Console makers fear against the PC

With the announcement of PS4 Pro, Sony thinks the new threat is PC gaming

Here it is:

But in the wake of that event, Sony Interactive Entertainment chief Andrew House said something very interesting: He told the Guardian that it wasn’t competing consoles like the Xbox One S or looming Scorpio that drove the decision to release an upgraded version of the PS4. It was the PC.

“I saw some data that really influenced me,” House said. “It suggested that there’s a dip mid-console life cycle where the players who want the very best graphical experience will start to migrate to PC, because that’s obviously where it’s to be had. We wanted to keep those people within our ecosystem by giving them the very best and very highest [performance quality]. So the net result of those thoughts was PlayStation 4 Pro—and, by and large, a graphical approach to game improvement.”

This is creating a new type of ‘console war’.

What many people thought was PlayStation vs. Xbox vs. Nintendo System

What is actually going on is more complicated due to PC.

Who owns the PC, dear reader? What is the operating system for PCs?

“Apple.”

No. Try again.

“Microsoft. It is Windows!”

Very good, reader. Microsoft is PC Gaming for better or worse.

“But Mac gaming! Linux Gaming!”

Yeah, right.

“Amiga!”

No.

So instead of PlayStation vs Xbox vs Nintendo, you have to throw PC in there. With PC, it all becomes more interesting and more relevant. Look at the Console Generations through PC Gaming’s eyes.

Generation One

Where is PC Gaming? Oh, that’s right. PC Gaming doesn’t exist because PCs do not exist. During Generation One, Steve Jobs was working for Atari. Atari is the Mother of All.

Above: Steve Jobs worked at Atari. The main investor for Atari met Jobs via Atari. Woz, a huge fan of video games, designed the Apple computer to play games.

Generation Two

This is when the Apple II comes out. Woz made the Apple computer be in color so he could play video games on it. There really isn’t much to say for PC Gaming during the 1970s or early 1980s.

Electronic Arts rose to be the great publisher of PC gaming. As the black hole of the console crash took out Atari and other consoles, PC Gaming saw itself as inheritors of The New World of digital entertainment.

Above: Trip Hawkins would found EA.

Above: Archon was the first game EA published. The Paul Reiche III in the credits is the eventual designer of Star Control series and creator of Skylanders.

Above: EA would also publish M.U.L.E.

Generation 3

The NES Revolution that swept through America, from Japan, chilled the PC Gaming market. The NES games were so much better done than most of the computer games. In large part, this has to do with the Japanese craftsmanship that Western developers would later adopt. PC game companies were porting their games to the NES and seeing big sales. EA held out until the board of directors gave Trip Hawkins an ultimatum: either port EA’s games or you are removed as president. Trip Hawkins famously removed his shoe and hit it on the desk when he announced EA would port its games on the NES.

Above: Yamauchi put Nintendo on the map with the Famicom/NES

Before, PC Gaming has ports of arcade games and console games on the PC. PC would be the inevitable future for all! But with the popularity of the NES, that future seemed clouded as PC games began to be ported to the NES.

Above: PC Gaming’s great hits were being ported to the home consoles.

Generation 4

With Nintendo’s licensing, Trip Hawkins wanted a better deal. So he had EA backwards engineer the Sega Genesis and told Sega that either EA gets a good deal or EA would make the games without Sega’s permission. Sega relented.

So what was going on in PC Gaming? These are the DOS days.

This was also when Microsoft’s Windows was becoming more and more popular.

The NES scared many companies including Apple. Nintendo was able to attach a computer to the television in a third of American homes. While Nintendo and Sega battled it out during the 16-bit generation, Kutaragi of Sony developed the music chip for the Super Nintendo, and saw a different future for the console. Kutaragi saw a console that would take over the living room and co-opt PC Gaming.

Sony developed a CD add-on for the Super Nintendo. Yamauchi, realizing Sony’s true intentions, torpedoed the deal.

Above: Windows 95 marketed itself as ‘multitasking is here! OMG!’

