Before anyone leaves a raging comment about either consoles or PCs, take a second to read the article. This isn’t to bash either of you, but instead put some new argument points in this age-old battle. As far as graphics are concerned, comparing the potential of a PC to the reality of a console is a little unfair. It’s always possible to get a computer that processes faster, has a better video card, and more space on the hard drive to download games and play them—however, using that ideal computer model assumes that most PC gamers have the money to put together a beastly machine like that.
I was lucky and bought most of my computer’s parts while they were on sale—it only cost $600 or so, compared to a regular price of $700 or $800 for cheaper gaming builds. It runs everything I’ve thrown at it—including Skyrim at maximum graphics—but in the short-term, it would have been cheaper to simply buy a console and a game than build an entire computer dedicated to playing games. Unless I was buying all of the consoles, it would take a while (perhaps until the next console release) for the purchase to become worthwhile.
Frankly, even putting aside the fact that not everyone can build a computer based on web tutorials, not very many people have the foresight to see the monetary advantage of PCs, even if they know that PC games get patched faster and play better than some console versions. Along with that, even if they do have the foresight, they might be willing to forego faster game patches and get the console version anyways—there’s always version exclusives, the simple setup, and a warranty on the system that is much more complicated when using a gaming PC. They might only want a few games, and they may not be interested in getting a next-generation console at all, so getting a current gen console and sticking with their office computer is the best monetary approach for them.
Console exclusives in particular give an advantage to console owners. Not everyone can render Heavy Rain’s graphics, even with a powered up computer, and there is still plenty of untapped power in the Playstation 3 to push the graphics limit even higher. Luckily, this generation has convinced many developer companies that cross-platforming is the way to go, so exclusives are becoming rare. Microsoft in particular is paying top dollar for exclusives, keeping even their XBLA games in limbo for as long as they can hold them, and penalizing indie developers by requiring exclusivity for at least six months before another console release. Even larger companies have been swayed by this money-waving—Bethesda released the Dawn Guard expansion specifically for the XBOX360, and a PS3 and PC release date remain to be seen.
All of this adds up to an increased revenue for game console companies, who will then continue to offer new consoles and extend their exclusive ownership of many of their games, despite the ability of PCs to play them and their long-term monetary advantage over consoles. Paying for exclusives rather than allowing developers to have a cross-platform release only serves to stagnate the market and is ultimately detrimental to gaming, PC or not. Perhaps with the next generation, PC gaming will see a surge in participation—Microsoft seems to be gearing up to integrate Windows 8 with their XBOX360, so it might only be a matter of time before they make the transition to PC-only games, with perhaps a default ‘console’ system that users can customize at will. However, that day is still a long way off, and the sad truth about PC gaming is that it simply isn’t available for everyone, and because of greed or piracy concerns, no major publisher or developer is trying to change this.
You forgot all about modding so your story is moot. Trying to compare a console (which is a cheap computer) to a gaming computer is frivolous and you certainly forgot to talk about why consoles are trying to stick it to computer gamers. Consoles want control over everything which they will never get with computer gamers. Then it’s the greedy DLC for consoles while games can, do, and will mod their own games. Consoles are for newbs like AOL(IOL) /India on line was for beginners.
@ Sara Swanson good article and plz change the comment box to disqus !!!
You, Sara, are the major reason I have quit writing for this website.. Your pointless, time-wasting articles that often inflame people for views is no better practice than IGN. To top it off, you’re a terrible writer with some godawful opinions.
This article in particular has me incensed, since it says “I am not trying to incite either party” but you clearly are trying to incite PC gamers. Your arguing points aren’t new as you claim, and are irrelevant for the most part.
How on earth you’re managing to get paid for this is beyond me. If I were your editor, I’d be turning down your articles like there’s no tomorrow.
I didn’t know that only “some” PC versions were better than console versions. Last I checked, 99.9% is more than “some”.
My PC was $485 with sales. Without them, it would have been about $550. There are very few games that I can’t max out with a playable (30+) framerate, or run on high at 60 FPS. I can emulate just about any PS2 game as well, and most Wii and Gamecube games. $600 is not the minimum for a good PC build.
