Could you buy a PC with a Playstation 4 option?

Posted Dec 12th 2008 9:00AM by John Callaham
Filed under: Hardware, Interviews

People are wondering what will the future of PC gaming will be in the next few years. The head of the PC Gaming Alliance, Randy Stude, seems to think that the future could see PC rigs that could allow for console games to be played on those systems.

In a new interview over at GamePolitics, Stude states, "The guts of every console should tell you that the capability is there for the PC to act as the central point for all the consoles. If you bought a PC and as part of that equation you said, Okay, when you're on the phone with Dell, "Hey, Dell, on this PC, this new notebook I'm buying, can you make sure it has the PlayStation 4 option built into it?"

If that sounds like a fantasy rather than a real prediction, Stude disagress, saying, "[Sony is] certainly not making any money on the hardware. I mean, can't they create a stable enough environment to specify that if Dell's going to sell that notebook and say that it's PlayStation 4 [compatible] that it must have certain ingredients and it must meet certain criteria? Absolutely they could that. Are they going to do it? I don't know. I predict that they will. I predict that all of the console makers over time will recognize that it's too expensive to develop the proprietary solution and recognize the value of collapsing back on the PC as a ubiquitous platform."

Tags: dell, pc-gaming-alliance, pcga, playstation-4, sony

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Hope, the reverse will be true though. PC Gamers are always entertaining this fantasy, but like it or not, people are moving AWAY from their PCs and TO the Television. So it's a lot more likely that your PS4 will have the option to act like a de facto PC instead of the other way around.Posted at 10:52AM on Dec 12th 2008 by Genius Jones

^ Is that not practically the same thing?

Also people aren't moving away from the PC at all. Casual gamers are picking up consoles, but PC gaming still retains the largest market share of any gaming platform. Pretty impressive for one thats been 'dying' for over 20 years, no?Posted at 1:48PM on Dec 12th 2008 by Haggard

in reply to genius jones:

I strongly disagree that "people are moving AWAY from their PCs and to their television." Where are you getting this information? did you make it up? Personally i am doing just the opposite. I used to own consoles and play on them most of the time, yet now i find myself strictly playing games on my PC and my consoles are sitting in my closet. My friends who play games prefer to play them on PC as well. Maybe its an age thing, maybe its a personal preference thing. Dont go pulling facts out of thin air. Also, every time a new console gets released all the magazines and what not go and write articles about how "pc gaming might be dieing or dead" "is pc gaming dead" come off it already. i know ill always be a pc gamer, so for me, no it isnt dead. As for PS4 on my PC, sure i would buy it. hell yes. But will Sony buy into that??? what about piracy and compatibility issues. Posted at 3:42PM on Dec 12th 2008 by goog9

aside from the whole pc v. console debate this isn't that bad of an idea. It seems to have worked for ATI and Nvidia. Nvidia doesnt even manufacture anything and they have 65% of the market (at least on steam anyway)

Posted at 7:20PM on Dec 12th 2008 by mel

So wouldn't this really just be publishing their games on PC, what's the fucking point of the "idea"?Posted at 7:49AM on Dec 14th 2008 by Ihavepants

Consoles ARE PCs now. they are single-manufacturer, restricted-OS, software sales devices. Look at the gaming market - 'exclusive' now means 'exclusive for the next month then everybody gets it anyways'. There is no exclusivity that isn't artificially imposed on the consumers - any system could run any game, were the programmers inclined to allow for PC-style settings changes and control over the controller mappings. Every discrete device out there is slowly morphing into the SAME device anyways - they all do basically the same thing already. Why have four boxes attached to your display when they all do the same thing, and you could suffice with any ONE of them?

I once had an idea for an invention, back in the day. My invention was a cartridge that could plug into a Nintendo 64, that had other system's cartridge slots on IT. Plug that baby in, then play your old SNES, NES, Gameboy, Genesis, ETC games - directly on the N64. To my mind it made perfect sense, because why shouldn't today's technology be capable of using yesterday's software?

In my defense, I had also yet to learn about 'licensing' and 'profitable corruption' and 'trademarks'.Posted at 8:09AM on Dec 15th 2008 by Bob Saget