There’s been a long-running trend among the top two console developers, of consoles trying to compete in the PC space. With innovations in console gaming such as game DVR, higher-resolution and framerate support, and VR headsets, it’s plain to see that the industry is doing its damnedest to compete with the technology that already exists on PC, and has for a while.

Image via Forbes.com


At one point in technology’s rather short history, there was a purpose for console gaming. Back when 3D gaming had begun gaining ground (Let’s look towards 1996 and the N64), the technology to run it was far from cost-effective. With machines not even a quarter as powerful as the rigs we see today costing upwards of $500, the $250 Nintendo 64 was an amazing alternate to home PC gaming that many people considered affordable and reliable. With a plethora of games, many of which have lived to see the modern era through remakes and emulators, the Nintendo 64 was the first feasible way for the whole family to sit down and just play.



If we look at Nintendo, even today, they’ve always been spectacular at making a console truly what it is supposed to be - a unique experience, separate from the PC scene. Nintendo does well to avoid the pitfalls of replication by making each console uniquely theirs, maintaining the aspects that give an unforgettable experience. From the Nintendo 64's affordability (at the time) and versatility, to the Gameboy’s mobile experience, to the modern Wii’s motion-sensors and gyroscopic controls, they truly were masters of the development of new, unique experiences.


More importantly though, they never tried to compete with the PC head-on by targeting markets that the PC and consoles were hoarding, instead striving towards branding themselves as a family activity. It was in this niche market they sit even today, the underappreciated giant of the console industry.

Looking back to our main culprits of this story, we have Microsoft and Sony, who try as hard as possible to be on the cutting-edge while remaining affordable and user friendly, with the ultimate goal to turn their consoles into a PC replicant. At what point does the Playstation and Xbox simply become another prebuilt manufacturer, with little difference from Alienware and similar companies? At the end of the day, when they finally achieve their goals of becoming truly competitive with the PC market, they’ll have gone full circle and end up making PCs with custom operating systems (that is, assuming they decide to move towards modularity), much like the Steam Machines.


Before we continue, I’d briefly like to glance over the concept of a FLOP, aka a floating-point operation. Put simply, a floating point is any number with a decimal in it. For example, 2.0 is a floating-point number, and 2.0 + 1.73 is a floating-point operation. The number-one use for this type of code involves direct computation within the program, to calculate simple factors like damage inflicted and length of time the character has fallen, but also affects the computation of the engine’s graphics and particle physics code. In reality, the measurement unit is described as FLOPs, or how many floating-point operations the card can do per second. Most often, FLOPS are used to gauge the pure computational power of a card, when disregarding graphics as a factor.

The section below is currently under revision for accuracy and truth.



Now take Microsoft’s Project Scorpio: A console developed to finally include native 4K support, as well as high dynamic range rendering, and boasting 6 teraFLOPs (6 x 10^12 FLOPs) of processing power, the equivalent of a higher end graphics card, the R9 290X, from 2013. The modern-day GTX 1080 performs 4K flawlessly when set at settings mirroring consoles (medium-low settings, no Anti-Aliasing). They may, however, have to reduce the quality of games slightly past current One titles to keep their constant 60 at native 4K promise.


While I respect the console industry for the game titles they develop and their dedicated playerbases, as well as how prominently they’ve been able to lead the market, their downfall isn’t very far off. For every 3-year-old “innovation”, for each reiteration of the console itself, they’ll lose a few more customers here and there, until the only ones left are the ones who can afford to keep up with the constant reiteration and slowly diminishing selection of exclusives, until everything that made consoles unique dissolves, with nothing left to hide the outdated systems and dated peripherals for what they really are.