Console gamers: Why don’t you game on PC?

[Pyro]

• I like the convenience of a console where updates are a breeze (overblown I know but still)

• I like playing on a TV/couch because I loathe sitting at a desk to play games

• I don't care for the tinkering of graphics settings (hate that it seems to be coming to consoles, even if it's just a selection between two settings) and the cost of getting the best graphics or a higher framerate is the epitome of diminishing returns

• Not a fan of RTS, MMO, MOBA, or any PC specific genre with the exception of first-person immersive sims (which have come to console since Bioshock)

• They cost the same in the long run. Let's look at this gen. A PC for the price of a launch PS4 ($400) and 7 years of PS+ ($420) would last you the same length of a console generation in terms of playing the latest games at mid-high settings. The argument against this is Steam sales, option for piracy, and key resellers saving you more, but I'm talking strictly hardware and the ability to play games online.

• While emulation and the ability to play old games on PC exists and is amazing, I'd rather pay for a remaster or re-release than struggle to get an old game to run.

 

[xillyriax]

Cause I work 8 hrs a day in front of a computer. The last thing I want to do is play games in front of one.

 

[Bman94]

This is the first time I got into PC gaming, so I feel like I can still answer as a Console player who recently got into gaming on PC and it's differences.

For one, PC gaming still is not as simple and easy as console gaming, even with modern advantages. Weird shit happens all the time seemingly for no reason. For instance, I bought Battlefield 1, it was one of the first games I wanted to try out (since I never did keyboard + mouse for FPS). The first time I booted it up, it was completely silent. The game straight up refused to work with my bluetooth headphones, while any other game did. That caused me to go down a long rabbit hole of various troubleshooting just for my fucking headphones to work. The solution ended up being me having to disable some checkbox on the headphones themselves. Stupid stuff like this just pops up for whatever reason.

Or software issues pop up, like when me and my friends tried to run Valorant and we all somehow had different versions of the game and couldn't play together and none of us could update to the proper version. Or Samurai Showdown collection that was on Epic Games Store. I got it, downloaded it, and it just refused to work. I can't remember the specific problem but I just ended up deleting it. Also compatibility on certain old games are broken and they are just unplayable on a modern PC. It's way harder to sync up with friends to play because every fucking launcher is different and doesn't offer the same features. On Playstation 4, it's super simple to make a party chat and send invites. If me and my friend game on PC, we have to deal individually with Origin's bullshit, Steam's bullshit, Epic Game Store's bullshit, Blizzard's bullshit just for us to play games together.

In terms of pricing, yet this was a huge ass investment. I got the Asus ROG Zephyrus laptop, with a RTX 2080 and 1TB of storage, even on sale that was around $1,600. That's more that I've payed for my Xbox One, Playstation 4, Wii U and Switch combined. And that's not including extra stuff that I needed to purchase as well such as a Webcam, a gaming mouse, a cooling pad. And all of that is without even having any games to take advantage of the power, that I had to buy separately adding to the over all cost. Don't get me wrong, the i7 processor and SSD makes a huge difference in my day to day work function and daily operations, but damn that was a hard pill to swallow to pay for this. I know games get real cheap for PC gaming, but honestly, it's not too much different from console gaming prices. I bought Doom Eternal for $30 during the Steam sale, and I'm pretty sure it got to the same price on Playstation 4 and Xbox One around the same time. Digital console sales are weekly and deep discounts happen all the time, not to mention the "free" games from Playstation Plus and the huge catelog for Gamepass, so console gaming is as cheap as ever.

Another issue I have with PC gaming, is that it's hard to disassociate myself from work. I work all day on my PC, and mentally I just want to get away from it. After working from home all day, the last thing I want to do is spend MORE time in front of it. It was fine during the summer while I was off, but now that I'm working again, it's hard to keep interest in playing games at the same place I've been sitting at for hours working. It's enjoyable for me to move to my Playstation 4 or my Switch and decompress. It's also great to have a much larger screen to game on. And speaking of screens, one of the biggest pulls for next gen console gaming is 4K gaming. My laptop is 1080P, so while games will look better graphically, it's still going to be a lower resolution than upcoming consoles. I will eventually update my TV to 4K and when I get the next gen consoles, I can finally enjoy gaming and watching 4K content.

 

[dtrush]

a couple of people I know have told me they are too intimidated by the level of skill on pc gaming.

 

[inpHilltr8r]

Some people here are living in the 90s, apparently.

Click to shrink...

Have you seen the state of the 21st century?

 

[Starwing]

At the moment its too expensive but I am saving up for it as part of my overall workstation build.

