Consoles in 2017

[LowPolyOWG]

I know some of you don't own or have owned a console. Well, I owned a Xbox 360 back in the days. On the technical side, both the PS3 and it's rival was power houses. Server grade CPUs (Cell/IBM PowerPC) which developers pushed harder over their life cycles. Let's skip to 2013: With the 360/PS3 ending their life cycle, MS and Sony launched new consoles. Specs: AMD Jaguar CPUs designed for laptops and being ridiculously weak. Mixed with GPUs from 2012. Both being made on x86 architecture to make it easier to develop games for them.

It became clear, that those were underpowered from the start. Games couldn't reach 1080p/60 fps, which have been a standard in PC gaming for years. So, they either stuck with lower resolutions (Xbox One runs at 720 or strange resolutions like 1328x1080 for Halo 2 Anniversary and 1152×810 for Halo 5, just to reach 60 fps). PS4, on the other hand, had a beefier GPU, but still runs some games at 900p or odd 1080p resolutions... Even a Witcher 3 dev said their game is close to max them out...

Suprisingly, rumors began surfacing that Sony and MS would release more powerful versions of the hardware. Which Sony already did and Microsoft is jomping on this too. PS4 got its "Pro" refresh capable of 4K.

Spoiler

No it's not native, it uses upscaled 4K for that. Technically, it just have a OC'ed CPU/GPU which is the same as the one in the standard PS4

Microsoft's answer is the Scorpio. 8 core CPU (Rumored to be a Ryzen CPU + Vega GPU). 6 TFLOPS of performance and it will be capable of true 4K. More info will come soon. Advertised native 4K titles are Forza 7, Red Dead Redemption 2, Star Wars Battlefront 2 and the next Call of Duty set in WW2

What does this mean for a console gamer? Now, they are facing the dilemma as PC users. Either buy a low-end system that's outdated or buy the latest and greatest to stay relevant. Well, PCs can be upgraded so if you build a budget oriented build, just slap in a new CPU/GPU and you're good to go. A console is supposed to be plug-and-play and be a fixed set of hardware not evolving. Now, games requires day 1 updates and OS updates like a PC. Combined with new console hardware coming and we might not see console generations anymore.

What I think? The refreshes is what the next gen consoles should have been from start. It's good for us PC gamers, we might get better ports when it comes to visual fidelity. Mix this with DX12/Vulkan, PC gaming will be growing and better. Remember that video games are developed for consoles and then ported over to a PC. Not the other way around... For the console gamers, either buy a newer console every time or jump into the glorious light of PC gaming

[PZ]

 

I'll continue to do both 

[BinnZ]

I'll keep on hoping the important titles will make it to the PC, because I will stick to it for sure. Since I heard there's no 'free online play' any more on the newer PS's, I'm even more sure than ever I won't buy a console. 

Nice article btw, GKID!

[LowPolyOWG]

Thanks Indeed, MS have began to do so, Art bought a play anywhere title (Forza Horizon 3) and they released Halo 5 Forge (well, not a complete Halo experience). Now, fans hope Halo 6 will launch on PC.

[BinnZ]

that would be awesome. The only Halo that ever came out on PC was Halo2. I played it through entirely. Would love to see that game return to PC as well

[Art Blade]

+1

nice article, GKID 

And Forza Horizon 3 allows me on my PC to play with someone who's on their xb1 or xbox. A lot less cheaters than on a pure PC title.

[fragger]

Nice read GKID, very informative +1 Many thanks

I've never, ever owned a console. Probably because I was into PCs from the beginning (old duffers like me still remember when there were no such things as home computers, consoles, or any kind of "home entertainment" technology at all except for radio, television and the stereo ) I've watched gaming go from Pong and Space Invaders to what it is today. After getting into programming in the early days of PCs, I've sort of stuck with PCs the whole time. I also remember when 9 Mhz was a landmark CPU speed and we thought that was awesome It's amazing to think that Apollo missions went to the moon using computers with processing speeds of 0.043Mhz, 64K memories, and no microchips - they used core rope memory with the software woven into it. It was like the abacus of cyber technology

I can't see myself getting into consoles at this remove. I don't spend a tremendous amount of time gaming as it is. I also like to read, watch movies and get into digital art for my in-home entertainment. Sometimes I'll go for a few weeks or more without even touching a game, so a console would largely be wasted on me.