Anyway, PC gaming is not going to die anytime soon, because people who actually care about games as a hobby rather than a time-waster will spend slightly more to get a far better experience and wider game selection offered on a PC. Actually, come to think of it, my Xbox and the 3 years of Xbox live service I was forced to purchase to get the full experience out of my console, in addition to the 5 headsets I had to buy and the extra controller due to MS’ faulty hardware all cost me a lot more than my PC has. And I’m fairly certain that the time I’ve saved not having to deal with awful loading times have more than made up for the 4-6 hours it took to research, order, and put together the parts.
So basically, everything you said was wrong.
Sara also forgot to mention that most people have a PC anyway. So make a current PC gaming capable will probably only set someone back ~$200 give or take. The fact PC games cost typically lest than half of that was their console counter parts. The cost of PC gaming isn’t expensive in the lthe east bit. My Xbox has costed me over $500(excluding the other one I had to buy then my first one broke). The xbox was $300 and my hard drive was $120, and then the $100 for a wireless adaptor. Yeah console gaming is cheaper… on what planet? This article is a joke.
So rather than the sad truth about PC gaming being that PC gamers expect any new game to run at ultra settings on the Antikythera Mechanism (running Linux) and for the developer to show them infinite goodwill in return for none whatsoever, the sad truth is that PCs, um, cost money.
I think most of us realised that.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention one thing. You argue about PC costs, but forget to mention the amount spent on a gaming console and then all the stuff you need, like a TV or controllers, not to mention online fees and the huge cost of games.
Yeah, because most people don’t already own a TV and get a controller packed in with their console, then pay nothing for PlayStation Network. End sarcasm.
My comment never made it through, I see. Anyway you are wrong on several levels:
Steam, which allows people to access a huge library of games for really low prices;
The fact that most consoles aren’t really that good and break down easily;
The huge sales numbers of the PC Market, which is growing (http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/122/1220114p1.html)
You mention that no major publisher is interested in the PC market, which means you forgot about Blizzard or CD Project, the dude who made The Witcher.
Everything you said is wrong.
lol nospam. So what are people that play on both PC and console then? Hell, most PC gaming these days is just console gaming with an office productivity interface (mouse/kb ;)), for people that can’t cope with analog movement. It’s been a long time since the ‘core’ PC genres were actually mainstream PC games – these days PC gaming is largely just people with money chasing higher framerates and higher resolutions for games that are designed for and sell more copies on console. There are a few PC standouts, but take away games made by Blizzard or The Witcher franchise, and you’re left with few and far between that perform strongly commercially. For example, I jumped onto Red Orchestra 2 a couple of weeks ago, to find the servers pretty bare. Enough to play, and happily, but for what is one of the PC’s best, recent, exclusive shooters, the number of people playing was hardly a ringing endorsement for the system. But there was no shortage of people playing the latest CoD (or, indeed, older PC shooters like CS and TF2), but for recent games, MW3 was the most played shooter by some margin.
And as long as PC-only games generally struggle to sell, then clearly devs and pubs will focus on console. We can hardly expect people to spend a lot of money making PC exclusives, or games for PC first, when they can’t expect a lot of sales (and when the games designed for console first tend to top the sales chart on PC, any month that a Blizzard game isn’t releasing).
That’d be my sad truth about PC gaming. Three out of four of the ‘core’ PC gaming genres – the genres that laid the foundation for gaming on PC – RPGs, strategy games, flight sims, and 2D platformers/shooters, are now very much niche affairs, and even the FPS, the genre that brought in the masses as well as went a long way to casualising PC gaming and putting it into its current state, is dominated by PC exclusives released four or more years ago, or by shooters designed for console first.
Eh, most pad shooters don’t use the analog movement for anything in particular anyway. The only game I’ve ever seen where it mattered was the rather lazy port of Singularity where they forgot to make it actually possible to move quietly past the Don’t Be Loud Near The Monsters monsters.
