Originally posted by eyelolled if a person is ok with only having what is currently available quality-wise, then the mediums can become smaller and smaller, but people want what is better. Better requires more power. More power generates more heat, and requires more electricity (battery life). The mere fact that people want bigger and better implies that PC's will not die because it is the only consumer medium that has the ability to upgrade components to suit increased demands.
That totally exaplains why a game like minecraft with gfx that would shame an 386 was such a smashing success. Maybe people just want good games, with MAYBE decent graphics at a fair price? I mean lord knows thats not what AMD, Nvidia, Intel or MS want us to think, but you know they kinda life from screwing us over with gampley wise inferior products to titles we had 20 years ago.
I wan't the xcom series in HD, not even state of the art, but actual increased playthrough time and content. Because we are currently getting screwed over with titles that have great graphics but zero replayability and content for about 10 hours. Thats 80$(cause you know they will raise game prices on consoles again soonish) please.
I mean i just need to look at my steam catalog most played:
Borderlands 2: 26 hours
Dungeon Defenders: 108 hours
XCOM: EU: 19 hours
OMG1&2: 50 and 100 respectively
FTL: 37 Hours
JC2: 17 hours
Majesty 2: 120 hours
Sins > 50 hours
Star Rule: 79 hours
The only AAA title near the top is DoW: Soulstorm with 88 hours.
Now sure im more of a MMO player, but still looking at my steam 96 game catalog there are alot of AAA games in it that i certainly regret buying. In hindsight, i probably should have stayed with the independents and a certain few very handpicked AAA titles.
Ok this is getting to long to quote but what your posting is contrary to my experience. The computer i started with 20 years ago had a tiny tiny fraction of the power my PC today has while actually having an higher energy footprint(sure it was a mainframe but still). So obviously you completely discount technological progress. Also i explictly said i was talking about the Tegra chip AFTER Logan(which is tegra 6 since apparently your not overly familiar with nvidias roadmap). The codename is parker btw, and it will be based on the maxwell architecture not kepler.
So let me put this really simple 2 SoC generations from now(Logan --> Parker) we will be able to run OpenGL 4.3 games(full OpenGL support, actually even with Logan) at full HD on them. Maywell is estimated at 32 GFlops/W btw, which puts last generation games right into reach. Sure consoles and PCs will have way more raw power, but you won't notice at 3-4m distance on your couch besides wether a game runs at 40fps or 400fps is largely unimportant. Not to mention their games won't cost in the single-low double digits.
If you think this is all bullshit, sure be my guest. But im saying this guy is heralding a new era(and thats running a tegra 3, while im talking about tegra 6). 99$, every game free to test atleast, quality controller included. This is what parents will give their kids(instead of 700$ console that won't even be able to run previous gens games. Freaking brilliant MS), you know to go with their android phone since they are in the ecosystem already, so they can play angry birds 4 and infinity blade 4. And when that thing doesn't perform anymore ... you switch it out for the newest version, its only 99 bucks after all.
And yeah PC and expensive consoles will suffer, because frankly these new devices will cut into their profits and their market share is already falling rapidly anyway if compared to the growing smartphone/tablet market. Cause thats what people forget, publishers don't look at a absolute numbers they look at relative numbers and profit relative to licensing and production costs. And how do you think a Android game f.e. compares to a PC/console title there? Hell even i am considering buying one of those ouya's and i never owned a console in my life. But at that price? Even if i just use it as a media server and for some streaming its worth it.
Sure, mobile devices will get better. You know what else will get better? Desktops. And everything else. That doesn't help mobile devices close or even narrow the chasm.
Tegra Logan is Kepler, while Tegra Parker is Maxwell. Kepler parts are already out, and Maxwell will be the next generation, presumably on a 20 nm process node. Kepler already offers full OpenGL 4.3 support, so presumably Tegra Logan will, too. Actually, there might be an OpenGL 4.4 by then.
Maxwell isn't available yet, but 32 GFLOPS per watt is plausible, at least as a peak number (which means spamming FMA) for ULV parts at single precision and counting the GPU only. Actually, I'm tempted to simplify those units to 32 GFLOP/J.
So let's suppose that you get a 32 GFLOPS part in a cell phone. That will let you do some fairly rudimentary 3D graphics. But if you want the game to look decent and if you want to have a lot of things moving around on the screen at once (e.g., if you're making an MMORPG), 32 GFLOPS peak performance isn't going to get you 60 frames per second.
