PC vs Consoles Classic Grudge Match

[Sushi_b]

Well, it's been a while and with some new members and such this could get interesting.

Which platform of gaming do you prefer and why?

I myself have been a large console gaming fan for a long time. That's not to say I dislike all PC games and such I just don't prefer to play PC games as a whole. There are some really great games on PC.

I've always found that sitting at my computer feels like I should be working and not playing games. Mentally I just can't get into it as I do sitting on a comfortable couch and focusing on a TV screen.

There is always the price argument, the accessibility argument and the freedom argument to consider.

What's your pick?

[Tenacious P]

As far as multiplayer goes, I prefer consoles. 4 friends in the room with you beats 400 strangers on the computer screen.

[AngelofSorrow]

PC, easily.
Playing with a keyboard and mouse is much more responsive and comfortable for me. Though I admit, there are some games I'd rather play on console instead.

[Polygon]

It depends on the game. I really will only FPS and RTS on the computer and I generally will only play racing games on the consoles. Any other genre I don't mind playing on either.

[Phakiel]

Console. I like the pc for Strategy titles but I am a console gamer all around.

[Poofy]

Well, it's been a while and with some new members and such this could get interesting.

Which platform of gaming do you prefer and why?

I myself have been a large console gaming fan for a long time. That's not to say I dislike all PC games and such I just don't prefer to play PC games as a whole. There are some really great games on PC.

I've always found that sitting at my computer feels like I should be working and not playing games. Mentally I just can't get into it as I do sitting on a comfortable couch and focusing on a TV screen.

There is always the price argument, the accessibility argument and the freedom argument to consider.

What's your pick?
I have my gaming PC hooked up to my 32" LCD TV. The resolution is slightly smaller than what it would be hooked up to my WS monitor (1366 x 768 as opposed to 1680x1050), but graphically speaking, it's still better looking than what any console is capable of, especially if you through in anti-aliasing. All that eludes the point though, that PC gaming can be just as comfortable as console gaming if you set it up properly.

As for accessibility, yes there's no doubt that console systems are far more user friendly than PCs, but I hardly feel that should be a pro for consoles, as it simply says more about the user base than anything else.

The price argument is a little harder to counter, especially with consoles now being as cheap as they are. For a PC to match that graphical capabilities of a $400 PS3, it would require hardware at least twice as expensive. The thing to remember though is that PC games are also generally much cheaper than console games, so depending on how many games you wish to acquire for each platform, the price argument quickly shrinks in relevance.


Despite all that I just said in the defense of the PC, I agree with what has already been posted here regarding both platforms: It's all about the games. If you're an FPS/Strategy whore, consoles simply cannot compete with the prowess of the PC. Likewise, console games dominate the Racing/Fighting genre for good reason.

[Cyrus the virus]

I can count the number of PC games I've loved on one hand.

[Abominari]

And on how many hands can you count the PC games you've played?

[Nickoten]

PC is not just a gaming platform, so this comparison is rather unfair. Plus, with enough effort you can more or less get a PC to do anything a console can short of playing console games that are not yet ported/emulated.

[Priest4hire]

Let's see. Certainly the PC has the ultimate in backwards compatibility and thus by far the largest total game library. It is also the bastion of independent gaming and although consoles have made some inroads they still can't match the PC in this area. Add in modding and the PC stands as a strong contender for sure. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that PC gaming is inherently better than console gaming I do think the PC could beat out any single console in terms of game depth and breadth.

[Poofy]

I feel the biggest arguments against the PC world is the lack of a unified community. On top of retail stores, you have services like Direct Download, EA Downloader, individual in-game/website downloads, Steam and more, and each one has it's own set of pros and cons. Consoles on the other hand are quite exclusive when it comes to providing software services: 360 has Live, Wii has WiiShop, and PS3 has PSN. Some may actually see this as a pro in favor for PC gaming since it has way more options to handle software, but there's no denying that the console platforms are definitely more unified in their endeavors, if not because of the very nature of the platforms.

[Abominari]

Yeah, I definitely see that as a pro for PC gaming, rather than for consoles.

[Poofy]

I only use Steam anyways, since they're the only digital distribution service for the PC that seems to have it's shit together. I've never tried Direct Download but EA Downloader (Or whatever they changed their name to..) has been a huge pain in the ass for me in the past.

