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[Takamura-San]

I never understood this odd conception that you can't hook a PC to a television.

This shouldn't be so far fetched with HDMI support on most if not all of the recent cards.

But at the same time i can't be bothered to do it.

The main reason is that I know that i have to move the computer back to my desk eventually if i want to do some computer work on it. So i just don;t move it. I usually play in bursts of 1 hour each. Moving the computer to my TV to play for one hour seems like too much work.

 

[The_Darkest_Red]

You can do all that with PC too infact, I use my PS360 controllers more for PC gaming than the consoles themselves now. The only thing that makes consoles worth it are the exclusive games like LA Noire.

As I've mentioned multiple times in this thread, using a controller for online FPS's on the PC puts you at a terrible disadvantage.

 

[Stallion Free]

This is a terrible over-generalization.

I know, all those games that are sub 720p right??

 

[Sorc3r3r]

Lazyness really.
I do not want to bother with drivers, required or recommended specs.
I do not want to set up my graphic card or try to set the game to run at best on my PC.
I do not want compatibilities problems.

I want to buy a game put it in my console and play it just pressing once or twice the X button.

 

[goldenpp72]

PC exclusives like rts titles, the witcher, crysis, etc aren't appealing to me in comparison to the exclusives found on the 3 main consoles (mario, gears of war, ninja gaiden, uncharted, etc).

Pc gaming is expensive regardless of how you do it, one gpu upgrade can set you back the price of an xbox, yet the performance boost you get from that rarely seems to actually matter as developers don't even seem to take advantage of the full brunt of PC power these days, you get a rarity like crysis or the witcher 2 that occurs every couple years, but devs don't seem to cap out pc capabilities imo.

Complexity in setup, anytime i've ever played pc games spanning all the way from the dos era to current windows 7 64 bit, I have always encountered some kind of issue with a batch of games, bugs, issues modding the games (a perk to pc gaming), driver compatibility issues, etc. While I have the capability to remedy those types of issues either on my own or via a google search, I find in my adult era (I used to pc game more as a kid) I just feel the time wasted doing those things is better spent elsewhere. Consoles you hit the button and go.

Local multiplayer/comfy couch syndrome, oddly I don't use the couch for gaming most, but the point stands somewhat, I as of now have 4 dedicated game boxes under my tv, as well as one laptop that powers my 20 inch pc screen, hooking up my laptop to the tv would not yield even 1/3 the result of graphical abilities my ps3/360 can do, yet it does everything else just perfectly, going out to buy a dedicated HTPC or something just so i can play batman arkham asylum with higher resolution and better textures just doesn't seem like a good idea at this point, when new batches of consoles are on the way that will surpass whatever is out now for awhile. With that said, it's also much easier to have multiplayer sessions with a console, you can either hook up 4 gamepads to a pc (why?) or just use the ones you have for the console already hooked up to the biggest tv in the house. Good luck playing kinect sports, gears of war or mario kart cafe on the pc, you know?

In general, it comes down to exclusives, cost and ease, the pc seems to get rare exclusives on occasion, but when it does it's not even my type of game. Meanwhile a flow of marios, halos, gears of wars, crackdowns and uncharteds keep coming on the consoles which do suit my taste do.

 

[keyrat]

Gaming for me is a social experience I share with my friends, in person. We play local multi or pass-the-controller. I play in the living room on couches and chairs on a 42" TV. The PC isn't great for this.

That said, for BF3 I'm going PC. My friends will have to crowd around the ol' 19".

 

[Popeck]

NOTHING! I just built a PC after being out of PC gaming for about ten years. It felt good, really good. I was simply amazed when I played Bulletstorm on my PC and compared it to the Xbox 360 version of the game. So smooth, so good-looking. Daymn. There's a lot of games to played, that's for sure.

