PC VS CONSOLE the final vote

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MAB1994

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Who wins, PC gaming or Console gaming, I've never got a direct answer for this question and im not asking on my behalf alone although it will always be PC gaming for me, but what does the general public think, which one will lead in the future with eithers present course, which one will be the ultimate LOSER, and which one will be the ultimate WINNER!

whats your opinion?
 
I find there would be a large number of bias responses in this form...
Forum Games General : PC Gaming LOL
Anyway, the general public would not doubt pick consoles but everyone know deep down inside PC FTW.
 
"The Developers"? Ohh you mean the association of every living game developer? 😀 hahaha and if any of them did favor console, its because they are much much easier to make because they have their limits set and they know the single piece of hardware it needs to work on.
 
This is a PC based website, so most of the answers to the OP's question will be biased. This thread would be better off over at gamespot or IGN.

With that being said I own and use a 360, PS3, and a gaming PC and I say PC all the way.
 

But steel PC have more and better exclusives than consoles. For example for the year 2009 PC has 49 exclusives, ps3 has 7 exclusives, 360 has 8 exclusives.

Some PC exclusives for the 2009:
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
Empire: Total War
Dawn of Discovery
Hearts of Iron III
Europa Universalis III: Heir to the Throne
Football Manager Live
Anno 1404
Killing Floor
Shattered Horizon
Cryostasis
ARMA II
BattleForge
Wings of Prey
Sims 3
Spore Galactic Adventures
The Path
Torchlight
Machinarium
King's Bounty
Football Manager 2010
For the Glory
Cities XL
Tropico
Demigod

Most of those games scored above 80 Metacritic and 10 of then above 85 Metacritic. On the other hand consol exclusives like MGS4, UC2 are like interactive movies, no freedom at all, and extremely linear.
 
consoles will always have a larger market share but that doesnt mean they are BETTER than PC's. is a ford fusion better than a mercedez benz cls 550? no but which sell more? end of debate
 
Oh no, i do not hate it, i had vista ult. 64bit for a couple years, but it was far to buggy to be useful when it first came out, and the fact that they (Windows) didnt even perfect it by the end, but instead made windows 7 is sort of odd, and makes me believe that THEY didnt even take vista seriously. I like W7 alot, and i realize that most of the reason for that is because its pretty. but Vista wasnt horrible.
 
Vista was always a stopgap - Microsoft developed a lot of new technology and features that they wanted to put into Windows Vienna (project name for the 7th version of Windows), but the OS as a whole was taking too long.

Not that Microsoft needed the cash or anything, but with no money coming in to the OS division between XP and Vienna they cobbled together some of the new stuff they had ready to create Vista and bring some cash in but it was just so flawed.

Windows Vienna, now called 7, was always what they were aiming for.
 


You're way off, and the games you list are all nearly RPGs and RTS games. Those games play better on PC, but there are quite a few RPGs that play excellently on console and they look to kill. I have a very high end PC I just built and I have a 360 as well. If you put Oblivion in comparison for graphics, there isn't much different, except for a bit more detail for adding more distant objects, but you need a nice graphics card to do that. Same for Fallout 3, it looks and plays real smooth on the 360. The advantage is content and modding, something I like better fro PC. By the next gen, I may be done with PC gaming.

Look at it this way, this gen has gotten to be "good enough" for most as the graphics have gotten much better and FPS controls have been revolutionized and it costs thousands less. You sit in front of a Hi-Def TV on a nice comfy sofa or chair, feet kicked up and game. The online community is better as well. XBL is cool for shooters. Only hard core PC gamers that won't transition are going to stay the course. I changed over when the first Xbox box hit and didn't build a PC for 6 years. Now I just did one, though I am happy, I won't buy shooters for PC anymore, just RPGs and RTS' (RPGs are my favorite genre).

I like some hack-n-slash games. Bayonetta is simply to die for fun, but that would never work on a PC. Game developers are more for consoles anyway since that is where the money is. RPGs and especially FPS games sell way more on consoles anyway (like 10 times more for FPS games.) Look at Modern Warfare 2, it has already sold nearly 16m on both the PS3 and 360 (almost 7m on PS3 and over 9m on the 360). Fallout 3 sold well over 3m just on the 360, I don't think it sold 1m on PC.

Next gen console gaming could be the tell tale sign of what is going to happen with PC gaming since PC games are mostly ports from console games now, where it was just the reverse a few years ago. I still will PC game because I love modding, but it is much nicer to sit in front of a nice big 52" Samsung with my legs stretched out and the graphics are good enough, trust me, if you've never really seen it.
 
pc will win all the time,,what can a console do that pc can't? you may be thinking plug & play but microsoft sorted that out with "games for windows" and the xb360 pad for windows,,so really microsoft is turning pc into an over powered xbox360,,ps3 and xb360 are just out of date pc's by 4-5years. neither of the consoles can give true HD gaming as they just strech 10x6 to a hd resolution as they couldnt possibly render games at HD, consoles strugle with bad frame rates to or have to have less detail than a pc version....pc is a clear winner hands down.
 



