YAPCVC Debate (usability) *spyawn

[FarticusMaximus]

You're going to tell me now that a modern console doesn't have multiple tasks running in the background while you play to handle ancillary functionality?

'Having multiple tasks running' is not an issue.

The vendors, their testing methodology, test environments, deployment environments (consistency most importantly) and the moment in time they were created (thus, what other tasks/hardware the task in question need to interact with) are the important factors here.

A console has a fixed number of background tasks, designed, developed and tested in a fixed, known environment. Those tasks will have been tested against every other (well known, well documented, with expert knowledge at hand) task running in that fixed environment.

On PC at any time you have an unknown number of tasks running from many different vendors which will almost certainly not have been tested in an environment that matches your specific software and hardware configuration, and will most likely not have been tested, or even considered for testing with hardware and drivers yet to be released.

Development 101.

 

[Nesh]

See what I mean, strawmen. This is ridiculous.

What do those have to do with crashing a game? Those are isolated in any semi modern os, they can all crash and have no effect on the game you are playing whatsoever. Are you guys still using Windows XP perhaps? Because then what you are saying makes more sense as back then an issue with the stuff you list could affect the task you are on. I mean c'mon, you guys are making up arguments here that make no sense. I mean what, if I leave OneNote running are you guys saying it will crash GTA 5 when I play it? And wtf, are you guys playing on a Sega Genesis or on a modern console? You're going to tell me now that a modern console doesn't have multiple tasks running in the background while you play to handle ancillary functionality?

It's like you guys keep insisting on comparing a 15 year old pc os to 20 year old consoles to make your point. The world has long since moved on from all that and your information is all horribly out of date. This is really silly.

I am using Windows 7 and my PC quite often doesnt run my games (or any other demanding software for that matter)as it should because of those background tasks that seem to have multiplied or behave differently than they did when I first purchased my computer. The game is now experiencing larger loading times than necessary, and the framerate was stalling during gameplay because the memory and processing it was doing in the background have increased. Apparently some things interfere with others
My computer probably needs to be formated or I need to run through the background tasks and make some clean ups because there are processes that my computer does that it shouldnt be doing.
The only way for a PC to minimize these issues as time passes is if someone uses it almost solely for gaming, because the more we use a PC for various things the more chances are it will stop behaving to its full potential.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Those are isolated in any semi modern os, they can all crash and have no effect on the game you are playing whatsoever.

So they shouldn't be affecting consoles either. If Windows background apps and services don't cause instabilities, you can't rightly claim consoles suffer from software instabilities because of apps and services. You're completely contradicting your own argument.

That leaves only the hardware.

As an analogy, think of aftermarket car radios. Back in the day they were very basic units that had fixed functions. A few buttons, a primitive display, am/ fm, tape deck and that's it, they fed music to your speakers. Today they have large screens, run an os, multi task and perform all sorts of functions whose permutations will vary depending on the user that uses them. Now likewise think back again to early aftermarket car radios, did you ever have any issue with them? They were always so simple and fixed function that they always worked. How about current after market radios? Do they ever work on firmware 1.0? Heck the Kenwood 6990 that you have needed 4 firmware updates over the course of a year or so to actually work right.

Now imagine the same FW/OS having to work with every different model of radio. If they couldn't get it working right until the fourth attempt on one flavour of hardware, how likely is it they'd get it working right on 100 different models of radio? What about 10,000 different models?

Yet here you are saying the OS that has to work on a trillion permutations of hardware that gets driver patches with every major game to make it work properly is going to be more stable and less problematic than the OS that works on one single hardware design.

 

[goonergaz]

Here's a nice easy example, my daughters Win7 PC worked with Minecraft - I upgraded her to Win8 and it stopped working and through lots of research I ended up giving up and re-installing Win7.

 

[Rurouni]

My PC suddenly stop detecting new USB device for a couple of months until the last big W8.1 update fixed it. It was PITA because I was searching the net like mad, trying everything except re-installing W8.1.
Sometimes waking from screen off (not sleep!), my phone can't connect to the PC via MTP. Sometimes audio through HDMI stopped working and it said that something using it which sometimes can be solved by making the PC sleep and waking it up, otherwise, reboot.
After a driver update (Omega), my PC suddenly unstable, which turns out I need to reset the Catalyst setting.
Anyway, probably only the last problem wouldn't be encountered without tinkering the PC. The other problem just happens!

