How are consoles managing? The same way PS3 managed all these years, optimisation..
Yeah, thats my point, optimised with capped frame rates and low game settings at lower resolutions, exactly why most budget game PC's can actually manage just as good gameplay while at times offering more.
The fact is, it's a complete urine take to suggest that a budget gaming PC around £300-£400 will only play Minecraft when it will play the majority of game titles that are available for popular consoles just as well as the consoles do, quality which in console terms is usually medium settings at 720p with the minimum frame rates required for smooth gameplay.
A budget PC with an Nvidia 750 mini or most GPU's between £80 to £150 is perfectly capable of the majority of games at medium settings on a 1080p screen with playable frame rates too.
In fact, you could say the latest consoles are not managing, average game quality settings on 720p at 30fps and having to upscale lower resolutions to 1080p is pathetic considering the cost and previous console abilities.
When the 360 came out it had a relic of a GPU in it, sure optimising console games worked out well, but here we are in 2015 and the latest consoles are still budget GPU hardware with 720p specification and optimised game requirements.
All most GPU's for a budget gaming PC need is the settings to be tweaked on the game title, a bit more medium than high and most are fine. The majority of Xbox one and PS4 titles are 720p to 1080p (upscaled) at 30fps and medium graphics quality setting, which is usually no problem at all for a G3250 and £100 odd GPU. (Note the majority of 360 and PS3 titles were also 720 and 30fps)
The real problem is people read the magazines, read the forums and want the bling, and fall for the hype, there have been people looking for a PC for the odd Minecraft game, some old game titles and a bit of DVD encoding, who have ended up with advice on i7 with 970 type builds.
I was playing Crysis 3 on an LGA 775 E8500 and a 7950 without any issues on decent settings, and most actually manage to play games with a Pentium dual core and £100 odd GPU on a 1080p screen when it comes to main stream games on PC. It is why so many threads turned up on the internet when people found the bargain in a G3258, that ended up in £350 budget gaming builds that allowed them to play mainstream titles and games like Crysis 3 for the fraction of the cost of an i5 build with no great loss.
Good budget PC case Fractal Core 1000 £14
Adequate PSU ScanFX 500w £13
CPU G3258 £52
Motherboard AsrockH81M £32
Memory 2x2GB XMS3 1600 £29
HDD 500gb £32
GPU 2gb Asus GTX 750 mini £90
Optic drive £11
And it's all upgradeable, better PSU, better GPU or whatever if PC takes your fancy later on.
The latest consoles were appaling value, even as they drop in price most end up back on 360's etc, my lads float between the 360 and PC for gaming, prefering their budget PC's quality, but finding the console more convenient for playing with mates and enjoying the odd free game that happens every month with Xbox live which they need to pay a £5 each for every month IF they want to play some titles online anyway.
Not to mention the pricing of games, PC games are usually well discounted online, xbox 360 games are sweetie money in second hand in charity shops, online auctions etc.
The best consoles are still the 360 and PS3, the biggest thing they have going for them is convenience and cheap games.
