Idea for theoretical game console

Assuming that getting this thing on the mainstream market is already taken care of, what do you guys think of this idea?

It would be a stripped down PC, that runs PC games, but has software on it that handles installation and otherwise automates the process just like a console (it would handle things on an individual basis). The operating system could be a stripped down Windows-like OS, like ReactOS, and would have console-like menus.

There would be a "marketplace" of sorts, like Xbox Arcade or the PSN, except that it's made of entirely user generated content. So people could put indie games on there, they could put emulators on there, stuff like that.


The main idea is to have it be the "universal console", since it would have a huge library of games available, both PC games, and (although created by the community) emulators. It would be completely moddable, so it'd be like an open source Xbox or something.


I mean, I personally would stick with plain PC gaming, I think it would be a neat way to get the more casual, console-playing crowd to get into some better, less bland, controlled content. Once they see all the cool shit they can do (eg. play any game they want on it), I think that it would appeal to both casual players and modding enthusiasts alike.

Sodaholic said:

It would be a stripped down PC, that runs PC games, but has software on it that handles installation and otherwise automates the process just like a console (it would handle things on an individual basis). The operating system could be a stripped down Windows-like OS, like ReactOS, and would have console-like menus.

So, in other words, it would be a first generation (2001) XBox? Because hardware and OS-like it was almost exactly as you describe.

Maes said:

So, in other words, it would be a first generation (2001) XBox? Because hardware and OS-like it was almost exactly as you describe.

Pretty much. Except the difference here is that it would encourage modding and custom software, and directly facilitates it. Not to mention using existing games as it's library, and not needing to use games made specifically for it.

So what you're describing is a PC.

Just face it, there's not much point in consoles at all anymore. PCs can do everything they can do (including hooking it up to a TV ten feet away and playing with gamepads), and more.

chungy said:

So what you're describing is a PC.

Exactly. The main goal would be to put PC gaming into the hands of the mainstream, to give them a taste of what PC gaming is really like, in order to drive them away from more traditional consoles. It would be a PC disguised as a console in order to appeal to them. It would be made affordable (>1k), and make the setup automated and easy.

It could be used as a console (controller and TV) to appeal to console gamers, or as a budget gaming PC (hooked up to a monitor) for PC gamers. It'd be more pre-setup out-of-the-box to make things easy for those that don't know how to set things up technically.

chungy said:

Just face it, there's not much point in consoles at all anymore. PCs can do everything they can do (including hooking it up to a TV ten feet away and playing with gamepads), and more.

This is how I feel. Unfortunately, the mainstream doesn't agree because they're too brainwashed into thinking that PC gaming sucks (when it doesn't).

Acually the reason "the mainstream" doesn't agree is because getting a new console every generation is a nice, standardised way of definitely having the hardware to run a few years-worth of games at a relatively low cost (hell, the PS3 seems expensive, but for years it was the cheapest decent Blu-Ray player going and it's still a relatively powerful machine today). PCs need upgrading and are quite expensive, especially for people who want something very high-end and aren't tech-savvy enough to build their own. This is why tablets and smartphones are so popular - you don't maintain or upgrade them; they're not particularly large of cumbersome; you can use them anywhere in the house you like as long as you've got a WiFi or 3G connection; you just replace them when they're suitably outdated and know that it's cheaper than a full-on desktop would be. Particularly when you're just after something to browse the 'net with and maybe play a few small apps to help kill time every now and then.

I appreciate that you're very keen to push your hipster agenda and rail against "the mainstream" at every conceivable oppurtunity, but your views seem to continuously get in the way of your perception of the real world. Games aren't actually a way of life for the majority of people in the world. It's just something they do every now and then to fill some down-time or have a laugh with some mates, probably with a few beers. They have real lives, probably with jobs, a sex-life and a social life.

You are a minority in your interests. This is why "they" don't share your views. They also wouldn't buy into them - particularly the way you'd want them to. I'd dare say they don't even think PC gaming sucks - they're probably indifferent to it, or remember it vaguely in a positive light from when they were younger but don't care enough to want to go back to those days, due to how easy their console or app-driven device makes gaming.