As for tablet... I think it's useful for older people, especially those with bad eyesight. Also for smaller children, where phone is too small for having to share the experience with others (multiple children looking at the tablet, parent - child interaction, etc).

 

[joker454]

So they shouldn't be affecting consoles either.

How do you know this given how new the ps4 is? Or worded another way, when a console game locks up how do you know it's not because of a failure of a system service or the console os ? The console system code is what, 2 years old now compared to years of maturity on the pc side. Thing is, when there is a lockup on console it will typically be assumed to be the games fault (which is not always the case) whereas on pc Windows will always get the blame even if someone is overclocking or screwing around with settings.

If Windows background apps and services don't cause instabilities, you can't rightly claim consoles suffer from software instabilities because of apps and services. You're completely contradicting your own argument.

You totally can because one is basically a brand new os (console) whereas the other (Windows) has had years of testing and refinement. Back when embedded systems were truly embedded systems, ie when consoles were put out on the field and that was it, that software would have to work for eternity, they had to make sure they worked perfectly. The solution was to keep everything on the system side as simple as possible. This was basically everything from the PS2 era and going backwards, where consoles on their own did very little and relied on the host cartridge or game disc for just about everything. Starting from the PS3 era and onward that all changed, patching is now the norm and as such that freed the console makers to make things significantly more complicated with a system os doing all sorts of things in the background all the time. This is when they became more pc like in their software nature. But that requires testing, something that Windows on pc has years of whereas every new console mostly starts from scratch. New hardware, new architecture, throw away all the old code and start over. Unless you feel that all coders are gods, I'd say that you all but have to expect that there will be new issues with every console launch. They tried to mitigate that by shipping this gens consoles mostly incomplete and adding things as they went along, but it's still all virgin code.

And to be a broken record here, again there aren't anywhere near as many permutations anymore. Typically you buy motherboard, ram, cpu and gpu. And nowadays you can get it all from the same maker to make 100% sure it's all been tested together. So you can get an Asus motherboard and Asus gpu if you want to sleep better at night knowing that they have all been tested together, even though that probably matters little since most gpu's are just based off the NVidia reference design which they have also additionally tested themselves.

That leaves only the hardware.
...
Now imagine the same FW/OS having to work with every different model of radio. If they couldn't get it working right until the fourth attempt on one flavour of hardware, how likely is it they'd get it working right on 100 different models of radio? What about 10,000 different models?

Yet here you are saying the OS that has to work on a trillion permutations of hardware that gets driver patches with every major game to make it work properly is going to be more stable and less problematic than the OS that works on one single hardware design.

But they *do* get it right....over time. That's the only thing that currently works in complicated software development, time. You have to be given enough time to sort things out, something that Windows has had. They put one version of Windows out, people bang on it, they tweak it, take the best parts of it and move along to the next version, rinse and repeat. It gets better over time. Contrast that to the console world where they put it out, people bang on it, they tweak it and then they throw it all away and start the process over on the next console. Now maybe that won't be the case next gen. Current consoles are basically x86 pc's with some tweaks, if they go the same route next gen then maybe they will be able to reuse large parts of system code on the next hardware. But the way they operate right now that has never been the case, it's always been toss it all and start over.

Here's a nice easy example, my daughters Win7 PC worked with Minecraft - I upgraded her to Win8 and it stopped working and through lots of research I ended up giving up and re-installing Win7.

There's many possible replies to this, I'll give you a few let you choose which.

1) It initially had issues on Windows 8 because the developer didn't want to support Windows 8. He was openly against Windows 8, that's well documented. So in this case, according to you guys, this is not a "Windows issue" but a "game developer issue". You give consoles a pass when its a "gave developer" issue, so I assume you'll do the same here for PC.

2) Windows 7 is ancient, I'm assuming we're talking about people in the modern world here, the timeline since the PS4 has been out, and from what I see Minecraft currently works on Windows 8. I don't consider os's from the cretaceous period anymore, at this point in time if people are still clinging to an obsolete os then that's their problem. That would be like someone not patching their ps4 os and then complaining that they have issues.

3) So Minecraft doesn't work for you, and my old ps3 games don't run on my ps4 either. In your case though you can now get your old games working on Windows 8 since the developer has decided to support it, whereas in my case I'm still fubar'd. I don't see how consoles have the advantage here when you can still get older games working on Windows whereas the reverse on consoles isn't true.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How do you know this given how new the ps4 is?

We're talking about all consoles in general, not just PS4.

