ohm wrote:I used to work at IBM in Austin TX and know quite a lot about Power and PowerPC.
Did you know David Shippy? Or Chekib Akrout, Mickie Phipps, or Jim Kahle? Have you read the book? I would love to hear your experience at Austin compared against the book's point of view. (Possibly as a separate thread ) It paints a fairly Machiavellian picture of IBM Austin, actually, in a kind of "get ahead at all costs" way.
Specifically, they paint a very backhanded treatment of Apple. The probable cause for the x86 switch is specifically mentioned on page 154: "[After the removal of out-of-order processing, Akrout] worked hard to quickly find and present other acceptable options for Apple's future desktop and laptop lines. With a great deal of angry opposition, Apple finally agreed to accept a different core designed by IBM's Server group. In reality, they were at least temporarily backed into a corner and had no other choice, but I'm sure they immediately started pouring energy and money into scouting for a replacement solution."
ohm wrote:The only real argument in favor of console gaming is that it is lower cost than PC gaming (a PS3 is cheaper than a high end graphics card).
That's not the only argument, though. The main argument is not really the price, although that helps. The main argument is consistency and ease of setup.
If I buy a PS3 game, I just stick the game into the drive and play. If I bring the game over to my friend's house, I stick the game into their drive and play. The experience is exactly the same between the both of us. There is no setup, no configuration. It just works.
Now, compare the PC experience. I have Windows XP, you have Windows 7. A game works great for you, needs massive driver updates for me, and runs at half the framerate, because my machine isn't the same as yours, and I can't run DirectX 10. So - the game developer is on the hook to somehow make the game playable on a range of platforms instead of just one target. Also - I have a cool controller, you have a mouse & keyboard. The game has to adjust to a range of input options, whereas with a game console, you know the input you're getting.
So, for the consumer, the game console presents ease of setup, common input options, finely tuned code because there's only one platform, cheaper hardware and developer-preferred game releases.
That isn't to say that a high-end PC can't smoke a 360 or PS3. Of course it can. But - for the average consumer, and the average game developer, the console is still a very attractive option.
Cheers,
Paul