I absolutely hate 7, but we all knew this was inevitable. The game was responsible for introducing millions of people to RPGs, in the same way Halo introduced millions of console gamers to a proper multiplayer FPS (controls aside).

The rumor is they're waiting out for an exclusive or timed exclusive offer from MS or Sony before announcing console release. Not that I care, I'll be playing on PC in Nov!

Looks good. Procedural level design is great news, the downside of the first was at some point you knew the layout of all the maps and it was predictable as hell. I hope they bring back some of the complexity that was missing from the recent reboot (e.g. multiple bases, base grid structure), or at least add new depth.

Those were awful even when they were new....but they were cheap.
He keeps mentioning "and the game boy was available", but so was the TurboGrafx16 handheld, the Turboexpress, which was WAY better than Gameboy, and played full regular console game cards on a full color screen in the 80's! It could also be a TV/radio with an add on tuner.
I still have mine.

Hmmm. Well, I have a "low end" pc, and I've tried to play games on it, and was not impressed. Perhaps I should have done more investigation before I bought it, but I wasn't thinking 'game machine' when I did. Also, I have no controllers for it, and playing with the keyboard sucks ass! ;-)
Keep in mind, this setup on the video has over $4K in graphics cards alone, and is probably a $6-7K computer without the 3 TV's. With all that, it doesn't look better to me than last gen 3 screen games. (they should have chosen a different game IMO, I'm sure it does look way better when there's detail to display)

It's good that they're making them easier to set up, but it is still WAY more difficult than a console, which is plug and play. I still haven't gotten my PC to display properly on my TV without a cable across the room, and that's crappy.
I'm also disappointed that they tried to make the new consoles "media players" (crappy PCs). I wish they stuck with games and put it all into display features, but they didn't. I don't use the media features of my ps4 at all (except for Netflix, which my TV would do by itself if I set it up), they're a total waste.

Perhaps I'm stuck in a mid 90's mindset. That's the last time I built my own PC as a game rig. I had the full $250 thrustmaster setup, joystick and throttle with over 20 programmable buttons, and it was GREAT for descent and quake...but I recall being disappointed at how fast it was obsolete. Within 2 years I couldn't play newer games on it without stuttering....so I gave up on that. I can't afford to upgrade my memory and graphics card every 2 years, and motherboard and chip every 3.

I do recall a few games even on ps3 that could do the multiple display thing even at 1080i...I think motorstorm 1&2 (my favorite ps3 games) would do it, but you needed 3 ps3s to make it work. Today, you could probably do that for fairly cheap! What does a ps3 cost these days anyway? I must say, I didn't see anything that made 4K seem better. Motion blur looks the same at 1080 as 4K.

I'm not talking about building a "serious gaming rig". Any half decent gaming pic is 2-3 times more powerful than an xbone/ps4. 1080 is really pretty low end for modern PCs.

I'm talking about building a low end PC that's comparable to a console. There are plenty of articles detailing it on the web.

As for configuration, drivers, etc, this isn't the 90s any more. If you want to build a god machine, oc the hell out of it, then yeah, you need to put some serious effort in. But to build a simple machine, run windows and steam, and play at 1080p? Not really much work involved.

I built a pretty powerful machine last year (water cooled, over clocked, etc) and it took a lot of work. But I haven't really needed to do much since.

@ChaosEngine

Everything @newtboy said. I think you're exaggerating just a tad. You're not going to build a PC that runs newly released games at 1080p at 60fps and also includes a blu-ray drive , 500 GB HD, and wireless motion sensitive controller for under $400 US (current price of PS4 on US Amazon). Plus, you're almost certainly going to have to buy a 1080p monitor (since most people don't do their computing on their TV or keep their tower case in the living room), which will set you back $200 minimum even for a cheap one that's likely to ghost.

As far as games go, nearly EVERY major release will be on all platforms and in fact will likely come out on console first (GTA V). Sure, some kickstarter stuff like Pillars of Eternity won't be available but it works both ways--you won't get some awesome console exclusives on the PC (Mario Kart, Little Big Planet, etc.) either.

Plus as newtboy mentioned, you can rent and sell console games. Yeah, PC games drop to much lower price points as they get older (I usually pick up all the good stuff I missed at $3-5 during Steam sales) but reselling isn't an option for most stuff (yet). You can mod most PC games, though, so that's a plus for them.

