I'd say it really depends on what you want to play. If you like MMOs, then go PC. If you like racing, fps, etc, then go console. Again, it depends on what you like to play.

bestguy1756

I'd say it really depends on what you want to play. If you like MMOs, then go PC. If you like racing, fps, etc, then go console. Again, it depends on what you like to play.

Oh yeah, that sounds about right... wait what? If memory serves me right, FPS started on the PC, and is still very dominant on the PC, compared to the console. I think it's because of the mouse keyboard combination, that's the reason I play them mainly on the PC, because I can aim more precisely.

As for the whole console vs PC, I prefer PC because most games now are multi-platform, so it usually comes out on the PC also, and I like that wonderful series of tubes called the internet, and media player, and multiple windows, cracks for games I own so I don't have to go search for the CD again, I just like the amount of control you can have with a PC, compare to a console where you're basically told, here it is! It works! But don't touch anything! And stop picking at that!

I prefer console, but I can use keyboard and mouse on my PS3.

[edit] Holy shit this was long. Ah well.

Since you guys grossly misinterpreted my post, I'm going to elaborate a bit. Sure, calling his entire post tripe was excessive, however everything after that wasn't aimed at anyone in particular. It was more aimed at the people coming in just to say "PC beats everything" or stating their opinion as objective statements or whatever, as well as the useless hardware comparisons being made, as well as some statements made that didn't make much logical sense (for example why people seem to think PC's are confined to desks; not like you can't stick one in your livingroom and play from your couch), and it was made in a moment of anger (as well as the fact that I've been too drained from work to really formulate a reply, hence the delay). However, I'm not going to apologize, and I think you've made your point. Assumptions were made on both sides, and I'm willing to ignore it as misunderstanding.

Anyway, I've been playing games for over 20 years now, and it's a topic I have a fair amount of passion for. One would say I started playing games near the end of the "golden age" of gaming (the late 70's through the mid 80's or so, give or take), however I am of the opinion that this extends as far as the late 90's... more on that later.

See, one of my main problem with this thread is how few people are comparing the platforms as gaming machines. I mean, that is what this section of the board is about, right? Let's face it - anymore, PC's are more "internet appliances" than they used to be. Pretty much everybody who needs to get online or do homework or whatever else one would use a PC for already has one. Game consoles are built to play games - everything else is an afterthought. Technically, you could do homework on a PS3 since it can browse the web and control a printer, but would you really want to? Of course not - it's not designed for that job - in the same way that most consumer PC's aren't designed to play games. Let's face it, a vast majority of consumers don't understand that their generic mass-built system doesn't have enough power to play the latest titles.

What's a typical computer that most families who don't know better would buy nowadays? You might get an Intel Core 2 Duo if you're lucky... 250GB hard drive, 1 or 2GB of memory... so far so good. Onboard audio and video? Then people get pissed when their computer won't run Crysis. I mean come on, even Dell XPS systems come with barely-better-than-onboard bottom-end expansion cards, and people think they're ready to game because the XPS line is their higher performance stuff. It is my opinion that consumer ignorance (so to speak) is responsible for the sorry state that PC gaming is in. I've read recently that AMD is trying to have a certification system for gaming-capable machines, but who knows how that's going to fly. I'm guessing not well, but at least someone's trying to do something about it.

Either way, I don't think the price of the system is as big a factor for most people. Chances are you have a PC because you need one - so that is negated for most people. Then, for the price of a current-gen gaming console, you could outfit it with hardware that would make it ready to play games (assuming you didn't get some odd form factor case that won't accept normal size power supplies or expansion cards). Which brings me to modding cases - there are clear acrylic cases for the 360 as well as plenty of sites that offer skins and whatnot for those folks who like putting stupid lights everywhere. You might say it's harder or voids your warranty, but I think that's a misconception there propagated by the fact that the AT* standard is open and you can configure it however you want (honestly though, if IBM knew that it was going to become the worldwide standard, I wonder if they'd have changed things?). I'm not sure if you've read an SLA lately, but if you're not a certified professional and you built your PC yourself, if it dies and you go to get warranty service on it, they can basically tell you to piss off. They typically won't, but if they do you're pretty much SOL. Also note that aftermarket heatsinks and some other accessories will void warranties - on CCD lights, the only proper way to install them is with an external power supply. Considering most PSU's nowadays are built work work inside certain tolerances, most installations just tapping a 12V line will be fine, but there's just the argument of if it's proper or not.

The beauty statement with PC's, well... isn't graphical beauty subjective? I mean, there are objective criteria such as resolution, anti-aliasing quality, texture quality, and what not, however in what regard do most people hold art direction or animation production? Personally, I think graphics are pretty worthless as criteria for judging a game (sound is way more important from an A/V standpoint, IMO), but it is easier to get excited about a game that looks great, I suppose. Either way, some of the best looking games I've personally laid eyes on have low-resolution textures, run at low resolutions, or have overblown effects stylistically. Personally, I don't think Crysis looks very good at all - I mean it's technically impressive, but the surfaces that are intended to look realistic just... don't. My main problem with Crysis is it'll be a couple of years before most people can play it properly. I'm far more worried with framerates than the amount of effects, and Crysis just kills current systems. That's one of the reasons I've always loved arcades - the ridiculously high framerates; I lament their passing in the U.S. with frequency in some venues. However, in my opinion, the only worthwhile ruler for judging games on is gameplay. There it is, my entire viewpoint for choosing games.