You missed the point. I didn't say they had better graphics, only that it is good enough. Go to Google and type in 360/pc comparison for fallout 3 or oblivion, and you'll see my point. And these games don't struggle. The load times may be a bit longer, but that's about it. These game also produce 1080p graphics, they are not toned down. Only hard core PC gamers are going to stay the course. Like I said, I just built my rig ($4000), but I may be done after this gen goes to the next level. Most people are not going to spend minimum $1500 just so they can sit close to a monitor on a chair with the arms stretched out using a M&K, to get better resolutions..
 
"I didn't say they had better graphics" neither did i. yes they dont tend to tone the detail down in MOST games,,. but the console does do 1080p but 3d is rendered at a lower res (10x6 not 19x10)...belive me some games do suffer with a bad frame rate,,e.g quake 4@xbox360,,jericho@ps3 ,,console gamer wouldnt really notice as there not used to a solid 60fps or even the meaning of the word frame rate. price wise you can get a decent spec pc cheaper than any console + games are cheaper on pc and online games are free mostly.
 


You could never buy a PC cheaper than a console. Just a Radeon 4890 alone would cost $250 and that would be barey enough to run Crysis. A 360 w/120g HD cost $300, same for the PS3. Quake 4 is an old 360 game, I am talking about games in the past few years. Look at COD4, or Gears Of War, they look incredible and play without a burp. Go to Best Buy, and you'll see that the PC gaming section has been cut to one row in an aisle of games where most are card type or ardcade online games you install (chess, PoCap games, etc), whereas just 3 years ago, you could find 3 rows. Most games we like barely sell well on PC. Outside of MMOs, like WoW, they just don't sell. In fact, 95% of PC gamers actually play online game created by companies like PopCap (Bejeweled, etc), and they are actaully the biggest game sellers in the world, beating PC & consoles combined. If you think that EA could drop PC gaming by making online games for better profits, like Popcap, they'd do it, because it is about the money.

Seriously, if you get a chance, check out a nice size HDTV with a Fallout 3, COD4 or MW2, etc and you'll see what i mean. Also, the online gaming community for FPS is bigger now on console, especially with XBL. The old days of Counter Strike are gone,a nd i don't think ti is coming back. Look what Infinity Ward did to gimp the PC version of MW2, taht was joke and pee'd off the PC FPS community big time.
 
The games that I listed have many types: TBS/RTS hybrid, Sim/RTS hybrid, RTS/RPG hybrid, Multiplayer FPS, Freeform FPS, FPS/Adventure hybrid, Combat flight sim, ARPG, Sim, Sports Sim, Adventure. Compare that to consoles exclusives of 2009, and it looks like the PC has far more variety. And that's just one fairly slow year for the PC, 2010 is going to be much better.
The graphics that PC has are light years away from consoles graphics.
Frame rates: The overwhelming majority of console-games run with 20-30fps with usually huge drops below 20fps in heavy action. On the other hand a good PC is guaranty that will stay way above 60fps in almost every game.
Resolution and AA, AF: Consoles have 1280x720 and even sometimes sub HD resolutions (1024x600) but PC have 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. Also Consoles have very limited Anti-aliasing and Anisotropic filtering.
Graphics quality: Consoles have very poor lighting, shaders, shadows, physics, low resolution textures etc.

If you take all of the above in to account PC’s have about 11 times better graphics than consoles.

This gen is not good for consoles but it is like every other gen, PC is always a few years in front. Consoles will never be better or equal to PC’s. Now as far “The online community is better on consoles”? Well that is a joke. PC online community is way better and it is more mature (pc have steam, windows live, etc). With Consoles in multiplayer you had to always mute everybody to avoid whiny kiddy voices talking "gangsta".

A classic consol gamer argument “ You sit in front of a Hi-Def TV on a nice comfy sofa” you know that you can do the exact same think with the PC’s. I have a 26’(1920x1200) monitor + a 42’ Hi-Def TV connected to my PC and when I want to play on the sofa I take my wireless controller and play my games on the TV.


All the types of game work on a PC simple as that. On the other hand not all types work on consoles.

Consoles games sell more because the majority of gamers are casual and consoles attract casual gamers because of simplicity, laziness, and cost(but PC has a better cost/benefit ratio). Also consoles games do not sell that much more than PC games(also nobody know exactly how much PC-games sell. ex. Steam doesn’t publish the numbers of sells).
As you can see every year PC have 5 times more exclusives than consoles plus the best versions of quality multiplats.(Not only better graphics but also better online experience, controls, gameplay, mods, and sometimes more content).
 