Or worded another way, when a console game locks up how do you know it's not because of a failure of a system service or the console os ?

It might be. Lock ups happen - no-one said they don't. Again, this about about PCs being less stable/usable, not consoles being perfect.

The console system code is what, 2 years old now compared to years of maturity on the pc side.

Ps4 is based on BSD which started in 1993. PC has been around forever but has been shit for a lot of that, and Windows 8 has had its own set of problems. Don't pretend that because Windows was started in 85, it's had 30 years of refinement. It's had decades of rewrites and rejigs with massive legacy support requirements and a few fundamentally crap design choices like the Registry.

Thing is, when there is a lockup on console it will typically be assumed to be the games fault (which is not always the case) whereas on pc Windows will always get the blame even if someone is overclocking or screwing around with settings.

What's with all the absolutes? We didn't say it's always the OS's fault, or always the game's fault. Windows has more permutations and so is fundamentally prone to more errors.

This is when they became more pc like in their software nature. But that requires testing, something that Windows on pc has years

Testing of one hardware combination versus hundreds if not thousands on PC combinations.

Unless you feel that all coders are gods, I'd say that you all but have to expect that there will be new issues with every console launch.

Yep. We also expect the occasional cock-up, as has happened with FW and will happen. Again, for the trillionth time, no-one's saying consoles are perfect. We're saying, from empirical evidence and the obvious logic of the PC architecture, that PC is more prone to problems.

And to be a broken record here, again there aren't anywhere near as many permutations anymore.

Any more to what? Who was making a historical comparison? Compare the premutations of PC to those of console hardware (which still runs into a few when different components get used). Motherboard + graphics card == all sorts of potential issues on their own. You have CPU, Southbridge, Northbridge, RAM timings, audio, blah blah components. There are thousands if not millions of combinations of all these pieces.

So you can get an Asus motherboard and Asus gpu if you want to sleep better at night knowing that they have all been tested together, even though that probably matters little since most gpu's are just based off the NVidia reference design which they have also additionally tested themselves.

Which has nothing to do with the argument. If the argument were 'it's impossible to make a stable PC' then you'd have a point, but your just making noise.

But they *do* get it right....over time. That's the only thing that currently works in complicated software development, time. You have to be given enough time to sort things out, something that Windows has had. They put one version of Windows out, people bang on it, they tweak it, take the best parts of it and move along to the next version, rinse and repeat. It gets better over time.

Oh, please. Windows has a long history of being great and shit. It's not like it's always been improving. You call Windows 7 a prehistoric OS. If it's so old, why is it still getting patches and fixes? Surely it was perfected long before Win 8 came out? And I presume Windows 8 is also nigh perfect what with 30 years development behind it and never gets patches or fixes.

The core problem of bringing together all sorts of different hardwares (and softwares) into a platform that runs together and runs all the legacy stuff too means it is an incredibly complicated task prone to issues. Heck, the fact Windows powers PCs as well and stably as it does is nothing short of a small miracle! It's an amazing achievement in its way, but it's not as stable/reliable as fixed hardware. It can't be. You can't have all that extra complexity and not introduce more chance of failure as a result. And that's reflected in Linux as well as Windows, and Android as well - mixed hardware introduces issues for the OS. I have a game where the graphics broke after an Android update and it didn't draw textures. That's what can happen on driver-powered abstracted hardware that can't happen on a closed box where the games are driving the hardware directly.

If a close box running a mature OS on fixed hardware is prone to 1 system crash per 1000 hours, any sane person would expect an assortment of hardware running a mature OS to crash many times that, maybe 5-10 crashes per 1000 hours. And that would be significantly worse usability. And that's just crashes. For general issues like graphics driver problems, the closed hardware being accessed directly isn't going to have anything like the problems the abstracted hardware will.

 

[joker454]

It might be. Lock ups happen - no-one said they don't. Again, this about about PCs being less stable/usable, not consoles being perfect.

Ps4 is based on BSD which started in 1993. PC has been around forever but has been shit for a lot of that, and Windows 8 has had its own set of problems. Don't pretend that because Windows was started in 85, it's had 30 years of refinement. It's had decades of rewrites and rejigs with massive legacy support requirements and a few fundamentally crap design choices like the Registry.