Yeah, consoles standardize games; it's a bonus for both developers and consumers, really. Whenever a blockbuster PC game comes out, I have to update my computer; with consoles, they have to optimize the game to work on my rig.

Phobus said:

I appreciate that you're very keen to push your hipster agenda and rail against "the mainstream" at every conceivable oppurtunity, but your views seem to continuously get in the way of your perception of the real world. Games aren't actually a way of life for the majority of people in the world. It's just something they do every now and then to fill some down-time or have a laugh with some mates, probably with a few beers. They have real lives, probably with jobs, a sex-life and a social life.

You know what? You're right, I'm extremely short sighted. I keep forgetting that the majority of people aren't anything like me at all. Gamers that I can relate to would already be PC gamers anyway. No need to "save" a majority that really doesn't give a shit.

I decided to learn about PCs, and how to build them cheap and powerful to outdo any console. Console gamers are welcome to do the same if they want to really step up their entertainment. Until then--it's their money.

This idea sounds a lot like the old Phantom console from Infinium Labs.

And regarding the "easy installers" part, aren't installers a LOT friendlier today than they were in the DOS days, anyway? Essentially you click through a bunch of "next" icons until the game is installed. It's not like you have to choose sound card drivers or manually configure joystick calibration for each game anymore.

If you mean going the extra step and abstracting away even the concept of "installation folder"....sorry, no can do, at least if you still want this to be still called a PC. Sure, games could be made to silently auto-run and install at a fixed location as soon as you pop-in the CD since the days of Windows 95, but not even Mac software does this anymore.

So a PC with fixed hardware, a dumbed down OS and special games with implicit installation procedures....let's make this even better: games with NO installation which play straight from the CD/DVD or even from flash carts, for better speed. Now THAT would be rad, totally never been done before!

eargosedown said:

how to build them cheap and powerful to outdo any console.

On paper it might be superior to any console currently on the market. In reality many if not most PC games have higher hardware requirements than their console variants in order to yield the same visual quality. This is mainly due to the DirectX overhead I believe.

The bottom line is that PC gaming is more costly than console gaming. And honestly, if you don't have a phobia of gamepads and you can play the same game for a fraction of the cost, why wouldn't you choose a console?

DoomUK said:

On paper it might be superior to any console currently on the market. In reality many if not most PC games have higher hardware requirements than their console variants in order to yield the same visual quality.

Whoa whoa whoa hold yer horses there. This was undoubtedly true in the 90s, when consoles had hardware acceleration for (at least) 2D and 3D graphics, and PCs were entirely software-rendered and didn't even have scrolling/sprite hardware. Let's not even mention sound: consoles had DMA-based DSPs, PCs had (and still have) software mixing which eats up even more CPU horsepower.

But from the late 90s and afterwards both PC games and consoles used pretty much similar 3D acceleration hardware (one word: Voodoo 3DFX) and if anything, PCs could benefit from much more rapidly improving hardware (while e.g. a PSX had to make do with the same 3D engine from 1995 all to way to 2001-2002). Yeah, there undoubtedly was some OS overhead but at least up and until Windows 98 (and dare I say, XP) this was acceptably low. But before that, even with DOS, PCs were at a disadvantage only due to the lack of specialized hardware.

Maybe you are referring to the fact that consoles prior to 2007 didn't have "HD" output options, and so they effectively rendered at resolutions that would be considered too low for PC? (e.g. standard TV resolution is well under 800x600, which would be considered low for PC games even in 2002). Frame rate is another consideration: consoles have to be "locked" to a fixed refresh rate (50 Hz for PAL or 60 Hz for NTSC) or submultiples thereof.

3D console games also make quite big compromises in texture quality due to memory constraints and video RAM (the XBox had to be able to play 2005 games with what was, effectively, a mediocre 1999-2000 era video card). These were overlooked due to the context (TV resolution, playing distance, emphasis on action/speed etc.) until now. But hooking a console next to a PC to a HD monitor will tell you the entire truth.

