A question for PC Gamers. Why all the hostility towards console gamers/gaming?

AuronFtw

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Ihateregistering1 said:
Because of that, I think a lot of PC gamers blame consoles for great IPs such as 'Syndicate' being turned from a strategy game into a FPS, and the same thing happening with "X-Com: The Bureau" (some hardcore enthusiasts were also turned off by a lot of the simplifying that took place in "X-Com: Enemy Unknown"). I know some were also mad at them turning "Dragon Age 2" into a much more action-oriented game than the original Dragon Age (which was supposed to be something of a revitalization of the 'Baldur's Gate' type of RPG). Whether justified or not, I think a lot of PC Gamers blame console gamers for these sorts of things happening.
Ehhh... kind of? Honestly, that's going to happen anyway. A lot of those games were overly complex (Baldur's Gate, for example) because they tried to create a ready-to-play D&D campaign for PC, and didn't trim any of D&D's unnecessary mechanics. I love BG to death, and I still herald it as one of the (if not the single) best RPGs for PC, but there's no doubt it suffered because of its complexity, especially today. Gamers these days are used to hand-holding and spoon-feeding, so when they're forced to not only read dialog for quest clues, but also read sometimes wall-of-texty entries in their journal, a lot of them lose interest fast. I'm not a huge fan of the hand-holding, but regardless of it existing, that's the "norm" for games these days, so players trying to pick up that old classic are often turned off by the lack of it.

Dragon Age tried to bridge the gap, basically; take a story as epic and immersive as Baldur's Gate, strip down as much of the "needless" complexity as possible, and capture the attention of a new generation of RPG gamers. That idea had great merit... unfortunately, they stripped out pretty much all of the complexity, and also the story and world weren't quite as immersive. Bit of a letdown, even looking at it from a "baby's first baldur's gate" perspective. Oddly enough, I think Mass Effect succeeded where Dragon Age failed; the characters, story and setting were easily as immersive as Baldur's Gate (despite the vastly different setting), and the combat was "new" (>.>) and "refreshing" (<.<) to the RPG crowd, basically taking a moderately well-designed shooter and setting it in an RPG universe.

Games are going to evolve, and I think trying to keep it accessible to a new crowd is an important aspect of design. The truly legendary games will be easy to get into yet deep as an ocean, giving players plenty to learn and explore after the initial "woo this is neat" phase wears off. The old fogeys bitching about "ermagerd games are 2 ez" and ignoring the benefits of that design aren't really being realistic.

And, as you said, there are plenty of difficult and complex games being made even today. Hell, FTL is a good example; not the biggest game, and definitely not the prettiest, but wow that shit is hard. The library of PC games is just too massive to not find any "hard" games, really; anyone claiming games are too easy just aren't looking at all.
 

Mooboo Magoo

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I'm way too lazy to read this whole thread, so I'm just going to say the reason why I prefer PC to consoles, that being that the PC is simply better.

And I know that sounds silly but its true. There is nothing a console can do that a PC can't, and a lot that a PC can that a console can't. A console is more or less just a crappy PC that can only play games. The PS4 and Xbone are roughly midrange PCs, but they will quickly become obsolete. On top of that, my library of available games isn't going to disappear because I upgraded because backwards compatibility isn't really an issue for PCs.

Now that being said, I do think that consoles are easier to use overall. You don't need to worry about whether or not your specs are good enough, you don't need to worry about upgrades, and you don't have to worry about compatibility issues.

The thing is, though, that although gaming is just a hobby for me, it is my primary hobby. Because of this I LIKE buying upgrades and working out compatibility issues. I remember getting Myst to work on Windows 7, and it felt awesome even if it took me the better part of a day to figure out (you basically have to install two different versions of Quicktime on top of each other).

So yes, consoles are easier to use and if that is your preference then whatever. PCs, however, are simply objectively better in every way.

