In separate interviews at E3, rivals Nvidia and AMD touted the power of PC gaming, going so far as to refer to both the Playstation 4 and Xbox One as 'downgrades' in comparison.
This is a very interesting position for AMD to take in particular, since they're contracted to make processors for all three major console developers for their next generation consoles. AMD collaborated with Renesas and IBM to make the Wii U's Espresso microprocessor, and directly supplies its own Jaguar APUs to Sony and Microsoft.
In stark contrast, Nvidia is dependent on the success of PCs, as well as the popularity of its Tegra SOCs in Android devices for their business. Nvidia unveiled its own gaming platform, the Nvidia Shield, last April. Although we remain skeptical, Nvidia apparently intends to use the Shield to make it a player in the console wars. Both companies still have making processors for PCs as their primary business.
As we have covered before, AMD is not shy about demonstrating the capabilities of their latest technologies. At E3 they pointed out that existing PCs have the capability to connect to 4K televisions and play 4K games now. Likewise, Nvidia boasts that next generation consoles will not be able to bridge the gap to PC performance, unlike the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Sony and Microsoft have both claimed that their consoles will be capable of 4K video playback, but not necessarily 4K gameplay. 4K itself only recently finished establishing standards and created a consortium, and is too cost prohibitive to see wide adoption as of yet.
Both console companies have also played up the benefits of cloud gaming to augment and supersede its listed technical capabilities. Microsoft in particular boasted that cloud computing will enable them to keep upgrading the Xbox One.
We can only speculate on how either 4K or the cloud will shape gaming in this coming generation, but for now, watch this demo for AMD's Jaguar APU, which will be in use in the XBox One, PS4 and Kabini APU compatible PCs.
The Playstation 4 will be coming out Holiday 2013, while the Xbox One has a more specific date at November 2013.
