What sets a console apart from a PC?

[morPR]

In the dawn of a new era (PS4 vs Xbox One) I have wonder about this question. I may be like other gamers out there who has a lot of game downloads. I also first experienced the usage of downloading content like TV shows (the anime Moonphase which costs $1.99 per episode) and even though PS3 was not any longer PS2 compatible, it did have PSone downloads and could run PSone games off disc driver.

For a brief time I ould download comic books for my PSP. I even had an adaptor tha allowed me to archive my memory cards onto the PS3. Nice.

I recently had a little family crisis wher my idiot brother threw out all of my PS3 games while I was in the hospital. Okay, so the PS3 and computer were stolen, big deal!

I originally purchased the 40 GB PS3 which died and Sony gave me another 40 GB model which failed. By the time the Sony warranty failed, Kmart was nice enough to give me a 160 GB slim model. Sweet.

Sure, they aren't tablets. They need to be hooked up to a TV set. They are proprietary software and OSes. I wonder who many people like me waste their computing power on websurfing. Sheesh!

 

[Nexus]

The biggest thing for me is that Consoles can not improve at the rate that PC's can. Even with the launch of the new generation consoles developers were having to degrade the quality of games to insure they would run on the new consoles. PC's are miles ahead technology wise and the horizon on what they are capable of will continue to move farther from the console as long as Moore's law applies.

In other words, Consoles are relatively static a new one is launched every 8-10 years while improved hardware and technology for the PC is released every 1-3 years. nVidia is a great example releasing a new series of GPU every 1 to 2 years.

The last truly innovative console to be released was probably the Atari Jaguar, it surpassed the technology available in the home computer of its day. Not only was it a 64-bit system when all competitors were advancing to 16-bit platforms, it had multiple processors (Now we have multi-core) which were comparable to those available home computers. Sadly it was well ahead of it's time, and did not sell well.