You truly are the voice of reason. :bowdown:

Before I begin, I have to mention that I play my videogames on a large desk with a powerful PC hanging underneath the desk and an Xbox 360 sitting above it, both hooked up to a 1680x1050 monitor. I play both regularly and I am a large fan of games on PC like BF3 and TES and I also play Halo on my 360. Just want to get that out of the way before the impending rant so some (read; not all, only some of you) of you ignorant people realise that I am NOT a PC elitist. An elitist blindly refuses to acknowledge the advantages of a console, few as they may be and I do see the advantages of them.

Now, I haven't used this account in a few years but I felt that it was necessary to find my password and log in again just to clear up some awful inconsistencies in this thread. It's such a mess. Some of you pro-console people (oh look, it's that word again, "SOME") have just presented views that are so outdated and incorrect that I'm sure they're just posted out of pure fanboyism. Note that I don't consider myself any kind of authority on this topic in any way, these are all my opinions and observations and much of it is taken from something called common sense. But their are just so many fallacies and examples of ignorance in this thread that I have to post something that will maybe allow some people to see the error of their ways.

For starters, you would have to be absolutely out of your mind to think that playing videogames as a whole is of a higher quality on a powerful PC. Let me list some advantages and disadvantages of both.

PC

Pros
-Mods
-Customisation
-Better graphics
-More powerful hardware (at the moment)
-More third-party support
-Free online gaming (yes, the PS3 has this too I realise)
-Better controls, more keys, more precision with a mouse
-Support for any gamepad, should you desire it
-People with more money can utilise it to augment their experiences
-Broken games usually fixed by communities
-Cheaper games
-Downloadable games
-There's plenty more but for lack of time and space I'll leave it here

Cons
-A good one might cost you an extra couple hundred dollars
-Sometimes games might take a while to get running to an acceptable standard
-Lack of portability
-Getting picky here but if you’re using a console you’ll sometimes have it in the lounge with a big comfy chair and that is sometimes not practical on PC (while completely possible)

Console

Pros
-More accessible
-Most people have one nowadays
-Larger playerbase
-Cheap to buy and maintain

Cons
-Poor controls
-Less graphical capabilities
-Old tech
-Bad multiplayer services (from my experiences)
-Heavily limited by the owning company and their laws
-Lack of/simplified customisation
-Lack of advanced controls mean less room for games like RTS etc.
-Very little digital distribution
-Online pass with some games, usually EA
-Rarely dedicated servers
-Games are nearly never displayed in full 1080p, they’re usually upscaled from 720p, resulting in blurry images

As you can see there’s a slim list of cons for PC and a fat list of them for console. Let me just reiterate that if you believe that the PC is not more powerful, you're flat-out wrong. It’s a simple damn fact. My PC cost me about a thousand Australian dollars to buy and it’s at the very least 20 times as powerful as my Xbox. That is no exaggeration. There is simply no way that the Xbox can compare to my PC. And hell, my PC is a little bit old too, and these days you could probably get the same result for about six hundred bucks, about the same price as an Xbox on release (in Australia, anyway). The Xbox uses 5-year-old tech, and I guarantee you it would absolutely quail at the prospect of running Skyrim at the highest graphics settings. So I hope you realise that the PC is in complete fact more powerful than the Xbox by a large amount. If not, you’re completely wrong. There is simply no way around it. And yes, when the next generation of consoles come about they will have tech that isn’t seven years old, but they’ll be no better than PC, and only comparable to PC tech for about a year or two. Corportations release GPUs and CPUs every half year or so and they are nearly 1.5x the power of the last batch almost all the time.
As for what this does, it really severely limits the progression of games these days. For example, BF3 last month was only allowed 32 players on Xbox in comparison to PC which allows 64. As for Skyrim the textures and overall quality was brought down by a ridiculous amount. I’ve seen the footage and screens and it just looks like rubbish compared to how my game looks.

Now this next part may seem slightly underhanded of me but some quotes in this thread are just so ridiculously ignorant and misinformed that I had to reply to them.


Good god. Where to even begin...

Well, for starters, your comment about PC slowly dying is absolute rubbish. I don’t know where you got that idea but the digital distribution industry is absolutely booming and there will always be PC games while PCs exist. It’s just a fact. As for piracy that’s the most ignorant part of your post. Guess what buddy? Piracy exists on console as well as PC! Not only that, but the pirated version of Skyrim was available on the Xbox ten damn days before the game was even fully released on all platforms! Those idiotic developers/publishers that believe they need to limit the PC’s potential and market to stop piracy are just looking for a damn scapegoat, and that is clearly where you have gotten your misconceptions from. And they’re completely false. There is no more piracy on PC than there is on console. And with Steam taking over the market it’s also taking over the market’s DRM services (if you could call DRM a service at all, it’s really more of a hindrance). Steam is hosted by smart, capable people and I’m sure Gabe and the crew will have a way of preventing easy to obtain pirated copies of games. No, they won’t erase piracy completely, but that’s never going to happen on any platform anyway. So no, PC is not dying, and it’s certainly not dealing with the final nails in its coffin as you seem to believe.