A WW2-themed CoD does pique my interest though (which is what CoD was originally, for the first three and the fifth iterations) should there be a PC version. The last WW2 one they did, World at War (CoD 5), was pretty disappointing - short campaign, overly scripted, and weak-feeling weapons. CoD 2 remains their best WW2 title, I reckon. Still fun and exciting to play today.

[LowPolyOWG]

Thanks for the kudo guys

A WW2-themed CoD does pique my interest though (which is what CoD was originally, for the first three and the fifth iterations) should there be a PC version.

Yep, we haven't had a WW2 shooter for days. I assume people got tired of the stale modern military shooter (ironically, same thing happened with the WW2 shooter back in the days) Every CoD game have been on PC, except for CoD3 due to time limits, Treyarch used 8 months for that title. The game is developed by Sledgehammer Games that made AW back in 2014. With 3 years of development, as older CoDs was developed within 2 years, I hope this will be a good WW2. There was a lot of weapons prototyped that could make gameplay fun (the Germans had some crazy missile programs). BF1 travelled back to WW1 despite being anachronistic in the arsenal.

The only Halo that ever came out on PC was Halo2. I played it through entirely. Would love to see that game return to PC as well

Halo CE (Custom Edition) is basically Halo 1 ported to PC. Difficult to get now, only sold on disks. Halo 5 Forge isn't a perfect port as it lacks higher FoV and 60+ fps. Mouse controls is also pretty poor, there seems to be mouse lag (like you have cranked mouse acceleration to max). Other than that, the game runs like a charm, there's no frame rate dips (runs 60 fps stable) so the game engine is stable enough to run on a PC.

Still, they need to fix their Windows Store so it actually works and is more user friendly navigation. Art's experience nightmare with the Win 10 store is pretty inferior to Steam.

[BinnZ]

Interesting, Halo 5 Forge. I missed that. Gonna check it out, thanx 

[LowPolyOWG]

It only includes Forge/Custom Games so it isn't a complete experience...

And Forza Horizon 3 allows me on my PC to play with someone who's on their xb1 or xbox. A lot less cheaters than on a pure PC title.

Well, the majority of UWP titles haven't been cracked yet and PC gamers prefer Steam/Uplay/Origin anyway.

[PZ]

I miss the WW2 games. The two that I enjoyed were Band of Brothers: Hell's Highway, and one of the sniper shooters.  Both were linear, but the settings were ones I like

[Art Blade]

I didn't have an "experience" with that w10 store. It was a bloody nightmare.

Also, indeed I prefer steam so getting that game (Forza Horizon 3) hadn't really been an option because I was already expecting some kind of nightmare between buying and playing it. It was only when TerrZor offered a live stream on twitch so I could watch him showing off the game that I got hooked. I still wouldn't have done it if not for him (i.e. if I hadn't known anyone playing it I wouldn't ever have bought it) Now we're enjoying ourselves tremendously because we keep each other's company 

[LowPolyOWG]

 

[LowPolyOWG]

Looks like Xbox Scorpio will use a refined Jaguar CPU rather than Ryzen. Still, pretty powerful indeed. Considering MS already developed X1 with a Jag CPU, they probably want to avoid software issues as Ryzen and Jaguar are completely different CPU architectures.

Specs:

• Enhanced Jaguar clocked at 2.3 Ghz (+0.55 GHz from X1/X1S that runs at 1.75 GHz)
• Radeon GPU clocked at 1172 Mhz (+319 MHz from X1/+258 Mhz from X1S) Features 40 compute units (+28 from the X1/X1S which have 12 CUs). Seems to be based around the RX 480, which have 38 CUs and 1266 Mhz clocks by default.
• 12 GB GDDR5 RAM (+4 GB from X1/X1S, that uses 8 GDDR3+ 32 MB ESRAM) ESRAM is not present in Scorpio due to GDDR5's higher bandwidth and the Scorpio is already fast). GDDR5 is used in the PS4
• 326 GB/s memory speed (+257.7 GB/s from X1 that runs at abysmally 68.3 GB/s)
• 4K Blu-Ray drive (not present on the PS4 Pro)
• 1TB HDD

What suprised me, was the GPU usage at 4K. Just 66%. Now, I wonder what the devs will do with the remaining 33%.



How the Scorpio will improve Xbox One games/X360 backward compatible titles.

[LinkHero]

Thanks for the info, OWGkid.

However my mind is made up. If I ever get a console,it sure as hell will be a Nintendo console.
#zeldaftw