Value of consoles versus PC, post PS5Pro edition *spawn

There's hardly any value proposition left for consoles IF there are no exclusive software to had AND they keep repackaging PC hardware. Those two things are going to be the downfall of console gaming and gaming itself eventually in the long run ...
That's the mindset of a PC gamer which only is interested into consoles for exclusive games. That hardly defines the majority of the console market.

IMHO the real demise is people only playing forever games instead of buying new games and therefore any HW subventionising fails. On top of that the economy is also intentionally driven over the cliff the last 4 years so people have less money for hobbies anyway.
 
That's the mindset of a PC gamer which only is interested into consoles for exclusive games. That hardly defines the majority of the console market.
That's been the mindset of nearly anyone who were interested in most successful systems even when you look at highly symmetric competition between PS and Xbox where they share 90%+ of the software, just that small difference alone can give one of them the clear favourite status ...
On top of that the economy is also intentionally driven over the cliff the last 4 years so people have less money for hobbies anyway.
If the economic conditions are bad then what do consoles get out of following harmful PC technology trends ?
 
Do you even use steam? I do and using steam doesn't stop you from having to interact with other stores/launchers.

Like I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say replacing parts is not any more friction that replacing a whole device? Surely you cant be that oblivious to see how that cannot possibly be true? I'm not even going to delve into why that statement is false.

Shader compilation is one of many issues with pc gaming. The issues I've mentioned before are also included. At it's best, pc gaming is cumbersome, at it's worst, its uncouth. I'm willing to put up with it for games that display a far superior technical brilliance that can't be had on console. Cyberpunk is a good example of that type of game... For other games, I'll save myself the hassle and play on console or steam deck. Unfortunately, those type of games are few and far between.
I’ve been using steam for over 12 years. I think I’ve used a third party launcher 2 times in those 12 years, for Witcher and Fortnite.

Yes, I’m saying that for the types of people who post on hardware enthusiast forums replacing a failed component once every 10 years is hardly friction lol.
 
In the last 4 years, I've had to swap ram twice, PSU twice(both Corsair), GPU once all due to defects. All brand new parts. In the xbox 360 era, a normal xbox 360 experience was RROD. Over 50% of the early consoles failed. That was normal for that device.

Finally, please don't go around saying there's no multiple store friction. I experience it every single day. Playnite does not resolve multiple store friction, it only helps to hide it. While it does an admirable job, it's still inferior to console in every way, shape and form. The only OS in the pc space right now that is nearly seamless is steamOS. For gaming, it's far superior to windows. Arguments around windows updates and drivers come straight out of 2024. Nvidia driver 551.52 - .76 caused a whole host of performance and instability problems. Amd adrenaline drivers 24.3.1 caused instability and crashing. KB5035853 from microsoft caused bsods along with other updates. Like I said in another thread, pc gaming at it's best is cumbersome and at it's worst, is uncouth.
I don’t understand what is so complicated about using multiple stores anyways, just click the shortcut on your desktop? Who cares where the files are downloaded from?
 
Pretending windows has zero issues or that fullscreen isn’t often broken and you literally have hundreds of forum posts for every single game over the internet trying to fix it. And also pretending windows updates take 30 seconds.

What is next? Pretending PC doesn’t get bad ports or doesn’t experience any compilation stutter?
I’ve never had issues with full screen and I’ve played on everything from a 21in monitor to a 75in TV lol. What are you talking about?
 
That's been the mindset of nearly anyone who were interested in most successful systems even when you look at highly symmetric competition between PS and Xbox where they share 90%+ of the software, just that small difference alone can give one of them the clear favourite status ...

I thought you argued that because of a lack of exclusives consoles aren't interesting in general and not about console X here? I simply argue that most console customers have other reasons to buy a console than exclusives. The later might decide which console they prefer but they would still play on consoles because quite frankly most play multi platform games on consoles anyway.

If the economic conditions are bad then what do consoles get out of following harmful PC technology trends ?
Can you elaborate?
 
You can buy a mac and it will work within minutes of opening it.
Nobody is going to spy on you and you don’t get Minecraft ads like on your 8000 dollar HP workstation.

Owning a console is an experience similar to owning a mac

You don’t get updates from 20 different vendors all conflicting with each other and all causing several different issues down the road.

The downside is that you only get 2 or 3 graphical options
 
IMHO the real demise is people only playing forever games instead of buying new games and therefore any HW subventionising fails.
You mean subsidising? The console companies get their cut of the IGC purchases for all these forever games.

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Doesn't matter to Sony et al whether players buy new games or VirtuoBucks for a 20 year old game they can't stop playing, so long as they keep spending.
On top of that the economy is also intentionally driven over the cliff the last 4 years so people have less money for hobbies anyway.
Bad choice of words? Let's keep politics out of this. The world economy is struggling for whatever reasons.
 
There are tons of obvious advantages to gaming on PC but the one thing that pisses me off is when some random windows process grabs focus and decides to minimize my full screen game. And most times there’s no indication of which process or what it’s doing.

My PS4 has been collecting dust for years and I have zero incentive to purchase a PS5. Why? Because I’m not missing anything when all console games are coming to PC with better performance and IQ.
 
You can buy a mac and it will work within minutes of opening it.
Nobody is going to spy on you and you don’t get Minecraft ads like on your 8000 dollar HP workstation.

Owning a console is an experience similar to owning a mac

You don’t get updates from 20 different vendors all conflicting with each other and all causing several different issues down the road.

The downside is that you only get 2 or 3 graphical options
I’ve never had windows serve me an ad, use education versions or the professional edition.

Also lol because Xbox actually does serve you Minecraft ads all over the dashboard. I think PlayStation also has ads as well.

I’ve never had two updates conflict, these experiences may have been common 20 years ago but it’s not accurate to modern PC gaming.
 
Just because you haven't experienced it, doesn't mean others haven't. That's the value in listening to other people. Have you ever had Windows decide your copy isn't legitimate any more and require you to call custom support?
 
Just because you haven't experienced it, doesn't mean others haven't. That's the value in listening to other people. Have you ever had Windows decide your copy isn't legitimate any more and require you to call custom support?
I had this happen once when I ran Insidee but never on stable.

I’m saying I think people in this thread are over exaggerating the friction you experience when gaming on PC. If someone new to PC gaming came in here they’d get the impression that replacing a PSU is a yearly task lol.
 
I don’t understand what is so complicated about using multiple stores anyways, just click the shortcut on your desktop? Who cares where the files are downloaded from?
And that is the crux of the problem. There is really no point.
 
I had this happen once when I ran Insidee but never on stable.
I've had it happen and known people who have had it happen.

The issues here might sound exaggerated, but the principle issue is the ratio of Windows problems to console problems is n:0 (ish). So if wanting no problems whatsoever, not even one or two a year, Windows still isn't a choice. And it only takes one frustrating, hard to solve issue to really poison the relationship with an OS and want some other solution where that will never happen again.
 
A reason why steamdeck is so popular is not only the portability, but the fact that you don’t need to deal with windows.

That is worth more than having to deal with PS3 equivalent settings for modern games
 
You mean subsidising? The console companies get their cut of the IGC purchases for all these forever games.



Doesn't matter to Sony et al whether players buy new games or VirtuoBucks for a 20 year old game they can't stop playing, so long as they keep spending.

But not everybody who plays these games cares for the digital scam sales. But most of these people didn't buy x other games as they did before. I seriously doubt the number of whales is high enough to compensate the loss of game sales for Sony/MS.
 
Do you even use steam? I do and using steam doesn't stop you from having to interact with other stores/launchers.

It absolutely does if you limit yourself to games that work natively in Steam which amounts to the overwhelming majority of PC games and a library that is still many times the size of the largest single console library.

Like I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say replacing parts is not any more friction that replacing a whole device? Surely you cant be that oblivious to see how that cannot possibly be true? I'm not even going to delve into why that statement is false.

Because replacing individual parts can be:

a. Cheaper
b. Allow the opportunity to upgrade that individual part over what was previously in the system

Both the diagnoses and replacement can be outsourced to a 3rd party if the end user doesn't have the requisite knowledge to it themselves (yes at a cost, but one that still may be cheaper overall than replacing a whole console), and if all else fails, you can simply replace the whole unit just as you would with a console - although this would come at a cost premium, albeit again with the opportunity to upgrade at the same time.

Shader compilation is one of many issues with pc gaming. The issues I've mentioned before are also included. At it's best, pc gaming is cumbersome, at it's worst, its uncouth. I'm willing to put up with it for games that display a far superior technical brilliance that can't be had on console. Cyberpunk is a good example of that type of game... For other games, I'll save myself the hassle and play on console or steam deck. Unfortunately, those type of games are few and far between.

I think you can make an argument for why console gaming is the better choice for games who want zero hassle without exaggerating everything. The simple truth is that pretty much every game is going to offer a better technical experience on a high end PC vs it's console counterpart, and not simply the big headline games like Cyberpunk. Every game will offer some combination of better image quality, better frame rate and better core graphics (particularly where RT is involved).

If the cost of this is having to press "Install updates and shut down" while waiting an extra minute or so for the shut down sequence to complete once a month or so instead of simply "shut down" (which is the sum total of managing Windows updates these days), along with taking a couple of minutes every few weeks, at a time entirely of my choosing to click the "install driver" button in GeForce Experience then I hardly consider that a massive hassle. You may feel differently, and it's certainly something you don't need to do with a console, but exaggerating the difficulties doesn't help your argument at all.

In the last 4 years, I've had to swap ram twice, PSU twice(both Corsair), GPU once all due to defects. All brand new parts. In the xbox 360 era, a normal xbox 360 experience was RROD. Over 50% of the early consoles failed. That was normal for that device.

Are you keeping your PC in an oven? This is not a typical PC hardware experience at all. Quite frankly, if you're seeing this many hardware failures from disparate components I think you need to start thinking about what the common cause could be. i.e. are you installing the components correctly? are you selecting the right components for your system? is your PC in operating in a suitable environment and sufficiently cooled?

Finally, please don't go around saying there's no multiple store friction. I experience it every single day. Playnite does not resolve multiple store friction, it only helps to hide it. While it does an admirable job, it's still inferior to console in every way, shape and form.

Please define "inferior to console in every way, shape and form". If configured so, this is the first thing I will see when starting up my PC:

Desktop.jpg

This menu is navigable via control pad. Any game in this display will launch with a single controller click regardless of it's originating store. When the game is closed I will be returned back to this screen without ever having to know what store the game was launched from. When I'm ready to shut down, I simply select the menu in the top right and select the shut down (or sleep) option. I can even select to shut down and install Windows updates from here. All game updates are handled invisibly via their own stores so I never have to be aware of them.

How is this inferior to the console experience? Note the games in this list include Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo exclusives, both past and present. I can run Gran Turismo 6, close it and go seamlessly into Starfield, close that and load up Mario Odyssey with one controller button click, close that and launch Mario 64, close that and fire up TLOU. All of this from the single, seamless interface. You would need a minimum of 3 separate consoles to do that, so please do explain to me how this is "inferior to console in every way, shape and form".

Arguments around windows updates and drivers come straight out of 2024. Nvidia driver 551.52 - .76 caused a whole host of performance and instability problems. Amd adrenaline drivers 24.3.1 caused instability and crashing. KB5035853 from microsoft caused bsods along with other updates. Like I said in another thread, pc gaming at it's best is cumbersome and at it's worst, is uncouth.

Again, you're making out like this is a totally normal and common PC experience. Just because a couple of games may have seen a 10% performance degradation on certain hardware configurations with a particular driver update, or 1% of users got the occasional BSOD after a particular Windows update that was presumably updated itself to resolve, does not make this the normal PC experience. The vast majority of PC gamers will continue gaming away without experiencing or noticing any of these issues. I mean, I am certainly what would be considered a performance sensitive PC gamer, but i don't believe I've ever experienced a driver update that noticeably impacted the quality of a game i was playing at that point. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, simply that it's far, far less common than you're making out. Perfect? No. And that is an advantage for consoles if even once in a blue moon issues like this are an game breaker for you (see @Nisaaru point above about re-inputting a password in Steam once every few years being too much). But don;t make out this is the normal day to day experience that "PC gamers have to suffer through". Because it it isn't. Not even close.

You don’t get updates from 20 different vendors all conflicting with each other and all causing several different issues down the road.

By all means, give me a few specific examples of this happening to you on a modern PC.
 
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Another issue with PC gaming is the cheating in multiplayer games. It's bad enough on consoles with cronus/xim type of devices and lag manipulation but on PC it's on a complete different level. On top of that you can't avoid the clash between m/kb and gamepad players.
 
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