I'm torn between my consoles and my PC

[Neonsilver]

Abandon your consoles if you only have them to play exclusive titles. The consoles take the games hostage and I think the best way to stop this, would be to stop giving in. It wouldn't be that bad if the consoles hardware would make exclusives necessary or problematic to port to other devices.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

snip

OP: Telling Escapists you're preferring your Consoles over your PC is like walking into Raqqa and shouting you prefer Judaism over Islam.

Anyway, I actually find myself in a similar position lately. Ever since I got my PS4, I very rarely play anything on my PC. Every now and then I go back to revisit Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines and FTL, but not much else really. For the majority of the last 10 years, I spent playing mostly on PC. But when I made the decision to get a PS4, I've spent very little time on my PC. At first it felt like I was neglecting it, but when I look at how much time I spend on my PS4, I'm pretty satisfied with it.

It's kindof a relief in some ways. My current setup wouldn't fit my PC next to my big screen TV, so it's a lot easier to just sit down in front of it and play on my PS4 instead. Of course I have to add that a lot of my close friends got PS4s as well, so I always have a group of people to play anything with, should we decide to adopt a game.

I'll probably go back to my PC at some point and slap on a few upgrades down the line - But right now, I don't see a point. Most cross platform games, I'm fine with just playing on PS4 instead. And there's no PC recent exclusives I feel compelled to try out besides a few aRPG's like Grim Dawn. But I don't have the time for that right now. Anything I feel like playing on PC are quality older titles anyway.

If you've got a PC and some console platforms, I'd say just play whatever you feel like playing on whatever platform you feel comfortable using. It's been getting me by since I got a PS4, and I'm pretty happy with my choices so far.

 

[Something Amyss]

Wait, this is a problem? I love that I have so many options!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Because I can't seem to stick with just one, or limit myself to a narrow enough amount of games.

So what? You're using both. Best of both worlds.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Because I can't seem to stick with just one, or limit myself to a narrow enough amount of games.

So what? You're using both. Best of both worlds.

Because you can't become good at anything by being so scattered.

As for the games;

I avoid multiplayer games on PC for the most part unless they're significantly better on PC for two reasons;

1 - The playerbase on consoles is fairly consistently significantly larger than the PC version
2 - The PC community has some very annoying and very bad habits that make playing games on PC less fun

The first is fairly obvious - you need a large playerbase to ensure balanced matches with variety.

The second is that PC communities have a very bad habit - particularly in shooters - of deciding there is "One True Way" to play the game and excluding or outright eliminating through ignoring other modes and maps. Obviously the best example is DE_Dust/Dust2 in Counter-Strike, where Valve could literally delete every other map in the game and they probably wouldn't suffer more than a 3% loss in players.

But a better example is Battlefield 4. Despite its launch issues, the game was still vastly superior on PC to console.

If you wanted to play nothing but Conquest or some TDM. If you had any intention of playing Rush, Obliteration, CQ Small etc. you were out of luck if you weren't on console. PC gamers just decided for some reason that despite being an excellent and fun gamemode, Rush just wasn't allowed on PC.

Or if they were going to allow it, it was ONLY going to be 64 players, just like Conquest, even though everyone including the developers have stated how much 64 player Rush is terrible and the gamemode wasn't designed for that. Or how PC keeps jamming 64 people into maps like Operation Metro and Operation Locker even though they're clearly not designed for that many people.

Even if you try to play another way, you have this peer pressure effect where everyone is drawn towards the servers that are fuller all the time even if you don't really like their settings so you're out of luck anyway.

Or how on PC CoD your options for game modes are TDM or Dom and MAYBE some SnD if you play at the peak time of day.

Its not that consoles don't suffer from this problem too; but the larger and more diverse playerbase makes it less of a hassle than on PC, because enough people will still be playing Rush/Demolition/CTF to keep playing.

As for the TC games...yeah. The player population difference is just too great to overcome. You would have to get something like 5x or 10x the number of people who play on PC currently to make it even a competition. And since that doesn't even happen when the PC version of the game is 100x better than the console version (as was the case is GRAW 2)....yeah.

 

[Cowabungaa]

You obviously like Nintendo exclusives, and as those aren't available on PC I can hardly blame you for having a Nintendo console. I really miss having a current Nintendo console, though I still love my GameCube dearly.

As for everything else, I buy it for my PC and simply play with a controller whenever that feels more comfortable. Anything cross platform almost always works better on PC, and even if it doesn't it's actually fixable with PC versions, unlike console versions where you're completely at the mercy of developers. Developers that are showing more and more often how bad they can be trusted. And hell, the games are even cheaper to boot.

As for your multiplayer shooter reasons, they seem reasonable I suppose even though the player base argument surpises me (except for CoD, that's pretty obvious), even though playing an FPS with a controller feels like hell these days. Funny considering I did it often enough back in the day. I went from PC shooters to console shooters back to PC shooters again.

But for anything singleplayer? Can't see why you wouldn't get stuff like Mankind Divided if you have the PC to run it. You want a controller? You got it on PC too. You want to play it on a couch/not at a desk? A networked or direct connection between your PC and TV solves that. You want to be sure it works? PC is by far the most rational option. Case in point; a FAQ about Dark Souls 3 had one point in which console players were warned for one fight because of its FPS drops. There's 'console security' for you.

In the end I see no reason why you can't enjoy both. Why do you have to get good anyway? Does that even matter for singleplayer stuff?

 

[Godhead]

You can't play Shadow of Chernobyl or most top down RPG's on a console as far as I know, but those don't sound like games you're into, so just do your thing.

Plus I don't see any reason why you can't play both PC and console.

 

[Bad Jim]

Because I can't seem to stick with just one, or limit myself to a narrow enough amount of games.

So what? You're using both. Best of both worlds.

Because you can't become good at anything by being so scattered.

As for the games;

I avoid multiplayer games on PC for the most part unless they're significantly better on PC

Why do you need to be good? It only really matters on multiplayer games, and for that you have already decided against the PC.

You are like Buridan's ass, placed between two hay bales and starving to death because it cannot decide which to eat first. Just pick a game you fancy playing and accept the fact that all your other games will go unplayed while you play it.

Also, gaming devices are not children. Your PC will not moan if you only play on xbone, and your consoles will not suffer emotional trauma if you exclusively game on PC. There is no reason to worry about your choice of platform. Just pick a game.