As for the hostility toward consoles, that mostly comes from the fact that consoles hold PC games back. Because games are generally developed to be available on every platform possible which means making sure they work on consoles. Imagine if you had bought a PS4 three years ago, but you could only play PS3 games on it because everyone else keeps clinging to their inferior product. That is basically how PC owners feel about games, and given the PS4's specs that isn't going to change anytime soon.
 

AuronFtw

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Mooboo Magoo said:
I'm way too lazy to read this whole thread, so I'm just going to say the reason why I prefer PC to consoles, that being that the PC is simply better....
As for the hostility toward consoles, that mostly comes from the fact that consoles hold PC games back.
You pretty much summed up the thread. Subjectivity and preference aside, one "console" is better than the others regardless of metric, and "the others" are also supporting some of the worst industry practices and failures, which hurts the entire gaming industry.

Being concise ftw :D
 

EstrogenicMuscle

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wombat_of_war said:
consoles are better at somethings like fighting games for instance and pc's are better at others like strategy and sims.
Specifically, they get more fighting games, have a history of getting more fighting games(which is only starting to break down in recent year as more fighting games are starting to break into the industry). And consoles have had a history of local co-op support that the PC has not. Good local co-op has always been a must for fighting games.

Fighting games have always been a "very console genre" for that reason. I think among many reasons that such is changing in recent year, is that online co-op in fighting games is becoming more and more important. Though I'd argue, that even with the online gaming world, local co-op is just as important as ever for fighting games.

PC local co-op support has been picking up a lot in recent years. And even has some possible advantages like multi-monitor support. But sadly, it still isn't quite to the level of consoles yet. An advantage that consoles still hold.
 

kaioshade

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Consoles do not hold PCs back. DEVELOPERS hold PC back. When a studio is developing their game, they can either do two things: Reuse the same engine on both PC or console, or build a better engine for just the PC version. Most developers take the easy way out and just have one engine. Other companies, fine tune their engine just for PC,a and the port is head and shoulders above the console versions.
 

KazeAizen

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BloatedGuppy said:
KazeAizen said:
Sucking? Seriously you are just gonna go right there and say it? That's one thing I wish PC people would just stop saying about consoles. It doesn't make the two any friendlier toward each other and that is unacceptable. Anyway the hardware put into the consoles these days is powerful and probably on par with modern PCs. Here is the problem. Developing a game that utilizes those specs right out of the gate is uber expensive and a huge risk if not an outright dumb move. Until devs can figure out how to make it cost effective or get a bigger budget or something along those lines its hard to push consoles to the brink at the beginning of their life.

You are coming off as if you absolutely hate consoles and truly do think PCs are the best and only way to game. Not sure if you mean to come off like that but you are.
Go back and read my post. I HAVE A CONSOLE AS WELL AS A PC. I can talk as much shit about my own platform as I want. It's stupid and grey, and I hate its little lights, and all the whirring sounds it makes. =P

Really though, of course they suck. My PC is a couple years old now. It sucks too. But not as bad as my eight year old console sucks. It's just a big old bag of suck.

Still fun though.
A big old bag of suck that is still fun? Does not compute but see that's what we need to focus on. So long as its fun it does not suck. :) Fun > tech specs always.
 

Lightknight

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Does a man not squash an ant once he realizes its biting him?

Joking aside, this question can be just as easily asked either way. As an owner of the consoles and a powerful pc, I see advantages and disadvantages in each. But I've also seen some pretty harsh people on either side and that's the reason for the rivalry. As in football and everything else, it's usually the people with the most similarities but on opposite sides of a fence that have the strongest rivalry.
 

Korten12

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Honestly, I love PC gaming, but I really hate most PC gamers. Sure some are joking, but a lot of them I do feel have a superiority complex and it's just really annoying. Would love if they would shut up. Sure there is console fanboy's who hate on PC, but I feel there is more PC Elitist than there are console fans. Probably because I would guess 75% of PC gamers fall into the elitist category... :(
 

Saelune

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Extremes are bad is the thing. There are also console elitists Im sure...but I guess PC elitists on the internet makes more sense. Though I like to think most real gamers appreciate gaming regardless of how you do it.
 

