PC vs. Console Gaming

This ought to be a fun topic. We have two computers that are getting a bit long in the tooth. They don't even meet the minimum requirements of some new games like F.E.A.R., Half Life 2, or, for one of them, even Civilization 4. So I'm thinking about starting to upgrade them or build/buy new ones. The latest graphics cards all use PCI-Express, which neither of our computers support, so that would mean a processor and motherboard upgrade, and more RAM, in addition to the graphics cards. And this would be just to play the 3 or 4 computer games a year that really capture our attention. Our favorites now are World of Warcraft and Unreal Tournament 2004, W40K: Dawn of War, Neverwinter Nights... types of games that have traditionally been more suited to PCs. Obviously, this would set us back $1,000 or so just to upgrade both, or $2,000-3,000 if we decide to get all new computers.

We've never been console gamers. The most powerful console we own is a Super Nintendo, but this has been, in the past, because computers were so much more powerful and versatile than any console. The next generation of consoles like the 360 and the PS3, however, look to have at least on par, and possibly greater, power than any computer we could ever afford. Plus they're trying to be able to play music, go online, play movies, etc, etc.

We have a little disposable money now, but not enough to invest in both.
So which would you choose? Personally, I'm leaning toward computers, because of their versatility and utility for things besides games, but I could be swayed either way.

I would go with the console. As much as i love some classic PC games, (Grim Fandango, Sam and Max, Myst series) I like being able to buy a console game and not worrying if it will run or not waiting 30 min to install it with another 20min to patch it.

I love how easy consoles are, buy one and you're guaranteed to be able to play any console game you like for the next six to ten years of the consoles life.

pc's can be great but their performance is so variable, even if your pc is able to run the game according to the box it's still no guarantee it won't be chugging along or giving you graphical bugs that make it unplayable because you don't have the latest video card driver.

on top of that games and tech advance so fast these days, when i bought my brand new top of the line pc, i was able to play 2 big new releases before my pc's power became dubious for playing games, at the moment i can pretty much forget about trying to run any new release. (at the moment i'm still looking forward to the release of shadow of the colossus which will run perfect on the ps2 i bought years and years ago)

add to that the fact that these days pc's will run photoshop or flash just fine for me, those programs are no longer a reason for me to upgrade.

in the end controlls are important to, if my favourite genre is platform games i'd rather not play prince of persia on the PC or alternatively be stuck playing call of duty on a console.
you can't beat the reliability of a console but if your gaming heart is set on playing the newest shiniest FPS games online then you might as well get a PC.

They should set you back $1000-$1200 or so to replace them both completely. I just priced out a PC with exactly those specs yesterday.

If you can afford the few grand for your PCs, whats a few hundred for a console to you?

Snottlebocket said:
I love how easy consoles are, buy one and you're guaranteed to be able to play any console game you like for the next six to ten years of the consoles life.

I can't think of one game I would like to play for six to ten years.

I vote for doing the pc. Yeah, it's a lot more money, but you get a lot more. A pc has waaay more function than a machine built just for gaming. And if you're building it yourself, you can always upgrade as needed.

[Edited on Dec 04, 2005 by cayce]

Because I just don't want to invest in both. And either the 360 or PS3 is going to set you back $400+, plus XBox Live subscription, extra controller(s), peripherals, games at $59.95 a pop.. it adds up. Upgrading the computers would not be about plopping down a few grand in one shot either... it would be about upgrading slowly, saving up, or getting them on credit.

This Game rocks. I just finished it about two weeks ago. you should also try the developers first game, ICO.

[Edited on Dec 04, 2005 by Spaceboy]

It's a fair point. I would say my PC/Console time in my life has been equally divided, although that will change soon as my PC ran WoW okay but it's the end of the line for new releases. I really don't fancy the entire system upgrade, especially since I've spent a fair bit of money incrementally upgrading my current PC. I'm a lot more laid back about my gaming, happy to savour the really good games of the past and recent past, and catching up on all those classics that never got the time they deserved, and I don't see myself buying any consoles on release in the future, instead waiting to pick them up for cheaper. I suggest you go ahead with the PC, but then ask yourself what titles that will enable you to play right now that you can't? Why not put it off for as long as you possibly can, until something comes along that you must play but refuses to run on your system. It's where the wise man's money would go, sadly I've never been that wise.

