Allow me to preface this article by saying that I have been in the PC gaming community for well over ten years now. And while TechStomper contributor Rick Wilder made some valid points to convince others to join the PCMR. We have only recently had the opportunity to see what the PS5 and Xbox Series X bring to the table, and I feel as though PC gaming finally has some competition.
Cheaper Initial Investment
Firstly, consoles are cheaper to obtain. That’s just a fact.
You might see these “console killer” PC’s which people build for under £300, but these machines simply won’t perform nearly as well as the ultra-optimised system architecture seen in games consoles. Plus, this often means cheaping out on used or older components, restricting you from upgrade paths in the future. PC’s require instant investment to get bang for your buck, and the elusive “cheaper in the long term” narrative.
Also, the new consumer friendly mentality that both Microsoft and Sony are spearheading, means that £249 will grab you a machine capable of 1440p/60fps or 4K/30fps. And that’s the worst-case scenario. It has cost me easily over £1000 to have a machine capable of that performance and whilst games will likely have higher texture detail on my PC, the initial investment was still triple that of a next-gen console.
Bred for One Purpose
This segues nicely into my next point. Games are developed for the largest market share and currently game consoles dominate in that respect.
Being able to develop your game for systems that hold similar power capabilities, makes for an easier job when optimising and ensuring these games perform well. Unfortunately, this can mean that most PC games are optimised terribly, with Call of Duty games being infamous for maxing out £600+ graphics cards on 1080p settings.
The single purpose ideology that is behind creating these machines means, that on paper, the PS4 may have a GPU like that of an archaic Radeon 7850. But when you try playing a game with the graphical fidelity of God of War or Uncharted 4 on a PC, that 7850 would be screaming for its death.
Console Exclusives = Better Performance
Baldur’s Gate 3 or the Arma series are both examples of “PC exclusives”. The former is in early access so to be taken with a grain of salt, but the point is, these games cannot and will never be able to be developed quite like a console exclusive. With different architectures from Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, it’s impossible to develop a PC exclusive for one dedicated system because they must always be developed with the lowest common denominator in mind.
With the GTX 1060 and 1050ti being the most common GPUs used now, then surely a game developed for a system where the lowest possible architecture is aiming for 4K/30fps is the superior choice? Games developed exclusively for the PS5, won’t have to think about the common 1080p gamer.
Arma is infamous for its poor optimisation and Baldurs Gate 3 didn’t work with the RTX 3000 cards because the developers had been unable to test on the new Nvidia GPU line. When developer’s create games like The Last of Us or Uncharted, they have one system to develop for, meaning they can squeeze every inch of performance out of these machines and make their games as ambitious as technically possible.
Sure, a multiplatform game will 100% be held back on PC, because of its console counterparts. But for the money to performance, PlayStation exclusives blow anything else out of the water.
The Price We Pay
An argument that you often see in the PC space is the fact that PC games are far cheaper than console games. It’s a difficult point to argue with Xbox Game Pass being arguably the best deal in the games industry, which is available on PC. Plus of course, the Epic Games Store and its ridiculous free offerings and Steam’s brilliant sales.
Obviously, Xbox Game Pass is also on Xbox, in fact with a more robust library of games too. This paired with the fact that Xbox Series X boasts impressive performance upgrades for all games played on it, the argument hinges back on the price of the console and the performance you will get.
PlayStation have an argument here too, with PS Now getting increasingly more impressive and the PlayStation Store rivalling Steam now with it’s incredibly frequent and impressive sales. It’s no secret that Steam’s sales have been declining recently and with dodgy websites like G2A and CDKeys now unable to sell you codes on the cheap, new AAA games will cost you £50.
Half the Price
Next gen games will of course be £70 for AAA titles, which has been met with a lot of controversy. These same games, like Cyberpunk 2077 or Assassins Creed Valhalla have not seen that same price hike on PC, meaning it still edges out general game price.
That being said, since the PS3 people have been game-sharing all of their digital purchasing, straight away halving the cost of their games. Buying a £55 brand new AAA title on PS4, only costs me £28 thanks to this feature. It’s incredibly easy to do and manage, all you need is a friend who also likes saving money and your next gen £70 games become £35.
I understand that Steam allows library sharing, but the fact that you can’t be logged in at the same time or download games across library’s like PlayStation’s version, makes it a poor competitor.
Of course, this hasn’t been confirmed with the PS5, but considering the ecosystem is converting over quite simply with all your digital library transferring too. I see no reason why it would be missing.
Clear Your CMOS
If any PC enthusiast tells you that PC’s aren’t a pain in the arse, then they are either lying or don’t realise that 90% of people who want to play games, don’t understand how to maintain a PC.
Driver issues, optimisation problems and the onslaught of framerate pressure that the community buries you with are just the tip of the iceberg. Without an understanding of drive management and general system maintenance, within a year or so, your PC will be so clogged up with junk that it has likely contracted a virus or is just painfully slow.
PC’s require not just financial investment but mental investment. Things will go wrong and its your duty to figure those things out and come out the other side, understanding how to keep things working. This is fine and all part of the experience, but consoles work out of the box due to their single purpose of playing games and maybe watching some Netflix.
Custom Architecture
You may have a lightening fast SSD drive in your PC but harking back to the optimised and single purpose architecture of games consoles, means these things will be used to much better effect. On paper, you may separate the components inside a console, but you can never truly compare them.
One is considered with every single development choice made, whilst the other must work for hundreds of different possible combinations and tasks. Remember, PC’s are not just gaming machines and their components are not built solely to make games run better.
The PlayStation 5 will have an on-board SSD which is engineered alongside its custom processing unit, which allows for its speed to be taken advantage of not just in load times, but in the assistance of its GPU and CPU. Already we have seen some spectacular offerings on both 9th gen. systems. The two best demonstrations of early 9th gen. console power are PlayStation 5’s Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales and Demon’s Souls.
I won’t mimic anything from Mark Cerny’s power hour, but it’s simple to understand that something engineered to do one thing brilliantly, will perform better than something engineered to spread its brilliance across multiple things.
A PC Belongs at a Desk
I will not stand for the “you can still play PC in your living room” argument. The main selling point of a PC is that it’s not just for gaming. It’s also for internet browsing or pursuing a hobby/career, they are vital machines in today’s age.
But SteamLink, which allows you to stream to your smart TV, is terrible. And you will also not catch me lugging my PC into my living room or bedroom so that I can faff around with my keyboard and mouse, to try and set it up on my television.
Controller support for PC’s is not perfect and although its mostly fine, I’d much rather opt for the version where the controller literally turns on my game-playing machine and loads me into a game within seconds.
There Can Be Only One
In an ideal World, having the best of both would be preferable. PC gaming is of course where games look and play best, no doubt. But to achieve that result, you must put in as much as you get out. Enthusiasts tend to preach about PCs and their superiority over consoles, but there’s a reason why consoles are as big as they are too.
It’s easy for us PC players to sit in our bubbles and recommend the more expensive option, both financially and timewise. But just because on paper you get better performance, that doesn’t change the fact that most people would rather effort-free gaming without investing hours into a far more time-consuming scene.
