Console Gaming vs PC Gaming

[Driwen]

problem and their strength of consoles is that there is only one version of it and all games released for it are designed for it. So when you want to keep up with the consoles you buy a new one every 3 years (off the same company so possibly 3 new ones every 3 years (nintendo/ps/xbox/?)).
That is also where the strength of the pc lays, it is a standard there isnt a copyright on the basics of a pc, so there are multiple companies making parts of a pc leading to the need to make games for the pc to be more acceptable (and less quality) for different hardware.
So for games a console is usually best as once you buy one every game you can buy for it will run well, which isnt the case for the pc. However every game is only released on one console and I doubt many people could spend or be bothered to buy more than one console. So if consoles will be the future than I think eventually companies will have to let go of the control over games only releasing on one console or otherwise I doubt they will be able to beat pc's (and I do think that pc's are the bigger game machine than any console) and when they do that than they will loose their strength of being sure what the customer will have to run their games on and will have to put energy in making it more adaptable instead of quality (as you might be dealing with a ps2 or a xbox so you cant be using certain shortcuts that work in the ps2 as they will crash the xbox).

 

[xane]

The Console = Pot Noodle and PC = George Forman Grill is a great analogy.

The Grill might be slightly slower but its a lot better tasting.

 

[]AC[dRuM]

The Console = Pot Noodle and PC = George Forman Grill is a great analogy.

The Grill might be slightly slower but its a lot better tasting.

..lol

I honestly love my PC to bits, I love fiddling about, shesh I even love it when things go wrong,.. simply because I have to fiddle some more. I can talk, write, listen to music etc all within arms reach. So yip PC's kick ass end of.

but...

Its the success of the instant product that will win the day. I am the new owner of an Xbox (inc PS1 +2 ) and I have the opportunity to actually road test this very product myself free for 2 months.

Balders Gate on the XBox is great, but SOF2 is pants compared to the PC as is CS I think.. (Q3 for the PS2 don't even go there..lol ) but the angle I have is that the console will greatly improve in time vs tech on a PC and the integration of items is as natural as was the move from a seperate radio / record player to the stack system / Hi Fi.

[A.C.Clarke moment] I honestly see us all having a one multi media unit and this maybe linked to different screens in the house, the box / server being capable of multitasking to all required screens[/A.C.Clarke moment]

Then of course as brought up is the question of real home security on an IT level, it may well be included as a policy when you purchase a property

In the end reading all of these comments has now led me to think that maybe the question isn't Console vs PC gaming more a case of 'when will the two intigrate fully?'

 

[JBP|]

In the end reading all of these comments has now led me to think that maybe the question isn't Console vs PC gaming more a case of 'when will the two intigrate fully?'

pretty soon after the release of xbox2 would be my guess

 

[Bodhi]

PlayStation 2 uber alles.

 

[Jopasc]

Consoles never interested me until about 8 months ago when I realised you could do more on them than just play games. If you put a mod chip in your xbox you can turn it into a multimedia system that streams music from the internet, plays your own mp3's, most video formats including xvid/real player/wmv's/DVD's/vcd's, shows photo albums in a slideshow etc. So thats the main reason I got my xbox.

After playing a few games while lazing on the sofa I decided this is how I want to play games, in comfort. The network code for all the xbox games I have tried are awseome. I hosted games for 5 people on my crappy 29 kb/s upload and no one had lag. This was using a free Live! alternative called xbconnect which uses your pc to tunnel through so you can play system link games with people over the internet.

Its downfall is not being able to type messages to people while you play but a few of us are investing in the headsets so we can verbally abuse each other while we play. The only other major downfall is the lack of a mouse. Playing FPS games is horrid on a controller. I heard you can fit a usb port to the xbox and use a mouse that way but when it comes to consoles you just want something you can plug in and works with no configuring.

Tried a few online games through my years online but I ended up playing quakeworld for about 4 years and only stopped playing to play Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I guess i'll never have as much fun on my xbox than on my pc playing these 2 games online. Saying that I have played tons of different games online with my xbox and they were all enjoyable and its great to have a variety of games to play without having to make extreme config files for each of them.

If I had a choice of playing a game online tonight with either my pc or my xbox, I would choose my xbox. Its just so much better playing in total comfort of the sofa and tv than sitting here at the pc.

 

[]AC[dRuM]

some great points...

 

[Bullitt]

The main problem I can see in the forseeable future is that as console get more and more powerful and user friendly with multilple functions, they inevitably become more complex and surely more open to crashes and technical faults.

I bought an X-Box day of release and just recently it's started saying game discs were dirty or damaged, after a while it now takes an extremely long time to boot up and start a game, or access any settings menu for the box itself. After some researching it appears this is a common problem possibly related to dust.
Microsoft do free replacements but it shouldn't happen in the first place. The whole point of me getting consoles is to avoid the frustration and pain of PC compatability (don't get me wrong i still love PC gaming).

I fear this kind of thing is going to become more common as the console generations evolve. Hopefully i'm wrong and it's just Microsoft.