Search the Community

Consoles will be better than PC!? The reign of PC gaming has been the leading argument when it comes to the performance and amount of freedom that comes with PC gaming over console gaming. However, in the current era of technology, there seems to be more reason to believe that consoles may have an advantage in the future of the community than we might have previously expected. The next gen consoles are coming down the pipeline with specs of what we can look forward to when they make their debut, supposedly next year, as it relates to the next PlayStation and Xbox consoles. These consoles have hardware details that would lead one to think that eventually there won't be the need to have a powerful PC build to have an amazing quality for their gaming experience. Hell, some of those levels of quality seem to be redundant, as on a scientific level, the human eye won't even be able to detect the amount of detail that the game is truly capable of presenting. So with that said, where do we draw the line really? Here are some of the reasons why consoles could possibly surpass PCs for gaming consumers: 1. Price People will go out of their way for good-ass bargains, and consoles are almost always the best way to go if you want a cheaper experience for fairly amazing quality. PCs cost you an arm and a leg usually for a build that can run everything proficiently, without fault and additional rendering. You can find cheaper PCs that are efficient, of course, but at the same time you can find a console cheaper too. Not to mention, PCs take a lot of maintenance and upkeeping that not everyone has the time to really deal with. And fair point, if there's no time to deal with it then why the hell did you get it? Not everyone thinks that far ahead believe it or not. The ones that are pre-built are awesome on a surface level, but are really just deceptions for a lot of what they say they can do and handle, so custom built ones are usually the route people go anyway. With a console, all you have to do is plug it in and enjoy the experience, and for a better price. And eventually when the graphical fidelity of consoles gets to a universally satisfying level, consumers probably won't even consider playing on PCs unless it's just their genuine preference. 2. Gaming Environments You can play your console in the comfort of your living room on the couch, your room while in your bed as you lounge, and even outside if you're into that. You can do that with a laptop sure, but the main convenience in my opinion is the use of a controller. People usually just end up linking their console controllers to the PC so that there won't be a need to use the awkward and confusing PC controls that come with a lot of games. You have to sit up the whole time to play the game, and sometimes that shit gets annoying, especially in the late night hours when you just got from doing a bunch of sitting up and standing up in your daily work life as it is. 3. Social Aspects Playing on consoles just links people together much more than playing on PCs, especially when it's in a real-world situation when someone asks you, "What do you play on?" And more often than not, the common person is playing on some type of console these days. You exchange gamer contact info like setting up a date to play and what not, before parting ways and adding them later. The same can be done on PCs as it relates to Steam for example, but rarely outside of the internet has anyone asked me about my PC gaming handle. Even within the consoles, they have sub-communities that you can join that range from whatever music, art, or entertainment you may like. The consoles are venturing into PC-like functions that really may inevitably overshadow those traditional PC commodities. 4. Release Cycles The last generation of consoles was obviously the longest one that we had. Nintendo was the only company really pushing out different iterations of consoles, as they released the Wii U, immediately followed by the Nintendo Switch. The shift from the Ps3 and 360 to our current gen was pretty much a 10-year gap, however, now there's a time-frame of about 5 - 6yrs between consoles, much like how it was before last-gen. The only real difference is that now these consoles will possess the ability to rival PCs on a recognizable level. The more frequent release of these consoles will allow them to upgrade their tech to a level that stays relevant in our time, at least until the next one comes and absolutely shits on the previous one as usual. PCs are constantly expanding every day. It's like the moment you make the perfect build, it's already old news. These consoles come out and stay relevant for years, and they only grow in their profits and interaction. They remake these consoles a couple of times during their periods of being the current gen (Smaller versions, graphical upgraded versions, more affordable versions, etc.). So now that consoles are releasing in more reasonable spans of time, their hardware will start to peak to the level of PCs. 5. Exclusives The consoles have an amazing power over PCs as it relates to exclusive titles. I don't have to sit here and go down the list of amazing titles that plague PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo. I do however, have to mention that PCs literally have no exclusives that seem to urge people to sit there and say, "Damn, I need to get a PC or I'll never get to play that game!" People practically stampede one another to death just to get the newest consoles, not only at their release, but at the release of their exclusives and bundles for those said exclusives. PCs are capable of emulating and receiving files for games that seemingly exclusive for consoles, and that's just how it is, but it doesn't change the fact that they have to do that to play those games in the first place. Simply because people support consoles just out of spite of specific games and not necessarily the specs of the console, but what happens when there's both good exclusive games AND a level of visual appeal that rivals PCs? A win for consoles. 6. PCs release games later Sometimes it takes forever for PCs to get their ports for games. By the time a lot of them even get ports, the game's life is already passed by. Or at least, the hype and excitement for the game is already in the past. So when PCs get it, it's usually around that time when the energy has died out and just remains in a constant motion until something else of the same scale is released. This industry is very fast, and in turn, so are the people who support it. The PC version will roll around and be breathtakingly the shit, and people within the community will inevitably mod the game to make it look even better, but what does any of that mean anymore? Especially if that charm of the PC will also be a charm of the console. The modding aspect is a different topic in itself, but the point is that, if that's the only real selling point and reason to dip your toes into the PC versions, then I don't see it really mattering to the majority of people out there who just want a simple gaming life and to play with their friends. 7. Cross-Platform Gaming More recently within gaming, there has been more acceptance for cross-play between different consoles, and even with PC. Us, as the players of these games, have already wanted this kind of shit since the start of everything, but of course, money is an important resource for each of these gaming giants. Cross-play is just much more convenient for people on the consoles because essentially, regardless of which console you play it on, the specs of the game are not too far off in most cases, so everyone is on the same playing field. PC gamers when cross-playing either have much more of an advantage, or much less of an advantage. It really is a mixed bag and in the realm of the cross-play for a lot of games that I've noticed, PC is the foreigner. And the divide will only grow greater as time goes on, but obviously the PC versions can be limited and optimized specifically for the reason of cross-play. Not many people will care what you play on, as long as you can play together and that's all that matters really, but the level on convenience of a mutual level is always much better for people who play together on consoles. I won't really include the mobile phone and handheld console gamers who are also capable of cross-play for a selection of games currently, but a lot of the same points can be made for them as well. In short, the community of gamers across consoles specifically, are much more interesting avenues for both companies and consumers. 8. Multiplayer This one is sort of a bonus point, but I felt it sandwich perfectly between the social aspects and the cross-platform reasons. Consoles have a much broader appeal when it comes to playing multiplayer games. It's only recently that single-player games are generating the same amount of respect that they once had and deserve, as companies now steer towards where the money is in the long term, the multiplayer. Consoles get exclusive multiplayer stuff all the time, and that alone just boosts the popularity of the consoles over the PC versions. Especially when those incentives actually make a significant amount of difference within the game. A lot of people, like myself, are against that aspect of pay-to-win in games that should be fair for all players to reach through their own efforts and not their money, but from a business perspective it's only going to help the company when more people support it, as they have. Which, most of those people are console players. That's on a deeper level of subject, but from just the perspective of your average gamer, more people are engaging themselves with the multiplayer aspect of consoles where they can form parties and private chats and form their own groups within those games. It can be done on PC, of course, but it's not being done on PC as often as console. There's a parade of reasons why consoles may potentially leave PCs in the dust with their gaming aspects, as well as how there are a parade of reasons why PCs will keep their position over consoles, but the point of this was to give it a look from some of the main, more debated aspects from the console gaming side of things. The idea that consoles could progress further than PCs is not as far-fetched as gaming enthusiasts may see it to be. Only time will tell, but time is already telling us a lot. If you have any thoughts on the matter, feel free to comment below!