Seriously thinking of switching to PC gaming

[akhi216]

I'm starting to get fed up with console gaming and this gets accentuated by all of the good things I hear about PC gaming. For one thing console manufacturers insist on milking their customer bases with subscriptions for online play and trying to justify it with free games - I for one don't care too much for indie garbage and older titles that I have played and moved on from and I sacrifice to buy the titles that I want anyway. Of course the Wii U is a console but I prefer to play multiplatform titles of which the system has an extremely limited pool to choose from as of now and in the forseeable future, otherwise I would be looking to get either a PS4 or a Xbox One.

Regarding the PS4, online gaming tends to be a joke. This is because PSN's minimum requirements for online gaming are circa 1990s dialup speeds solely so that Sony can advertise the PlayStation as an online gaming capable brand for countries with less developed internet infrastructures. Of course this can make for bad lag and/or unplayability, and makes some players seem like they have armor with 999,999,999 hit points and teleportation devices. Then there's the Xbox One that has closer to standard but still subpar online gaming minimum requirement that causes some players who's internet speeds barely meet the requirements to make matches extra laggy when their wives decide that they want to stream Pandora or watch YouTube.

 

[31gma]

Consoles have their fair share of pros and cons but this gen is notorious for bad business practices on a larger scale. I hope consumers realize that as well because they're the ones who encourage them, especially with preorders and expectations of making the quality top notch.

 

[akhi216]

Consoles have their fair share of pros and cons but this gen is notorious for bad business practices on a larger scale. I hope consumers realize that as well because they're the ones who encourage them, especially with preorders and expectations of making the quality top notch.

Exactly.

Both have networks that very rarely offer deals on fresh titles and they fail to understand how important backward compatibility is to a significant portion of the gaming community and not to mention they throttle download and upload speeds to low tier DSL standards. On any device that connects to the internet I have I can connect and not have to pay Google, Apple, HP, or whoever manufactures the product with no issue, why should I have to pay Microsoft and Sony to connect to play games online when I have given them $400 to call the system they make my own let alone the fact that I pay my own internet bill? Even though I currently am subscribed to PlayStation Plus I don't not feel that it excuses not being able to play online without it.

Sony is a very important major player in the console space and they either don't know it or refuse to acknowledge it. What dumbass or group of dumbasses at Sony thought that it was a good idea to add a restriction to the PS4 when the lack of the subscription gave it the penultimate selling point over it's biggest competitor? Imagine how many PS4's they could have sold if they hadn't - while that is market politics which I don't particularly care for, I find the mentality of shitting the people who sustain you while simultaneously shooting yourself in the foot shows a deep lack of respect for your sustainers aside from a drunken perception of common sense and reality. You would think that Sony would realize that the people who buy their systems are important to them but no, they made the boneheaded decisions to shit their customers and fuck themselves over in the process by requiring online passes for their games. They ignored the anti-console-gamer nature of online passes and implemented them in their games for years before their brain fart dissipated and they had an epiphany realizing that in a general sense, the vast majority of people who would have bought their titles if an online pass wasn't required wouldn't suddenly trip over themselves in a rush to go pay full price for their games as if they were the end all be all games; that and they realized that GameFly and like game rental businesses were buying couple of times smaller bulk packages of their games and most importantly for them, the people who would have had the titles could buy their paid DLC.

Also Sony shits on Vita owners by not supporting it with exclusive franchises, hence why the 3DS has been dogging it in adoption for a couple of years now.

I think will just stick to my Vita for occasional gaming and to occupy my kids, my PS3, and ignore current and future generation consoles and get a gaming rig/laptop. It's been a long ride with many good times and memories but I need to get back to having a standard.

 

[synce]

There's really no excuse for not switching to PC this gen... now almost everything gets a superior PC port with free online, and you can also use mods, cheats, etc. WiiU will probably be the last console that actually feels like a console and not a gimped PC. I lubs my WiiU

 

[Goarmagon]

Yeah, the OP pretty much summed up why I don't have a PS4 right now. Had BC been implemented I would have gotten one on day one but Sony/Microsoft said "fuck you, cloud gaming is better. Worship the cloud". I am really sad to be honest because they want us to pay for an inferior product and screw us out of the functionality the old systems had(PS3 believe it or not is STILL a better media center than the PS4). I think its only going to get worse honestly. Better learn how to fix your old systems because when gaming becomes entirely cloud based and this streaming bullshit becomes the "norm" the price of old school consoles will rise.

