High-Powered Hardware Isn't Enough to Make Project Scorpio Succeed

[geizr]

You can take it as either me defending engineering and science (I am studying Industrial Engineering and want to work on chip design and manufacturing) in simple terms for the masses.

Or you can take it as me countering stinking rich American Console imperialism. Take your pick really

*Also technically, most console gamers and Americans in general do not know about PC's strengths in cheapness and Emulation/Modding/Backwards compatibility. All they know is power, which is almost completely irrelevant. Even if a console was more powerful than the best PC it would still lose those, much more important points.

Wow! Such condescending arrogance and blatant bigotry!

First, engineering takes much more into consideration than just raw number pushing power when it comes to product development. Second, most consoles are developed and sold by Japanese companies, not American companies. Third, what are PCs going to emulate other than console and mobile devices, and from what I can tell, that emulation can be hit or miss depending on the game being played. If you're just going to play a console/mobile game, why not play on the actual platform for which the game was built, tested, optimized, and guaranteed to function? Fourth, modding has come to at least the Xbox console; so, PCs are no longer the sole bastion of that ability. Fifth, backwards compatibility is not as big a factor to a larger percentage of gamers. Most play the game until they tire of it, sell it, and then move on to the next game. Also, even the PC has a limit to its backwards compatibility as APIs, operating systems, and hardware behavior/algorithms change over time.

Even further, there is a lot of merit to not having to fuck around with drivers and tweak settings when trying to play a game. There is a lot to be said for the simple process of turn on console, select game, hit start button, play game. Ease of use is something PCs have never had compared to consoles, and even as complex as consoles have gotten over the years, they still win in that category. That is something that does mean a lot to a lot of people (by the, ease of use is exactly a design goal in engineering; you may want to learn that in your studies).

Even more so, do NOT discount the benefit of efficient, customized hardware and algorithm designs over brute-force for handling a well-defined task. As an engineer, you should know and understand that better than anyone.

The choice of gaming on a PC or gaming on a console is not always about just pure numbers. There are many other subjective factors that are no less important that go into the choice, and the value of those factors can only be evaluated by the individual making the choice for himself (not by elitist jerks trying rationalize their own self-importance). At the end of the day, the only important question is not which one is technically superior. The only important question is which particular mode of gaming gives a particular individual the greatest level of enjoyment for the money and effort they expand. For some it is PC gaming. For others, it is console gaming.

Your opinion demonstrates an unconscionable conceit to assume that PC gaming is the only possible gaming that makes any sense for anyone; you presume to decide for everyone else what is the best option for them without having any real understanding of the person's preferences or constraints. Additionally, it shows a level of uninformed bigotry that merely assumes console gamers are ignorant of the merits of PC (got news for you, buddy, many of us deal with PCs on a regular basis), and then you further compound that ignorant bigotry with a presumption that most American gamers are ignorant of the merits of the PCs, when, in truth, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Originally, I was not going to even bother to respond to this level of unfounded conceit, but I felt it was better to say something against this kind of crap that has done nothing aside from turning the gaming community into a needless warzone of conceited, arrogant jerks who are just trying to rationalize their own self-importance.

 

[geizr]

Well what goes around comes around. Arrogance has to be responded with even more arrogance. I know it sucks but if it doesnt happen no one ever takes you seriously.

You launch the first salvo of conceit with your first post in this thread and continued from there.

1. Yes, engineering also takes into account die size, average voltage of these chips, cost of production and even more importantly - power consumption.

Engineering also accounts for ease of use. It IS a factor in design. Even further, because a console is a well-defined, universal target platform, it makes it much easier to stabilize and test for. It can be guaranteed that a game developed for PS4, for instance, will work on all PS4 machines that have not been modified by the user. The same can not be said of PCs; the graphics card, driver, and OS compatibility lists for some games is proof of this, and you can't say it's less of an issue because it isn't.

2. AMD is an American company. What, you think Sony and Nintendo can develop their own 14nm Finfet GPUs and CPUs? They don't have the ability mate.

PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Scorpio, PS 4 Pro - are all AMD engineered. Microsoft requested some things custom made on both Xboxes, but it was still AMD's (technically multi-cultural) engineers who did it.

Nintendo Switch - mostly Nvidia engineered. Nintendo has some input but I hope you understand that the difference in capability between Sony and Nintendo and even MS compared to AMD, Intel and Nvidia when it comes down to chip design and manufacturing... is completely impossible to breach. It is gigantic, in other words.

AMD and Nvidia are only partnered with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. However, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, for each of their respective consoles, manages production, marketing, distribution, sells, and holds the IP licensing. Thus, it is Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo that hold the rights to their respective consoles; AMD and Nvidia do not hold the rights to the consoles. Therefore, the consoles are not considered to be productions of either AMD or Nvidia. Instead, they are considered to be productions of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo in their respective rights, and only one of those companies is American held.

Also, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are responsible for the overall design of each of their consoles. They partnered with AMD and Nvidia for the design and manufacture of the core processors. And even so, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo had some say in the design of those core processors to meet their respective engineering and business needs and constraints.

3. Because the actual platform is long gone, very hard to find, so old it is breaking apart, without parts being made for it or unavailable. That is why. Technology dies. That is a fact. I dont want the conslow games to exist only in musems for future generations so emulation (which is BTW often superior to the original console) is the ONLY way we can protect our art form in the coming centuries.

