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Consoles these days are just glorified PC's though so they are totally boring IMO. for me at least the fun in consoles was that they were so different from you

Consoles these days are just glorified PC's though so they are totally boring IMO. for me at least the fun in consoles was that they were so different from your average x86 PC. it was fun to learn about the internals of the PS1, PS2 or SEGA Saturn back in the day precisely because of their arcane and custom built hardware.

gambiting 5y ago
People keep saying this, but I honestly don't think it's true, at least on PS5. Yes, the consoles are built upon x86 foundations but that's basically where similarities end with PC. It's still like in the "old" days - if you want to get maximum performance out of the kit, you need to get right down to the metal and use all kinds of special APIs and features which either just don't exist on PC or are such niche hardware that no one codes for it. The way you allocate memory, the way you manage your rendering pipeline, the way you do IO, the hardware accelerated decompression, even the audio chip - it's nothing like on PC. Xbox S/X are far closer to PC since Microsoft is really trying to unify all the APIs, but Playstation isn't anywhere near that. I'm not saying if it's better, but it's definitely not a "glorified PC", at least not in my view, and I'm leading a PS5 development team specifically.
- veltas 5y ago
  Yeah, not every board with an x86 CPU is "your average x86 PC".
  - tenebrisalietum 5y ago
    FM Towns Marty, for example.
najima44855 5y ago
What about consoles by Nintendo? Their controllers have motion control and all sorts of craze that PCs don't have.
- jandrese 5y ago
  The switch is not that far off from a tablet with some bluetooth controllers.
  - corysama 5y ago
    The Switch is 90% an Nvidia Shield Tablet. One of the best Android tablets ever and it barely sold. Get Nintendo to market it and it sells at a rate matching 50% of the global tablet market every year.
    - jandrese 5y ago
      Turns out the secret to a successful gaming tablet is to actually have games for it.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        That's sort of Nintendo's console strategy in a nutshell. Why chase specs when you can just create the best $250 hardware you can and then make amazing games for it? Bonus, since you don't have to care much about being a port target for 3rd parties you can experiment with input methods and other innovations.
      - TillE 5y ago
        It's a good plan, I just wish the hardware were slightly nicer. Like, every smartphone on the planet has had scratch-proof glass for years and years, but the Switch's screen is this cheap plastic which is very easy to ruin.
    - fomine3 5y ago
      With completely different OS.

gambiting 5y ago

People keep saying this, but I honestly don't think it's true, at least on PS5. Yes, the consoles are built upon x86 foundations but that's basically where similarities end with PC. It's still like in the "old" days - if you want to get maximum performance out of the kit, you need to get right down to the metal and use all kinds of special APIs and features which either just don't exist on PC or are such niche hardware that no one codes for it. The way you allocate memory, the way you manage your rendering pipeline, the way you do IO, the hardware accelerated decompression, even the audio chip - it's nothing like on PC. Xbox S/X are far closer to PC since Microsoft is really trying to unify all the APIs, but Playstation isn't anywhere near that. I'm not saying if it's better, but it's definitely not a "glorified PC", at least not in my view, and I'm leading a PS5 development team specifically.

veltas 5y ago
Yeah, not every board with an x86 CPU is "your average x86 PC".
- tenebrisalietum 5y ago
  FM Towns Marty, for example.

najima44855 5y ago

What about consoles by Nintendo? Their controllers have motion control and all sorts of craze that PCs don't have.

jandrese 5y ago
The switch is not that far off from a tablet with some bluetooth controllers.
- corysama 5y ago
  The Switch is 90% an Nvidia Shield Tablet. One of the best Android tablets ever and it barely sold. Get Nintendo to market it and it sells at a rate matching 50% of the global tablet market every year.
  - jandrese 5y ago
    Turns out the secret to a successful gaming tablet is to actually have games for it.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      That's sort of Nintendo's console strategy in a nutshell. Why chase specs when you can just create the best $250 hardware you can and then make amazing games for it? Bonus, since you don't have to care much about being a port target for 3rd parties you can experiment with input methods and other innovations.
    - TillE 5y ago
      It's a good plan, I just wish the hardware were slightly nicer. Like, every smartphone on the planet has had scratch-proof glass for years and years, but the Switch's screen is this cheap plastic which is very easy to ruin.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    With completely different OS.