Who will really win 2014: Consoles or PC?

[Loony BoB]

This is the year that the PS4 and Xbone are going to shart showing off and throwing games at us, but the PC lineup is looking pretty damned good. Which do you feel has the better outlook for gaming in 2014?

See here for examples of what is due out this year! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_in_video_gaming)

[Sephex]

I chose "yes" because if you actually care about gaming, you'd want to see as many aspects on both sides of the fence succeed and not treat a hobby like a political election or religious cult.

[Loony BoB]

Oh, I don't care which wins (I like consoles and PC gaming), I'm just interested in which end of gaming people think will be better this year.

[Miss Mae]

This isn't my strongest area of expertise, so I'm looking forward to the discussion that ensues here. At this stage though, the best games I've seen released on the new generation of consoles haven't been console exclusive, so the PC gets the benefit of these games and also many others. It would take a pretty impressive console exclusive for me to feel that they are winning 2014. I know there are a few coming out throughout the year, but I'm still not sure these alone will be enough to swing me.

But, like I said, I look forward to seeing the opinions of others.

[Jiro]

I chose "yes" because if you actually care about gaming, you'd want to see as many aspects on both sides of the fence succeed and not treat a hobby like a political election or religious cult.oh way to make me feel like a jerk :p

[Sephex]

Oh, I don't care which wins (I like consoles and PC gaming), I'm just interested in which end of gaming people think will be better this year.

....then why did the question include the word win BoB?!

Nah, it's cool. I just never got the whole "my gaming preferences can beat up your gaming preferences" thing that these discussions always devolve to. So I guess my answer was based on expecting that of this thread.

[Ayen]

I voted yes because I know jack trout about any of this and wanted to vote in the poll.

[Shauna]

Honestly, nothing on that list made me jump for joy. xD There were some I was like "oooh", and I'd get those all on consoles. So I guess for me personally it'd be consoles, but for the industry at large? I don't really care. xD

I'm jumping on the Yes train.

[Pike]

I'm voting PC because we're getting SMAC 2

[blackmage_nuke]

Theyre all going to make insane amounts of money no matter which is more successful so "yes"

[Carl the Llama]

I think consoles, remember it isn't a question of who we want to win, its a question of who we think will win.

Consoles on this front will win purely based on the younger generation, they see the consoles and handhelds and there is no way the PC could win against the sheer tide of games cross platforms all these consoles can present. If this would be just a particular console against the PC then I would say PC.

If you think about it, you know I'm right.

[Pike]

If we're talking about the younger generation then I think mobile and handheld gaming is the real winner.

[Jinx]

Doesn't PC always win, really? :smug:

[Skyblade]

Doesn't PC always win, really? :smug:

Nope. Last year was a clear victory for the 3DS. The PC didn't have near the quality lineup that the 3DS had in 2013, even if the PC did still crush the consoles.

[Dr Unne]

If we're talking about the younger generation then I think mobile

:( :( :( :( :(

[Dat Matt]

I want to see what Nintendo are doing. 3DS was really strong last year, and this year Wii U are actually pushing out games people might want to play (Mario Kart 8 and Smash Brothers). Nothing on the XB1 or PS4 grabs me yet.

I've never really been one for PC gaming though, but I can see why it is the preferred medium for many. It is probably the best way to game if you know what you're doing there.

[Ayen]

PlayStation and Xbox will fight it out in a blood infested battle until some old guy goes, "No more!" and takes out his Wii. Meanwhile, the PC Master Race, already owning Xbox, will assimilate PlayStation into its stronghold and begin a full scale invasion against the world until the old man finally emerges to play with his Wii, causing the enemy to self destruct in its confusion and save the world.

[Slothy]

Doesn't PC always win, really? :smug:

Nope. Last year was a clear victory for the 3DS. The PC didn't have near the quality lineup that the 3DS had in 2013, even if the PC did still crush the consoles.

PC had Antichamber, Rogue Legacy, Outlast, Gunpoint, The Stanley Parable, and several other cool titles I know I'm forgetting so I'd give it the win last year easily. You can always count on the PC for interesting new titles.

[Skyblade]

Doesn't PC always win, really? :smug:

Nope. Last year was a clear victory for the 3DS. The PC didn't have near the quality lineup that the 3DS had in 2013, even if the PC did still crush the consoles.

PC had Antichamber, Rogue Legacy, Outlast, Gunpoint, The Stanley Parable, and several other cool titles I know I'm forgetting so I'd give it the win last year easily. You can always count on the PC for interesting new titles.

I think Antichamber has been somewhat overrated. It may be a decent game, with a truly fantastic concept, but I wouldn't rate it as "great".

Gunpoint is an ok game, but also not great. I enjoyed my time with it, but it had some truly odd design choices. The developer commentary even speaks of this, if you've watched it. The design changed a ton over the course of development, and it left some oddities in the final work, in my opinion. It's a fun little puzzler, but it is no Mark of the Ninja.

