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Anyone else think of gaming consoles when they read this? Gaming consoles, even today, don't need to share their specs. They do, but that's not why people by

Anyone else think of gaming consoles when they read this? Gaming consoles, even today, don't need to share their specs. They do, but that's not why people by them. Very little in the way of hardware influences people. In fact, even the BluRay part of the PS3 isn't the reason people like the PS3. It's because they can play BluRays on it. So, for certain people, Halo is important. For others, it's Mario. What does this have in common with things like iPad, iPhones, etc? The product enables you to use a specific ecosystem of features. If I buy an XBox, I can partake in XBox Live. PS3, I can watch BluRays and use PSN. Kinect is the same thing: the hardware really isn't important. It's what it allows you to do. That's what sells to people. The problem is, when all the computers do basically the same thing, what's their to differentiate? What's does an HP do that a Dell does not? So, how is this different then a Mac? Well, you basically have 4 macs right now: Mini, Air, MBP, and an iMac. The Pro is that machine for people that care about the hardware. The Mini is clear in what it offers. The Air, MBP, and iMac are all specific, and the hardware features are fairly obvious, but they all enable access to the same ecosystem. The goal here is, when you go to buy a Mac, the only thing you need to decide is what you want to use it for (and, I firmly believe even that will slowly erode away).

jiggy2011 15y ago
Games consoles are odd in that there are usually only around 3 major ones in the market at any one time and they all do basically exactly the same job. Even with a mac there is enough to differentiate the models in specifications alone, for example there are probably not enough people interested in playing high end games or do graphics work that they will ever need to put a high end video card into the Mac Mini so doing so would be a waste.
- jasonlotito 15y ago
  > Games consoles are odd in that there are usually only around 3 major ones in the market at any one time and they all do basically exactly the same job. So you're saying people buy consoles based on how much RAM is in the machine because they all basically do the same thing? > Even with a mac there is enough to differentiate the models in specifications alone, That is slowly eroding away. No more Macbook. Now, what's the difference between a MBP and a MBA? I think the most striking example is when you compare an MBP, an iMac, and a MBA with an iPad with a keyboard. What's the difference in the hardware? With an iPad, the screen is easily portable. That's pretty much it with regards to what matters.
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    > So you're saying people buy consoles based on how much RAM is in the machine because they all basically do the same thing? No, I'm not saying that. I would say with consoles since the use cases are so similar the specifications are inevitably very similar in terms of performance (between Xbox and Playstation at least the wii is arguably in a different market altogether). Since these are games consoles it's pretty obvious they are going to have powerful graphics hardware in the same was it is obvious that a ferrari will have a powerful engine. The issue comes when you have a computer intended for a larger variety of use cases. The apple devices mentioned do have relatively similar hardware but this is largely because they are all aimed towards the top of the market, it is more important at the lower end of the market where you have to make more trade-offs and you need some way of telling at a glance what those trade offs are. One example of a difference would be if I was choosing a Mac that I wanted to run games on along with other use cases where the portability may be useful. If I buy a MBA I get an Intel HD Graphics card whereas with the iMac I get some sort of ATI GPU. The 3dmark06 score for iMac is 20915 whereas the score for the MBA 4185 (I found these numbers online so I can't vouch for their accuracy) this is going to make a monumental difference if you want to play the newest Call of Duty. I suppose you could make an argument that instead of specs you should provide benchmarks but then the problem is that these need to be comprehensive and consistent. Quoting specs is certainly far from ideal but if gives you a rough idea as to what the computing device will be capable of doing if that is not inferred simply by the name or appearance of the device.
rythie 15y ago
The thing is that the Console companies control the supply of games so that only games that run fast (60fps+) are released. Basically you can't release a game that runs slow, so it's not an issue. BluRay is that same, it's a standard and disc should work on all players. Computers are not the same because the supply of software is not controlled, for example "Crysis" was released when it didn't work on most machines. In fact many machines were not even to fit to run the OS they came with, Vista, when they had 1GB or less of RAM - Microsoft does not stop even that.
- jasonlotito 15y ago
  But that's the point. Console companies control the supply of games, part in actual control, but also part in the known hardware part of things. The hardware is what it is, and developers develop for that. It's known. The issue with PC's is that it's unknown. Crysis wasn't bad if you had the machine for it. But when you look at something like what Apple is doing, and what Microsoft is going to do with Windows 8 with the App Stores, you see things moving in that direction. Basically: > Computers are not the same because the supply of software is not controlled, Yes, but that's something that's slowly going away. App stores are making that go away.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]

