"The PS5 and Xbox Seres X are Closing the Console-PC Gap" - Wired

I swear I hear this at the beginning of every generation. Then new graphics cards release and consoles are back to low/medium settings at 30fps for the next 4-6 years. I'll buy a ps5 for the exclusives, but I fully expect it to get outdated as the gen continues. The new graphics cards are already more powerful than the consoles. It is bound to happen when you are dealing with fixed hardware vs upgradable machines.

This is just a problem with modern media. Clickbaity titles instead of unbiased titles.

The non clickbait title would be:

"Consoles are starting this gen much closer to PC than last gen!"

Or something Ike that.

PC will always have the edge over consoles no matter how you slice it, because PC allows for an open, customized system where you have the freedom to choose what you want in your system. The gap will widen as the generation goes on and new cards release only to have console try and narrow it again by marketing a "pro" version console.Even ignoring the power of PC over consoles, their are still variables that benefit PC over consoles that people don't take into account.

-Open markets on PC Vs. Walled Gardens on console mean you get cheaper games on PC because you have 10 different digital markets all competing for your money and giving you free games to entice you over vs. A walled garden that doesn't have to compete as much because, well, your locked in with them.

-PC let's you customize your game however you want with whatever input device you want vs. Consoles just having a "boost mode" usually making you choose between pushing FPS or resolution (not both though.)

-online costs over a 7 console gen can amount to almost the cost of the console itself. Assuming your paying MSRP at $60 a year, that's $420 before taxes with nothing really to show for it. If you're going moth by month at $10 a month, the cost doubles to $840 before tax. Almost a grand just to play online and the hope that your free $5-$10 game is something that interests you.

Is the initial cost of PC higher? Absolutely. Are you sacrificing alot of freedom and choice for a cheaper initial cost? Absolutely.

Sometimes I don't know who is more insecure about their hardware, PC gamers or console gamers.

Now where have I heard the same argument before...was it 2013 or 2005/06? I think it was also something something PC gaming is dying.

Ah well, but can't really argue against the facts in the article. I mean, the brand new PS5 teh next gen console is running CP2077 in 1080pish. The gap couldn't be smaller for sure.

@appariti0n: Agreed. The issue is the title, not the article itself. And that’s what makes it clickbait.

This, so much this. That's the reason I have pretty much gave up on online gaming unless I'm just playing with my friends who are as casual as me. Truth be told the more I grow the more crap I get in playing games especially in shooters.

That’s not true.

Last Gen you could buy a $180-200 dollar GPU to match or surpass PS4 performance at the time of PS4’s launch.

This Gen you need something like a 3060 Ti to match or surpass Series X Rasterization performance. That’s a $400 dollar GPU

Well I certainly don't abhor playing graphically intensive games on PS5 like I did on PS4. (except Bloodborne performance still sucks)

My god the PS4 was a piece of trash. Thank **** we have SSDs and decent CPU cores across the board now. Last gen was seriously depressing.

I swear there is a high-res version of a door somewhere in the FF7 Remake files. There has to be!

Yeah and then the power difference widens again and has actually widened already with the Nvidia 3000 series GPUs. Still digging those Sony exclusives and 1st party devs who are able to squeeze the schnits out of the system.

Again it’s not the same this time

With ps4 you could have purchased a R9 290 for $400 and got double the power of PS4,

Double the power of Series X isn’t possible right now, for any amount of money

Yea, I interpreted this article to be more about the experience then about raw power. The PS5 and XSX are pretty competent machines, and will meet most console gamers needs in my opinion.

Surprised there was nothing about emulation. You can run emulators on the XSX in developer mode. It takes about an hour to set up, and you need to wait 5-10 minutes each time switching from retail mode to developer mode, but it can happen. Load times are effectively non existent thanks to the SSD. You can do the same with a XSS

Pretty much this, even my Daughter plays the hell out of Fortnite, so hey, its fun in its own right, but its really not for me personally. Battle Royals kinda bored me, so its why I couldn't get into Fortnite. Back to Destiny 2 for me lol.