Sure stuff like the registry is an abomination, and I get that you realize there are issues console side. But it seems like many people still don't accept that probably because so much of that is hidden from them. As a result people will usually just blame the game coding for all errors even if it's due to sdk or os bugs. That's why when I read how "console issues are overblown" or am given the usual anecdotes of how people only have game related issues on console, well some of that is actually due to other underlying issues and not game code! We used to have examples back in the day, shame I can't remember them now cuz its been 8 years or so, where you'd have errata on stuff to avoid doing because it was buggy and/or would crash the console on firmware such and such. Games that shipped with that found out the hard way and would have to patch themselves later and they took the "lazy devs" flak for it even though it wasn't their fault at all. And as such you still have people thinking console issues are rare. Well, they aren't as rare as people think.

Any more to what? Who was making a historical comparison? Compare the premutations of PC to those of console hardware (which still runs into a few when different components get used). Motherboard + graphics card == all sorts of potential issues on their own. You have CPU, Southbridge, Northbridge, RAM timings, audio, blah blah components. There are thousands if not millions of combinations of all these pieces.

This depends on how many years back you want to go. I'm thinking in terms of the life of the ps4, in which case there are not that many pc permutations. If you want to go back many years and compare 5 year old sandybridge pc's running nvidia 670's then sure you'll get more permutations. But comparing 5 year old pc hardware to a console which didn't even exist then hardly seems fair and/or points to how much better the experience would be on that 5 year old pc anyways since it can still play all current games at zero extra cost to the user.

Oh, please. Windows has a long history of being great and shit. It's not like it's always been improving. You call Windows 7 a prehistoric OS. If it's so old, why is it still getting patches and fixes? Surely it was perfected long before Win 8 came out? And I presume Windows 8 is also nigh perfect what with 30 years development behind it and never gets patches or fixes.

Constant patches are inevitable for an os that is in majority use in such insanely high numbers as Windows is because it's attacked on an all but constant basis. Patches also include support for new hardware which is a bonus and/or expected. And some patches just improve things because, why not? They are gradually shifting Windows to a patch model rather than a numeric release model, so frequent patches will be the norm.

The core problem of bringing together all sorts of different hardwares (and softwares) into a platform that runs together and runs all the legacy stuff too means it is an incredibly complicated task prone to issues. Heck, the fact Windows powers PCs as well and stably as it does is nothing short of a small miracle! It's an amazing achievement in its way, but it's not as stable/reliable as fixed hardware. It can't be.

Well, I'd argue that it can be depending on the question. I'll pose you a simple example and have you make the answer. If you had to pick one in each case as being the more stable of the two, which would it be:

CASE 1
1) A modern Windows 8 pc.
2) REV 1.0 of a modern console built 80s style, where there is no internet connectivity and no patching possible, it has significantly reduced functionality, no os, on it's own it does nothing and in game it adds nothing, it's purely an 80s style game player. Insert game and play, that's it.

CASE 2
1) A modern Windows 8 pc.
2) REV 1.0 of a modern console built todays style, where there is internet connectivity and patching is possible, it is fully featured, has a full os, does lots of stuff in game, adds non gaming features along with playing games.

In each case, if you had to choose which you thought would be the more stable bet, which would be be? By what you have been saying you would make choice #2 in each case. But I wouldn't. In the first case I would chose #2, but in the second case I would chose #1. The fact that choice #2 in each case has more predictable hardware is not enough to sway my choice.

You can't have all that extra complexity and not introduce more chance of failure as a result. And that's reflected in Linux as well as Windows, and Android as well - mixed hardware introduces issues for the OS.

On paper yes it does, but it's a software problem that is solvable. Plus fixed hardware introduces new problems, see below.

I have a game where the graphics broke after an Android update and it didn't draw textures. That's what can happen on driver-powered abstracted hardware that can't happen on a closed box where the games are driving the hardware directly.

It can and it does! In the old days when console games were not "authorized", they just let them break when they revised the console hardware. Now for authorized console game companies they will test against their games and patch accordingly as they make hardware revisions. These consoles internally go through many revisions as well, and without an os to abstract it all in some cases can introduce more issues compared to systems where games talk via a software layer. One timing change can break everything when you are to the metal.


EDIT: Here, to steer this back because this is taking way too long and way too much time, the summary of my thoughts:

1) If you want to talk usability then you need to establish a timeline.
2) If the timeline is the ps4's life, then pc's in that timeframe are well sorted and I don't see huge issues on them anymore. There really aren't that many hardware permutations anymore.
3) If the timeline goes back 10 or so years, then pc always wins usability for the simple reason that it will play games that will be a black screen on ps4 because it simply can't play them at all. More issues? Sure. But you cna play more games, which I presume is important to game players who would see a black screen as poor usability.
4) Hopefully people understand that consoles from the ps3 era and forward do have issues as they have become more pc like with less mature code. Much of this is hidden and comes across as "game code" issues.