 

[TheExodu5]

installs + cdkeys + Online verification needs for single player
fuck all that noise

i'm a "plug & play" type of guy and don't have the tolerance for this BS anymore
hate installs on consoles too ugh

Steam.

 

[water_wendi]

To those complaining about cost...I have a suggestion. Don't worry about getting yourself a gaming PC. However, next time you're thinking of getting a new PC, just spend $100-200 more and put a capable graphics card in it. Voila! You've got a powerful piece of gaming hardware for only a justified $200!

It doesnt even take an extra $100-200. My sisters computer.. the cheapest piece of shit she bought from Best Buy.. would be a fine gaming computer with a $60 nvidia GT 240.

 

[digita1alchemy]

The Japanese centric genres that I enjoy don't have much of a presence on PCs. I also enjoy the standardization that consoles bring. There are some FPS games I'd like to play on PC, namely Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 because they would look better and aiming would be easier, but I can't stand playing any game with a keyboard. However, with Phantasy Star Online 2 being developed primarily for PC, I'll finally be devoting a lot of time to a PC game for once. I bought a new laptop especially for it, although I am planning on hooking it up to my HDTV and playing on the couch with a controller and wireless keyboard.

 

[BobsRevenge]

*shudders*

Humans are amazing like that. We can adapt to harsh environments and find ourselves just as joyful as we could be in luxury. Its only when those in luxury cast down aspersions that the self-consciousness kicks in.

 

[Like the hat?]

i do a bit of pc gaming, but I am mostly console. Reason is, if I buy a game for one of my consoles, I know it's going to run properly.

 

[mxgt]

Last game I played on my pc was in 2002.

There are few reasons.......

1. Its not easy to play, you must sit behind your desk. While with a console I can relax on my sofa
2. Install all games + never goes right at first time.
3. Hackers/Cheaters
4. For everey new Big Game you need a new PC

Why do I get the feeling that you aren't joking?

 

[CecilRousso]

I hope that those who think that PC gaming is to expensive aren´t the same people who sits with 200 games in their backlog.

 

[Man God]

Power Draw: During my last major push into PC gaming (2006) or so I noticed a rather dramatic spike in my power in my electric bill. At first I thought it was just a rate spike but then I noticed that the rate hadn't gone up a single bit, my draw had.

I eventually side graded that PC with a nice efficent (read old as hell by today's standards) graphics card and other components. I'll probably build a similar pc sometime next year just because this one is getting old and do a very little bit of gaming on it.

 

[Sanjay]

Getting off my couch. My arse is so ingrained into it I find it so hard to get up most the time.

 

[T Ghost]

Your opinion can be respected but let's not let the greatness of PC gaming dilute your opinion on consoles. You can still have a great and compelling experience on consoles with some good visuals. I say good because we have hit a wall on consoles, no other way to put it. Of course you can still make artistic games that don't require raw horsepower but you cannot produce a beast like The Witcher 2 on consoles with the visual splendor intact. It's difficult to convey how much better a visual punch can make a game that much more immersive (is that even a word ).

And again, you are overstating the difficulty in building a PC. It's not rocket science like it used to be with you having to fix the CPU timings yourself.

I'm happy with console gaming now and I couldn't care less for Japanese develped games, fighting genre and specially Nintendo games. Also couldn't care less for online multiplayer game. Burnedout. I Got all I need for $299. All. I love console games for now. Also I don't have enough grey matter to learn how to use a mouse and keyboard for gaming. And no free time or energy to train myself into it.

But as a graphics whore, I would love every single ounce of visual punch. For that single reason i have lust for PC gaming. But my wallet and time wouldn't let me to pursue this lust of mine.

About "how hard" it to put a gaming rig together, you would be AMAZED if you only realized how much sweat the mainstream consumer has to put out just to set up a stupid Xbox 360 + Kinect.

