Speaking to press at E3, Alienware general manager Frank Azor talked extensively about how next generation consoles are essentially pale imitations of modern PCs, and how they’re just beginning to emulate functionality that PCs have been capable of for years.
Playing catch-up
It starts at the hardware level. Azor broke down the similarities between the PS4 and Xbox One and pointed to the number of common PC components built into both consoles.
“It’s an AMD CPU, it’s an AMD graphics card, it’s a standard desktop hard drive. It’s unbelievable. That tells you that the PC is the gaming platform of choice out there, there is nothing out there that’s better. You look at what they’re trying to do and they’re becoming more and more like PCs.”
He also addressed how the two console giants are just now maneuvering themselves into the digital download and live media space:
“You’re installing games now instead of running them off the disc, because that’s the right thing to do; you’re downloading games digitally, which we’ve been doing on PC for years; they’re integrating certain TV aspects and stuff, well, ten years ago we started experimenting with media centre. I mean we can tell you how to do that on Alienware with media centre PCs during that whole time. It’s a little bit different now because the technology has matured considerably, but a lot of the innovations and things that are proven on the PC are making their ways onto consoles and the consoles are looking more and more like PCs every day.”
For PC gamers who have been using their computers as all-in-one media platforms for years, and watching as the aging consoles scrambled to catch up, this is hardly news. A pricy next-gen console, the hardware capabilities of which have already been outstripped by personal computers built last year, is a tough sell. And games, as Azor points out, aren’t the big differentiator they were in previous generations, when PC gamers would have to wait for months for top-tier games to be released on their platform of choice.
The shifting role of games
“Look at the most widely played games out there, League of Legends, World of Tanks, I mean these are the most widely played games in terms of hours played in the industry. And up until this week those were exclusive PC titles.”
In a number of cases, the trend of PCs being the last platform to get new releases has been reversed, especially in the online space. Games like World of Tanks and Diablo III that have been playable on PCs for months or even years are just now getting console releases, and even MMOs slated to be cross-platform are often available in beta on PCs long before they land on consoles.
The Steam box
Azor asserted that next generation consoles were essentially just an attempt to bring an imitation of the long-rumored “Steam box” PC to gamers’ living rooms. With Steam’s Big Picture Mode and the ease with which new computers can be connected to HDTVs, couch-friendly PCs are becoming more common. In a separate interview, Azor stated that Alienware’s reduced form factor PC, the X51, already occupied that space.
“The X51 is a Steam box. You think about what the objectives of the Steam box program are, it’s to take PC gaming and put it into the living room.” Azor claims that the role the sort of machine Valve managing director Gabe Newell has been hinting at is already adequately filled by the X51. “It’s not branded the Steam box, but there is no product that is branded the Steam box right now.”
