{"id":31701,"date":"2012-03-14T23:58:27","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T21:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=31701"},"modified":"2012-03-15T00:23:26","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T22:23:26","slug":"technology-we-all-wish-would-become-cheaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/hardware\/31701-technology-we-all-wish-would-become-cheaper","title":{"rendered":"Technology we all wish would become cheaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being at the forefront of technology always comes at a price; early adopters pay a financial premium for being at the front of the queue. However, many of the technologies discussed below have been around for some time and while prices have dropped, they\u2019re still too expensive for the mass market.<\/p>\n

If the following drop in price, I’m fairly sure you’ll be queueing up around the block like hipsters on iPad launch day.<\/p>\n

SSDs<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m of the opinion that low capacity SSD drives are approaching affordability; I even wrote an SSD buyers guide<\/a> about it.<\/p>\n

That said, a low capacity SSD (128GB or less) forces you to work a little harder making sure your OS drive is kept clean. Most people won’t be able to store their entire game collection on the SSD either, reducing the benefits of having more than one SSD in your system.<\/p>\n

Currently an entry-level budget, high-capacity SSD (240GB+) retails for around R4,100, while the ultra-high capacity drives (480GB+) start at R9,400. I\u2019d like to hazard a guess and say that if we saw SSD drive prices drop by half, a substantial amount of gamers would hop on the bandwagon.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to speculate on whether SSD prices are artificially inflated, or whether their costs are totally justified and margins are low for manufacturers. What I will say is that the technology is amazing, and every gamer should have one.<\/p>\n

\"OCZ<\/a>

OCZ Vertex 3 pro, one of the fastest around<\/p><\/div>\n

3D for gamers<\/h3>\n

3D gaming is an enjoyable experience to be sure, however the problem is the cost of the technology puts it out of reach of the majority of gamers.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s use Nvidia\u2019s 3D Vision technology as an example. The 3D vision kit alone costs around R1,900, and then you have to pair it with a 120Hz panel 3D monitor.<\/p>\n

A quick search shows that the cheaper 3D capable monitors retail locally for around R3,500, meaning you\u2019ll have to fork out over R5,000 for the full 3D experience. For that money you could buy a 32- or 40-inch FullHD TV, and with most gamers choosing size over everything else, 3D remains a niche technology.<\/p>\n

\"Nvidia<\/a>

Nvidia 3D vision is making this guy happier than he looks<\/p><\/div>\n

Blu-ray drives<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve got a PlayStation 3 for my Blu-ray playing needs, however I don\u2019t want to stop there. After shelling out for a Blu-ray movie, I\u2019d like to make a backup to my media server just in case the disc gets damaged. It\u2019s also more convenient for me to play ripped Blu-ray movies from my media server than it is to fire up the old PS3 every time I want to watch a movie.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019d like a Blu-ray drive in my PC. It doesn\u2019t need to be a writer; I\u2019ve got no interest in backing up info onto blu-ray discs just yet. The problem is that the cheapest blu-ray drives are well over R700. Dropping another R200 or so and I can see quite a few more people adopting the technology.<\/p>\n

\"Asus<\/a>

Asus blu-ray drive<\/p><\/div>\n

Bottom line<\/h3>\n

There are other technologies that I\u2019d like to see come down in price, however I don\u2019t think they have the same consumer demand as the three above. I can\u2019t see anyone not wanting a faster, more responsive system (SSD), a more immersive gaming experience (3D), or greater convenience (Blu-Ray).<\/p>\n

What say you? Are there any technological gadgets that you believe are long overdue for a price drop? Let us know in the comments below and on the MyGaming forum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once these technologies drop in price I\u2019m there like a bear<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":31704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2183,2726,2181,2141,21,2182,2101],"class_list":["post-31701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","tag-3d","tag-3d-gaming","tag-asus-nvidia","tag-blu-ray","tag-headline","tag-ocz","tag-ssd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33037,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31701\/revisions\/33037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}