Now just imagine average soccer-mom/budwiser-fist-bump-NFL-bro-MW-player-gym-local having to figure out what brand and model to buy of: a mother board, CPU, GPU, sound card, memory, case, font, having to buy a windows copy, install it, HDD, install anti-virus, set up ports, subscribe to Steam, dowload games, hook it all up to the HDTV via HDMI, how to make sure that everything goes well together and will give you the performance that you need (how to figure what level of performance that you need in first place). Just to play Madden, FIFA or MW. Or Kinect Adventures/Sports/Zumba Fitness. PC is light years away from mainstream gaming reach.

 

[lowrider007]

I think the reason why people say it's expensive is that it (PC gaming) is expensive unless you become a PC 'only' gamer, which means missing out on a lot of exclusives.

 

[Stallion Free]

As I've mentioned multiple times in this thread, using a controller for online FPS's on the PC puts you at a terrible disadvantage.

Meh in pubs (meaning free of clan dudes) for popular shooters you can do fine. You would be shocked to see how fucking slow some people react in these games. I held up just fine in Black Ops in a pad the couple times I have tried it.

 

[RuGalz]

You'd think these people are so sick of computers that they wouldn't post on GAF in the first place, unless they did it via console.

I mean really, there's no difference in between sitting in front of a TV with a controller than sitting in front of a screen with a mouse. Also consider that with a PC, you can still sit in front of a TV and use a controller while you play.

Can't speak for the others but I usually browse/post GAF between the couple minutes downtime between compile or whatever while at work. PC, for a lot of people, aren't in the same room as the living room. And while you can game on PC on a TV, there are many things I use the PC for that aren't suitable to do it in front of a TV, which means if I want to game properly I'd need 2 pretty beefy PCs. That's a lot of money.

I have HTPC at home that I tried to game on it once a while, if the requirement is low enough for it to handle. It's just not that convenient. Sometimes this doesn't work, sometimes that doesn't work. It's all resolvable but require more thoughts than just turning on the console and press start. Other than that, for me, the console exclusives are much more interesting.

 

[Ikuu]

This shouldn't be so far fetched with HDMI support on most if not all of the recent cards.

But at the same time i can't be bothered to do it.

The main reason is that I know that i have to move the computer back to my desk eventually if i want to do some computer work on it. So i just don;t move it. I usually play in bursts of 1 hour each. Moving the computer to my TV to play for one hour seems like too much work.

Get a longer HDMI Cable and Wireless M+KB, pretty sure EviLore has this exact setup.

 

[ShootingB1anks]

I used to be a PC gamer for one reason, Microsoft Flight Simulator. I would upgrade my PC every year so I could keep up with the add-ons and such for the series. Once Microsoft did away with the ACES team and canceled Flight Simulator along with the soon to be released (at that time) Train Simulator, I was like screw this, I'm done with PCs.

I would play all the new shooters and such on my PC because I had a top-of-the-line rig back in the day.

My last upgrade to my rig in 2007, and I just bought a new iMac in April, so the old PC has been retired.

Do I see myself getting another high end PC? Not really. Even thought Microsoft has somewhat restarted the flight simulator series with "Flight", it still has yet to be knowen if "Flight" will be a hardcore simulator, or if it turns into a casual GAME! If it keeps its hardcore aspects then I MIGHT get another PC with the latest and greatest video card and cpu.

Sure I would love to play BF3 and MW3 on a super PC with flat out awesome graphics but I cant justify paying $2,000 for a setup without knowing my true love "Flight Simulator" would be coming back in all its glory.

Marc

 

[Sp3eD]

I only played FPS's on PC.

Nothing will ever equal the greatness of Quake 2, Q3A, or UT99 so it is not worth investing just to watch every FPS game each year try and fail to live up to them.

 

[Princess Skittles]

I feel bad for people who avoid PC gaming for the some of the reasons that have been posted in the this thread. Just say you <3 your favorite console manufacturer and be done with it.

I mean, I know all too well that GAF has its share of console warriors (and don't think everyone hasn't noticed how freaking obnoxious and elitist this "master race" shit has become lately), but can you point out any response in this thread that leads to any sort of console manufacturer bias? Most of the responses that I've seen that could be misconstrued as that are simply indicating games and genres that aren't represented in the PC space very well (which IS a problem, especially for fans of Japanese developers).

There's the popular "comfy couch" argument, but unless they say "Comfy PlayStation" with a Kratos avatar, it's hard to ascertain manufacturer bias out of that.

 

[sixteen-bit]

In a word, expense. Barrier to entry is too high.

 

[TheBrain76]

Laziness, simplicity, intimidation, call it what you will.

I never ever have to question whether or not my consoles can run a game.

 

[Salsa]

And yeah the HDTV talk is madness. I play on a dual monitor setting, one of them being a 26 inch HDTV, and i dont even use the HDMI input, i use a regular dvi one since i have my audio hooked up to an independent set of speakers. The size is just big enough to play either being close on my desk, or chilling from my couch with a joystick playing racing games.

Easy as pie, more than worth it. Im getting the same level of comfort i can get on consoles, and at the same time getting the superior experience.

 

[PooBone]

Steam.

Steam doesn't have the entire market of PC titles on it.

 

[Rad-]

Maybe you have a desk with spikes coming out of them or something, but if you're somebody who works with computers in your job you should have no problem spending hours on end using them, comfortably. I find the best position is to have your keyboard pretty much on the end of the desk with just a tiny gap to rest the base of your hands on.

Why not? Who says using your PC in work is comfortable?

 

[OldJadedGamer]

Steam.

So you can have your PC totally offline, put in Portal 2 for the first time and you can play it without connecting to steam? Thats a great feature I didn't know about since I thought you were required to have a connection to verify at first.

 

[Old Gimlet Eyes]

As I've mentioned multiple times in this thread, using a controller for online FPS's on the PC puts you at a terrible disadvantage.

Not when developers do the controls right. While not an FPS, Lead and Gold lets KB/M and controller users play against each other. I clean up almost every match I play and get top kills all the time with my controller, against KB/M users. When developers put both systems of controls in and don't gimp either of them, it comes down to personal preference. Unfortunately, Lead and Gold is the only game that I have seen this done right in. Every other game either gimps one form of control or the other.

Also, for class based games such as Bad Company and Brink, it's not all about the killing. You don't need massive aiming skills to throw a medic pack or revive syringe. You don't need twitch headshot skills to repair something. Some games lack controller support and it just doesn't make sense.

 

[Alx]

I would still play on PC if I had a desk to work/play on... But I've been using a laptop as a main computer for years now, which is very convenient for everything but gaming.

 

[The_Darkest_Red]

Meh in pubs (meaning free of clan dudes) for popular shooters you can do fine. You would be shocked to see how fucking slow some people react in these games. I held up just fine in Black Ops in a pad the couple times I have tried it.

It doesn't matter, my competitive nature won't allow for that. I put a lot of value into a relatively level playing field.

 

[PooBone]

Get a longer HDMI Cable and Wireless M+KB, pretty sure EviLore has this exact setup.

Why go buy more stuff when I could just play on the same TV with a 360 or PS3 controller?

 

[Salsa]

Steam doesn't have the entire market of PC titles on it.

give it time

 

[TheExodu5]

Can't speak for the others but I usually browse/post GAF between the couple minutes downtime between compile or whatever while at work. PC, for a lot of people, aren't in the same room as the living room. And while you can game on PC on a TV, there are many things I use the PC for that aren't suitable to do it in front of a TV, which means if I want to game properly I'd need 2 pretty beefy PCs. That's a lot of money.

I have HTPC at home that I tried to game on it once a while, if the requirement is low enough for it to handle. It's just not that convenient. Sometimes this doesn't work, sometimes that doesn't work. It's all resolvable but require more thoughts than just turning on the console and press start. Other than that, for me, the console exclusives are much more interesting.

