AshleyAshes
Arcade Snowmew Of Doom
I had a little revelation this week while doing the 'pizza and gaming' thing with a friend. PCs are becoming consoles. Rather than the tired 'PC vs Console' discussion, what I'm talking bout here is how the PC is moving into the living room and joining the consoles at the TV.
Sure, a computer on a TV was never a new idea. I remember Half-Life over S-Video out on my Pentium III at 500mhz with the All in Wonder 128 powering it! ...but Windows 98SE was kinda aweful at 480i. TVs gained VGA, DVI, HDMI and in some cases even DP ports. Now the only difference between a 'TV' and a 'Monitor' is 'Does it have a digital TV tuner in it?' But even then you were still using Windows on a screen teen feet away from you and trying to reach for a keyboard and mouse. Steam Big Picture Mode brings the 'Ten Foot Interface' to the TV and I always loved it. But last night I set it up on the living room and we played The Pinball Arcade and Castle Crashers (First time playing, GREAT GAME!) on the TV using Xbox 360 controllers with a wireless USB adaptor for the controllers. We got the console like experience, even navigating through Steam BPM for games and contacts like you would on a console. Of course, steam is also constructing 'Steam OS' which brings that same interface to a dedicated interface. Weather you opt for Steam BPM on Windows or Steam OS there's there's two important things: 1) You can just build the thing yourself. 2) Steam brings you the games dirt cheap sometimes. I mention steam almost exclusively since to my knowledge no one else has brought a 10 foot interface to their platforms. ...They should. I only paid $3.74 for Castle Crashers when it was on sale in the summer and it was a real party pleaser. The machine we were playing on was just an Intel laptop, integrated Sandy Bridge graphics even!
In my bedroom is the even more powerful box, my HTPC. The HTPC was originally an AMD A6-3500 bought just for running XBMC and doing server work. When the AMD FM1 socket was end-of-lifed I upgraded to an A6-3870K to max out the socket and it made a pretty decent lower-midish gaming box. Last month a Radeon HD 6850 was 'hand me downed' to the HTPC and it's graphics power was increased by more than a factor of three. It's now a 'pretty darn good midrange PC'. It runs XBMC for all of my media enjoyment and can then launch into Steam BPM for gaming joy. The controllers in use are 360 controllers with wireless adaptors which, thanks to Microsoft, the Xinput protocol is lock stock standard for nearly every Windows game that will use a controller. It's not immodest hardware but it'll play a lot of mainstream games pretty well if you exclude the bleeding edge monsters like Crysis 3 or others. So yeah, it's basically a console now. While a bit lopsided now (3 year old GPU paired with a newer CPU with integrated but disabled GPU) I could build a comparable system for say, $400, maybe $500 after you factored in the cost of controllers. It would be highly upgradable as GPU counts for a LOT more than CPU these days, a lot more flexible, and, unlike consoles, games would be routinely on sale for peanuts.
So why do I need a console anymore?
Sure, a computer on a TV was never a new idea. I remember Half-Life over S-Video out on my Pentium III at 500mhz with the All in Wonder 128 powering it! ...but Windows 98SE was kinda aweful at 480i. TVs gained VGA, DVI, HDMI and in some cases even DP ports. Now the only difference between a 'TV' and a 'Monitor' is 'Does it have a digital TV tuner in it?' But even then you were still using Windows on a screen teen feet away from you and trying to reach for a keyboard and mouse. Steam Big Picture Mode brings the 'Ten Foot Interface' to the TV and I always loved it. But last night I set it up on the living room and we played The Pinball Arcade and Castle Crashers (First time playing, GREAT GAME!) on the TV using Xbox 360 controllers with a wireless USB adaptor for the controllers. We got the console like experience, even navigating through Steam BPM for games and contacts like you would on a console. Of course, steam is also constructing 'Steam OS' which brings that same interface to a dedicated interface. Weather you opt for Steam BPM on Windows or Steam OS there's there's two important things: 1) You can just build the thing yourself. 2) Steam brings you the games dirt cheap sometimes. I mention steam almost exclusively since to my knowledge no one else has brought a 10 foot interface to their platforms. ...They should. I only paid $3.74 for Castle Crashers when it was on sale in the summer and it was a real party pleaser. The machine we were playing on was just an Intel laptop, integrated Sandy Bridge graphics even!
In my bedroom is the even more powerful box, my HTPC. The HTPC was originally an AMD A6-3500 bought just for running XBMC and doing server work. When the AMD FM1 socket was end-of-lifed I upgraded to an A6-3870K to max out the socket and it made a pretty decent lower-midish gaming box. Last month a Radeon HD 6850 was 'hand me downed' to the HTPC and it's graphics power was increased by more than a factor of three. It's now a 'pretty darn good midrange PC'. It runs XBMC for all of my media enjoyment and can then launch into Steam BPM for gaming joy. The controllers in use are 360 controllers with wireless adaptors which, thanks to Microsoft, the Xinput protocol is lock stock standard for nearly every Windows game that will use a controller. It's not immodest hardware but it'll play a lot of mainstream games pretty well if you exclude the bleeding edge monsters like Crysis 3 or others. So yeah, it's basically a console now. While a bit lopsided now (3 year old GPU paired with a newer CPU with integrated but disabled GPU) I could build a comparable system for say, $400, maybe $500 after you factored in the cost of controllers. It would be highly upgradable as GPU counts for a LOT more than CPU these days, a lot more flexible, and, unlike consoles, games would be routinely on sale for peanuts.
So why do I need a console anymore?
Unless they don't have the same name, then it COULD be the one that's alphabetically first but maybe not. Also, if they are the same, I can't actually tell the user which one is Controller #1!"
