Konami's new cheese grater gaming PC specs are getting shredded online

Konami may be best known for making games here in the west, but over in Japan they also have a long history of making arcade hardware and pachinko machines for the amusement sector. Now, they're branching out into gaming PCs as well thanks to their new line of Arespear rigs, which were unveiled earlier this week. The name is meant to be a portmanteau of Ares, the god of war, and the word spear, but personally I think they've got more of a cheese grater or electric razer vibe going on rather than something sharp and pointy. Just look at those rounded corners!

Alas, Konami's Arespear PCs haven't been going down well in Japan, as people have not only been making fun of the name, but also their very overpriced set of specs. Over £2400 / $3200 for an RTX 2070 Super and 9th Gen Core i7 PC, anyone?

Now, I love weird-looking gaming hardware as much as the next person, and there's a part of me that's actually quite drawn to the ludicrous number of holes that have been punched into the front of each of Konami's Arespear PCs. It's probably the same bit of my brain that likes Glorious' very holey Model O gaming mouse, even though I know that that many holes on the front of PC case would probably be an absolute nightmare to keep clean and will almost certainly get clogged up with dust and cat hair the moment I stick it under my desk.

But even I've got to admit that the specs of Konami's Arespear gaming PCs are not what you'd expect given their respective prices. There are three Arespear PCs in total, and thanks to some nifty translation work from Kotaku, it's not surprising why the internet is up in arms about them.

Arespear C700+ specs (338,800 Yen inc. tax / £2479 / $3223)
CPU: Intel Core i7-9700
RAM: 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4 2666MHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD, 1TB HDD
Extras: Water-cooled CPU, high quality sound ability, PC case lighting, PC case window panel, Windows 10 64-bit OS

Arespear C700 specs (316,800 Yen inc. tax / £2315 / $3014)
CPU: Intel Core i7-9700
RAM: 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4 2666MHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD, 1TB HDD
Extras: Water-cooled CPU, high quality sound ability, Windows 10 64-bit OS

Arespear C300 specs (184,800 Yen inc. tax / £1350 / $1758)
CPU: Intel Core i5-9400F
RAM: 8GB (1x 8GB) DDR4 2666MHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650
Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD
Extras: High quality sound ability, Windows 10 64-bit OS

For starters, even if we ignore their ludicrously high prices, I'd expect at least one of Intel's new 10th Gen Comet Lake CPUs inside these PCs, and probably some faster RAM, too. 2666MHz is perfectly fine in the grand scheme of things, but it's arguably a bit pedestrian for high-end gaming PCs like this, and it only adds to the feeling that this is a slightly outdated set of components.

It's got good storage, though, and Nvidia's RTX 2070 Super graphics card is a decent choice as well if you ignore how much they cost. After all, the RTX 2070 Super is still my top graphics card recommendation for those after something that can do 60fps on max settings at 2560x1440 resolutions these days, and it would be a fine choice for any gaming PC you buy today, pre-built or otherwise.

But good gravy, when Konami expects you to lay down the equivalent of £2300 / £2500 (or $3000 / $3200 for folks in the US), I'd probably expect at least an RTX 2080 Super for that kind of price, especially considering the age of the processor. Heck, even the base GTX 1650 spec feels like a big slap in the face, as even my £1000 RPS Rig build (which is really only about £650 if you take out the monitor and included peripherals) offers a better choice of graphics card than Nvidia's piddly GTX 1650, which, let's not forget, is only a teensy bit more powerful than its older GTX 1050 Ti.

So yes, I can understand the ire towards Konami's poor old Arespear rigs, although I'm sure the internet would still have ridiculed them anyway given their holey impractical chassis and the fact that you only need to swap two letters round to make it say 'Arsepear'. Maybe next time, Konami.