I have a setup that works great for PC and console gaming at a desk. Get a comfortable chair and a good desk, and you'll never want to leave.

My arm can rest on the right side when I game on the PC. No mouse & keyboard fatigue whatsoever. My chair is plush and leather, and has a great recline to it. Extremely comfortable.

 

[scitek]

Last game I played on my pc was in 2002.

There are few reasons.......

1. Its not easy to play, you must sit behind your desk. While with a console I can relax on my sofa
2. Install all games + never goes right at first time.
3. Hackers/Cheaters
4. For everey new Big Game you need a new PC

Haha, not anymore. The majority of the big games also being on consoles has slowed the advancement of them to a crawl. Oftentimes you'll be playing the same games, just with anti-aliasing and a much higher framerate.

 

[Tain]

eh pc gaming you get what you put into it.

Does it take more money, time, effort than console gaming? Yes.

But when I can play Fallout 3, or Oblivion, or GTA Vice City with the tweaks/mods/etc "the way I want to play", its worth it for me.

Yeah. It's pretty simple.

There's a degree of convenience that the dedicated are willing to give up in order to play or have a better experience with a certain game. Not everyone falls into that.

Some people are fine playing on shitty TVs, some people are fine playing on terrible PC hardware, some people are fine playing certain genres with gamepads instead of joysticks or mouse+keyboard, some people are fine sticking with mobile games, some people would like to play Steel Battalion but don't want to spend the cash or time to get it and set it up, and so on.

Others know what they want and are willing to go through some hassle to get it.

 

[The_Darkest_Red]

Not when developers do the controls right. While not an FPS, Lead and Gold lets KB/M and controller users play against each other. I clean up almost every match I play and get top kills all the time with my controller, against KB/M users. When developers put both systems of controls in and don't gimp either of them, it comes down to personal preference. Unfortunately, Lead and Gold is the only game that I have seen this done right in. Every other game either gimps one form of control or the other.

Also, for class based games such as Bad Company and Brink, it's not all about the killing. You don't need massive aiming skills to throw a medic pack or revive syringe. You don't need twitch headshot skills to repair something. Some games lack controller support and it just doesn't make sense.

So you're saying that KB/M has no advantage over dual analogs when both methods of control are optimized? I think a lot of PC gamers in here would disagree.

 

[Ikuu]

Why go buy more stuff when I could just play on the same TV with a 360 or PS3 controller?

Because this allows the best of both worlds? You can sit and play infront of the TV, and also sit at a desk and use a monitor if you want to do something else.

 

[Dirtbag]

Because I'm a laptop guy... and I'm not gaming on a laptop.
And no I'm not buying an additional machine to play video games on.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Last game I played on my pc was in 2002.

There are few reasons.......

1. Its not easy to play, you must sit behind your desk. While with a console I can relax on my sofa
2. Install all games + never goes right at first time.
3. Hackers/Cheaters
4. For everey new Big Game you need a new PC

Is this a joke? I hope so. I probably shouldn't even be responding, but whatever:

1. You can use your PC from a sofa just as easily.
2. While this may vary from user to user, I never have installation problems. Then again, I've only bought one retail PC game in the last 4 years or so. Everything else is from digital download outlets like Steam and GOG. Also, you're doing a whole ton of installing games on your consoles now, too, unless you only have a Wii or something.
3. Hackers and Cheaters are plentiful in online console games and you don't even have the option to kick them from the server like most PC shooters.
4. This hasn't been true for a very, very long time.

 

[manzo]

I really don't understand this train of thought at all. I program for 9 hours a day at work, and I have no issues sitting in front of a PC gaming for hours on end.

Do you need a comfier chair? Do you need a bigger TV? Why do you find PC and console so different...why does playing on a PC make you uncomfortable?

I have a perfectly nice PC built at home, 22" monitor, good chair.