Microsoft would later make Direct X for Windows 95. Direct X is the APIs (application programming interfaces) for game programming. While Windows 95 was spreading through computers like wildfire and PC growth was unreal, something happened Microsoft didn’t anticipate. Neither did Sega or Nintendo.

Sony released the PlayStation. While Sega and Nintendo consoles were generally arcade games at home, the PlayStation was co-opting PC Gaming.

As more developers were drawn to the PlayStation, this meant they were not using Direct X. Microsoft saw this as a big concern. Would the PlayStation completely co-opt PC gaming and hollow out the entertainment side of the PC?

Generation 6

Microsoft first tried teaming up with Sega for the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast didn’t last too long, and Sega was out of the console business.

As the PlayStation 2 was launching, Microsoft would launch its own game console called the X Box (i.e. Direct X box). This was a defensive strategy. X Box was to keep game developers using Microsoft’s tools. If anything, the Xbox hurt PC Gaming since so many games would be developed for the Xbox itself. Microsoft would engulf many game studios to do this.

Many began to make the mistake that the ‘Console War’ was about the boxes such as PS2 vs. Dreamcast vs. Xbox vs. Gamecube. The truth is that the war was over PC Gaming. PC Gaming was being absorbed by the PlayStation and Microsoft put out the Xbox in order to create a wall to stop it.

Above: If you watch any video, watch the above. Ed Fries reveals that the Xbox console was all about stopping Sony.

Generation 7

Kutaragi finally puts the pieces together to make the PlayStation 3 which would ‘take over the living room’. Microsoft makes the Xbox 360 to compete with the PlayStation 3 in every way possible. Of course, Nintendo makes the Wii which outsells both.

The Sony vs. Microsoft console war was never a war about console gaming but a war about PC gaming and PC entertainment.

Above: Jobs reveals iPhone.

The war to take over the living room was all about the TV. What no one expected was that the TV screen, itself, would be absorbed into the computer revolution. People didn’t change their TVs for HD TVs so much for the thin TVs that replaced the big bulky TVs as before. The technology that makes a TV was rapidly advancing and becoming cheaper.

Generation 8

As the screen became cheaper and was everywhere as represented by the smartphone, there was no more living room TV to ‘capture’. The Sony threat is largely removed. Kutaragi was gone. Games were becoming so expensive to make that they were ported everywhere anyway.

Microsoft is pulling the plug from its ‘defense strategy’ of the Xbox. Microsoft is currently trying to integrate the Xbox franchise into the PC. After all, if screens are everywhere, that means the PC is now more omnipresent than ever.

Sony is now on the defensive. The PS4 Pro, as you hear at the top, is a pure defense strategy against PC gaming. As the Xbox has shown, defense strategies tend to be very expensive and not worth it in the long run.

Sony being scared that the PlayStation 4 gamer will be absorbed into PC gaming and needs a PS4 Pro is extremely revealing. It tells us that Hardcore Gaming is nothing more than marketing a dumbed down PC gaming for consoles inside an envelope that they are ‘elite’.

This also might be one reason why the Game Industry wants PC Master Race term to be scrubbed from the Internet. PC Master Race infers that the console peasant is NOT elite and certainly not ‘hardcore gamer’. In real life, I taunt a twenty year old that he needs to give up his console toys and join the ‘master race’. “PC can play all the same games but much better. PC gaming has mods too!” And what can he say to that!? He just gets angry and jealous. The PS4 Pro is aimed at him to not buy a computer and to stay a console gamer.

Without the living room TV, what hope is there for the PlayStation franchise? PlayStation has no philosophy outside of the TV. I see Xbox being absorbed by PC Gaming, I see Nintendo doing its thing, and I see Sony confused and aimless. While Nintendo can go toys/arcadey, Microsoft can go PC, Sony has no space to play as the TV based console becomes extinct.

Thank you Master Malstrom!

You seem obsessed with that dude.

And i thought only cows are delusional.

How can even they think about competing with PC? it's preposterous.

Im cheering for Steam. Go team Steam!

The PC Master Race is not to be ****ed with.

Sony is insane.

