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Zkuq on 04 July 2016
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jason1637 said:
Zkuq said:

Sure, if you like being handed games instead of deciding what you want to get.

With every console generation, a new controller is needed. With PC, you can still use your 20-year-old keyboard and mouse if they still work. And the chances are pretty high that you already own a keyboard and a mouse. Not everyone does, but a lot of people already have a desktop, and even laptop people usually have a mouse.

Anyway, apparently this is another PC vs. consoles comparison. And yet again, it conveniently forgets subscription costs, more expensive games, the cost of potentially owning multiple consoles, and probably a lot of other, less important but still relevant things. I really doubt there's just one objective truth that applies to everyone when it comes to PC vs. consoles. For some people, PC will offer better value, while to some other people, consoles will offer better value. There might be an objective answer for an average consumer, I doubt almost anyone on this site is qualified to determine it because determining it is most certainly not simple (or rather, it probably is relatively simple, but requires access to a good bit of data, some of which may not even have been collected).

Sometimes you actually get games that you want.

Also in this comparison I did add subscription cost. Owning multiple consoles isn't really relevant for this.

Yeah, sometimes. What about the other games you care about? And what about all the ones you don't care about, are you going to include all of them in the value  too? And yeah, you did add the subscription cost - for about a year. I'd say considering how popular online multiplayer on consoles is these days, that's a very short period.

Technically you're correct about owning multiple consoles. You could compare just a single console's price to a PC, and it's probably fine in a lot of cases. But if you look at the bigger picture, it's going to be wrong for a lot of gamers. I'd guess that most casual gamers own just one console, but more dedicated gamers tend to have multiple consoles. I think there have been some polls on this site that have showed that a lot of people here (a majority even) own or plan to get multiple consoles, which suddenly isn't as cheap anymore. So yeah, depending on your gaming habits or what kind of scope you choose for the comparison, limiting it to just a single console vs. PC could be right. But a proper comparison could also look really grim for consoles, depending on gaming habits or choice of scope. It's a complex issue of course. What about people that own both a PC and a console or several? It's pretty difficult to account for all possible, or even popular, cases.

My point is that it's not all black and white. You can find ways to make the situation seem beneficial to either side, but which one offers better value is really up to each person. Personally I find PC gaming offers me the better value, but for a lot of people, it's console gaming that offers better value. And then there's also other factors that aren't directly related to value, such as convenience. To me, it seems that a lot of people choose console gaming over PC gaming even if PC gaming would actually offer them better value, just because of a few exclusives and convenience.