 

[Deleted member 68874]

I used to PC game, but stopped for various reasons:

• Games no matter how much tinkering just wouldnt work.
• Lots more network issues (having to port forward depending on a certain game).
• Dislike KB+M (you'll be dummied in competitive if using a controller).
• Work at a desk at work and despise going home to sit at another desk.

 

[SodaGrump]

I have a gaming PC that I feel like I don't use to it's full potential due to the fact that work in an office job, I'm at a desk on a PC for most of my work day, I don't want to come home and continue to sit at a desk, I want to get comfy and play on my tv. I know, I know, I could totally set up my PC on my tv, but it's just so much easier to boot up my console and be on my way.

I still enjoy my Gaming Rig from time to time. Especially for indie titles not yet on console.

 

[GAMEPROFF]

I just dont want to.

 

[____]

I just dont want to.

Click to shrink...

☝🏿

 

[nekkid]

Guaranteed support for ~7 years

 

[lupinko]

Give me money to buy a new PC and I'll play on PC.

 

[VirtualCloud]

Primarily a pc gamer now a days but console gaming is still much easier to set up and just play. I think that is why so many prefer it. Sure you can hook a PC up to a tv, but that's not always possible without moving your pc around or running long HDMI cords around. Sure you can play games with most controllers on steam but that doesn't fix the issue of wanting to play games on battle.net with my preferred controller (looking at you cod) without some massive workaround that doesn't always work. It really can be a headache when dealing with weird issues you don't expect either, My cousins brand new PC required a patch to fix some visual glitches specifically to that game, we tried everything and gave up till a patch randomly fixed his issue. A console gives up the luxury of choices and options but pretty much 99% of the time you can just pop the disc in and play.

 

[Watership]

Input method, ease of setup, couch gaming etc. Many incorrect assumptions, or people still thinking it's the 90s.

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All those things are valid still. Console gaming is plug and play, PC is much better, but is still not as easy/confident/toaster as console gaming by a country mile

 

[Creepy Woody]

Right now I game 90% console, 10% pc. Used to be 20% console, 80% pc.

I just fell out of it. I got sick of online multiplayer games which I mostly played chatting with friends over Steam, so I got into the console single player exclusives.

I'm working full time now so collapsing on the couch is more comfortable than sitting up in a chair and concentrating and trying to pull my weight in online games.

I got a mortgage now so I put a bit more thought into the cost of things, I'll stretch out using my current PC (which isn't too bad still, just starting to show age) since getting a PS5 works out cheaper.

So overall I guess a bit of cost, a bit of lifestyle changes. I don't mind tinkering with PC's to get the settings I want or building and configuring them, I've always done that.

 

[J75]

So I game on PC, and always use a controller, I need to address the people saying that using a controller on PC is always 100% "plug and play" and "brainless" with modern titles.

For the most port this statement above is accurate, but I recently I encountered two recent games with issues when using a controller, Crysis Remastered and Horizon Zero Dawn.

In Horizon, my frame-rate went to shit every time I used my Xbox controller wirelessly with an official dongle by Microsoft. Connecting it wired fixed the issue, but if I want a flawless wireless console experience on PC, I can't at the moment with this game.

With Crysis Remastered, I had issues with the resolution resetting at every boot to 4K which gives me awful performance so I have to lower it, unfortunately I can't select my desired resolution using a controller because the resolution selector is bugged with one. Fine using a mouse.

My point is, these are all issues of the ports of these two games, not the platform as a whole but these weird problems can crop up and for some people, it's enough to not wanna bother with the platform. I have a very love-hate relationship with PC myself. Sometimes I don't wanna deal with the BS, but its benefits are sometimes too big to ignore so I tend to put up with it. No platform is perfect.

 

[angelgrievous]

I just dont want to.

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.

 

[sun-drop]

easy - consoles are the lead platform for games, with PC some times a full year behind with their engines, madden and fifa case in point.

and that's not even getting into the upsides odf a close box system.

and also ..assuming its the family PC we are talking about here .. so what if the gf or wife or kids etc need to you know ..actually use said PC for something other than gaming? .. and if they do that ..is the PC hooked up in the lounge to the family TV? ..if its not then couch gaming isn't really an option for the PC ..

its just too messy. PC gaming is niche , imo, due to a number of reasons, not just frame rates

 

[Deleted member 25721]

All those things are valid still. Console gaming is plug and play, PC is much better, but is still not as easy/confident/toaster as console gaming by a country mile

Click to shrink...

Honestly, for anyone with half a functional brain, they're within a stone's throw of each other. Also, note that I never said that PC gaming is as simple as console gaming, but it's certainly not the rocket science a lot of posts in this thread will have you believe.