If I had your money, I'd spend ont he PC, and buy a DS while I'm at it. Cheap as chips and the wi-fi aspect is going to take it far.

You already seem to have your mind made up though. You now stand accused at doing nothing but starting arguments and disturbing the peace

[Edited on Dec 04, 2005 by DullLifelessHair]

I can think of four, and they all include the word "Mario".

It's possible I have a short attention span.

$2000 Gaming Computer

This is probably true. However, I was curious whether anyone would predict that console games will become more like PC games, or predict that the PC-exclusive game is a dying breed, etc.. For example, if World of Warcraft were available for the Xbox -- requiring a keyboard and mouse add-on, of course -- that would make it much more attractive to me.

Well, the dream of the X-Box was to bring a lot of PC gaming to consoles, and I'd say the new generation will see an even smaller gap. I'm interested to see what will happen to the PC market, as we've reached a point where upgrading has changed. In the past, we had to upgrade just to keep our PCs moving with the times, but nowadays games are the only reason most people would need to upgrade for. There's probably going to be a lot of motion of PC developers also releasing their titles on console, especially in the future. If you think about it, we could wait and see what happens in the next year or so, and by that time the console prices will have fallen.

It's really just you asking yourself what games you want to play, and how badly you want to play them. I went into a console buying/Pc upgrade frenzy a couple of years ago, and I had to sit down, take a breath and say "Okay, what do I want to play?" What system to buy seems to sort itself out after that.

i did, it's one of my favourite games ever which is why i was instantly interested in shadow of the colossus when i heard who was making it.

hiya keith,

i understand completely your situation. i just recently had to make the same decision, i ultimately decided to start building a new computer.

here are a few of the reasons.

1) upgradeability. cant really upgrade consoles, they intentionally design them that way. you can upgrade your pc if you buy the right parts.

2) emulation - you can run just about any games from any console system on your pc. emulation has come a LONG way. you can play everything from the old school commodore 64 games up to the ps2 games on a pc. and i would suspect that somewhere out there, ppl are already making progress on xbox 360 emulation.

3) versatility
3A) controllers - you can use most console system controllers on your pc. (i use the playstation controller on my pc)

3B) online play - with most pc games you don’t have to pay to play them online. it seems console makers are heading in the direction of double charging you to play online i.e., xbox live. those double charges add up. and they also annoy the hell out of me. with most pc games, you fire it up, click multiplayer, search for servers, and play. you dont have to pay your internet provider extra to play that game online.

3C) and on and on, basically, you are far from limited with the stuff you can do on a computer. you probably don’t want me to make a list of all the things you can do on a computer that you can't do on a console system.

4) while it seems that most programs will run fine on your current pc, the next generation of windows is coming out soon (windows vista). with that new operating system comes new programs and some of them will (unfortunately) require windows vista, and the programs that will run on earlier versions of windows, they will run sluggish. i.e., you will probably want a new computer in the next couple of years anyway.

5) something annoys me that console systems are touting their 'new' ability to go online, play music, play movies, etc... i mean, computers have been doing these things for over a decade...

-

this is an annoying neverending cycle of upgrading they are putting us through. but at least with a pc, you can upgrade individual parts and you'll be out-processing the current gen consoles


hope this helped. good luck.

toof

My brother swears by the pc, and the pc games.

I think he's nuts.

I have a computer that I've had for five years now. It's old. It's slow. It was obsolete six months after I got it. It still does what I need it to do: email, wordprocessing, SUICIDE GIRLS, some multi-media and other basic stuff...

But for gaming, I think consoles have it made. For starters, it's what they were intended for. Gaming. The power for processing sound and video can't be beat (esp. when you consider the 360 has three CPU processors!!) I'm not going to take the time to list all the specs, but you get the idea.

You may be able to customize your pc to get the performance you want, something you can't always do with consoles, but the cost of doing so can add up quickly. I've also noticed that even by doing so, you don't always get optimum performance on every game you buy for the pc. Console game developers create games to push the envelope of the processing power of a specific console but their games are still always within said console's parameters. This means that a developer can make a game that will use the PS3 or the XBox 360 to it's full potential, but each platform will always be able to run the game.

I prefer consoles.

First, you will know the games will run. Half Life 2 will run on my machine without issues, while some other, less graphically intense games run horribly. Sometimes the minimum/recommened requirements seem a bit off from the truth.