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As for Ouya, you've been able to get really cheap gaming devices for decades. It might have been before your time, but they used to have dinky little handheld gaming devices that would come with one game. They were monochrome, and had maybe 20 or so spots where you could color something black or not. They weren't pixels, really, as each particular spot would be an entire object (e.g., your character, or a monster), and it could draw the character there or not.
They made them and they were cheap, but no one thought it was a serious alternative to the NES. Just like no one will think that Ouya is a serious alternative to the PlayStation 4--or to a real PC.
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Here are AMD's projections for the game market from 2011-2015:
Don't bother reading the whole article. I just wanted to link to the first slide. Yes, the market for cell phone games is growing. So is the market for PC gaming. And for game consoles. No one is saying that there is no place in the world for cell phones, apart from a few crazies who think they cause cancer. But neither does the survival of cell phones mean that PCs are going to disappear.
Yes exactly it is console that is on the decline, not PC.
As I mentioned earlier, emulators, virtualization and thin clienting has basically remove the need to have delicate platforms.
PC can potentially use all the peripherials that console can use (or be simulated into using), however consoles on the other hand have limitations on PC peripherials.
Also, as someone as people mentioned before, PC seems to have a longer overall lifespan nowadays.
Finally PC can easily handle titles that have game editors/builders, such as Fallout, Neverwinter Nights, Skyrim, etc. Console doesn't allow such type of creativity.
I didn't read the entire thread, but I wanted to add my perspective.
If anything, technologies are converging. The original XBox was a significant milestone in converging the console technology with computers. From what I remember, developers didn't like it at first, but they accepted it more as they realized how similar it was to a PC. Newer consoles are also becoming more and more like PCs. The only difference is the proprietary operating systems and the selective hardware support. Otherwise, they are starting to be programmed just like a computer instead of programming it like some unique piece of hardware with a unique processor instruction set.
Even mobile and PC technologies are converging. Windows 8 was a major attempt to bring the two together. A lot of debate exists over how good it is, but it basically proved the operating systems can be the same between mobile and desktop devices.
The OP referred to the decline in PC sales as evidence the PC is going away, but failed to point out the rise in other computer device sales. The technologies are not that far different from each other and a rise in a specialized part of computing will lead to a rise in another part of computing. More mobile devices means more servers to handle the processing those devices don't have. The desktop's strengths will always have an application in hardware-intensive programs that a mobile device won't be able to handle. Making the devices work together is what I think we will see more of as the technologies converge.
I'm not even sure I buy the whole "PS3 / XBOX 360 held their own" thing. I used to think that maybe they did, that was until I played Crysis maxed out. Then I was pretty pissed at the graphical sacrifices I had to make because of the cross platform thing.
I love Skyrim but I thought it should have looked much better, at least, better than a game from 08. Alas, it was a cross platform game and I can't blame a company for wanting to make money.
At the time of the PS3 release it hit very close to $800 in Canada (taxes suck there). People were lined up for it, this doesn't include the folks who were willing to ebay it at release, which went up to 3x-5x the price. Moral of the story is, if gamers are willing to throw their money at consoles without a second thought because of fanboyism, then anything is possible, including the death of the gaming PC. After all, you might be able to predict hardware advances, but it's much harder to predict people.
Comments
That totally exaplains why a game like minecraft with gfx that would shame an 386 was such a smashing success. Maybe people just want good games, with MAYBE decent graphics at a fair price? I mean lord knows thats not what AMD, Nvidia, Intel or MS want us to think, but you know they kinda life from screwing us over with gampley wise inferior products to titles we had 20 years ago.
I wan't the xcom series in HD, not even state of the art, but actual increased playthrough time and content. Because we are currently getting screwed over with titles that have great graphics but zero replayability and content for about 10 hours. Thats 80$(cause you know they will raise game prices on consoles again soonish) please.
I mean i just need to look at my steam catalog most played:
Borderlands 2: 26 hours
Dungeon Defenders: 108 hours
XCOM: EU: 19 hours
OMG1&2: 50 and 100 respectively
FTL: 37 Hours
JC2: 17 hours
Majesty 2: 120 hours
Sins > 50 hours
Star Rule: 79 hours
The only AAA title near the top is DoW: Soulstorm with 88 hours.
Now sure im more of a MMO player, but still looking at my steam 96 game catalog there are alot of AAA games in it that i certainly regret buying. In hindsight, i probably should have stayed with the independents and a certain few very handpicked AAA titles.
Sure, mobile devices will get better. You know what else will get better? Desktops. And everything else. That doesn't help mobile devices close or even narrow the chasm.
