The first year or two were abysmal, and once a console has acquired the reputation of having no games, it’s very hard to shake it.

I don’t see any reason to own one either. From the comfort of my own home I can order hundreds of great games at low prices, and use the dark magic of modding to extend their life beyond sanity. As others have pointed out, more than ever the Xbox and PlayStation have basically become locked down PCs without the advantages of a PCs.

Have never bothered getting the latest thing. Only brought a PS3 and Xbox last year at next to nothing. Its not like console games ever really change that much so pick them up years down the line when they are a reasonable price.

Last time I owned a console, was the PS1, and I had a bloody good time with it.

Since then, I've always been a PC gamer. When the XBOX360 came out, I seriously considered it, but I realized I already had such an enourmous and evergrowing PC backlog that acquiring a console became an unreasonable thing.

To make matters worse, the one thing I was missing from consoles, fighting games, are now almost completely represented on PC, even Teken is on its way apparently. That would only leave Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter missing, as far as great fighting series from the 90s, and they were never my favorites anyway.

I never quite missed major Sony and Microsoft IPs, they never resonated all that well with me, and I never felt there weren't viable and interesting alternatives to them gameplay-wise on the PC.

Though I generally like Nintendo IPs, I never find myself interested in playing their games, so I don't miss'em.

If they focus less on shiny hardware specs that would actually be an improvement, in my book. Seems the number one reason why most people are disappointed, is simply the lack of good releases for their "next gen" console, exclusive titles or otherwise.
I seem to recall, their comment regarding backwards compatibility and full offline use was: "We have a product for that. It's called Xbox 360." Yeeaah... Fuck you too MS.

The problem is the (technical) advantages of PC over consoles have been following the law of diminishing returns over the generations. The consoles had a clear advantage over PC in the 8-bit and 16-bit generations (heck, everything had a clear advantage over PC), but it was the advent of the standardisation that Windows 95 and DirectX brought that put the PC well ahead of the PS1 and Saturn. Most multiplats in the mid-to-late 90s were night and day when it came to comparing the PC and console versions.

The PS4/XO generation is the first generation where the technical advantages offered by PC aren't significant unless you make major investments in the requisite hardware. While the console GPUs are technically on a level between the HD 7850 & 7870, the reality is that to achieve any noteworthy gains over the current generation of consoles, you need at least a GTX 970, which alone costs the same as a new console.

By comparison, I managed to put together a PS3/360-beating PC on a budget of €500 back in 2008.

Add to that the problems with buying physical releases on PC and it makes the PC less compelling as a platform, which is the reason why I haven't bought much for it in a while. I've purchased X-Rebirth plus a few other bits and bobs from GOG but beyond that it's been all sub-$5 games and bundles for me. My last full-priced purchase was Divinity: Dragon Commander in August 2013. On the whole, if a game I want is only available digitally on both console and PC, I'll usually pick it up from GOG, but such games are rare in my case.

It's certainly fair to say that the current generation of consoles (except the Wii U, on which I will be enjoying my freshly-arrived copy of StarFox Zero this evening) have been seriously lacking on the exclusives front, and that the latest consoles have been underwhelming feature-wise. But as a general gaming platform, they're more than capable for people who don't care about 4K gaming or 60fps.

So, no, I'm not so much "disappointed" by the current consoles. I just haven't been significantly overwhelmed by them. It feels very much a case of business as usual, a smooth transition from the PS3 and 360.

I wish someone would tell game developers to make that transit too before the next console generation is out.

Consoles aren't worth it where I live.

Consoles stopped being relevant from PS2 onwards for me... I still use mine and won't use any other due to the turn they've taken over the years.

The single, only game I regret not being possible to play would be Bloodborne. As for the rest, I can live without them.
But I would regret parting with my PS2 and the games I have with it.

I'm a console fan. I do have time to game, but it's not plentiful, rarely in large chunks. When the setup just won't work, I'm trading my gaming time for debugging time. I'm quite good at it but come on. I don't have a gaming PC because I can't sink a thousand dollars into what I would only use here and there.

However, there has to be something to play. I haven't seen anything compelling with the newer generation yet... Ratchet and Clank is not enough to justify a whole console purchase. I haven't been tempted.

If my PS3 broke, I'd get another one right away though.

Before PS4 and XOne I bought nearly every console.
That should mean that I am dissapointed with the new ones?
Not really. I am more dissapointed with the publishers.
With my old consoles you could buy a game and play it.
Now its more like new games for PC....day one patches!!

For the future (maybe) next consoles...Till I see the one from
BigN AND know more about games and publishers there is
nothing to say.
Sony, sure a slim version of PS4 is comming. I don't think
that it is much faster or completely new.
Hey, they are launching their new VR Headset.
If they try to sell a new console at the same time they are
doing a Sega.

I am a console gamer. I have been my entire life. I have owned (and still own) almost every console that has come out since the Atari 2600. On the flip side, my PC gaming career is very recent. I had a Commodore 64/128 back in the 80's, which was great. I had a DOS computer in the early 90's that was mostly just for using Prodigy. I had a Win95 PC in the late 90's and then jumped to XP in the mid 00's, but neither were powerful enough to play most PC games. Only in the last two years have I gotten a PC that can handle most modern games. So, console gaming has been my life for over 30 years. Clearly, my sensibilities are going to be a little different from many of the people who are posting in this thread who grew up on PC.

All of that said, the XBone is definitely a dud in my book. The PS4, while not incredible, did have enough interesting exclusives to warrant me purchasing one last year. My collection isn't huge (maybe around 10 games), but it grows little by little every couple months. Definitely looking forward to Uncharted 4 and...hopefully...The Last Guardian. The Wii U was a day-one purchase for me. Nintendo's IPs are so solid that I will probably always buy their consoles. As for handhelds, I love my 3DS. While I might get a Vita somewhere down the line, I'm not too inspired by it as the bulk of its library is also available on PS4.

Over the last 15 years, the lines between what is considered a "PC game" and a "console game" have definitely blurred. With more and more titles being launched on both platforms, it is kind of a toss-up on which side to choose. For me, I am in a position where I have both console and PC, so the exclusives are mine for the taking no matter where they land. For someone with limited funds, there has certainly never been a better time to be a PC gamer. Aside from Nintendo's IPs and a few other titles, you've got access to it all...pending your PC's specs, of course.

Consoles at this point have taken too much of the bad side of PC gaming.
Having said that I've got just as much use out of the Wii than PC gaming of recent years. Along with the WiiU it should have made more use of it's features and it should have had ports for them like baldurs gate or die by the sword type games.

GOGmasterrace

How many of those games are exclusive to Japan? I have a feeling many PS4 games get stuck there. :(