Could Acer be moving into the games hardware market?
Acer is apparently looking to enter the games market. Yeah, we know - it surprised us too and it seems that FutureMark isn't the only PC-centric company looking to get
into the games market at the moment.
According to German games website
Gamestar though (via
Kotaku), Acer is looking not to develop its own computer games, but to develop new games
hardware.
The company's senior vice president, James T. Wong, told the site that the the closed, proprietary nature of consoles was the major inspiration for the decision to enter the console market.
Wong then revealed that Acer is planning to develop an open-standard, PC-based "
games machine."
There isn't much more to tell at the moment, so file this under unconfirmed for now and feel free to take the news with a healthy pinch of salt - but rest assured that we'll keep you filled in as we find out more.
Until then though, you'll have to discuss it
in the forums.
btw spelling mistake
Acer is looking not to develop it's own computer gamers.
Don't think it'll work. For a start, I can't see Microsoft being overly happy with whatever they do. If it's going to play PC games, it won't have the "insert disc and play" convenience of a proper console. If it's going to play dedicated Acer-sole games, I think they'd have a very hard time going up against the big three.
Problem number two: What will it be? a Pc? (insane amount of competition there) or a console? (then they would need their own games which would take a long time).
Porblem number three: what gamer would buy a Acer product?
I can see this working for about 2 minutes.
this is just plain WONG!
Bloody good point!
It is unusual for me to say this, but I ahve actually been very impressed with my Acer laptop (it is the one in the picture I think). It is 3.5 years old, and can still play CoD4. It has been used heavily, and has lots of scratches and dents, but it still works. I think it must be the only good computer Acer have ever produced but I don't care. It has served me well.
It is nice to see them trying something a bit different here. At least, I hope it will be a bit different
The problem I see is with the hardware. They have to make it low cost enough at the start but powerful enough to not be quickly outdated - that's a tall order and why consoles typically sell below cost when new. I suspect that won't be so easy to do with an "open-standard, PC-based" machine.
However, wouldn't that be a good idea for the PC Gaming Alliance? I mean there you have members from every aspect of the industry. If they all pulled together and made a standard for PC Gaming sold below cost surely it would benefit them in the long run? It would at least equalize PC with consoles a lot more.
Basically no one company can pull this off, least of all Acer imo.
The only reason Sony and Microsoft were able to enter the market (remember both Sony & MS entered what were, at their respective times, considered mature markets closed to newcomers) is that they were able to rely on their parent companies so soak up the massive losses involved in developing & selling a new console.
Acer doesn't have that luxury.
i do like the idea of them doing this, but theres such a hardcore fan base for the xbox, PS3 and wii that acer will no doubt fail badly, can anyone say 'dreamcast..' if i was them strip down a lappy use MXM graphics cards, so its upgradable, team it with a custom stripped down version of vista (DX10), so when a disc is inserted it uses alcohol 120% sort of thing to save the disc to the HDD, and can then be played at any time.
the reason i like the idea, and now actually build my own version of this idea is the fact that like many i imagin we have a main computer which is used for everything, mine is manly work and surfing the net, and gaming is becoming more and more console based again as the invention of such things like xbox live has moved alot of net based multiplayer games from PC to consoles.
i am not saying PC gaming is dead, and it will never die, tbh i perfer to invest my money in a PC that can do everything for donkeys years rather than a small plastic box that plays games, sits under your tv and then for no reason at all dies (red light of death) and becomes out of date 2 years down the line.