FEBRUARY 2019 PCWorld 95Box malarkey too
seriously. I remember
the Ouya, and I
remember Steam
Machines. Fool me
once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, and
every device that
threatens to disrupt
the console market
from then on is met
with considerable
side-eye. And no, I
don’t think the Atari
Box is ever coming
out either, thanks
for asking.
PEERING
THROUGH
THE FOG
But I am interested in
what the Mad Box
tells us about the
console market circa
2021 or 2022. We’ve been hearing rumors
about new consoles for a while now and
maybe it’s time to talk about what that means.
Bear in mind this is all speculation on my part.
Generational shifts are an exciting time.
Go play a few games from 2012, then some
from 2014. It’s not just that the Xbox One
released, it’s that the Xbox 360 died. When
the bottom of the performance curve shifted
toward our current-gen consoles, everything
improved—including games on the PC.
It’ll happen again this time as well. PC
hardware’s improved a lot since 2013, and
will improve even more before next-gen
consoles release in (presumably) late 2020.
The quad-core processor’s finally been
replaced, with six- and eight-core CPUs
becoming more standard. And 8GB of RAMFar Cry 5 was a mediocre game, but these graphics would’ve been
unthinkable in 2012.