Look, I play 90% of my games on my gaming PC. That's because I have the time and money to do so. I don't understand the attitude of looking down on people who don't have those luxuries or who don't want to spend the prerequisite time required pouring over tech forums, price comparing at hardware vendors websites like Newegg, and downloading proper drivers just to build a gaming PC on the cheap when they can just go to a store down the road and pick up something comparable with virtually no effort.

What? Where? I don't see even bare bones computers for <$350, how do you build a serious gaming rig for that?...or for less because you get a game and a controller for that with a console, that's another $80+ for a PC to be even equal at startup. Um, games cost the same for consoles as PC, and again, you can't rent PC games, so the cost to play NEW games is incredibly higher on PC....and steam is available on some consoles....so....I'm still in the 'console is cheaper to play' camp....for now.

You could easily build a PC that's better than a PS4 for the money. If you factor in the cost of the games over the lifetime of the machine, it becomes even cheaper.

And while you can't rent games, you have access to GOG, steam and hundreds of indie games. If you want to play the original Doom or X-wing, you can. Good luck playing any games that aren't from the latest generation on console... oh no, wait, you can probably get them on PC too.
And if all you want is a games machine, install steam, run big picture mode and leave the PC under the TV. Boom! Instant console but better.

What? Where can you buy a gaming rig that's better than a PS4 for under $350 with a game and a controller?
Also, you can't rent PC games like you can for consoles. I've played 25+ games last year thanks to gamefly. Purchased for PC I could have afforded <4 at the same price. That's the best reason I can think of for consoles over PC. Don't get me wrong, for pure quality, PC's have had it over consoles for quite a while, but consoles are pure game machines (well, kind of pure), they do 1080p these days (on some games), and they run on my TV without a cable running across the floor!

@SDGundamX yeah, consoles used to "just work", when they were actually dedicated games machines.

This console generation is just shit PCs. There's really no reason to buy a console anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they exist. They subsidise games that are better on the pc and console controllers are absolutely better for some games.

But now you can buy a PC for less than the cost of a new xbone/ps4 and run your games in full 1080p using the same controller. And there's no faffing about required.
Plus you get way more games than are available on console.

Fuck yeah, it's GPCGMR time!

"Suck it consoles!"

???

I never understood this "PC master race" BS.

Console software big releases like GTA 5 rake in probably about 10x the revenue that a similar release does on PC. That's because PC gaming is really for hobbyists--people who have the technical skill, time, and disposable income to tweak drivers, overclock processors and video cards, and get a 12k monitor setup working correctly.

Consoles meanwhile work right out of the box with a TV you probably already own. Plus these days you can get almost exactly the same selection of games on either PC or console (with a few "exclusives" on one or the other). So most people are clearly going to go the console route.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with console gaming. There's probably something wrong with you, though, if you somehow feel threatened enough by consoles to diss them.

I hate consoles...

...but a full Xbox 1 setup including 70" 1080p widescreen and a decent surround sound would cost about as much as the monitors.

Add in half the Titans, and you've got yourself a PS4 too. Plus most of the games ever made for both.

"suck it consoles"

Yeah, that wasn't really directed at you, but more at the whole "give us an objective review" cry that's been going around.

For the record, my two favourite gaming sites are bluesnews (that's how I found the sift in the first place) and rockpapershotgun, for different reasons obviously.

The reason I like blues and the issue I have with news in video format is time. I can read a days page of news on blues in well under a minute, spawning tabs of interest as I go.

Your video is 6:25 long.
First up is the BAFTA awards: it's a fairly dry list with no commentary on it. If I want that information, a link to http://awards.bafta.org/award/2015/games is a much more succinct way of presenting it.

Then some news about Hawken: cool! Hawken is awesome and I've been hoping to hear more about it.

Elder Scrolls: don't care.
Nintendo licensing agreement: don't care
Nintendo's next console: don't care

Steam refund policy change: Interesting.
Kojima to leave Konami: interesting.

The point is not what I care about or don't care about, that's going to be different for everyone. The point is I have to fast forward to the news I'm interested in and as presented, it's an inherently bad format for that.

Maybe instead of one long video have a series of shorter videos linked via annotations? Or even timecodes in the description. That way, we can jump to the stories we're interested in.

HTH

I would say I am a gamer, although mostly on consoles these days because I can't afford a good gaming computer, and I thought it was a great, informative video. My only suggestion, I could have used a little bit of your impressions of newly released games, I prefer more of a technical analysis than opinion. It was nice to get some straight facts rather than just opinion. Reminded me of blue's news, in video form....and that's a good thing.
Good luck @EMPIRE!