
Consoles, on the other hand, are designed around a ten-foot OS with none of the launcher garbage and gamepad-only controls; the tighter integration sands off these rough edges. Personally, I'd love to have my (substantial) collection of PC games working on my TV, but it's not quite there yet.
At 60Hz, a frame is 16ms, which is already tight.
Over the internet? Where do you live, a datacenter?
A box 5-20 feet away? Why not plug it into the screen in front of you? I never really understood the draw of game streaming when you can't use the source device in any way (like Steam, Xbox One streaming).
I bought an XBox 360 and a PS 3 at dirt cheap prices around the time the 1 and the 4 came out and these are both great values, still going strong, etc. Today I am starting to want to play Yakuza 6 and the new Hyperdimension Neptunia game but I can save that for later.
The technological story is that (i) console APUs are in a state of technological improvement but that PCs are not (i.e. Intel is obsessed with making a notebook computer that can fit under the door at a hotel and not with improving any product attributes that matter) and (ii) no way Sony can Nintendo get ahead with a more powerful console.
This is simply an update for people without a PS4 or for people whose original PS4 breaks (I assume it's just a matter of time based on my and others' PS3 experience). It's a ploy to get more money for essentially the same product. Yes, you'll be able to watch 4k Netflix on it, something you can do with a ~ $100 box nowadays, but other than that the name is a misnomer and the upgrade certainly unappreciated in the gaming community. As others have said, if we wanted upgrades every year or two, we'd stick to PC gaming thank you very much.
It's sad because Sony has made all the right moves this generation, completely crushing competitors, and now they attempt this incremental nonsense, which was the whole reason consoles were separate from PC's.
