In practically every sense your "home-made" PC consists of components that are finished consumer products. Putting it all together costs Dell about 2 bucks for assembly-line labour.

Yes, but those tasks get smaller in relation. Meanwhile Sony is greatly increasing the number background tasks the console needs to perform. Background video encoding an uploading? That shit don't come cheap (and yes, I am aware of the dedicated video encoders).

Up until the 360/PS3 that wasn't the case though. With this is looks like you're going to get plainly worse deal.

Actually, the RAM limit on 32-bit x86 is just a Windows limitation. Linux supports large amounts of RAM on a 32-bit architecture.

Still much weaker, but maybe less of a problem. The CPU and RAM demands of game logic and environments scale linearly, whereas textures scale quadratically. Basically a huge chunk of a modern games RAM requirements are due to high resolution textures. It might turn out that you can make the same games on WiiU but just…

You kinda destroyed your point by omitting the Wii specs: 88 MB of RAM and one PPC core @ 729MHz.

1) 99% of people in general want high-quality visuals and simple mechanics, and this includes PC gamers. Some really complex hardcore stuff exists on PC but makes up a minuscule amount of the market (or is available for free). The successful PC RPGs are successful *because* of their simplicity, not in spite of it.

x86 made sense for Mac because they're a real commodity, and they bring out a new range of Macs every year.

Kotaku integration, now that would be kinda cool. Not to keen on using Facebook for gaming purposes.

Don't worry. The PS4 will let me watch you play a game without any need for human interaction ;-)

I was hoping it would be more about the hardware. Fell asleep watching all that filler with developers talking about their unfinished games, lol.

Sure it does. Look at the Wii. They built their whole marketing strategy around the design. The PS3 design was conservative, and that's also how their machine fit into the market.

What I want to know is when will the PS3 become affordable? Traditionally you could jump in near the end of a console's life cycle and catch up on great games without having to pay much. Right now though I can get a PS3 at the same price the PS2 launched. Whoopty-fuckin-doo.

It documents history. If it weren't for collectors we probably wouldn't know half the things we do about the history of the world.

Yeah, I really loved that game too. If I recall correctly the gun upgrade system was fairly innovative at the time, though I don't really know a lot about shooters. Feel free to correct me if you like.

Art isn't about staring at paintings. It's about reading books, reviews, going to exhibitions and sales, trying to find bargains.

Fire Emblem does it kinda right: You can restart the mission and perfect your strategy, all it takes is a bit of time getting to the last point (made easier with fast forward).

Fire Emblem saves after every chapter, and they tend to last between 30 minutes and, say two hours. Restarting it you can usually zip through in about half the time. The problem is it's usually characters you've been training for a while and have weak defense but some kind of tactical advantage, like a flying mount or…

Games are about rewards and punishment. Rewards are in the form of game progress, and punishment comes in the form of having to restart. It effectively costs you your time and patience.

Haven't played anything since the "original" Fire Emblem on GBA, but this was exactly how it worked. If you tried to reset the game after someone died your game state would open up with the character being approached and killed. Even the randomness elements were already determined by the time you could reset.