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A 2-3TB SSD in a machine costing £300?
No no nooooooo... Crimony, that was a top of the line optional extra/maximum upgrade!!
I believe it comes with 120GB as standard. There was a sort of pre-order site (£200 deposit, BTW) I found on Google yesterday, but I cleared my History.
Hell,if it came with a 3TB SSD for £300, I'd buy six and cannibalise them myself, selling the remnants for parts!!!
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Development between PC and the consoles from Sony and Microsoft is going to be pretty simple, adjusting more to the RAM availability and latencies.
As long as I can play offline without having to use a bastard controller, I'll be happy with that.
My concern, as usual, is the newer tech becomng the standard because it's flashy and new, rather than because it works better. I have this issue with touchscreen keyboards, for example, preferring a physical keyboad on my phone. There are so many people who also hate touchscreens, they make clip-on boards and there are even websites dedicated to people's typos... yet everyone soldiers, buying what they think is their only option, to the point where the good stuff stops being made.
The joy of PC gaming for me is not only having one machine that does everything, but choosing how it does it. I can tweak the clocks, configure my own controls, get input devices that fit me the best and set it up for my own comfort.
If I get a console, I get whatever they stick me with and that's it.
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X1 games run a virtual machine on the console, so it should be possible to adjust the hardware in the future without breaking compatibility, much like your older iPhone games run on newer handsets.
Can the average user easily expand the memory or put a faster processor in there, then? I know the intention is that they shouldn't have to, but if games end up like A:CM it might come down to that (assuming they don't release the next Next Gens early enough).
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I'm not sure where you are coming from when you say about directing games back towards PC standards, Woody?
Well, PC levels, rather than Standards, for the reasons you mentioned (there isn't one).
Speaking to a few devs from different studios, their opinion thus far has been that they're having to hold back on putting some really great stuff in their games because while PC can handle it, consoles were stuck using crappy old hardware. They only reason they liked doing console games was that they all used the one same standard across the board for every game.
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I liken consoles to motorbikes.
Well I did say I don't know much about cars, heh heh!!
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They've dropped the need to carry passengers, stuff in the boot etc, in the aim of performing on the road. You can't take your family along, but you'll have a blast on the road.
OK, so your twin Titan rig is a combination of Blackbird and Rocket III - Speed, power and insane torque, with some luggage space and a pillion seat.
The more affordable high end rigs are like VFR800s or Pans, with Rocket engines. Almost insane performance, lots of great features
A run of the mill Gaming rig with 2nd hand parts is an FJ1200 - Big, comfy, powerful enough, loads of space, bags of handling and a fair bit of luxury all for a surprisingly low price because previous owners have gone for some latest must-have, when the FJ did perfectly well (or bloody good, if tweaked a touch).
Consoles have always been a bit like customed Bandits or R1s - Rev and race hoolie bikes. Almost no comfort features left, even if they came with them to begin with and only suited to one function.
These newer consoles are sounding like mid-2000s Fireblades (which many buy just "coz it's a 'Blaaaaaaaaaaade, innit?") - Beefed up Bandits mixed with a little VFR800 comfort and functionality.
Also - Typically outperformed by more general bikes ridden by more skilled riders
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A developer could make a game that runs the top end of PC performance. You do see that when Crytex and Epic demonstrate the power and features of their engines.
But they won't sell many copies of such a game as the percentage of the market that has the means to run it is but a fraction.
That's what Low Settings and Overclocking are for!
Few people can afford Bugattis or can fly private planes too, but they still make 'em... Those that REALLY want to play the game will save up to upgrade and so the games drive the market. Higher demand, lower prices, etc.
But there are probably enough users with rigs that could still cope with the High-to-Ultra band to make it worthwhile. Instead, they've seemingly dialled everything back to the budget-ish level I run, to accomodate the bigger market of consoles. I reckon if they didn't do that quite so much, consoles would have beefed up a lot earlier.
Heck, even my old old old rig handled A:CM with better graphics than an X360. As of September, there also wasn't a single game on SysReq's Lab that I couldn't run and remain at least above the minimum specs.
Now, with the recent update, consoles are back up with PCs, which is cool but how long before they're naff again? How long before people are buying PCs just for the performance and plugging joypads into them again? If there's a high demand for high-end components, prices will drop and/or cheaper better versions will appear.
It's not just the rigs, though, it's the games as well - The need for immense games that require entire keyboards to control, because there's so much you can do has given way to whole genres of dull, boring shooters where you only need a few buttons and they all do the same things. Granted, that's all some people want and it makes the dev simpler. Not saying every game has to be über, but it'd be nice to see some of that coming out in places other than on Kickstarter.
Some fantastic games, like Dragon Age, were slated by consolers because the controller was too limited for a game like that and they had no other option.
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I would like to see a mid range PC from seven years ago doing Halo 4 or The Last of Us.
So would I!!
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You have your beast of a PC out of sight, then, when you want to game on the TV, the android box links to your PC and streams the game through your network.
I wonder if the über-fussy gamers would notice any lag between devices...
But the PC can still be sat and gamed at, or used for all the other functions, yes? If so, then that is indeed a very cool idea and right up the alley of having the options I love so much.