The problem is, I'm playing with a home projector. Keyboard and mouse = not good on the sofa and ATI's drivers for detecting HDMI devices still suck (stupid forced overscans that reset even though you've saved the settings to a profile unless you switch the modes back and forth etc).

Like I said; give me a 100% controller-compatible, 100% hassle-free UI. The box that's in the living room; I don't give a rat's ass if it has Sony, Nintendo or MS logo on it, as long as I don't have to do anything extra.

I guess that's what it boils down to. I'm one of those who heavily modified autoexec.bats and config.sys'es back in the 90's, trying to get 602kb of base memory free to be able to play Alone in the Dark 3. I loved PC's when they did shit that the consoles couldn't.

Now that I'm getting older, the less hassle, the better. I have enough toying around with SQL servers and customer servers when I'm at work. I configure our software to our customer's need every day; I don't want to configure anything while I'm at home.

It was different back in the 90's; FPS games and most of the good PC games weren't available for consoles. These days, everything that's actually worth playing in my eyes also appear on the consoles Same shit, less hassle. Graphics and frame rate are worse. So what? Don't care after 5 minutes of game play.

Is this a joke? I hope so. I probably shouldn't even be responding, but whatever:

1. You can use your PC from a sofa just as easily.
2. While this may vary from user to user, I never have installation problems. Then again, I've only bought one retail PC game in the last 4 years or so. Everything else is from digital download outlets like Steam and GOG. Also, you're doing a whole ton of installing games on your consoles now, too, unless you only have a Wii or something.
3. Hackers and Cheaters are plentiful in online console games and you don't even have the option to kick them from the server like most PC shooters.
4. This hasn't been true for a very, very long time.

While points 2, 3 and 4 are points that I totally get behind, number 1 is the reason why it's so fucking hard to switch to PC. Because you can't. That's the problem.

 

[Saty]

For those saying all their friends are playing on consoles, will you consider getting a PC at the start of the next generation instead\before a console?

 

[Salsa]

I have a setup that works great for PC and console gaming at a desk. Get a comfortable chair and a good desk, and you'll never want to leave.

http://thejayzone.com/pics/pc/tv.jpg[/ img]

[IMG]http://thejayzone.com/pics/pc/sonyall.jpg[/ IMG]

My arm can rest on the right side when I game on the PC. No mouse & keyboard fatigue whatsoever. My chair is plush and leather, and has a great recline to it. Extremely comfortable.[/QUOTE]

I have pretty much the same thing, just with a smaller tv and PC+Wii. My desk is similar although a little bigger since i have 2 monitors and yeah, like i said, i can either play from a chair in front of the desk or move a bit back and be sitting on my couch with a controller on my hand. Best of both worlds.

 

[luxarific]

I mean really, there's no difference in between sitting in front of a TV with a controller than sitting in front of a screen with a mouse. Also consider that with a PC, you can still sit in front of a TV and use a controller while you play.

I cannot disagree more. Sitting six+ feet away from a large 50-inch HDTV on a couch vs a foot or less from a 21-inch LCD in a task chair are really disparate experiences. The first is much more relaxing than the second for me and I suspect for a lot of people who work 8+ hours at a desktop each day. My body needs a change of environment for me to relax and I can't do it at a desk since it's so strongly associated with "work" in my mind.

 

[Dirtbag]

For those saying all their friends are playing on consoles, will you consider getting a PC at the start of the next generation instead\before a console?

absolutely not

 

[genjiZERO]

because desk-top computers are arcane. I have no reason to ever spend money on one. I'd play PC games if they maximised them for my MacBook Pro.

 

[CountAntonius]

Is it really that hard to except that some people are simply content gaming on consoles? Even if there is better out there not everyone cares enough about gaming to go after that experience. Especially since they are happy as is.

 

[The_Darkest_Red]

1. You can use your PC from a sofa just as easily.

Just as easily?