RIP in Playstations, Sony

If you by 'fear' mean they looked at some data from 2011 and noticed there was a drop off to PC and now wanna try to avoid that, then I suppose they feel some fear.

Master Malstrom is the almighty prophet! Those that deny him will get struck by lightning

Well of course Sony fears PC Gaming. They have absolutely no control in the space and PS is pretty much their only revenue stream. Unlike Sony, Microsoft has absolute control of Windows. Hence why they don't care about Windows 10 getting Xbox One exclusives.

Well at least you didn't totally plagiarize his works this time.

Pc gaming isn't Microsoft's platform

@daniel_su123: How in God's name does Microsoft have any control for the pc platform?

In the PC world, Sony doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of competing with MS and they know it. This is what scares them, not PC gaming itself. MS have all the best cards in this game due to the near monopoly that Windows gives them and from recent events, it has finally dawned on them that Windows PC and Xbox should be as close to one and the same thing as they can get it.

Sony's two counter measures seem to be rather weak. PS Now coming to PC only delivers old PS3 games and will never be a big money spinner for as long as that is all it offers. Even if it does eventually offer PS4 exclusive titles, it's not like they have that many top notch games to entice non PlayStation gamers into paying a monthly subscription fee and I don't know of many people who would willing pay up every month for 2 or maybe 3 games a year. Add to that the PS4 Pro appears to have a rather salty reception across the interwebs. Of course that doesn't cover the masses who don't follow any gaming, outside of what's seen in adverts and blindly follow along with who has spent the most on marketing.

Sure , but their platform (windows 10) is the most popular OS on steam

@the_master_race: No it's not their platform. Microsoft has zero control over PC gaming on Windows. It's why they went to consoles in the first place.

I think Valve owns PC more or less

I'm still not sure of MS's motives and plans for Windows 10. If it's all at face value then more games available to more people will be good for them, Xbox and PC gamers. However if there is a hidden agenda to add a subscription to Xbox Live on PC they may as well give up now. There are far too many people remember the sour taste of Games for Windows Live and the way they dropped it when PC gamers told them to go and take a flying f*ck to themselves and shove their subscription where sun doesn't shine.

No one owns PC. Not Microsoft. Not Valve.

It's not really a competition to be had if they just wanna keep players interested. Ps4 would be fine with or without ps4 Pro. Pc has its own market. If people are migrating to pc then it's not really the system specs at fault, it's the games. People are getting bored of the same shit being rehashed.

Have you seen the variety in pc's library? It's insane! ANYONE can drop a game for pc! I can make a game for pc!! And with little to no programming knowledge at that! How the **** does anybody compete with that level of open freedom?!

PC gamers game on Windows compared to other Linux distros and Mac OS. So yes, Microsoft has an OS domination for PC gaming.

@FireEmblem_Man: Thanks for not answering the question I clearly asked of you?... How does Microsoft control the pc platform?

They don't, but they're the de facto of choice for PC gaming.

I actually read most of "your" post. It was interesting.

@shrek: I never said MS controlled PC Gaming. I said MS controls the platform of PC Gaming (Windows 10)

For now that is. As Xbox and Windows 10 become more closer, Valve, EA, BLizzard are bound to have to support UWP eventually. The moment you allow UWP games and starts to grow into your store, you're pretty stuck with Windows 10. UWP is Microsoft controlling PC Gaming.

@FireEmblem_Man:

AMD RX-470/RX-480 and NVidia GTX 1060 are mainstream PC SKUs with similar price tag to year 2013's Radeon HD 7850/7870. It would be a mistake to not match these SKUs.

What does your post have anything to do with my post?

MS vs Sony is pretty much over. The "console" war is rendered irrelevant once MS merge its X1 into Windows. No one cares about that battlefield anymore except for forum die-hards.

Its really MS vs Valve now and Valve is a much more formidable opponent than Sony will ever be.

I doubt they will support UWP and even if they did, they dont directly own pc gaming. Its like if chrome made money off of purchases because that is how you access it. MS makes money selling the os (and any kind of gfwl i guess), not games on Steam or Origin. It just benefits them that its popular and games are made to run on it, but there are no licencing fees to make games for windows

I think this is more self-realization on their part that the device they've made is no longer a gaming console, but a closed-platform PC, and they for some reason, need to compete directly with it.

