And there is precisely nothing wrong with being able to play games on a PC that wasn't specifically built for gaming. You can use a controller with a PC and you can connect a PC to a TV. Having more options like having a totally free choice of peripherals available, is, always has been and always will be objectively superior to putting up with what Sony / Nintendo decided for you. But just because option a is objectively superior to option b doesn't prevent you from having fun with option b.
I prefer mostly PC, in my case it's a laptop. The only issues I have with it I know are generated by myself (overclocking on a laptop ain't easy and is a bit silly). Windows updates itself, so does Ubuntu. Nvidia Experience updates itself and the drivers, and even sets game settings to "ideal settings" for your GPU. I do have a Switch though, for when I'm out and about mostly. The payed online play really puts me off consoles. Also, having to set your TV to "game mode" otherwise you get massive lag, added to the input lag is just ridiculous.
You can do lots of different things with lots of different hardware of course, I'm referring to what is usually the case, PC gaming on a monitor on a desk. I don't find the input choices for consoles in any way limiting. The effectively unlimited different combinations of PCs out there sounds like part of the OPs issue in the first place, as it introduces an effectively unlimited set of potential issues with various games. Don't worry, I'm not trying to convince you, or anyone for that matter. The OP asked a question, I'm offering a view: Since getting rid of the gaming PC I've started enjoying games more and have enjoyed a much more consistent gaming experience than my PC days. The only PC exclusive I've played in the last 10 years is Cities Skylines, and I've not felt I've missed out on anything else. The only thing that I thought I missed about PC gaming was mods for certain games (read: Skyrim), but then when I really thought about it, I spent just as much time faffing with mods on Oblivion as I did actually enjoying them, so I'm not so sure. Though apparently there's even Skyrim mods on the PS4 now (but no doubt a subset of what's on PC).
The only limitation I find with consoles VS PC is RTS games. I actually liked TC Endwar's voice commands, it really alleviated some of the problems with controllers, and I felt as capable on console as I did PC.
Depends on the game a lot, lets just say whenever I tried to aim at one of the bloody pirates in No Mans Sky I would have happily strangled the inventor of the controller to death, on the other hand Nioh for example works just fine with a controller.
Depends if you want to play console only games, I don't think it has to be a big decision really, it's just games I don't really get the argument for needing to spend loads of time tweaking etc, if you just want to play a game then you don't need to bother with that, if you're wanting to max performance etc that's your choice, but you won't even have the option to do that if you use a console. Also some games are far better on PC (RTS, FPS), and any game that's better with a controller is also just as good on PC since you just plug in a 360 controller and away you go. Not trying to push you either way, just saying in the end it comes down to what games you want to play. For me PC has far more than consoles, so it's an easy choice from a gaming perspective
TBH - I would say part of you're problem is rebuilding and tinkering with your system too much. As soon as I just decided enough is enough, stopped replacing things all the time, overclocking, installing loads of pointless software, and got a system that was running fine and just left it, my enjoyment levels are way up. I used to spend half my time trouble shooting or rebuilding or buying/selling/rma'ing. Now I spend 100% of my time actually using my system instead, which is much more preferable and low stress. My computer turns on, turns off, plays games, doesn't crash and does it all better than a console.
I cannot use a controller for anything. I've never been able to, and I don't see that changing any time soon, so its PC for me. Yes I play racing games with a keyboard, and what?
A really good point to be honest. Regardless of platform, there are enough quality games to spend a seriously antisocial amount of time playing them, enough to keep you occupied for more time than you should be anyway. You're never going to be able to play everything on any platform, and games are pointless distractions from other things you would be better off doing anyway, so don't worry so much about it. I'm generally picky about what I like and even then I've got a backlog of A+ games, at least half of which I'll never get to, and I certainly don't want to dedicate more time to playing them. Maybe the question is whether to just stop gaming full stop? (I'm clearly getting old)
I used to enjoy console games for extra variety and ease of use. But in the past 5 years there has been a huge push towards having to install console games onto the consoles, huge day 1 patches and forced downloads for DLC even if you don't own said DLC. To me, they removes the very essence of what I used to enjoy about console games, the 'plug and play' of all those first party exclusives. Now a console is just a small PC that you plug into your TV, with less choices and more limited controls. It has nearly all the same annoyance as PC gaming. In fact I'd argue that with the introduction of the Nvidia GeForce experiamce and the fact that most games are cross platform, one or both of the console versions tends to end up the worst version of new releases. I think if you have a potato for a pc, console gaming is absolutely the better experiance but if you have even a half decent machine, there has never been a better time for PC gaming.
This sums it up for me. I'd add that I think that people who spend their time telling others that their chosen gaming platform is rubbish should get a life.
