Out of Pod Experience

I want to preface this by saying that I am not saying that TFLOPS is a good measure of overall graphical performance. Memory amount, bandwidth, low overhead operating system and many other things contribute.

That said, let's just use it as a basic measure and consider what we're going to be seeing in the next few years.

In under 6 months Intel will be releasing the Haswell processor. Haswell is going to be very popular for mobile devices because of its low power consumption. The lesser talked about "feature" of Haswell is that Intel is setting the stage for a pretty major bump in their integrated graphics. Haswell's GT3 variant GPU will perform at about 600 GFLOPS. This compares to about 240 GFLOPS of an XBox 360, and an estimated 1.5 TFLOPS for the next generation XBox.

More important is the successor to Haswell, Broadwell. This chip is to have 4b transistor GPU, capable of an estimated 2.5-3 TFLOPS.

The tablet / ultrabook variant will no doubt have less horsepower, but even if it's only a half, in 2-3 years you will have next gen quality graphics on your tablet, period. And the next generation consoles aren't even out yet.

Which means the next gen consoles will have only 18 months to two years time before they are surpassed... by an iPad.

Once you get to that point, you have more than enough power to embed a very highly capable "console" into something like an Oculus Rift, which I guarantee will happen.

At that point... who is going to bother with these next gen consoles after a couple years? There's been a lot of talk about the next gen being the last, but there doesn't seem to be a realization that their life spans probably won't be nearly that of previous genera --- OH MY GOD JUDGE DREDD IS GAY

Nope, completely out of date

PS2 (2000) -> CPU: 6 GFLOPS | GPU: 0 GFLOPS | Combined: 6 GFLOPS
Xbox (2001) -> CPU: 1.5 GFLOPS | GPU: 5.8 GFLOPS | Combined: 7.3 GFLOPS
Xbox360 (2005) -> CPU: 115 GFLOPS | GPU: 240 GFLOPS | Combined: 355 GFLOPS
PS3 (2006) -> CPU: 218 GFLOPS | GPU: 1800 GFLOPS | Combined: 2018 GFLOPS

EDIT : almost nobody actually managed to utilize the full PS3 GPU potential so far, which is a damn shame, and it's the XB360's indirect fault for that happening, with a good helping from Sony by making development not very user-friendly.

The older rumours were that the next-gen consoles (let's call them Xbox720 and PS4 for now) would feature mostly AMD//ATI hardware, built around some modified variant of a A8-3850 (2.9GHz quad core) CPU+iGPU combo with a side-order of possibly modified Radeon HD 7670 GPU(s).
One would assume they will use at least two, possibly up to four GPUs inside them (with three of them being in the sweet spot as far as anti-micro-stuttering goes), so you can probably expect at least a 2.1-2.3 TFLOPS overall GPU performance out of the PS4 (probably only about 1.4-1.5 from the xbox, cheap bastards might only go with two instead of three, which means good luck 720 gamers with your sucky microstutters), so pretty close to a single desktop GTX 670 (which will probably still cost more than the entire console would be likely to cost at the time of the console launch).

They might actually ramp up those specs a bit higher than that before the consoles get launched - but frankly, that stops being a major concern by this point, and even lower specs would be ok in most cases.
There is a huge problem with handhelds, and you know it's NOT pure processing power.

It's user interaction.

The damn screens are too small (or else they would no longer be handhelds, would they) for halfway serious gaming, for starters.
The input methods are at least problematic (if you add an external controller that's larger than the device itself, what's the point of having a handheld), not to say impossible as far as serious gaming goes.
All in all, you just can't compare the gaming experience you get from a console and a handheld EVEN IF YOU USE A HYPOTHETICAL GAME THAT RUNS MORE THAN FINE ON EITHER HARDWARE. And the experience on a PC is even better, because, come on, mouse plus keyboard vs controller, there's not even a contest there.
And the consoles are not really at risk from the PCs either, since they're too darn cheap for most of their useful life, so the userbase is that much broader.