Found it!

@daniel_su123: are you ever going to explain how Microsoft control pc gaming through Windows 10 or is that an impossibility?

“I saw some data that really influenced me,” House said. “It suggested that there’s a dip mid-console life cycle where the players who want the very best graphical experience will start to migrate to PC, because that’s obviously where it’s to be had. We wanted to keep those people within our ecosystem by giving them the very best and very highest [performance quality]. So the net result of those thoughts was PlayStation 4 Pro—and, by and large, a graphical approach to game improvement.”

@shrek: It's no in term of profit for controlling an ecosystem. It's in terms of making users to join an ecosystem and making it very hard to switch. Windows 10 is that very definition. DX12 only runs on Windows 10. MS games only run on Windows 10 and require an MS Account to use.

Xbox to Windows 10 UWP porting will make it lazy for developers to make Linux games or Win32 games for Windows 7.

@daniel_su123: How is Microsoft forcing people to join Windows gaming? Where are you getting this all nonsense information from?

@daniel_su123: An Microsoft account is required to game on Windows 10? Are you just a nature compulsive liar or do you have to work at it?

So, they want to keep their hardcore players with a 30fps parity between PS4 and PS4poo, same weak POS of a cpu that was already crap inside the inferior console the ps4 and only offer x2 gpu boost? How are you supposed to keep your hardcore players when you're unable to include a bluray player when you're the creator of BLURAY lol. Also, it isn't helping when your console looks worse than a VCR. Oh Sony

Exactly.

There's not a lot of money to be had for MS with Windows OS as a gaming platform. That's why they had to make it free upgrades just to make sure everyone stays on it along with introduce the store as a store front to buy their games. SteamOS is a potential threat throughout the futre in that if more developers adopt it and all it takes is a fad more or less to get the boulders moving. The xbox isn't going anywhere, they just want to capitalize on both ends of the market. As far as any kind of annual upgrades, most all other electronics are already like that anyway. I suspect they'll even eventually allow gamers to buy a 2 year plan to subsidize the cost of consoles as they get more expensive just like they do with cell phones. It gives us the option to pay in monthly payments for a $600 + console through the sale of a Plus or Live agreement in a similar way as everyone does with phones.

Sony has no choice but to follow MS and put their games on PC they've already started with PSNow

Sony could put their games on Steam and then they would make more money off of PC gamers than MS. It's not that hard.

@KungfuKitten: There is no way in hell, that Sony would put their games on Steam. They will probably create their own store on PC. But it still won't fix the disparity PS4 and PC in developer perspective.

@KungfuKitten: Yeah but that would put their consoles at a high risk.

Right. I don't think they'll do that any time soon. Just saying that they could. I bet there are plenty of companies making more money off of PC gamers than MS is. What do you mean with the developer's disparity between PS4 and PC? Do you mean that some developers want to make console games and not PC games so that would be a problem?

Maybe... Is that true? Aren't they at risk regardless? Like, I don't think many people would switch from a console to a PC these days because of Sony exclusives also being on PC. To play on a console today requires a certain mindset that doesn't really care about much that the PC offers. So I don't think everybody would suddenly run towards PC gaming. I think that regardless of them taking that step or not, people are slowly going to keep migrating to the PC as PC's keep becoming more attractive to a broad audience. Do you think it would be like the straw that broke the camel?

@KungfuKitten: Can you realistically see that happening? Sure they could easily do it, all games are created on PC's so it wouldn't be hard but then they lose the 100% control over their games and player base. They've recently blocked Mod support from Bethesda because of their strict control ethos. At the very most a Sony dedicated delivery service would be more likely.

MS on the other hand are showing a willingness to relinquish some control by allowing games such as Quantum Break to make the move to Steam from the Windows App Store. It remains to be seen if the same is true from Forza, Gears of War etc. I doubt the major Xbox titles will see a Steam release but in the present climate, anything is possible.