Current console sales prove consoles aren't doomed afterall *spawn

ARM phones and tablets cannot install and run most software by design. x86 devices have flopped left and right for over a decade. Don't listen to internet hyperbole. Just like Chromebooks overtaking Windows (by shipping hundreds of thousands to a couple million to retail a quarter) or an iPad replacing a laptop it's highly likely they're dead wrong. And we'll see with time.
 
Like any other software, they just have to advertise system requirements. And that should be fairly easy to do, because Xbox One hardware is not exactly powerful, and it matches up to PC parts incredibly well.

If MS does this, it is going to be a branding exercise and not anything like real XBox One compatibility. Less than one third of new PCs are sold with a discrete GPU (and this fraction is falling), and a fair chunk of these are mobile GPUs than don't match XB1's capabilities. There are also CPU performance issues, Jaguar cores might be feeble compared to Intel i-cores, but there are eight of them, whereas dual core is the norm in the mobile PC market.

Cheers
 
I imagine windows 10 will be structured like the XB1 OS with a main desktop OS, RT OS and XB1 OS running concurrently. I doubt if the game OS will run in windows but MS might provide a streaming option.

I have a feeling MS doesn't want to intergrate the XB1 and Windows gaming platforms too tightly in order to avoid encumbering the xb business with antitrust issues that tend to surround windows.
 
I gotta admit, what keeps me gaming primarily on console is XBox Live (friends list, party chat, matchmaking, etc). If that were brought to PC so that we had cross-platform play (console players could play with PC players), I could see myself getting something like a Surface Pro tablet with an XBox controller, and hooking that up to my TV. The damn console itself doesn't matter at all at that point (assuming driver compatibility/stability isn't an issue). For some reason however, MS either can't or doesn't want to do that. We'll see how this Windows 10 talk pans out. Hopefully, it won't be another GFWL vaporware initiative.
 
Yeah, I'd like to see the Surface Pro 4 having a proper GPU. I'd definitely buy one of they did.
 
They put in a beefier GPU and battery life suffers.

As it is, the thing has a fan doesn't it?

Not a good thing for a tablet.
 
Do you have any actual data regarding this? No manufacturer (except Sony on one model) advertises the input lag. So all info we have is from places like displaylag.com

One example is the home projector market, where display latencies are commonly listed, and the higher end models usually come with a specific gaming mode with significantly reduced latency.
 
What are consoles today anyway? Simpler PCs with a closed online and distribution echosystem, which we plug into our TVs and play with controllers.

Thats missing some key elements of what makes a console a console though.
* For one thing, they are highly curated marketplaces. With an extremely high standard of quality control on the titles that are released (lengthy TRC's and QA performed on every title), which gives consumers a high level of satisfaction. No other marketplace currently does anything close to what Sony/Nin/MS do in this regard.
* They feature relatively high security for their users, no risks of being hacked or exploited. This offers consumers peace of mind.
* They also offer strong communities, with integrated friendslists across all titles, another core feature in what really defines a 'console' in the year 2015. People wanna play with their friends, and they want to do it easily, without thinking.
* They offer a fixed hardware target, so there is never a need to incrementally upgrade your system, so a consumer can rest assured that new games will always run well, even 8yrs down the road. More peace of mind for the buyer.

Personally, I totally see Steam moving into this space with SteamOS, but I don't think it will have a major impact on console sales. Most people running SteamOS on a dedicated screen, are likely going to be fairly high income individuals who will still enjoy a console, or they were already hardcore PC gamers. I'm a bit hesitant to go too far out on this limb though, as the PC has been improving at an incredible rate, what Steam has done in the last 5 years is pretty amazing. They will only continue to get better.

In terms of Tablets/Phones vs Console. I think the major difference, above all, is just the controls. Nothing will ever really make a flat piece of glass, a great gaming devices. Period.

There will be 3rd party controllers, for sure, but so far those have all failed to interest consumers on any significant level, be it the Ouya, Mojo, Fire TV, Shield, Android TV, or any of the other myriad of competitors jockying in this space. I really don't see it catching on with you average console gamer, it's just too much screwing around, and for what? A weaker, more fragmented, less reliable version of what we already have?

