Could graphics cards be advertised?

[eton975]

(no offense meant to console gamers or people that have bought Alienware PCs)

So a little thought popped into my head a few days ago: Why don't card vendors like EVGA (for Nvidia) or XFX (for AMD) advertise their graphics cards? Then, sell them as outperforming the next-gen consoles at half the price, and having an easy installation.
EVGA would advertise the 750Ti, while XFX would advertise the R7 265. They would both come bundled with an EVGA or XFX power supply (so people wouldn't complain about the new card blowing up their computer when it was really a shitty PSU that caused it).

Here's my crappy idea for the ad (obviously, it would need to be tweaked to fit in a 30 second TV time slot):
_________________________________________________________________
Console gamer: Oh hey PC gamer, wanna play on my new (Xbox One/PS4) with me?

PC gamer: Sure, but come with me first. I'll show you something that'll blow your mind. I just upgraded my dad's PC!

Console gamer follows PC Gamer to the study
PC gamer starts up game at 1920x1080, ultra settings
Console gamer's jaw drops and he gasps at the quality of the graphics

Console gamer: How can you even get graphics like that? I thought you couldn't even see more than 30fps! I thought you couldn't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p! How much did you spend on that thing?

PC gamer: It's this thing called a 'graphics card'. It destroys your console in terms of graphics quality. It only cost me $200. They threw in a new power unit as part of the deal too!

Console gamer: Sounds too complicated for me to install. Damn, I guess I'll have to save up for an Alienware or something.

PC gamer: Nope, it's easy! I literally just unscrewed the old one, bolted in the new one, and installed some software from this website!

Console gamer: You know what? I'm convinced. I'm gonna sell my (Xbox One/PS4) tomorrow and get this instead!

Both play happily on the PC together

"Crush the next-gen consoles at half the price with the new (EVGA GTX 750Ti/XFX R7 265) graphics card. Order now and get a free (EVGA/XFX) 400W power supply."

"EVGA. Intelligent Innovation./XFX. Play hard."
_________________________________________________________________
Would this work? Would more cards be sold?

 

[Tweak155]

Lol wat?

 

[SimsReaper]

I do think that they may sell more cards, but not enough to make it worth the air time costs. They already advertise on internet pages, such as tech sites and what not, and get free advertising in the way of all the review sites. PC upgrades are one of those niche markets where the consumers are usually fairly well versed in their decisions, and hahaha, well, let's be honest, lots of us are loyal to brands regardless of the little issues. (I'm looking at you Teams Green and Red)

I think that if a card company was to begin tv advertising like this, you may spark some interest, but people would quickly discover that many of their older computers needed other upgrades instead of just the PSU and GFX. Or that all this doesn't work for their laptops. Haha, I get asked by friends at least once a month about how they can upgrade their 3 or 4 year old laptop.

Your target audience for the commercial you have in mind would be a younger generation, with some cash to spare, who don't already know lots about computers. Even if it got a few of them to look at the guts of their machine, lots of this same demographic is intimidated by the look of the hardware in their pc's. This alone may deter them, or they would ask for help from one of their friends like us

 

[eton975]

I do think that they may sell more cards, but not enough to make it worth the air time costs. They already advertise on internet pages, such as tech sites and what not, and get free advertising in the way of all the review sites. PC upgrades are one of those niche markets where the consumers are usually fairly well versed in their decisions, and hahaha, well, let's be honest, lots of us are loyal to brands regardless of the little issues. (I'm looking at you Teams Green and Red)

I think that if a card company was to begin tv advertising like this, you may spark some interest, but people would quickly discover that many of their older computers needed other upgrades instead of just the PSU and GFX. Or that all this doesn't work for their laptops. Haha, I get asked by friends at least once a month about how they can upgrade their 3 or 4 year old laptop.

Your target audience for the commercial you have in mind would be a younger generation, with some cash to spare, who don't already know lots about computers. Even if it got a few of them to look at the guts of their machine, lots of this same demographic is intimidated by the look of the hardware in their pc's. This alone may deter them, or they would ask for help from one of their friends like us

Since a lot of people would have things like Dell/HP pre-builts, do you think the very idea of messing around with the innards of their computers would scare them off? If there was just an easy way of presenting this...

My idea is that they would try to send the message to kids as well. There would be quite a few challenges here:

Getting people to understand how easy it really is (perhaps show an entire ad showing the whole process of installing the card). Make it look simple.

