Ahhhh PC gaming. I guess you could say it's the oldest of the bunch, although I think 'The Brown Box' (which was later turned into Magnavox Odyssey) is. Whatever, not the point, today I'm going to express my opinion on PC gaming because I'm quite bored.
First off, I was a console gamer from pretty much age 4, PC gamer at around... well, age 12 or something. So yeah, you can accuse me of being biased but I'm going to attempt to be as unbiased about my opinion as I possibly can (it's technically impossible to be completely unbiased, but one can still be 99% unbiased :D).
So PC gaming, yeah, it's popular. Journalists and other people have speculated it to be a dying breed, but it still lives on.
I'll say it right now, I'm not a super big fan of PC gaming, for one big reason, and maybe a smaller one.
Big reason first: THE COST. PC gaming is by far the most expensive nowadays. Yeah, you can buy a high-end PC and use it for a few years fine, just have a slow progression of having to set the graphics lower... and lower... til the game is so slow it's practically unplayable. Then, of course, you upgrade, which includes two options: buy/build a new PC, or upgrade your current hardware inside your current PC. Both cost. No matter how efficiently you do it, the price racks up. Upgrading is cheaper, but I'd be surprised if one could upgrade to the latest hardware, spending anything under $150 (playing it safe here, but I would've said $200-$300). Even if one upgrade doesn't stack up to the price of a gaming console, the amount of times you'll upgrade within any of the consoles' lifespan would definitely make the price higher than the gaming console. PC gets free online too, yeah, unlike the Xbox 360 ('M$' is right!) but is it really worth it if you're on a budget? In my opinion, no, I'd get a PS3 for that. You see, it's all the little things you may need to buy that makes PC gaming so (possibly) expensive.
I will point out, however, that console gaming does have a few disadvantages. For one, the graphics might be of a lesser level than the PC version of a game, or a PC exclusive for that matter. Second, you don't get a mouse and keyboard, which many shooter players must admit is the best option for accuracy. Third would be the community, games may get old but on PC, if the game is popular, you will be able to find some pretty sweet modifications of the game, such as 'Project Reality' for Battlefield 2 for example. On top of that, it's more social, although Xbox LIVE and PSN do an admirable job - PC still is just, well, more social I guess, with clans just plain dominating the majority of online PC games (there are tons of clans for consoles too, but nothing compared to PC).
However, a smaller point as to why I prefer console gaming over PC is local multiplayer. While some PC games have some sort of local multiplayer (this is excluding LAN), I don't ever recall a PC game having any kind of split-screen multiplayer. I talked about split-screen before in my last blog, which was a while ago, so I do have a certain liking for it. But the lack of it on PC games was an unfortunate inevitability and is at least 98% the case. When there is a local multiplayer mode, it's usually turn-based. Which works fine, but there's nothing like playing with friends, in real time, in the same room. Of course this is obviously a preference of mine, but it is a reason.
I could list some more, such as how much I dislike the problems I've often had with games (or programs, in general), but that would be based off of personal experience and not facts (of course, this still included some opinions, but still).
So basically, this is how I think: PC gaming is for the people who are not afraid to spend their hard-earned cash on the thing quite often, spending time setting stuff up, and don't mind having an unfortunate lack of local multiplayer, while having the best graphics. Whilst console gaming is for those whom want to spend money on the thing once and be set (excluding possible online fees, a la Xbox LIVE), have local multiplayer and just plain want to get to the game, no need to tweak settings or anything, and don't mind having lesser graphics.
Although in a nutshell it's simplicity vs. complexity, and I'm sure I missed a ton of points on both sides, AND this blog is probably still biased toward console gaming... thanks for reading anyway.
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