Why I Am a Console Junkie

By samson7point1
I've been a die-hard Nintendo fanboy for as long as I've known what Nintendo was. When I first saw the NES and what it did, some magical switch clicked in my head and I've been hooked ever since. I remember getting into arguments that nearly led to blows with Sega fans. Silly? Sure, but I was a kid and what is childhood but a chance to be serious when you're being silly?

Flash forward over a dozen years, and I find myself still having arguments with other games over platform preference, but now the argment isn't Nintendo vs. Sega, it's Console vs. PC.

Now the arguments in favor of PC gaming have always been the following:
  • The keyboard and mouse setup offers the ultimate precise control
  • PC's are modular and can be way more powerful than consoles
  • PC's are useful for a lot more than just playing games - Teamspeak, for example.
These are the points that I find myself debating with PC enthusiasts, and here are my rebuttals:

  • Although I freely admit that mouse control allows quicker, more precise targeting than joystick control, it is ergonomically unsound and inferior for traversing game environments.
  • Although PC's can have higher technical specs than consoles, they are very seldom actually superior because PC hardware is general use and not specialized like a console (in other words, consoles can do more with less because they were made with a specific purpose in mind), this also makes PC's more expensive than a console of comparable power, and much less compatible. PC games tend to have a large number of bugs simply owing to the fact that the game makers have to account for such a diverse variety of possible configurations. This has led to a tendancy of game makers to knowingly release deeply flawed games with the itention of maybe releasing a patch later when they work out what's wrong. Consoles, on the other hand, generally have a static configuration so the game makers only have to make it work on one platform to know that it will play properly for everyone who buys it.
  • PC's are useful for other things, but that's not what this debate is about. This debate is about whether PC's are better game machines and they are not.
I will sum up my whole reason for being a console junkie: In 1998 I purchased a copy of Final Fantasy VII for the PC. My present computer, which is well over 15 times as powerful as the Playstation in every conceivable respect, will not play it. The game was designed for Windows 95 and will not run properly on XP, and the manufacturer has absolutely no intention of correcting this problem. So, if I want to play Final Fantasy VII, I have to go back to the Playstation. Of the very few PC titles I have purchased, most of them will not play on my current PC. One could argue that if I had kept all of the old hardware like I kept my console hardware that I'd still be able to play those old games, but my PS2 still plays them fine and if Sony is to be believed, my PS3 will as well.

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