Console or PC?

[Grimblade]

Debate: Console side - Which is the better video game platform: Console or PC? - Video Game Consoles & Accessories - Helium - by Damian Brown

What do you guys think?

[Lenny]

Being a console gamer, I'm going to say console. Specifically the PS3 (I didn't fork out £425 at launch because I dislike it, now did I?).

I think that games are more accessible on consoles - if you buy a console game, then you can take it home, pop it in, and play it. No faffing about having to install it (though most PS3 games do offer the option of an install to the PS3 hard drive, which will speed up load times), and the controls are pretty intuitive, as most games will follow the same button map. Compare this with a PC... you've got to have the right hardware to start with. Brilliant quote from Commonmind (near enough the same wording without having to go and check), with Crysis as the example - "Even God can't play Crysis on Very High settings!". I'm not shelling out £425 every six months so I can upgrade my PC to stay on top of the latest games. Also, aside from WASD (up, left, down, right - movement), very few games will follow the same control system - some may use space to reload, whilst others use space to jump, or crouch, or pause the game, or change weapon, or open the inventory, or fire weapon... and so on. With consoles, the same buttons are used for actions in most games - how many hundreds of games use X/A to jump, or R2/RT to accelerate in a racing game?

If I buy a PS3 game, then it's going to work on my PS3, whether it's a launch unit, or whether, eight years down the line, I buy a game bundled with a PS3. The hardware never changes (well, odd improvements such as 45nm processors to make it more efficient heat-wise etc - the core components stay the same, though), and the games are designed and developed with that in mind. The developers know what they can play with, so they build the game engines to make the use of the resources of the console (this is the same with every console known to man... well... no, that can be saved for later). With a PC, and I'll use Crysis as an example again, developers either go all out in development and build something that even God can't play and sacrifice their install base, or they sacrifice quality for a bigger install base - you've got to remember that it takes sales of hundreds of thousands of copies of the game before the developer breaks even and starts to make a profit (games these days cost millions of pounds/dollars to make - some of the top games have bigger budgets than Hollywood films!!), so they need to target a wide audience to recoup their losses.

Just to explain what happened with Crysis - it started out as DX10 only, requiring Vista, and ended up, at release, supporting DX9 and Windows XP, simply because the install base of Vista (and hence DX10), was pitifully small, and the number of people with hardware even close to the original recommended specs could be counted on one hand.

With a console game, developers don't need to worry about install base so much (obviously the number of owners of the console - for example, 12 million PS3 owners, or 18 million 360 owners - means that there are that number of people who can play the game with no worries, and thousands of people will buy a console each week), and so can work on the game knowing that their only limitation is the skill of their programmers, and how well they can make use of the power of the console.

[Commonmind]

Now, while I consider myself a pretty devout PC gamer and an avid hardware enthusiast, I'm going to have to agree with almost every point Lenny has made and state that I also feel consoles are the superior platform...nowadays.

PC's were inherently more powerful than consoles for many years and developers had the technical legroom to really push the boundaries so they could create new and unique experiences that simply weren't possible on another platform. As time went by that gap closed significantly and it's now possible to deliver similar experiences across both the console and PC.

Crytek has been working on bringing the newest version of their engine to consoles and have expressed the power of current gen hardware (specifically the PS3) is capable of producing visuals on par with what we've seen on high-end PC's.

No doubt that we'll see a port of Crysis sometime soon (something Crytek thought impossible only a year ago and spoke very adamantly about).

Also, you just don't see any real innovation coming from the PC market anymore. Rather than producing the next big blockbuster title, everyone is more interested in reproducing the last big one...cashing in on the other guy's cash cow, as it were. The industry has become stale and stagnant and the days of the Diablo 2's, the Planescapes, the Deus Ex's and the Theif's are long past. If it weren't for Half Life 2 and its respective pals, the platform would be pretty barren at the moment.

[Commonmind]

And, let me just add this one little diplomatic P.S.: I believe, in the end, it comes down to software -- which I sort of insinuated in my post -- and whether or not it's enjoyable and delivers an experience worthy of the money which I've invested. Because a platform is nothing without its library.

I'm a gamer; I play games - when someone asks me what I'm playing at the moment I don't answer them with the system I'm playing, but which game I'm playing. It just so happens that, at the moment, the console as a platform has been consistently delivering the more solid and rewarding experience. If that changed tomorrow, I'd change my opinion.

[the smiling weirwood]

I feel the same way. Which is one reason I despise platform exclusives. I would rather have a PS3 but then I miss out on the awesome games for other systems....

[Grimblade]

Interesting.. well if you followed the link you'll know that I agree with the majority vote here. I'll always use both but for those that just want to play games a console is the only true path to take..

[Lucien21]

I play most of the my games on the console so I certainly would say that consoles are the prefered option these days.

However the PC is usually ahead in the technology department. Consoles are only really leading technologically for 6 months or so (if that). However that advantage comes at a price of constant updates.

