Would a PC Console work?

SkeeterUK · 25 Mar 2011 at 14:39

Due to consoles using one set of hardware its easier to squeeze the full power out of it compared to PC's which are of varying design. The pc hardware should be able to out do consoles but do not due to having to be backward compatible and all sorts.

Would a PC console work?

Stick in the latest and greatest pc hardware into a box and ship it as a console. That way pc games would work on it and be using all the nice hardware a PC does.

They would have to come up with a pc gaming os for it but shouldnt be that hard if its just for one set of hardware. Should it?

Just wondered thats all. Im sure theirs reasons why it hasnt been done before, probably compatability with existing games working on such a pc based console. But they could make new pc games for it couldnt they.

Like i said its just a passing thought i had 5 mins ago. Wondered what others thought about it.

krooton · 25 Mar 2011 at 14:43

Erm, that's what an Xbox is.

Components advance much faster than a machine can be designed, tested and then have games programmed for, hence which we get stuck with hardware in consoles for a number of years.

TheMightyTen · 25 Mar 2011 at 15:06

Yep as Krooton said this is exactly what the original Xbox was. A Pentium III with an adapted Geforce 4 running through a modified Windows 2000 kernel.

Going to Cali · 25 Mar 2011 at 15:09

I was thinking about this the other day, surely there must be a market for a specific gaming OS that would run on a desktop computer? The hardware is largely irrelevant as provided it meets certain specs the software should provide the abstraction layer required?

paradisiac · 25 Mar 2011 at 15:09

i think an upgradable console would be a nice idea. like some of the higher priced laptops where graphics cards can be updated. if they did something like that, then i cant see why people wouldnt buy it, but overall it would probably cost too much and have a limited lifecycle before the board and cpu became a bottleneck.

B@Th*nG · 25 Mar 2011 at 15:12

paradisiac said:
i think an upgradable console would be a nice idea. like some of the higher priced laptops where graphics cards can be updated. if they did something like that, then i cant see why people wouldnt buy it, but overall it would probably cost too much and have a limited lifecycle before the board and cpu became a bottleneck.

then what do you do for the poor saps with the slowest one? the newest games won't run on it.

I suppose you could have games with scalable graphics, but even that's not perfect.

B@

Squark · 25 Mar 2011 at 15:13

Upgradeable consoles divide the user base though, so they don't do it

ChrisJSY · 25 Mar 2011 at 15:25

Squark said:
Upgradeable consoles divide the user base though, so they don't do it

True but with all things, if it sells they'll make it.
I can see a modular console coming out in the future which has all the features a PC has but with identical hardware for devs to work with (and drivers - like consoles now).

But, as long as Little Johnny's parents keep buying the upgrades because "I NEED IT TO PLAY WITH MY FRIENDS WHO ALL HAVE IT

" .... it can exist.

FrenchTart · 25 Mar 2011 at 15:28

There's a reason that we have the current console/pc setup - it's what works.

SkeeterUK · 25 Mar 2011 at 15:40

I guess its just you hear about low level code could make games 10x better than what they are now because their limited by directx and other issues. The pc console would fix those things id have thought.

Xbox yeah i know the it has a lot of pc features but u cant exactly play xbox games on the pc

Which is a shame.

paradisiac · 25 Mar 2011 at 15:51

B@Th*nG said:
then what do you do for the poor saps with the slowest one? the newest games won't run on it.

I suppose you could have games with scalable graphics, but even that's not perfect.

B@

same as the poor people that cant afford HD6990s and GTX590s, have the machine auto adjust the settings to match the hardware. im not saying release 5-10 gfx a year like pcs, just every year or so a ram/cpu/gpu upgrades. if they made the games backwards compatible then this would be fine surely? i mean, the original PS3s and xbox360s would play the origanal ps1/2 and xbox games respectivly.
dunno, like i said, its probably not been done as there is either no market for it or some other reason.

ThomasTheTankEngine · 25 Mar 2011 at 16:16

paradisiac said:
dunno, like i said, its probably not been done as there is either no market for it or some other reason.

It's probably not being done because SEGA tainted the market with is disasterous Mega-CD and 32x addons.

