Console vs PC

[stromboli]

If you want a job in the military go console. Just saying.

Both my sons agree.

[GrinningYMIR]

What RTSs do you play?

StarCraft, AOE, SC2, AOM, RA2, RA3, WCIII, stuff like that

[Hydra009]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I have a Gateway FX.

[Jutter]

Choosing a console because you like the controllers, is like fucking the neighbor's (18 year old) daughter's ....CAT. because you like pussy. Such controllers (and even better ones than that) ARE available for PC, so you don't have to play Assasin's Creed with mouse/keyboard if you don't want to.

The thing is that anyone with a halfway decent PC (3Ghz quadcore or faster, with at least 2 gigs of ram) can pop in 50 dollars worth of graphicscard, add two gamecontrollers (Logitech or Thrustmaster will do fine), and a DVI cable to hook it up to your bigscreen tv. And you'll have an admirable gaming-rig that perhaps won't outpreform the newest wave of consoles, but it'll damn well blow the 360 and PS3 out of the water, (because DirX11).
Once that's done, laugh along with your wallet as you browse through Steam-sales, and realize why upgrading that PC you already have, offers more bang for your buck than closed-architechture gamecomputers ever will.
Also, every console ultimately gets emulated on the PC.


The only sensible reasons to choose a console I can come up with are:
-you don't want to deal with the hassle of configuring and tweaking settings
-Platform exclusive titles
-The internet isn't a worldwide gameroom yet, even for cross-platform titles, so if you want to play with specific friends you'll need the same console. (Southpark's console-wars used that as a plot-motivator)

[wolf39us]

well fricken said.

I can add one good reason to have a console would be if you are military, or a person that travels frequently

[the_antithesis]

I'm more an emulator gamer as most of the games I wish to play are old games on hardware that's no longer available. Arcade games, sure, but other things as well.

Seriously, check out the link. They have the Epoch Super Cassette Vision. That one also came in a version for girls called the Lady Cassette Vision that was made of pink plastic and came with the game "Milky Princess."

[the_antithesis]

You know, here's the thing about console vs PC. The advantage of console gaming vs a PC was that a console could just plug & play with not need to fiddle with it to get it to recognize your sound card or download a patch or any of that. This is not the case anymore and hasn't been the case over the last generation of consoles. Any advantage consoles used to have died when day-one patches became the norm.

Go back further, and there was a bigger rift in that computers used to play shit like M.U.L.E. or Oregon Trail while consoles had shit like Space Invaders and Pac-Man. Computer games were actually very, very different from console games. That's changed, too, as pretty much the same shit is available on both consoles and PCs.

So consoles no longer have the ease of use advantage over consoles nor do they have radically different games. This makes it questionable why anyone even needs a console anymore.

Even those Steam consoles seem superfluous since you can already hook up your computer to your TV with the Big Picture thing they've got. So why, exactly? Aside from console exclusive, which is just games being held hostage, what is the point of buying a console? What can you do with a console that you can't also do with a PC that you already have to own to watch all that porn? I don't see it.

[Jutter]

I'm more an emulator gamer as most of the games I wish to play are old games on hardware that's no longer available.

Please... my gift to you... retro-gaming heaven.

http://emu.kulichki.net/

[GalacticBusDriver]

PC vs. console. iPhone vs. Android. Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux.

It all strikes me as Craftsman vs. Snap-on. They're all tools, they all have strengths and weaknesses and and they all have ardent defenders that will defend them to the death.

I'm a PC gamer. Not because I'm an elitist but because it's what I know. That and I don't see the point of buying an expensive bit of equipment to do one thing when I already have an expensive (granted, more expensive) bit that does a lot of things.

[Hydra009]

PC vs. console. iPhone vs. Android. Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux.

Chrome vs AOL explorer...