 

[Rirse]

Having played on console a lot when going up, only to get heavily into PC gaming around 2009 up until the Switch, I feel like I just vastily prefer playing on a tv and controller more. I still play FPS on a computer, but platformers and action games were always more fun with a controller and big tv. I largely went back console gaming for those reasons along with the growing annoyance of pc gaming being split apart to different launchers due to Epic. A year of waiting on a game to appear on Steam can boggle off when I was going to play it on the tv anyway. Plus my computer is about four or five years old now. Microsoft Flight Simulator didn't run that hot when I tried the gamepass version. I am not wanting to build a new PC for about 1000 after the reasons listed above.

 

[RebelStrike]

PC doesn't have the games I want, I don't want to game on the same laptop I use for work, and I like how convenient it is.

 

[Garlic]

I have absolutely zero patience for troubleshooting, and I understand that a lot of people like the control PC gives but as someone with ADD who will literally spend hours fiddling with settings if given the chance this is a downside to me. "This is how the game performs, deal with it" can be quite freeing. I also prefer physical but I'm not inflexible on this.

I used to play games I assumed where never coming to console on PC but since the last two games I played (Into the Breach and Deltarune) both ended up coming to Switch I wait on basically everything now. My computer is essentially just a FTL machine now as far as gaming goes.

 

[U Know Me]

When all the games I play are crossplay I will become a pc gamer for good. Until then I prefer console mostly for sports games and multiplayer games that I feel that controller is a disadvantage if I play on pc. I play mostly multiplayer and consoles have the bigger player base especially in sports games.

 

[Velg]

I think the equal distribution of votes for various reasons shows that PC gaming has a long way to go with the masses

 

[NoKisum]

Usually the big games I'm excited for, like Bravely Default II or Monster Hunter Rise or Miles Morales or God of War, are not available on PC at all.

 

[reKon]

I'm playing Division 2 demo on PC right now and I keep getting these random 1-2 second stutters that's annoying as fuck. This is a game that's running on all high settings, hitting 60-80 FPS on 1440P and STILL has these unexplainable random freezes. I looked this up and apparently it's a well known issue. I would not be having this issue if I were playing on console.

Even though this is rarely talked about among PC gamers that gloat about how amazing PC gaming is, they still avoid talk about how dealing with software issues (especially on brand new games) is still a big hassle.

When it happens to me, it reminds me that I could have spend 30 mins to an hour just playing the damn game if I was on console instead of figuring out how to resolve an issue.

I imagine that this is something that console gamers would want to definitely avoid.

 

[JusDoIt]

I don't have the space in my life for a desktop PC. The hardware prices, the never ending upgrade treadmill, and dealing with Windows and all of its myriad troubleshooting are factors as well.

There are plenty games that hit PC first that give me envy, but the best ones usually find their way to console eventually. And there are WAY more games that I want to play that don't hit PC at all.

All in all, the benefits don't outweigh the costs for me.

 

[Japanmanx3]

Checked every box in the poll.

 

[Einherjer]

This is the first time I got into PC gaming, so I feel like I can still answer as a Console player who recently got into gaming on PC and it's differences.

For one, PC gaming still is not as simple and easy as console gaming, even with modern advantages. Weird shit happens all the time seemingly for no reason. For instance, I bought Battlefield 1, it was one of the first games I wanted to try out (since I never did keyboard + mouse for FPS). The first time I booted it up, it was completely silent. The game straight up refused to work with my bluetooth headphones, while any other game did. That caused me to go down a long rabbit hole of various troubleshooting just for my fucking headphones to work. The solution ended up being me having to disable some checkbox on the headphones themselves. Stupid stuff like this just pops up for whatever reason.

Or software issues pop up, like when me and my friends tried to run Valorant and we all somehow had different versions of the game and couldn't play together and none of us could update to the proper version. Or Samurai Showdown collection that was on Epic Games Store. I got it, downloaded it, and it just refused to work. I can't remember the specific problem but I just ended up deleting it. Also compatibility on certain old games are broken and they are just unplayable on a modern PC. It's way harder to sync up with friends to play because every fucking launcher is different and doesn't offer the same features. On Playstation 4, it's super simple to make a party chat and send invites. If me and my friend game on PC, we have to deal individually with Origin's bullshit, Steam's bullshit, Epic Game Store's bullshit, Blizzard's bullshit just for us to play games together.

