Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
The console VS PC arguement
gauge2k3
Member Posts: 442
I am a loyal PC gamer. I make my own machines. I have a degree in computer science. I know my way around these puppies inside and out.
I keep seeing these arguements by console gamers saying the PC is on the way out and by PC gamers saying that they are not. I just want to take some time and talk about that from a technical standpoint.
Consoles are computers. Just let that settle for a moment. Ok, breathe. Consoles have always been computers. It doesn't have an ATX tower w/ mouse and keyboard. But it does have a CPU, RAM, a hard drive, a DVD ROM ( or blueray depending on your preference ). It's all there. The ps3 even lets you install other operating systems on it natively. To say PC's are on the way is not entirely correct. Shifting might be a better word. PC's will always have a place, and a loyal following. Add a mouse "controller" and a keyboard "controller" and you have a computer ready to go. You would think most would know this by now looking at some of the games ported directly from PC to gaming consoles.
I am going to look at it the other way now. Time for PC users to hear some reality too.
The market is shifting. Breath now. 
There are several reasons for this. Unified development kits for consoles means easier development and faster production. A console is 1 system. They don't have to add support for X number of GFX cards, Y number of OS's, and 2 CPU's. Everything is set on a console. Another major factor is piracy. Yes it happens on consoles, but it is RAMPANT on PC's. I could write an entire forum about my hatred for software pirates. All it would get are some lame excuses why they are entitled to free stuff. It is stealing, end of story. The risk of piracy on a console is minimal, at best. All these factors are contributing to a shift into the console markets.
Now the last part. The consoles guys are screaming glory.
It won't last forever. It will even out and shift. Just as, if the mac gets more popular it will see more viruses, so to will the consoles have more pirating tools as they get more popular. Then people will demand options for their consoles. Sony and Microsoft will want to be the first to offer optional configurations of hardware. Then the development time, piracy, it all catches up to PC's.
In conclusion, the shift to consoles is happening. Anyone can see it. However, it will not last forever. Thoughts?
Comments
The future is in Handhelds... lol
Seriously, I see neither platform going away anytime soon.
Both have their strengths and weaknesses.
As far as there being more console titles than PC titles: It has always been that way since the SNS and Sega.
I'll just like to comment on this one point. As far as I know, consoles are a lot easier to hack & modify. The difference is that they usually modify the console control chip, instead of hack on the game software.
Quite a few people also seem to justify doing it due to the price difference between the same games sold for PCs and consoles.
Here are some recent news concerning piracy on xbox. Keep in mind that there is a considerable amount of people that don't care about Live or has their consoles connected to the internet, thus is not affected by Microsoft's measures.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33866696/ns/technology_and_science-games/
Minimal you say...? You could buy an XBOX, never connect to live and pirate everything your eyes see. While I agree with some points, with this one I don't. at all. I've seen friends who even pirated PS1 games back in the day with extreme easiness.
That is very true; the market shifts from time to time to different things, and I can see that happening with consoles and PCs as well. I admit that I am a loyal PC gamer as well, and so far, I have yet to buy a console. However, that could change in the near future, especially if there is a good reason for me to get a console.
Main characters:
Jinn Gone Quiet (Guild Wars)
Princess Pudding (Guild Wars)
I'll just like to comment on this one point. As far as I know, consoles are a lot easier to hack & modify. The difference is that they usually modify the console control chip, instead of hack on the game software.
Quite a few people also seem to justify doing it due to the price difference between the same games sold for PCs and consoles.
Here are some recent news concerning piracy on xbox. Keep in mind that there is a considerable amount of people that don't care about Live or has their consoles connected to the internet, thus is not affected by Microsoft's measures.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33866696/ns/technology_and_science-games/
Have to agree with Xasapis,
consoles are very easy to mod and get games for, me thinks the Op may have a degree but more of a temperature me feels. Having a degree in computer science dont mean much. I dont and I know how things work being doing comps for 15 years...
Was more of a "Look at me" post I feel
ya consoles are like pcs, but sad part in consoles is that you can't upgrade them
then in the old days consoles were much prefered because there are some games that pcs don't have
and today pc are much dominant in mmos, but consoles are now catching up
and also neither of them will be gone (we can still consider handheld as consoles, but in a much smaller scale)
I used to be a console only kind of guy, just used PC for the web. Once I started playing MMORPGS it was the death of my console playing. But you know what they say about guys that have big hands right? They need bigger controllers and a mouse and keyboard is just about as big as you can get.
No aruguement to be had. I would love it if Sony or MS delivered on what the PS3 360 were supposed to be... gaming PCs with internet access but that didn't happen. I can't dump my PC, pick up a PS3 and be on par for what I do.
