PC vs Console? Which game platform better?

[Hammettf2b]

This thread is a solid example of why I utterly abhor PC gaming.

do explain

 

[Jovavic]

Did I warp back to 1995 and this is now an AOL board?

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I answered a question that clearly had one correct answer.

The fact that a hypothetical PC build could run a game I have zero interest in playing better doesn't matter to me, especially when 90% of my favorite games are developed for consoles. Different platforms are going to appeal to different tastes, but apparently that doesn't matter. The car with the highest horsepower is always the best option, after all.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. Can we stop pretending that there's objective truths in matters of personal taste? If you prefer PC gaming, fine, good for you. The gate-keeping and smug sense of superiority is not necessary to validate your enjoyment.

 

[John Price]

People want to choose sides in a debate and as I've said before both have their advantages and disadvantages. Yet there's this kind of "pc master race" or console "lel peasant" stigma and that kind of mentality needs to be phased out. In the end, we all enjoy gaming, so why is there a need to disparage someone else who games on another platform? Heck, if I had the money I'd buy a Switch too just to play Mario Kart or Smash Bros. Those games aren't on PC and that's fine by me.

And you are right. There is gatekeeping and elitism regarding "PC Master race" and I don't like it either. I've had people straight up tell me they don't use their console anymore, be a real gamer, get a PC. While I admit my console is gathering dust it does serve a purpose, and that is The Show 19.

 

[Commander Clueless]

This thread is a solid example of why I utterly abhor PC gaming.

I actually thought this was a relatively civil thread for a PC vs console discussion.

I answered a question that clearly had one correct answer.

The fact that a hypothetical PC build could run a game I have zero interest in playing better doesn't matter to me, especially when 90% of my favorite games are developed for consoles. Different platforms are going to appeal to different tastes, but apparently that doesn't matter. The car with the highest horsepower is always the best option, after all.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. Can we stop pretending that there's objective truths in matters of personal taste? If you prefer PC gaming, fine, good for you. The gate-keeping and smug sense of superiority is not necessary to validate your enjoyment.

I don't think anyone was suggesting you were "wrong".

I certainly wasn't trying to, and I apologize if that's how it came across.

 

[Shareefruck]

I'm actually kind of okay with elitist attitudes in general, but I do think it happens to be misguided/misplaced/meat-headed in the case of the whole PC master race thing. The suggestion that hardware performance and fidelity are particularly great indicators of quality in the medium, beyond simply meeting a baseline of play-ability/competence, is way off base, IMO.

There's far too much focus on the technology side of videogames, something that I don't think is really all that critical in the grand scheme of things compared to far more essential, timeless, and meaningful qualities like charm, artistry, and brilliant design. For example, Gameboy Tetris (or Tetris 99 for that matter) is almost certainly a superior game to Apex Legends, in my estimation. The jump up in technology/fidelity means **** all in most cases.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I'm actually kind of okay with elitist attitudes in general, but I do think it happens to be misguided/misplaced in the case of the whole PC master race thing. The suggestion that hardware performance and fidelity are particularly great indicators of quality in the medium is way off base, IMO.

Some people take it way too far, but a lot of it is tongue in cheek in my experience. That's certainly how I use it.

There's certainly a "keeping up with the Joneses" aspect to PC building and a snobbishness that tends to slink along with it. Most PC people that I know are just tech enthusiasts.

 

[Shareefruck]

Some people take it way too far, but a lot of it is tongue in cheek in my experience. That's certainly how I use it.

There's certainly a "keeping up with the Joneses" aspect to PC building and a snobbishness that tends to slink along with it. Most PC people that I know are just tech enthusiasts.

I'm actually kind of okay with snobbishness when I find it compelling and warranted (pretentiousness/snobbishness in music and film opinions about works that are more well conceived, I get/would defend, for example), although obviously, there is a line that can be crossed (I don't think there's been anything remotely close to that here, for the record). I just don't think that tech is capable of bringing nearly as much value, satisfaction, and meaning/power as design/art/personality in videogames, personally.

While I get how addicting it can be to keep up with and be interested in the escalation, I kind of think that tech enthusiasm is ultimately a really shallow thing that is often in danger of missing the forest for the trees, for the most part. That's ultimately my feeling towards even the more sincere version of the attitude that lies beneath the whole PC master race thing.

 

[NyQuil]

This thread is a solid example of why I utterly abhor PC gaming.

I answered a question that clearly had one correct answer.

The fact that a hypothetical PC build could run a game I have zero interest in playing better doesn't matter to me, especially when 90% of my favorite games are developed for consoles. Different platforms are going to appeal to different tastes, but apparently that doesn't matter. The car with the highest horsepower is always the best option, after all.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. Can we stop pretending that there's objective truths in matters of personal taste? If you prefer PC gaming, fine, good for you. The gate-keeping and smug sense of superiority is not necessary to validate your enjoyment.

