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Comment by owaislone | Hacker News Reader

For me it is the ability to jump in, play for 30 mins and get out any time I want. The guarantee that everything that has a label of my console on it will work instead of my PC specs running it in a sub-optimal mode or not running at all. The fact that I don't have to worry about dealing with Windows or PC in general just to play some games but biggest of all, the ability to just pack it up and take it with me wherever I go is immense. That said, I'll be moving to a different city in NA soon kind of semi-permanently and am thinking of building a home PC for work+gaming.

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That's not been my experience on a console since the Sega Megadrive. Whenever I find a couple of hours to play video games (working around kids, wife, etc) I inevitably have to spend an hour downloading countless patches, updates, etc. Modern day gaming consoles have become more difficult to just pick up and play than consoles of yesteryear.

There's definitely more obstacles in way of gaming, but I find consoles have way less of them than PC gaming does. A gaming console can really only get an OS update or a title update to slow you down, but on a gaming PC, you also have a bunch of drivers that want to update themselves and a bunch of gaming launchers that want to update themselves.

Also, I find Windows updates much more annoying than I find PlayStation updates.

i have GTX 970, in drivers section of Nvidia its in legacy category.

I dont really see the issue of suboptimal experience to worry about. Modern games autodetect optimal options to play out of the box.

You still have the problem of maintaining an OS, installing the games and possible downtimes when something breaks on the windows side. Plus, you still have to worry whether your hardware is sufficient to play it fluidly at all times. On a console, someone tested that for you and ironed out the edge cases.

I'm not a console gamer, but I can see the appeal.

Exactly. I used to play games all the time as a teenager on my PC and managing the PC was actually fun but since I started working, I just don't have the time to think about drivers, updates, viruses, anti-viruses, upgrading the graphics and all that stuff.

The Windows not working sound overly exaggerated as an issue. I think that's why I even replied to OP. Overblown issues as an argument for/against something.

The whole pc vs console is like arguing what mode of transportation is better. Apples to oranges, use what you like and be happy about it.

You've never had a game do a bad job of that? I've had plenty of games either set everything to Ultra and be a slideshow or set everything to low when I could easily handle medium or high. GeForce Experience helps somewhat but not every title supports it.

To be honest I dont play that many new games these days, so I might not have a good sample of experiences.

But I don't recall ever having to configure a game because it doesn't work.

As a counter point though, there used to be stories of people buying a game on console and had to download 30GB patches in order to play it.

Also paying for subscription to play online games always irk me the wrong way.

Ether way PC or console there are pros and cons

Minor conveniences spoiling yet another ideal.

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