Well what’s the point then. Might as well go over to PC gaming. The only real reason to stay with consoles was the physical disks.
Everything else about consoles is terrible compared to PC, no mods, limited games, limited sales, if any, (looking at you Nintendo), limited control scheme options, can only play games so device doesn’t have a lot of utility, you have to pay for internet access even though you already pay for internet access, no private servers, limited community tools.
The one thing you could say for consoles was that you owned the game. Now that’s gone.
The other advantages were lower price for hardware and not requiring tinkering to get games to run properly. While the price is still lower, it’s a smaller gap than it used to be since everything is ass-expensive now, so less benefit there. The last advantage isn’t even remotely worth all the downsides at this point.
To expand on your point about no tinkering required, the overall UI is also geared for a couch experience. So many people want to just plug in an HDMI cable and go, and consoles make that possible. And I get the desire; I have no regrets about going the PC route but I absolutely understand the whole “I don’t want to sit at a desk when I get home from work” argument. And before anyone talks about putting a PC on the TV, yes it’s possible but it’s not optimized for that kind of experience out of the box.
Very true, and that was also a big reason why I never tried just putting a PC under the TV. Docking the Steam Deck to the TV has shown me that Steam’s Big Picture Mode does a great job giving a console-like experience completely via a controller, though, so that’s where I’m going to be heading once support for PS5 ends.
Well what’s the point then. Might as well go over to PC gaming. The only real reason to stay with consoles was the physical disks.
Everything else about consoles is terrible compared to PC, no mods, limited games, limited sales, if any, (looking at you Nintendo), limited control scheme options, can only play games so device doesn’t have a lot of utility, you have to pay for internet access even though you already pay for internet access, no private servers, limited community tools.
The one thing you could say for consoles was that you owned the game. Now that’s gone.
The other advantages were lower price for hardware and not requiring tinkering to get games to run properly. While the price is still lower, it’s a smaller gap than it used to be since everything is ass-expensive now, so less benefit there. The last advantage isn’t even remotely worth all the downsides at this point.
To expand on your point about no tinkering required, the overall UI is also geared for a couch experience. So many people want to just plug in an HDMI cable and go, and consoles make that possible. And I get the desire; I have no regrets about going the PC route but I absolutely understand the whole “I don’t want to sit at a desk when I get home from work” argument. And before anyone talks about putting a PC on the TV, yes it’s possible but it’s not optimized for that kind of experience out of the box.
Very true, and that was also a big reason why I never tried just putting a PC under the TV. Docking the Steam Deck to the TV has shown me that Steam’s Big Picture Mode does a great job giving a console-like experience completely via a controller, though, so that’s where I’m going to be heading once support for PS5 ends.