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Polygon: Xbox Series X will have many of PC gaming’s best features

Earvin Infinity

Earvin Infinity

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,888
Agree or disagree, PC Era?

www.polygon.com

Xbox Series X will have many of PC gaming’s best features

Microsoft makes pro-consumer announcements, and all eyes are now on Sony
www.polygon.com www.polygon.com
More than any previous generation, this one may prove to bring the console experience more in line with PC gaming. It's a further blurring of the line between the old and, frankly, hostile divide between the two formats.

Let's quickly break down what we now know about the Xbox Series X.
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Microsoft recently opened up its proprietary Xbox wireless technology to headphone manufacturers as well. That means there's an excellent chance that the $199.99 Razer headset you picked up for your Xbox One will also work on the Xbox Series X.

In the world of PC gaming, the use of legacy controllers is second nature. When I buy a new gaming PC, I don't throw out my favorite keyboard, mouse, and headset. Microsoft is extending the same courtesy to console players.
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Conventional wisdom says that game consoles are obsolete the moment that they launch, immediately overtaken by the constantly churning PC hardware ecosystem. That might be true of this next generation as well, but the differences in the feature sets between the two platforms are narrower than they've ever been before.

That's because both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 will use solid-state drives, which allow for shorter load times and better performance. The transition to an SSD standard known as NVMe has brought substantial performance boosts to just about every game on PC, with the makers of cutting-edge titles even recommending them in their hardware specifications. Now developers and consumers alike will be able to benefit from those gains on consoles as well.
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Additionally, the Xbox Series X will natively support hardware-accelerated real-time ray tracing. This new way of rendering light in video games has already turned heads in titles like Control. With GPU manufacturers going so far as to help remaster old games to take advantage of the technology, we may get more improvements in the Xbox back catalog down the line.
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While the specs may be closer than ever to a high-end gaming PC, some of these things are unproven and really shouldn't be talking points, especially hardware-accelerated ray-tracing that people love to include as a bullet point. Also, one of the fastest NVMe (PCIe 4.0) drives in the market right now is barely making a dent in gaming performance compared to a standard SSD, so I wouldn't say NVMes offer substantial performance boosts to "just about every PC game". I'm sure that console users who have never really played PC games on SSDs would notice a major difference in overall perfomance, however.
 
Lyrick

Lyrick

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,818
My most used feature is outputting references or a video distraction to a second or third screen.

I don't think consoles are going to include that anytime soon.
 
Phokal

Phokal

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Oct 25, 2017
452
WI
Games are still built to run in mechanical hdds. Once engines are built to expect ssd or NVMe you'll see dramatic differences.
 
Delusibeta

Delusibeta

Prophet of Truth
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Oct 26, 2017
5,648
Ah, it's the run-up to a new console gen, and the game press is trying their best to fabricate narratives to declare PC gaming irrelevant, despite ignoring the two most important features of PC gaming: you probably already have hardware that can run some games, and there's no mandatory online fees.
Phokal said:
Games are still built to run in mechanical hdds. Once engines are built to expect ssd or NVMe you'll see dramatic differences.
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I would agree, to a point. I don't think there's going to be a game in the foreseeable future that's so demanding on storage that a SATA SSD would bottleneck it (outside of loading times, and even then a couple of extra seconds won't be noticed).
 

Deleted member 21709

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What a weird OP. PC games aren't optimized for specific HD types - since most games have to run on all HD types. So you won't see the benefits Microsoft and Sony have discussed regarding streaming data.
 
RingRang

RingRang

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I don't see what there is to disagree with here. It's a fact that these new consoles are going to offer an experience comparable to high end PCs of right now.
 
AshenOne

AshenOne

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Feb 21, 2018
6,086
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'many'
Nah dawg. Just some.

PC got modding, proper backwards compatibility with no additional work required from the devs. Customizibility to the details. Steam input. You can use ANY type of controller with PC or a racing wheel for that matter and steam detects it natively and other stuff. Most of all PC isn't a walled garden :)

Also i doubt consoles will see an extended use of hardware accelerated ray tracing.

