Adon Cabre said:
I never implied that we have to stop playing our consoles when we get new ones, but I still like backwards compatibility. My snes, genisis, sega saturn, N64, game boy advance, ds and psp are all broken. Systems break down over time and it takes money to replace them. From my quick look, a new ps2, one where you know the condition it is in, costs about 62 USD. Its an extra cost and although you say its an inexhaustible quantity of them, they will get rarer over time. If I can get digital downloads of old games it won't be as much of a problum anyway. Digital downloads prevent things like when Final Fantasty 7 was over $100 used on ebay. If x box and playstation get good digital markets with games form the past two generations, it would really help me personally to care more about the system.
The Microsoft cross platform thing I said, that was actually a poorly researched on my part. A while back I was thinking about how I didn't care about 360 exclusives. I was thinking about how the only games I liked on the 360 that weren't available on PS3 were Mass Effect and Bioshock, and PS3 got both of those eventually. At the end of the generation, the only game I would have missed, by never playing 360, that I liked, was Tales of Vesperia. However I just looked it up, and the only game that was really popular, and only on X box and PC was Gears of War. So I'll have to say I was wrong on that statement.
Finally, you say publishers don't want people playing PC games, but so many games this generation were on all three HD systems. This generation had very few 3rd party exclusives. Publishers wanted to put their games out on as many systems as possible. When PC's didn't get ports, it was because they thought it would be a poor investment, because PC gaming is a fringe market with high piracy, not because they don't want people buying PC games. The idea that publishers only want you to buy a game in particular forms is silly. They will be happy no matter what system you buy it on, so long as you buy it.
This response has been a lot more long winded then I had planned so sorry if it got ranty. But basically I've been gaming primarily on my computer the past 2 years and have been very satisfied with the results. You said buying a PC is unwise but I see it as stable and growing although small. This doesn't mean I think it's the only good choice however, I think the PS 4 is going to do just fine, likely being the most successful of the generation, but thats just a guess.