Prefer consoles over PC only with that improvement?
Obviosly not:
- no content control (drm, restrictions, forced changes).
- no mods or tweaks.
- no fix\upgrade after warranty.
- no use for its hardware, other than games.
- less good performance than pc, at the moment.
- console exclusives are a pain for game preservation.

I think its mostly a decision about money to spend and comfort. I just talk now about the console generation of PS3/360 and previous, because i think, that the new generation lacks alot in everything and kind of changed what it was before.

Buying a console has/had some advantages A:easier to maintain B:easier to obtain C:easier to handle D:easier to use

Not everyone wants to spend time to put together hardware, care about the question "will it run?", doesnt want to spend a quite high amount of money to get a decent machine to run just the current software.
Doesnt want to maintain the whole machine then, with protection, updates, storage and so on.
A PC means work, means you have to spend time on things you dont have to do with a console.
A cosnole has disadvantages, ofcourse it has, but therefor it comes with advantages that are useful for a high amount of people.
I ever played on a PC but there was a time where i had simply no time and money and so i thought myself, "go easier dude".
And so i bought a 360 and later a PS3 at a quite low price and it offered my a huge number of playtime, gave me alot of awesome games, games that today are also on the PC because WE as a console community pushed them alot.
I never had to care if a game i buy on a console runs good and mostly smooth, for a 300€ hardware you can run games at a quite good quality till today. I had not to maintain those machines ever apart from taking care about my storage device because i wasted space on it.
I could easily play multiplayer games, local, good games, without drops in framerate. They are easier to use than a PC.

Those are advantages that stand for many people, not for everyone, but for many and even if it obviously has flaws in power and freedom and so is limiting the player and his/her opportunities, those disadvantages arent so huge, that people wouldnt buy them.
Apart from that there were great games on consoles, exclusively and games that started their history on that hardware and so it was a great time to see them evolve (Demons Souls and Dark Souls is one example of that).


I stick to play on consoles from time to time because of those advantages, for everything else i have my laptop. A not so good machine my laptop, but ok for the most things i need it. I am a gamer, not a console gamer and not a pc gamer, just a gamer. I play my games whereever i can get them for, where they run the best and look the best with the amount of money i have to realize that.
If i cant get a new Assassins Creed to run on my PC because the hardware is too bad, i get it for consoles because it runs good, i dont change my hardware completely then just to keep up to date.

I said platform, not system. If you're so hooked on semantics you should be able to make that distinction.

Out of the box your bog-standard Win7-PC might not support Generic Old Game 14. But the sheer limitless modularity in hard- and software that allows you virtually any choice right down to the basic level of Operating System and driver architecture is very much a feature of the platform. And by taking advantage of said features, suddenly Generic Old Game 14 runs like a charm on your 2014 system.

And none of it cost you money or voided your warranty.

You're kind of missing the point there. The point is that you got well over a decade of backwards compatibility there and you'd get even more if the OS developers hadn't removed the support for 16bit applications from recent versions.

Yes, a lot of games from 1995-1998 won't work, but a lot of them will work or will work with tweaks. But, it's incorrect to suggest that PCs don't have backwards compatibility when they generally do. And those 16bit programs generally work just fine through emulation.
A few things? Most of the time when I try to get an old game or application to work it works relatively well. MS has gone to great pains over the years to maintain backwards compatibility as long as possible. Those games that don't work now, are usually ones where the developers couldn't be arsed to follow the best practices of the day.

Ultimately, most old software works with a current version of Windows because most old software was written in the last 15 or so years. And even before that, well written programs tend to work.

What I could never understand and still can't understand is why any gamer out there would have a strong opinion that any particular way of gaming is the one and only true way to game that is superior than all others and that everyone else is automatically wrong. It happens both with console gamers and with PC gamers. I am totally a PC-only gamer myself and that's what works for me as I mentioned previously but everyone else isn't me nor should they be. There is a market for both and that is why there are products for both on the market. People should really buy what they want for the reasons that they want and just be happy about what they have and let others buy what they want and be happy about that too. Me choosing and loving PC games and gaming has no negative effect on the life of someone who chooses and loves console gaming on their own console of choice so why should I feel angry with them or judgmental about their choice or why should they about mine? It makes no sense to have arguments about this stuff when different people have different tastes and like different things and it is totally human and ok for that to be the case.

Here's a funny story... Back in 1999 a buddy of mine lived in London Ontario and we were talking to me on the phone and he mentioned he was discussing his Pentium with a friend that was in love with the Playstation and they were debating about which was faster, which had the best/fastest video and CPU and blah blah blah. He called me because I know more of the underlying technical details of computers in general, CPUs, video etc. and he wanted to know more about that to have stronger points in future discussions with his Playstation friend basically so he could "win" the argument. I questioned why he cared what this other person said/thought and what the point of arguing about it was. I told him what he wanted to know about just to be factual but encouraged him to not get sucked into pointless arguments like that with people.

2 or 3 months later my buddy was at a party in Hamilton with this WIll guy - the Playstation friend and they were discussing/debating PC games versus Playstation again, and my buddy brought up some of the technical facts I told him about the CPU, video and other aspects of the PC and Playstation hardware and their comparative capabilities. The other guy was not really that tech savvy of a person but rather just an enthusiast of the Playstation console who just wanted to argue with people and win the argument for the sake of being right or whatever. When he questioned my buddy more about some of the technical information my buddy told him that he didn't know that level of info and he'd have to ask me about it because that's where he got the info he did know. The Will guy wanted to call me on the phone himself personally, and so my buddy gave him my number.

So... all of a sudden I get this long distance phonecall... from a person I don't know and have never met in my life before, calling me LONG DISTANCE on a CELL PHONE from 900km away - at a party ....... to ARGUE with me about whether or not the Sony Playstation is better than a PC for gaming.