jiggy2011 15y ago

Games consoles are odd in that there are usually only around 3 major ones in the market at any one time and they all do basically exactly the same job. Even with a mac there is enough to differentiate the models in specifications alone, for example there are probably not enough people interested in playing high end games or do graphics work that they will ever need to put a high end video card into the Mac Mini so doing so would be a waste.

jasonlotito 15y ago
> Games consoles are odd in that there are usually only around 3 major ones in the market at any one time and they all do basically exactly the same job. So you're saying people buy consoles based on how much RAM is in the machine because they all basically do the same thing? > Even with a mac there is enough to differentiate the models in specifications alone, That is slowly eroding away. No more Macbook. Now, what's the difference between a MBP and a MBA? I think the most striking example is when you compare an MBP, an iMac, and a MBA with an iPad with a keyboard. What's the difference in the hardware? With an iPad, the screen is easily portable. That's pretty much it with regards to what matters.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  > So you're saying people buy consoles based on how much RAM is in the machine because they all basically do the same thing? No, I'm not saying that. I would say with consoles since the use cases are so similar the specifications are inevitably very similar in terms of performance (between Xbox and Playstation at least the wii is arguably in a different market altogether). Since these are games consoles it's pretty obvious they are going to have powerful graphics hardware in the same was it is obvious that a ferrari will have a powerful engine. The issue comes when you have a computer intended for a larger variety of use cases. The apple devices mentioned do have relatively similar hardware but this is largely because they are all aimed towards the top of the market, it is more important at the lower end of the market where you have to make more trade-offs and you need some way of telling at a glance what those trade offs are. One example of a difference would be if I was choosing a Mac that I wanted to run games on along with other use cases where the portability may be useful. If I buy a MBA I get an Intel HD Graphics card whereas with the iMac I get some sort of ATI GPU. The 3dmark06 score for iMac is 20915 whereas the score for the MBA 4185 (I found these numbers online so I can't vouch for their accuracy) this is going to make a monumental difference if you want to play the newest Call of Duty. I suppose you could make an argument that instead of specs you should provide benchmarks but then the problem is that these need to be comprehensive and consistent. Quoting specs is certainly far from ideal but if gives you a rough idea as to what the computing device will be capable of doing if that is not inferred simply by the name or appearance of the device.

rythie 15y ago

The thing is that the Console companies control the supply of games so that only games that run fast (60fps+) are released. Basically you can't release a game that runs slow, so it's not an issue. BluRay is that same, it's a standard and disc should work on all players. Computers are not the same because the supply of software is not controlled, for example "Crysis" was released when it didn't work on most machines. In fact many machines were not even to fit to run the OS they came with, Vista, when they had 1GB or less of RAM - Microsoft does not stop even that.

jasonlotito 15y ago
But that's the point. Console companies control the supply of games, part in actual control, but also part in the known hardware part of things. The hardware is what it is, and developers develop for that. It's known. The issue with PC's is that it's unknown. Crysis wasn't bad if you had the machine for it. But when you look at something like what Apple is doing, and what Microsoft is going to do with Windows 8 with the App Stores, you see things moving in that direction. Basically: > Computers are not the same because the supply of software is not controlled, Yes, but that's something that's slowly going away. App stores are making that go away.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]