[Cyrus the virus]

And on how many hands can you count the PC games you've played?

About five. I think that's enough, really.

The ones I've loved are limited to one of the Unreal Tournaments, Carmageddon and Jedi Academy II. I like Thief a lot but wouldn't say I loved it.

So I compared that to the dozens of console games I hold dear.

Of course, I'd probably like more PC games if they were available for rent.

edit: Forgot the original Hitman.

[DrunkSwashbuckler]

The games argument falls short because it's subjective, so I'll just stick with the measurables, and what goes without saying is that XBox Live is, by far, the best Console online experience, yet it is comparable to PC gaming circa 1998. The Wii is equivocal to the old LAN days where you had to know everyone's IP address in order to play.

[Devil King]

I can count the number of PC games I've loved on one hand.

Ditto.

Console gaming for me.

[Jarrid]

I have never been big on playing PC games. There are many out there that I would love to play, but I just have never been able to keep up with the system requirements. I struggled through FFXI and WoW on low settings. If I manage to get a nice internet connection out here for this PC I am using, I will probably upgrade the graphics and sound card so I can start playing a few. My connection is another reason why I have not really been big on buying a new console. I just feel like I need a nice connection to enjoy a new console or a PC game.

[moogle]

I'm a console guy pretty much exclusively. My computer can't handle too much post-Quake III anyway. I just find the majority of PC games boring, and my favorite ever would have to be the indie game Cave Story, which doesn't play like your traditional PC game. I just prefer the action/adventure, platform, RPG, and general variety I find on consoles. Maybe I'm not "hardcore" enough; I don't care.

[Nickoten]

I'd argue that the majority of games on the indie scene "don't play like your traditional PC game." People just see the big budget FPSs, RTSs, and MMORPGs as what the PC has to offer, but there's in fact a huge variety if you look beneath the surface. Cave Story is a testament to that.

I recommend giving Noitu Love 2 a chance if you want to see how the PC does action platformers. In fact it was even a major player in the fighting scene when Capcom left, with doujin fighters like Melty Blood starting out on the PC and other games finding better online play through services like GGPO than on the consoles. Speaking of GGPO, what do you think Capcom is using as a reference for the online components of the new Street Fighter games?

[The Varsh]

Aside from a slight stint with WoW, The Varsh has been a hardcore consoler for years. PCs are cool, but The Varsh's sucks and he doesn't want to spend the money to make it/get a top of the line gaming computer.

[Priest4hire]

Check out this blog (http://adrianwerner.wordpress.com) to see a truly huge list of worthy PC games already available and promising titles due to come out this year and the next.

[Sushi_b]

I have my gaming PC hooked up to my 32" LCD TV. The resolution is slightly smaller than what it would be hooked up to my WS monitor (1366 x 768 as opposed to 1680x1050), but graphically speaking, it's still better looking than what any console is capable of, especially if you through in anti-aliasing. All that eludes the point though, that PC gaming can be just as comfortable as console gaming if you set it up properly.
I suppose that's fine and all but your still going to need a table or some sort of support in order to use your keyboard and mouse effectively and that's not very comfortable to me. If you are using a controller for your PC, then it's basically playing a console.


As for accessibility, yes there's no doubt that console systems are far more user friendly than PCs, but I hardly feel that should be a pro for consoles, as it simply says more about the user base than anything else.


How so? I don't really understand what you mean that it says so much about the user base of consoles.

Seems like PCs could be argued as being more user friendly in that people don't even have to get up from their seat in order to get a new game installed to their PC. That's a lot easier then going out to the store to purchase a disk (which of course can be done for PC as well).



Nick, I think that a fair number of console games get overlooked as well. They aren't from the indie scene, but how many games can we all think of that didn't get the press and glory that they richly deserved for either side. Not arguing against your point, just adding to it a little.

[Nickoten]

True, but in the case of consoles we already know they offer a lot of variety. It's the PC that's at question here, hence why I brought up that point.

[Less Than Liz]

I find myself easily distracted when it comes to console games (though lately that hasn't been a problem.) On the other hand, no matter what I do I always seem to end up needing to do something to my computer in order to play a game. Yes, I read the back of the box.