As far as power is concerned... no. Your PC isn't always going to be more powerful than consoles. In fact, for every console release since the PS1 consoles have been more powerful than PC's of the time. Come on, the 360 has three 3.2GHz PPC cores and the PS3 has a PPC core and 7 coprocessor cores running at the same speed. When they came out, there was no single desktop processor with that kind of raw power (and I'm not sure anybody has beaten them yet on the consumer market). You might argue that the PS3's Cell design is stupid for gaming, and it kind of is, but fact is given the right job, it'll crush whatever processor you have in your PC right now. Problem is coding an engine now that'll take advantage of all that power. Just to go into it quick without touching on its intricacies, the coprocessor units can't do anything without asking the main processor if they can do something. This results in a lot of wasted cycles. Not sure what it is about Kutaragi and these strange designs, but whatever. If the audience is there, programmers are going to have to cope.

Others have touched on the fact that since consoles have a unified hardware architecture, it's easier to extract that specific hardware's maximum potential, so I don't think we need to go into that so much. Consoles don't have huge OS' running in the background (yeah, they do have OS' nowadays, however it's not like said systems run anywhere near the level of services that Windows or Mac OS have to run), and like I've said, most people don't have gaming grade PC's, so engines for PC games have to be designed with scalability in mind. That does bring me to a problem with consoles though - since the gaming industry is so huge now and there's so many competing platforms, there's obviously going to be some "lowest common denominator" programming going on. Last gen, the PS2's huge established audience, stupid hardware design, and smaller feature set compared to both the Xbox and Gamecube meant that programmers who were forced to design engines that could work with all three games had to work with the PS2 in mind primarily. A lot of games for the Xbox/Gamecube had some additional effects like AA or bump mapping or whatever... this generation, sure the Wii isn't even near powerful enough to be the lowest common denominator, but even with two consoles in the running, we're still seeing it. A lot of American and European games are being designed primarily for the 360 because of its market share, and thanks to the PS3's odd architecture, it shows that when ported the strengths that are there aren't being fully taken advantage of. Seriously, look at Ratchet and Clank Future or Uncharted to see a bit more of what the PS3 is really capable of, and likewise Forza 2 or any other 360 exclusive. It's amazing what programmers can do when they have the luxury of focusing development on one platform...

Anyway, I'm not sure I understand the lifestyles argument. I prefer consoles because I prefer the games (isn't that what gaming is about, anyway?). PC's clearly do FPS and Strategy games better than consoles (the 360 and PS3 actually both support USB keyboards and mice - it's up to the developers to add the functionality. If the consumers are loud enough about it, eventually someone will crack... but I digress...), some simulations as well. Consoles clearly do Platformers, most sports games, some simulations, and the ever-popular (and IMO increasingly infuriating) J-RPG's better. I don't care about FPS or RTS games for the most part (I believe the last PC FPS I finished was... Portal. Before that was... F.E.A.R. maybe?), but I don't deny that the PC clearly has games that can't be properly done elsewhere. I'm not sure that relegates me to the console-gamer camp; I love playing indie games (as well as nigh-pointless flash games that consume way more time than they really should... Dino Run or Cursor, anyone?) - Cave Story was brilliant (and pretty remarkable considering it was made by a single person, then given away free - it's got tons of content), Yumei Nikki is mind-bendingly odd but beautiful, anything by ABA is good for a quick blast... man, I don't even want to get started, there's thousands of great indie games out there.

Right, right... infuriating J-RPG's, that reminds me. As far as the "Golden Age" of gaming is concerned, it's typically considered back when everything was 2D only and you could pop a token into a PacMan cabinet pretty much anywhere, right? Well, it might just be getting cynical in my old age (man, I'm still about 25 years off from having a mid-life crisis, cut me some slack), but I don't play games as much as I used to. And I'm not being literal here - relatively, I don't play as much - less of my free time is spent playing games. I have fond memories of games past, yes, but I don't think that the state of the industry is in total disarray. I do, however, want to bring forth my opinion on a certain company, now Square-Enix (formerly Square/Squaresoft/Square U.S.A. (Secret of Evermore lawl?)). See, they were essentially given a second chance at life when fans ate up their Dragon Quest clone - I'm sure it goes without introduction, but I'm talking about Final Fantasy, here. The game didn't get localized and released in the 'States until the third FF game was already out in Japan, but it was pretty popular here, too. Then of course, we got FF4 and 6 here (4 being my favorite, but 6 had a staggeringly beautiful soundtrack). The Squaresoft of the 90's took chances and produced some utterly incredible games: Dewprism/Threads of Fate, Brave Fencer Musashi, Einhander, Final Fantasy Tactics, Xenogears (though the budget here was pulled for FF8... ugh), Parasite Eve, Internal Section, Vagrant Story (whose English translation is almost unspeakably awesome)... Seiken Densetsu 3 I didn't really like, however the soundtrack can still give me goosebumps. Totally worth playing the game at least once for the music. Anyway, the market shifted with FF7, and has rather quickly transformed SE into what they are today, partially evidenced by Sakaguchi and Matsuno leaving (who knows what Matsuno ended up doing... he seemed to have gone ballistic partway through the development of FFXII and then Nomura picked up his duties... ugh). Either way, they don't seem willing to take the same kind of risks now that they would in the 90's. Thing is, I'm really not just picking on Square here; just using them as an example people here can relate to. Too many companies are playing it safe and it's choking the "games are art" ideal, something that I believe in pretty strongly. Ah well. To each his/her own, I suppose. The opinions of a jaded gamer (passed his prime?) aren't going to move the masses.

