My Console Rant

According to the people at the escapist (old link, I know) the Xbox One has a 32bit architecture instead of a 64bit operating system. This is why console users can't have nice things.

I was thinking of writing an entire article on it but I decided to do it on consoles in general. I will look at the specs of an Xbox One and will compare them to my PC. (The PS4 is almost identical to the Xbox One)

My PC cost around $500 to build. I bought a pre-built Gateway for $300 with 8gb or RAM and an awful video card (I don't want to talk about it... bad memories). I then put in a $200 geforce graphics card with about 2000 megabytes of dedicated video RAM. That's $500. I also had a mouse and display lying around (Shouldn't everyone? It's not like this is the 90s or something.).

So we have a $500 PC with 8GB or RAM and 2GB of VRAM. Not bad.

Now let's look at an Xbox One.

The Xbox One has 8GB of GDDR3 RAM. That's a 3, not a 5. (The PS4 has GDDR5 but games will most likely be standardized for both of them.)

The Xbox One also has 8GB of GDDR3 VRAM. Impressive, except for the fact that that's also a 3, not a 5. What you are getting is essentially yesteryear's top of the line graphics card.

The PS4 has a custom build GPU that has 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM. That's a 5 by the way. Not a 3. From what we can tell from this the PS4 kicks the Xbox One's ass graphically. The PS4 is also 10% less efficient with it's regular RAM but this shouldn't affect anything.

They both have 8GB or regular RAM by the way so it's clear the PS4 is the clear winner against the Xbox One.

Now, onto the price:


Xbox One: $500
PS4: $450
My PC: $500 (plus hours of backbreaking labour)

This is not factoring in all of the savings you could take advantage of on Steam or PS plus. Also, to this end xbox live will end up biting you in the ass with it's $50-60 fee for online per year.

In conclusion I would rate the PS4 very highly, even though I have never owned a Sony console in my life.

The Xbox One is a piece of crap, and my PC stands slightly above the PS4 due to the fact it runs a x64 rather than a 32 bit one. This means my PC will run better than the PS4 by a sizable margin.

PC games are almost always cheaper though, so PC gaming will always be cheaper in the long run. I have spent close to $200 on games this past year (including Humble) and my library is around 200 in number. That's like 3 1/2 console games at release.

You be the judge.