User friendliness is a plus the same way easier set up of consoles over the years is a plus. I don't want to spend buttloads of my time setting up my "play area" and everything in it. I just want to play my games ASAP. Having to learn computer mumbo jumbo is an annoyance, and only worth it if you are hardcore enough to invest that much time and money on it. That said, if I did have the time and money, I would be more willing to invest in the most ballin' computer than the most ballin' console.

I should mention that I often have bad luck with computers: shaky wireless connections, a screen that blows out, etc etc. I've had considerably less trouble getting my console to work fully than the computers I've had to use. The aforementioned accessibility eliminates that frustration and I don't find myself thinkin "Ok, NOW everything is set and I can finally play my -- DOH WHAT DO YOU MEAN I NEED TO GET A NEW VIDEO CARD/INSTALL DIRECTX v.900000000000/ADJUST MY MONITOR SETTINGS/REGISTER ONLINE/CHECK MY FIREWALL SETTINGS????"

[Indigo]

Consoles seeing as the only thing I play on at the moment is NDS.

my ps2 is broken and my wii... it's gonna stay home, I don't want anything to happen to it.

I'm gonna start paying some computer games just for funzies since i have my own computer now.

[Nickoten]

I think it bears mentioning that consoles these days aren't even guaranteed to work with everything. You've got 360s that have incomplete backwards compatibility and the ever looming threat of RRODs, and then you've got PS3s with a variety of different models with varying degrees of success with backwards compatibility. All work with PSX games, some work with PS2 games, some don't, and amongst the ones that do apparently some are software based and some are hardware. Slightly less of a problem with the Wii, but then that's pretty much built to deliver only the most basic options.

And considering these listed problems are the main things holding me back (Other than money) from getting one of the "big two," I'd say that it's just as much of a strike against consoles as it is against PCs these days.

[Less Than Liz]

When I buy a PS3 game, I know it will work on my PS3 as soon as I turn it on.

[Poofy]

It's not the PC's fault that you're not sure what it's system specs are. If you know everything about your PC (And you should, it's your personal computer), then knowing what games will work on it is as easy as reading the system requirements on the back of every game case. Much like like when I buy a PS3 game, when I buy a game for my PC, I know it'll work (Unless the game prematurely went Gold with a volley of bugs and glitches and went retail in that condition, rendering it unplayable until the developers released an emergency patch that would act to stabilize the game). :)
I suppose that's fine and all but your still going to need a table or some sort of support in order to use your keyboard and mouse effectively and that's not very comfortable to me. If you are using a controller for your PC, then it's basically playing a console.


How so? I don't really understand what you mean that it says so much about the user base of consoles.

I'm perfectly fine with an ergomatic keyboard on my lap with a mouse by my side while I'm on the couch but I won't hold it against anyone if they're not. There are lots of alternative setups though if you're willing to invest the time and money to look into them.


I kinda worded what I said regarding user-friendliness wrong. What I meant is it's rather ignorant to assume what is friendly to the user. An example would be the fact that I love to have immediate access to all the files I install on my hard drive (PC and console), and almost always customize my games to suit my personal tastes (Installing mods, custom skins, fiddling with the graphics, etc...), so in that regard the PC is definitely more friendly and accessable to me (The user) than any console. On the flip side, Liz clearly stated she doesn't really give 2 shits about any of that, nor can I fault her for that. It's all depends on what the user wants, and to generalize the concept of user-friendliness in the manner that most people do is a mistake.

When most people say user-friendly, they usually mean Interface Simplicity.

[Nickoten]

When I buy a PS3 game, I know it will work on my PS3 as soon as I turn it on.

True, but PS3 games are not all that the PS3 is boasted of being able to play. And you may also have to check for hard drive space before you turn on a lot of PS3 games, too. Otherwise you'd have to go through the process of freeing up space to install that new game. Sounds mighty familiar, actually.