This is only important to collectors and nostalgic gamers; the larger population merely moves on to the next game (this does not make them stupid just because they don't fit your way of doing things; that is your conceit). Thus, it is of subjective value that can only be ascertained by the individual for their own purposes. And a lot of people still have their old hardware in working condition because they took care of it. There are many such cases that can be found all over the Internet.

4. Modding on Xbone is limited. Seriously, compare Fallout 4's modding to something like Underhell, Call of Chernobyl or Lost Alpha. It is like comparing a school game project to a AAA game.

Yet, it still exists, and there is the possibility of it improving, just as graphics on consoles have improved to the level that most people don't care about the difference anymore. Once you past the "good enough" threshold, there ceases to be a difference in value to individual. It is only the connoisseurs who will argue the differences, and often times those differences turn out to be psychological only. For instance, it has been shown that gamers, even PC gamers, can not tell the difference between 60fps and 120fps; human reflexes don't respond better than 100-120ms, which corresponds to a 8-10fps reaction time. Also the human eye can not resolve better than 1 arc minute of angular separation, which 4K television sets hit when used at normal viewing distances (considering that both PS4 Pro and upcoming Scorpion are capable of 4K output, this puts those consoles well into the "good enough" regime).

5. A large percentage of gamers do not care for games as an art form and are stupid. I care for backwards compatibility a lot.
PC's modding and emulation capability means that almost no SP game is lost. Even when there is an incompatibility (for example GCN with very old hacked Oblivion Lost shaders) it can be fixed.

You personally care about backwards compatibility, so such capacity has value to you. That value does not extend to others, and it does not warrant calling them stupid just because they don't share your opinion. That is a conceit on your part.

It is true that a large percentage of gamers do not consider games as art. Hell, a lot of developers don't seem to consider games as art. However, again, this is does not warrant to call them stupid just because they don't share your opinion. That is, again, a conceit on your part.

These are both subjective value judgements that only the individual can ascertain the worth to them in deciding whether they will go with console gaming or PC gaming.

6. Who has to mess with drivers and settings these days? Not only is that a total of 2 minutes (which you save with the MUCH faster loading times on PC) but the game does it for you. AMD and Nvidia's software do it for you. There is almost nothing a PC gamer needs to do. Ever.
It is a simple install - press exe - play. Game's select their own settings automatically. I despise that, but it seems most Muricans love it so it exists.

Ease of use is already masted. So close to consoles, if it matters the problem is in the user. The only times it matters is when the game is super old... but that is a scenario consoles dont have anyway so complaining is hypocrisy.

Plenty of people still mess with driver settings and driver installs in an attempt to further optimize play on their specific machine. Because of the different mix of architectures and APIs that can occur on the PC, there is no guarantee that the default settings are the real optimum point.

And again, you make a wholly bigoted statement in assuming that it is only Americans that like ease-of-use conveniences.

7. I do not believe in Nostalgia. For all my love of old games, I feel no nostalgia for them or their consoles. The only use case for consoles is if someone wants to play 1-2 games (so PC can not become much cheaper over time) and that ... is it. Nothing more. I had a Terminator console when I was a child, but I can not feel this "Subjective, it isnt the numbers maan!" thing you are talking about. Math disagrees with it existing to boot.

This seems contradictory to your early statement. Shall we now label you as being stupid also by your own criteria above?

The math doesn't disagree because it's silent on the matter of subjectivity. This is because subjective properties can not be calculated logically. They are something that can only be weighted and evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the individual. What works for you may not work for others.

8. I am an Eastern European gamer. Your consoles havent made it easier or cheaper to be a gamer here, you know. And BTW, you so far are ignorant on PC AND console gaming from what you have said so far.

I expected nothing else mate. I hope you respond nicely, if arrogant (like I did) and have a nice day. But so far it is literally same thing it has always been...

I know a lot more than you think.

So, far, the only one who has been arrogant is you. My original statement was a question why there is always felt this need to enter a thread on consoles and belittle everyone with the whole PC Master race shenanigans. Even further, I made a plea requesting to let people just game on the system of their choice without having to be berated by this PC Master race attitude that has pervaded far too much of the gaming community. In response, you have done nothing but respond with brutal arrogance, condescension, and blatant bigotry to this question.

You describe your specific socio-economic circumstances, and I could easily respond to that with a very haughty and what you would probably consider "typical Rich American" attitude regarding your plight. However, I have not done so and refuse to do so because that would be awful and conceited on my part. But, you have wasted no time to inject your clearly hate-filled bigotry and conceit at every turn. I get it; you hate Americans. Well, I can't stand PC Master race elitists, or the entire PC Master race meme, for that matter; both have been a blight on the gaming community, in my opinion.

ADDENDUM: I would also like to add that this entire thread started as a discussion of why the Xbox Scorpio may not, despite potentially better hardware, succeed as well as Microsoft would hope over the PS4 Pro. It was a discussion of one console versus another, and then you drop in with haughty "PCs are better" and "Everyone but me is an idiot" type statements, turning the thread into yet another useless PC vs consoles war-zone; thus, yours was the original conceit. As a result, I responded as I did because the sort of thing you have done is an occurrence that happens all too often, and some of us are just sick of seeing it.