There was another instance, where Half Life 2 woulnd't run, because of the drivers I downloaded at some point. It sucks to want to relax and play games, but have to try and fix some weird issue first. Oh, and if you have to reinstall, you have to reinstall all your games and you'd probably lose your saves.

It feels like there are a larger variety of titles on home consoles. Sure, there are more franchises that show up on the consoles and the PC these days, but sometimes it is a pain to confugure the controls, or the controls aren't as nice as the console version.

PS - Also, on consoles, you can rent games to try them. Sure PCs have demos, but they are not always representative of the finished product. (And I mean that for both console and PC games.)

[Edited on Dec 04, 2005 by Gilby]

My bias would be for building a new PC. You can build a machine with absolutely huge upgrade potential later in the future (and, most importantly, will run pretty much any high-end title out now...although F.E.A.R's system requirements are ridiculous) for 1,500 dollars or less.

Just to clarify Toofy's emulation point: Console emulation on the PC is up to Dreamcast in terms of running and playing well. The current generation of console emulators require super high-end machines and still won't run higher than, say, 10 frames per second (with graphical bugs up the wazoo).

[Edited on Dec 04, 2005 by Dipskana]

[Edited on Dec 04, 2005 by Dipskana]

There's really alot to be said for either avenue. here's a little list!
1) A PC can be used for many other tasks besides simply gaming, so there's that
2) PCs can be upgraded slowly to stretch out the cost
3) If you're planning to build it, you can get some really great deals on sites like newegg.com or pricewatch.com

BUT

1) Buggy software and hardware incompatibility are things you have to consider when PC gaming
2) PC gaming can be much less of a 'social' event, its hard to get a bunch of friends around your monitor in the den or whatever.

as for Consoles, you can look foreward to having many PC games being ported directly to xbox or ps3, which makes things nice. You'll have to decide weather you're ok not playing RTS and mmorpgs, which both have (in the past anyway) failed miserably on conoles. But you can be assured that games work right out the box, always.

Input is pretty limited (not so with PCs) to a controller, though Nintendo does a pretty good job mixing it up, with the bongoes and whatnot. The revoloution should be pretty interesting to see what they come up with.

Personally, I prefer my pc for first person shooters like halo, HL2 and whatnot, and I use my pc to play Dawn of War and Warcraft 3 and other RTS games. I suck at using a controller for FPS =( The console is good to have around for when friends are here, to play soul caliber or doa or some good trash-talkin games.

Anyways, I hope this helps a lil bit!

oh, thanks dipsanka, i realized that my post made it sound like you could play all modern console games with ease using an emulator.

to clarify (or possibly make things less clear): you can use emulators to play a lot of the older console games on your pc (like the mario stuff), making it like having many console systems in one box.

As the owner of the emulation group here on SG, trust me that MAME and the rest are a big factor in any decision I make. I know you can get MAME to work on the Xbox, and probably the 360 any day now (if not already), but that might require a warranty-violating mod chip and lots of hassle.

I think those who've said that it's all about the games are right. I've just not been that into the kinds of games usually found on consoles... fighting games, racing, GTA, and Squaresoft-type RPG-lites. I'm more into RTS, hardcore RPGs, first person shooters, and MMORPGs. And emulators. So I guess I'm sticking with the computers for the next few years. I honestly can't think of one console game that came out in the last two years that a) I desperately wanted to play and b) wasn't eventually ported to PC. Halo, GTA, X-Men Legends... all eventually made it to PC.

It really depends on the types of games that you prefer to play. If you like first-person shooters or real-time strategy games, then you buy a PC. If you like platformers, fighting games, racing games, or sports games, the console is your best bet. Sure, you can play first-person shooters on the console, but you're going to lack the most vital component of a great FPS experience: the mouse and keyboard.

I'm going to spend any disposable cash on upgrading my computer rather than pursue some form of console. I ended up wasting money with an XBox and a Live subscription that I barely use... my favourite types of games are first-person shooters and strategy games, both of which are best played on a computer.

exactly what i was thinking. i was gonna say "based on the games you listed i would definitely go with a PC" - of course not all PCs are upgradable, but there's more possibility of them being so than a console. and alot of decent console games are being ported to PC these days (maybe not the best ones, and certainly not quickly enough, but still)

are you set on going with a PCI Express video card tho? there are still plenty of decent AGP cards out there...