Ihateregistering1

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AuronFtw said:
Ihateregistering1 said:
Because of that, I think a lot of PC gamers blame consoles for great IPs such as 'Syndicate' being turned from a strategy game into a FPS, and the same thing happening with "X-Com: The Bureau" (some hardcore enthusiasts were also turned off by a lot of the simplifying that took place in "X-Com: Enemy Unknown"). I know some were also mad at them turning "Dragon Age 2" into a much more action-oriented game than the original Dragon Age (which was supposed to be something of a revitalization of the 'Baldur's Gate' type of RPG). Whether justified or not, I think a lot of PC Gamers blame console gamers for these sorts of things happening.
Ehhh... kind of? Honestly, that's going to happen anyway. A lot of those games were overly complex (Baldur's Gate, for example) because they tried to create a ready-to-play D&D campaign for PC, and didn't trim any of D&D's unnecessary mechanics. I love BG to death, and I still herald it as one of the (if not the single) best RPGs for PC, but there's no doubt it suffered because of its complexity, especially today. Gamers these days are used to hand-holding and spoon-feeding, so when they're forced to not only read dialog for quest clues, but also read sometimes wall-of-texty entries in their journal, a lot of them lose interest fast. I'm not a huge fan of the hand-holding, but regardless of it existing, that's the "norm" for games these days, so players trying to pick up that old classic are often turned off by the lack of it.

Dragon Age tried to bridge the gap, basically; take a story as epic and immersive as Baldur's Gate, strip down as much of the "needless" complexity as possible, and capture the attention of a new generation of RPG gamers. That idea had great merit... unfortunately, they stripped out pretty much all of the complexity, and also the story and world weren't quite as immersive. Bit of a letdown, even looking at it from a "baby's first baldur's gate" perspective. Oddly enough, I think Mass Effect succeeded where Dragon Age failed; the characters, story and setting were easily as immersive as Baldur's Gate (despite the vastly different setting), and the combat was "new" (>.>) and "refreshing" (<.<) to the RPG crowd, basically taking a moderately well-designed shooter and setting it in an RPG universe.

Games are going to evolve, and I think trying to keep it accessible to a new crowd is an important aspect of design. The truly legendary games will be easy to get into yet deep as an ocean, giving players plenty to learn and explore after the initial "woo this is neat" phase wears off. The old fogeys bitching about "ermagerd games are 2 ez" and ignoring the benefits of that design aren't really being realistic.

And, as you said, there are plenty of difficult and complex games being made even today. Hell, FTL is a good example; not the biggest game, and definitely not the prettiest, but wow that shit is hard. The library of PC games is just too massive to not find any "hard" games, really; anyone claiming games are too easy just aren't looking at all.
I think you kind of hit the nail on the head when you said " Gamers these days are used to hand-holding and spoon-feeding," because I think some PC Gamers think that console gamers are the ones who need the spoon-feeding and hand-holding, and thus it's causing games as a whole to be "dumbed-down" for the lowest common denominator. It's really no different than people saying that TV is getting worse because of the success of trashy reality shows.

Again, I don't really agree with the idea, and it's not like there aren't tons of hyper complex PC Games out there for those who really want them, not to mention that (thanks to sites like GOG) all your old-school complex games are still available.
 

clippen05

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Ihateregistering1 said:
AuronFtw said:
Ihateregistering1 said:
Because of that, I think a lot of PC gamers blame consoles for great IPs such as 'Syndicate' being turned from a strategy game into a FPS, and the same thing happening with "X-Com: The Bureau" (some hardcore enthusiasts were also turned off by a lot of the simplifying that took place in "X-Com: Enemy Unknown"). I know some were also mad at them turning "Dragon Age 2" into a much more action-oriented game than the original Dragon Age (which was supposed to be something of a revitalization of the 'Baldur's Gate' type of RPG). Whether justified or not, I think a lot of PC Gamers blame console gamers for these sorts of things happening.
Ehhh... kind of? Honestly, that's going to happen anyway. A lot of those games were overly complex (Baldur's Gate, for example) because they tried to create a ready-to-play D&D campaign for PC, and didn't trim any of D&D's unnecessary mechanics. I love BG to death, and I still herald it as one of the (if not the single) best RPGs for PC, but there's no doubt it suffered because of its complexity, especially today. Gamers these days are used to hand-holding and spoon-feeding, so when they're forced to not only read dialog for quest clues, but also read sometimes wall-of-texty entries in their journal, a lot of them lose interest fast. I'm not a huge fan of the hand-holding, but regardless of it existing, that's the "norm" for games these days, so players trying to pick up that old classic are often turned off by the lack of it.