Barring some major breakthrough in mobile display technology (like maybe this), it looks to me like the "mobile killing consoles" are were out to lunch. There's just too many genres that plain don't work well. And guess what.... no one buys peripherals! Coulda swore we knew that by now...

/2cents - This should be fun to read in 5 yrs :)
 
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They put in a beefier GPU and battery life suffers.

As it is, the thing has a fan doesn't it?

Not a good thing for a tablet.

Surface Pro 3 is a great device, and you can get it with Core i7 and the Intel HD 5000 GPU (GT3 without the eDRAM). That's a great CPU and a 704 GFLOPs GPU. It's not as good as GT3e, but it's only 15W. Skylake should have some nice improvements at the same or even mildly higher thermal profile. Broadwell's updated GT3 should be pushing ~845 GLOPS at 15W without the eDRAM. So, with Skylake, it's quite possible a surface pro could be close to Xbox One in some respects and have decent battery life. Not to mention these things have all kinds of power saving features for when you aren't gaming.

Edit: My laptop is GT3e. GT4e for Skylake should have 72 Execution Units vs the 48 in Broadwell GT3e and the 40 Execution Units in Haswell GT3e. Assuming 1300 MHz for 16 FP ops per EU like GT3e, GT4e will be 1.5 TFLOPs. That'll be an expensive device though. 2016/2017 should be pretty interesting for hybrids and laptops.
 
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Yeah but how much is a top of the line Surface going to be?

And how old is the AMD architecture on which the X1 is based?

If Xbox is running as an instance of Windows 10 there should stil be overhead.
 
Top of the line surface will be well out of the price range of a console. Right now you need the i7 to get the HD 5000, which is $1500 or something. It's going to take years for higher performance integrated graphics to get to sub-$1000, but if you track the history of Intel HD graphics, you'll see that the price of getting good performance is dropping. I imagine that will push AMD to do the same for 50W and under parts.

GCN is from 2012 and Intel's HD Graphics line launched in 2010. Both architectures have had some upgrades along the way. I'm not that familiar with each revision along the way.

What do you mean Xbox running as an "instance of Windows 10"? Do you mean the games running in Windows 10? Yah, there will be some more overhead, but Directx12 should be a huge help on the PC-side. Still, the OS takes a little more CPU time, but the CPUs are also a lot more powerful.
 
console players could play with PC players
I have to be careful here lest I be accused of something but, they tried it and (shadowrun I believe) and console gamers were not happy
no aim assist and up against people using keyboard and mouse, higher resolution, higher frame rates. You can imagine what happened
 
I have to be careful here lest I be accused of something but, they tried it and (shadowrun I believe) and console gamers were not happy
no aim assist and up against people using keyboard and mouse, higher resolution, higher frame rates. You can imagine what happened

Yah, it's a bad idea for competitive gaming. For co-op I think it'd be fine. I know there was at least one console game on PS3 that allowed you to search for matches that were restricted to gamepad. Don't remember the title. That's what you'd have to do for competitive games.
 
To be clear, I don't mean allowing PC vs console in competitive PvP multiplayer shooters, but in PvE multiplayer games such as Diablo III or Destiny it would be awesome.
 
One example is the home projector market, where display latencies are commonly listed, and the higher end models usually come with a specific gaming mode with significantly reduced latency.

I looked around quite a bit and I couldn't find any place where the manufacturer actually stated the input latency of any projector. Perhaps you could provide a link?

I saw that some people on avsforum actually tested, but most comments there where pretty worthless (anything without an actual number is worthless in my opinion).
 
I guess the console makers got the power to pricepoint kinda right this gen. The power is not that huge of a gap from last gen and behind the PC counterparts out of the gate but it seems that consumers don't really mind at the end of the day.

I do think Wii U is too under-powered however so Nintendo shot of the low end of the power spectrum and is not paying off so far. Price needs to come down a lot.
 
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