RingRang said:
I don't see what there is to disagree with here. It's a fact that these new consoles are going to offer an experience comparable to high end PCs of right now.
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PC isn't about just 'high spec gaming'. There is plenty to disagree with honestly.

Windu said:
Xbox One already has this.
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But its not officially supported in the games on it.
 
Crayon

Crayon

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Oct 26, 2017
15,580
You can use your old controller and headphones? That sounds like many of pc gamings best features, alright.
 
Slayven

Slayven

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Oct 25, 2017
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They ain't saying anything until they have the console version of F5
 

m29a

Member
Oct 25, 2017
387
By far the biggest reason for me playing on PC is being able to have a minimum of 60 fps in everything (obviously higher is better too).

I personally think that next gen will still have plenty of games at 30 because of developers using the power to prioritize increased eye candy. I'd like to be wrong, but if that turns out to be the case, then I'll still be only playing on a PC in the future.
 
takriel

takriel

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m29a said:
By far the biggest reason for me playing on PC is being able to have a minimum of 60 fps in everything (obviously higher is better too).

I personally think that next gen will still have plenty of games at 30 because of developers using the power to prioritize increased eye candy. I'd like to be wrong, but if that turns out to be the case, then I'll still be only playing on a PC in the future.
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I'm hoping for a 1080/60 4K/30 standard personally. Doesn't sound too improbable with the way things have been going since the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro.
 
Issen

Issen

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Nov 12, 2017
6,816
It has several, yes, but ultimately only PC is the complete package. Universal BC, total user freedom to modify or do whatever they want, universal peripheral compatibility, whatever combination of hardware you want... All of it is too good to pass up.

But of course those who already preferred the console package will benefit from all the extra features the Series X is getting. So that's good!
 
OP
OP
Earvin Infinity

Earvin Infinity

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Oct 27, 2017
6,888
inguef said:
What a weird OP. PC games aren't optimized for specific HD types - since most games have to run on all HD types. So you won't see the benefits Microsoft and Sony have discussed regarding streaming data.
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Not weird at all. Some of these features on next-gen consoles are still unproven, which is a fact. We don't know how developers will optimize for NVMe, but one thing is for certain is that performance will be much better across the board than what consoles offer now (there's no denying that). I just can't get on board with suddenly making full use of NVMe read/write for games because developers will now optimize for it, but I'd love to see how they make use of the tech. We don't know how their hardware-accelerated ray-tracing will affect performance; at 4K/60fps, 1440p/120fps?
 
-Le Monde-

-Le Monde-

Avenger
Dec 8, 2017
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Please, bring mods to xsx. Life hasn't been the same after seeing all sorts of cool costumes on FighterZ. 😭😋
 
Calibro

Calibro

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Oct 27, 2017
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> The transition to an SSD standard known as NVMe has brought substantial performance boosts to just about every game on PC

Excuse me I think this Polygon writer doesn't know shit about SSDs.
 

Absolute

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Nov 6, 2017
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Article seems a bit light compared to the headline. If you asked me what PC's best features were I wouldn't have mentioned many things in this article.
 
Windu

Windu

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Oct 25, 2017
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jet1911 said:
Plenty is not enough. I want every game to support m/kb.
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Yeah that would be nice but its up to the dev. Mouse input on the xbox dash and input tags on store pages would certainly help though. Not all PC games have controller support, will be the same for console with m/k.
 
Swift_Gamer

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AshenOne said:
'many'
Nah dawg. Just some.

PC got modding, proper backwards compatibility with no additional work required from the devs. Customizibility to the details. Steam input. You can use ANY type of controller with PC or a racing wheel for that matter and steam detects it natively and other stuff. Most of all PC isn't a walled garden :)

Also i doubt consoles will see an extended use of hardware accelerated ray tracing.



PC isn't about just 'high spec gaming'. There is plenty to disagree with honestly.


But its not officially supported in the games on it.
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Proper BC existed until the PS3. Just so you know.
 