Dragon Age tried to bridge the gap, basically; take a story as epic and immersive as Baldur's Gate, strip down as much of the "needless" complexity as possible, and capture the attention of a new generation of RPG gamers. That idea had great merit... unfortunately, they stripped out pretty much all of the complexity, and also the story and world weren't quite as immersive. Bit of a letdown, even looking at it from a "baby's first baldur's gate" perspective. Oddly enough, I think Mass Effect succeeded where Dragon Age failed; the characters, story and setting were easily as immersive as Baldur's Gate (despite the vastly different setting), and the combat was "new" (>.>) and "refreshing" (<.<) to the RPG crowd, basically taking a moderately well-designed shooter and setting it in an RPG universe.

Games are going to evolve, and I think trying to keep it accessible to a new crowd is an important aspect of design. The truly legendary games will be easy to get into yet deep as an ocean, giving players plenty to learn and explore after the initial "woo this is neat" phase wears off. The old fogeys bitching about "ermagerd games are 2 ez" and ignoring the benefits of that design aren't really being realistic.

And, as you said, there are plenty of difficult and complex games being made even today. Hell, FTL is a good example; not the biggest game, and definitely not the prettiest, but wow that shit is hard. The library of PC games is just too massive to not find any "hard" games, really; anyone claiming games are too easy just aren't looking at all.
I think you kind of hit the nail on the head when you said " Gamers these days are used to hand-holding and spoon-feeding," because I think some PC Gamers think that console gamers are the ones who need the spoon-feeding and hand-holding, and thus it's causing games as a whole to be "dumbed-down" for the lowest common denominator. It's really no different than people saying that TV is getting worse because of the success of trashy reality shows.

Again, I don't really agree with the idea, and it's not like there aren't tons of hyper complex PC Games out there for those who really want them, not to mention that (thanks to sites like GOG) all your old-school complex games are still available.
I mostly agree with you in saying that you can't attribute the decline of more complex games with the success of less complex ones, however, just because all of the old games are readily available does not make the decline of more complex games ok. No one wants to be stuck with old material for the rest of their lives, even if that old material was top-notch... it gets old eventually. I disagree with your notion that there's still a lot of games of this nature out there. I don't have any exact figures, but the amount of strategy and simulation games coming out today is definitely a shrinking number. Sure, there are indie games that are filling the void, but the quality of some of those games is debatable.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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I have no idea. I always thought it was because PC gamers considered consoles to be "holding back" the industry. Whatever that means.
 

Mycroft Holmes

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1) Consolitis. You have to program for the least common denominator so you end up with things like floaty controls, and unnecessary oversimplification to fit a controller with not enough buttons(eg. Mass Effect using the same button to sprint/roll/vault/take cover/use/pick up,) general lack of customization and things like uneven vertical/horizontal sensitivity rates. I can go on, but hopefully you get the point.

2) Dividing the market leads to increased prices and increased development costs resulting in worse games for more money; as well as more expensive hardware.
 

pilouuuu

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Well, I basically believe that last gen consoles were to blame for the dumbing down of games and lack of creativity.

Remember Alan Wake? It was going to make an amazing open world game. Dragon Age 2 was an arcade-y game with no camera controls thanks to consoles (and Bioware rushing things). And there are many more examples like those.

Besides that we were used to constant amazing improvements in the graphic department. Thanks to the aged consoles graphics were basically frozen in time. Developments like physics and detailed textures became slow because developers needed to make games for machines with basically no RAM.