The consoles will only start to risk being an endangered species when somebody will come up with a way to include both large field-of-vision (the Oculus Rift might be the only serious contender so far) and reliable control methods (none so far have done that) in a handheld (or in a "wearable" device, whatever) THAT IS ALSO QUITE CHEAP (pretty unlikely) so that it can compete with similarly-specced consoles.

I think having a viewscreen less than 2 inches from your eyes is going to cause damage to peoples vision. Infrequent use of tech like the Occulus Rift might be okay, but anyone spending any time with it is certainly going to have problems.

I have two PS2's sitting around collecting dust. A first gen PS2 and the updated slimmer model. Haven't used them in quite a while.

We got the kid a Wii about two years ago. She sometimes plays a game or two on it. But now, she is very much into art and drawing.

The only reason the Wii is still hooked up to the TV is to stream movies and shows from Netflix.

So, we're pretty much done with consoles. Now that tablets are getting better, I am seriously considering getting one for myself and one for the wife. But, they will never replace our computers.

Everyone always underestimates the power of a workstation...

Some people might do away with the traditional desktops yes, but there's still a few massive problems with your assumption.

Imagine your "work PC" getting pickpocketed. Hilarity ensues :)


What people always forget is that there's quite a number of people for whom working at a desk, on a proper workstation, is the best way to get certain things done. It's not "the form factor", it's the funcionality and usability. You're never going to write code on a telephone. You're never going to edit video on a telephone. You're never going to do "high end gaming" on a telephone. Etc.

You have to remember, "high end" also moves with the tech. The original Quake was, in it's day, a "high end" game, requiring a lot of power - But even though you can play it on telephones now i don't see people throwing away their desktops. Tweaking stuff to your own ends will also not be done on mobile devices - Can you imagine trying to use the Skyrim editor on a tablet?

A mobile device can break far more easily than a "unwieldly" desktop. Drop it somewhere, water seeps in from the weather, you sit on it, or (as i said before) it gets stolen. Dumdeedum, you lose it for days or even weeks, since you most likely will have to send it off to the manufacturer to get it fixed, and you have to hope that they don't mess up your data.

Something breaks in a desktop? You replace it. Even a novice can troubleshoot a PC, with some help, in a matter of hours. No need to send anything away to get it fixed and basically losing productivity for an undetermined time.


You may claim that your data is on a NAS at home, that all your devices use. That doesn't take away that if your device breaks or is stolen, you still can't access it. And if you have other devices at home just for that, why not have a desktop anyway?


You may claim that your stuff is on the cloud. In that case there are so many things between you and your data - Your network card, your network cable, your router/modem, the cable connection in the ground, the ISP network station(s), the different connections that haveto be made in between (signals can go through dozens of servers, each of whcih is a potential point of failure)..... Having your data local removes all of those potential problems. The cloud is, at best, an addition to your tools, not a replacement. Oh, and i almost forgot - Storing stuff on the cloud means that there are other people who are able to look into your files without having to hack or break anything. This is a necessity and inevitability of needing system admins, aswell as a sad consequence of certain laws in certain countries... You may think you have nothing to hide, but do you really want other people to know what kind of kinky stuff you're doing in your private bedroom, or what you spend your money on and where? What your salary is? Etc.



Which actually goes for all of the things mentioned - They're additions. Gadgets of convenience. They can make certain things easier but they will never replace desktops as they are now, as the market for devices like that will never go away.

Consoles as devices in your home are becoming obsolete and irrelevant as technology evolves, same thing can really be said about your personal computer whether it is a Apple branded PC or something you built.

I think it is more realistic to think that in the future more and more of your devices will be Cloud based and that change is going to happen quicker in countries like Japan and most of Europe and slower in countries that really are infrastructural nightmares like the Americas, Africa, Asian countries and Russia.

I still prefer the term Bicurious

the first time I saw 1080p was 1993 at the world fair in Korea. 20 years later it is commonplace to see 1080p at your local electronics store. that's the timeline I expect ultra HD to follow. it might be a little long, since the work of developing flat panels and "true black" RYB is done, but think of all the hardware throughout the television and gaming industries that has only recently been put into use to support 1080p.

Irrelevant? No, because plenty of people are still going to buy them.

Obsolete? Yes.