That’s a ridiculous statement. See the above advantages and disadvantages. And no it is not personal preference to controls. More buttons = better, and game devs agree with me, because there’s plenty of interviews where they complain about lack of buttons on a controller. And the mouse is simply superior to an anologue stick, you can’t possibly argue against that.

Well there’s my damn essay on PC vs. console and I might save it to copy+paste onto other forums when I need to, as I inevitably will.

As for my opinion on this poll, the answer from me is going to have to be no, unless it is strictly limited to consoles being able to import. I dread the day that I have to cater my mods to all platforms, and all the confused little people crying up at me and complaining about the lack of a console version. I never want to develop a mod for a console. I don't actually have any objection to mods on console, I just dread to think how it will affect modding on PC. In fact I'd be thrilled if mods went onto console, but I'd be less than happy if it affected my experience on PC.

And before you rebut me with a slack statement about PC elitism, refer to the top paragraph and try again. My first gaming machine was an N64, then an Xbox, then a 360, then I got my PC when Oblivion came out. Call me an elitist and you may as well have not read my post.

I dunno. More buttons for me=overwhelming to my fingers. Then again, I did play WoW.

Microsoft would want to charge for it, if they could charge you for switching the console on they would do. This is why next gen im most likely to switch to playstation.

I would love to see mods on consoles though, and they would get a second purchase of Skyrim from me if they did aswell. I would even get back into modding myself once more if I could actually play my own mods on the console after creating them on the pc. Dont get much PC time these days as im a facebook widow, so im more of a console gamer nowadays and definitely in favour (in theory) of mods on console in some form.

This is the real issue here. I'm sure Bethesda would be more than happy to release mods on console, but there's no way they'd be free. And there really is no reason why consoles SHOULDN'T get mods, nothing makes you a superior species because you play on PC. I feel I'm reasonably qualified to say so, having been a console gamer for my entire life until I bought a new PC when Skyrim came out.

It's not possible to run Windows on a PS3 without running some kind of virtual machine. The hardware is far too alien and MS isn't about to release a PS3 build of Windows This would be slow as molasses. Though, since you can run Linux on a PS3 you can run DOSbox and then run very old versions of Windows. Obviously that won't get you any Skyrim.

There have been a few comments about console hardware being too weak for mods. This depends entirely on the nature of the mods. There are lots of excellent mods for TES games that would work perfectly, but I can see MS or Sony wanting a process in place to filter out the ones that won't work or they don't like. Probably a nightmare to implement.

Many, many, many PCs out there are over 6 years old and running on tech as old, or even more ancient and outdated than the hardware in consoles. Many users don't upgrade hardware or update their software many run hardware on out of date drivers and developers have to be eternally mindful of backwards compatibility issues. Consoles may not be cutting edge in terms of tech, but they do offer developers (and by extension, modders) a uniform platform to work with.

It's not about whining and crying and feeling entitled. Bethesda's own Todd Howard has admitted that PC mods work on consoles and he'd like console communities to be able to share in the experience, but there are some details that need to be sorted out first (including the delayed release of the official Skyrim Creation Kit for PCs). It's a vague statement but it's the sort of thing that can incite frenzied excitement and speculation (and the platform enclavers aside, it frankly beats endless whining about bugs).

Well, you could install linux and then run virtualbox, which would allow you to install Windows 7. This would take up a lot of processing power, but doesn't the PS3 have an 8-core processor? Also, I dunno about the credibility, however http://www.windowsonyourgamingconsole.com/ps3-windows-7 site says its possible.

Consoles cant have mods because they are consoles. Its no possible, sony, microsoft wouldnt allow user made content. Ever. Thats why PC is better. That and i don't have to deal with screaming 6 year olds and 7 year old tech.

*cough* Littlebigplanet *cough*

Also, sony built a version of the PS1 way back when that allowed you to program your own games.

XBL also has an indie games section. Not quite user content, but not far off either as there are plenty of one-man projects on there.

Its not likely to happen in the near near future, but I think its reasonably safe to say its on the way. Lets not forget how much of a pipe dream online multiplayer used to be for consoles. Do PCs and Consoles have pros and cons? Yes. I'd say PCs have the edge in all honesty, but we must remember they got HOW much of a headstart? One day the two will mesh so much that this whole argument will be a part of the past and I for one look forward to the end of this constant elitism from both sides. For now, its personal preference more than anything.