 

[sinkingphoenix]

There's really no excuse for not switching to PC this gen... now almost everything gets a superior PC port with free online, and you can also use mods, cheats, etc. WiiU will probably be the last console that actually feels like a console and not a gimped PC. I lubs my WiiU

Sadly, this is not wholly true. Ports from consoles are still often not as "perfect" as a PC-gamer would like, in a way that they carry over aspects from consoles that don't make sense on PC for example (i.e. list-based UI which is good for controllers but bad for keyboard and mouse).
That said though, I do think PC is the best gaming platform if the titles you want are available for it, mainly because you can always stick in a controller and get the same controls that you would get on a console. I find myself often using the Controller for games that were originally released on consoles, just because it's nicer to control them.

 

[Mr Armageddon X]

I've started to move more into PC gaming, don't have a PS4 or XB1 and will probably get LR for the PC, i've bought a new one last year and am slowly upgrading it to better hardware and software. I always use a 360 controller when possible for PC gaming.

 

[Matt Ponton]

I have local players who have the 'current' gen systems for which I can play the game on that before the PC version.

 

[Bahn Yuki]

PC > Console. It's also cheaper in the long run. The only reason to have a console is for portability(ITX PCs are coming close though) and ease of use. If you need any help, let me know. I love planning PCs for cheap.

 

[Bataar]

I've been pretty much a console exclusive gamer for several years now. I might get a HTPC if I can find a good deal on one and set that up. If you don't already have the consoles, PC gaming is a good way to go. I already have an Xbox One and PS4 so going the PC route might not make a lot of sense right now. I don't follow PC gaming too much but I'm not aware of any PC exclusive games that I'd want to get and building a high end PC just to play games I already play, even at a higher resolution just doesn't seem worth it.

 

[SilverForte]

PC is great but my favorite genres (fighting, jrpg) tend to be primarily console exclusive so I stick to them mainly.

 

[Matt Ponton]

Nothing like playing a game you end up loving, then a few years later upgrade your PC with "the new hotness" and decide to revisit the game to see it played in better glory.

Like an HD re-release but you don't have to pay for it again or worry that some asshole game designer decided to change something because it either (1) Made him feel like he was a contributor to it, (2) needed to change something to make it feel different enough to be something new to the pot, or (3) hates his life and all the games' fans.

 

[Squizzo]

*puts on hipster glasses*
I've been part of the master race since before it was cool. Better graphics, free online, more / better options for controllers and other peripherals, less chance of catastrophic data corruption, mods... and I'm sure there are a lot more advantages I didn't mention, plus having a high spec pc is good for a lot of other uses besides gaming.
If it wasn't for console exclusive games I wouldn't even look twice at consoles.

 

[UpSideDownGRUNT]

Both are bad and good.

FFVII Remastered on PC has better popeye men and a less nonesense translation but the music still sucks and is worse than the PS1 version unless you mod it with fan created remakes. As well as clunky controls on both keyboard and controller.

Yet, at the same time you can mod it so it has HD backgrounds and battle textures and even some modded enemies so they're HD and the main party can look like some from late PS2/early PS3 era.

Personally I prefer Consoles for most things, I never have to worry about a game not meeting requirements and running slow and everyone looking like they're in the Chariots of Fire or Baywatch and I feel more at home with a controller than I do mouse and keyboard (I know most games are now compatible with wired Xbox 360/ONE controllers but some aren't).

The only thing that keeps me wanting PC versions of games liek Skyrim and stuff is just all the content and graphics mods, and in the case of DOA, retextures and the inevitible full costume creations.

 

[Rieve]

I go where the games are that i want. I don't have time for gaming politics.

 

[lotr9690]

Nothing like playing a game you end up loving, then a few years later upgrade your PC with "the new hotness" and decide to revisit the game to see it played in better glory.

^This.