“Unless I was buying all of the consoles, it would take a while (perhaps until the next console release) for the purchase to become worthwhile.”
gaming PCs are more expensive than consoles but PC “gaming” curbstomps console “gaming” when it comes to price.
buy a bunch of steam game bundles for like $100-200 and the gap in cost vs amount of gaming received between console and PC would be closed.
that’s the real truth of PC gaming.
i see console fans foolishly spend $2000 a year and only make out with like 2-3 dozen games and maybe a peripheral or two and the only thing i can do is shake my head.
give me $2000 to spend on digital game sales and i would be set with my gaming needs for several years.
Before reading my comment first no that I own a Xbox 360, Ps3, BA Gaming PC, and sadly a Wii. Also this is MY OPINION based off of my experience with the consoles and PC.
The way I see it is console gaming is for the couch and PC is for the desktop. To try to compare the 2 is like comparing a couch vs a desk chair. You could say “oh a desk chair you can sit down, lean back, spin around and roll around. But with a couch you only can sit down.” But you don’t want to have a desk chair in you living room. Nor do you want a couch at you desk. A PC would be horrible in a living room setting. So when I want to sit back and play a game I go to my couch (console) and when I want to get things done (as in beast mode on SC2) I go to the desk chair.
As for witch console is better, this is how I see it. Xbox is a way better media hub. To deny that, is just stupid. The Ps3 the games and console are more open (you can import images and sounds from pc and load them into game etc.) and PSN is free. Xbox live > PSN+. Kinect > Move I only use the voice stuff for Kinect and never use my move. PS3 has blu-ray, even though I personally don’t use blu-ray that often (I mainly just rent movies off of Zune) it is a really nice feature. Xbox controller > PS3, the Xbox’s controller feels is more conformable and feels much nicer then the PS3s (and this isn’t just because I’m used to one or the other I owned both the Xbox and the ps2 and play both a lot). When it comes to graphics they both are pretty much equal because of the x engine allowing the xbox to get the most out of its system it allows the same games engine with the same setting to run smoothly. Ultimately for me it comes down to this both consoles have great games and I think it is worth having both of them, but if you cant then go with the Wii…….. Ya right, honestly I would say go with the Xbox
Again I like to remind every one this is MY OPINION and I trying not to have any bias. Again I own all 3 consoles and have own them since they first came out.
consoles have been gamers choice since the original xbox and halo.
PCs advantages are few, basically it comes down to mods and PC creativity. If MS or Sony stopped their strangle hold on game devs ( sony has really started letting go so next gen we might see sony win easily)
the only other thing is mods, and many PC games are starting to stop with that advantage, BF3 iirc isn’t modable, which is what made the first battlefield amazing.
the only game genres PC gaming “wins” in is RTS’s and MMOs at this point in the game if its not one of those might as well get the game on xbox.
Yeah, minor issues like more up-to-date hardware (consoles are effectively stuck with DirectX 8-9 while PCs are currently on 11, and this means that, for example, you can’t easily force antialiasing in PC GTA IV because it’s using DirectX 9) and greater processing muscle (either one of my two graphics cards is more powerful than an entire XBox 360, nevermind the rest of the PC) don’t matter, after all.
Also, seriously, the original XBox wasn’t gamers’ choice. If it was, Sony wouldn’t have sold six times as many Playstation 2s.
The main advantage of consoles is their hugely stronger anti-piracy measures which mean a better guaranteed income, and that they’re easier to program for because you’re looking at trying to run on a single hardware configuration, rather than thousands of ass-backwards configurations of drivers, hardware and software.
The problem modders are facing these days is that fewer companies are releasing SDKs on the PC, largely because they’ve started containing proprietary middleware like Maya or 3DSMax plugins that the company isn’t legally able to provide for free. Many of these companies have expressed some degree of sadness that they can’t do this anymore since a lot of the industry’s current talent was drawn from the PC modding community.
So you mention console exclusives but don’t mention PC exclusives? You know they do exist, in fact there are probably more PC exclusives than console ones these days.
hahaha you’re funny… I laugh at your article, and if the article reflects anything about your character I laugh at you too for trolling!!
luls
Personally, I won’t get into PC gaming until it becomes viable on Linux without messing around with things like WINE and Cedega.