That and well... there are no MMOs on consoles that I would play. And more importantly none coming. Pirating on consoles is silly easy as well.
Have to agree with Xasapis,
consoles are very easy to mod and get games for, me thinks the Op may have a degree but more of a temperature me feels. Having a degree in computer science dont mean much. I dont and I know how things work being doing comps for 15 years...
Was more of a "Look at me" post I feel
Well I have to disagree... Compared to pc, consoles are extreamly difficult to hack.
Most pc games are downloaded from the web, and you just click the play button. Maybe replace a single file and then click play. Something everyone can do.
Consoles you have to disassemble and connect a new chip. Or take out hardware, connect it to you'r pc, flash it and put it back togeather. This is NOT something everyone can do. And then you still have to burn the disks (the only easy part). And if you disassemble the console you loose the warranty. I don't know about the US, but we have 2 years warranty in Denmark, and I would hate to loose that...
That and well... there are no MMOs on consoles that I would play. And more importantly none coming. Pirating on consoles is silly easy as well.
This is another reason why I stick to the PC as well. I mainly play MMORPGs, and I need a PC for those, because of the keyboard. I love chatting with other people ingame, and so far, I have yet to see a console that offers chatting.
Main characters:
Jinn Gone Quiet (Guild Wars)
Princess Pudding (Guild Wars)
It's all good with me. Hell, if I *had* to go back to tabletop gaming, I could probably live with that. I feel whatever happens will probably be for the better as far as your post is conerned.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
<soapbox)
I read the exact same article on BBC today, the million xbox 360 users banned from xbox live, which IMHO is their prerogative and their right to do. The argument is out there that hacking the xbox is necessary for homebrew applications, and I support that if your objective is to play those games and use those applications, then Xbox live is probably not your reason for purchasing the console. The thing it does not stop is piracy, which means if you only wanted to play the single player version of a game, being banned from live probably will not bother you either.
The PC is not much different in this standpoint. Of course, it would be impossible to ban you from a complete network if you only buy the boxed version, and if you used a hacked version any intelligent company would ban the key from online play (maybe not in a intranet/behind your router if you are running a server). I remember people being unable to play quake3 play ten years ago for hacked keys. The PC just does it on a game by game basis. If you are currently trudging through any Bioware game, chances are if you got it third party, you don't care about a online experience. Story driven single player games will continue to suffer no matter what MS does with the Xbox, because a hacked single player Xbox is the same as a hacked PC game (not talking about game play experience by platform here). The xbox live bans seem to only address online play, so quake3 and modern warfare 2 are safely unplayable (yes, I know Q3 is not xbox).
To the console/pc war, minus piracy, (I choose the PC), with a console you know games will work for the life of the system, which can last many years. With PC gaming you know you will need to upgrade eventually due to PC games, the best ones at least, being far more robust. You also know that glitches tend to happen. I don't see the argument here to be honest. The best games translate to all platforms. Although I am still angry that I will never get a shot at The Lost and Damned (yes cheesy), because it was a MS exclusive, but not worth the price of the console when I have this thing.
Edit: I intend to say it is a homebrewer's right to hack their property, and MS right to ban them from their service.
</soapbox>
Played (more than a month): SWG, Second Life, Tabula Rasa, Lineage 2, Everquest 2, EvE, MxO, Ryzom.
Tried: WoW, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, Everquest, WWII Online, Planetside
Beta: Lotro, Tabula Rasa, WAR.
Computer > Console
I dont need a console, but i do need my computer. It lets me do things easier and faster. Also u can do work on a computer that u cant on a console. You cant have as advanced dev kits on a console etc etc etc.
This is what i think as a game developer in the learning phase...
Console give you a hasslefree experience. For the most part. Not evrybody wants to upgrade hardware/windows/antivirus/firewall/antispyware/drivers just for 5% better graphics. That and sitting on a couch with a big lcd and perhaps 5.1 beats the shit out of sitting at a desk.
Consoles have alot of exclusives. Of course you don't hear about them if your a pure pc gamer.
Console give you a hasslefree experience. For the most part. Not evrybody wants to upgrade hardware/windows/antivirus/firewall/antispyware/drivers just for 5% better graphics. That and sitting on a couch with a big lcd and perhaps 5.1 beats the shit out of sitting at a desk.
Consoles have alot of exclusives. Of course you don't hear about them if your a pure pc gamer.
hassle free?
I almost busted out laughing when I read that
what planet are you on pal?
red ring of death? disc read errors? At least when my computer is having trouble I can replace a part and get the thing up and running in a day...