Also I must admit that it's annoying that developers who grew in PC market to forsake us and also to wait for a while after console versions. It's also annoying to be blamed because of piracy when that is also an issue in consoles.
 

Shadow-Phoenix

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I'm a console/PC player and I do indeed hold some form of hatred towards both sides.

Console gamers because they sometimes tend to shit on PC players for no reason than to cause a ruckus.

PC players because they tend to shit on console players by claiming their platform being the "best thing ever/holy grail" of gaming.

I just can't stand those type of people, the type that will go well out of their way to make one or the other feel like absolute shit, like beating a dog into complete submission until they lick your boots and it's just plain disgusting.

I couldn't give two fucks if your piece of hardware is awesome and great but don't expect me to be friendly and forgiving if you try telling me how to play a game or what I should bloody buy because you will just earn an ignore right off the bat.

All I really want is for both sides to just relax and be cool to each other, telling people their console games are dumbed down,inferior,shitty does not even remotely help the situation at all, it doesn't make them go "oh shit I was wrong but a PC gamer beat me logically and showed me the holy light", gaming is gaming no matter what platform it is on and you should never feel the urge to tell someone who likes what they game on as being wrong because that's just your opinion man.
 

LAGG

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MHR said:
Mcoffey said:
MHR said:
Mcoffey said:
MHR said:
First of all, I don't blame Rockstar for delaying GTA V PC release until a bit later. This game would've been pirated to hell and at the very least this will get more people to buy the console release rather than pirate on PC for free.

But for the PC in general, PC gamers act superior because the PC is superior. You can't expect such a crowd to go around acting humble all the time, especially when there are so many console kiddies that would insist consoles are "where it's at."
The game still got pirated to hell! It always would have been pirated to hell even if it never came out on PCs.
To say that consoles would pirate it more than PCs is a lie. Both pirate, but PC does it way more because it's much easier and popular.
You got some anything to back that up? I'm seeing conjecture, but not a lot of proof.

It's irrelevant anyway. It was always going to happen and there was never a moment where they could do anything to stop it.
http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2011-111230/

PC's have roughly 3 times the piracy rate as described in that article.

And from page 4 of this bit on piracy; http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html

"Piracy of the PC versions is orders of magnitude above that of the console versions in the cases we examined. For example Call of Duty 4 has five times as many downloads on the PC version as it does on the XBox 360 and PS3 versions combined."

Even the big console release is getting PC-pirated way more. Don't kid yourself. The piracy is not irrelevant. Nobody is trying to stop piracy, but delaying the PC release is a common-sense way to help diminish it. PC is where most of the piracy is and I'm glad GTA V is delaying it even if I don't get to play it for a few months. It'll get a few more people to cough up at the very least. PC is the better platform, but PC gamers are causing most of the piracy problems themselves.
You know the vast majority of console pirates don't download and burn their own games right? They're not that tech savvy or have the resources to do it.

What pirated console owners do is buy the discs already pressed (not burned, pressed) from pirated game dealers that sell them for $5 or something, while also modding the consoles with chinese chips that bypass the DRM, and when games require a new update of the OS they put it into the disc for those games too because the hacked consoles can't log into the manufacturer network or they'll be banned. 90% of the torrent downloads in those statistics is from these dealer, from China, Russia, East Europe, and all Latin America, which in turn sell each game to hundreds of pirated console owners. Multiply the console pirated torrent downloads number by 100 and it'll be a lot closer to reality.
 

Tuesday Night Fever

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I'm primarily a PC gamer, and I have no particular ill will toward console gamers. Consoles just don't happen to be my platform of choice.

The only time I ever really find myself getting short-tempered with consoles is when a game series that was previously PC-exclusive becomes multi-platform, and all of the versions have to be watered down to meet the demands of the console. The example I always jump to is Deus Ex: Invisible War. Because they wanted to release it on the original X-Box, they had to remove most of the more complex features that made Deus Ex what it is. Skills were completely removed, ammunition was made universal, augmentations were simplified, the inventory system was completely redesigned to be thumbstick-friendly, zones were made significantly smaller, etc.

