Why so little PC gamers compared to console gamers?

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

this is goes back to my post that i just posted (sorry just saw this) if your going to include all pc games, then including all console games is fair too, is it not?

so if your going to do that...well...those are going to be some pretty high numbers on both sides.

I fully agree; I was merely comparing on a "per-system basis."
If you combine all console releases ever, then there will be huge numbers to be dealt with. If you compare it system by system, I don't think any can compare directly to the PC.

Not that that's a bad thing; PC has had its share of shovelware.

okay i see, system to system the pc wins out, but its hard to compare a system that keeps evolving...like a virus

Spoiler: warning, big ass image incoming!

 

[MetroidNut]

Personally, I think it's a lot of things. First of all, some of the biggest games for quite some time have either been console exclusive (Reach) or sucked on PC (Modern Warfare 2). Obviously, when more big-name games are released on consoles, more people are likely to buy those consoles.

Furthermore, I think a lot of people - myself included - would simply rather play games with a controller, and on an enormous TV. I'm aware you can hook a controller up to a PC, and hook a PC up to a television, but if one was going to that, why not just go all the way and get a console for less money (and hassle) than an equivalent gaming computer?

Lastly, PC gaming is complicated, a fact that is both its greatest strength and fatal flaw. On one hand, I can go online right now and download a pack of stormtrooper player models for Garry's Mod. On the other hand, my computer might crash when I try and test them out. ...Or, in my case, freeze after playing any Steam game for more than about an hour.

So, yeah. As both a PC and Xbox gamer, I would argue that those are some of the reasons console gaming is so popular.

 

[mad825]

eh, Consoles are merely mainstream devices (like the Ipod or the Iphone) where people of all ages and technical knowledge can game thus leading me to say that console gamers are hypocritical for them hating mainstream games and peripheral devices (kentic and move..ect.)

Consoles do allow simple and quick use with great value (before they merge the line with the PC in the next gen) which means it has it's uses if you don't game as much or you are arrogantly stupid to "not care".

but anyway PC have more uses and abilities due to the "universal" factor that can be supported. the PC becomes even more valued if your education/career consists of PC maintenance/support/programming as it allows you to gain even more skills outside of work......that's if you aren't sick of them

 

[helldragonX]

Many reasons.
Consoles are significantly cheaper and have an average lifespan of four years.
Consoles have controllers, which are quite comfy.
Consoles plug into your TV, which is generally across from your very comfy couch.
Consoles support local play. (Although that's quickly vanishing.
Consoles don't have DRM issues.
Consoles crash a fraction of the amount PCs do.
Consoles have more worthwhile exclusives. (Unless you're only into MMOs and RTSes)
Consoles can generally play a new game within a minute of getting said game.
Many developers abandoned the PC when piracy simply became too rampant.
There are multiple games that simply will never come to PC.
Consoles simply work.

Just like to add one thing. Consoles are more portable.(Excluding laptops of course.)

 

[jamesworkshop]

Personally, I think it's a lot of things. First of all, some of the biggest games for quite some time have either been console exclusive (Reach) or sucked on PC (Modern Warfare 2). Obviously, when more big-name games are released on consoles, more people are likely to buy those consoles.

Furthermore, I think a lot of people - myself included - would simply rather play games with a controller, and on an enormous TV. I'm aware you can hook a controller up to a PC, and hook a PC up to a television, but if one was going to that, why not just go all the way and get a console for less money (and hassle) than an equivalent gaming computer?

Lastly, PC gaming is complicated, a fact that is both its greatest strength and fatal flaw. On one hand, I can go online right now and download a pack of stormtrooper player models for Garry's Mod. On the other hand, my computer might crash when I try and test them out. ...Or, in my case, freeze after playing any Steam game for more than about an hour.

