Last August, when considering the PC vs consoles debate, we planted our flag on the side of the PC after a year of being underwhelmed by the current next-gen consoles. Now of course, things are very different.
Both Xbox One and Playstation 4 are properly bedded into the market, with all kinds of exclusives to tempt players to one side or the other. Why, for six whole hours, Playstation 4 owners had The Order! Both systems are also supplementing their existing line-up with an exciting range of remastered versions of beloved games, a couple of which aren't even just the PC versions from a couple of years ago! Truly, we live in a golden age.
Okay, so that's said with tongue firmly in cheek. Both Xbox One and PS4 finally have some notable exclusives, like Bloodborne, with more on the way. The fact that more and more traditional console developers have finally bitten the bullet and begun developing for PC also doesn't mean an end to long waits.
GTA V has had two different outings on Playstation and Xbox systems, with the PC version still not out. Ground Zeroes took almost a year to make the jump, with Metal Gear Solid V not arriving for two weeks after launch. Goodness only knows what's happening with the new Tomb Raider and when it'll break free of Xbox One. If you want a few specific games, increasingly cheap hardware, and a nice sleek wrapper, consoles still have a solid sell.
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Still, we stand by what we said last August. Outside of those precious few experiences, you just can't beat the PC - and, honestly, the Wii U's small but scrappy library is probably its best accompaniment. It doesn't hurt that both Microsoft and Sony tend to translate 'exclusive' as simply 'not on our main corporate rival', meaning that the PC is still ready to be a secondary market that doesn't make anyone look weak for supporting it, even if it isn't a particular company's normal platform of choice. The only real reason not to support it and get the money left on the table is if either Sony or Microsoft has footed the bill.
For the players
On a consumer level, the savings alone more than justify the potential extra outlay or occasional graphics card upgrade. For the price of a single console game you can get entire libraries during Steam sales, to say nothing of free-to-play games that generally continue, shockingly, to almost not even be evil at all!
You're also opening up the wonderful world of indie games, free online play as standard, and a back catalogue of great games so extensive that you could play nothing new until you die and never run out of classics. (Though it will still probably be worth taking a quick pause for Arkham Knight this summer. And definitely The Witcher 3).
That being said, things could be a little rosier in some areas. Last year was supposed to feature the triumph of Valve's Steam Machines, breaking away from Microsoft's control in favour of a more open Linux based world. So far, Valve's apparently found it a struggle just to make a gamepad, with even initial supporters having given up waiting. Nobody is talking about Linux any more, while early machines like the Alienware Alpha that were supposed to be part of the vanguard have ended up just shipping with Windows instead.
Likewise, after years of waiting, we're still holding out both for a release date of the Oculus Rift and for some real hints about whether the software will truly herald the return of VR. The DK2, while a prototype, has led to lots of cute demos like Sightline and a few games like Shufflepuck Cantina and at least one site devoted to selling 180 degree virtual reality porn. Still, it would be good to have something truly visionary to look forward to.
Promising project
This is one area where the Playstation 4 at least stands to make some real ground. Sony's Project Morpheus has been getting great press, but its biggest advantage is that it'll be the only game in town for console VR next year. On PC, we already have an incoming clash between Oculus, HTC/Valve, and potentially Microsoft with its augmented reality approach, HoloLens.
Competition is great for pushing forward technology, but the different design philosophies and experiences provided by all these devices (Oculus for instance is focused on sit-down experiences, while Valve/HTC are trumpeting the ability to walk around in their Vive) could easily lead to expensive confusion in the market. It wouldn't take much disappointment to torpedo the whole thing.
That said, on PC the basic technology can stick around as long as people are interested in it, and developers are willing to support it. On Playstation 4 it could easily end up being dropped as quickly as the Xbox One's love affair with Kinect, while the nature of the console market means that generation-level updates would likely have to be saved for the next console cycle. The PC is a much better place for early adopters to help work out the inevitable issues and for everyone else to jump in once the teething problems are fixed.
For the developers
PC is also increasingly the best platform for developers to work on. This GDC saw Unity 5, Unreal Engine 4 and Valve's upcoming Source 2 engine made free to at least a point, with tools like Gamemaker Studio and interactive fiction creator Twine having largely shaken off the snobbery that greeted them a couple of years ago. Some will still sniff at that, yes, but unless they've personally made better games than Gunpoint, Spelunky and Hotline Miami, there's no reason to respond with anything but a Kleenex for their nasty cold.
Both Sony and Microsoft meanwhile have a vested interest in keeping things limited, even when it's in such self-destructive ways as Microsoft's 'parity clause' - a petulant (if occasionally flexible) refusal to publish indie games on Xbox One that have previously appeared elsewhere, which might give the shocking impression that the world doesn't revolve around its shop. Sony meanwhile has no such silly rule, but of course still controls the Playstation's only shop and indies wanting to get onto it still have to jump through hoops to do so.
The result is that while you can get indie games on consoles, their spiritual home remains on PC, where they can be sold, bundled, given away and promoted, or take advantage of innovative ways of selling games like Early Access that neither console has shown any interest in risking touching with the proverbial barge-pole. Nor has either even half-heartedly embraced the joys of modding, despite the huge success of games like Skyrim and Minecraft and services like Valve's one-click Steam Workshop for making games better.
All things considered
So, what does that all that give us? Unless you're a player that only plays a couple of exclusive games like Halo, the PC wins hands down. Even a mediocre machine comprehensively canes the competition in scope. Any additional cost is more than covered by the cheap price of games once inside (ignoring the fact that you don't need a dedicated games PC to play great PC games) and, while it's possible to spend a fortune squeezing every pixel and frame out of a rig, doing so absolutely isn't required.
If you do have an eye on the future though, it's where the most exciting stuff is happening, from VR to cool peripherals to 4K graphics. Neither console is ready for that right now, and even if they were, there's little reason to upgrade a whole TV just for that. A desktop monitor however is another story, especially since you can lie to yourself that it's really for work.
The one big advantage consoles do currently have? It's unquestionably more more comfortable to play games on the sofa than at a desk, save for a few specific genres that demand a mouse and keyboard. By the end of the year though, even that problem will have gone away, with Steam Link boxes available for the cost of a new game.
If anything, what's surprising about this generation is what an easy fight it is. Historically, new consoles start by knocking everything else into a cocked hat, with PC owners having to wait a year or two for first parity, and then superiority. This time though, it's been less a battle of technologies than ecosystems, and one where the PC holds all the trump cards.
Game catalogues, prices, ongoing system potential… the decision to be a PC gamer may not always feel like the easiest or most stylish, but it's absolutely the best one. A year and a half after release, neither Xbox One nor Playstation 4 even have a real answer to it, never mind a good one.
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