Why I won’t be buying the next gen consoles
I know, pretty bold statement right? I almost prefaced it with ‘probably’ but will stick to my guns. There is good reasoning behind it.
When the Playstation 1 came out I played certain games on the console and others on a PC. The console was great for driving games and third person adventure games (such as the pixelated bosom-filled actioner Tomb Raider), while the PC was better for First Person Shooters and Real Time Strategies. It all worked together perfectly. Soon after the PS2 arrived however, I found myself getting increasingly frustrated with PC games that either didn’t work or took hours to install. I have yet to gain the patience that apparently comes with age. I want to play now! This trend just seemed to get worse with the PS3. Consoles were great multimedia gaming devices and my PC was for toil or writing superb website entries.
Recently however, this seems to be changing and it is a change that will be permanent and the end of consoles. In my opinion, these will probably be the last consoles of their type. Something similar may be along to replace them, but as they are now they just can’t keep up with PCs. Why? I hear you ask, you poor ignorant fool. (Unless you’re a tech type and have already stopped reading as you know this already.)
The answer is Moore’s Law. This states that ‘the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles every two years’. Essentially, computers double in speed every two years. This law was written about in 1965 and still holds true, so huge kudos to Mr Moore you clever tyke. Here’s a graph:
As you can see, it’s pretty damn close to the prediction. It should be noted that this rise is exponential. Which means that the speeds will continue to rise at ever quicker rates. This means that when someone makes a console, no matter how quickly they make it, that console’s processor will be a year or two behind what a PC can do. If a console is around for 4 or more years, it will look like an ZX Spectrum compared to a PC by the end. (Possible exaggeration.) This will just get worse.
Unless you can 3D print a new console every 6 months, the gap will become ridiculous. And as a gamer, unacceptable. The new consoles are basically PCs anyway. Couple this with the fact that it is getting so stupidly easy to build your own gaming PC and update it with new cards that even I could do it, and you can see where all this is headed. There are some cool games coming out, which you can see here, but they will look better on a computer. Personally, I see myself writing on an ultrabook and gaming on something like this:
How cool does that look? I’m sure many will disagree with me on this one and feel free to do so. (You are wrong though.) In the future, enjoy your silly moving controllers as you leap around your living room. I will be here:
