Immersion whilst playing: PC versus consoles

It's now been almost a year since I built my first ever dedicated gaming PC, and looking back on the games I've played and how I've played them I find myself wondering if it was worth the financial outlay. Whilst I had previous (yet limited) experience with playing games on the PC (Half Life games, the odd RTS that tickled my pickle), the vast majority of my game playing had been done on various consoles.

I won't go into detail on my gaming history over the past 12 months, except to say that on the new, shiny PC I've played a variety of indie games, the odd MMO (which I have to conclude are just not for me) and the best-looking versions of several multi-platform games. Whereas in a previous life I played Half Life 2 with mouse and keyboard, all but BF3 have been played with a controller. Keyboard and mouse, perhaps due to my perennial clumsiness or some other reason, take me out of the experience. But no biggie, controller support is everywhere.

However, when playing on the PC, ignoring Dishonored and Bioshock Infinite, I find that 20-30 minutes seems to be my attention threshold. On console I can easily play for an hour or so before doing something else, but on PC I seem to develop ADD. Sometimes this is due to a game's graphics, as I'm constantly tinkering to turn up as many settings as possible whilst maintaining the 60fps grail. But I think it might be something else too, a difficulty in seeing my computer, a 'tool' which I use for internet, film/TV and uni work, as an absorbing, immersive gaming environment.

To clarify, this post is not to question which platform is superior to the other, but instead to ask whether or not I'm alone in finding myself more immersed whilst playing games on a console, as opposed to on a PC. Anyone else in the same boat, or is this a kayak rather than a cruise ship?

Since I play both PC games and console games with a 360 controller I almost don't perceive the difference. I have my TV hooked up to the PC and whenever I can be bothered I actually switch to the TV and play PC games there. So for me the lines are completely blurred.

Same as @Humanity. I prefer PC as I love modding my games (Fallout, Elder Scrolls), but I often use the TV for more blockbuster games as BioShock or Tomb Raider. Try to get used to it, it can be preferable for some games.

What does "immersion" mean anyway? For you it seems like that how ever you setup your living room is far more comfortable than how you have set up your office/computer area. That has nothing to do with being immersed in the game but ergonomics.

You tinker with the graphics for the first 5-15 minutes until you find the sweet spot that goes with a solid 60 FPS. And then what's the problem?

What does it matter whether it's a big rectangular box (PC) or a small square box (console) underneath your TV? How does it being a PC feel different?

Whether it's a PC or a console connected to your TV, in both cases you're sitting on the couch with your controller (or wireless MKB) and stabbing dudes. Only difference is the fact that the PC experience looks and runs better, has more customization and infinite modding ability for some games.

I don't get which part feels "different," aside from the better performance and more options in every aspect.

I've always been far more immersed on PC, but that just might be because I prefer mouse and keyboard, and my PC pretty much runs everything at 60FPS, so I don't have to worry about graphical settings or anything. Mainly, it's resolution. Every console game seems to scale up the resolution, and if you're used to playing games at 1920x1080 on a TV, then using that same TV to display something that's scaled up, you'll notice how bad it looks and it's very distracting.

On the other hand, I do like the simplicity and uniformity of consoles. It's easier to not worry about problems/lag/shitty graphics you have in games because "Hey, there isn't anything I can do about it!" Everyone is on the same tier, experiencing the same thing, while on PC, there is always that jealousy of wanting better hardware.

With all that said, PC all the way, I don't even own a console anymore, actually.

It happens exactly the opposite for me: I can barely play a console game, yet I can play during hours upon hours on a PC. I've been raised as a PC gamer, and the obvious flaws of consoles are even more obvious to me... Crappy framerate with frequent dips, low-res textures, low-quality assets, etc. really break the immersion for me.

That being said, I can play console games for hours if I like the game enough. The AC series (played everything but AC3 on Xbox) and Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen are the most recent examples I can think of.

@markini6: Dude, I feel the same freaking way. Put together my first real gaming PC a couple months ago. Hadn't really played on the PC for almost ten years. It really doesn't feel the same. The steam stuff, I feel like I have too many games to choose from. One thing about going out to spend 60 bucks on a new release is you are playing the latest with everyone and you stick to it.

PC at a desk is maybe slightly more immersive as you're closer to the screen and if you are wearing a good pair of headphones (although also possible for consoles) it's brilliant, but that word is pretty bullshit anyway. Either way you are still 100% aware you are playing a video game.

Level of detail doesnt really play into it. Stuttering, crashing, and freezing do. And at this point, since consoles can just issue an online patch later, they're shipping bugged games as much as PC devs always had. So the one advantage consoles had, which is you get it right the first time cus you can't fix it later, no longer exists. So one isnt really better than the other, devs in general are pretty bad about betaing their game enough before it comes out so immersion is always compromised.

And just a general preference I have now that dialog be spoken not read for the purposes of immersion, which isnt really a PC or console thing just a "we have the budget or we dont" thing.

I have the same problem when playing some PC games (except Civ5, there's been times when I've played that game for literally 7 hours strait), and I think one the reasons for this is that it takes up way more time and energy to change what you're doing on a console as opposed to a PC that you just figure it would probably just be easier to keep playing the game you're already playing than to get up off of the couch, eject the disc, put in a different disc etc. Also there's just so many possible distractions on PCs.