5% better grahpics? again.. what planet? 2560x1600 here pal with 16xAF, 8xAA with as far as the eye can see view distances, 12 gigs of ram to load everything in a second... the technology after I type this has already moved past where it was. your average 360 when not breaking and in a shipping box headed back to microsoft for repair, can't even come close to what PC's can do.
video games is like an evolutionary process.
you go from little tyke toys, to tiger electric games, to a gameboy, to your average console, and at the end with the guy standing upright is the PC and everything it can do.
there's no argument to be had between consoles and pc. consoles are for people on a lower income scale andor don't wanna spend the money for the best game experience money can buy...
Console give you a hasslefree experience. For the most part. Not evrybody wants to upgrade hardware/windows/antivirus/firewall/antispyware/drivers just for 5% better graphics. That and sitting on a couch with a big lcd and perhaps 5.1 beats the shit out of sitting at a desk.
Consoles have alot of exclusives. Of course you don't hear about them if your a pure pc gamer.
hassle free?
I almost busted out laughing when I read that
what planet are you on pal?
red ring of death? disc read errors? At least when my computer is having trouble I can replace a part and get the thing up and running in a day...
there's no argument to be had between consoles and pc. consoles are for people on a lower income scale andor don't wanna spend the money for the best game experience money can buy...
You are the one living in a little odd world were everyone gives a shit about pc tech and the like. Newsflash, most people just want to play games. That dosn't make them stupid or low income, it makes them people that have better things to do with their time.
In the past 6 years I had 4 (award winning) pc powersupplies (from the better brands), one HIS Radeon 9800 pro, two (again awardwinning) HDD's, one asus and one msi mainboards crap out on me to. That beeing said I have always monitored my temps so don't bother bringing that argument.
I am still a pc gamer but imho saying that one is better than the other is stupidity and shows that you haven't experienced the other side with some proper equipment.
Console give you a hasslefree experience. For the most part. Not evrybody wants to upgrade hardware/windows/antivirus/firewall/antispyware/drivers just for 5% better graphics. That and sitting on a couch with a big lcd and perhaps 5.1 beats the shit out of sitting at a desk.
Consoles have alot of exclusives. Of course you don't hear about them if your a pure pc gamer.
hassle free?
I almost busted out laughing when I read that
what planet are you on pal?
red ring of death? disc read errors? At least when my computer is having trouble I can replace a part and get the thing up and running in a day...
there's no argument to be had between consoles and pc. consoles are for people on a lower income scale andor don't wanna spend the money for the best game experience money can buy...
You are the one living in a little odd world were everyone gives a shit about pc tech and the like. Newsflash, most people just want to play games. That dosn't make them stupid or low income, it makes them people that have better things to do with their time.
In the past 6 years I had 4 (award winning) pc powersupplies (from the better brands), one HIS Radeon 9800 pro, two (again awardwinning) HDD's, one asus and one msi mainboards crap out on me to. That beeing said I have always monitored my temps so don't bother bringing that argument.
I am still a pc gamer but imho saying that one is better than the other is stupidity and shows that you haven't experienced the other side with some proper equipment.
How many of those parts required you to pack up your PC in a box and ship it back to the company to fix?
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams
In my opinion the differences between the consoles players and PC players are these:
Time. You might think that consoles run quicker than a PC. This is incorrect. Only during installation does the console beat the PC. With Steam, Impulse driven or my D2D games, etc. They are instant start ups that are quicker than consoles. I don’t even have to get up and put a CD/DvD in the drive.
Cost. I own a PS3 and a Wii. I owed a Xbox 360, but sold it after going through 4 of them, all under warranty. However the cost of a console is cheaper than the PC, this common knowledge. However my PC games are a lot cheaper. If you wait a month after release, then they are half price. If you buy a lot of games, the PC is cheaper than the console.
Knowledge. It takes some brain cells to build and maintain the PC, but not by much. This isn’t the old days when a gamer had to edit the autoexec.bat/config.sys file to get a game to run. PCs are a lot easier to build these days.
One system to rule them all. Too bad all games couldn’t run on one system. But with emulators for the PC……………well, they are out there for the PC.
LOL @ ;people who still bother having this lame argument. This argument has been done over and over again like PC vs. Mac. Why give a crap? Like what you like, who cares?!?!?!?! We're all gamers so what does it matter????
Console give you a hasslefree experience. For the most part. Not evrybody wants to upgrade hardware/windows/antivirus/firewall/antispyware/drivers just for 5% better graphics. That and sitting on a couch with a big lcd and perhaps 5.1 beats the shit out of sitting at a desk.
Consoles have alot of exclusives. Of course you don't hear about them if your a pure pc gamer.
hassle free?
I almost busted out laughing when I read that
what planet are you on pal?
red ring of death? disc read errors? At least when my computer is having trouble I can replace a part and get the thing up and running in a day...
there's no argument to be had between consoles and pc. consoles are for people on a lower income scale andor don't wanna spend the money for the best game experience money can buy...