In terms of pricing, yet this was a huge ass investment. I got the Asus ROG Zephyrus laptop, with a RTX 2080 and 1TB of storage, even on sale that was around $1,600. That's more that I've payed for my Xbox One, Playstation 4, Wii U and Switch combined. And that's not including extra stuff that I needed to purchase as well such as a Webcam, a gaming mouse, a cooling pad. And all of that is without even having any games to take advantage of the power, that I had to buy separately adding to the over all cost. Don't get me wrong, the i7 processor and SSD makes a huge difference in my day to day work function and daily operations, but damn that was a hard pill to swallow to pay for this. I know games get real cheap for PC gaming, but honestly, it's not too much different from console gaming prices. I bought Doom Eternal for $30 during the Steam sale, and I'm pretty sure it got to the same price on Playstation 4 and Xbox One around the same time. Digital console sales are weekly and deep discounts happen all the time, not to mention the "free" games from Playstation Plus and the huge catelog for Gamepass, so console gaming is as cheap as ever.

Another issue I have with PC gaming, is that it's hard to disassociate myself from work. I work all day on my PC, and mentally I just want to get away from it. After working from home all day, the last thing I want to do is spend MORE time in front of it. It was fine during the summer while I was off, but now that I'm working again, it's hard to keep interest in playing games at the same place I've been sitting at for hours working. It's enjoyable for me to move to my Playstation 4 or my Switch and decompress. It's also great to have a much larger screen to game on. And speaking of screens, one of the biggest pulls for next gen console gaming is 4K gaming. My laptop is 1080P, so while games will look better graphically, it's still going to be a lower resolution than upcoming consoles. I will eventually update my TV to 4K and when I get the next gen consoles, I can finally enjoy gaming and watching 4K content.

Click to shrink...

Not to derail but you do realize you can just connect your laptop to your TV if you want higher resolutions or just to couch game right? And a PS4 pad which you allrdy have is perfect for that as well since you can use the touch pad as a mouse substitute to start games or just use windows in general.

Honestly as a avid PC player your post and a lot of others here just seem weird to me since there are very easy solutions for pretty much everything on PC and ppl are often just too lazy to actually learn about them.

 

[Tagyhag]

It's understandable that so many people would have hang ups about PC gaming, especially if they've never gamed on it before.

But I think when someone actually starts to do it, they realize that the problems in their head are smaller than they actually are.

It's easier to build a PC than you actually think.

And gaming doesn't have as many problems as you think it does.

Another hang up is people don't realize all the benefits of PC gaming if they never cared about that benefit before (Look at SSD's for example, they didn't mean anything to most console gamers but now they are the second coming). It's not just about better graphics.

Simply put, there is a reason why people spend 3x - 5x more than consoles to build a PC. People wouldn't do that if PC's offered the same or worse experiences than consoles.

easy - consoles are the lead platform for games, with PC some times a full year behind with their engines, madden and fifa case in point.

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While this is true for some sports games, it's only usually true for a year and the rest of multiplatform games? 99% of the time they're always better on PC by a wide margin.

Lead platform doesn't mean much when you can bruteforce your way into a better version.

 

[Zen Hero]

I don't have a PC. I have a mac. IDK if it's worth it to buy a PC purely for gaming.

 

[Traxus]

I was into PC gaming for a good while in the late 90s, early 2000s, and enjoyed the hell out of it but slowly gravitated back to consoles.

These days I'd rather jump right into a game and enjoy the experience as tailored by the developer for a closed platform than spend time customizing hardware, graphics settings, and modding.

Also Sony's studios tend to make the kind of games I really enjoy.

 

[Leon S. Kennedy]

The time I spend gaming has shrunk exponentially over the last few years. Now, I just stick to a few Nintendo exclusives for the most part and play mostly when traveling, very rarely at home.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Too pricey, too much hassle, don't care much about PC-specific genres, a console will last me the entire gen, I prefer to own my games physically, and then there's the comfy couch. Also console exclusives, and I spend my day at work staring at a computer screen, so I don't really feel like meddling with a computer at home too.

 

[ItchyTasty]

I only own a laptop and don't really have room in my apartment for both a TV+sofa and a PC so I picked the telly

 

[flook]

I'm completely done with Windows. In fact I'll never purchase another Microsoft product due to their incredibly shoddy customer services. They may have improved in the last 10 years, I don't know, but I've been fucked over by them too many times.

 

[Right]

Convenience (not a fan of Xbox controller, setting up DualShock is still a hassle, especially when you try to swap the button icons)
Also less distraction on console
I do play PC centric games on PC though (like strategy games, simulation games, certain FPS, or the upcoming cyberpunk 2077 for example)

 

[Modest_Modsoul]

• Price.
• Not that knowledgeable.
• Lazy.
• Budget restricted.
• Hassle.

