by Gavin Plumton

Created on: May 02, 2010

In the gaming world, there is a clear distinction between the console gamers and the PC gamers. Having both two consoles and a PC for gaming it seems to me that there are some fairly large difference between the two major options.

Consoles have the advantage of being uniform in their components and firmware, which means that every game made for a console can be tailored to take advantage of the entire console without worry that there will be some problem. PCs can come in many different forms and shapes, from the monsters that cost thousands to build and can run any game on the market at the highest settings to the little laptops that can manage minesweeper and not much else. Although the uniformity of consoles does allow game to be made more efficient, it prevents the console from being upgraded. If your PC gets old, you can just put in another stick of ram or upgrade the graphics card fairly easily. I would consider this a point in favor on PCs as the ability to upgrade cheaply or even go beyond what is needed beats out consoles uniformity.

Another advantage that PCs have over consoles is the different types of controllers that PCs can use. A mouse is an arguably better controller for first person shooters as it allows a much higher level of precision and accuracy. Keyboards don’t even have a challenger from the console side. Not even the controllers for consoles can make an impact, since you can simply buy a console controller for the PC and plug it straight into the PC. There simply is not anything a console can do that a PC can not also do, but there are many things a PC can do that a console can’t match.

Another huge difference the availability of user made content for PC games. Home brew is a tiny niche market on consoles, but PCs have a huge variety of open source games that can be downloaded at a moment’s notice. Beyond even that, most PC games have the option of being modded but users. The modding community can often keep a game alive and fresh long after it would have become a worn out and obsolete title on a console. Some PC games are sold primarily on their ability to modded extensively.

Consoles do have one big advantage though and that is their initial purchase price. Consoles may be expensive, but PCs can easily cost thousands of dollars. However, this is offset by the fact that PCs can be used for so much more than just gaming, while consoles are stuck being used almost exclusively for gaming. It is offset even more by the ability to upgrade PCs, which means that while you might need to buy two or three consoles over a period of time, you can get by with a single PC that you have simply bought some parts for, which is cheaper for the PC than the console by a large margin.

In the end, the PC is better primarily because of its flexibility which allows it to perform any function a console can, and then do even more things than a console can, and to be upgraded to meet the current demands put on it.

Learn more about this author, Gavin Plumton.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.