Have PC and (HD) Consoles ever been closer?

[isometry]

I've been gaming on consoles for a long time (NES, SNES, N64 and PSone, Xbox and PS2) , and also gaming on PC throughout most of that time as well. I haven't bought a console yet this generation because I've been satisfied with my PC, this is the first generation where I feel like PC and consoles overlap so much that my choice of platform hardly matters.

A big part of this is Microsoft and Sony's choice to make their controllers fully PC compatible, so that developers on PC have the same exact controllers in mind as they do on the console. To take specific examples, Oblivion and Mass Effect 1 did not have any default controller support on PC, but Fallout 3, Mass Effect 2, and Skyrim all have great built-in support for the Xbox 360 controller for windows.

It happened around 2008, suddenly most big cross-platform releases had controller support on PC, including first-person games like Bioshock and Borderlands; no longer did all PC first-person shooters absolutely require KB and Mouse. On that note, PC games with competitive online multiplayer have not yet gone through the same "controller revolution" that single-player games have. I'm not claiming that PC and consoles have become identical, just that they are closer than ever before.

Are there any other PC gamers out there who enjoy all these console ports with great controller support ? Why do PC and console flame wars revolve around kb&mouse vs controller, when controller support on PCs makes this a non-issue? I'm also interested in opinions that disagree with all of this, just try to avoid the generic "which is better" discussion and focus on the question of whether PC and consoles are closer to each other than at past times, or not.

 

[Andrew Mitchell]

I have a very expensive gaming mouse, and i still prefer to play alot of games with my ps3 controller emulating a 360pad. the question of pc vs console is just such a joke to me though, how can we still be having this argument anymore, at this point pcs have evolved just too far to make the case for consoles anymore. One is better but certainly comes with prices reflecting that.

 

[pilouuuu]

Sadly for PC gaming: No!

 

[MrTub]

Sadly for PC gaming: No!

I got to agree with you =/

 

[isometry]

Sadly for PC gaming: No!

I got to agree with you =/

The question is "are PC and consoles closer to each other than ever?", and you guys are saying "no", so at what time were PCs and consoles closer to each other than they are now?

 

[octafish]

Sadly for PC gaming: No!

I got to agree with you =/

The question is "are PC and consoles closer to each other than ever?", and you guys are saying "no", so at what time were PCs and consoles closer to each other than they are now?

Release day for the console in question. See Moore's Law. Or for a more practical example compare BF3 on a modest gaming PC to a PS3 then an XBOX.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

"Closer" how? Graphics wise, no. Experience wise? I'd say very much so.

 

[pilouuuu]

Most console games are also being released on PC too, which gives up PC gamer the idea that games are being dumbed down or made more main stream. While I don't think it's totally a bad thing, we don't see innovation in the market nowadays.

Consoles are also becoming more like PCs in the sense that you have chatting, internet, downloading updates, etc, things that were only on the PC.

It works both ways and I'm not entirely sure if it is a good thing...

 

[JET1971]

Sadly for PC gaming: No!

I got to agree with you =/

The question is "are PC and consoles closer to each other than ever?", and you guys are saying "no", so at what time were PCs and consoles closer to each other than they are now?

Release day for the console in question. See Moore's Law. Or for a more practical example compare BF3 on a modest gaming PC to a PS3 then an XBOX.

This. a PS3 and 360 are now extremly outdated hardware wise that its limiting game design. Maybe the next gen of consoles will be better, i hope so.

 

[infohippie]

Are there any other PC gamers out there who enjoy all these console ports with great controller support ? Why do PC and console flame wars revolve around kb&mouse vs controller, when controller support on PCs makes this a non-issue?

Being able to assume controller support can actually make this issue worse rather than better. Many PC gamers, including myself, like to use mouse & keyboard and really don't like using controllers. I find controllers leave me with painful cramped hands after only ten minutes or so. When a company ports a console game to PC, or sometimes even when they develop for both PC and console at the same time, if they can assume controller support then they don't always put as much effort into the mouse & keyboard setup. This can leave PC gamers who don't use controllers in a worse position since they have to struggle with buggy, unrefined, or just plain bad controls.

This problem has been biting me in Skyrim, for example. The menu system is obviously designed with controllers in mind and probably works great on them. It's a buggy shitfest with mouse and keyboard though. I have to click multiple times on an option, or press enter two or three times, before the game realises I'm trying to select something, and sometimes it just closes the menu if I don't happen to click precisely on the exact couple of pixels it thinks I should. Sometimes it even selects a totally different item than the one I was clicking on. If the PC version had used only mouse & keyboard, with no controller support, I'm confident this behaviour would have been picked up in testing and corrected.

 

[Najos]

Yeah, the problem is definitely how long the consoles have been on the market. The original Xbox released in what...2001? Then the 360 in 2005. The PS1 was 94/95, the PS2 was 2000, and the PS3 was 2006. We're definitely at the end of the lifespan of the consoles right now and we're not even going to see a new one until 2013? Oh, the Wii U in 2012, but...yeah, I don't have much faith in Nintendo's ability to produce AAA titles outside of Zelda.

I'm just pissed that MS and Sony waited this long as it seems to be hindering progress for PC as well. I mean, we saw what Skyrim did to PS3.

 

[nyysjan]

From hardware point of view, the moment a new console generation is released, the gap between consoles and PC's start growing, so yes, it has been closer.

From gaming point of view, no, but that's mainly because almost all the games are made for the console, and don't really do all they could on PC versions (exceptions exist).