 

[RyougaSaotome]

I have a gaming laptop that I use for certain games but overall I prefer the console experience.

For a very simple reason: the moment a game fails to work for me and I'm left with an error that doesn't explain anything, or some string of numbers as my crash message, it loses me.

The moment a PC asks me to tinker with any sort of settings to get a game up and running, it loses me.

When I boot a game, I do not want to have to dig into the graphical settings to find the set up that'll work the best. I do not want to have to figure out how to get the best framerate on a game.

I don't want to have to google what drivers I apparently need because a game won't boot for me for some random reason.

I just want to turn on the game and play, and while consoles have gotten a touch more annoying with all the updates, it's still a far cry from "this game doesn't start for reasons so go look up why and fix it."

 

[DjRalford]

I've had a decent gaming PC for around 21 years, and in that 21 years I must have spent a good £8500 in parts to continually upgrade and keep it close to the upper tier, 2000 - 2010 was crazy progress.

It's been in my bedroom, my office, and for the last 7 years in the living room hooked up to my TV with my console.

I get all the varying reasons people have to not wanting one, the issues you can have, the cost of parts, digital only storefronts, a PC to me is an evolving puzzle or problem and I like solving problems, so as sad as it sounds when something doesn't work as it should, which is fairly rare these days, I enjoy finding out why and resolving it.

For someone who wants to just sit down and game without any possible issue that they themselves need to solve, console is a great way to play, but I will always have an option of PC as it allows me to pick which special games I want to play with all the bells and whistles, this is why I will get Cyberpunk for my PC and not my PS5.

People can play on whatever they're comfortable with, it's supposed to be a hobby, relaxing, fun, and one persons fun is different from another's.

So wherever you play just enjoy.

 

[Vaser]

Checked off every option in the poll, haha. I'll add another one: playing video games on a computer is intrinsically unfun.

 

[Ωλ7XL9]

Steep price and inconvenience, lacking simplicity of unwrapping the game box and putting in the disc to play some of the reasons why I never gave PC a thought. Perhaps in a year or two I'd be able to invest some and build my first PC!

 

[Mahonay]

Main reasons I don't having a gaming PC

1. I am a very transient person that is constantly moving. Lugging around a whole PC set up (tower, monitor, desk, chair) is incredibly impractical for my life style. Having a single small console I can easily plug and play wherever is pretty important for me.​
2. It is a big investment to start a PC build from scratch. I am pretty budget conscious.​
3. When I play games I like to sit back on the couch in front of my big TV.​
4. I just really like using console gamepads. I've been primarily a console gamer my entire life and it's what feels comfortable to me.​

 

[mieumieu]

I'm building a PC, but I don't expect it to replace my Switch for console gaming.

What I'm afraid of is all the configuration. You've got a multitude of settings in the EFI/BIOS, AMD GPU dashboard settings, Ryzen Master, DRAM calculator, vendor-specific GPU dashboards, fan curves, individual in-game settings, and other tweaking applications.

I'm gonna be so concerned the whole time that something is conflicting with something else and I'm fucking up my performance because of it.

This kind of shit makes me break out in a cold sweat:

Click to shrink...

I've not used this (or Intel XTU) at all and I have been gaming on PC for years. It's not necessary at all.
PC gaming is easy enough these days and I only meet issues in a couple of games at most all these years.
And I game with an Xbox one controller.
Granted I played PC games on a gaming laptop from a major brand (HP Omen) but I never encountered hardware issues at all.

People especially those not in the know tend to overestimate the amount of tinkering PC gaming needs. It's frustrating to see.

I still keep consoles tho because I want to play exclusives and play UHD Blu-rays.

 

[Alexandros]

I think the equal distribution of votes for various reasons shows that PC gaming has a long way to go with the masses

Click to shrink...

A more accurate statement would be that PC gaming has a long way to go with console gamers. PC gaming is already popular with the masses.

 

[nath999]

Better Ecosystems.

 

[Dinjooh]

Other reasons: My main reason is that I sit at a PC all day, which makes the couch a lot more enticing when I do finally come home.

Other than that my favourite franchises are on consoles and it's cheaper for me to play there. Don't see many reasons to switch over.

 

[VictoriousBucks]

Been a PC gamer all the way up to this generation, i've had consoles on the side but always been PC. Recently though I find PC gaming has gotten too expensive for me as i need a pretty big upgrade so this time im going console. I don't play as much as I used to as well so I can't justify the costs of hardware

 

[amnesties]

imagine spending all that money on a machine and it being at the mercy of windows

 

[SuikerBrood]

No warcraft 4.

Click to shrink...

Good post