The Stanley Parable is not PC exclusive, so it loses some points towards the "PC wins" column. Of course, it isn't available on 3DS, so maybe it gets those back. Hmm... Eh, I'll give it to you.

Rogue Legacy I've heard is great, but I can't say I am even aware of Outlast. But I won't criticize it without knowing about it.


So, The Stanley Parable, Rogue Legacy, and Outlast against Fire Emblem Awakening, Animal Farm: New Leaf, Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds, Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Pokémon X and Y, and Rune Factory 4. And that's just off the top of my head, and limiting out titles that I've heard are fantastic but haven't played. I'm also excluding titles like Bravely Default and Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, even though those were available to our European members.

As much as I love my PC, my 3DS had an utterly fantastic year.

[Jiro]

Papers, Please
The Wolf Among Us
Path of Exile
Gone Home
DOTA2
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Europa Universalis IV
Monaco
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse

And then you have things like Bioshock Infinite and Payday 2 which weren't exclusive, but you definitely can't get them on 3DS.

[Kalevala]

until some old guy goes, "No more!" and takes out his Wii.

until the old man finally emerges to play with his Wii

I'm trying to figure out if this double entendre was intentional or not.

[Spooniest]

If emulation has taught me anything, it's that there is no real difference between console gaming and PC gaming. I've played all kinds of console games right on my PC, and further, I learnt a while back that the Super Nintendo's game library was mosty programmed on Apple computers, so these games could reasonably have been ported back to their native habitat (FF6, Chrono Trigger) and still have been the same games.

There really isn't much difference between the two. It's a lame answer, I know, but it's the nitty gritty of it.

[Madame Adequate]

If we're talking about the younger generation then I think mobile and handheld gaming is the real winner.

This. The real winner is mobile and handheld. No traditional console is selling well in Japan anymore, the PS4 is currently doing even worse than the WiiU. They're performing better in Western markets and I don't think they'll be in real danger there, and PC is going strong as well with a tremendous array of games out there and on the way in just about every genre you can imagine. But casual stuff on mobiles is where things seem to be going.

[black orb]

>>> I dont care who wins but, with the money you need for a computer that run the games smoothly you can buy like 3 consoles..:luca:

[Pike]

>>> I dont care who wins but, with the money you need for a computer that run the games smoothly you can buy like 3 consoles..:luca:

53116

[Slothy]

>>> I dont care who wins but, with the money you need for a computer that run the games smoothly you can buy like 3 consoles..:luca:

53116

Kids these days. So silly.

It'd be nice if everyone who said this actually priced up a computer at least once.

[Aulayna]

>>> I dont care who wins but, with the money you need for a computer that run the games smoothly you can buy like 3 consoles..:luca:

I can build a computer that runs current-gen games just fine, for less than the cost of XBOX One on it's own, with 0 games. Heck, the PC I built 3 years ago can still run current games perfectly, and it still cost me less than one of the new consoles.

Also looking at that list of games for this year gives me many sads, the only things on that list I'm remotely interested in are SMAC2 and Dreamfall.

[black orb]

It'd be nice if everyone who said this actually priced up a computer at least once.
>>> I did, it was like $2.000 dollars..

Build a computer? not everyone in the world are tech geeks who like to tear apart and rebuild their devices you know..:luca:

[Slothy]

It'd be nice if everyone who said this actually priced up a computer at least once.
>>> I did, it was like $2.000 dollars..

Build a computer? not everyone in the world are tech geeks who like to tear apart and rebuild their devices you know..:luca:

Even without building your own (which is stupidly easy by the way), you could easily buy a PC for far less than $2,000 that will run modern games well.

Anyone who thinks it costs that much to have a decent gaming rig is just flat out wrong, I'm sorry.

[Pike]

$200 laptop is all you need to be able to run all the games that matter (aka just about everything on GOG)

That's all I'm gonna say about it though, cause I refuse to be dragged into PC vs. Consoles Rehash #25636324! I LOVE VIDEO GAMES.

[black orb]

Even without building your own (which is stupidly easy by the way), you could easily buy a PC for far less than $2,000 that will run modern games well.

Anyone who thinks it costs that much to have a decent gaming rig is just flat out wrong, I'm sorry.
>>> Hey, Im not lying that computer went something like this:

"MSI AIO Gamer AG2712A Intel Core i7 3630QM 16GB 1TB+128GB SSD 27" TOUCH Full HD AMD HD8970M 2GB Blu Ray Windows 8"

I guess thats what you need to play games.. And who knows there are probably more expensive ones..

And I dont know how to build my own computer, I guess that make me stupid. Sorry for being stupid..:luca:

[Spuuky]

The PC is a superior gaming platform this year compared to any individual console, just like it has been every year basically forever.

