I’ll admit it, back when I was younger I was a diehard PC gamer. It just made sense, seeing as though there was a PC in just about every home and most of what you had to do was pop in some new RAM and a new video card and you could turn a mediocre PC into something to behold. PC gaming has stayed a mainstay in the industry, even though it is in no way a majority compared to home consoles, but as consoles move more and more into the territory of having PC features, it can only benefit PCs which are still PCs that play games.
Somewhere along the way I kind of gave up on PC gaming. I think it was when I started taking writing more seriously and started owning laptops instead. Laptop computers tended to be more expensive, be less powerful but were ultimately portable, which was the main upside to them. So for a good number of years I stuck to game consoles and really wasn’t overly concerned with playing games on a PC. Then when I made the move over to my Macbook Pro, well, there isn’t much gaming that you can do on one of those because of how few developers make games compatible.
Then something weird happened for me, a person who usually buys every console during a generation, and I was incredibly underwhelmed with the offerings from the big three. I always knew that I would wait for a Wii U until something really got me excited, but then the PlayStation 4 announcement happened and it was good, but not great. Then the Xbox One announcement happened and it was just, well, kind of a train wreck. The more that I crunched the numbers, looked at the games that I play on a regular basis and what was coming out, the more I realized that this generation of consoles might not fit what I need anymore.
While every new console generation seems to have some downfalls when it comes to technical specs, the fact that they are offering what they are is kind of a turnoff, because it is far from the best on the market right now, which means that in a few years it will be almost comical how underpowered they all are. The fact that I can assemble a better PC for only a bit more than what one of those consoles will sell for a launch is a bit distressing. Then comes the cost of the games themselves, which are usually more than what PC games are selling for, especially considering some of the crazy sales that go down with Humble Bundles, Steam and GOG.
Everything was pushing me to just invest the money now in a decent PC and to pick up all of the games that will be available cross-platform, most of the time for cheaper, then worry about some of the exclusives that I might miss later. To be honest, I wouldn’t be shocked if we saw more of this happening, with more people joining the ranks of the “master race” and buying moderate to decent gaming PCs which will be just as powerful as the “next generation” consoles, where the games will look just as good, but be cheaper. It becomes especially clear how easy it is to make this transition considering stuff like Steam’s “Big Picture Mode” and how well it works with a traditional controller, as well.
Now seems like the perfect time to make that switch to the PC and let the chips fall where they may with Sony and Microsoft, pick them up when they have seen significant price drops in the future.
Agree 100%. That’s why I made the switch to PC Gaming 2 years ago. The consoles can’t compete on any level. PC is far superior in every way. I didn’t know gaming until I met PC Gaming.