Okay, for the single hardcore gamer living in an apartment whose primary interest is gaming, then, yes, I can see how consoles are just "crap PCs". But really, is this anything new?
However, not being able to think of a "single reason" why one would want a console displays a failure of imagination. I've been gaming since I was playing games on Apple IIs in the late 70s; I was a PC/Mac gamer until the XBox came out; since then I've done most of my gaming on consoles. The issue with PC gaming is that, yes, you can ultimately make it do everything a console can do, you just have to do the work figuring how, finding out where to buy the stuff, then setting it up. Here are a few reasons:
==== Better Integration with Home Theatres ====
Consider all the stuff you'd have to do to a PC to get it to:
- be quiet, cool & small enough to fit in with the rest of your AV components & not be a big ugly box in your living room.
- have wireless controllers that also power it on & off wirelessly
- be able to launch your games without using a mouse or keyboard
- know that the games will actually play on your AV setup and be able to handle the "odd" resolution of 720p or consistently use the surround sound setup and not just revert to stereo. It's ironic you use footage for Legends of Grimrock, a game I recently bought & tried to play on my setup; it failed on startup with a directX error - I found (after googling & forum reading) that the problem was that it didn't like my projector as a monitor when running fullscreen - I had to edit the config file manually to get it to launch in windowed mode.
==== Getting online play to work ====
- I have to worry a lot less (or not at all) that my opponents in online games are using hacked clients or various cheats
- I don't need to worry about how to get voice features to work with the games, or getting my friends to use the same voice software as I do; granted, I haven't even looked into this, but the last time I did, there were several different systems out there, none of which were compatible. The point it, like all of this, it takes some effort.
- There are numerous apps that run on Android and iOS that will tell me who is online in my friends list, what they're playing & other notifications.
- Portability: I can take game disks over to a friend's house with the same system and I know the game will be playable; I can log in with my Live account on their machine, and now I have access to all my XBLA games.
==== Cost ====
- Consoles cost less to get the same experience that everyone else is having for that game
- I almost always end up playing games months or years after they launch, so I can get games cheaply on either platform, either from sales (PC) or discounts or buying used games (consoles). I haven't paid more than $20 for a game in years.
=============
Like I said, all of these things can be achieved if you want to take the effort, but it takes effort. To get all this from a console, I buy the console, plug in the wires, and I'm done. Patches are all automatically applied when they come out - I don't depend on the different mechanisms different publishers will choose to use. Granted, if all I ever did was play Steam games, I'd have a console-like experience, minus the compatibility guarantees.
For hardcore hobbiests, sure, of course you need a PC. But everyone else wants an appliance.
However, not being able to think of a "single reason" why one would want a console displays a failure of imagination. I've been gaming since I was playing games on Apple IIs in the late 70s; I was a PC/Mac gamer until the XBox came out; since then I've done most of my gaming on consoles. The issue with PC gaming is that, yes, you can ultimately make it do everything a console can do, you just have to do the work figuring how, finding out where to buy the stuff, then setting it up. Here are a few reasons:
==== Better Integration with Home Theatres ====
Consider all the stuff you'd have to do to a PC to get it to:
- be quiet, cool & small enough to fit in with the rest of your AV components & not be a big ugly box in your living room.
- have wireless controllers that also power it on & off wirelessly
- be able to launch your games without using a mouse or keyboard
- know that the games will actually play on your AV setup and be able to handle the "odd" resolution of 720p or consistently use the surround sound setup and not just revert to stereo. It's ironic you use footage for Legends of Grimrock, a game I recently bought & tried to play on my setup; it failed on startup with a directX error - I found (after googling & forum reading) that the problem was that it didn't like my projector as a monitor when running fullscreen - I had to edit the config file manually to get it to launch in windowed mode.
==== Getting online play to work ====
- I have to worry a lot less (or not at all) that my opponents in online games are using hacked clients or various cheats
- I don't need to worry about how to get voice features to work with the games, or getting my friends to use the same voice software as I do; granted, I haven't even looked into this, but the last time I did, there were several different systems out there, none of which were compatible. The point it, like all of this, it takes some effort.
- There are numerous apps that run on Android and iOS that will tell me who is online in my friends list, what they're playing & other notifications.
- Portability: I can take game disks over to a friend's house with the same system and I know the game will be playable; I can log in with my Live account on their machine, and now I have access to all my XBLA games.
==== Cost ====
- Consoles cost less to get the same experience that everyone else is having for that game
- I almost always end up playing games months or years after they launch, so I can get games cheaply on either platform, either from sales (PC) or discounts or buying used games (consoles). I haven't paid more than $20 for a game in years.
=============
Like I said, all of these things can be achieved if you want to take the effort, but it takes effort. To get all this from a console, I buy the console, plug in the wires, and I'm done. Patches are all automatically applied when they come out - I don't depend on the different mechanisms different publishers will choose to use. Granted, if all I ever did was play Steam games, I'd have a console-like experience, minus the compatibility guarantees.
For hardcore hobbiests, sure, of course you need a PC. But everyone else wants an appliance.