Seriously... you can't make shit like this up folks. I didn't know what to say really and I was like "um... you just called a person you don't even know to argue about stupid shit that doesn't matter? Really? And you're paying probably 30 cents a minute on a cell phone to do so from a party instead of dancing with girls and getting drunk?" He laughed and admitted it was odd but wouldn't let it go and kept trying to start a debate with me and I kept telling him I really didn't give a shit and wasn't going to argue with someone I don't even know on the phone about stupid shit I don't care about.

It totally baffled my mnd to say the least. A few years later I met the guy at a Megadeth concert in Toronto and when my buddy introduced me to him he tried to argue with me about the Playstation. <sigh> I just looked at him funny and said "Don't take this the wrong way but I don't give a fuck. I'm hear to drink beer, watch Megadeth and check out girls, not to talk about games or computer crap." and walked away. He tried to bring it up one more time later on before finally realizing I wasn't going to bite.

What is wrong with people? Seriously. :) Everyone should buy what they want and play what they want and be happy about it and let everyone else do the same, and simultaneously not give a flying shit what anyone else chooses to do even if it not interesting to themselves. I'll never buy a console or even use one if someone gave me one, but that shouldn't stop anyone else from buying them and thinking they're the best thing ever for gaming.

Incidentally... is there anyone here named Will that lives in Hamilton Ontario? If so... Hi Will! :)

I always assumed it was to keep multiplayer balanced. They could do it for just singleplayer though, which is all I would care about anyway.

PC gaming for me involves being able to play games on the same system I use for web browing, write stories, edit films... etc... Not having a dedicated machine just for ONE thing. So no, if a console shows up with keyboard, mouse, and full backwards compatibility (kinda like Steam machines) I would still stay with my PC. Besides, I just love the little Thinkpad x230 :')

Indeed. PCs against PCs and Consoles against Consoles are relatively easy to balance, but when you start mixing and matching it's a bit of a challenge. Then there's the possibility of minor bugs affecting one platform more than another or in a different way.

There's also the issue of audience, people who plan on playing those games on console probably don't want to use a keyboard and mouse otherwise they'd likely be playing on a PC.

And you would prefer having Microsoft, Sony, Nindendo, or whoever there is to boss you around telling you what to do? Just regarding "closed" systems.

Truly interesting. We have standing "terminal" on work, where it is placed on big table where we work with bluprints, maps, schemes and other big paper sheets, while in parallel, using monitors and keyboard/mouse to work with PC data.
It can be much better for work, at least in times, but I'm not sure it's better for gaming or any other activity. Haven't tried that for long.

But you can always find something to raise the chair, no? More raise for raise throne and all that.:)
But on serious side, things you described only show that we are not limited to ordinary office chair/table combo with our PCs.


Emotional investment into materiel?

Isn't the Valve console a kinda backwards compatibility PC/Console hybrid platform?

There is talk (esp. on Sony PS4) that the next generation will be a platform agnostic attempt, insofar you will have a machine with standard specs and you will play your games online with the delivery system performing the grunt work for the game specs.

While you eating and moving - graugr is leveling up!

I have a friend who utilized some inclined (heavily inclined I might add) "seat", so he got himself nice reclining position. #playslikeaman

Yes, he is F1 fan, how did you know? ;)

Well, I don't have a love seat, but I use nice big soft chair (okay, it's kinda "forever alone love seat":)). Problem is, due furniture construction I can only jump in from the top, reminds of me of top hatch on military vehicles. :D Too bad that this chair of mine is too heavy to put something underneath and raise it.

You'll never walk alone indeed - my idiot's dream is to find somewhere Isri seat similar to those truck manufacturers use. :D
And I tried ejection seat, Isri is more comfortable. :)

No idea about Postal 2. Portal 2 is surely about love. Love to spaaaaace. Ahem.
I think it's fairly normal to have some sort of attachment to things we have and use. I mean, listen to what enduro public discuss, their wars about yamaha vs honda vs suzuki vs kawasaki vs ktm vs husqvarna vs anyone else there. Back when I was playing hockey I remember arguments about our gear - bauer vs ccm vs vaughn - you name it.
And there is sunk cost fallacy, when people can't admit they paid 240 USD for garbage game, so they say it was awesome until the ending. /pokerface

Funny enough, I end up pulling the love seat right up to the desk to be close to the monitor and as a result I have to enter the seating arrangement Dukes of Hazard style pretty much. :)

It should be something about "scooter brothers", but I'm not sure what...

No I wouldn't stop, as it is more than just that. The main reason I prefer PC for gaming is that it is a semi-open platform where anyone can make and self-publish a game (or anything for that matter, even an OS of their own, ergo Linux or even SteamOS). That also allows me to play games on PC which were not even intended to run on it, like Amiga games. Does any console emulate and play Amiga games?

So the main reason I don't prefer consoles over gaming PCs is because consoles are walled-garden devices. This is also the reason why I very much prefer Android devices to iOS (iPhone and iPad) devices. No Humble Bundle games for iOS devices, for example.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't play also on consoles. E.g. I really liked (and still like) PS2. For a console, it did so many things right from my perspective, like being backwards compatible with Playstation games, offering lots of exclusive games that were quite different from PC games, etc.

I think that is also the reason I don't see much reason to buy PS3, PS4, X360 or XBOne on top of a gaming PC, as their gaming library is so "PC-like" nowadays. I liked Playstation and PS2 better as they weren't carrying that much the same games as PC, but different kinds of games which complemented PC gaming quite well. Even the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty lines of games on PS/PS2 were quite different from their PC brothers. I liked that.