Personally, I think hating a gaming platform because of the opinions of other people is pretty stupid.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I actually thought this was a relatively civil thread for a PC vs console discussion.

I don't think anyone was suggesting you were "wrong".

I certainly wasn't trying to, and I apologize if that's how it came across.

I think you can chalk my reaction up to 2 things: my coffee isn't working fast enough and this isn't a new argument. I wasn't looking at any individual posters with my little rant, just more of a release of years of accumulated annoyance. Being so combative probably doesn't help my point of view any better

Regardless of where you sit on this argument, there's a vast amount of options available and the general quality of most of these products has risen. Going from the GameBoy to the Switch or the IBM compatibles to a modern gaming rig in a matter of a few decades is astonishing. I can't help but look back at my parents yelling at me that I'm 'getting too old to play video games' when I was 10 and laugh now...especially when I catch my 71 year-old dad playing Tetris.

Anyway, *stick tap*. Coffee kicking in and anger gone. I'm just so over the concept of gatekeeping anymore. Whatever makes you happy, makes you happy and that's something I'm trying to get better at...clearly I still have plenty of room to improve.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I'm actually kind of okay with snobbishness when I find it compelling and warranted (pretentiousness/snobbishness in music and film opinions over works that are more well conceived, I kinda get/would defend, for example), although obviously, there is a line that can be crossed (I don't think there's been anything remotely close to that here, for the record). I just don't think tech is capable of bringing nearly as much value and satisfaction as design/art/personality in videogames, personally. As someone who works in the tech world, while I get how addicting it can be to keep up with and be interested in the escalation, I kind of think that tech enthusiasm is ultimately a really shallow thing, for the most part.

I'm the opposite of you. I understand the attitude in music and film far less than in tech, but I also have very little interest in them by comparison.

Mind you, I don't much care for snobbishness in anything, so there is that.

I just don't think that tech is capable of bringing nearly as much value, satisfaction, and meaning/power as design/art/personality in videogames, personally.

I agree with you. Design should always come first and a game should be good at its core and not rely solely on technology. However, good tech can make a good experience that much better.

That said, a lack of technology can also ruin an experience. The example I use, personally, is my aptitude for motion sickness in video games can easily be triggered by a low frame rate and/or FOV (especially in first person).

It's one of the reasons I'm more drawn to PC. That, and I grew up playing PC and love strategy.

 

[NyQuil]

Part of the attraction to PCs for me is the fact that I know a lot about PCs (I used to work in the business during summers in college) and I like taking them apart and putting them back together. I've used the same case for a decade or more at this point, replacing the parts as I go.

But it's a hassle to optimize a PC and its games on a continuous basis and I can understand people who would rather just plug and play.

Similarly, my Dad works on old cars that are largely mechanical and I see the appeal, but I have no interest in owning a classic car and doing my own maintenance.

I started with a Commodore 64 back in the day, and while I owned a PlayStation and an XBox 360, they never really resonated with me in the same way as my PC gaming did.

I will say that sports games, fighting games, platformers and driving games are typically better on the console, but those aren't typically what I play. I prefer shooters, simulators, RPGs and strategy games.

Ultimately, I'd say the preference probably lies with the types of games that you play and the control scheme that you prefer. Most people are willing to learn enough about whatever they do if it brings them enjoyment.

 

[Hammettf2b]

I answered a question that clearly had one correct answer.

The fact that a hypothetical PC build could run a game I have zero interest in playing better doesn't matter to me, especially when 90% of my favorite games are developed for consoles. Different platforms are going to appeal to different tastes, but apparently that doesn't matter. The car with the highest horsepower is always the best option, after all.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. Can we stop pretending that there's objective truths in matters of personal taste? If you prefer PC gaming, fine, good for you. The gate-keeping and smug sense of superiority is not necessary to validate your enjoyment.

From what I've been reading from people in this thread, they are giving their opinion. I don't really see anyone trying to shove one platform over another here.

 

[KingBran]

I prefer gaming on my PC but sometimes I just want to chill on the couch and play consoles. I love Xbox Play anywhere as I play games like Sea of Thieves and now Crackdown 3 on both. I really was hoping game companies would get more behind that because it sucks having to pay for games twice if you just want to play them on two different devices.

Overall if I was forced to pick I would say PC.

