in the kitchen waiting for something to boil? In the living room keeping an eye on the kids? On the toile... no I won't say it.

Indeed. However its also cheaper, so I don't really consider it a underhand move by AMD.

Wow, questions flood to mind.

This stuff never works like the ads, but then did you ever get a burger that looked like the picture? Probably not. Doesn't mean it wasn't good.

I guess you could say that its designed that way because of the limited ram in the first place, but the same thing happens on PC in pretty much every sandbox I can think of. Just Cause 2 was particularly bad. GTAIV was better, but they all still do it.

Depends what you're looking for. If you're after a paradigm shifter, or a flawless game, or something heavyweight, this isn't it. It is however loads and loads of fun.

300mb isn't really a big deal, but my experience of playstation servers is pretty horrible. I downloaded Ico/SOTC the other day which was (I think) about 1700mb. That took a clean 40 minutes (on a 30mb fibre) + install time. So 300mb isn't going to kill you, but its probably going to be a pretty crumby first…

No its genuine, I couldn't remember whether the wii u pad / smart glass approach was something Sony were doing or if they just were going to use the vita.

So this isnt a supplement for actual gaming then. I forget, is that something planned for fortune?

Well the point was that a lull in the graphics arms race would future proof people's purchases now and perhaps make PC gaming more attractive. So people paying, say, £800 for a damn fine rig would have an extended period of having the best thing out there. However if we really are in for a race to 4K in about 3 years…

Hmm. Thats a shame then.

I played Zelda 64 on one of these

There's actually an interesting little pothole in the road for PC gaming that might slow things down even more in terms of the need to upgrade.

PC parts back the 360 launch still run AAA games, so the upgrading excuse is also not true.

Not sure I agree. Before 1996 to 1998, when 3d cards exploded onto the scene in a big way, PCs did indeed have a strong and varied gaming scene. To say it had a better or equal platform or fighter scene than, say, the SNES or Genesis in the mid 90s is wholly untrue. But it did have plenty of good gaming.

true, but then you have to use outlook :)

Interesting post. I often think about how close, or personal, a game's perspective is. Comparing it to literature, at one end of the scale you have Waiting for Godot - intensely close focus on the characters involved and almost no-one else save the main two blokes. At the other end you have War and Peace with its 100+…

Long time til pcs can run 4k in the home, realistically. Last I checked it takes at least 2 gtx titans to get good frame rates on a pc at 4k. current price around £1000 each, plus the CPU, ram, etc. It'll take at least 4 or 5 years for 4k gaming machines to fall under £1000 I'm afraid.

Its a very personal preference I think. While I don't get cramp as such, I definitely feel a little less control when the stick is low like on the playstation sticks. My thumbs feel more natural closer to my fingers, the lower the sticks the less fine-grained the control I feel.

It doesn't, but if you have a lagtastic iPad 3 like me, it makes the device feel a lot smoother.