I subscribe to the “games are games” school of thought. I have been a PC Gamer since the beginning of PC gaming, I also own at least one console from each generation dating back to the Atari 5200, including handhelds. I have all the consoles from the past two generations.

Even with all the consoles and console games I have, I still consider myself a PC gamer. The PC is my preferred system, and if I had to chose only one it would be the PC. That being said, I think certain games are more enjoyable when kicking back on a couch with a gamepad. As I’m sure all of you know, PC gaming can be frustrating at times, so sometimes it’s nice to just play a game that WORKS, period.

Anyway, I have fond gaming memories from both platforms. Split screen gaming was a total blast with friends, but then so was online gaming. Back before the days of broadband and VOIP, my friends and I used to call each other on the phone (conference call style) and talk while playing online together. Everything from direct dial-up RTS games to online shooters like Rainbow Six, Tribes, and the first iteration of CS.

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To wrap this up once and for all, I guess I feel that every platform has its merits. The PC is certainly limited by accessibility issues and technical hurdles, it’s not like anyone could ever claim it’s an ideal system. Ultimately you just go with the platform that has the games and genres you’re interested in.

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As a final word, if you get the impression that I’m calling you smugly superior, or disregarding everything you say, it’s not intended – at least not aimed at you (which is why I put the break in after my reply to you, because that was aimed at the thread in general not any one person). I’ve read everything you’ve replied with and agree with much of it – disagree with bits and appreciate the well thought out and intelligent replies.
Any tone of dismissal was aimed firmly at those few in this thread who personify the fanboy and elitist “PC Gamer” stereotypes. They clearly stand out.

Edit: Oh, and I just realized that all the way back then, I never really clarified that when talking about console exclusives and 3 great games to every 1 on the PC, I was thinking more along the lines of AAA titles than Indie stuff… while the consoles have some nice stuff that I want/have (flower, SF2 HD remix etc), I think it’s pretty much a given that PC is the undisputed king of Indie games/mods.

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Yes I do, I don’t think it would have mattered one bit if Microsoft based the 360 on exclusive proprietary hardware that was unlike anything seen in windows machines – What cause consoles to sell are the games and the simplicity of features like live. Now it may not have been as good, just because MS had a vast experience to draw from when designing the 360 based on PC compatible hardware – but assuming it was just as good at playing games, downloading DLC and playing on Xbox live, I don’t think it would have mattered one bit to xbox owners what exactly was under the hood. Even if that made porting a 360 game to a PC a massive struggle for a Dev, one not worth the price of doing.
After all it never harmed the playstation 1 or 2 one bit.

Guess we’ll have to just agree to disagree on that one then. The 360 was based around DirectX, and that allowed it to be multiplatform with the PC far easier than the other consoles on the market. This is something that helped it tremendously. The initial push by Halo was definitely a plus point, but after that, yeah, I feel it was an important factor. It’s not just about technical capabilities, but also about which genres and styles of games would become most viable on the system, and that was helped no end by it being able to bring on and eventually become a leader for things like WRPG’s and FPS’s from the PC side, which up until that point had largely failed to make any headway into the console sphere. What causes consoles to sell are the games, as you stated, what games were available for the XBox and 360 was heavily helped by an easier porting processes between PC and those systems. It’s something that differentiated Microsoft’s machine heavily from Sony, and I’d say that combined with Live was the edge they needed in order to come out on top of the PS3 this generation.

Whilst you state the lack of those titles wouldn’t have meant much because the PS1 and 2 survived without them, I would say those were crucial for how MS ended up being competitive and ultimately surpassing the Playstation family. In a lot of ways the Xbox was largely billed as the PC in a box: Easier and more convenient to use, same great games. At the same time it was capable of whatever Sony could do on their machine. It’s something that ended up making a lot of genres that were previously PC only or PC lead and getting them onto the console market or even console lead development.

Even the push for Live (not to detract from MS’s amazing achievements with that system), was heavily influenced early on by the fact that PC style games and genres that had been doing online for years were now coming to the console. These games NEEDED online, MS saw that, and that it was now necessary to have a well developed online architecture in order to suit those new styles of game coming out. Let’s face it, before the XBox and XBL, multiplayer in the console sphere was non-existent and in most circles considered ancillary to the “core” experience of single system co-op.

Since then Live has metamorphosed into a massive all encompassing beast of a system, but without that initial push of multiplayer games (which not to stress the point, were to a large extent non-existent in the console sphere before the XBox), it would be a shadow of what it is today. The Playstation missed out on those styles of games, as did Nintendo. They never developed equivalent competing systems, and in actuality, never saw the need to. This is something that at the very least has hamstrung the PS3 right now, with Sony playing catch up to MS’s online capability this generation.