I wouldn't be surprised if the idea is reintroduced in the next generation of consoles. It's just going to take a while. SEGA were one of the market leaders, and they literally killed their company with their two failed addons/upgrades. That's a pretty big black mark against the idea of upgradable consoles. The N64 had an upgradable ram chip which was required to run some of the later games. As far as I know that was pretty successful.

CSMonkeh · 25 Mar 2011 at 16:25

jimbob27 said:
The N64 had an upgradable ram chip which was required to run some of the later games. As far as I know that was pretty successful.

Oh yes 4MB graphics memory IIRC! And yet did make a significant improvement also.

Also, anyone wanna mention the PS2 hard-drive and broadband adapter? The latter (eventually) came out but didn't remember the disk...

paradisiac · 25 Mar 2011 at 16:28

jimbob27 said:
It's probably not being done because SEGA tainted the market with is disasterous Mega-CD and 32x addons.

I wouldn't be surprised if the idea is reintroduced in the next generation of consoles. It's just going to take a while. SEGA were one of the market leaders, and they literally killed their company with their two failed addons/upgrades. That's a pretty big black mark against the idea of upgradable consoles. The N64 had an upgradable ram chip which was required to run some of the later games. As far as I know that was pretty successful.

good point, but the mega-cd was more of an addon than an upgrade. it just seems like an easy way for them to cash in. someone will always want the best, even if it doesnt make a huge difference, so releasing some upgrades would then make people who have had their console from day 1 spend some more money.
i guess it would make it a pain for devs to make games backwards compatible with the older hardware, but, if they can justify the upgrades, then people will buy. think of the people that will ditch their PS3s when the PS4 comes out without even thinking twice. £50-£100 upgrade every year to get a console that will run things better, then it will sell, if they sell the gpu's at the £300+ then its a no go.
if you think how far the PS3 has come with just software/firmware upgrades, add some hardware upgrades too and they could be onto a winner.

danewesley · 25 Mar 2011 at 16:55

i dont get the idea, if you want a console pc thats able to upgrade....then why not just have a normal pc? i understand its to do with dedicated games on console and hardware being outdated fast in consoles, but is it really that bad.

you can change the hdd inside a ps3? =p

SkeeterUK · 25 Mar 2011 at 16:57

Nope it wouldn't be a updatable hardware wise as since the games are actually very limited to code for compatibility reasons we arnt seeing what we should. So im thinking a pc console with todays hardware wouldn't need upgrading for quite awhile as low level coding for a pc console should have games 5x better than consoles at least (guessing).

paradisiac · 25 Mar 2011 at 16:59

danewesley said:
i dont get the idea, if you want a console pc thats able to upgrade....then why not just have a normal pc? i understand its to do with dedicated games on console and hardware being outdated fast in consoles, but is it really that bad.

you can change the hdd inside a ps3? =p

if consoles could be upgraded easily, then console developers would be able to push and push the games, which in turn, can only be good for the pc versions surely.
and not ALL console games make it on to the pc, things like fight night and that, so if a console could be EASILY upgraded with say slot cards like PCMCIA (but with PCI-E speeds) then anyone can upgrade, cant say the same about pc's, a lot of people are scared to upgrade those themselves.
i think there would be a market for it, but whether it would be a large enough market i dont know, but as they dont exist, i imagine not.

paradisiac · 25 Mar 2011 at 17:01

SkeeterUK said:
Nope it wouldn't be a updatable hardware wise as since the games are actually very limited to code for compatibility reasons we arnt seeing what we should. So im thinking a pc console with todays hardware wouldn't need upgrading for quite awhile as low level coding for a pc console should have games 5x better than consoles at least (guessing).

but, if they used todays technology, it would take them 3-5 years atleast to develope it and make an OS that can easily be used by devs. so the technology would always be 3-5 years out of date in pc terms.
people struggle to keep high end cards cool in huge desktop cases, cram that into something the size of a console and i think we would be having a lot of house fires.

SkeeterUK · 25 Mar 2011 at 18:05

Not really because behind closed doors the tech there is further along than you think and the consumer is getting old "but" stable tech. I'm sure they have a lot better hardware we just arnt allowed to see so if for example you say 3 years to develop a gaming pc os for a dedicated one configuration pc then im thinking they would know and be able to test the hardware for such an os. Now im not saying the above is true but im hazarding a guess it is.

The thing about the gfx cards, yeah that would be an issue but i duno they might be able to do something to shrink it a bit.