Console gaming vs PC gaming

Recently I made the switch from PS3 to PC, and as a result have been enjoying my gaming sessions much much more. I've been thinking about why and I couldn't come up with a concrete answer, so I started thinking about why console gamers hate on PC gamers all the time. Then I started looking at reasons online, some of the points people make are just stupid.

One of the first points I came across was "controller > mouse & keyboard". This made me laugh initially as it's a moot point anyway. I guess the poster hasn't heard of controllers for PC. But lets imagine a crazy and anarchic world where they didn't exist. In my opinion, mouse & keyboard are still superior.

Play a shooter, any shooter with a mouse and keyboard, and you'll immediately discover this. But if that's not enough, how about RTS? try playing a RTS with a controller, have fun pushing a mouse cursor round the screen with your analog sticks. Still not enough? how about RPGs? Good examples of this are Sacred 2/Dungeon Siege 3. You can map your spells to 3 buttons, then hold a different button to toggle to a different spell set of 3 spells on the same buttons. I'd rather just map 6 spells to 6 buttons and avoid any confusion or miscasting. Oh wait, I can, it's called a keyboard. This is the sole reason that MOBAs and MMORPGs do not work on consoles.

"But we can chill on the couch and play on the big TV!" - good for you! I can sit in my nice leather office chair, close enough to my 24" full HD monitor that when taking in to account distance and perspective is bigger than your 42" TV that you're sat 8 feet from. Oh, and I can run an HDMI to my TV from my PC and do the same.

Another arguing point seems to be the "constant" need for upgrades. PC gamers do not need to upgrade their graphics card every year/2 years and so on - they may choose to though, if they absolutely must run everything on max settings in crazy resolutions. Or if they want to get all competitive about their frame rates. Which, on a side note - are superior on PC. I locked my FPS at 30 as an experiment whilst playing Crysis 2, and after playing at 60 FPS for so long I can honestly say that 30 felt like playing in slow motion. It was horrible.

"But my console is cheaper than your PC and does exactly the same thing". Lets face it, no it isn't, and no it doesn't. It might be initially more expensive to build a gaming PC than buy a console, but not by as much as you may think. A brand new console at the start of a generation will set you back £300-£400. Add in a years subscription for your online gaming at £40. Then consider things you'll need like an HDMI cable, and a few of games. You're looking at about £550-£600. Now assuming you have a TV (if you don't, then really consoles are more expensive) this is cheaper than a gaming PC sure. Or is it? When I built my PC I got 3 free games with my graphics card. That immediately knocked about £100 off the cost. Then you have the long-term cost - games. PC games are undeniably cheaper than console games, especially during a Steam sale. I recently built a library of PC games for a fraction of the cost that the same number of games would have cost on console. So we've established that it's not any cheaper to play on a console.

Now lets look at functionality - can a console do the following;

• Capture video on any game with no extra hardware? No
• Be used for other things such as photo & movie editing & digital art? No.
• Be used to write programs yourself? No.
• Allow you to mod your games to either enhance the experience or fix bugs? No.

I could have added more to the list, things like internet browsing, video streaming, LAN gaming and so on. Whilst consoles can technically do these things, they're not very good for it. Ever tried to browse the internet using a PS3 controller? Give me a mouse and keyboard. Video streaming? on an Xbox 360 it's limited to Netflix/Lovefilm and so on. On a PS3 you can find whatever, but it's a chore doing so. Still think consoles and PCs do the same thing?

Another "point" console gamers make is that they get "tonnes" (read: 1, perhaps 2 per year) of "awesome" exclusives. Last time I checked - PC has way more. To name a few - Civ V, Arma 3, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Company of Heroes 2, Rome 2: Total War,  DOTA 2, LoL, add to this list just about every MMORPG ever made, and the vast majority of indie games, plus all the others I missed. Now where are all those exclusives again? Oh, and we get 95% of console games ported too.

Then there's the good old "PC games always need patching" well, last I checked so do console games. Also, PC generally gets "patched" first through the modding community. There is no modding community on consoles. If I had to play Skyrim without mods again I think i'd literally vomit all over myself and burst in to tears.