You also pointed out that good ports were mainly from the 360 and nowhere else as if this were a major stumbling block. I pointed out why this is the only natural course at the moment, and each of the other platforms suffers from similar.

Look, you can call me smugly superior all you want, and if you want, you can also disregard everything I’ve just said in this post about the Xbox and how its link to the PC helped it. Ultimately, all I did was take issue with your comments regarding ports, and the statement that there are far more good games on the console side per release on the PC. Which when looked at objectively, I can’t really accept at all, or at the very least not to the degree stated. As I said before, I’m not arguing that anyone should own just one system, but I still disagree with where you’re coming from on those points.

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Then again, Blizzard sell all of their games online too.. ;)

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It’s the attitude of “I pick X, therefore Y sucks” that more than anything else stops someone being a gamer.
Similar to how many lovers of indie film eschew main stream Hollywood film as being inferior, dumbed down and unimportant, I’d have the same issue with someone like that calling themselves a Filmbuff (or such term).

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Personally, I’ve limited myself even more by choosing a Mac computer.. but surely that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be a gamer, right?

I mean, I’m a mac gamer (although I have Windows XP now through a partition), but that is just what I am, since I play games on that system. It´s not as if I loathe consoles.. I just don´t own any, since I don´t find them appealing enough.

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To that question, a reversal: Do you honestly think the 360 would have been a viable platform to support genres and styles of games that are / were PC lead if it weren’t so heavily based on the PC?

Yes I do, I don’t think it would have mattered one bit if Microsoft based the 360 on exclusive proprietary hardware that was unlike anything seen in windows machines – What cause consoles to sell are the games and the simplicity of features like live. Now it may not have been as good, just because MS had a vast experience to draw from when designing the 360 based on PC compatible hardware – but assuming it was just as good at playing games, downloading DLC and playing on Xbox live, I don’t think it would have mattered one bit to xbox owners what exactly was under the hood. Even if that made porting a 360 game to a PC a massive struggle for a Dev, one not worth the price of doing.
After all it never harmed the playstation 1 or 2 one bit.

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Just because you (general non-specific “you”) may not like a game style, or genre, doesn’t mean it’s rubbish – you may hate JRPGs, or whatever, but some of them are still fantastic games, with high production values, expertly coded and playable.
I personally can’t stand collectable card games, but I don’t for a second believe that all of them are stupid or lesser than my preferred style of card game.
It’s just plain ignorance to define other peoples choice of entertainment as lesser, dumber or poorer than your own, just because you have a personal aversion.

My point was never that consoles are better, as I said in my first post I spend more time playing games on my PC than any other platform, it’s my preferred platform over all.
I’m still not a “PC gamer” though, I’m just a gamer… I don’t care what the platform is, I go where the great games are.

In a way PC gamer fanboyism is worse than Xbox kiddy fanboyism, we’ll all agree that your 360 fan boy PS3 hating fool is exactly that, an ignorant fool. There’s a kind of smug superiority around many “PC gamers” that I personally loathe.
I’d be the first to agree that the vast majority of the time FPS games are better with a mouse and keyboard, it’s more accurate, faster and allows for much greater range of skill (no auto aim) for competitive gaming, combined with generally higher FPS, better resolution and refresh rates I’d much rather play an FPS on my PC.
I’d not say the same for a driving game though, I’d much rather play that with a controller, sitting on my couch with it on the TV – I can use my PC to do so with a 360 controller, and I often do. pre-360 though, I’d have used my PS2 or PS1 every time, because inevitably, the ports would suck.

It’s an attitude that is summed up by archonsod here in this thread, the opinion that PC games are smarter, and console games are dumb kids games – which may have had some truth in the Genesis/SNES days – but really that stopped being true once consoles had access to comparable media storage as PCs (the CD rom, then DVD rom).
A dumb game is a dumb game no matter the platform, though I’d agree it is probably easier to sell a dumb game on a console than on a PC.
Of course often the price of that complexity on the PC market was buggy, unfinished, or just plain broken games, despite the great game under it (basically any troika game serves as example).

What I find amusing though, is the need to defend the PC platform against attacks that were never levelled against it (at least by me).

It’s not about been pro-PC, or Pro-console, it was never about Pc vs. console, or PC vs. 360 for me.
It’s about being Pro-Great games, and my opinion that you can’t really call yourself a gamer if limit yourself (by choice, I understand not everyone can afford to buy all of them) to a single platform.
I’ll buy whatever platform I need too buy (eventually, funds allowing) to play the games that appeal to me. I just think that limiting yourself as a gamer to any one platform with close minded attitude (“all console games suck” as seen in this thread) is the equivalent of saying “I’ll only watch TV shows on cable, all web-based TV sucks!”

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The End.

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We don’t need no stinkin ports, we got emulation!

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