Jaded Alyx

Jaded Alyx

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Oct 25, 2017
35,351
Windu said:
Yeah that would be nice but its up to the dev. Mouse input on the xbox dash and input tags on store pages would certainly help though. Not all PC games have controller support, will be the same for console with m/k.
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It's at least possible to add controller support to every PC game. That you can do that, is one of PC gaming's best features.
 
Cordelia

Cordelia

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Jan 25, 2019
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Conventional wisdom says that game consoles are obsolete the moment that they launch, immediately overtaken by the constantly churning PC hardware ecosystem.
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Well Ampere will be released before next gen console release and Ryzen 4000 will be released right after next gen console release sooooooooooooooooo
 

icecold1983

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Nov 3, 2017
4,243
KBM and high refresh rate are the only reasons i game on PC. Should those make their way to consoles id be done with PC
 
Ales34

Ales34

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Apr 15, 2018
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Give me a better mod support and I will fully agree. Microsoft did the right steps in this direction this gen; hopefully they'll support mods even more next gen.
 
Pryme

Pryme

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Aug 23, 2018
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MagicWithEarvin said:
Agree or disagree, PC Era?

www.polygon.com

Xbox Series X will have many of PC gaming’s best features

Microsoft makes pro-consumer announcements, and all eyes are now on Sony
www.polygon.com www.polygon.com





While the specs may be closer than ever to a high-end gaming PC, some of these things are unproven and really shouldn't be talking points, especially hardware-accelerated ray-tracing that people love to include as a bullet point. Also, one of the fastest NVMe (PCIe 4.0) drives in the market right now is barely making a dent in gaming performance compared to a standard SSD, so I wouldn't say NVMes offer substantial performance boosts to "just about every PC game". I'm sure that console users who have never really played PC games on SSDs would notice a major difference in overall perfomance, however.
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Not sure why the tone of the OP is somewhat defensive. The article lists some of PC gaming's best features and rightly noted that they're coming to console.

case in point your last paragraph.
 
Reinhard

Reinhard

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Oct 27, 2017
6,592
NVMe hype is way overblown, my NVMe drive seems pretty much identical to my SATA SSD in every respect other than benchmarking. And of course consoles will have either zero modding or very limited, no ability to cheat in single player games unless the developer has paid microtransactions, pay to play online or backup saves, limited backwards compatibility (I wonder about PS3 support and how ubiquitous Xbox, Xbox 360 support will be), and games will still likely target 4k 30 fps due to expectations of graphic fidelity and ray tracing.
 
OneBadMutha

OneBadMutha

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Nov 2, 2017
6,059
PC will always have more options vs the simplicity of a console however here are the things next gen consoles can offer to bring them closer:
  1. Mouse and keyboard optional for every game. Include mouse and keyboard only games like Age of Empires.
  2. Options to always choose frame rate over resolution. If I'm playing on a 1480P freesync monitor, let me give up 4K for more frames even if we're already at 60.
  3. Field of view sliders and true ultrawide support. If devs offer ultrawide on PC, allow console gamers to choose it over 4K.
I'm a console guy at heart due to the simplicity of the ecosystem however I have learned why PC gaming has some significant advantages in areas that go beyond mods. Some of those advantages can be negated simply by allowing things on consoles next gen.
 
DeaDPooL_jlp

DeaDPooL_jlp

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Oct 31, 2017
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These types of articles are always funny cause its obvious they're trying to push a narrative. Consoles will never have the amount of options available to a PC gamer,AND THATS OKAY. The amount of customization a person has on PC for every game is nowhere to be found on consoles and I doubt that's going to change.

Consoles are a closed system and Sony/Microsoft dont want to open the flood gates and have potentially many users throwing tantrums when games don't work or they can't achieve a certain result.

At best you'll get like what we got on the mid gen consoles where there's a performance or graphics options, with maybe a switch for 1 or 2 more settings.

Plus when new gpus come out this fall the gap will widen once again. Consoles and pc serve two different audiences and there's a reason for both to exist. Nobody is wrong for going either direction, it's all based on how much you're willing to invest and how much the extra bells and whistles matter to you.
 
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