[Cyrus the virus]

It's not the PC's fault that you're not sure what it's system specs are. If you know everything about your PC (And you should, it's your personal computer), then knowing what games will work on it is as easy as reading the system requirements on the back of every game case. Much like like when I buy a PS3 game, when I buy a game for my PC, I know it'll work (Unless the game prematurely went Gold with a volley of bugs and glitches and went retail in that condition, rendering it unplayable until the developers released an emergency patch that would act to stabilize the game). :)

I'm perfectly fine with an ergomatic keyboard on my lap with a mouse by my side while I'm on the couch but I won't hold it against anyone if they're not. There are lots of alternative setups though if you're willing to invest the time and money to look into them.


I kinda worded what I said regarding user-friendliness wrong. What I meant is it's rather ignorant to assume what is friendly to the user. An example would be the fact that I love to have immediate access to all the files I install on my hard drive (PC and console), and almost always customize my games to suit my personal tastes (Installing mods, custom skins, fiddling with the graphics, etc...), so in that regard the PC is definitely more friendly and accessable to me (The user) than any console. On the flip side, Liz clearly stated she doesn't really give 2 shits about any of that, nor can I fault her for that. It's all depends on what the user wants, and to generalize the concept of user-friendliness in the manner that most people do is a mistake.

When most people say user-friendly, they usually mean Interface Simplicity.

Oh fuck all this. This is entirely too much effort to ensure that any game will run fine on the LOWEST SETTINGS POSSIBLE on any modern computer.

[Poofy]

Poppycock.

[Dick Fitzwell]

www.srtest.com

If you're ever wondering about if a game will run on your computer, just go there.

[Sibek]

Technology wise there really is no contest. The PC will always obsolete the console so long as console makers use commodity parts. The PS3 was obsolete the week before its release when Nvidia released the 8000 series of their video cards (The PS3 was using a GPU based on the 7000 series). Being a generation old really isn't terrible but the bottleneck with this generation of games is not the CPU at all but the GPU (also memory but that's what you get with embedded systems). When Sony, Microsoft, Intel, and the CPU portion of AMD are claiming superiority in performance in CPU, minimal gains are had by scaling (upping the cores or mhz) in games. GPUs are the main bottleneck. This is why only a handful of games for the PS3 (most of them are PSN downloads) will support resolutions about 720p, a resolution attainable by a 300 dollar clearance PC plus a 75 dollar GPU. The Cell is actually becoming more and more irrelevant as Nvidia and ATi (AMD) are turning their GPUs into CPUs with performance scaling (ideally, though the cell is also working around the "ideally" flag as well) in a factor of 5 or even 10. I guess I'm getting sidetracked. Anyways, with the current price of silicon, the entrance price of Computer gaming is actually on par with the current PS3 prices, with the added benefits that come with owning a PC (choices in browser, media player, peripherals,etc.)

Game wise, I really cannot say. This generation is inundated with what sold a lot in the last generation (FPSes and sandbox action games). For FPSes, there really is no comparison, a keyboard and mouse is much more accurate than a controller. A mouse produces a more fine tuned analog based on the arm muscles over thumbs making the use of auto-aiming schemes non-existent. Epic knows this and made keyboard and mouse controls available in the PS3 version of Unreal Tournament 3 (bad sequel is bad). Sandbox action games probably feel better with a controller, that's why I have a Logitech wireless gamepad. Having a gamepad on a computer doesn't make it a console. It's merely a testament to the open architecture of the Computer that says, "If I can plug it in, I can expect it to work one way or another." This is unlike the Xbox360 or Wii mantra, "only peripherals certified by us will work." This is why peripherals may seemed gouged this generation. There is no competition.

Certainly, playing a game on PC is slightly harder than consoles. Though it's much better than the days of dos and knowing your sound card and all the IRQ timings. You'd need an A+ certification to get Red Alert to play online. I actually find the idea of being able to modify the setting of game as another testament to the open architecture. The games might be harder to optimize but strenuous optimization isn't necessary when you have 4 times as much memory in the average computer compared to the console, hence why many devs still consider the PC easier to develop.

The more and more I play PC games, the more and more I seem to detest console gaming based on their closed platforms. Publishers are becoming less willing to create exclusives due to the overhead of game development just on one platform. This puts Nintendo beyond MS and sony in the game department since the 5% of wii games that aren't shovelware are from Nintendo. PC gets the benefits of exclusives from companies like Blizzard, Relic, and Valve that focus mainly on PC (most profitable game in the world is a PC game).

So anyways, my vote goes to PC.