PC is great for SP games at the very least.

Yes I completely agree, I feel the exact same way. I have a PC with a GTX 1070 and much rather have it than the XSX or PS5 because of the open platform nature let's me do things I can't do while gaming on a console, that allows me to enjoying gaming much more than I could on a console.

Tech is always moving forward and consoles are locked hardware with a life span 3x longer than GPU cycles on PC.

This has and always will be a fact and for the life of me I don't know how any self respecting journalist would even remotely talk about PC vs Console's with a idea that this is as good as PC is now and will ever be.

We are literally 2-3 years away from DDR5 and PCI Gen5.

The RTX 3080 already runs rings around a PS5, you have any idea what a RTX 5080 will do in 3 years when paired with DDR5 and a m.2 Gen5 NVME and 5nm Intel or AMD CPUs?...

Its honestly disturbing that anyone with any sense would even take this as a "argument"... Static hardware in a long life cycles is not going to compete with a open platform with a 1-2 year life cycle.

I have nothing more to say on the matter other than you people are dumb.

it took 4.5 years to go from a 1080 to a 3080

Why would you think a 5080 is just 3 years away?

2 year gap between the GPU's... 2016, 2018 and 2020.

The 3 years was a typo, it should be 4. Got it lined up with DDR5 and Gen5 PCI road maps.

Nevertheless point still stands, PC hardware moves forward 3 times during a console generation. And these consoles are struggling to beat a RTX 2070 Super from 2018.

But the "experience" is purely based on the raw power, you won't have a snappy load time without the switch to NVME's and you wouldn't have the 120FPS without the Zen2 CPU.

Trouble with the article and your statement is the idea that graphics stand still, they do not... We are already have games that are 30FPS on these consoles when the graphics are pushed, it won't take long maybe before that is the ONLY option you get.

The entire article makes no sense and you people who seem to think that hardware doesn't matter are foolish with no intelligence what so ever if you can't connect the dots between experience = power when it comes to gaming.

Why do you think gamers upgrade 2080's to 3080's?.... Graphics get better and in order to achieve 60FPS and above with little to no compromise on resolution and graphics you need to upgrade. SO again "catching up"?.... What does that even mean?!

You know people will say graphics are great now it doesn't need to get better?... My answer is people have been saying that since PS3, go ahead and buy a PS3 and load up a game.

Graphics get better, the hardware in a console does not but it does on PC... It cannot catch up by definition!

True, but consoles will also likely get “pro” versions around 2024 as well.

The gap is simply smaller this gen.

Consoles making PC gaming irrelevant and unpopular is a good thing.

I 100 % agree that the gap will get wider over the next couple of years. And if you only compare flops or whatever I’m sure the gap will percentage wise be as wide as ever.

But that is just one dimension. The article brings up a couple of other (loading times and backwards compatibility). PC will simply not be able to make either of those gaps much wider. Similarly the fact that consoles now also offers the choice between performance and resolution is not something the PC can take away.

To me it seems like you have not really considered the arguments in the article, but are mostly arguing against what you think the headline means.

Closed the gap? As these consoles released Ampere and RDNA 2 came out. Not to mention new Ryzen architecture.

Already the mid-range of those cards are matching consoles.

Are console gamers this insecure they need to waste time with this claim?

The PC doesn't just have the edge. Consoles can't even do ray tracing well, because RDNA 2 just isn't good at that.

PC gaming is still very popular and consoles don't make it irrelevant at all. They are very different markets that's all. I would take almost any gaming PC over a console even one that is less powerful for all of the advantages that are very important to me that PC offers that consoles don't. Everyone is entitled to their opinion though and should play on what they like best, no need to bash other platforms if you prefer another IMO.

How?

Consoles are now indisputably on a parallel with the very best PC's.

