It's not only a problem of visual quality, which will always be better on PCs. Controls on consoles for games such as FPS, RPG, or RTS usually suck, because they are not meant for this kind of games. Unfortunately, there are few multiplayer games in game types where consoles are better, apart from racing games.
"You simply dont get the same level of detail or control as you do with a PC over a console": So I must say that this sentence is completely false. Unless something revolutionary is inverted for consoles (which is not happening in the near or even distant future), PCs will still have far better controls for the type of game they bused in their experiment.
Rahul Sood, who started Voodoo PC and is now an exec at HP, is never one to shy away from bold statements. In his latest missive, he claims that Microsoft has killed a project that would have pitted PC gamers against Xbox fraggers in online play.
Why? According to Sood, Microsoft expected the Xbox players to cream PC gamers, but the opposite occurred: the top-notch Xbox players the company used would repeatedly lose to what Sood describes as “mediocre” PC gamers.
It’s unclear why Microsoft would have pulled the plug on such an experiment, but Sood — a long-time advocate for PC gaming — speculates that if the company had implemented the PC-Xbox gaming bridge with its Live online environment, the Microsoft’s Xbox team was would have been embarrassed.
Sood laments that this is another sign that PC gaming is being marginalized even though he feels it provides the best gaming experience available:
You simply don’t get the same level of detail or control as you do with a PC over a console. It’s a real shame that Microsoft killed this — because had they kept it alive it might have actually increased the desire of game developers and gamers alike to continue developing and playing rich experiences on the PC which would trickle down to the console as it has in the past.
But, all things considered, does the PC provide the best experience? On the one hand, the latest PC graphics cards can provide better visual quality than console units. On the other hand, you can get a dedicated gaming machine with good graphics for less than you would spend for the latest graphics card. If price is no object, Sood is right that you could buy or assemble a desktop that is superior to the console, but most people don’t have the means to drop a few thousand on such systems. For them, an Xbox 360 or PS3 is more than adequate.
Those of you who have both a console and a PC gaming setup: which do you prefer? Do you find you get better control on your PC, as Sood argues? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments section.
[Via The Inquirer]