You are the one living in a little odd world were everyone gives a shit about pc tech and the like. Newsflash, most people just want to play games. That dosn't make them stupid or low income, it makes them people that have better things to do with their time.
In the past 6 years I had 4 (award winning) pc powersupplies (from the better brands), one HIS Radeon 9800 pro, two (again awardwinning) HDD's, one asus and one msi mainboards crap out on me to. That beeing said I have always monitored my temps so don't bother bringing that argument.
I am still a pc gamer but imho saying that one is better than the other is stupidity and shows that you haven't experienced the other side with some proper equipment.
How many of those parts required you to pack up your PC in a box and ship it back to the company to fix?
None.
I've yet to pack up my PC.
next argument?
There's no point in debating the obvious
PC is superior, in almost every way.
And this is coming from a 29 year old guy who has been playing games before many of you were born, I've had just about all manner of consoles ever created. I got into PC's when I was 15, and have never looked back. If you have any brains PC's are the top of the food chain in terms of entertaining yourself with games. The factors which stop people from reaching this high up are a few.
Cost
Time
Brains
Eventually console only people graduate to PC's, some don't, and those are the people who are intimidated by price (cost), don't have time to build or learn something more complex than a console (Time) andor can't operate a keyboard and mouse cause there are too many buttons (brains)
How many of those parts required you to pack up your PC in a box and ship it back to the company to fix?
Nice argument but do you even have a clue what for a pathetic support/warranty service most hardware companies have? So IMHO the 'hassle' thing is still worse on the pc side...
How many of those parts required you to pack up your PC in a box and ship it back to the company to fix?
Nice argument but do you even have a clue what for a pathetic support/warranty service most hardware companies have? So IMHO the 'hassle' thing is still worse on the pc side...
IF you fall within the warranty time frame you get a brand new product should one of them fail over time in your computer.
and it doesn't take 4-6 weeks like the crapbox360. a lot of them will send you the new one and have you send the old one back.
I had a mod chip for my PS1. It plugged right into the back through a serial/parallel port, and that was it. My Xbox was soft modded, which took all of 30 mins, and just reading a step by step guide. My X-Box 360 is modded, I just needed to hook up a single set of wires, and push on a new faceplate. My Wii is modded. No soldering needed with the solderless mod chips. Just open it up, put the little clip on, and bam. Good to go.
Every console that I have modded has taken 10-15 mins tops other than the X-box. It was always straight forward, and pretty darned easy. And, lets not forget that you can just buy a pre-modded console.
My PC? I need Daemon Tools, PowerISO, YASU and several other programs based on how things were done. I often need to wait a few days (or weeks like with Bioshock...) for it to get hacked. I then have to deal with half the games not working correctly, or at all (Section 8). Some wont save, or let you get out of vehicles (GTA 4) or they make it impossible for you to kill enemies (AARM2). And some just don't work well at all (Saints Row 2). I get all those problems when trying to play the pirated games due to protection that they build into the games, or just badly done cracks.
I find myself spending HOURS trying to get a game running every once and a while, and VERY often it can take a good 30 mins of troubleshooting. I spent more time trying to get Bioshock to install and crack than it took to mod all of my consoles COMBINED. I also need to modify my host file to block out several places (Quake 4 and more) to get the game to run correctly.
So, I don't know what you are talking about. When I play a pirated game on a console, it boots up and plays flawlessly every time. No problems. And gettting pirated games to work often takes more time and knowledge than modding your console.
So I am just going to add my 2 cents as far as hardware failures. I have an alienware laptop I use for gaming and an xbox 360. So in my years of owning an alienware laptop I had to send the computer in for repars probably 10 times, this is counting the life pan of 3 different computers over 6 years. Seems that the video cards fail a lot, and they cannot seem to repair them without a video car failing again a few weeks later. Ultimately I eventually get the to send me an all new computer since they are too inept to fix them and the BBB really helps with complaints. On avarage those repairis take anywhere from 2 weeks to up to 5 weeks for the company to get parts.
No on to the xbox 360, yes I have had the red ring of death, not once, not twice, but three times. After calling them and getting the shiping lable I sent it out and got a new 360 within a week. I'll let others do the math on this, and of course they will say that I suck and have horrible luck, which might be true. But I would say my down time with PCs is far greater than it is with consoles, and I am a pretty heavy gamer.
Also, in closing Alienware sucks, don't buy anything from them...
just to clarify, the 360 they sent you back wasn't new
it was a refurb that someone else sent back and got fixed.
congrats, you now own a used piece of hardware that broke under someone elses watch.