PCs are incredibly powerful systems. The games created specifically for computers are leaps and bounds ahead of console titles in the graphics department. High-end PCs are the pinnacle of the hardware, creating some of the most seamless and impressive video games on the market, although they do come at quite the cost.
Enter the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. They could be seen as part of another round of consoles, but Electronic Arts Executive VP and Chief Technical Officer Rajat Teneja says to look closer.
"Both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have adopted electronics and an integrated systems-on-a -chip (soc) architecture that unleashes magnitudes more compute and graphics power than the current generation of consoles. These architectures are a generation ahead of the highest end PC on the market and their unique design of the hardware, the underlying operating system and the live service layer create one of the most compelling platforms to reimagine game mechanics."
"You don't have to be an engineer or even a gamer like me to appreciate the power of these new devices"
Teneja also had a statement on the impact of cloud gaming.
"The power of connected data is going to be an integral part of the gaming experience. We see 2.5 billion monthly game sessions and 50 [terabytes] of daily telemetry data on our network alone. The Xbox Live network required 500 servers when it launched a decade ago and as was mentioned yesterday, they are now provisioning 300,000 servers to handle Xbox data in the cloud. That growth is staggering, but it also means we'll really start to see more examples of true cross-device play."
Personally, I find his statement on consoles versus PCs a tad unbelievable. The sheer power of a high-end desktop shames the demos we have seen for both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. But there is a card another generation of consoles can play: the consoles' OS can be streamlined and innovative. Add in the fact that truly powerful PCs can cost upwards of one thousand dollars, and it becomes hard to say which systems are superior.
Cloud gaming, on the other hand, is obviously a part of the future of gaming consoles. The growth is increasingly apparent, with even Nintendo slowly moving to digital and interconnected online services. Cloud gaming already has a gigantic impact on the video game industry, and that footprint will only get bigger.
What do you think about EA's statement on the power of Xbox One and PS4?