Yeah, clickbait articles and sites like this are just around to stoke fanboy wars. You'd think a place like Forbes would have better quality control and some sense of integrity. Then again journalism as a whole is kind of in the shitter :S
I tend to agree. Back when those comments were made consoles were very custom pieces of hardware. Nowadays they are using the same parts that are in PCs. There are no magical performance gains anymore, they are a known quantity from the start (except new features like VRS or raytracing). The notion that a console is twice as performant than a PC with the same theoretical specs is ridiculous today. Vulcan and even DX12 allow the same "coding to the metal" approach that gave consoles the boost.
Would just like to add my own take here.
It's true that there isn't a lot of "secret sauce" with consoles anymore. There isn't any tech or standards in consoles not present in PCs or won't be present in PCs sometime down the road. For example in the wild case PS5 actually uses some ReRAM, well that same ReRAM will eventually make its way to PCs too. All of the tech standards that consoles use or could potentially use, have compatibility with standardized x86 PC architectures or would easily be in the process of gaining that compatibility.
There are two big benefits to consoles, however, that PCs will likely never have (IMHO). The first is that consoles are closed systems and therefore they can standardize their components. Standardization of the components gives developers the ability to program against that specific configuration, because it will always remain the same in every instance of that system out there.
The second advantage is that consoles can, thanks to the standardization of components, use economies of scale, since they can secure those components in bulks of millions, which helps with costs of the BOM, which helps with the retail MSRP, which helps with market saturation (through sales of the system). This is something PCs can't do because even if a motherboard may dictate what components are compatible, that still doesn't narrow the standardization as strongly as consoles do, meaning developers can't specifically target a range of components or features (I don't mean assembly "coding to metal" or stuff like that, either). That is something consoles avoid.
The third advantage is that, thanks to market saturation, consoles give financial incentive to developers to fund AAA games with very large budgets, that way those same games can (usually) take fuller advantage of the standardized hardware in the consoles, which often sale in the tens of millions thanks to friendly MSRP prices gained through manageable BOMs helped by economies of scale of ordering a standardized set of components in massive bulks of millions. With so many of those same consoles of that same spec out in the wild, it gives such a game a greater chance of recouping development costs since they can sell the game to a pool of millions of people, all with a system capable of playing that game at the exact same specifications as any of those other systems. Larger potential audience, larger potential profit, bigger reason to take risks on bigger funding.
The last advantage is something just commonly not seen in AAA PC games these days. It used to be, back when gaming budgets were a lot smaller and the library of PC games and consoles were a lot more distinct and less crossover, but that isn't the case anymore. Nowadays the big PC AAA games tend to also be big AAA console games, and since PCs with specs comparable to any given console gen are way less common among the PC userbase, that gives the incentive to devs in prioritizing consoles, and "boosting" certain things like textures or framerates for PC versions. But rarely are those games actually made for PCs as the target platform (even if they're basically developed on PCs).
Ironically I would say the Xbox (and to a lesser extent the PS2) really kicked off the transition of longtime PC-first developers shifting to prioritizing consoles a lot more. However it's probably not best to say that PC AAA games don't exist anymore; they still do. Games like League of Legends, for example, I think would qualify as AAA given the sheer amount of content and features in them, and their popularity. But while something like LoL isn't available on consoles, its existence (in terms of funding, and getting off the ground) was likely thanks to other efforts with consoles in mind, and the proliferation of console gamers jumping into PC gaming. If those console gamers weren't console gamers, chances are they wouldn't of ended up going over to games like LoL, either, so that would still be an example of AAA PC gaming being somewhat dependent on the AAA console gaming scene creating those players who cross over.
Games like Star Citizen, too, I don't know if they'd be getting the attention they get these days if it weren't for existence of AAA console gaming. In terms of production values it clearly takes inspiration from prior AAA console games like Mass Effect, and is using famous actors and actresses as a draw/selling point, something modern AAA console games do a lot as well. There's even the possibility it could see a port to next-gen systems at some point (maybe this is already planned?), which could be part of the reason they've drawn in such a big stable of funding, as console ports would definitely help in recouping production costs.
So even though I used examples like LoL and Star Citizen and on the outset they appear to be very much independent AAA efforts aimed at the PC scene, there are still factors to their existence and success predicated on the audiences built up through AAA console gaming, particularly thanks to systems like OG Xbox and the 360, which tended to favor Western devs, a lot of whom had PC backgrounds (and would then take their experience on 6th/7th gen AAA game dev and apply it back to PC-orientated efforts if they did happen to make PC-exclusive titles). That should tell you how advantageous it has been, still is, and could potentially continue to be, to have consoles in gaming. They benefit PCs (and fwiw, PCs have benefited consoles as well, and will continue to).
Right because when I go to a gamestop or other electronics store they don't try and push me on putting down money for the new shiny whatever. If they show anything major at this point people in the stores/lines will be talking about the PS5. Everyone will be talking about the PS5 and the PS4 will look less attractive.
You'd be silly to think that Sony doesn't want to try and sell every last full priced PS4 console on the shelf that they can before they turn around and ask for another $400 to $600 for the PS5.
There is absolutely no way MS can close the gap at this point and their sales are what they are. Everything for MS is hedging on their next gen bets. They can stand to show more now and not worry about cannibalization of current sales as much as Sony does. Sony is still making money hand over fist and they're not just going to say "Well, I guess this is good enough - let's go ahead and drop the bombs and then start selling at high volume again 10 months from now"
Since when did moms and grandmoms primarily shop for games at
Gamestop?!? And regardless, no at this point if people are buying PS4s, they are budget-conscious shoppers. They are looking for a cheap gaming option, possibly for their kids, so the world could be swarming about next-gen systems but that wont' stop the people buying current-gen systems from buying them. We literally have historical precedents to prove what I'm talking about!
Of course to some extent MS has more liberty to talk about their next-gen plans more due to XBO under-performing compared to PS4 and even the Switch. But that doesn't change the fact that, again, if you look historically, they aren't really going "ahead of schedule" on mentioning next-gen plans versus what market leaders had actually done. I vividly remember news and info on PS2 coming out as soon as early '99, more than a YEAR before that system came out in Japan. You don't have to be the "market loser" in order to start talking about (and showing some concrete proof of) your next-gen system little over a year before launch, but that does probably influence such a decision in modern-day.
More than anything else, Sony mentioning PS5 information or doing a reveal now would not hurt PS4 sales; even the soccer moms are probably aware to some extent there might be a new Sony system launching this year. If not, they'll likely know once news picks up. But the fact remains, if they are the ones buying PS4s this late into its life cycle, they weren't in the running to buy a PS5 at launch anyway. MS understands that and it's part of the reason even if XBO had sold substantially more, we would probably still be getting about the same amount of XSX info (give or take a few things, like maybe the TGA reveal) that we're currently getting.
That's why I said earlier it feels like Sony's taking its hardcore/core fans for a ride and taking their patience and loyalty for granted (and to me personally, insulting our intelligence with that logo reveal at CES), and I stand by it.