Thankfully, I find that these days issues like that aren't as noticeable. Consoles are rapidly becoming quasi-PC's anyway. So I wouldn't be surprised if my one reason to ever get pissed off with consoles becomes nonexistent within the somewhat near future.
 

The Enquirer

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Flowen said:
sneakypenguin said:
Is it elitism if its right?
Yes, if you're a jerk about it.

Now, you weren't being a jerk. Your post was honest and true. PCs, when built correctly and everything is working right, are many times better than consoles. They're like having a souped-up racing car vs a low-end commuter car. The thing is, some people don't care as long as it gets them to work, and having that guy who sits there and insults you because of your car or tells you that you're not good enough or experiencing life right really gets on your nerves eventually.

It all comes down to people being jerks and gatekeepers. If more PC players just said "that's cool, I prefer PC" and moved on, the world would be a better place.
To be fair, many people do say that they simply prefer their console or pc for a,b,c. But its a little hard to just do that when one group starts hoping up and down throwing a fit. It goes both ways and not to be biased here I have noticed that it is the console crowd who starts these things up. If you notice there are rarely posts here talking about how consoles suck and pc's are superior. It's simply comparing the two or (as en example of a post I made a while back) questioning the relevance of consoles in today's world when they are becoming more and more like glorified pc's. When someone asks something like that then people are going to give their honest opinions on the matter and the bottom line is that pc's will generally win out in most categories. That can't really be seen as elitism, just honest facts being put on the table and compared when someone asks a question.
 

ReinWeisserRitter

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My last console was the PS2, so by default, I'm a "PC gamer".

I also couldn't give a tenth of a shit what anyone else is playing; that's their business. I don't pride myself in things that have literally nothing to do with me, and I never have, even as early as the "Genesis does what Nintendon't" days, graphics and the potential of graphics as a whole don't interest me, and I think that the console/PC cross-pollination has actually been good for PC games as a whole, a platform that often featured pointless overcomplication in its games simply because it didn't have to do otherwise.
 

EstrogenicMuscle

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So, I do prefer the PC as a platform. But I feel very alien to many of the people who call themselves PC folks. Especially when people insult other people for playing a game on the PC at all. I mean, I love PC gaming, especially for the PC gaming franchises that I love. I am, in fact, a doujin gaming nut, and I love MMORPGs, and I love emulation. But I love Japanese RPGs, most of which aren't doujin and aren't for PC. For me, PC gaming and console gaming have different benefits, and someone acting like someone playing a game on the console is a bad thing, clearly doesn't respect the gaming genres that I do.

For me, the benefits of PC gaming are doujin games like Recettear and Cave Story and Touhou. As well as gaming mods. Steam, and the ability to have easy and better downloadable access to games. I like being able to keep my games on a flash drive or "cloud" service, and take them with me everywhere on one nice laptop. Rather than take a PlayStation 3 or multiple gaming systems with me everywhere. I also like being able to play a game with the click of a button after browsing the internet for a little bit, without having to power up an entirely different system and put the computer down.

The computer, as a piece of hardware, is really nice. Again, just pressing a button after you browse the internet to play a game is really nice. Rather than having to power up a PlayStation 3 or PSP or something. And is especially nice for on the go, with laptops and the like. It's also nice to be able to pick up a game you don't care that much for, on a Steam sale, and turn it into a game you do like with mods. There's a lot of freedom and convenience with a PC.

But I can't have everything. I don't get the Tales games. I don't get the Mario games. I don't get the Zelda games. I don't get the Shin Megami Tensei games. And that's just a few. I can't be expected to abandon consoles or handhelds just because PC gaming is really nice. I'm going to go to were the games are. And the games I want are as much on consoles as on PCs, if not far more so. So I don't appreciate the notion that I'm just this horrible person if I play a game on a console, especially if I absolutely have no other choice. I'd love to know how I'm supposed to play Pokemon X and Y on the PC.