I just can’t be bothered with the hassle of Dual Booting on my PC just to play games. In any case, I’m not giving my money to Microsoft for a Windows licence.
The Humble Indie Bundle and Steam coming to Linux are both steps in the right direction for PC gaming, but things are still moving pretty slowly.
For the time being, I’ll stick with my PS3, which I’m very much happy with.
I love gaming on PC as its so much more convenient. A Single machine is my Game Console – My Office PC – My media centre and my TV. Hooked up to 50″ led turns it into a dream machine.
BUT!!
I love the Uncharted – God of War – Gears of War etc. Would love to have games like those on PC. I like Story driven quality single player games which are absolutely rare on PC’s. Really tired of War / War / More War games.
Most of Pc Gamers have Controllers. I for one have an Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows and would urge other PC Gamers who like playing with controllers to buy one.
I buy day one games on PC for less then 20$. And XBLA or PSN has nothing on Steam, every weak there are 2 awesome titles for 2-4$.
This means i can buy 3 times more games, then for console!
I recently both Xbox 360 and i only have 2 games, Trials Evolution and 3 on 3 NHL, that’s it! Prices are to high for XBLA titles, and usely PC versions are better anyway. But Trials Evolution is so good, you can buy Xbox 360, just for that one game. 😀
If you are gamer, having PC+Console is match better then hawing second console.
But if you have only one console, then having PC instead of Console is better anyway!
Sorry, for bad English 😀
Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, The Total War series, The modding community, Amnesia and countless other indie games say HI.
I completely agree with this article. Most people have a tv, so for those who aren’t too big into customizing a computer, buying a console is a pretty viable option. I’d argue that high end PC gaming is more for the super nerdy like myself. That said I have both, and I do prefer PC gaming, as for example it’s easy for me to bring a laptop around and load up any of my steam games. There are some games that are nice to sit on a couch and play on my 46″ tv. It really comes down to: what do you want out of it?
what does that have to do with anything? you can play pc games on a large screen tv with a gamepad too :/
also LOL! @ “Console exclusives in particular give an advantage to console owners. Not everyone can render Heavy Rain’s graphics, even with a powered up computer, and there is still plenty of untapped power in the Playstation 3 to push the graphics limit even higher.”
I agree with the person writing the article. The PC can be confusing and you never know if the game will run. I am a computer person and have upgraded, fixed, and maintained computers for years. The only person PC gaming is easier for and less expensive is the enthusiast, hardcore gamer or the person for whom money is no object. Most of us don’t fall into those groups.
PC gaming isn’t easy, it often requires some trouble shooting, but it’s worth it for better controls, better graphics and higher framerates.
I’m smart enough to be a PC gamer, have been since the early 90’s. Sure, it requires some knowledge, but nothing that isn’t widely available on the net. Anyway, if you’re not smart enough to PC game, there’s consoles, it’s kinda like training wheels for ignorant gamer.
Major lolz Morgan. I started gaming on PC in the late 1980s, when you had to set the config.sys up differently for every second game you played, just to make the damn thing run, and have been gaming on PCs ever since. However, these days I game far more on PS3, because at the end of the day, it’s just more fun. Part of the reason for me was mouse control for shooters making everything too casualised and unrealistic, and the other part was PC gaming becoming more and more ‘console gaming with a mouse/kb’. The games on PC I play now are the same genres I started playing back in the late 80s – strategy games and RPGs – back then, those genres dominated PC gaming, these days RPGs still have a decent profile, but arcade shooters (which is any shooter controlled by a mouse/kb, really) is where it’s at on PC. The proportion of PC gamers that can still play a hardcore PC game like Hearts of Iron or Gary Grigsby’s War in the East is probably even smaller than the proportion of total ‘core’ gamers that PC gamers comprise ;).
If consoles supported mouse controls, I probably wouldn’t own a gaming PC. The precision of a mouse is so far beyond an analog stick that I could NEVER play half the games with a gamepad. If I have the choice of a PC version or console, I choose the PC version mainly because of the control options. The graphics and modding are major bonuses though.
The platform with most exclusive titles is without doubt, the PC.