 

[Rurouni]

Anyway, PC is definitely more error prone than console. Even if console become more PC like, it would still be more stable overall by the virtue of similar hardware. In my office there is this one new PC with only the essential software installed, and it still got this weird problem where explorer crashed when doing something. It's somewhat repeatable but I just can't fix it. Printer won't install on one PC but can on another PC. Excel failed to open because... because it can.
If you're the PC guy amongst your relatives, probably you have been called by them a few times to consult and fix their PC.

 

[Rodéric]

4) Hopefully people understand that consoles from the ps3 era and forward do have issues as they have become more pc like with less mature code. Much of this is hidden and comes across as "game code" issues.

You mean that they now have a lot more code than they used to, so all things being equal (such as ratio of errors/lines of code) they should be less stable than they used to...
That makes some sense, but *BSD have been rather well tested at this point in time, so it shouldn't contain that many errors/lines of code...
(Should be at least on-par with MS Windows.)

 

[goonergaz]

1) If you want to talk usability then you need to establish a timeline.
2) If the timeline is the ps4's life, then pc's in that timeframe are well sorted and I don't see huge issues on them anymore. There really aren't that many hardware permutations anymore.

Well there's still substatially more than on consoles! And even if you bought a PC today you can't have 1 store - or one single account for just about everything, or one chat solution that everyone uses or even know that every game you buy will work (or how well it will work). By default it's not as easy to use - and that's a fact.

I'll give you another simple example. I bought Far Cry Dragon Blood on PC off a store, I had to re-install Windows (because - sometimes that's what you have to do to fix PC issues) - anyway, I reinstalled Steam and all my games - hhmmm...no Blood Dragon - ah, Origin! I re-installed Origin and Drago....wait, what...WTH is Dragon Blood? Some research later it appears I bought it from the Uplay - of course I did.

Very user friendly.

 

[joker454]

You mean that they now have a lot more code than they used to, so all things being equal (such as ratio of errors/lines of code) they should be less stable than they used to...
That makes some sense, but *BSD have been rather well tested at this point in time, so it shouldn't contain that many errors/lines of code...
(Should be at least on-par with MS Windows.)

Not just lines of code but more importantly concurrent tasks. Back in the day if you turned on an 8bit NES with no game inserted then you saw nothing on screen. That's because it did nothing at all on it's own, it 100% ran the rom that you inserted, the rom that the developer tested against that one piece of hardware. That's the optimal scenario for minimum permutations. Around the PS1/PS2 era they I think would show a cd player app or something like that when powered on without a game, but they still generally did nothing on their own and when a game was inserted it took over the entire machine. From PS3 and onward that ceased to be the case. Then they became like mini pc's and were always doing stuff in the background, multitasking and so on even when you were playing a game hence why at that point the consoles started reserving cpu and gpu time for "stuff". At this point is where you started getting far more permutations and possible issues, and coincidentally was also the start of console games starting to have pc like issues. Also the reason why it's often so hard to trace issues back to the console itself is because more often than not issues now result in a good old fashion console lock up, which most would immediately blame on the game. Or in other words on pc your game will crash and you will be back to the desktop and people are quick to blame Windows, on console more typically everything will just lock up and the game developer gets blamed. It doesn't take much to lock one up really, they don't have virtual memory like pc's do so even something as small as a memory leak on an os task can lock up a console. Think back to the NES, Genesis, PS1 and PS2 eras How often did games lock up on you back then? Lock ups were not that common. Starting with the PS3 era they started to happen far more frequently and I'd wager that by now console gamers have become accustomed to games locking up.

Well there's still substatially more than on consoles! And even if you bought a PC today you can't have 1 store - or one single account for just about everything, or one chat solution that everyone uses or even know that every game you buy will work (or how well it will work). By default it's not as easy to use - and that's a fact.

I'll give you another simple example. I bought Far Cry Dragon Blood on PC off a store, I had to re-install Windows (because - sometimes that's what you have to do to fix PC issues) - anyway, I reinstalled Steam and all my games - hhmmm...no Blood Dragon - ah, Origin! I re-installed Origin and Drago....wait, what...WTH is Dragon Blood? Some research later it appears I bought it from the Uplay - of course I did.

