The latest games consoles are Kong-sized compared to those from only a few generations ago.
Whereas older consoles tended to use more bespoke components, modern consoles do not.
At the core, both the PS5 and Series X use custom AMDsystem-on-a-chip components.
King Kong(1933) / RKO Radio Pictures
One point of difference is the lack of a separate GPU by way of a removable graphics card.
Instead, the PS5 and Series X combine GPU and CPU on the same circuit board.
Both use GDDR6 RAM and NVMe solid-state drives, like you’d find in a modern PC.
Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek
But they’re still sizeable.
Even the form factor of the Series X mirrors some smaller PC builds, like theCorsair One.
And cases like theNZXT H1let you get that Series X rectangular tower look in a DIY build.
Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek
Modern Consoles Have Modern Cooling
The more power a component consumes, the more heat it produces.
Both the components and the power supply kick out heat, and this heat needs to be dealt with.
Both Microsoft and Sony have made missteps in the past with sub-par cooling.
In older machines like the Xbox 360 and the launch model PlayStation 4, heat was a serious problem.
At best, heat causes undesirable jet-engine-like noises.
At worst, you end up with a situation where the heat causes components to fail.
The PS5 is full of copper heat pipes that move heat away from toasty components.
The PS5’s processor also makes contact with its cooler using a thin layer of liquid metal.
This is one of the most efficient conductors of heat, commonly used in high-end PC builds and components.
But it’s hard to imagine a future where consoles push the boundaries of visual fidelityandget smaller.
A quick look at the PC market suggests that many components are only getting bigger and thirstier.
NVIDIA’sRTX 4090 is a comically large GPUthat’s as tall as an Xbox Series X.
In time, components shrink.
We’re a world away from the svelte-looking PS2 Slim revision of 2000.
Unlike PCs, consoles cannot be meaningfully upgraded to improve performance as they age.
Using cutting-edge components that have yet to adapt with smaller manufacturing processes means that launch consoles are big.
There are outliers, of course.
Nintendo marches to the beat of its own drum, and has done since the GameCube era.
But if those consoles aren’t small enough, there’s still the potential end of home consoles altogether.
Could Cloud Gaming Spell the End of Consoles?
For some, the future of consoles is very limited indeed.
Cloud gaming is something that pretty much every console manufacturer has experimented with to some degree.