Tegra Logan is Kepler, while Tegra Parker is Maxwell. Kepler parts are already out, and Maxwell will be the next generation, presumably on a 20 nm process node. Kepler already offers full OpenGL 4.3 support, so presumably Tegra Logan will, too. Actually, there might be an OpenGL 4.4 by then.
Maxwell isn't available yet, but 32 GFLOPS per watt is plausible, at least as a peak number (which means spamming FMA) for ULV parts at single precision and counting the GPU only. Actually, I'm tempted to simplify those units to 32 GFLOP/J.
So let's suppose that you get a 32 GFLOPS part in a cell phone. That will let you do some fairly rudimentary 3D graphics. But if you want the game to look decent and if you want to have a lot of things moving around on the screen at once (e.g., if you're making an MMORPG), 32 GFLOPS peak performance isn't going to get you 60 frames per second.
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As for Ouya, you've been able to get really cheap gaming devices for decades. It might have been before your time, but they used to have dinky little handheld gaming devices that would come with one game. They were monochrome, and had maybe 20 or so spots where you could color something black or not. They weren't pixels, really, as each particular spot would be an entire object (e.g., your character, or a monster), and it could draw the character there or not.
They made them and they were cheap, but no one thought it was a serious alternative to the NES. Just like no one will think that Ouya is a serious alternative to the PlayStation 4--or to a real PC.
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Here are AMD's projections for the game market from 2011-2015:
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2013/3/27/gaming-is-amds-future3b-launch-and-previews-of-new-gaming-tech.aspx
Don't bother reading the whole article. I just wanted to link to the first slide. Yes, the market for cell phone games is growing. So is the market for PC gaming. And for game consoles. No one is saying that there is no place in the world for cell phones, apart from a few crazies who think they cause cancer. But neither does the survival of cell phones mean that PCs are going to disappear.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Yes exactly it is console that is on the decline, not PC.
As I mentioned earlier, emulators, virtualization and thin clienting has basically remove the need to have delicate platforms.
PC can potentially use all the peripherials that console can use (or be simulated into using), however consoles on the other hand have limitations on PC peripherials.
Also, as someone as people mentioned before, PC seems to have a longer overall lifespan nowadays.
Finally PC can easily handle titles that have game editors/builders, such as Fallout, Neverwinter Nights, Skyrim, etc. Console doesn't allow such type of creativity.
I didn't read the entire thread, but I wanted to add my perspective.
If anything, technologies are converging. The original XBox was a significant milestone in converging the console technology with computers. From what I remember, developers didn't like it at first, but they accepted it more as they realized how similar it was to a PC. Newer consoles are also becoming more and more like PCs. The only difference is the proprietary operating systems and the selective hardware support. Otherwise, they are starting to be programmed just like a computer instead of programming it like some unique piece of hardware with a unique processor instruction set.
Even mobile and PC technologies are converging. Windows 8 was a major attempt to bring the two together. A lot of debate exists over how good it is, but it basically proved the operating systems can be the same between mobile and desktop devices.
The OP referred to the decline in PC sales as evidence the PC is going away, but failed to point out the rise in other computer device sales. The technologies are not that far different from each other and a rise in a specialized part of computing will lead to a rise in another part of computing. More mobile devices means more servers to handle the processing those devices don't have. The desktop's strengths will always have an application in hardware-intensive programs that a mobile device won't be able to handle. Making the devices work together is what I think we will see more of as the technologies converge.
I'm not even sure I buy the whole "PS3 / XBOX 360 held their own" thing. I used to think that maybe they did, that was until I played Crysis maxed out. Then I was pretty pissed at the graphical sacrifices I had to make because of the cross platform thing.
I love Skyrim but I thought it should have looked much better, at least, better than a game from 08. Alas, it was a cross platform game and I can't blame a company for wanting to make money.
At the time of the PS3 release it hit very close to $800 in Canada (taxes suck there). People were lined up for it, this doesn't include the folks who were willing to ebay it at release, which went up to 3x-5x the price. Moral of the story is, if gamers are willing to throw their money at consoles without a second thought because of fanboyism, then anything is possible, including the death of the gaming PC. After all, you might be able to predict hardware advances, but it's much harder to predict people.
PC's arent dying, their sales have continued to decline due to MOST of us BUILD our own now. I cant think of when I bought one last from a store.
I wish some people would do some research before......... /random post of D00m!
....Being Banned from MMORPG's forums since 2010, for Trolling the Trolls!!!