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Lots of companies have tried and failed to bring ‘high-end’ consoles to market and all – whilst having varying degrees of success - have ultimately failed.
The reason being; consoles are mainstream and have a finite lifespan and as such, must be priced competitively enough to attract the full spectrum of consumers (casual gamers, hard-core gamers and parents). They are affordable and whilst a circa £400 launch price for a console is still relatively high even in today’s inflated market, it represents far better value than having to fork out upwards of a grand for a kick-ass system. If I was a parent looking to get my kid a gaming system, there’s no way I’d spend £1200 on a gaming PC when they could have the same experience for £400.
Gaming PC’s and by extension, high-end consoles such as the AW Steam Box are, not so much niche, but are certainly beyond the realms of the average consumer – particularly at launch. The big 3 know this so target their demographics wisely and release their hardware, usually at a loss, in order to capture a decent share. Furthermore, do consoles really pale in comparison with a high-end PC? I’m not sure they do. The PS4 Pro and XB1S are incredible pieces of kit that already offer their users a high-end experience. No one (not even PC gamers) would dispute that playing the likes of; Witcher 3, Horizon, AC Origins/Odyssey on a 50/60” 4k TV are in any way diminished experiences.
Obviously, there are differences between those games on console and a gaming PC but, it’s negligible to all but the most fastidious. The graphics will be better (draw distances and close up), the frame rates (particularly in 4k) will be better meaning more bells and whistles can be included such as much more activity onscreen etc., and the general running of the game should be (not always) a smoother experience. However, you are paying for this premium, often more than 3 times the amount of a console (or to put it another way, 3 generations of a console). Is it worth that outlay? For a high percentage of gamers, I don’t think it is and this is why high-end consoles don’t work.
Steam should have known this with their AW box. Releasing a console with average PC gaming specs (yes, they were average) costing almost a grand but, which was going up against the big hitting consoles at a third of the price required an angle and a bloody good one. The AW badge and the ability to play all PC games simply wasn’t enough. It had to do more. It had to offer scalability or at the very least, a potential upgrade path on certain components – anything to make it a better proposition than a comparable PC or a much more attractive and cheaper console. They didn’t (and couldn’t) and it failed miserably. There was no benefit to owning one other than having access to the Steam library under your TV, and for a thousand quid, it wasn’t enough of an enticement.
Now, that’s just the AW Alpha machine as an example but, there have been a few attempts and all have failed. There will no doubt be a few more over the coming years and they’ll all follow suit if they don’t learn lessons or continue to think they can take the consumers for mugs. If a manufacturer is going to release a high-end console it has to offer something different, something unique to justify its higher price - or it will fail.
Now, all that being said, the AW box is actually a pretty nifty piece of kit and Steam missed a trick when they released it. Like Sony, MS and Nintendo, they should have taken a hit on the hardware and marketed it at £400 because offering casual gamers full access to the Steam library was a huge incentive and could have made them a shed load of money via revenue streams generated from purchases. It remains the single biggest gaming distribution platform on the planet and they should have maximised on that potential towards casual gamers. I suspect they’ve missed the boat now and especially if Discord continues to gather pace and usurps them as the dominant platform. |
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Author: Tempest
26-11-2019 22:33:54