Techradar recently posted a convincing validation for PC gaming over and above its console brethren.
Despite the erudite opinions contained within the piece, some people felt that the argument was, shall we say, a little biased.
So in order to redress the balance (and just for fun you understand) here are 12 reasons why, in fact, console gaming is better than PC gaming.
Let us know which side of the fence you sit on in the comments.
1. No mouse and keyboard support
Ah, the very raison d'être of PC gaming. Well, guess what? Not everyone wants to play games posturing like Rick Wakeman. The joypad has been gradually refined over 20 years into the finely-honed gaming tool you see today. Pressing digital keys to move? How very 1982.
2. Playing on TV
While the PC might happily spew forth images consisting of a quadrillion pixels, the real issue here is that with a console you're playing on a nice big TV in the living groom on a comfy sofa and, if you have any sense, with a 5.1 Surround Sound system. If we wanted to slouch at a desk in a dimly-lit room we'd just stay at work.
3. It just works
Oh, how we console owners point and chuckle at PC websites where the incumbent expert attempts to explain to some poor sap that his three-month old (and thus obsolete) quad-AMD 3000 and Nvidia Orgasmo-card won't actually run Generic FPS 10 because it's got driver 1.1 instead of 1.1a. Try this: go to shop, buy game, insert disc, game runs. Bliss.
4. No need for endless upgrades
Yes, the PC is hugely upgradeable - and a bloody good job, too, otherwise you'd never get to play all those games built with cutting edge technology by crazy Scandinavian ex-demo hackers. And anyway, a console is upgradeable: when the next Xbox or PlayStation comes out, we sell the old one and buy a new one. Easy.
5. Cheaper hardware
We've heard all the arguments and excuses. Face it: if you really want a decent PC to play games (and no we don't want to build one ourselves) prices start around £500. And if you want to play games at any sort of quality, your (sigh) 'rig' is more like a grand. For that you could buy all three consoles, extra controllers and the top 10 games of the year.
6. The big 'p'
The PC is gradually becoming the ginger step-child of the developer community. Even stalwarts like Valve are moving to consoles because, let's be honest, piracy is eroding the PC world from within like a mercilessly enthusiastic cancer. It's becoming less and less viable for developers whose budgets are spiralling ever upwards. Recently the World of Goo developer suggested piracy of his game was at a rate of about 90 per cent. That shit just ain't funny any more.
7. The Japanese
They may not be to everyone's taste, but PC gamers do miss out on a whole raft of amazing games crafted by genius Japanese developers whose focus is mainly consoles. Crazy stuff like Patapon, Katamari, Okami, Vib Ribbon, PaRappa... not to mention hordes of amazing JRPGs.
8. No first-party support
Because the PC is an open platform, there's no ownership and therefore no desire to drive it forward. Microsoft is way too busy with the Xbox to bother about Games For Windows, and so we either get the biggest games first with PC ports following months after, or we get exclusives that never appear on PC at all. Still, at least you have, y'know, Crysis. And Crysis 2.
Your comments (41) Click to add a new comment
a.n.other
August 9th
41. Hold on hold on hold on
What flaring retard wrote this?
1. You can sit comfortably leaning back, forward, or sitting straight, lying down, any way you want. I feel bad for the sucker who leans forward all the time.
2. Most modern video cards are becoming standard with HDMI, so you can use it as a mutlimedia center on your HDTV too, genius.
3. Who'd WANT to run GENERIC FPS 10? Damn. Even my several-year-old Nvidia 9500GT plays most playworthy games on the market.
4. Upgrades are insanely cheap. Use slickdeals.net or Newegg or other discount upgrade stores.
5. I bought this PC for US$580 around Christmas. 2.4ghz quad core, 9500GT, 4GB DDR2, and it runs amazingly well for even graphics heavy games like Oblivion and Fallout 3.