Consoles are holding back the gaming industry, because devs, like bethesda, has to make a game to run on 2007 tech. That's Really old. If skyrim was for PC only the city's probably wouldn't have walls, which means no loading. But consoles cant handle that, and they are not going to update them anytime soon when they can sell $10 worth of tech for $200.

I'm not sure why people keep bringing this up.

No matter what Todd Howard thinks or wants, CUSTOM MADE MODS WILL NEVER COME TO THE CONSOLES...... at least not in the way that people want. Sony/Microsoft will NEVER let just anyone modify a game on their console like you can on the PC.

The best we'll ever get is an editor that allows you to add maps to a game, like creating maps for Far Cry 2 or some other FPS game. Having a construction set for the Console will NEVER happen.

But then you have to look at it this way: how does an industry grow, through catering to a big market, or to a smaller one. Then you have to ask yourself which is bigger gaming-wise: the console industry as a whole, or the PC one?

Technologically being held back? Sure. But utilising the best possible technology does not make you grow faster, targeting your biggest possible consumer demographic does. If consoles are truly holding back the gaming industry, then do please explain why the rise of the industry has correlated with the rise of the console?

Why do people choose console over PC? Ease of use. I know PCs aren't exactly rocket science, especially with PCI making the hardware-updates a LOT easier, but the fact remains that a lot of people find it difficult, fiddly and would rather have something they can just plug in and play, without worrying about compatibility issues beyond what platform they have. Thus the market has spoken, and the games industry is refocussing its efforts. Thats like turning an oil tanker. The fact remains that the lines between consoles and PCs are now becoming increasingly blurred and one day, as I said, this whole argument will be irrelevant.

Wouldn't the mods most likely go through proper channels than you'd have to buy it?

Well, Let me reword it. Consoles are holding back games and devs. Really the industry is built on consoles. PC is like what 15% or something? Ya, no one in their right mind is going to lose that much profit. But the games coming out now could be so much more if consoles weren't ancient. And that's why PC gamers hate consoles. Because we get shafted and forgotten, and we have to deal with [censored] game design (not saying skyrim is [censored] AT ALL), like the UI or map size, graphics, everything really, because the games are ported over from the console version.

I can understand that, but its a pretty subjective way of looking at it. Look as a whole, consoles only hold back PCs, not the whole industry, and as I said I reckon thats only temporary due to the narrowing gap.

I, however, hate PC gamers. I hate you all. You get the full fat version of Civilization, whilst the consoles get shafted with that half-hearted fart that is Civ Rev *shakes fist* :sadvaultboy:

lol ya, But really I can only complain to a certain extent, As a PC gamer I get to enjoy the glory of mods. And the act of which we shall not speak of. Yarrr :whistling:

Indeed, the home computer will run Civ IV (before I knackered it out from Civ-abuse anyway) and morrowind. I screwed about briefly with the CK which was fun, and I usually ran a future tech mod for Civ. Gonna have to save up a bit and go to the local computer fair for a cheap tower that'll run Civ V. I can kinda understand why they are reluctant to release it on consoles though, most people I show it to go "But it plays like a board game. LAME" :facepalm:

The console gamer in me looks forward heartily to the day that they properly catch up, and is greatful I dont have the other half tapping her foot behind me whilst I frantically wrap up an opportunistic landgrab. :biggrin:

No. No they won't. Do you need me to give you some reasons why?



I was going to point out the other places where you're wrong, but the whole post seems to be pretty uninformed.

You really shouldn't post in topics where you have no understanding of the subject matter.

How am I supposed to make Lydia naked without mods for my 360!?!?!?!?!?!

Mods will never hit consoles for one obvious reason. Each company requires certification and that costs money.. And Although the Sony can allow free stuff onto the PSN, not sure Microsoft does.
Since mods are player made, there is also the whole question of who has the rights to the mod. Modder might object to have his free mod costing money etc. etc.

Any mod would have to be reworked by bethesda to be sure it is compatible and doesn't over-push the system resources (as many do). A lot of work and murky ownership issues with little guaranteed money.

Beat me to it. Ya whoever posted that you just made yourself look really stupid

Exactly, I mentioned this earlier.

It'll cost Bethesda money to place it on the store, which means they'll have to charge for it to make up their losses, which in turn means they'll need a licence from the modder in order to do so safely.

It just won't happen, and never will as long as the platforms are 'owned'. This is why PC gets all these extra things like modding kits and free DLC on some games, because nobody owns the platform, so nobody has to be paid before things can be launched.

I love how people are saying consoles are holding back PC games when Bethesda said themselves 90% of its customers are console gamers.... lol So without the console audience, Bethesda wouldnt even be making enough money to further their PC game with new technology and costs with just PC sales.