Next-Gen Consoles: Has the PC Met its Match?
Few debates get our nerdy juices flowing more than discussing gaming platforms and which one’s best. Console gamers love mocking PC gamers for constantly having to upgrade their crazily-expensive rigs to handle the next title hitting the shelves while PC gamers ridicule console gamers for being the casual couch potato auto-aim lovers that they so obviously are.
So what about the new up-and-coming Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4? Will PC gamers lose all bragging rights for the ‘best gaming visuals’ and be left only with the ability to alt+tab and enjoy endless libraries of high quality adult material after telling their teammates they’re “afk”?
In short, has the PC finally met its match? Let’s take a look.
Going Head-To-Head on the Visuals
One of the reasons this debate is a potentially tricky one is that there are many techie variables to be considered when looking at which platform produces the sexiest graphics, and it’s early days, too.
The PlayStation 4 looks like more of a PC rival than the Xbox One in terms of raw graphics horsepower at this stage a factor which may be the reason Microsoft seems unusually keen to push the TV-capabilities of its pending platform…
A number of early graphics comparisons videos have been leaking out and one great example is Epic’s Unreal 4 engine playing the ‘Elemental demo’. The PlayStation 4 is up against a gaming PC with an Intel Core i7 processor and an Nvidia 680 GTX graphics card.
The footage for the gaming PC is about 12 months old now, but the hardware used is still very much towards the high end of things. Honestly? There’s not much in it at this stage and PC PlayStation 4 does a damn fine job in rendering a stunning short movie.
Also to be considered in favor of the PlayStation 4 is that this is without the code having been highly optimized for the console by developers with some experience under their belts.
The short version is, it it’s going to be a close call.
The Future-Proofing Problem
If this debate sounds a little familiar to you, it’s not without a good reason. When Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 hit the market, it was the first time the consoles offered PCs a serious competition. There was much discussion about how these consoles were “PC-killers”, as seems to be fashion within the tech sector.
The problem is though, as developing consoles becomes increasingly complex and expensive, the life cycles involved between generations are getting longer. While no major improvements or upgrades are seen to the core hardware, companies such as Intel and NVidia stomp forwarded as Moore’s Law works its magic and these days, even a low to medium-end gaming PC will own an Xbox 360.
Graphics may be close on release, but it’s unlikely that even developer experience in optimizing code for the next-generation consoles will outstrip the exponential increases in raw horsepower on offer to PC gamers. It’s just massive shame enjoying the latest goodies is going to cost 4-5 figure sums of money. And so the great debate rages on…
Should PC Gamers Upgrade Right Away?
Whether or not to upgrade is a huge area involving many factors. Usually, PC gamers upgrade a when there’s a game coming out that their rigs won’t run at a smooth frame rate (25fps or above) at acceptable graphics levels.
Unless this is the case, it’s probably not worth upgrading immediately. Okay, so for a short time you may be jumped from every angle by console gamers looking to get ‘best visuals’ bragging rights over you, but this won’t last long and they can’t alt+tab anyway… The next set of PC upgrades will be just round the corner and so things will fall back to the natural order which is, of course, lots of awesome arguing.