So, yeah. As both a PC and Xbox gamer, I would argue that those are some of the reasons console gaming is so popular.

http://insidethedigitalfoundry.blogspot.com/2008/08/pc-gaming-renaissance.html


The results were spectacular and the revelation clear: for much the same price as a PlayStation 3, you can have a gaming machine that massively outperforms any current console. Devil May Cry 4 with 2x MSAA at 1080p60 is spectacular - an inordinate leap visually over the console versions. So-called system killer Crysis? Performance a touch choppy at 1080p with all settings on 'high', but still perfectly playable. Scale back to 720p and once again we have 60fps gameplay. Unreal Tournament 3 ran without a hitch at the full fat 1080p60 and predictably, blew the console versions out of the water graphically: over twice as much detail and double the frame rate.

The irony is that as pundits confidently predict the end of PC gaming, we've finally reached a point where basic PC technology is sufficient enough to feed consumer level HDTVs with a graphical experience far beyond what the set-in-stone, unupgradable consoles can achieve. In my view, there's never been a better time to get into PC gaming, and it needn't cost the earth...

 

[00slash00]

im a pc gamer, i have a ps3 but i choose my pc over the ps3, whenever possible. i think the first issue is price. if you have a bare bones pc or just a laptop that isnt meant for hardcore gaming, you could be looking at of $1,000 to play modern and upcoming pc games on the max setting (maybe there are pc gamers who are fine playing on minimum, but i refuse to play any games below the maximum setting). its an investment i think is worth it, if youre a serious gamer, because if kept upgraded the games will look just as good as any console game and can potentially even look and run significantly better. besides, i dont care what anyone says, playing an fps just feels infinitely more natural on a pc. but again, to keep up to date, you will need to keep upgrading. once you have the machine though, upkeep is pretty minimal. ill spend maybe like $500 every 2 or 3 years.

another issue is that a lot of people just dont know that much about pcs. im not gonna pretend to be a computer expert either, so im not trying to call console gamers stupid or anything like that. its just that some people dont know what parts they need for a badass gaming rig because if your not a pc gamer, you probably havent built your own computer and just bought one from bestbuy or microcenter or something, because if you dont pc game, theres not a lot of reason to build your own pc. but even people who know which video card is the most powerful or how to water cool their system, a lot of people are scared off by pc gaming because of the blue screen of death. truth is, that will probably only be an issue if you dont know what your doing.

another issue is that pc gamers can be intimidating sometimes. i had a friend who asked a pc question on a gaming forum and a lot of the pc gamers there kept talking down to him and making him feel stupid because he didnt know much about computers. theres a sort of arrogance that some (emphasis on some) pc gamers have, possibly in part due to the fact that pc gaming has been significantly overshadowed by consoles, and some pc gamers may be a little bitter about that(i mean, the fuckin gamecube section, at my local gamestop, is bigger than the pc games section...thats just wrong)

 

[Eric_Autopsy]

All this rivalty of who owns that, and who has this. Why not just embrace and celebrate gaming as a whole?

 

[mad825]

Just like to add one thing. Consoles are more portable.(Excluding laptops of course.)

I suppose the 360 can be played on the move?

you cannot compare hand held consoles to desktops as they are two separate things with two different purposes.

however you could compare it to such devices like the Iphone or the "Windows Mobile" but then again "Windows Mobile" is nothing but Minesweeper

 

[ProfessorLayton]

I find it funny that people are brining up the "PC is more expensive" argument, like they didn't bother to read the OP. He said specifically that he has an older PC, like most people posting right now, but for $115 he got a video card and now can game on it... which, clearly, is much less than the cost of a console. Yes, there would have been an initial investment, maybe $500 let's say, but most people are spending that on a PC anyway, so it's a sunk cost. Like a TV. Or a chair.

Yes, but you have to know the basic workings of a computer to actually use that card. I did the same thing as the OP. In all honesty, PC gaming is a big investment whether it be time or money. And a lot of kids don't care about that and would rather just buy a $300 premade system that can play any game at any time. A PC gamer has to research the specs of his computer and his games before he makes a choice. All a 360 owner has to do is make sure the game he wants is on the 360. That, and the fact that everyone else has a 360. Everyone has a 360 because everyone else has a 360. It's the same reason why everyone bought Modern Warfare 2; everyone else was going to buy it.

 

[Bihac]

As a console gamer (primarily; If C&C3 taught me anything it was that RTS's simply don't work on consoles at all).

They are fairly easy to just pick up and play.

Hardware: I saw that someone mentioned the various changes that (this generation of) consoles have undergone. The major difference being, the first 360 from five years ago will still run todays 360 games (I should know, I have one).


That said, I love my PC dearly and do frequently contemplate overhauling it so it can run todays games more efficiently. (Right now, it's capable of running DoW 2 with all the nice pretty features turned off.)

I love the versatility that PC games are given, with the ability to be modded, and indeed patched in many cases, and this is a massive strength unless as stated it causes the PC to crash.

 

[octafish]

Because you have to be Hugh Jackman from Swordfish to know how to use a computer. If I installed a game and it doesn't run, I'd have to reconfigure my bios, defragment my hard drive, install and update a new video drive, back check my sound card, clean my registry, and then call tech support because none of that worked only to have them tell me to do all of that and more shit that doesn't even work.

Or I could just say fuck it and play Xbox.

Wow... you got really traumatized by something didn't you? What the hell where you trying to run? I can't think of a game that was that poorly implemented. Fallout 3 was pretty buggy I guess, I still got it to run just by modding out GFWL. I guess knowing how to get the most out of a PC is really a useless skill that you'll never be able to use anywhere else in life? Oh and only audiophools use sound cards anymore. C:\SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H1 T4

 

[MetroidNut]

Spoiler: THE CONVERSATION SO FAR....

Personally, I think it's a lot of things. First of all, some of the biggest games for quite some time have either been console exclusive (Reach) or sucked on PC (Modern Warfare 2). Obviously, when more big-name games are released on consoles, more people are likely to buy those consoles.

Furthermore, I think a lot of people - myself included - would simply rather play games with a controller, and on an enormous TV. I'm aware you can hook a controller up to a PC, and hook a PC up to a television, but if one was going to that, why not just go all the way and get a console for less money (and hassle) than an equivalent gaming computer?

Lastly, PC gaming is complicated, a fact that is both its greatest strength and fatal flaw. On one hand, I can go online right now and download a pack of stormtrooper player models for Garry's Mod. On the other hand, my computer might crash when I try and test them out. ...Or, in my case, freeze after playing any Steam game for more than about an hour.

So, yeah. As both a PC and Xbox gamer, I would argue that those are some of the reasons console gaming is so popular.

http://insidethedigitalfoundry.blogspot.com/2008/08/pc-gaming-renaissance.html


The results were spectacular and the revelation clear: for much the same price as a PlayStation 3, you can have a gaming machine that massively outperforms any current console. Devil May Cry 4 with 2x MSAA at 1080p60 is spectacular - an inordinate leap visually over the console versions. So-called system killer Crysis? Performance a touch choppy at 1080p with all settings on 'high', but still perfectly playable. Scale back to 720p and once again we have 60fps gameplay. Unreal Tournament 3 ran without a hitch at the full fat 1080p60 and predictably, blew the console versions out of the water graphically: over twice as much detail and double the frame rate.

The irony is that as pundits confidently predict the end of PC gaming, we've finally reached a point where basic PC technology is sufficient enough to feed consumer level HDTVs with a graphical experience far beyond what the set-in-stone, unupgradable consoles can achieve. In my view, there's never been a better time to get into PC gaming, and it needn't cost the earth...

Isn't that dated 2008? That would mean the price of a PS3 was still a (hilarious) $600, wouldn't it? Seeing as all the console prices have dropped pretty dramatically in price, I think it would still be cheaper to buy a console. Just for the record, I'm not trying to portray either the PC or console as superior to one another - like I said, I myself enjoy both. Just trying to offer some possible reasons as to why people do tend to play on consoles so often.

