PC is "Far Superior" to Next-Gen Consoles, Says Nvidia

[BlameTheWizards]

PC is "Far Superior" to Next-Gen Consoles, Says Nvidia

According to Nvidia's Matt Wright, those looking for the best gaming experience this coming generation should get a PC.

The Xbox One and PS4 are now out in the wilds, perhaps being clawed over by packs of ravenous Black Friday shoppers as we speak. However, in the wake of the new console launch, graphics card maker Nvidia wants to make sure players don't forget about the other gaming system - no, not the Wii U, the PC. "Enthusiast players want the ultimate games system, and that is the PC," said Matt Wright, consumer sales manager for Nvidia. Wright's comments come as Nvidia is launching small, form-factor PCs. Wright encourages those considering a next generation console to keep those in mind while making their decision. "We are proposing small form-factor PCs to be a viable alternative to the next-gen consoles," he said in an interview with MCV. "The PC platform is far superior to any console when it comes to gaming, plus you get all the extra functionality that a computer brings."

The buzz for smaller, more user-friendly "living room PCs" increased earlier this year with the official announcement of Valve's Steam Machines. A prototype Steam Machine <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/129983-iBuyPower-Reveals-Its-First-Retail-Steam-Machine-Prototype>was just revealed a few days ago by manufacturer iBuyPower. The influence of Steam is certainly not lost on Wright. "Steam now has more users than Xbox Live. There is a whole new generation who grew up playing on PC with titles like Minecraft or World of Tanks. There's a huge community who love playing their games on PC," he said.

Source: <a href=http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/nvidia-pc-far-superior-to-next-gen-consoles/0125115>MCV via <a href=http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/29/5156680/pc-is-superior-to-ps4-and-xbox-one-says-nvidia>Polygon

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[Eiv]

Never a truer word has been said on this site. Amen to that man.

 

[Teoes]

Well it's entirely predictable that Nvidia would say something like this; not least because.. haven't they come out and said it before in the not-too-distant past?

 

[songnar]

That's as may be, Matt Wright, but if you cannot provide that superior experience at a price competitive with the console option the flailing and failing global economy simply will not be able to bear the price.

In terms of gaming - a standardized product like the consoles or, soon, the Steam Box is much easier to plan for, requires less testing across the dozens of possible hardware combinations and is, thus, somewhat easier to plan for.

I love my PC but I just don't see its continued viability moving forward.

 

[Auberon]

Just tell the developers to reverse current mentality to PC-first mentality, and it might work. But 90% of them probably don't even think of the difference between KB+M and controller, which can produce nigh-unplayable ports.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

Well it really isn't surprising that Nvidia is saying this, considering Nvidia directly benefits from people gaming on pcs, plus all of the new consoles are using AMD cards.

Nvidia talking about how PCs are awesome really isn't news.

 

[Erttheking]

And cue the people tearing their throats out over which piece of hardware they enjoy playing their games on better in 3, 2, 1.

 

[fix-the-spade]

I think this is another part of Nvidia's PR war to help convince themselves that abandoning the console market to AMD was a good idea.

Time will tell, with the way online functionality is going I can see the gap between consoles and PC getting ever narrower from a functionality standpoint (enjoy you DRM console players!), but whether that translates to fewer or more consoles remains to be seen.

 

[Covarr]

Uh, of course they'll say PC is superior to consoles, when the consoles all use AMD chips. I mean, I agree (at least, strictly on a tech standpoint), but I don't believe for a second NVIDIA's statement has any reason but to subtly slam AMD.

P.S. Thanks

 

[lancar]

He's right, of course. The PC has the upper hand in pretty much every aspect apart from the initial pricetag.
However, it might be easy to forget that people who own consoles are extremely likely to own a PC as well. And PC's grow old and need renewals every now and again, too. The choice doesn't quite exactly lie between getting a PC or a console to get games on. It lies between getting a better PC than you would otherwise, or a new console.

The cost for a PC doesn't go away for a household buying a console, but the opposite is true. A console is a pure luxury item, while a PC is not.
With that in mind, the difference in cost for the household instead lies between the cost of a high-end PC minus the cost of a low-end one, vs a console.

And of course PC games are much cheaper than their console brethrens, but, y'know... details.

 

[ike42]

And of course none of this talk from Nvidia has anything to do with both the Xbone and the PS4 being built on ATI architecture...

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

And cue the people tearing their throats out over which piece of hardware they enjoy playing their games on better in 3, 2, 1.

ERMAGHERD, NVIDIA RR STUPID, MY MICROWAVE OVEN IS BEST TO PLAY COD GHOSTS WITH.

To be fair, yes, my microwave is the best experience I've had with CoD Ghosts.

Back on topic: what nVidia said is pointless, and the title should be changed as it seems a bit bait-y.

They only said that PCs are way more powerful than next gen consoles, which is true, but the title might mislead people.

Off topic gripe: WHY WONT UBISOFT PATCH AC IV ALREADY, FFS.

I BOUGHT A FUCKING 670 LIKE A MONTH AGO, AND AC IV DOESNT EVEN LOOK THAT GOOD, YET MY CARD STRUGGLES TO RUN IT ABOVE 30 FPS ON MAX.

WHAT THE FUCK MAN.

It feels like next gen ports are following a trend of being badly optimised.

 

[wooty]

To be honest, I can nwever tell the damn difference in gameplay or graphics anyway. My PC copy of Bioshock Infinite looked and felt the same as my mates 360 version. My PC version of Borderlands 2 looked and felt the same as my PS3 copy. My Assassins Creed 3 PC copy wouldnt even fucking play, but my PS3 copy had no problems.

It all feels the same to me to be honest. The only difference I notice between my PC and my consoles is that my back hurts a lot less when playing the latter....