Maes said:

framerates, resolution, texture quality etc

The difference in visual quality between modern games on the PC and Xbox/PS3 is pretty negligible, unless you're a "graphics whore" or just someone who is technically-minded concerning how games work, either of which is going to be concerned about attaining the maximum possible visual quality.

As for framerate, I've played quite a few games that I own for my PC on my friend's Xbox360 and I honestly couldn't tell you whether I was playing games which were capped at half the framerate which my PC games run at. Maybe I'm playing the wrong titles.

Don't get me wrong, if I was given a straight up choice between a monster PC and a current console I would go with the PC, for more reasons than a slight shift in visuals. I'm just saying, the average player couldn't care less about a moderately more blurry texture or some aliasing disturbing an otherwise jagged-edged-free environment. For me, they're niceties which aren't to be shunned, but not unconditional requirements for enjoyment.

DoomUK said:

The difference in visual quality between modern games on the PC and Xbox/PS3 is pretty negligible

This is a pointless comparison if certain parameters are not made common between the two versions.

Are we talking about exactly the same resolution settings? Same degree of AA (or lack thereof)? Equivalence of detail options ? etc.

AFAIK console games designed for standard TV resolution run, well, at standard TV resolution (so you'd have to use PC resolutions of 800 x 600 or even 640 x 480 to keep things comparable), use what you'd call "low detail" or "medium detail" on PC, and usually don't bother with AA at all, and framerate is capped so that limited GPU resources are not wasted rendering frames that can't even be displayed on a TV.

For higher end consoles you might have to up the ante a bit, but even the so-much-touted "FULL 1080p HD RESOLUTION!" is inferior to good old SVGA 1280 x 960 (which is also considered low as of 2012), and AA, if present, will surely not be set to a stellar 16x. You'll be lucky to have a console game use 2x AA, if at all.

What I mean is: if you lower the PC detail down to the exact point of the consoles, you'll see that, MIPS per MIPS, MFLOP per MFLOP, polygon per polygon, texel per texel, there's not really much difference in performance.

Maes said:

Are we talking about exactly the same resolution settings? Same degree of AA (or lack thereof)? Equivalence of detail options ? etc.

I never said the PC version of our hypothetical game wasn't running at a higher level of detail (I'm sure there's been some cases of horrible console-to-PC ports that have somehow managed to be LOWER in visual quality than the console game they were developed from, despite having the advantage of better hardware, but let's not get bogged down with that). What I am saying is that when you're playing a game that you're immersed in on a modern monitor with a high resolution, you have to concentrate pretty hard to be able to spot the differences if you're playing the game on a console, even if they're present. The average person just doesn't care, and shrugs their shoulders when you start talking about it :p

Maes said:

even the so-much-touted "FULL 1080p HD RESOLUTION!" is inferior to good old SVGA 1280 x 960

I might be misreading something, but how can 1920x1080 be "inferior" to 1280x960? Unless you're referring to refresh rates and contrast ratios and all the other technical factors which make deciding on a monitor/TV a tricky process.

The bottom line is that PC gaming is more costly than console gaming. And honestly, if you don't have a phobia of gamepads and you can play the same game for a fraction of the cost, why wouldn't you choose a console?

I'm looking at my Steam library, which consists almost entirely of stuff picked up while on sales, usually in the 5-10€ price range. If I had bought these same games on consoles, likely it would have cost me a few thousands.

The price argument never holds true at the individual level. Someone who likes to upgrade his graphic card every year and buys games at release will likely spend more on PC, but someone like me who's perfectly happy to play modern games at "barely" high settings with a computer from 2007 and doesn't anticipate any new game so badly I need to buy now is likely saving money over a hypothetical CoD fan who picks up the yearly episode for 60€, pays a sub for Xbox live, buys DLC and stuff; and yet another console guy who just plays indie games offline might spend less than me, for all I know.

I used to be a console gamer when I was a teen. Sometimes, I'm vaguely tempted to get into it seriously again; but there's so many advantages to the PC, for me personally, the question I ask myself is why would I choose a console.