[PickelledEggs]

Choosing a console because you like the controllers, is like fucking the neighbor's (18 year old) daughter's ....CAT. because you like pussy. Such controllers (and even better ones than that) ARE available for PC, so you don't have to play Assasin's Creed with mouse/keyboard if you don't want to.

The thing is that anyone with a halfway decent PC (3Ghz quadcore or faster, with at least 2 gigs of ram) can pop in 50 dollars worth of graphicscard, add two gamecontrollers (Logitech or Thrustmaster will do fine), and a DVI cable to hook it up to your bigscreen tv. And you'll have an admirable gaming-rig that perhaps won't outpreform the newest wave of consoles, but it'll damn well blow the 360 and PS3 out of the water, (because DirX11).
Once that's done, laugh along with your wallet as you browse through Steam-sales, and realize why upgrading that PC you already have, offers more bang for your buck than closed-architechture gamecomputers ever will.
Also, every console ultimately gets emulated on the PC.


The only sensible reasons to choose a console I can come up with are:
-you don't want to deal with the hassle of configuring and tweaking settings
-Platform exclusive titles
-The internet isn't a worldwide gameroom yet, even for cross-platform titles, so if you want to play with specific friends you'll need the same console. (Southpark's console-wars used that as a plot-motivator)

I like this. ^

[SGOS]

This isn't part of the debate, but my favorite game of all time was the first Fry Cry.  I would like to play it right now, but new PCs won't play it.  I've read it's because of 64 bit.  I've read it's because of Windows 7.  Whatever the reason, I don't like shit like that.  You buy a game, then upgrade your equipment, and you can't play it anymore.  That sucks.  Flight Simulator X runs on Windows 7, but a few things don't function properly, and programs that design scenery for FSX require a lot of fucking around to work on Windows 7, and it will probably get worse with future generations.

Both consoles and PCs suffer from this kind of thing, so it doesn't make a case for one over the other.  OK, I'm finished ranting.

[the_antithesis]

Both consoles and PCs suffer from this kind of thing,...

Indeed, it was one of the first generational blunders made by Atari when the 5200 could not play 2600 games. They eventually released an adapter, but by then it was too little, too late.

Even when backwards compatibility is offered, it's rarely perfect. I had a PS1 and liked that game MedEvil. It would run on the PS2, but wouldn't recognize the controller, so you couldn't play it.

It's why I like emulators. The backdoor shenanigans of emulation makes the imperfections more acceptable and expected. Of course the sound doesn't work right. It's a work in progress. But then, through emulators, we can play many games that would have otherwise gone unseen by most. Eventually all consoles will be emulated, because eventually they will stop making consoles.

[Hydra009]

This isn't part of the debate, but my favorite game of all time was the first Fry Cry.  I would like to play it right now, but new PCs won't play it.  I've read it's because of 64 bit.  I've read it's because of Windows 7.  Whatever the reason, I don't like shit like that.  You buy a game, then upgrade your equipment, and you can't play it anymore.  That sucks.

Far Cry?  I just googled it and it needs a 64-bit patch before running (back when it was released, 64-bit was not yet the norm)

Both consoles and PCs suffer from this kind of thing, so it doesn't make a case for one over the other.

While I won't deny the occasional game is lost to time and tide, a great deal of PC games are still runable, though it can take some technical wizardry make that happen.

My games library - from DOS games to XP-era games still run fine.  The Good Old Games people do great work.  And most of those have only improved over time - ongoing modding and graphical updates.  It blows me away that these games still get some love even a decade after release.  All my old favorites are better than ever - Freelancer, Morrowind, C&C Generals, even Heroes of Might and Magic 3 has a new HD version that cranks up the resolution.  The only ones that come to mind as lost forever are the shuttered MMOs.

I'm not even sure if I have even lost any PC games to backwards compatibility problems.
*asks roommate*
*interrupts his Homeworld Catacylsm game*
*long pause*
"No."

I'm not sure how things are on the console side, but I'd hazard a guess that this is not the norm for console players.