Did you wish you can upgrade your RAM, CPU, and video card for your game consoles like computers?

froggyboy604

froggyboy604

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It would be cool if it was as easy to repair a game console as a computer like installing more RAM, a better video card, etc inside a console as technology becomes better, so players can have better graphics, sound, and game play experience without the need to wait many years for the next version of the console to come out.

The N64 had a Memory/RAM Expansion pack back in the mid to late 1990s which let players simply add more memory in their console easily without the need for too many tools.


It was a good idea, but it's too bad it never caught on these days with modern consoles like the 360, PS3, or Wii.
 
Good god no. Then the gaming industry would be in the same state as PC gaming. PC gamers have to constantly update video cards every couple of years, add new hardware, and so on, which is what makes it so expensive and unpractical to most people. With predefined limits on what a console or hardware could do, we get to exploit all of the power of the system for at least 5 to 6 years, and then upgrade. It's more cost-effective and practical and is what keeps the industry afloat (in my opinion)
 
KeenanTheSavage said:
Good god no. Then the gaming industry would be in the same state as PC gaming. PC gamers have to constantly update video cards every couple of years, add new hardware, and so on, which is what makes it so expensive and unpractical to most people. With predefined limits on what a console or hardware could do, we get to exploit all of the power of the system for at least 5 to 6 years, and then upgrade. It's more cost-effective and practical and is what keeps the industry afloat (in my opinion)
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The Game industry will still make games for the core system look at the Xbox 360 arcade. The 360 arcade does not have a hard drive, but you can still use memory cards to save your game. It does not have HD cables, but you can still use the Yellow, red, and white cables for hooking it up to a TV. It allows poorer gamers to play Xbox 360 games offline.

But, when they got the money, you can buy a hard drive, and HD video cables for the 360 arcade.

Also, the Memory Expansion pack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expansion_Pak for the Nintendo 64 made the Nintendo 64 run games like Donkey Kong 64 and Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask with improve graphics, speed, and game play with the extra 8MBs of RAM.

Not all PC games which are good requires a super fast computer. MineCraft runs good on a lot of computers according to http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Hardware_performance

 
I never did get what that N64 Expansion was for. but keen pretty much sum it up good.
 
Demon_Skeith said:
I never did get what that N64 Expansion was for. but keen pretty much sum it up good.
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The Nintendo 64 Expansion was used to increase the RAM from 4 MB (megabytes) to 8 MB of RAM/Memory. Game developers can take advantage of the increased memory in several ways, including making games that are more visually appealing.

The Expansion Pak to add a high resolution 640x480 display mode for games, while other games saw the benefit of a smoother frame rate.

Two games in the N64 library required the Expansion pack which were.

* Donkey Kong 64
* The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expansion_Pak

In summary, the N64 expansion pack made it easier for game developers to make better looking games by making graphics nicer and video frames run faster for the N64 without making the N64 slow because they had 50% increase in RAM.
 
froggyboy604 said:
The Game industry will still make games for the core system look at the Xbox 360 arcade. The 360 arcade does not have a hard drive, but you can still use memory cards to save your game. It does not have HD cables, but you can still use the Yellow, red, and white cables for hooking it up to a TV. It allows poorer gamers to play Xbox 360 games offline.

But, when they got the money, you can buy a hard drive, and HD video cables for the 360 arcade.

Also, the Memory Expansion pack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expansion_Pak for the Nintendo 64 made the Nintendo 64 run games like Donkey Kong 64 and Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask with improve graphics, speed, and game play with the extra 8MBs of RAM.

Not all PC games which are good requires a super fast computer. MineCraft runs good on a lot of computers according to http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Hardware_performance

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Yeah that's all fine and good, but having the ability to keep upgrading a console would keep developers using the most up-to-date technology, which is what PC game developers do. MineCraft is an outlier in this area because as you can see, it doesn't have up-to-date or "modern" graphics, when other games such as Half-Life, Team Fortress, and Crysis do. Minecraft was built to run on many systems, which is what has led to it's massive success. As far as what the "core system" is doesn't really matter. What you would have is a PC with a different UI, and a controller.

The expansion pack was a good add-on to the N64, but only because it was bundled with games such as Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and Perfect Dark, games that were extremely popular on the console. Also note that it was the only add-on for that console in that generation and came out half-way in the system's lifespan. You didn't have a console that was progressing in such a way that PC's do, with rapidly expanding RAM, HDD space, graphics, etc. I just think the way it is now is more cost-effective for people and developers alike.
 
KeenanTheSavage said:
Good god no. Then the gaming industry would be in the same state as PC gaming. PC gamers have to constantly update video cards every couple of years, add new hardware, and so on, which is what makes it so expensive and unpractical to most people. With predefined limits on what a console or hardware could do, we get to exploit all of the power of the system for at least 5 to 6 years, and then upgrade. It's more cost-effective and practical and is what keeps the industry afloat (in my opinion)
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I completely agree. Also, if you were able to just upgrade the parts, companies would lose a lot of business.
 
Maybe releasing add-ons/parts mid-way or near the end of the life cycle of a gaming console might make the console will help extend the life of the console for a few more years, so it can have more advance games which the current console technology cannot play because of old technology becoming a limitation.
 
No because that means people who can spend more money on their console will have a bigger advantage than people using stock console systems. :evil lol:
 
Ya i dont think adding this feature would have been a good idea. I like that we can upgrade our Harddrive to add more space to add movies and music but to add extra Ram would have been a bad idea.

Then, developers would only make games with more Ram in mind and it would not be good. And besides, this generation console have enough RAM anyways.
 
I would definitely not like to see upgradable consoles. I switched to console gaming purely because PC gaming was becoming far too expensive to upgrade and also if you look at it consoles usually have technology not publicly available. I mean PS3 has an i7 processor and those have only been publicly available for what like a year now? Upgrading the hard disk is as far as I will go which is what I did with my PS3. Replaced the 40Gb Hard disk with a 300Gb one but anything else is a big no from me. I bought the console so I could just pick up and play without any upgrades required.
 
Console making company will simply not allow their user to update console just for one reason. That reason is so the console company could make a better console and profit.
 
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