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

He's right, of course. The PC has the upper hand in pretty much every aspect apart from the initial pricetag.
However, it might be easy to forget that people who own consoles are extremely likely to own a PC as well. And PC's grow old and need renewals every now and again, too. The choice doesn't quite exactly lie between getting a PC or a console to get games on. It lies between getting a better PC than you would otherwise, or a new console.

The cost for a PC doesn't go away for a household buying a console, but the opposite is true. A console is a pure luxury item, while a PC is not.
With that in mind, the difference in cost for the household instead lies between the cost of a high-end PC minus the cost of a low-end one, vs a console.

And of course PC games are much cheaper than their console brethrens, but, y'know... details.

^ This.

I am reminded of MovieBob saying how PCs will become redundant in the coming years, and yet, it has had a massive surge in popularity, hell, a lot of dedicated gamers are snapping up gaming pcs instead of consoles.

 

[1337mokro]

True, but funny how Nvidia was not so eager to admit it when it was their cards inside the overpriced, oversized gameboys they were selling for the past 7 years.

 

[Ushiromiya Battler]

And cue the people tearing their throats out over which piece of hardware they enjoy playing their games on better in 3, 2, 1.

ERMAGHERD, NVIDIA RR STUPID, MY MICROWAVE OVEN IS BEST TO PLAY COD GHOSTS WITH.

To be fair, yes, my microwave is the best experience I've had with CoD Ghosts.

Back on topic: what nVidia said is pointless, and the title should be changed as it seems a bit bait-y.

They only said that PCs are way more powerful than next gen consoles, which is true, but the title might mislead people.

Off topic gripe: WHY WONT UBISOFT PATCH AC IV ALREADY, FFS.

I BOUGHT A FUCKING 670 LIKE A MONTH AGO, AND AC IV DOESNT EVEN LOOK THAT GOOD, YET MY CARD STRUGGLES TO RUN IT ABOVE 30 FPS ON MAX.

WHAT THE FUCK MAN.

It feels like next gen ports are following a trend of being badly optimised.

Pssstt, get 3D3Overrider and force vsync and triple buffering.
Pretty much solves the under 30fps issue on every pc.

OT:
Wow, I never knew Nvidia, I never knew....

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

And cue the people tearing their throats out over which piece of hardware they enjoy playing their games on better in 3, 2, 1.

ERMAGHERD, NVIDIA RR STUPID, MY MICROWAVE OVEN IS BEST TO PLAY COD GHOSTS WITH.

To be fair, yes, my microwave is the best experience I've had with CoD Ghosts.

Back on topic: what nVidia said is pointless, and the title should be changed as it seems a bit bait-y.

They only said that PCs are way more powerful than next gen consoles, which is true, but the title might mislead people.

Off topic gripe: WHY WONT UBISOFT PATCH AC IV ALREADY, FFS.

I BOUGHT A FUCKING 670 LIKE A MONTH AGO, AND AC IV DOESNT EVEN LOOK THAT GOOD, YET MY CARD STRUGGLES TO RUN IT ABOVE 30 FPS ON MAX.

WHAT THE FUCK MAN.

It feels like next gen ports are following a trend of being badly optimised.

Pssstt, get 3D3Overrider and force vsync and triple buffering.
Pretty much solves the under 30fps issue on every pc.

OT:
Wow, I never knew Nvidia, I never knew....

Vsync is off.

I always turn it off when investigating how well the game can run on my pc.

And when on max, its at 30-40 fps when I am just exploring an island, on ship battles it could very well drop to like, 20.

I don't play it on max, but the fact that I can't at a decent framerate pisses me off, as my card more than meets the recommended requirements, and can run Far Cry 3 on Max at a constant 60fps.

 

[Do4600]

He's right, of course. The PC has the upper hand in pretty much every aspect apart from the initial pricetag.
However, it might be easy to forget that people who own consoles are extremely likely to own a PC as well. And PC's grow old and need renewals every now and again, too. The choice doesn't quite exactly lie between getting a PC or a console to get games on. It lies between getting a better PC than you would otherwise, or a new console.

The cost for a PC doesn't go away for a household buying a console, but the opposite is true. A console is a pure luxury item, while a PC is not.
With that in mind, the difference in cost for the household instead lies between the cost of a high-end PC minus the cost of a low-end one, vs a console.

And of course PC games are much cheaper than their console brethrens, but, y'know... details.

^ This.

I am reminded of MovieBob saying how PCs will become redundant in the coming years, and yet, it has had a massive surge in popularity, hell, a lot of dedicated gamers are snapping up gaming pcs instead of consoles.

Should anybody really listen to "Movie"Bob when he talks about video games? I don't think they should. He made the same mistake other business analysts made, he confused PC as a gaming platform and PC as what most people use them for, porn and word processing. The "hardcore" video game market is growing and that means all players in that market will grow, that includes pc gaming, farmville doesn't require anything more than a cellphone, but farmville is not "hardcore" gaming, it's not at all the same audience, it's barely the same commodity. To play these games you need a powerful system, far more powerful than any hand held device, it doesn't have to be stationary but the more mobile it is the more it will cost, a gaming PC is actually a cheaper solution to a mobile device capable of playing these games.

MovieBob also said that PCs would cease to be the device they were, a single computer with a single small screen in the corner of the house, for years before he said that I had already spent my $20 to buy a single cable that turned my PC from a device in the corner to a living room device, it won't be long before I'll be able to cloud compute from my PC to any device I own. Until computing is a free commodity it will make the most sense to buy a PC. A personal computing hub won't go away, it's reach will only increase, and because a console only allows proprietary computing a PC of some sort will always be necessary until society no longer uses computing in our daily lives, which will only be if society collapses.