[Particle Person]

Hey, look, yet another thread in which people simply can't understand why their own area of interest/expertise isn't universally acknowledged as basic common knowledge and shared by the whole world.  I'd love to be present the next time one of you has car problems:

"What, you can't fix it?  You don't even know what the problem is?  You're actually calling a garage?  [Insert shitty "mfw Guest mehmay here]  But it's so easy!  It's objectively trivial to fix an engine and get a car running!  Any drooling retard could do it!  There are kids who can handle things like this easily, and you can't!  How do you even manage to feed yourself when you're this stupid?"

Your comparison doesn't really make sense in this situation, since you can just buy prebuilt computers. You don't need advanced technical knowledge to realize that PCs are better for gaming or to enjoy their advantages.

tl;dr: nice memes

What is a mehmay exactly?

I'm trying to figure out if I should be pissed or not.

Guest should be.

I can understand why people don't use PCs for gaming. Most people are just stupid, especially when it comes to technology (and I'm no exception).

What is this? You guys are suddenly too retarted to figure how to use Steam? You don't necessarily have to build your own computer and create your own Linux distro to program your own private games to enjoy the financial and practical benefits of PC gaming.

[Vindictus]

Saddam is never wise in any case. He jumps into threads, makes a vaguely accurate post attacking previous posters, then leaves before a proper argument can start.

[Ghost of V]

Saddam is never wise in any case. He jumps into threads, makes a vaguely accurate post attacking previous posters, then leaves before a proper argument can start.

Yes, but he is master of his trade.

[Lord Dave]

Hey, look, yet another thread in which people simply can't understand why their own area of interest/expertise isn't universally acknowledged as basic common knowledge and shared by the whole world.  I'd love to be present the next time one of you has car problems:


"What, you can't fix it?  You don't even know what the problem is?  You're actually calling a garage?  [Insert shitty "mfw Guest mehmay here]  But it's so easy!  It's objectively trivial to fix an engine and get a car running!  Any drooling retard could do it!  There are kids who can handle things like this easily, and you can't!  How do you even manage to feed yourself when you're this stupid?"

YouTube makes everyone an expert at everything.

[Saddam Hussein]

Your comparison doesn't really make sense in this situation, since you can just buy prebuilt computers. You don't need advanced technical knowledge to realize that PCs are better for gaming or to enjoy their advantages.

Yes, but prebuilt gaming PCs tend to be very expensive, and once someone points that out, the PC Aryans then resort to the "Just build a computer!" argument.  I just thought I'd save some time and cut straight to that particular point.

[Vindictus]

Only if you get one from Alienware. You can get prebuilts built by dudes working at a PC parts place for $50 or so more than what it would cost to do it yourself.

[Rushy]

There is also a large variety of online stores that ship custom built computers for very little premium over the parts required. I've even found some that are cheaper than the individual parts combined; I still ordered the parts myself because I just think it's fun putting the computer together.

[Particle Person]

Your comparison doesn't really make sense in this situation, since you can just buy prebuilt computers. You don't need advanced technical knowledge to realize that PCs are better for gaming or to enjoy their advantages.

Yes, but prebuilt gaming PCs tend to be very expensive, and once someone points that out, the PC Aryans then resort to the "Just build a computer!" argument.  I just thought I'd save some time and cut straight to that particular point.

Okay, so you need to be either "smart", or wealthy. If you are both poor and dumb then you are a waste of life.

[Ghost of V]

Consoles are still better because of developer support.

The only remotely playable PC game is DOOM 2. Everything else is a rehash or DOOM knockoff. 2 perfected the genre and is still a classic to this day. The storyline has also been ripped off countless times in other media.

[Vindictus]

Consoles are still better because of developer support.

The only remotely playable PC game is DOOM 2. Everything else is a rehash or DOOM knockoff. 2 perfected the genre and is still a classic to this day. The storyline has also been ripped off countless times in other media.

Developer support.. wut. Most of the games I play have subreddits where the devs post regularly, and often ask for feedback. If something's broken you can make them aware almost immediately.

[Particle Person]

Consoles are still better because of developer support.

The only remotely playable PC game is DOOM 2. Everything else is a rehash or DOOM knockoff. 2 perfected the genre and is still a classic to this day. The storyline has also been ripped off countless times in other media.

Developer support.. wut. Most of the games I play have subreddits where the devs post regularly, and often ask for feedback. If something's broken you can make them aware almost immediately.

epicly troled

[Snupes]

Saddam is never wise in any case. He jumps into threads, makes a vaguely accurate post attacking previous posters, then leaves before a proper argument can start.

Well, I meant more towards his first sentence because elitists of any type annoy the hell out of me. There just happen to be a massive deluge of PC elitists on the internet

[xasop]

PCs are more expensive because they can do everything.

This is the main reason why I favour PCs. It's a huge step backwards to go from general-purpose computers that can be made to be good at any computing task with the right components, to locked-down computers that are only designed to be good at one thing, and then only for games that target that specific console.

Related to that point, consoles also fragment the game market. I can buy a PC from Lenovo, Dell or Apple, with a CPU from Intel or AMD, and memory, storage and graphics from countless other vendors, and it will play the exact same set of games (give or take performance and OS requirements) once I install Steam. I don't need to base my hardware decisions on which games I want to play, aside from getting a powerful enough PC.