You can't buy a frigging new gen graphics card or new gen CPU and you can't buy a PS5 or Series X either.

Parity at last!

Only in the delusional minds of losers trapped on one console that want others to suffer like them.

This entire thread is an admittance of being inferior.

Keeps people safe from hackers and criminals. Open platform is like the wild west lawlessness of no regulation or protections.

Err... you wanna try again?

You herms call us "pedophiles" for playing Japanese games, so we can call you dudes criminals. hah

And with that, so will the price difference. $400 now, $400 for a "pro" console, another $400+ for online access. For that same price you can build a new PC now that surpasses both the PS5/XBSX now, and their pro version counterparts later.

Also, it goes without saying that once new hardware is released, some gap is closed. We're comparing the gap between the PS4/XBO and a modern PC to the gap between a PS5/XBSX and a modern PC. Obviously the new hardware will be closer. But ask yourself how the gap between a PS4/XBO and a gaming PC built in 2013 (the 780TI was current that year) compares to the gap between a PS5/XBSX and a gaming PC built in 2020 with a 6800XT or 3080.

@eoten: not sure what price has to do with anything. But if you want to talk about money, just a high end GPU alone costs several hundred dollars more than a console. Also, you mention paying for online, but what about buying digital games on PC? That's a sunk cost. On console I can sell games. Also, you can get PS plus for $30 if you wait for a sale. PS Plus also gives free games, and discounts on games. When you get a PS5, if you have PS Plus, you automatically get close to 20 games free off the bat. So yea, if you're looking at value, consoles are better. PC has never really been about value though.

Games on PC can often be had at a fraction of the cost on console. Console exclusives are still charging $60 for a game 3-4 years old while titles of that age are dirt cheap on PC. Steam also frequently has sales with many games being half the price. So yeah, games tend to cost less, a lot less, on PC. Also, when you tally up the cost of a console now, a "pro" version later, and online access, over the life of the current gen consoles you can easily build a gaming PC with a 3080 or 6800XT.

So, over the life of the new generation consoles, I'll be spending less on PC and games than the average console gamer will on PS5 or XBSX. The cost savings console once represented is gone and they haven't really done much to close that performance gap either. I also don't have to prey the games I enjoyed from the last generation are backwards compatible, since on PC backwards compatibility goes back decades.

Maybe you're talking about Nintendo, but Xbox and Playstation games drop in price very quickly these days. Last of Us 2 was on sale recently for $20. I bought Gears 5 for $10. Steam games aren't actually the cheapest btw. I can get games cheaper on Epic or even CDKeys. But still, once you buy a digital game, it's a sunk cost. With consoles, I can buy and sell games as I wish. Again, you can get PS+ for about $30-$35 if you wait for a sale. So we're talking $150 for 5 years, and you get 2-3 games a month, plus exclusive discounts. And if you want to upgrade to a Pro, just sell your old system. I got the PS5, and sold my PS4 Pro for $330. Probably could've gotten more if I was patient lol.

A 3080 is $700 just for the GPU. You still have to upkeep your PC in order to play that, so additional costs may and usually do apply. Plus you have to worry about games not be optimized for your GPU. I know some recently who had issues with playing AC Valhalla on their PC. Mine works beautifully on PS5. Also, online may be free, but there are issues with cheating. And PC online communities tend to be smaller than console online communities, so you better hope for crossplay lol. Otherwise the multiplayer will die out quick, which I've seen happen with PC games.

Going back to the article, it's mentioned that consoles offer BC. In fact, the original PS2 offered BC. The PS3 originally did too, but Sony was forced to discontinue it to cut costs. The PS4 never had BC and sold 110 million units. The Switch does not have BC and is on its way to 100 million units. The Xbox One has backwards compatibility and was dead last. The Wii U had BC and sold 10 millions units I think lol. I find BC as a nice to have, but it's clear that people buy systems to play new games. But the PS5 and XSX do have it, so there ya go. And the article mentions that.

