And they and Sony can sit in a bar together downing pints, wondering what went wrong.
Pretty much, apart from making sure PC gamers stay on the Windows platform as opposed to alternatives which aren't that viable yet but that doesn't mean they shouldn't make moves to make sure Windows remains the strongest platform (as opposed to the likes of Steam OS)
Not sure what they'd do to try and stop anyone from migrating, though...?
Not that any dev would ever want to leave.
Windows is so dominating it'd be madness to ignore the platform, unless say, Valve was to open up Gabe's moneybin and pay for exclusivety - which sounds just as crazy TBH, heh. Apple would never ever ever pay for exclusive platform rights for a game, they never even tried to stop Adobe from turning from OSX towards windows years ago...Of course, if any competing platform was to grow threateningly strong (that would reasonably be OSX, by the way), perhaps MS would try to pay for exclusivity, but that's such wild speculation... Mac has like 6% marketshare today, linux even less for desktop PCs. Something unbelievably radical would have to happen to change that, and I've no idea what that would be. Apple starting to give Macs away for free, perhaps, lol.
Google PCs is probably the greatest risk IMO. Just as MS is trying to get people interested in Windows mobile via using their PC ecosystem, Google could wave PC's "like you phone" in front of people promising simplicity and reliability (true or not) that runs all your mobile software. Although it really only matters for games as far as game developers are concerned, and it's unlikely MS will be displaced from that position any decade soon even if they completely lose the casual PC market. If tablets start to get real software, such as real image editing that can load your RAW images from your camera and tweak them, or design and print a decent document, I can believe MS will start to lose marketshare.
Valve kinda have the same issue as Google. For real software, Windows or OSX is necessary. Unless you can get the productivity apps on your OS, it'll be marginalised.
Valve kinda have the same issue as Google. For real software, Windows or OSX is necessary. Unless you can get the productivity apps on your OS, it'll be marginalised.
Indeed, vanilla Android is not fit for touchless laptop or desktop though I wonder if Android TV could be used outside of the field it was designed for as it is meant to be operated without touch input.
Then there is ChromeOS but it is of a "serious" OS for me and it is still quite limited. On the other hand Android lacks the consistent support ChromeOS benefits from.
Then there is ChromeOS but it is of a "serious" OS for me and it is still quite limited. On the other hand Android lacks the consistent support ChromeOS benefits from.
Here is a review of new Haswell processor which include the core i3 powering the lower end version of the Alienware alpha.
One can see where the games performances are cpu limited, that is for a GTX770 or a GTX770 SLI set-up.
Looking at the performances of AMD CPU in that test, I actually doubt that the console CPU can actually touch it "overall" but we will never know.
One can see where the games performances are cpu limited, that is for a GTX770 or a GTX770 SLI set-up.
Looking at the performances of AMD CPU in that test, I actually doubt that the console CPU can actually touch it "overall" but we will never know.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
it would have been nice to see them test more modern and heavy games such as Dragon Age or Assassin's Creed Unity and the multiplayer part of Battlefield.
Have you pulled the trigger on it yet? If you get it, please keep us updated.
Have you pulled the trigger on it yet? If you get it, please keep us updated.
Skyrim is also rather CPU heavy IIRC, even with the later patches that actually enabled SIMD extensions rather than 30-year-old FPU instructions...!
I should received it as a "present" for Christmas, now I might not buy any new games for a while, I've a significant back catalog of games I've to go through but I could try demos.
I don't have crazy high expectations anyway, it is an entry level gaming conf, the form factor (and weight) was really attractive to me as it got carried here by plane by family.
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
Skyrim is also rather CPU heavy IIRC, even with the later patches that actually enabled SIMD extensions rather than 30-year-old FPU instructions...!
IIRC, Skyrim isn't really "CPU heavy", it's just "single-thread stupidly heavy". A high-clocked i3 was actually the best performance/price ratio one could get for that game.
Hmm I was in Wal Mart, looking down at the console case and what do I see? Some alienware black box being sold right next to the consoles for $549. The box was quite small, and bereaft of markings except an alienware logo and "Intel inside". Unfortunately blurry pic
http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-alpha/pd?~ck=mn
Some research reveals it (the one for $549 at Wal Mart) should be powered by an i3 4130T, 4GB of RAM, Steam big Picture, comes with a wireless X360 controller which is a nice touch indeed, 4GB RAM. At first I thought with such a low price it is powered by Intel's integrated graphics, but it includes apparently a Geforce 860m GPU with 2GB GDDR5. The specs just tend to say Nvidia Maxwell GPU or such. Looking it up that apparantely comes with a 128 bit bus, 80 GB/s bandwidth, and either 640 or 1152 Cuda Cores. Probably the former I imagine, the latter would be fairly punchy.
Anyways as always it would be a bad deal in PC terms, 4GB is not enough system RAM for starters. However to see such a plug and play experience being sold in Wal Mart alongside proper consoles is quite interesting. Though I expect like all comers before it wont gain any substantial traction.
Yes I'm sure I'm behind the times on discussion of this. Just to see it in the wild was an oddity.
http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-alpha/pd?~ck=mn
Some research reveals it (the one for $549 at Wal Mart) should be powered by an i3 4130T, 4GB of RAM, Steam big Picture, comes with a wireless X360 controller which is a nice touch indeed, 4GB RAM. At first I thought with such a low price it is powered by Intel's integrated graphics, but it includes apparently a Geforce 860m GPU with 2GB GDDR5. The specs just tend to say Nvidia Maxwell GPU or such. Looking it up that apparantely comes with a 128 bit bus, 80 GB/s bandwidth, and either 640 or 1152 Cuda Cores. Probably the former I imagine, the latter would be fairly punchy.
Anyways as always it would be a bad deal in PC terms, 4GB is not enough system RAM for starters. However to see such a plug and play experience being sold in Wal Mart alongside proper consoles is quite interesting. Though I expect like all comers before it wont gain any substantial traction.
Yes I'm sure I'm behind the times on discussion of this. Just to see it in the wild was an oddity.
Every PC game sold hurts the xbox ... even if Valve didn't own the PC download market that would still be true.
The opportunity they have is to really innovate with Windows and PC gaming. Give windows a good sandbox security model (not one designed to make sideloading impossible and to push everyone to some bullshit graphical UI for phones and tablets), try to get a chunk of the PC game download market partly by stopping the confusing and counter-productive cross marketing with the xbox (coupling the achievements is fine, pushing the xbox on every page non trivial PC games are mentioned is not), create a made for windows certification program for computers and games (only available through their online store obviously).
But this not unification ... this is cannibalization. This is turning the PC into a sort-of console, which is what they should have done in the first place, which is what they were doing before the money pit xbox division and internal strife caused them to just lose all focus on consumer windows.
I don't see how that could be even remotely true. How do you figure PC games hurt the xbox? If people wanted an xbox, they would buy one. Since they're not, it's obvious that they wouldn't be buying xbox games even if they didn't buy PC games.
This is as much a non-sequitur as the ancient claim that every pirated copy of X hurts its copyright owner financially; NO. This is categorically not true.
Only thing I see in your quote is MS being stupid as usual and instead of giving people what they want they try to leverage the xbox at the expense of their own success.
Btw, Japan is a shrinking (and no longer particularly major) market today. Dunno if it's due to shifting demographics, people being sucked up by smart devices instead of traditional consoles, or an expression of the still poor Japanese economy.
Btw, Japan is a shrinking (and no longer particularly major) market today. Dunno if it's due to shifting demographics, people being sucked up by smart devices instead of traditional consoles, or an expression of the still poor Japanese economy.
