29th October 2005, 12:43 AM
I know exactly what you mean when you speak of just not being all that impressed by the next generation. Yes, a big part of it is that, now more than before, even after the new systems are released, they will STILL be way behind PCs. For most of the console history, the pattern is that consoles beat PCs for a while but PCs catch up and overtake the consoles. Now, PCs actually caught up to the likes of the Gamecube and so on within a matter of months and surpassed it quickly after that. At this point the upgrades that the consoles are offering aren't even a match for where PCs are right now. They can no longer even keep up, much less wow us for the moment.
I think the future will see consoles and PCs more or less merge into some sort of "standardized" platform experience. Something cheap and not very modular that exists more as a spec standard than a specific company's system. Movies and music will play on any company's players so long as they use the current standard. It won't be long before that is being demanded of gaming consoles...
I think the future will see consoles and PCs more or less merge into some sort of "standardized" platform experience. Something cheap and not very modular that exists more as a spec standard than a specific company's system. Movies and music will play on any company's players so long as they use the current standard. It won't be long before that is being demanded of gaming consoles...
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)