With consoles, you have vendors who compete not only with their hardware, but also with the selection of games available for their platform. As a console buyer, you would need to base your choice of console hardware as much on the games available for each as on the capabilities of the hardware itself. As soon as you want to play two or more games that don't both target the same console, the cost argument against PCs becomes null and void, as you now need to buy multiple systems to satisfy your requirements.

This argument should be nothing new to anyone acquainted with the progress computer science has made over the last 70 years. There has been a tremendous amount of work in moving us from multiple incompatible systems (like today's consoles) in the '50s and '60s, to operating systems portable across multiple hardware (like today's Linux) such as UNIX in the '70s, to applications portable across multiple operating systems (like GNU) in the '80s and '90s. Finally, we have arrived in the 21st century, where we can take portability for granted, and everyone wants to go back to the days of mutual incompatibility at the hardware level.

Consoles make no sense, economically or practically. (SteamOS consoles excepted, since they are PC-compatible.)

[Snupes]

everyone wants to go back to the days of mutual incompatibility at the hardware level.

Only if you're talking about console manufacturers. Us customers and normal people do not.

[Ghost of V]

Consoles make no sense, economically or practically. (SteamOS consoles excepted, since they are PC-compatible.)

Millions of people disagree with you.

Most games are cross-platform these days with the exception of Halo, Titanfall, and maybe 2 others. The market for games on consoles is also larger, meaning consumers can easily find games they want to play that usually aren't available on PC. Third-party support has a lot to do with the success of a platform, and while PC has many devs making games it doesn't have nearly as many that are as prolific as some console devs. There's a reason there's more demand for consoles than PCs. We all know that PCs can do much more and are usually more powerful with the right parts, but that's irrelevant. Games are about having fun. The more games, the better. Consoles have more high-quality games, therefore consoles win.

I don't care if your PC can run six instances of WoW, mine bitcoin, and create a grand unified theory of physics from code. Can it play Uncharted without crappy emulation? God of War? Metal Gear Solid? Zelda? Pokemon? Monster Hunter? Etc? If not, then you just lost a big chuck of the consumer base.

PCs might be more practical in the long run, but they are not practical for the average consumer.

[xasop]

everyone wants to go back to the days of mutual incompatibility at the hardware level.

Only if you're talking about console manufacturers. Us customers and normal people do not.

Console manufacturers want to make money. They will take gaming technology in any direction that customers and the law enable them to, in order to achieve that goal. If mutually incompatible consoles sell, then customers want mutually incompatible consoles; otherwise, they wouldn't buy them.

Most games are cross-platform these days with the exception of Halo, Titanfall, and maybe 2 others. The market for games on consoles is also larger, meaning consumers can easily find games they want to play that usually aren't available on PC. Third-party support has a lot to do with the success of a platform, and while PC has many devs making games it doesn't have nearly as many that are as prolific as some console devs. There's a reason there's more demand for consoles than PCs. We all know that PCs can do much more and are usually more powerful with the right parts, but that's irrelevant. Games are about having fun. The more games, the better. Consoles have more high-quality games, therefore consoles win.

I don't care if your PC can run six instances of WoW, mine bitcoin, and create a grand unified theory of physics from code. Can it play Uncharted without crappy emulation? God of War? Metal Gear Solid? Zelda? Pokemon? Monster Hunter? Etc? If not, then you just lost a big chuck of the consumer base.

That is all incidental, and a circular argument. The reason many games exist for consoles is that people buy consoles. If people didn't buy consoles, there would be no gain in making games for them.

Your argument therefore boils down to "consoles make sense because consoles make sense".

[Ghost of V]

Your argument therefore boils down to "consoles make sense because consoles make sense".

Not really. My argument is that consoles make more sense because devs make more games for consoles. Yes, consoles are popular because people enjoy them and buy them. That's a fact with everything that's popular. The reason they're more popular is because 1) there's less know-how required to play console games 2) less expensive entry cost 3) more quality games and 4) simple convenience.

I agree with you that PCs are potentially better than consoles from a hardware perspective, but PC lacks games the average consumer wants to play. That's the bottomline here. There's a reason consoles sell well.

[beardo]

Consoles are holding back game development.

[xasop]

I think our arguments don't quite meet in the middle. I'm arguing that consoles don't make sense fundamentally, regardless of what situational convenience there may be in buying them now. I also don't consider the decisions made by consumers to be an indicator of what makes sense. Consider the vinyl record - a mainstay of 20th-century recorded music, yet it initially gained dominance over technologically superior cylindrical media because it was cheaper to manufacture and consumers were sheepish enough to go along with what record companies wanted to sell.

After 60 years of dominance, it finally gave up its place to CDs, which (big surprise) have held onto their popularity due to commercial convenience, not technical superiority (which they lack in abundance). Now I see people throwing money at console manufacturers and can't help but wonder if the capitalist world is setting itself up for another half-century of inferior products.

[markjo]

That is all incidental, and a circular argument. The reason many games exist for consoles is that people buy consoles. If people didn't buy consoles, there would be no gain in making games for them.

Your argument therefore boils down to "consoles make sense because consoles make sense".

Not quite.  Consoles make sense because there has been a growing market for consoles for more than 30 years.