Upkeep your PC? Not really. PC parts tend to last longer than console since consoles tend to make a few sacrifices when it comes to packing the hardware they do give you into a small case with generally poor airflow and poor cooling. So, you're like to spend more over the generation of a console in "upkeep" for that console than you are a PC.

Consoles have no only failed to close any gap in actual performance, but they've lost a lot of ground elsewhere, such as in overall costs. I could never understand why someone would spend so much over the next 7-8 years just for the privilege of playing future titles at 30fps and reduced settings.

How would you spend more money to upkeep a console? It's a console lol. Sounds like you're going in circles now. No one is claiming that PC isn't more powerful. The point of this article is that the advantage of PC over console has gotten smaller. Also, having one system to develop for is actually beneficial since developers can focus on optimizing the game for that hardware. With PC, you really don't know what's going to happen with each game.

Are you sure about that? A 6900xt is 23 TFLOPS which is almost double the power. Same architecture so comparing TFLOPS is fairly accurate. A mere 5% overclock would put the 6900xt at 24 TFLOPS. Maybe there are already models that have a factory oc of 5% or more.

I gave you a chance at making sense and that's what you give me? 😂

lol

Simply because consoles are more prone to failure and carry a pathetic 1 year warranty. Undersized heatsinks and fans tend to result in consoles operating at higher temperatures than PCs do, parts wear faster, parts are often lower quality to begin with because console manufacturers are forced to sell hardware at a loss, and will cut corners on components to save money. Over the last 20 years of building my own PCs, only one component has ever failed and that component was replaced free of charge under a lifetime warranty (G Skill RAM). I've never known anyone to not have to replace a PS3, PS4, XB360, etc at some point.

You have a much, much higher chance of a serious system failure occurring with your PS5 than I do with my PC, and IF something were to fail with my PC, I have the ability to replace that individual component myself at a significantly reduced cost than you will be spending when your PS5 suffers a failure, forcing you to buy a brand new one to replace it.

Also, "optimizing" for a console as you put it generally means taking the PC version of a game, reducing the graphics settings, and then repackaging it to play on your hardware. After the intergenerational period is over, you'll be back to playing games on the equivalent of medium settings compared to what PC gamers will be playing at. That gap hasn't closed, never was, never will be. Not even the mid generational "pro" versions are going to fix that. 3 years from now, you'll be back to 1080P30 at reduced settings while a gaming PC built today with a 3080 or 6800 will still be playing those titles at high or ultra settings at 1440P120.

Pretty much.

Consoles are usually the best "bang for buck" when they come out, and after their 1st major price cut they still maintain a serious price/performance edge. But there's a midpoint in the lifespan where price stops dropping and PC performance widens considerably, so what you get is a couple of years people start looking at "next gen" PC games and bitching about how sad console performance is, then a new generation of consoles come out which gets you to that already established level and the cycle starts anew.

You guys say this every gen but the opposite happens. And I'm not sure how it would be a good thing, all the latest big genres and tech innovations come from PC.

Sure as shit not closing the gap in games like CP2077. It's amazing how much better it is on PC after playing it on PS5.

Lol, that really has more to do with the developer. They were purposely misleading about the state of those games on last gen consoles. Hopefully the next gen versions are better. But to be honest, after seeing some videos about the games flaws, not sure if I want to pick it up at all.

Those who perceive some kind of gap closing are likely simply noticing the fact every year we see diminishing returns on improvements in graphics anyway. There's only so high a resolution you can go before you stop noticing improvements, and only so high a frame rate you can go as well. Textures will be limited by resolution, as will the polygon counts of 3D meshes. A game made in 2010 looks significantly better than one made in 2000, night and day difference, but a game made in 2020 looks only a little better than one from 2010. Over the next 10 years, don't be surprised if you don't see some major, revolutionary leap in visuals.