If the Playstation 3 was capable of doing everything I currently do on my PC then I'd get a PS3 in a heartbeat as I'd know that the hardware is locked, and a guaranteed lifetime of 5 years at the least, heck look at the PS2 it still has around half the market after all these years. But sadly not even the PS3 is "there" yet when it comes to flexibility.
It is kind of pointless to compare PC gaming with console gaming as there are very few people who own PC's purely for gaming. There are people who do that, but they tend to have a secondary PC built just for gaming.
To me gaming is secondary or third purpose. I program, I surf, I make music, I write, I communicate. A PC is a multipurpose system, which is why I hate the hardware race in the PC gaming area, I wish they'd "lock" the hardware and try and optimize PC games more than they currently do.
That is one thing I envy console owners and developers, it is actually possible to tune/optimize the game/software to the hardware. You know, like in the old days of computing when the Amiga, Atari was still around, coders new every single thing of those systems.
Today there is too much abstractions. .NET exist only because people do not wish to understand what lies deeper in the OS, let alone the hardware. There are layers/abstractions on top of layers/abstractions. "We'll just wrap that" or "We'll just wrap the wrapper", so there is no wonder PC games and software has so much more issues than console games and software.
It's not that I don't mind the constant progress and evolution that PC's has the ability and benefit of that consoles does not have. It's just that I wish the PC platform would slow down a little, let developers and users "catch up" a little.
Developers and PC "builders" should target PC development steps. Imagine a set of standards like this:
2007 PC Specification; Geforce 7600GT, Audigy 2ZS, AMD 2GHz, 1GB ram or equivalent.
Those with worse systems would get bad performance or unable to play. Think PS1 and PS2 difference.
Those with better systems would be able to play but most likely gain no extra benefits.
Why? Because the games or software would be optimized for the 2007 PC specification, so that those who have PC's that meet or surpass the 2007 PC specification would get exactly what the developers intended.
And the industry should introduce a artificial "lag" so that consumers would be able to buy 2010 PC specification hardware today but developers would not start to develop/release software for the 2010 PC specification until 2010.
Just because 3-4 new graphic cards are released per year does not mean developers need to follow it. In fact software and especially game developers tend to use or need 2-4 years of development anyway, and if the xxxx PC spesification system was put in place then that could be ligned up to match the development cycle of AAA titles.
Currently the system is nuts, AAA game title developers work 3-4 years and by the time they release the title the hardware it was optimized for if at all is alreaddy 2-3 years old.
And even the hardware industry would benefit from this as they could release hardware less often but with much higher number of units production which reduce costs even more.
However gaming entusiasts and those who want the best hardware money can buy would still be able to buy state of the art hardware, just that the core of the industry and the bulk of consumers would not have to worry as much as they do today.
Many PC gamers opt for console systems since they fear that one year from now they will be unable to play the games relased, not due to a lack of hardware available but due to the cost of upgrading the hardware that they just upgraded last year.
If a consumer buys hardware it would be logical to think that they would be able to use and play the software and games to be manufactored the next 5+ years right?
No! There is no such guarantee, not long ago there was a huge issue when a game needed Pixel Shader 3.0 when the bulk of PC gamers had only Pixel SHader 2.0, the result was that the developer upset a majority of people that actually wanted the game, and who in their right mind would toss out a graphics card they baught last year and was considered top of the line, only to do it again and pay almost ten times or more of the cost of the game just to play the game.
It's crazy. But was it the fault of the developer, the hardware makers or the consumers? Should the consumers have been more up to date? Should the hardware makers slowed down? Should the game developer have scaled down?
No! None of the above. And all of the above. What the fault was, was the lack of any target platform/spesification.
A standard that the consumers could use as a minimum to match to play all current games and games released in the next 5 years.
A standard that the hardware manufacturers could use as a minimum for features and benchmarking.
A standard that the game developers could use as their target for features and optimization, focus all their resources on that target specification.
Such a standard would help re-stabilize the PC market, it would ensure that game developers could plan for a target specification and optimize for that 5 years ahead of time. Hardware makers could maximum unit production. Consumers could avoid wasting money unless they really want to, like enthusiasts like to do to ensure they got the latest and greatest.
Hardware would have less flaws, feature sets would be more consistent, software would have less bugs and would be optimized properly for the hardware, consumers would feel better taken care of and happier.
Each 5 years the next PC specification target would be announced, hardware makers would start to work towards that target, game developers would develop towards that target, and consumers would be able to either gradually upgrade to that target, or get early hardware in the form of enthusiast or state of the art hardware and would also be the same gear developers would gradually use over the 5 year cycle.
And best of all, if better hardware is available by the target date that's OK, if the game developer ads extra optimizations to support features in the next target cycle, that is OK as well.
The point however is that game developers would get a cycle close to their development cycles, consumers would relax knowing their hardware would be good for games at least the next 5 years at which point games would not run or work at less than optimal.
Best of all however would be when buying hardware and software; as software would have a label stating 2005 PC Spesification for example. And hardware would have similar labeling, meaning that if a consumer buys 2005 PC spesification labelebed componets and assemble them he/she would end up with a 2005 PC spesifiucation computer, regardless of component make or model as long as all components are 2005 PC labeled.
Then they can gradually replace parts with 2010 PC labeled components, until all have been replaced and the computer is a 2010 spesification computer. It would obviously be up to the industry to agree upon such spesifications, the length of the cycle of them and the leap between each technologically speaking.
Should the performance and features be twice as much or three times or four? Should Moore's Law be followed or not?
Another automatic benefit would be that countries that lag behind technologically speaking would be able to catch up much easier, most nations if given a 5 year cycle would be able to catch up to the rest of the world with minimal help.
This could help drive forward the technological development of the entire world. And those of you worrying that such 5 year cycles would hurt scientists and similar, no it would not. Science always tries to use the latest and greatest, or custom produced hardware.
Think of this consumer cycle as just that, a consumer cycle, and not as a development cycle. There may even be times when the development cycle overshoots the consumer cycle in which case an entire consumer cycle can be easily skipped and the consumers would experience what can only be described as a; technological leap.
Currently the consumer and scientists alike get hardware thrown at them faster than they can get adjusted to it. Besides state of the art development, nobody else benefit from this. It's hard to keep up, compatibility and bugs are huge issues, as well are upgrade and quality costs through the whole chain of design, production and sale.
If there is one thing the PC consumer market and developers can learn from, it's the technology consumer cycle of consoles.