[theverge] AMD won the next-gen console war, and PC gamers could reap the reward

The implied shift to proper multi-threaded games alone has me pretty excited for this new generation speaking purely as a PC gamer, to say nothing about the possibility of easy porting.

As a gamer in general I might pick up a PS4 a year or two down the line as well, that thing is looking good.
 
How is it going to benefit PC users? Death of console gaming is the only thing that will benefit PC gamers.
 
I agree with the article accept for this.

Also to hear that Unreal Tournament Track in the video almost brought a tear to my eye, beautiful! ;)
 
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I find it funny that they post the PS2's CPU, Emotion Engine, which was neither PowerPC, nor x86, but was in fact a MIPS processor.
 
I do not understand this buzz/hype that just because different machines have x86 the games are automatically easy to port between consoles/pc etc. If that was the cause it would have been no problem to have linux games in windows and vice versa.

The GUI makes it even more complicated and as far as porting is concerned i will be surprised the x86 alone gives any advantage what so ever
 
nanjil said:
I do not understand this buzz/hype that just because different machines have x86 the games are automatically easy to port between consoles/pc etc. If that was the cause it would have been no problem to have linux games in windows and vice versa.

The GUI makes it even more complicated and as far as porting is concerned i will be surprised the x86 alone gives any advantage what so ever
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Epic Games has come out and said they develop and test all there games on the PC and perhaps is one of the few console developers that does so. Their only incentive to not focus on PC releases has to do with the industry's claim of "Piracy" and or lack of PC profit motive given consoles are the big thing these days. Selling 1 million copies used to be a major success on the PC 10 years ago. Nowadays you need to sell 1 million copies just to break even on the development and marketing costs of the game.

Things have got far more complicated, beyond the scope of hardware, which in all reality isn't much of an obstacle but what you make of it. Then there's the profit, that reigns supreme every time.

The switch to x86 for consoles isn't the end all be all, mostly because console exclusive games will continue to be a bust for PC's. But it certainly can make porting easier. Ever wonder how you can take a 2010 360 game, port it to a PC and it still plays like crap? Has nothing to do with the hardware and everything to do with failure to optimize for the platform. With x86 the platforms will be closer aligned meaning less work would be needed to have a similar experience across the board. Of course these are BIG Corporations we're talking about and they will FIND a way to fuck that up either accidentally, or intentionally.
 
As far as I am concerned, this is just more proof that the "console" should die. Consoles were once the only affordable way to play games on purpose-built hardware (Compare a $300 NES at its launch, to a $3000+ PC at the time). Since the most recent generation, consoles have been little more than low-med spec PCs that use proprietary firmware and software to enact lockdown, jack up prices, and generally shit all over the industry as feculent middlemen. The whole reason games are generally $60 now is because that extra $10 was what Sony/MS demanded for the privilege of selling your game on their hardware. PC and Wii versions of multiplatform titles, even in the last generation, used to be $50....until Bobby Kotick convinced publishers that console gamers were stupid enough to think "$60 is just how much games cost", so they could raise the price of the PC variant and everyone will pay! From the very first time I saw the comparisons between Elder Scrolls Morrowind's proper expansions and free content with patches, juxtaposed with Oblivion's paid DLC because MS demanded there be something to sell on the XLive store etc... I've seen example after example of how the industry has been wounded by consoles; players and developers alike.

There is no reason to put up with the proprietary and artificial lockdowns that are the hallmark of consoles. Especially with everything going X86, this is even more evident. Why not simply release games for PC instead, exclusively? Users and developers would have tons more freedom. Pick a platform, pick distribution, pick your hardware, pick your online service, pick your servers, pick your software, pick your controllers, etc.... Some say the whole "Living room, pop it in and play" experience is why we need to continue accepting the abuses of the console manufacturers, but that isn't so - you can have that experience on say... a home theater/SFF PC running Steam's Big Picture mode... plus you can also do other things on that PC, choose to run emulators, have a video player that plays any codec. Hopefully with the "Steam Box" and truly, [H]ard builders like ourselves, a cottage industry of "Console replacement" PCs will be part of the new era - preconfigured SFF/HTPCs, loaded with (ideally) Steam and a host of entertainment-focused programs like XBMC, MythTV, VideoLan,. It would be even better if they ran on Linux, but one step at a time. This, combined with developers realizing they can build for PCs using any languages/tools/engines of their choice without paying for a special license/devkit etc... will be a huge boon to development - especially considering the kind of BS microsoft pulled with XLive (read up about super meatboy and Cthulhu Saves the World on XLive, where a patch/update costs the dev nearly $40,000...each!). Finally, hopefully hardware peripheral manufacturers will start taking the PC seriously. Look at the success that Microsoft has made by doing the right thing with regard to their X360 Gamepad on PC - they developed Xinput, made drivers available for PC, and now the X360/Xinput pad is the default PC gamepad that generally doesn't even have to be configured for many games! Compare this to say, the Dual Shock 3 which requires a 3rd party hacked driver, even though it SHOULD work just fine with Bluetooth and USB etc.... if Sony would have created an XInput and open API, then people would be buying Dual Shock 3s for their PC games. Likewise, Nintendo's Wiimote, Wii U Pro Controller, and WiiU Gamepad - these kind of things can and should work easily on the PC, rather than relying on hacks from the community!

I'd love to see the day when there were no more "console exclusives", which are the only things keeping people on these platforms. I'm tired of watching games be held hostage to convince players to put up with consoles - "If you want Metal Gear Solid 4, you HAVE to buy a PS3". Imagine if every single game was available for a PC platform instead! That is the world we should be demanding. If X86 on the latest console generation means that more players and developers begin to see consoles for what they are, expensive, underpowered, locked-down PCs, so much the better.
 
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