Windows 7: PC vs. Console

What makes PC better than consoles and vice versa?

Well... everything actually
PC equipped with good and proper parts excels in every possible aspect.
For example (little extreme) with only one video card you can play on 6 screens with amazing framerate (ofc this is expensive).
But even with cheap a@@ vga you can play or multitasking on 2 monitors, like me for example. (little vid here )

We can talk about these things for hours and in the end conclusion will be still the same - not ever one console can beat good build pc.

PC: You'll have to upgrade your parts eventually to play the better games. You'll more than likely spend more $ on PC's than you ever will on consoles. Unless you keep the same PC for a few years and only stick to the games it can play.

Plus side to consoles: You only ever have to buy 1 unless it gets busted, and they're cheaper than a PC (sometimes by several thousand $$'s).

PC has more freedoms to do what you want,a lot of games are modifiable and we can tweak games. Also the visuals are just much better. Also don't have to pay fees to play online like you do on a xbox and got dedicated severs. Only games that would be excluded from not paying fees would be games like WOW ect.. mostly mmos. Also lots of F2p games like planet side 2,team fortress 2,League of Legends,Black Light retribution and many others.Also steam has sales pretty much alll year and will do heavy sales during holidays with even new games at 50% off making it around what $30? On console the only benfit would be that more ppl would own it and more friends would own one since it's cheaper and when you buy a game you should expect it to run fine 90% of the time unlike those certain situations like skyrim with the ps3 which just had terrible problems.

TL;DR? PCs have vastly superior visual capabilities and customization at the cost of reliability, easy of use, price, and often optimization.

Consoles are basically just custom PCs with very specific hardware/software devoted to gaming. Because of this they can provide several advantages that a less focused PC build might not be capable of with the same level of hardware. One advantage is optimized visuals. Take for example the recent sequels such as in the Halo or Skyrim franchise. They're essentially running on the same computer but developers have found was to use the hardware more efficiently and produce visuals far greater than an equivalent PC. They can do this because of a constant in the market in terms of hardware and software. A few more advantages that this constant provides is a much more efficient, hence cheaper, method of production and an easier to maintain, reliable, user friendly system.

PCs on the other hand, as already pointed out, provide a lot more freedom. You don't have to stick with the same level of hardware for 7+ years. You can upgrade small amounts at a time without having to replace the entire system, which might end up costing you less than having to buy a new system down the road. This will change for a short while when/if the new consoles are released, but PCs currently offer vastly superior visuals. You can also, very often, find games a lot cheaper and play a lot of games that aren't easily run on consoles controllers such as MMOs, RTS, etc. You can also customize a PC a lot more than a console with extra screens, gaming keyboards and mice, controllers and other peripherals but this "might" also change in the next few generations as well.

Another thing to consider is the online community. You'll get advocates on both sides claiming to be superior, but in my experience they both pretty much even out in their own respects.

In short, consoles can be made cheaper and its easier to develop more reliable and optimized games for them. PCs can be upgraded cheaper, provide better visuals, and games can potentially cost a lot less and be more varied. They, currently, can also provide a lot more customization in terms of displays and peripherals.

What I don't get is that I'm told that there are more PC players than X360 and PS3 combined but for some reason, no one I know personally has a gaming PC. But it makes sense considering I'm in high school where people aren't too smart. It's not even the budget factor because my $200 GTX 570 makes Battlefield 3 better than it could ever look on X360.

Also, that freedom comes with emulation! Provided you own the game you are emulating of course.

Yea I guess it depends who you are with,yea back in my senior year in high school about a year ago. Most my friends had a ps3. I was the only one gaming on pc then later during the year I found some other guys in the high school that played pc also but they were pretty techy like I was unlike my friends with ps3. Met them in my computer repair class heheh,was really fun and had fun talking about overclocking and all that kind of stuff and compering experiences and a bunch of other stuff haha and such and so on. I think consoles is more for casuals who aren't too tech savy like my brother and my other friends to be honest.

Realistically, how many people do you know and are they what could be considered atypical of the target demographic? (It's more of a rhetorical, not personal, question)

Your location, local economic status, personal economical status etc can also play a big part.

For example, an area which is generally considered to be of a 'poor, or low socioeconomic status' you would find consoles are favored over PC usage due to price. A console is both cheaper and easier to steal than a PC. Sharing games is arguably easier than PC. These are but a few minor, yet pivotal details that play a large factor in why you see more consoles than gaming PCs.

Regardless of status, consoles also make for easier gifts than PCs. Recipients of these gifts are largely children/teens.

In an area of more wealth, it would be more common to see either a PC or console, often both in one home. Gaming PC usage would start to get higher because parents can afford better pre-built PC's, or can afford higher end parts and whatnot.

Obviously the above is very generalized, but it's enough to give an idea why what you see is at odds with the way it apparently is.


lol, that says a lot about your school

I haven't used a console since Sega days - played Ecco the Dolphin.
Bought that unit for my son, and it wasn't cheap, but PC's were more costly then too. Kids weren't allowed on the PC, and maybe not as many games were available on the PC. Besides, it was a "peer" thing that kids had consoles to game on.
That's all changed. Even a decent gaming PC isn't far from the price of a console.
And besides gaming, the PC serves other purposes well.
It might take more "technical" expertise to make some games work well on some PC's due to the variety of hardware. A console should always play a game without a glitch.
I'm currently playing Borderlands 2 on PC and the PhysX effects are really something. I understand the console version doesn't render those effects.
But since I don't game with consoles, I can't argue one over the other.

I can build my gaming PC to my specs.