Volca on 23/5/2013 at 18:07
Quote Posted by faetal
1) It's ready to use without any laborious set-up and is guaranteed to work with every game released - no minimum spec reqs
While I pretty much agree with your points - the steambox A should be comparable, plus there is the large portfolio of games people already paid for. The plan was/is to introduce a thin client that would stream games from PC to TV - if they'd cooperate with TV makers to have it built-in, that would be a big win for Valve - just connect your USB controller to TV and select steam and play games. B and C steamboxes are a different thing though, B is comparable to next-gen consoles, C would then be beefy PC.
faetal on 23/5/2013 at 18:51
Those are good points, but other than the "now I can do this in my living room" effect, I'm not sure what the benefit of me having one would be. The main reason I've been eyeing up consoles is that there are some games (Metal Gear series, Demon's Souls plus some others) which can't be had on PC.
This is all probably hugely biased by the fact that I've been a 100% PC gamer for about 13 years since I moved out of home. Last console I played was the PS1 which belonged to my younger brother. I may just buy a 2nd hand PS3 after the 4 rolls out, since it seems to be the best console of this generation and some people may be selling their PS3 to get a PS4, which may mean there are more than usual about on eBay etc...
Volca on 23/5/2013 at 18:57
Not a bad idea, thinking about that myself - bought PS2 pretty much after the life of that generation ended, still had a lot of cheap fun with it - and you can store the DVD's to your pc's drive to save some disc swapping ((
https://bitbucket.org/ifcaro/open-ps2-loader/overview) shameless self promotion in a way :) ).
Yakoob on 23/5/2013 at 21:58
Quote Posted by faetal
My PC has been getting that right for a while now. It's odd, since the the console market seems to be converging on "it's a PC you can hook up to your TV and operate with a controller, you just can't upgrade it", so I can only assume that its USPs are:
1) It's ready to use without any laborious set-up and is guaranteed to work with every game released - no minimum spec reqs
And that, honestly, pretty much covers it. Yes my PC can do all those things, after I setup my home network, install a bunch of programs, and go out to buy wireless keyboard/mouse/controller etc.
With MS's approach, you open the box, plug it to the TV, and you're done. It works, instantly, without worries or extra work.
Again, you keep saying "for me..." but that's the point, they are no longer targetting you or the hardcore gaming demographic, but a far broader audience that simply doesn't want to mess with custom programs, extra peripherals or all that stuff. They want a simple box - One Box that "just works."
Pyrian on 23/5/2013 at 23:05
Quote Posted by Yakoob
And that, honestly, pretty much covers it. Yes my PC can do all those things, after I setup my home network, install a bunch of programs, and go out to buy wireless keyboard/mouse/controller etc.
With MS's approach, you open the box, plug it to the TV...
...Setup your home network (can't play any games without activating them online), go out and buy wireless headset/extra controller/ etc., register your account on your machine, go through the length setup and tuning for your mandatory Kinect, signup for Live, connect it to your cable account setup, install your games, input the activation codes, and then maybe get to play some games.
Consoles weren't simple to start using
last generation, and I see every indication that the trend is going to get worse, not better.
SubJeff on 24/5/2013 at 00:23
But even with all that you still miss out the PC to TV connection stuff. Plus since its all on one system all the instructions can be bundled together and the interfaces will have similarities. I'm not saying it's not getting more complex but that it could be even worse!
I rebelled against universal devices some years back, refusing to get a phone with a decent camera because I already had a camera, or a phone that could do music as well as my iPod.
Now I'm all about multifunctional devices. I hope the PS 4 is better with film, TV and video streaming.
CCCToad on 24/5/2013 at 00:44
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
But even with all that you still miss out the PC to TV connection stuff.
You won't miss out on all that stuff even with no console. It's called an HDMI cable.
CCCToad on 24/5/2013 at 00:47
Quote Posted by Yakoob
Just look at the parallels in smart devices and how similarly people scoffed saying "why combine, I already have a phone, calculator, my mp3 player and a laptop!" Sure those folks might still keep their devices separate, but a singular iDevice has successfully penetrated and won the hearts of numerous casual users. Users who dont care what it is, they just want to check their emails, chat with their friends, update their farmville crops, all while listening to their favorite music.
Catch is, "all in one" devices existed a lot before Apple got in the game. What made Apple successful was that they had a superior marketing campaign (and their company had a very "hip" image) that made people flock to the device initially. Both Microsoft and Sony completely lack the kind of appeal to where hipsters feel that they absolutely MUST have the latest device from those companies if they want to be cool.
Yakoob on 24/5/2013 at 04:55
CCToad - true, marketing is 90% of Apples success and an argument might be made that people dont so much want an all-in-one as much as they were made to want one. I think MS is trying to replicate that and we'll see how it pans out for them.
That being said, despite being a power-user myself who does not mind switching between different devices, I see this as an overall good trend that improves efficiency for majority of users. Personally, though, I'd love to see less "all-in-one" devices and more "cloud" services. I constantly switch between my powerful PC, less-powerful-but-portable laptop, and ultra-portable iPhone, and stuff like Google Chrome bookmark / login synching, cloud drive, EverNote persistent notes has been a godsend compared to days of constantly manually copying files from one device to another.
