They've kinda launched really underpowered and into a time of a PC renascence, one where you can build a gaming PC for practically the same price and it is way more powerful. It is only going to get worse for them as these low level APIs become more and more mainstream, they increase the performance of these low end GPUs massively and high end wise, Mantle gave BF4 a 60% increase!
I just don't see how the consoles can compete with that, especially since year after year hardware gets massively more powerful. These new consoles struggle to do 1920 x 1080p, I mean Sony advertised Killzone at 1080p... yet it is, what they didn't tell you is it was 960 x 1080p and upscaled lol.
In launches past consoles have launched more powerful than PC or on par with high end. Since the PC has been evolving however this is the first time they've launched WAY behind the PC, it isn't even close and it is quite depressing. That fact alone just doesn't have me excited at owning one.
What is even worse is now the PC has a stable distribution platform in Steam (well not so stable lately lol) and it means every game will come to Steam unless it is first party. Titanfall at the 360 launch window would never have come to PC as well, however the market is much bigger now, especially for EA who have Origin. It is another wind out of the sails of the Xbox One, I'm always going to choose to play it on PC, it runs better, it looks better and it has better controls in the keyboard and house or controller if you wish.
It suddenly makes me think Nintendo aren't screwed, I would buy a Nintendo console because it is the only place to get Nintendo games. However when I look at the PS4 and Xbox One, most of their games are on PC and their exclusives are just kinda weak these days, especially Sony.. where are your games? Infamous was bland and mediocre, the Order 1866 is like... what is it? People are getting excited over fluff. Then I think Killzone, Uncharted... all these games are so generic, I can get these on any platform. GT hasn't been good since the PS2 era, again the PC sims have just overtaken consoles by so much. Xbox One has Halo and Gears and Kinect whatever, again, none of that is interesting. Then all the good stuff is third party and on PC and better on PC...
I just look at these consoles and think that they cannot possibly last that long, they're already on dated hardware as it is. I can bet by 2017 we've got the PS5 and Xbox Two and they'll be x86 based so there is no leap required, all games will just be ported from the PC.
Then I end up thinking, is there any need for these consoles when there is the PC? No, apart from Nintendo, there isn't really and it wouldn't surprise me if Sony continue to struggle financially and find it hard to commit to a PS5 and Microsoft end up selling Xbox off to Amazon or someone.
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