Very user friendly.

If you're using Windows 7 then I don't count that, it's an ancient os. For one, Windows 8 handles hardware changes far better than Windows 7 ever did. So for example I haven't re-installed Windows 8 ever, not even once. I've taken that same initial install that I did back when it came out years ago and moved that ssd to new hardware over the years. I've put it onto a new machine where every part was new (ram, mobo, cpu, etc) and Windows 8 is smart enough to still work. Windows 7 would often fail under such circumstances, sometimes right away sometimes later on randomly. Because it's just plain old, which goes back to my timeline point. I mean really, the "had to reinstall windows" is an internet forum thing to me at this point. I haven't encountered anyone in ages that has had to do that barring hardware failure. And in any case no one ever gives the full story on what they are doing. For all I know they are omitting that they were messing around in the registry and screwed up the install themselves, or their hdd is going bad, or they get occasional errors because they overclocked something, or whatever, you never get the full story on what's really going on. It's like when someone says their 3rd console failed and it takes days of prodding and poking to find out that they had it showed in an a/v cabinet on top of an amplifier, and had swapped the hdd for an "old one they had lying around". People rarely ever give you the full story.

The multitude of stores can be seen both ways. Some may see it as confusing, some may see it as a bonus. For one it gives you far more games to play, and I'm assuming game players want to play games. Second it gives you the opportunity to get games cheaper and I assume gamers are interested in saving money. Now I don't use anything but Steam. If I miss a game I don't care because I already have enough games on pc to last me 3 lifetimes (currently 84 games on my wishlist). But I have the option to look at other stores if I want, that's a bonus although I don't really care enough to do so. If you are making that point as far as pure usability is concerned, well then sure it's simpler but then that means old consoles are far more usable than the new ones as well because all they did was play games and they didn't give the user confusing ui and menu's.

And heck if you really want to make it simple then just stick with one store! Then you can match the limited console gaming experience. Yeah you miss some games but you're always missing a ton of games on console anyways as they run so few games compared to pc. Heck aside from GTA 5 and Pinball Arcade, my entire current Steam installed games list doesn't even *exist* on PS4. So console "usability" for me would be a black screen as 90% of my games don't even exist on it. Oh yeah I have Far Cry Blood Dragon as well, I got it off Steam as it's the only store front I use.

 

[goonergaz]

If you're using Windows 7 then I don't count that, it's an ancient os. For one, Windows 8 handles hardware changes far better than Windows 7 ever did. So for example I haven't re-installed Windows 8 ever, not even once. I've taken that same initial install that I did back when it came out years ago and moved that ssd to new hardware over the years. I've put it onto a new machine where every part was new (ram, mobo, cpu, etc) and Windows 8 is smart enough to still work. Windows 7 would often fail under such circumstances, sometimes right away sometimes later on randomly. Because it's just plain old, which goes back to my timeline point.

I would have to agree (to an extent) - I've have fewer issues with Windows 8 (personally) however it's still got lots of common issues...

I mean really, the "had to reinstall windows" is an internet forum thing to me at this point. I haven't encountered anyone in ages that has had to do that barring hardware failure.

Except me...sort of, I had to re-install Windows 7 because Windows 8 wouldn't work with Minecraft.

The multitude of stores can be seen both ways. Some may see it as confusing, some may see it as a bonus. For one it gives you far more games to play, and I'm assuming game players want to play games.

I'm pretty sure if there was a store that had all games that would be less confusing...like on PSN/XBL.

Second it gives you the opportunity to get games cheaper and I assume gamers are interested in saving money.

Well there's that advantage, but maybe someone bought a gift from the wrong store...

Now I don't use anything but Steam. If I miss a game I don't care because I already have enough games on pc to last me 3 lifetimes (currently 84 games on my wishlist).

Well it's nice you don't have to count the pennies and can just click the price steam charge, I have to consider buying games for my kids as such every penny saved adds up.

And heck if you really want to make it simple then just stick with one store! Then you can match the limited console gaming experience. Yeah you miss some games but you're always missing a ton of games on console anyways as they run so few games compared to pc. Heck aside from GTA 5 and Pinball Arcade, my entire current Steam installed games list doesn't even *exist* on PS4.

That's nice for you, but I play far more exclusive PS4 games than I do total PC games.

