JazzB1987 said:
Its not different with PSN or XBL. If the service is gone the whole game is. Even today you cant play online in some console games that are a few years old because they shutdown the servers. On PC I can always join player hosted servers and dont even have to pay a fee to play online.
In 10 years you might not be able to buy a 360 console that can access the internet because MS might not see a reason to allow people to download almost 20 year old games. They will probably resell them as UHD collection or something like that. If steam exists in 10 years I will still be able to download my old PC games and now that steam is launching its own Twitch-like service I dont see them shutting down anytime soon.
If I have a big enough harddrive I can download ALL my steam games and I can even play them when steam might go the way of the THQ dodo. Thanks to Offline mode. That wont work with PS+ or XBO "free" games.
And most people these days buy a game play it and then sell it. So if I lose access to a $3 dollar game in 6 years who cares. It was a $3 dollar game. And I got my value out of it already. Its like a videogame rental store the difference is that I can keep the games not only for 1 day or so but for 10 years.
Then there always is the "not so legal way of being able to play steam games" so even if the service shuts down I can still play the games. That wont work on digital games on consoles.
The exclusive argument is pretty valid yes but PC also has exclusives And if not there is always MOD support that makes almost every single game have exclusive FREE content that is not available on console. Games on PC might have severe bugs but I have yet to encounter a single game that does have them. (Remember I buy games months later because I am a patient person therefore even the timed exlusive argument is irrelevant to me) The only game I cannot play that I own is MassEffect 1 on steam it does not work with Win8. The rest of my 700+ games works like a charm. And I dont have to deal with choppy framerate or aliasing in games like Assassins Creed etc.
I am not saying that I dont buy games on consoles since I do have both PS3 and 360 and own every single first party game for them. I also own a billion jrpgs etc. But unoptimized generic third party multiplat output is nothng I want to pay 15 bucks or so for just so I "own" it.
There is no way that in 10 years I might think "hey I loved COD MW3 its such a classic i want to play it right now" Its in no way an all time favorite or a classic etc. Its just a generic game that gets a new version every year. No need to own it. Same with most games. True gems are very rare.
|
I think that you unfortunately don't know how Steam works. I'm not talking about online. If the servers of a game are shutdown, I can't play them online on consoles, right. But the single player works. This is true for both physical and digital copies.
On Steam, if the DRM servers are shutdown, you games won't open anymore. No single player, no multiplayer, nothing. And offline mode won't avoid it. Offline mode is just a big time you have before a DRM check. After the time runs out, you either reconnect and do another check or you won't play anymore. That's why I dislike Steam. You talked about PS+. The games are free (with the subscription), and everytime I download one a popup remember me of the rules to keep it. Don't like it? Buy retail, buy digital and it's yours. Steam doesn't say "Hey, you aren't buying, just renting for unlimited time!", because that sounds a bit to bad.
As you said, if they remove a game of the store, maybe you can't download it anymore. But I can always have a backup of my HDD or simply use retail. The game is mine, it belongs to me. The only way to change this is to come to my house and take it away. Steam can just pull the plug and wait for the game to stop working. Very easy. Most people buy and sell? Well, I don't. I have all my SMS cartridges and PS1/2 games. As I said, I like to own what I buy.
Of course, PC has its exclusives. But by far there are way more AAA games that are console exclusive or at least are timed exclusives. Depending on your preferences, you will want to buy one or another. You are saying that timed exclusive is irrelevant because you wait months anyway, but that just personal. I usually buy games at launch or even preorder if I like them, so for me it is absolutely necessary.
And PC ports usually have their fair share of bugs. First, you have the problems that show that nobody tested: console FoV without any way to change it (you break some textures on Wolfenstein, even if the game has a built-in slider for it), GTA IV with huge requirements, Thief with severe stuttering and massive tearing, Darkisiders 2 with 3 lines of tearing on the screen and so on. You even used AC as an example, but the game is barely playable on all platforms. It demands a GTX680 as minimum, how is that a good example? It is another proof that PC gets bad ports. Well, at least on this case I think everyone got bad ports :D
And as an last note, you have to be more informed about PS+. It works offline too, just like Steam. I renewed my subscription 2 months ago. If I pull my network plug on my consoles, the games will work for 10 more months until the subscription time runs out.