 

[Osprey]

There's nothing wrong with thinking or expressing that PC gaming is better, IMO. That's not "PC master race"-ism. What makes it that is only if you look down on other platforms and the people who prefer them. I can sing the praises of PC and how it's the only platform for me all day, but I also realize that it's just my opinion and preference and what suits me doesn't suit everyone. It's the same with other technology. I can't stand how restricted iPhones and iPads are and would never want one, but I understand that a lot of people just want their technology to be as straight forward as possible. Similarly, a lot of people want their gaming to be straight forward--just start it up and play, without configuration, tweaking, modding or whatnot--and that makes sense to me, even if it's not for me.

 

[Aladyyn]

What I get from this thread is that people who only game on consoles have a pretty warped idea of how PC gaming works

 

[Bear12Good]

What I get from this thread is that people who only game on consoles have a pretty warped idea of how PC gaming works

Agree)

 

[chicagoskycam]

Part of the attraction to PCs for me is the fact that I know a lot about PCs (I used to work in the business during summers in college) and I like taking them apart and putting them back together. I've used the same case for a decade or more at this point, replacing the parts as I go.

But it's a hassle to optimize a PC and its games on a continuous basis and I can understand people who would rather just plug and play.

This. I don't want to deal with the nonsense. I just want to fire it up and for it to work. I know there are advantages to PC gaming but honestly, don't have the time. I've seen this with cross-platform play the most; seems like my PC friends always have an issue they need to work through.

Consoles get updates and they quite frankly just work; and with keyboard/mouse options plus 4k 60 FPS they are not all that bad.

 

[John Price]

Consoles have begun streaming games over the cloud and PC recently has decided to do something similar with Google and Project Steam. If that works out, you won't need a high end pc to play games anymore, because the hardware is all remote. That could revolutionize gaming as we know it.

 

[KingBran]

Consoles have begun streaming games over the cloud and PC recently has decided to do something similar with Google and Project Steam. If that works out, you won't need a high end pc to play games anymore, because the hardware is all remote. That could revolutionize gaming as we know it.

People will still enjoy offline gaming though.

 

[Osprey]

This. I don't want to deal with the nonsense. I just want to fire it up and for it to work. I know there are advantages to PC gaming but honestly, don't have the time. I've seen this with cross-platform play the most; seems like my PC friends always have an issue they need to work through.

That's actually one of the draws for me. I like fiddling with settings and even working through an issue here and there. I'm a nerd, though.

People will still enjoy offline gaming though.

That's certainly true, but there will always be plenty of games with low requirements that could be played on low-spec'ed devices. It could shake out so that we play the demanding games online and the less demanding ones locally/offline. People aren't going to mind needing an internet connection to play demanding games that their computers can't even run because they saved a lot of money that would've had to go to upgrade them just to play them.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Is it really that much work to tinker the settings though? My current computer is a beast, just built it, top of the line, so I can just go ultra everything. My old PC was 6 years old and I only upgraded the GPU to a 980 which is pretty dated at this point for 1440p gaming at least.

There are preset settings where you can just click medium and it'll change all settings to medium. You don't have to go through all these different options 1 by 1 to change them and run benchmarks or anything. If you want to tinker with everything, you can go one by one to try to maximize your performance or shut off features you don't like such as motion blur. I mean, it just adds on to the sense that PC gaming is what you make of it. If you want a really simple experience, you can have it, if you want a really complex experience to maximize your performance/enjoyment, you can have that too.

And I'm still not sure how well gaming as a streaming service will ever really be. I think no matter what, people are still going to sell you games that you can play offline. The main issue is input lag. People are already annoyed with server lag where you get killed as you turn a corner due to bad netcode, imagine how much worse it'll be when you get killed before the server even receives your input movements. Or if you can feel the lag in movements to what you want and then you still get killed around the corner due to bad input lag on top of it. A lot of people don't even want to use a wireless mouse for gaming because of input lag, I can't imagine how much worse it'll be streaming a game running off a completely different machine hundreds of miles away.

 

[aleshemsky83]

If you have a decent mid-range pc, 90% of new games will autodetect the best settings and your game will run fine. That said, it is pretty frequent for a game nowadays to just launch with weird bugs like Nier or horrible stuttering like dishonored 2, so the out of the box smoothness definitely is a legitimate reason.

Now compared to the ps3 gen framerates are far more stable but there are still quite a few games that chug really bad (ff15, just cause 3, and for some reason broforce runs like a dog on ps4). but those super bad arkham knight bugs more or less dont happen.

For me I havent encountered a ton of bugs, the most annoying things to me are games that Alt-Tab poorly.

But like I said before, for me the load times are just such a big game changer, they need to get that sorted out for ps5.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

I actually thought this was a relatively civil thread for a PC vs console discussion.

It absolutely is.

 

[Bear12Good]

PC win, AINEC)