It has gotten better in the last couple of years. But the PS3 (and presumably x360) was the worst. You can generally get going within a few minutes of popping the game in on first install if you can forego online features until it's had the inevitable day one patch. After that, console and games update silently when the console is switched off. I'm not sure there's really anything to get upset about now (other than developers releasing broken games that need massive day one patches, but that's another matter) (and other than the fact that the PS4 anyway will silently update in the background even if you've suspended mid-game, losing unsaved progress, grr)
I REALLY wish that was the case tbh and I'd love to just turn it on, game and turn it off without issues. If that happened today I wouldn't even bother upgrading for years. I actually stopped all my overclocking, tweaking and extra performance hunting years back when it was causing more problems than I could be arsed to fix and in most cases I turn on the PC just to game. I do next to no tinkering that isn't related to trying to solve an issue. I honestly just want it to "work" but the last three systems I've built for myself that just hasn't been the case for the most part. There are always minor niggles and problems that I'm trying to solve. The "funny" thing is; all the systems I've built to sell or built for friends and other people are just fine. It is just my own systems that seem to have the problems. My last system was built from the ground up with two purposes, to give me a decent experience in The Witcher 3 at a high resolution with eye candy on and to remove anything that might be causing some of the minor problems I was having. It has done neither! I have new shiney niggles and I refuse to try and play The Witcher 3 due to the risk of sullying the experience with the current problems. Honestly if I had to nail it down I think the main problem is simply me. Me as in so much as I'm the common denominator to all these issues. If I had cash to burn I'd just buy a high end pre-built system with a decent long warranty and wash my hands with it all. This is to be honest the crux of the whole thread, I want to play games and not have to deal with the hassle of problems. I don't have the money for the above pre-built so a high end console seems to be the way forward.
I have many options. I have my PC upstairs in the bedroom and a Steam Link (currently supplied by an App on the Television itself) downstairs in the living room. I also have a PS4 and a Wii U. I find I use the Steam link a lot at the moment, it's easy to set up and you get console style comfort on the sofa, but with a nice 60fps, a wireless controller, depending on the game. There are some things I very much dislike about console gaming, the biggest being having to pay every month or a yearly subscription to be able to play online using the console I bought, and using the internet I pay for every month. I believe it to be a con, and only idiots would willingly use and applaud it.
I must be an idiot then as I willingly use it. Not sure I applaud it but I certainly get better value from it now I get a couple of "free" games thrown in every month for my £30 a year. I've had (to name some).... Halo: Spartan Assault £1.99 Guacamelee £11.49 Crimson Dragon Strike Suit Zero £14.99 Worms Battlegrounds Rayman Legends £15.99 Pool Nation FX £6.99 Assassin's Creed Black Flag £15.99 Valiant Hearts £11.99 Killer Instinct Sunset Overdrive The Crew £24.99 Sleeping Dogs £19.99 Ryse £14.99 Trials Fusion £15.99 Forza 5 Oxenfree £14.99 (price in italics denotes price on Steam as at 20/09/17 although I appreciate they can be had cheaper in sales, etc) And that doesn't include the games I didn't bother to download (Watch Dogs, Tomb Raider, Project Cars, Layers of Fear, Outlast and more) and the bakwards compatible 360 games.
The PS3 was way worse for that than the Xbox 360. I could pop a game like, say, Viva Pinata in the Xbox 360 and be playing it in five minutes; I did the same with LittleBigPlanet on the PS3 and it took two hours to install and update. A big problem with the PS3 was the low speed of the Blu-ray drive, which was optimised for video streaming rather than loading games. As a result, games that needed to be installed to the hard drive took anything up to four times as long as the same game on the Xbox 360, and games that left their data on the disc had to be tweaked - Oblivion, for example, wasted the extra capacity of the Blu-ray disc over the Xbox 360's DVD by having to store four identical copies of everything at different positions on the disc to minimise seek times.
I have done it (basically). i got to a point where gaming became SUCH a small part of my life, and I had a console and a MacBook Pro (for audio work) that when my GPU died a few years back, I gave the rest of the parts away and never looked back. Since then, I play LOL on my MBP (maybe one match a week on average), and upgraded my console from an X360 to a second hand PS4, which spends more time streaming NetFlix than gaming.
Yeah, the free games thing really takes the sting out of an annual subscription for Gold. I've definitely had my moneys worth in play time of free games alone, Assassins Creed and Sleeping Dogs jump out at me as hour-eaters. Although Forza 5 is proving to be entertaining. If only for the Escort RS Cosworth. It irks me that it's not as free as PC, but then, MMO's aren't free either and they're damned popular, so I dunno, I think it all balances out and both sides of the argument willingly ignore the subscriptions that exist on their side while they lambaste the opposing side. As for the Steam streaming thing.. I've never had such a faff in all my life. I tried it, because I thought it might be less expensive than a console, but holy **** the arseache to make even basic games work. Games that were console releases, too, for example; Fable: Anniversary edition Fable II Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Hitman Absolution They all are console ports, one way or the other, and they all ate complete **** with A: Streaming, B: Steam Controller. Most wouldn't even launch without first being launched on PC, and even then, the controller input was such crap as to make the game unplayable. Compared to consoles, it was a hilariously poor effort. Perhaps things have changed since, but it's too late now.
*raises hand* Idiot here, reporting for duty. I don't even do online gaming but keep paying the annual fee for the games (and also the sync/cloud features). Some months are definitely a complete wash, but over a year it's worth it IMO, especially if you're not always buying games on day one. The last two months of PS+ have ticked off two games on my backlog list, both near the top. I'd rather not be paying for it, much like I'd rather not pay for anything ever, but it's ~£3/month at the end of the day... that's barely a rounding error. (and I'm not sure, whether you agree with it or not, you can call it a con... "providing a service in exchange for money" is pretty textbook) I did not know that - at least they were thinking outside the box! Many an evening I was disappointed by coming home from work to find a shiny new game had dropped through the letterbox, slotting in the disc and finding out that in fact I would not be playing it that evening. And then going to it the next evening after it finished installing and finding out once again, I would not be playing it on account of the 10GB update that needs to be downloaded and installed. And then if I'm lucky, the next again finding out that the PS3 needed an update as well, so out of luck there. Fortunately those days seem to have passed.