Also I have still to be convinced that the consoles have come up with a better control system than the mouse and keyboard which is waay better and more accurate than the joypads.

[Lenny]

I've just remembered a point I forgot to make in my post, which Lucien and Commonmind touched upon - PCs are ahead in the technology department. A few years ago, it was estimated that PCs were five years ahead of consoles tech-wise. I don't know the figure now, but I guess it'll be a year or two.

When Gears of War came out for the 360, I read reviews (but only to keep my 360 friends happy - they were this close to chaining me down and reading them out to me in scenes reminiscent of a Vogon poetry recital), and from the Games industry (who seem to be mostly console gamers), everything was really positive. Then I heard, on some podcast or other, a PC developer talking about it, and generally slagging it off. "Bump-mapping?" he said, "We've been using bump-mapping for years! Yet consoles are only just using it?!". Whilst PC games were using it and technologies beyond it, "bump-mapping" to console developers was something Geography nuts did to their wives.

[Commonmind]

I would just like to point out, Lenny...

they were this close to chaining me down and reading them out to me in scenes reminiscent of a Vogon poetry recital

"bump-mapping" to console developers was something Geography nuts did to their wives.

...that you've met your comedic genius quota for the entire year. Grats on making me lol in real life; not many hold that honor

[Fake Vencar]

PC all the way! I won't go into a long debate, but in 2 years time the consoles will all have to be replaced by new ones costing a bomb!

[Lucien21]

Originally Posted by Fake Vencar

PC all the way! I won't go into a long debate, but in 2 years time the consoles will all have to be replaced by new ones costing a bomb!

And you don't need to upgrade a PC then

[TheEndIsNigh]

I agree with Lenny on almost - almost everything he says however:-

Originally Posted by Lenny

- they were this close to chaining me down and reading them out to me in scenes reminiscent of a Vogon poetry recital

What's wrong with Vogan poetry? You know you're alive at a Vogan poetry recital; you certainly don't fall asleep like you do at those awful shakespear events and you can always get seats without pre-booking.

PC's are more advanced than games consoles for general purpose computing. They would probably be superb games platforms if the programs were written for a standard hardware configuration. Unfortunately it's rare that a PC has the same spec as another in the same town, let alone worldwide, so the poor old PC game writer has to include tests for the different variations as in :-

case(sound_card){

case SOUNDBLASTER: make_a_noise(SCREAM);
break;
case AVA: blurt_it_out(SCREAM);
etc
every one of these tests is painfully slow compared to just- make_a_noise(SCREAM);

Sadly all this can be taken care of by an operating system. Windows being the main flavour of choice. As the underlying OS takes on more tasks and tweeks (not connected to, but greatly affecting performance -FAT versus NTFS disk format as a for instance) the games performance is reduced. The only cure being an upgrade in PC for the same performance. Test this if you dare, imagine loading Vista on a machine 4 years old - then imagine playing DOOM on that machine - impressive eh.

I often run DOS based programs on my PC. It's frightening how fast they run compared to the "good old days" of 386/486 yet the WORD still takes 5 seconds to think about loading a file under XP on the same machine (timing approx but you get the idea)

A games console removes all this uncertainty. The sound graphics and video driver is the same everywhere no if then or butts. Then add in the fact it was designed for graphics handling and games playing: there is no contest. I can still 'play' with Laura on the same console at the same speed 7,8,15,30 years from now on my PS2 as I did originally.

[Lenny]

Originally Posted by Fake Vencar

PC all the way! I won't go into a long debate, but in 2 years time the consoles will all have to be replaced by new ones costing a bomb!

Ah, now that's where business plans come in.

Your statement is true concerning Microsoft and the Xbox - MS have adopted a five year busness plan. The 360 launched in 2005, and is now two and a half years into its lifecycle. So you can expect to see a whole new Xbox console in 2010.

Sony, however, have adopted a 10 year plan with the PS3. The PS1 and PS2 had five year plans (PS1 launched in 1995 and was replaced by the PS2 in 2000, which itself was replaced by the PS3 in 2006 - problems with development of the PS3 led to the PS2 having an extended life span, and indeed, it is still selling strong). We won't see the PS4 until 2016 at the very earliest.

As for Nintendo, I reckon they've also gone for a five year plan with the Wii.

[Commonmind]

Actually, I feel, quite strongly, that Nintendo will announce and subsequently launch the next iteration of the Wii fairly soon. They've created a franchise with the Wii, as they had done with the NES, and with its low price point and high accessibility it's made quite a name for itself. A more powerful, slightly more expensive WiiNii (little Japanese pun there, sorry) would sell strongly and the higher price point would likely be forgotten about with a system that is capable of HD, visuals on par with PS3 and 360, and installed with a high capacity solid state drive.

I think we'll see an announcement as early as Q1 next year from Nintendo, and a new hardware release well before the next MS and Sony consoles.

[Thadlerian]

I say PC. But only because I wouldn't be able to come to terms with myself on buying a big, expensive machine that can only be used for gaming.