Gadgetory

this year at CES Razer is controlling off their new keyboard mouse combo designed for the Xbox one and back when keyboard and mouse support was first announced for the Xbox and now again with the Razer turret being shown off there's this title that I've been seeing going around all a lot of different channels this is just this concept of the Xbox one is now basically a PC and I get it I get the idea it's a very clickable title that makes a lot of sense because yeah we're throwing off how keyboard and mouse something that's always been associated with PC specifically is making its way to the Xbox and I think it's a good strong title but at the same time just seeing that sentence my brain has this immediate reaction of just going now obviously there can be a bit of a semantics debate here because yeah in a certain sense home consoles are just gaming PC's that run a very specific OS that plays specific games and apps but I think there's a very important fundamental difference between console and PC gaming and it goes beyond the simple concept of oh one uses a controller and one primarily uses keyboard and mouse I mean if that was the only literal difference between the two gaming pcs would have replaced consoles years ago because they can use both controller and keyboard the real key difference between these is the intent behind the products how they're marketed and what kind of audience they're designed for because there is a big difference between how someone wants to approach console gaming and how someone want to build or buy a pre-built gaming PC console gaming is and has always been about just simplicity and something that is very straightforward and works you are buying a product for a set price you know what games are designed to work on the thing and assumedly all those games will run fine sometimes you might have to wait for a patch and sometimes that's still not enough but that's exceptions and the hold another debate but the point is you're just able to buy a product and it does what you want it to do and it gives you a simple way to interact with it and have the kind of experience you want with PC gaming you're dealing with something that is much more versatile as it's designed to do a whole lot of different things and yeah if you build an expensive nice gaming PC you're going to achieve a gaming experience that is yeah prettier and much more intense than what you can get currently on consoles but it requires more investment more knowledge and yeah some people might think well it's really not that much harder or more difficult but that's not the point it's still an just step consul buy it it works PC I gotta start doing a lot more thinking now and it be clear this is not any kind of debate of Oh console gaming is better because simple or PC gaming is better cuz frame rates and draw distance whatever no we're not having that debate right now that is not what I'm talking about the important thing here is that these are two distinctly different audiences and this is something that Microsoft is very acutely aware of and they've even said as much in the past they've talked about how when they change their design goals with the Xbox and how they want to approach releasing games on it it's no longer a matter of oh you want to buy an Xbox one and not a PC it's oh you like Xbox or console more than you like pcs cool we're gonna make our games available on both these platforms because these are two different kinds of gamers today we announce our biggest lineup of games for Xbox one in Windows 10 along with the Xbox play anywhere program that enables you to buy a game once and play it on Xbox one and Windows 10 and I think that philosophy the Xbox started demonstrating a couple of years back is really influencing the direction that that company is really going with how they approach gaming in general at Xbox we want to deliver a world where you have more freedom and choice to play the games you want with the people you want on the devices you want I've ranted before about the concept of where Microsoft is taking Xbox that eventually the focus on hardware is going to fall off and instead they focus on the idea of Xbox as a service delivering gameplay through either stream boxes or actual home consoles or even the option of playing on PC and I I think something I haven't properly emphasized though is that the philosophy behind that is that people should be able to play games however they want wherever they want that's it I think that's direction Xbox really wants to focus on where you can play with what kind of controller you want to use whether that's a regular controller or a racing wheel a fightstick keyboard and mouse whatever it's going to work across all different products do you want to play on the go play something on your phone streaming to it do you want to have just a stream box that gives you an easy way to play a game by that do you want an actual home console that's running it there cool pay more by that you want to play on PC where you can adjust settings cool play on there by that I think we're hitting a point in gaming history where things are gonna have a very big change I think that change is gonna happen sooner than people realize I think we're all very used to this concept of oh yeah there's home consoles and they come out every six years and if you want to buy the newest cool games you have to buy that or oh you plan PC well just keep upgrading parts over time make sure you can get the right resolution or frame rate you want I think all that is going to stop mattering really soon there's a lot of companies already experimenting with these concepts to being able to just stream games through whatever kind of product you want there's gonna be this focus eventually where you're just playing games it doesn't matter what it's on or what form there's just going to be a way to play and experience the content and honestly I'm pretty excited for it because I'm getting really tired of console wars