Perhaps getting parents over PC gaming in general? I have no idea if I'm right here, but I wouldn't be too surprised if some parents think all PC gamers do is grind for 12 hours a day on WoW or something? (no offense to WoW players) So there might be a need to show the local multiplayer capabilities of PC?

Showing parents how much more flexible the PC is in the long run. Dozens of distribution platforms, cheap games on sale, more powerful hardware and the PC can be used for far more tasks than a console!

Showing how a HTPC can almost completely replace a console for gaming in front of the couch (you can plug a PC into the TV!)

 

[tolis626]

Well, I'm happy my father always was a desktop guy through and through and he passed it down to me. Nowadays he doesn't game at all and for some reason he adopted the "gaming is for kids" line of thought. He is 53 years old, so he isn't really old (or young for that matter), and I'm trying to convince him to go back to gaming. He is more stubborn than I am.

While this may seem irrelevant, I'm trying to see things from another angle. If parents/ older people in general started seeing gaming for what it is, this whole situation might change. Among the people I know that game at least casually, most own a console or might sporadically game on a laptop or something. There are only two guys other than me who have a desktop and only one is over 40 years old, and he is the one with the dual GPUs, triple monitors etc. Out of curiosity, I once asked quite a few people why they bought a console instead of a desktop. The only answers I got were a) "I just want to play a game or two every now and then, I won't spend too much money on a gamig PC I don't need", with that meaning that they mostly think gaming PCs cost a small fortune (most think over 1500€) and b) "I don't game any more, gaming is for kids". People on answer b, like my father for example, have totally or partially dismissed gaming as something meant for kids and teens and have their consoles from when they were kids (or from their own kids, if they are older), while people on a don't even have in mind that you can buy a PROPER gaming PC for quite little money. Many also dismiss desktops as "useless" because I don't know and, quite frankly, they don't either. They were just told that laptops are the way to go and they don't even know why they prefer laptops. It's ok if someone needs the mobility, but most of them don't or would be better of with an ultrabook or something. A desktop is a desktop and isn't the same thing as a laptop, just bigger and immobile.

So if a tech company wanted to sell more, I believe these things should be looked upon. The anti-desktop marketing and hype has worked so far, so something needs to be done to show people that it's not like they've known so far. And I think that there should be some things done that make desktops simpler. Many people freak out when all the parts and cables are laid out in front of them.

The other issue that should be tackled is the "gaming desktops are for rich people" notion. We know it's not, but most don't. I would respect this opinion coming from someone who really doesn't have the money, but when I hear that and then see them messing with their iPad in front of their 50" TV that has a somewhat expensive 5.1 surround sound system attached to it, while their 500$/€ smartphone rests on the table next to them, I just want to slap them in the face with the back of my hand (Kind of like Archy from Rock'n'Rolla). Really, that gets on my nerves. I'm a 20 year old student and I've been saving money for quite a long time so that I can finally afford a proper high-end desktop. Why should most people be unable to do that? Seriously, beats me...

 

[Kenmitch]

I don't really feel like paying for advertising and the increased load on tech support by the gpu companies....I doubt I'm the only one who feels this way.

Maybe when the Steam box's are release you'll see the advertising you crave.

 

[SimsReaper]

If you are being honest, there aren't many defining needs for a desktop anymore. The only needs are for high end gaming, or for high end workstations with graphically intense applications (cad, programming, etc). 90% of people only require a laptop. And they are more efficient, and more practical. I agree with Kenmitch that you MAY see something with the new Steam Box's, but I doubt it.

 

[TrulyUncouth]

I think with the dawning of VR and the new consoles now would be the only time to do this. Being as an Oculus engineer said a GTX 770-class GPU is lowest he would suggest as a baseline we could see a huge surge in GPU sales for VR.

If we are gonna go this route why not use branding to send the message. Why wouldn't EVGA have a "VR" line of graphics cards or "Console-stompers" class that gives better performance than consoles. I think they could easily turn a profit on this but I still don't think they will do it since they are making bank doing their current business plans.

 

[NTMBK]

A GTX 750ti "crushes" the consoles? Ahaha, no. On Watch Dogs you have to turn it down to Medium to get acceptable performance. And that's with an unoptimized first-gen game- once developers get the hang of optimizing for the fixed console hardware, it's just going to get faster and faster.

 

[24601]

[redacted]

The sheer dumbing down of game mechanics from the post PC gaming era of 2001 and after along with it's massive commercial success should be evidence enough of the true demographics we are talking about.

