Are you trying to decide between an Xbox One and a PS4? According to Nvidia you should just skip both consoles and grab yourself a PC. Matt Wright, consumer sales manager at Nvidia, is shaking up the console wars with some recent comments he made in an interview with MCV. According to Wright, "The PC platform is far superior to any console when it comes to gaming." This is an argument that has been made six ways to Sunday, and this isn't the first time that Nvidia has compared PCs to consoles.
The company is hopeful it can rope in some more customers who may be on the fence about what's best for them in this newest generation of gaming. Wright spoke about the company's plan during the interview:
"We are proposing small form-factor PCs to be a viable alternative to the next-gen consoles. Enthusiast players want the ultimate games system and that is the PC. We want to make PC gaming as simple as possible and we think that it's already becoming much more relevant and appealing to casual gamers."
It seems that Nvidia has recognized that complexity is a real issue that separates PC and console gaming. Although some people may not feel it's a big deal, others certainly prefer a console for the simplicity of popping a disc in and playing. Wright went on to speak about Steam's influence on the market:
“Steam now has more users than Xbox Live. There is a whole new generation who grew up playing on PC with titles like Minecraft or World of Tanks. There’s a huge community who love playing their games on PC.”
Consoles have been around for a long time, but I believe that Wright is talking about the most recent "generation gap," where games like Minecraft and WoW have caught the attention of adolescents. These kids will "grow up" loving PC, much like children grew up loving the NES or the Playstation. Complexity barriers won't be an issue for the generation that was adopted by PC.
As much as I enjoy consoles, and as often as I play them, there is a lot of truth to the statement that PCs offer advanced gaming. Between mods and upgrades alone, there is a lot of room for games to grow and flourish on PC, certainly more-so than the DLC packs we see on console. But there are also some key arguments that can be made for consoles, specifically on the fronts of exclusivity and price point.
One of my biggest quarrels with PC gaming is that I am unable to rent games. I use Gamefly to get most of the titles I play, and it allows me to enjoy more games, as I don't have to spend $30 - $60 on every title. Sure, Steam sales are great, but they don't offer sales on every game I want, and even at $20 a pop it still adds up over a prolonged period of time. I'll be the first to tell you that PC offers a lot more functionality over a console, although consoles appear to become more and more "PC-like" each generation, in terms of hardware. If I could rent games for PC like I do for Xbox One or PS4, I'd be much more likely to invest in a PC over anything else.
Then there is still the argument of exclusivity. There are some games you just can't get on PC. Take for example Grand Theft Auto 5 and Dead Rising 3, two big titles that offer a lot of fun, but can only be enjoyed on a console. I am also a fan of JRPGs, and though some are starting to pop up on PC, you see most of them hitting consoles.
I think as time progresses, the argument will become less and less about hardware superiority and more about how many exclusive games a specific platform has, or how expensive titles are to secure for a given system. I understand Nvidia's argument, and I'm not saying that they're wrong, I'm simply saying that they aren't seeing the entire picture here.
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