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The console wars have been lost

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Re: The console wars have been lost

#111

Post by Gigachad »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #37
rvz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is peak HN. > Nobody under 20 knows what a "console" is even for, they play games on their iPhone almost exclusively. Imagine saying this before GTA 6 which will release only on consoles this year. That will be the game to get the entire world on their games consoles.

> That will be the game to get the entire world on their games consoles. Console gaming is like 15% of all gaming world-wide, and GTA 6 is like a single-digit slice of that 15% slice.

The breakdown here doesn’t tell the whole story I feel. Mobile gaming is largely Asian countries hooked on gambling apps. The traditional “gaming” on consoles and PC still exists more than it ever has.

It feels like saying game consoles are dead because slot machines at the casino are more profitable “gaming” machines.

Re: The console wars have been lost

#112

Post by aleph_minus_one »

mort96 wrote: post #65
stuxnet79 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everytime this topic comes up I always replay this clip of Gabe Newell ranting about having to write multi-threaded code for the PS3 and chuckle [1] Was writing code for the PS3 genuinely difficult or was it also a skill issue? The counter-argument I've heard is that multi threaded programming just wasn't as common at the time due to minimal number of cores available on most consumer hardware. Perhaps the PS3 would h…

I'm sure there's some degree of just not being used to multi-threaded code, but it's also not like today's multi-threading. When we think about utilizing multiple cores today, we're thinking about running normal application code across many identical cores, within one process managed by a multi threaded kernel. The PS3 wasn't like that. It was a single core machine, with one big CPU core which runs the operating syst…

> I've never written for such a system, but I'd assume that a somewhat close analogy would be a single core Linux computer with 10 microcontrollers attached. (Though I'd love to hear from someone with more knowledge whether this is a reasonable analogy.)

Where this otherwise good analogy basically lacks is that the SPEs of a Cell were really fast (in opposite to microcontrollers), so a better analogy could be: a single core computer that has 7 ultra-fast, identical DSPs attached, of which you can use 6. [1]

---

[1] For the 7 available and 6 usable SPEs, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cell_(processor)&...

Re: The console wars have been lost

#113

Post by masklinn »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #57
nylonstrung wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH the PS3 probably should have been more similar to PC, the people I've talked to who have worked for it said the architecture was a nightmare to work with. There's really no reason console games of that era needed, or even could benefit from 6 cores

Everytime this topic comes up I always replay this clip of Gabe Newell ranting about having to write multi-threaded code for the PS3 and chuckle [1] Was writing code for the PS3 genuinely difficult or was it also a skill issue? The counter-argument I've heard is that multi threaded programming just wasn't as common at the time due to minimal number of cores available on most consumer hardware. Perhaps the PS3 would h…

The 360 was a multithreaded machine, it had 3 physical cores with hyperthreading (so 6 logical cores).

The PS3 was a completely different beast, it had a single general purpose core (hyperthreaded) with 6 user-accessible vector coprocessors (in-order, non-speculative, with their own ISA, and without shared memory) on a 4-lane ring bus. This was much more complex and fairly alien topology even more so back at the time, and while tooling might have helped bridge the gap Sony’s were… not great, even less so compared to MS which could lean on their windows tooling.

Re: The console wars have been lost

#114

Post by cassianoleal »

mort96 wrote: post #97
cassianoleal wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't seriously argue that using a keyboard/mouse interface using the controller track pad is as nice an experience as just using a controller-focused interface. I didn't.

Then what did you argue? What was the point of your comment? How is the problem "solved"?

The parent to my comment said:

> launcher needs mouse input to function

I said the trackpads solve for that. Nothing else. I didn't claim it was great, I didn't claim it was better than all alternatives, I didn't claim it works as well as a high-DPI mouse on an FPS. Whatever else you may have read on my comment was your own extrapolation.

Re: The console wars have been lost

#115

Post by mort96 »

cassianoleal wrote: post #114
mort96 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what did you argue? What was the point of your comment? How is the problem "solved"?

The parent to my comment said: > launcher needs mouse input to function I said the trackpads solve for that. Nothing else. I didn't claim it was great, I didn't claim it was better than all alternatives, I didn't claim it works as well as a high-DPI mouse on an FPS. Whatever else you may have read on my comment was your own extrapolation.

And I'm saying trackpads don't solve that. They're a workaround, they make the game playable without a mouse, but it's not how you would design a system from the ground up to be a controller-first experience. That's the context of the conversation you jumped into.

Re: The console wars have been lost

#116

Post by queenkjuul »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #12
nylonstrung wrote: post #3

Consoles just don't make sense in any modern context. It's profoundly wasteful to have an edge device sitting in your living room, unused for 99% of the time that can only do an incredibly small subset of what a gaming computer can Every PS5 in existence is destined to become e-waste Not to mention how bad the developer and porting experience is compared to PC/Steam Machine

"Game consoles" are a niche lifestyle item for gen-X and millennials with money to waste. (Like vinyl records.) Nobody under 20 knows what a "console" is even for, they play games on their iPhone almost exclusively.

Every single person under 20 knows what a Nintendo Switch is

Re: The console wars have been lost

#117

Post by cassianoleal »

mort96 wrote: post #115
cassianoleal wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent to my comment said: > launcher needs mouse input to function I said the trackpads solve for that. Nothing else. I didn't claim it was great, I didn't claim it was better than all alternatives, I didn't claim it works as well as a high-DPI mouse on an FPS. Whatever else you may have read on my comment was your own extrapolation.

And I'm saying trackpads don't solve that. They're a workaround, they make the game playable without a mouse, but it's not how you would design a system from the ground up to be a controller-first experience. That's the context of the conversation you jumped into.

Again, I was responding to "launcher needs mouse". NOT to some wider context. Again, the extrapolation is on yourself.

Re: The console wars have been lost

#118

Post by mort96 »

cassianoleal wrote: post #117
mort96 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'm saying trackpads don't solve that. They're a workaround, they make the game playable without a mouse, but it's not how you would design a system from the ground up to be a controller-first experience. That's the context of the conversation you jumped into.

Again, I was responding to "launcher needs mouse". NOT to some wider context. Again, the extrapolation is on yourself.

And I'm saying it's not a solution which makes using the launcher as nice as an equivalent console experience. It's a workaround which makes the game technically playable.

Re: The console wars have been lost

#119

Post by Ferret7446 »

mcphage wrote: post #71
Delphiza wrote: post #60

Somewhere along the way, consoles lost where they fit into the 'living room space'. The biggest thing (for me) was when games stopped with local co-op. Having two controllers and being able to play together was a good way to spend time doing casual gaming. Lego star wars did it well. Gears of War, Halo and others used to be a good way to to spend time with your children. The Wii had all ages playing together. Now, al…

> when games stopped with local co-op The Switch and Switch 2 are still great for this. And to bolster your point, they’re still selling like hotcakes and Nintendo is making gobs of money.

I wonder how much of that is due to exclusivity. If Nintendo games were available on PC I expect Switch sales to drop significantly.

Re: The console wars have been lost

#120

Post by silon42 »

inigyou wrote: post #28
silon42 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4090 probably won't survive, but I could see 9800x3d still being usable.

Modern chips rarely last that long.

Especially some overclocked Intel ones?... maybe it's time to start undervolting/underclocking from the start... (personally I buy 65W limit CPUs by default).
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