6. "Even stalwarts like Valve are moving to consoles". I cannot stress how absolutely wrong this is. Valve abandoned PS3 and outsourced Orange Box's development. They can't even update TF2 on the 360 because of hardware limitations. Hell, the DLC for L4D coming up is FREE for PC and COSTS MONEY on 360, their Steam service has a sale every week, and they really encourage custom content.
7. jRPGs are all becoming the same thing, so one jRPG here is the same another way. And thanks to emulation technology being applied by home devs, those games aren't far anyway.
8. It doesn't matter whether it's owned or not, it still gets plethoras of games. It's not our fault developers are lazy and don't work ******* ports to it, but games built for it can't be played on other systems.
9. Game? Finished? Oblivion shipped had tons of game-crushing bugs, fixed by unofficial patchers. Do I need to find you the massive list of unfinished products released for consoles, a few never even fixed?
10. You've never played any game classified as "Indie" on Steam, obviously.
11. In this day and age, every home has more than one computer. Using simple LAN and older games, they can be linked easily with most old computers.
12. Last I checked, the image in that episode of South Park applied to ALL gamers. The inner perception is that PC gamers are condescending, 360 gamers have no taste for anything but FPSes, PS3 gamers can't admit how awful their console is, and Wii gamers are usually called "kiddy".
For TechRADAR, you sure are off the mark. Your arguments are childish at best.
And this is coming from a PCWii360 gamer. Your pathetic arguments make me want to bash my 360 with a hammer. Not like it gets any playtime anymore, because all it has nowadays are ****** FPSes and rehashes of old games. Splosion Man was good, though.
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dreamhunk
June 2nd
40. oh one more thing pc gaming gets better toys too.here is some links to prove it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OHcMWEzPnk
http://www.brighthub.com/video-games/pc/articles/35553.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wXx3vMy_AQ
http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/nvidia-launches-3d-gaming-and-movie-tech-in-uk-598349
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNr3yGcI_V8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVz2rSO5qIU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27wHFwO5Ebo&feature=related
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louis058
January 28th
39. well... you can connect a computer to the TV anyway
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dreamhunk
December 31st 2008
38. lets see here console game companies as well as console hardware are slowly going bankuprt or laying people off due to high production costs. Console game devs will must likely get less funding due to high production risk to make games on console. Pc gaming is hot in a bad ression and some places in world the both pc games and pc hardware is selling like hot cakes in a resssion. Pc gaming founding is still big and good due to better returns, games like wow, free games,online games and sims are now more important than any console game.
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dreamhunk
December 31st 2008
37. I was wrong about apple, apple does have vires. However if you use your pc for only games and not go the inter you don't have to worry about vires. By the way console are computer they can be hacked and get virus too! If you can log onto the internet I bet them consoles have virous or will get them soon.
Lets see who dies first pc's or consoles. As long as there is pc's there will be games. why is that because pc gaming has army of game devs.
pc gaming ever dies hard ware companies and a ton of companies would either bankurpt or have less cash. Pc gaming is the back bone of the pc industry.
I am talking hardware companies such AMD,Invidia and Intel would be affected. What AMD has 80% of it’s hardware in consoles and they are now sinking! Hardware companies don’t make money on old parts. Not all big companies upgard hardware like pc gamers.
Hardware companies would suffer major loss or go bankuprt. They will have less money to make their hardware. This would affect console hardware prices. Chances are hardware companies would turn on console companies.
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dreamhunk
December 30th 2008
36. sorry had to edit some of my points.
I could hook up my pc to a expensive big screen HDTV is going to great use.
sony is over 3 billion in the because of those consoles. micro soft lost like 1 billion.
sorry no console game can out beat pc games in sales games such as wow,sims,guildwars,daiblo, star craft, linage, hafe life etc.
lets think here your abox and ps2 is now out of date. How much did you spend on those consoles? Now you go get a ps3 and abox360 how much did you spend.
a $200 pc now is better than a any console. the price of parts are cheap. Also those consoles eat up alot of engery making you pay for higher engery bill.
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