I'm gonna repost something I cooked up in a reply to a thread that a few people agreed with. You may not agree with my opinions, you may, through blinded stupidity, disagree with my facts; but rest assured that I own a PS3, regularly play on a friend's 360 and my sister has a Wii. I don't hate consoles, I hate the misguided buffoons who play them and then act like cocky marketing-execs about them on the internet.
So here's my list:
1. PC games can always look better. As screens and graphics cards get better, you'll be able to return to your old games and look at them in a new light each time you upgrade (see point 2). Plus, with an £80 graphics card you can already have better graphics than a PS3 on new games, even multiplatforms.
2. Upgrading - it does not need to be done every few months or yearly. My current graphics card was £100 a year and a half ago, and it still plays new games on max. Because a lot of games are 360 ports, it is likely I won't need to upgrade for another year either. Sure, I need to upgrade to play Crysis on max, but I can play it on Medium, and it's not worth it to upgrade for one game. It'd be like going out and buying a piece of hardware for a game with a gimmick.. oh, sorry all those of you who bought Wii Fit.
3. It's cheaper. £2000 system necessary to run the latest games is an outright lie. Consider this - a PS3 costs £300, and a decent HDTV costs over £500. To get a killer gaming rig, you need only make a £300 upgrade to whatever PC you have at the moment, less if you already have a decent processor. Plus bear in mind that a PC game is £25 to a console's £40.
4. Online multiplayer is far better. Dedicated servers mean less lag for everyone, and higher numbers of players in the game. You also don't have to pay Microsoft £5 a month for the 'privilege', which crosses over into point 3, because over the 7 year lifespan of the 360, you'll be paying £420 for something which is free on the PC.
5. PC gets DLC free. Valve have continued to support Team Fortress 2 long after release with new weapons, maps and achievements, but Microsoft has prevented them from releasing all this content free on the 360.
Call of Duty 4's map pack has been and Mass Effect's Bring Down The Sky DLC will be released free of charge.
6. Control - the PC's mouse and keyboard is the absolute best possible control scheme for any game which involves aiming. If you're determined to shoot yourself in the foot with a controller (the aiming is so bad you might end up doing just that), see point 9.
7. Social aspect is far easier. You don't even have to reach for a chat pad to be able to type a message to your friends, and programs such as Steam and X-fire allow you to instant message and hold voice chat in-game. Plus Steam offers LIVE-like functionality on the best online multiplayer games (CoD4, anything by Valve). Plus the people you'll be talking to are far more mature, far more knowledgeable and far nicer than the console crowd - example, observe a thread where PS3 or 360 players are talking about hardware in their systems or PCs. 'Misinformation' does not begin to cover it.
8. Mods and customs massively extend the life of games. I stopped playing GTA4 and MGS4 a couple of weeks after I bought them. You know why I'm still playing TF2 a year after release? Because everytime I start the game I can join a server running a map I've never been on before. And take a look at the uber-graphics mod for GTA: San Andreas, making it look almost as good as a current gen game.
9. You can play it like a console. A bizarre argument I hear a lot, mostly from testosterone-fuelled fratboys, is that they hate being hunched over the PC in an uncomfortable chair. While I'd suggest that they could just buy a nice chair (as I have - totally worth it!); you can plug a PC into your HDTV, plug in a 360 controller and imagine you're playing a console. Albeit one with superior graphics and better online functionality, which might spoil the illusion somewhat.
10. On a console, if you want a feature, you have to wait for Microsoft or Sony to do it. On a PC, someone will have either seen an opportunity and released software or hardware to do it, or someone will have just got sick of the problem and coded their own open-source fix to it (e.g. Resident Evil 4).
11. MMO's, love 'em or hate 'em, are never going to break into the console market. Games like Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, City of Villains/Heroes and Age of Conan provide the ultimate social experience in gaming, variety in setting and not all of them revolve around grind.
12. Indie games. All game developers start out in the indie scene, where they have to prove that they are a cut above everyone else in terms of creativity and technical skill. This leads to some of the most original and best games on the market, often free of charge. While the 360 is trying to tap into this with new community game features, none of these will be free and the vast majority will still be on the PC.
Well, I hope you don't give me too many thumbs down.
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