[NeoCracker]

Even without building your own (which is stupidly easy by the way), you could easily buy a PC for far less than $2,000 that will run modern games well.

Anyone who thinks it costs that much to have a decent gaming rig is just flat out wrong, I'm sorry.
>>> Hey, Im not lying that computer went something like this:

"MSI AIO Gamer AG2712A Intel Core i7 3630QM 16GB 1TB+128GB SSD 27" TOUCH Full HD AMD HD8970M 2GB Blu Ray Windows 8"

I guess thats what you need to play games.. And who knows there are probably more expensive ones..

And I dont know how to build my own computer, I guess that make me stupid. Sorry for being stupid..:luca:

Blu-Ray and Touch are entirely pointless features for gaming on a PC. :p

[Slothy]

Even without building your own (which is stupidly easy by the way), you could easily buy a PC for far less than $2,000 that will run modern games well.

Anyone who thinks it costs that much to have a decent gaming rig is just flat out wrong, I'm sorry.
>>> Hey, Im not lying that computer went something like this:

"MSI AIO Gamer AG2712A Intel Core i7 3630QM 16GB 1TB+128GB SSD 27" TOUCH Full HD AMD HD8970M 2GB Blu Ray Windows 8"

I guess thats what you need to play games.. And who knows there are probably more expensive ones..

And I dont know how to build my own computer, I guess that make me stupid. Sorry for being stupid..:luca:

I didn't say you were lying, I said you were wrong. Looking up that model brings us to this page: MSI Global AG2712A (http://www.msi.com/product/aio/AG2712A.html#specification)

That computer is filled with superfluous garbage and over priced laptop hardware so it can be an over priced all in one desktop computer rather than something reasonably priced that would do just as much for less than half the cost. Hell, with the mobile parts it wouldn't even make a good gaming computer for the money for a variety of reasons.

And I didn't say you were stupid for not knowing how to build a computer. I said building one is stupidly easy. You wouldn't even have to do much research. A lot of tech sites put together builds for a variety of budgets that you can look at and just order the parts. And fitting those parts together is pretty straight forward, and I'm sure there's plenty of guides and videos demonstrating the process for those who aren't sure about it. Or if you have a fairly tech savvy friend ask them to help you. Most of it is really just inserting things into motherboard slots and plugging power cables into parts whose required cables are obvious at a glance. People tend to think building a computer would be tough, but with a modest amount of time spent researching it on the internet, the process is really simple and straight forward. I could easily show someone how to do it in maybe half an hour if I'm in the room with them.

Anyway, my point isn't even that you should build a PC or anything. It's that getting a decent gaming PC is not three times the price of a console. Not a new console certainly. Maybe a Wii, but no one likes those anyway.

[Aulayna]

Can We Build a Gaming PC on a Console Budget? - GameSpot (http://www.gamespot.com/articles/can-we-build-a-gaming-pc-on-a-console-budget/1100-6418829/)

TDLR: Yes. Infact, it even out performs the next-gen consoles.

Also building a PC is very easy, it's not really that different to putting a console together anymore. Most of the parts will on go in one slot, and most of the time you get an instruction manual telling you the order to do things - and if not there's plenty of youtube videos.

The longest part of the whole process is waiting for Windows to install....

[Bolivar]

Not to beat a dead horse, but most of the popular and interesting PC games of today run very well on very modest hardware. If you want to max out Crysis and The Witcher that's another matter, though.

It's hard to compare these things. I'll probably spend more time with Dota 2 than anything else this year, a game I first played in beta 2012, officially released 2013, and will undoubtedly have an unrecognizable metagame at the time of its last patch for 2014.

So ranking platforms based on which one can race to squeeze out the most new games in a calendar year is inadequate for someone like me. That said, Infamous: Second Son is an outstanding title and I don't see anything on the horizon likely to top it.

[Dat Matt]

>>> I dont care who wins but, with the money you need for a computer that run the games smoothly you can buy like 3 consoles..:luca:

Shauna Recently built herself a gaming rig. Something that would probably run Skyrim at High. It cost her about £800 all in. Same price as Xbox One and PS4 together.

Her PC gets daily usage for non gaming functions. We have several games systems that don't get played for month's at a time.

Side note - I fear the systems will have a price drop before there is anything that I "have to buy this console to play this game" game comes out for PS4/XB1. Early adopters of consoles are dumb.

[escobert]

I think PC gaming is better every year :p Why waste my money on a console when I can just use my multiple displayed PC to browse and play at once while I also watch TV :p

I've spent about $400 upgrading my PC in the last 2 years. Still have a bit more to do but, I wont have to touch it for several years after.

And, the only game that has come out in the last two years that didn't reach PC that I really want is Last of US. Otherwise can't think of a single title I really wanted but couldn't get. Oh Madden but whatever. Oh and Consoles don't have DayZ ;)