They are powerhouses comparatively. They're also powerful compared to the typical gaming pc and the optimizations that come with more experience with the console will also come with time.chozo_hybrid said:
The idea is that it is significantly more powerful than the previous generation (10x, which is incredible considering what was already possible at the end of the ps3 cycle) while still being within the price range that console consumers are more willing to pay. Is it a $1,000 pc? No. But it isn't as far away as some people may think when those optimisations come into play and with decent GPU/RAM in a world where the CPU is a glorified process switchboard operator anyways. There's a reason why games made for the ps3/360 still required PCs that had much more powerful hardware on paper (2gb RAM, newer CPUs, newer GPUs, etc). It wasn't because the ps3/360 hardware was secretly more powerful than the pcs with the same hardware. It's just because developers figure out how to make the most of every element in the box in a way that would cause a pc to explode due to the randomness of components.
We'll see though. The main problem with the XBO isn't that it isn't a $1,000 pc. The problem is that it's something like 50% weaker than the ps4 last I heard. Had the PS4 been weaker then it wouldn't be such an issue.