 

[Rodéric]

Think back to the NES, Genesis, PS1 and PS2 eras How often did games lock up on you back then? Lock ups were not that common. Starting with the PS3 era they started to happen far more frequently and I'd wager that by now console gamers have become accustomed to games locking up.

Not sure what the point is, consoles are now PC with fancy OS and box, so they run the same code with the same issues. They are neither better nor worse.
And comparing primitive software to modern multi threaded, multi tasked hardware accelerated game engines is a bit much...

I mean really, the "had to reinstall windows" is an internet forum thing to me at this point. I haven't encountered anyone in ages that has had to do that barring hardware failure.

I had to reinstall Windows (7 64 bits Home Premium) earlier this year because it woulnd't allow me to create new user accounts... (I spent hours trying various fixes before resigning myself to reinstalling..)
(Granted it's the first time since 2010 that I had too, but it still happens, even if frequency decreased dramatically.)


I won't comment on games, there are still many games that exist on consoles but not on PC, if you like those, you'll need a console, the reverse is also true.
(That's why I have both a console & a PC.)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Not sure what the point is, consoles are now PC with fancy OS and box, so they run the same code with the same issues. They are neither better nor worse.

They're better because they have a single target. If there's a bug in a piece of system code, it can be fixed and it'll work for 100% of all the hardware running that code (give or take system variations, still kept to a manageable number). On PC, a combination of hardware might find issues. You can't debug every software combination and every hardware combination - that's clearly mathematically impossible.

 

[goonergaz]

The other issue with games being less reliable 'these days' is that games are far more complicated, joker brings up 8 bit games - at a time when there was no internet (as such) to discuss things let alone comparing to games since PS3 where we have 'living' open world games and online play.

 

[joker454]

Not sure what the point is, consoles are now PC with fancy OS and box, so they run the same code with the same issues. They are neither better nor worse.

Yeah that's mostly my point in that both have been converging. Pc used to be plethora of permutations with a weak os compared to consoles that were very basic and did nothing but play games so back then much of what has been said here was true then. But it's no where near that anymore. Now true, console still has the advantage of a handful of hardware permutations (revisions over the course of it's life) compared to many more on the pc side, but with a modern os combined with fewer chipsets generally used this issue isn't so dire anymore on pc.

I had to reinstall Windows (7 64 bits Home Premium) earlier this year because it woulnd't allow me to create new user accounts... (I spent hours trying various fixes before resigning myself to reinstalling..)
(Granted it's the first time since 2010 that I had too, but it still happens, even if frequency decreased dramatically.)

Well again Windows 7 is a *really* old os and it seems like people keep coming back to it over and over again. It's a shame people fear Windows 8 so much because it really is a much better os, but I digress. In any case again I'll have to say we need a fair timeline because comparing problems of an os that was out years before this gen of console even existed is hardly fair. It'd be like me saying "Yeah but my 1997 camaro had problems", and you guys trying to get me to talk about current camaros and me repeating "Yeah but my 1997 camaro had problems" over and over again. I mean yeah, ok, it had problems, but time has moved on!

The other issue with games being less reliable 'these days' is that games are far more complicated, joker brings up 8 bit games - at a time when there was no internet (as such) to discuss things let alone comparing to games since PS3 where we have 'living' open world games and online play.

NES was used to make an extreme point and/or to make the point more clear, but you can also go by the PS1/PS2 era of games as well. Games there ran fairly solid and were made with more primitive developer tools on more complicated hardware with less resources. And they were quite involved like Metal Gear, GTA or what have you. Do you guys remember games crashing that much in the PS1/PS2 era compared to the PS3/PS4 era?

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Do you guys remember games crashing that much in the PS1/PS2 era compared to the PS3/PS4 era?

I don't recall any of them crashing (granted, I didn't own a PS3). Having said that a few years into the life of my PS1 I had to turn it upside down in order for it to read disks - does that count??

 

[joker454]

I don't recall any of them crashing (granted, I didn't own a PS3). Having said that a few years into the life of my PS1 I had to turn it upside down in order for it to read disks - does that count??

Well that's hardware failure, I'm not really counting that. Thinking more of the software side of things.

 

[goonergaz]

The main reason is still that games are more complicated than ever - that's a simple fact proven by the cost of producing them.

Not just that but obviously since PS3 days devs have had the PC option to patch games and they've grabbed it with both hands, buying a game at release these days is almost like paying for a beta with the full release coming the first price drop.