For starters, being an adult now I am going to need to use a computer on a daily basis as a work tool anyway, so having games on it is quite convenient. It saves space, it doesn't require me to move from the chair to the couch - and those twenty or so seconds it takes to do so might seem like nothing but become more and more important when your gaming sessions become five minutes here and there between responsibilities (and I hardly have a social life! I really don't know how do "normal" people manage; they probably don't spend ages making forum posts in foreign languages).

There's the higher resolution, which is too nice to give up. Physically, even. My eyesight isn't getting any better and I find myself squinting to play some console games. I had to give up on Mario Galaxy and Zelda for that very reason (I do have a Wii, which sits unused for the most part).

There's the 30 FPS lock on many console games, which I sometimes find to be unplayable, and all too often is less enjoyable.

There's mods and modding, or even just generally being able to tweak settings to your liking. There's old games - I don't like to pay again for a game I already own every time I switch to a new platform. There's plenty of other things I'm reluctant to mention because I'm not up to date and I suppose these things are possible to do on a console now, but I'm still more used to the way it works on the PC and would rather not learn a new way to do the same thing.

All in all plenty of good reasons not to want a console; and just as well there can be plenty of good reasons to want one, no one size fits all answer here.

Maes said:

Yeah, there undoubtedly was some OS overhead but at least up and until Windows 98 (and dare I say, XP) this was acceptably low. But before that, even with DOS, PCs were at a disadvantage only due to the lack of specialized hardware.

Actually, these days the hardware in consoles is still very specialised. I remember studying the architecture of the PS2, PS3 and XBox360 (boring though hardware is to me, it had to be done) a couple of years ago at uni and the way they are pipelined and set up is pretty radical when compared to the more general-purpose stuff of a PC.

In particular, the PS3 (IIRC) makes use of a particularly high bus bandwidth to get the processor and GPU talking to eachother as quickly and freely as possible (something the PS2 also did, relative to it's contempories). The fact that the early PS3s came with PS2s built into them in order to properly run the games certainly is another example of very specific hardware (although they did unfortunately stop doing that).

Whilst it is indisputable that a very top-end PC will make games that are properly designed for it look better than the current generation of consoles ever could, they certainly don't hold all the cards. Particularly when it comes to architecture and specified hardware - from what I understand the PS3 is still not a fully-tapped resource as far as performance goes, although that is largely because it's incredibly difficult to code for at an architecture level when compared to the XBox360 or PC, and most of the games with the budgets to tap said resources are meant to be cross-compatible and probably aimed at the 360 (which is the lowest common denominator these days).

Phml said:

I'm looking at my Steam library, which consists almost entirely of stuff picked up while on sales, usually in the 5-10€ price range. If I had bought these same games on consoles, likely it would have cost me a few thousands.

The price argument never holds true at the individual level. Someone who likes to upgrade his graphic card every year and buys games at release will likely spend more on PC, but someone like me who's perfectly happy to play modern games at "barely" high settings with a computer from 2007 and doesn't anticipate any new game so badly I need to buy now is likely saving money over a hypothetical CoD fan who picks up the yearly episode for 60€, pays a sub for Xbox live, buys DLC and stuff; and yet another console guy who just plays indie games offline might spend less than me, for all I know.

You are correct that the prices do vary from person-to-person. A lot of good games for consoles drop in price quite quickly, much like they do on PC or steam. So although it might be £35-£45 for a new XBox360 or PS3 game on release, within 6 months it's probably nearer £20-£35 and after a year or two most games (especially second-hand ones) are in the same ballpark as your Steam deals (probably £5-£15 is most likely). Only the CoD games seem to defy this system, in my experience, as even CoD4: Modern Warfare still seems to cost around £30, even used :\ Still, you can buy online and get some pretty good deals with a bit of shopping around, plus stores like CEX (in the UK at least) are a good way to save money. Depends how dedicated you are to gaming and how sensible you are with money, I guess.