If you read all that, thanks I suppose. I don't really have a way to wrap this up, but I've got plenty more to say; I'll leave it there for now (for the sake of sanity, I suppose).

hello to everyone I am new to the forum but I prefer the emulators

Emulators are nice only if you're into playing older games like games on the PSX or N64 like I still do, but good luck finding a PS3 emulator that's bug-free, that is if you can find a hot PC to play it on.

Orchid's mention of the types of games people like to play and how they affect people's choice of PCs or console is something I don't think I've talked too much about and come to think of it, that's one of the main reasons I play on my PC. The games I play on the PC are mostly FPS and racing games (thought RTS is something of the past, I might pick it up once again with Starcraft 2).

The choice for FPs on the PC is kind of obvious, but one game has had me hooked for 5 years now just because they came with a map editor which allows you to edit maps and create single player campaigns by settings events. Because this game allows anyone who has bought the game to make all sorts of different maps and share them with others, this game still has dozens of new maps coming out every week in different servers online keeping the multiplayer and singleplayer interesting. In this sense, that particular type of game is much better suited for the PC. I play a wide range of racing games, both arcade and simulators. The arcade game I mostly play is Need for Speed (though their last two titles have been shit and I haven't had much time to play them recently). Racing simulators I've tried playing are Live for Speed, GT2, and rFactor but none of them really stood out. The one racing sim I've enjoyed a lot playing is Richard Burns Rally and I still occasionally play. Racing games are suitable for me because I play them with Logitech G25 bolted right in front of me right now on my office desk. I don't know about other households, but my family room has no desk of this kind, structure or shape to accommodate the G25 to run games like Gran Turismo 5 Prologue on the PS3 or Forza on the 360 (and don't tell me to play with the console controllers on racing games because that's just as lame as playing them with a keyboard).

So yeah, what you really want to play will really affect which system you'll prefer, but even though I play the PC, there are games that I don't play, mostly RPG games like WoW. Heck there are some games on the consoles I really want to play (Ace Combat 4, 5, and 6, Forza and Gran Turismo 3-5), but I can live without playing them because the games on my PC take up too much of my time as it is.

Yeah, PC's are good for Shooters, Real Time Strategies, emulating old games, and simulators. While Consoles are good for everything else. But then again, as DistortionL05 said, I can get on the internet with a PC.

You know, you can get on the internet with the PS3 and the Wii...

Its sad to see what kind of state PC gaming has become, especially as it used to be the peak. Now, it seems to me, that PC games are getting dumbed down just so consoles can play them. The only real pioneer of this age regarding that would be crysis, and soon to be crysis: warhead, both are way to high of requirements to play on a console. I'm glad that these games are holding the flag persay telling people that its alright to design for PC alone.

Whats more so annoying is all of the games on consoles that would be amazing on a PC, Gears of War 2 will most likely come to PC but the Gran Turismo series would be epic to say the least.

Hmm whatever happened to the good old times such as CS, Diablo, and Starcraft XD
or final fantasy, zelda, mario, and metalgear. these were all good games and i dont think you limit yourself to just one, PC or console. I mean prices are high for the pc but do you really have to play the newest games to enjoy gaming, the old games were fun the way they are albeit that their graphics suck but who cares its all about the fun

I like Consoles better because my PC sucks for gameing.

A console is fine and good butin the End you have more fun with a computer and more posibilities.
A computer is for like a Huge MP3 Player with console function XD

I have a Mac.
which do you think I prefer. not PC.
really makes me mad. Kick me a few games.

I the pc I like it because there are much more opportunities in him, than in the console!
But it true, that some game types are spent on a console only, pugnacious (Mortal Kombat), or (Heavenly Sword) that much pc proprietor with pleasure would test!
This may come from it, that the console the safety system of games heavier to jump over than the pc, and the sellings want to be made safer in this manner you are something, but then disturbing.

Well, for me I prefer consoles. My computer can't really run any high-end games, and is mostly used for just the internet. Consoles also have more of an appeal to me since I grew up playing consoles more than computers. Consoles are also easier for me to control and usually have a greater selection of the games that I usually like to play. As for graphics between the two well, there pretty much becoming even since games are approaching the peak of realistic. Still both have great games coming out for them so I guess it just depends on what you like to play with.