 

[Ashsaver]

In my country a good gaming PC is actually cheaper than Xbox360,PS3 or a Wii

So naturally PC gaming communities in my country are a lot bigger than the console gaming communities,plus PC games are cheaper too (if not cheapest in the world) but the console games price are the same as the rest of the world.

There's even a shopping mall dedicated in selling all things PC gaming related (Walmart of PC gaming,you might say) So yep,My country is PC gaming heaven.

 

[helldragonX]

Just like to add one thing. Consoles are more portable.(Excluding laptops of course.)

I suppose the 360 can be played on the move?

you cannot compare hand held consoles to desktops as they are two separate things with two different purposes.

however you could compare it to such devices like the Iphone or the "Windows Mobile" but then again "Windows Mobile" is nothing but Minesweeper

Sorry, should have clarified, a 360 or PS3 to pack into a bag and take over to a friends house then a gaming rig. I'm not saying that a PC is a hassle or anything, just that consoles tend to be a bit easier to pack.

 

[Snotnarok]

Snip

With the benefit of the internet behind you, making a PC is easy, it's like cartridges and a few extra wires.

My brother works on cars actually, one of the bigger reasons is how tedious it is. And messy. But I get your point, but you don't get mine.

I said you don't have to upgrade your PC every 2 weeks for it to be current, I haven't upgraded my PC in 4+ years and I'm running all the new games still. And no I didn't start out with some super computer.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Smaller install base equals less potential profits and greater risk resulting in less games.

in what? the PC? the PC has plenty of games.

Yes, but not as many as consoles, and that's even including the shitty ports (note: not all ports are shitty, just some). In regards for this, I'm still pissed at game developers not making their games on PC, especially Bungie and Epic. At least I still have Id, for now.

metacritic's database of games would like to disagree with you. want me to get the numbers?

This man speaks wisdom.

There are thousands upon thousands of PC games dating from the early 90s to modern day. Current gen consoles have a few hundred titles at most (I think Xbox 360 is up to 800 maybe?)

this is goes back to my post that i just posted (sorry just saw this) if your going to include all pc games, then including all console games is fair too, is it not?

so if your going to do that...well...those are going to be some pretty high numbers on both sides.

no because consoles are dropping backwards compatibility while PC has no need for it. you can play any game on any PC with a couple modifications instead of relying on the will of Bill gates or Sony. you also cannot group all the consoles together because of how many consoles there are. The PC is the same platform as it was when it started, and hasn't released a "PC 2" or "x-PC 360". The price to buy a computer is far less than to buy every console each generation at launch. the cost to buy the ps3, the xbox, and the wii at launch alone would cost over 900$ which is FAR over the 400-500$ price tag of a computer.

Metacritic games over 70% (good games):

Current gen:
PC: 1,275 (out of 2,000+ total games)
Xbox 360: 479 (out of 924 total games)
PS3: 341 (out of 579 total games)
Wii: 242 (out of 649 total games)

last gen:
PS2: 792 (out of 1,600 total games)
xbox: 472 (out of 856 total games)
Gamecube: 263 (out of 502 total games)

Bonus consoles:
PS1 (PSX): 143 (out of 252 games)
N64: 67 (out of 89 total games)
Dreamcast: 85 (out of 143 total games)

NOTICE: the numbers of good games and the number of total games are only the games with 5 or more reviews. Metacritic does not show games with fewer than 5 reviews. Both the number of good games and total games can be higher. This list also does not include console games that can be emulated on a PC.

while i can see and agree to with what you said (nice amount of info by the way), but obviously you roughly have to upgrade your pc every half decade (just like getting the new gen console) therefore thats why i think you should be able to include other consoles too. but if you are getting all the consoles (i.e. your buying the whole current gen.) then yeah pc is definitly cheaper, but i dont know anyone who does that, at least at one purchase.