You could easily build a good pc gaming rig for 700usd and i can prove it to you that in the long run it would be far far cheaper then owning a console.

Games are now designed with consoles in mind, which is a better business decision for developers. They want to cater to as many ppl as they can, hence most games made now are made with console tech in mind (3-4yr old tech). Evidence of this is, you could pick a 8800gtx from 3 yrs back and it would play any multiplat game out today @ 1080 40-50fps 2x AA (asides crysis which was a pure pc game).

Hence if someone was to make a rig right now for 700usd it would probably last them till the end of this generation of consoles 3-4yrs more.

Pc vs console cost comparison for 4yrs, 15 games will be bought each year on both the platforms totaling 60games overall

Xbox 360 first

300usd price of xbox 360
200usd charges for xbox live (charges for 4years)
3600usd cost of 60games bought in 4years
4100usd total cost of playing on the xbox 360 for 4 years.

there are chances the xbox may fail in 4years time however i do not consider this, also dlcs on all games are charged on the xbox (this also has not been considered. lastly its a known fact that xbox hardware accessories are very expensive. a 60 gb hard drive will cost you 100usd atleast, same for the wifi (which is available in the market for 25usd).

Pc

700usd price for gaming rig
2700usd pc games are cheaper, pc games can be had for 15usd cheaper then console games. this being the cost for 60 games over 4 years.
3400usd tot cost of playing on the pc for 4 years.

The pc user saves about 700usd in 4yrs time compared to the xbox user. Making pc cheaper to game on then the xbox. However consider that the pc user played all the games @ 1080p 60fps with mods, mouse keyboard support.

Lastly when the generation ends, the xbox user will lose all his libruary of games which is a big loss, this doesnt happen to the PC user.

myth of pc gaming being expensive is getting old, yes maintaining a hi end pc is costly. Is a high end pc needed to play games at highest settings? NO it isnt.

Console companies like microsoft or sony would like us to belive pc is expensive and that the 300usd console is very attractive, however the prices on console games are enough to turn the tide in the end.
 
I'd just like to point out something that nobody seems to have thought of. There are some games that consoles just CANNOT do and this is where the unlimited versatility of the PC really shines. Many games (Rome: Total War, anyone?) are just too damn BIG to run properly on a console. When I run Rome: Total War I cannot use maxxed-out graphics without slowdowns because of the sheer scale of the game. My GPU is an XFX Radeon which absolutely CRUSHES any console-based GPU so could you imagine trying to play any of the Real-Time Strategy games like the Total War series (or for that matter, Civilization IV) on a console? I remember my old Core2Duo system with a GeForce 8500GT 1GB STRUGGLING with CIV4 in the later stages of the game if I selected Epic Mode. Leaving the GPUs aside, consoles will never even have sufficient RAM to support many PC game titles and with the coming advent of VR-based games, the power and versatility of the PC will make consoles look just like the toys that they are. As for piracy, it's only a matter of time before China starts mass-manufacturing knockoff games. Hell, they have produced knockoff Boeing 747's that were so functional and perfect that the companies that bought them didn't realise that the aircraft were fakes until they tried to get replacement parts from Boeing and were told that the serial numbers on their aircraft were invalid! If the Chinese can knock-off a serious piece of technology like a jumbo jet, what is a video game to them? The answer is "Something that a young hobbyist would do." and I'm sure that there's no shortage of them running around. With the economy the way it is, people will eventually learn to do things like fix their own cars and fix their own computers (things I've known how to do for years) simply out of sheer necessity. Nobody will be able to afford ignorance anymore and as a result, they will be exposed to the exciting concept of infinite possible PC configurations. They'll learn that they don't need a new computer, just a new vidcard or CPU (If they were smart enough to buy AMD in the first place so they don't have to necessarily change their mobo and RAM.) and they'll have a whole new computer! Hell, I have 8GB of DDR2 and an MSI K9A2 Platinum mobo that supports true Quad-CrossfireX. The backwards compatibility of AM3 CPU's (including the 6-core beauties) coupled with the fact that 8GB of RAM will be considered a good amount for at least the next 5 years means that my $200 mobo won't need to be changed before then. Hell, if I find my gaming slow, the 4 PCI-Express v2.0 x16 slots will allow me to just throw video cards at it to speed it up, especially considering that GPUs are taking on more and more CPU load to improve performance! When people realise the TRUE power of the homebuilt gaming rig, (it's only a matter of time until they do) they'll be scratching their heads wondering what in the world possessed them to buy consoles to begin with!
 
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