I believe you have confused VC&G with P&N. We do not allow profanity laden attacks against large groups of people here.
-ViRGE

 

[eton975]

A GTX 750ti "crushes" the consoles? Ahaha, no. On Watch Dogs you have to turn it down to Medium to get acceptable performance. And that's with an unoptimized first-gen game- once developers get the hang of optimizing for the fixed console hardware, it's just going to get faster and faster.

From what I understand, the processor in the consoles is essentially a cut-down AMD A10 APU a low-power, 8-core, 1.7Ghz, Jaguar-based, netbook-grade APU. This definitely cannot compare to a good CPU + 750Ti unless I am mistaken.

Watch_Dogs is a very specific example. There have been many complaints about the terrible optimization ON PC.

 

[Rakehellion]

1. Most people don't build computers. They're happy playing on their GT 440s.
2. Casual consumers can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p quality, so
3. A GPU will make gaming better, but will it be $200 better? For most people, probably not.

This is a tech forum, but the average person doesn't know what a gigabyte is and doesn't care. Most people are scared to death of opening up their cases.

 

[toyota]

From what I understand, the processor in the consoles is essentially a cut-down AMD A10 APU. This definitely cannot compare to a good CPU + 750Ti unless I am mistaken.

Watch_Dogs is a very specific example. There have been many complaints about the terrible optimization ON PC.

you are very much mistaken. even without any console optimization, the gpu in the PS4 is faster than the 750 ti.

 

[HeXen]

You don't waste time advertising to the 99% of people that don't care nor want to mess with the guts of a computer let alone try to upgrade a graphics card not knowing what PSU they even have.
On prebuilt machines, profit margins are often a bit tight, it's best to just market directly to places where you know PC gamers frequent. Theres not shortage of Ibuypower or Cyberpower PC gaming rig adverts in magazines and websites.

Besides, why would anyone care to get console gamers over to PC anyway? Theres room for all of them and PC has plenty of games as it is.

 

[eton975]

you are very much mistaken. even without any console optimization, the gpu in the PS4 is faster than the 750 ti.

Well... I can only say this.

Feel free to point out any errors they made during testing.

By the way... Watch_Dogs runs at 1600x900 on the PS4, which means its GPU renders ~1.4 million pixels per frame. This is ~700k pixels less than 1920x1080 (2.07 million per frame). In most benchmarks, the 750Ti gets roughly 30fps at 1920x1080. So it should run at roughly 38fps at 1600x900. Better than the PS4.

 

[bystander36]

1. Most people don't build computers. They're happy playing on their GT 440s.
2. Casual consumers can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p quality, so
3. A GPU will make gaming better, but will it be $200 better? For most people, probably not.

This is a tech forum, but the average person doesn't know what a gigabyte is and doesn't care. Most people are scared to death of opening up their cases.

I really doubt most people can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, but they may not know why it looks better.

Those lines about high resolution, higher hz monitors, higher FPS and on and on, not being noticeable, usually come from people convincing themselves not to upgrade.

 

[cytg111]

...

I think you've got a point. While there is no market for it now, then how about creating one?
It would have to be a collaboration between vendors but i do not see why not. Could have an impact. (old shit system lagging its arse behind? rejuvinate with gtx-blala for ultimate mehmeh)
Point being : Create the market.

 

[eton975]

I think you've got a point. While there is no market for it now, then how about creating one?
It would have to be a collaboration between vendors but i do not see why not. Could have an impact. (old shit system lagging its arse behind? rejuvinate with gtx-blala for ultimate mehmeh)
Point being : Create the market.

How would you see the vendors collaborating? Do you mean all the NVidia vendors pushing NVidia cards, and all the AMD vendors pushing AMD cards?

 

[KingFatty]

Even if you create the market, what you'll see is a huge drop-off in interest when the user realizes:

they have to open their computer, bust out a screwdriver, and get their hands dirty/dusty

This breaks the computer and loses all their pictures and videos and in today's day and age nobody should be expected to disassemble their commodity electronic stuff to upgrade it. When was the last time you disassembled your TV to upgrade its tuner to get more channels? When was the last time you disassembled your washing machine to get more powerful agitator?

The point of my ridiculous examples above is that computers have made the switch, from old view unique thing to new view commodity junk. Before, the old view was that computers are hobbyist things where all owners are expected to embrace the hobby and dig in and upgrade stuff. The new view is different, they are just commodity boxes that make internet. Just like a phone or a tablet, they are simply another magic box that makes the internet appear, and nobody wants to mess around with that junk. In terms of the general public who would view advertisements, and not the niche hobbyist market that doesn't need advertisements because they are self-educated already.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Only way to advertise graphics cards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooLO2xeyJZA