How come consoles dont get outdated?

I was wondering how is it that consoles are cheaper than PCs and at the same time, they take like 5 years to get outdated and unable to play the latest games. How is i that they play the latest and greatest for 5 years? While a PC gets outdated in like 2 years time and certainly unable to play the latest and greatest.

If the consoles have superior technology then how come they are cheap? If they have special dedicated techniques then why cant PC developers also implement these techniques to the PC?

hmmm but still how much of a loss would it be? Cant a successful console maker force a rival out by buying all the systems without purchasing any game sos that the rival makes a loss?

With PC gaming, we are only now seeing games which are multithreaded. Developers say it is hard to make multithreaded games. So how is it that the xbox360 (3 cores) can use those 3 cores without many problems?

I was wondering how is it that consoles are cheaper than PCs and at the same time, they take like 5 years to get outdated and unable to play the latest games. How is i that they play the latest and greatest for 5 years? While a PC gets outdated in like 2 years time and certainly unable to play the latest and greatest.

If the consoles have superior technology then how come they are cheap? If they have special dedicated techniques then why cant PC developers also implement these techniques to the PC?

greengloop

Thats not true about PCs. You can hold on to your PC for 5 years and still play the latest games, you'll just have to settle on low graphical settings (which still looks as good as console games 5 years ago).

Consoles do get outdated....very quicly too.....within 6 months of a console being released...PC games will be looking better....and the gap only widens with time.

Consoles have fixed hardware, which is why they dont have to be upgraded...but gaming PC's are still much more powerfull.

Console developers are stuck with one set of hardware and are forced to optimize to get more out of it over the lifespan of a console.

PC developers can always shoot for the latest and greatest video card and processor.

Because consoles are single-purpose machines made by a single company, and the machine only exists for the purpose of selling games on it. (Well, that is changing with downloadable movies and what not, but you know what I mean.) The more people that have the console, the more games are sold for it. A PC is made to make a direct profit for the manufacturer. The PC maker does not make a profit from future software purchases, as the PC is an open platform.

By the time a console is "cheap," it generally does NOT have superior technology to a high end or maybe even a mid-range graphics card.

The summary really is that many companies make PCs and they all theoretically run the same software whereas consoles are closed formats which have the benefits for game developers of being dedicated to games and having everyone (theoretically) have the exact same system specs.

Really, there are so many factors, but those are a few key ones I think.

cool and what about the multithreading? How is it that PC developers are finding it hard to have multithreaded games while the concoles have like 3 processors and run just fine?greengloop

different archetechtures....PC CPU's are much stronger than Console CPU's...and decent CPU's are rarely ever pushed by games...so most games do just fine with one Core.

Thank goodness to Valve then; I have a 7600GT and I maxed out HL2 and CSS. Now, I still max out TF2, Portal, and Episode 2 as well.StephenHu

Because they are the ones that define the generations. Developers make games according to the technology of the consoles, most of the times. PCs just get the games ported to them, with basically the same graphics. But this goes only for games that are on both consoles and PCs.Thiago26792

thats not true at all....first of all their are always more PC games than console games in any gen, because the PC is an open platform...and no, multiplats do always look better on the PC, what differs is by how much, sometimes its just Resolution and AA (which will always be higher on the PC), other times like with Oblivion and timeshift, the graphical difference is massive.

[QUOTE="Thiago26792"]Because they are the ones that define the generations. Developers make games according to the technology of the consoles, most of the times. PCs just get the games ported to them, with basically the same graphics. But this goes only for games that are on both consoles and PCs.cobrax25

thats not true at all....first of all their are always more PC games than console games in any gen, because the PC is an open platform...and no, multiplats do always look better on the PC, what differs is by how much, sometimes its just Resolution and AA (which will always be higher on the PC), other times like with Oblivion and timeshift, the graphical difference is massive.

I mean, in some cases.

So why is it that if I want to play a game 3 years form now on medium settings on a current gen PC (now), it wont play?

Like i bought my PC in 2005 while the PS2 was released in 2001? I remember no being able to play Hitman on my PC but my PS2 was fine.