For starters, being an adult now I am going to need to use a computer on a daily basis as a work tool anyway, so having games on it is quite convenient. It saves space, it doesn't require me to move from the chair to the couch - and those twenty or so seconds it takes to do so might seem like nothing but become more and more important when your gaming sessions become five minutes here and there between responsibilities

In contrast, I find that, after spending 7-8 hours in front of a desk, mouse and keyboard at work, I'm actually more inclined to go home and veg out on the bed or sofa to play on a console or watch a film than sit at my desk, mouse and keyboard at home to play games, browse the internet or mod Doom.

I really don't know how do "normal" people manage; they probably don't spend ages making forum posts in foreign languages).

** I tend to do it in down-moments at work and stick to my own language ;)

DoomUK said:

I might be misreading something, but how can 1920x1080 be "inferior" to 1280x960? Unless you're referring to refresh rates and contrast ratios and all the other technical factors which make deciding on a monitor/TV a tricky process.

NM, I thought the 1080p figure was referring to a 4:3 aspect ratio. Even in that case, consider for how long 1024 x 768 (superior to 720p in 4:3 mode) and even 1280 x 960 (quite close to 1080p in 4:3 mode) have been considered "low" on Pee-Cees. Both would've been nearly 4 times as "high definition" than normal TV, but none referred to them as "HD" all this time.

About PS3's architecture: the fact that most games now essentially use the same libraries cross-compiled for different CPU architectures and use a lot of middleware doesn't help with optimizing things to the bone like it happened e.g. with SNES or Genesis titles, nor will it ever be economically feasible with modern ultra-complex AAA titles, so it's quite probable it will never be fully exploited.

Phml said:

I'm looking at my Steam library, which consists almost entirely of stuff picked up while on sales, usually in the 5-10€ price range. If I had bought these same games on consoles, likely it would have cost me a few thousands.

Yes, PC games are cheaper. Steam sales make them even cheaper. But not everyone thinks ahead like that :p

If you work out your budget on a weekly or monthly basis then the cheaper immediate cost of a console might supersede the long-term savings of a PC. Or maybe you're just bad at managing your money.

Phml said:

All in all plenty of good reasons not to want a console

Most of which are also reasons why I prefer my PC. I just think that announcing the PC as the superior platform in this day and age due to technical reasons alone is exaggerating the actual technical advantages that PCs currently yield.

DoomUK said:

If you work out your budget on a weekly or monthly basis then ....

...all you should own would be a Famiclone or a Firecore with a SD card slot :-)

DoomUK said:

If you work out your budget on a weekly or monthly basis then the cheaper immediate cost of a console might supersede the long-term savings of a PC.

The cost of upgrading and maintaining your PC (think OS as well as hardware) probably outweighs buying a new console every generation if we're looking at the long term, and you can budget for games on consoles in a very similar manner to how you can on the PC (as I mentioned in my earlier edit), so I'd dare say the savings do really boil down to how patient and savvy the user is.

The games industries current crusade against used games is definitely a dent in my argument there though. Particularly with all of the DLC and unlock codes getting thrown in on day one these days :(

@DoomUK; Maes: I have to admit, I was completely uncertain on how to read what Maes had said about 1080p too. I think it's always worth keeping in mind that 720p and 1080p (as well as the other versions of those resolutions) are assumed to be 16:9 aspect ratio resolutions, with square pixels, so it's 1280x720 (not bad, but worse than the 1440x900 I play ZDoom at) and 1920x1080 (still about as top-end as most things go these days, I believe). Why they're labelled by the height I'll never know...

Phobus said:

The cost of upgrading and maintaining your PC (think OS as well as hardware) probably outweighs buying a new console every generation if we're looking at the long term

I guess I've been pretty fortunate in that the last time I upgraded my PC was 4 years ago. My "old" system runs 95% of current games flawlessly; the ones that don't run so well are usually bad ports or games that I'm not even interested in.

But if I wanted to play the remaining 5% of games just as well, then yeah, I would have had to upgrade more recently. I appreciate that some people might have an "all or nothing" mentality and would either like to keep their hardware up-to-date in order to play every game at it's maximum quality settings or not own a PC at all, if games are all they are interested in doing with their PC.