When I first became a "gamer" way back in 19, er...when I first became a "gamer" way back when, there wasn't really such thing as PC gamers and/or console gamers. I don't even really think gamer was a title. There were people who played games on their computers - maybe an Apple or a Tandy or like me...a Commodore 64 (128 if you were really cool). And there were people who played games on their Nintendo. I can remember (at least in my house and town) Nintendo was used to describe any ole video game playing device, much like we generally call cotton swabs Q-Tips even though that's the brand, or depending on where you live, you call any dark carbonated beverage a Coke. I can remember getting told to "turn that **** Nintendo off so I can watch the news" (we had one TV) and I'd be like, "You mean the Atari?"
So I truly grew up playing both - consoles and computers.
I'm not sure when gamers started labeling gaming that occurred on a computer "PC gaming" but I imagine it was probably in the 90s when the 8086 line of processors came out and gained in popularity. Man, if you had a 486 DX4 100 you were a cool kid. At least until the Pentium line came out. I'd say (I'm just guessing) console gaming became console gaming around the time the Xbox and Playstation came out. I never remember hearing gamers say the NES or SNES or Sega were consoles and if you played them you were a console gamer. That could be just me though.
Why do I mention all that? Well certainly not to bore you. I'm just trying to paint the picture I grew up both and have been playing both ever since. If you asked me to choose, I'd tell you I'm a hardcore PC gamer. But if you were to examine my gaming behavior, that might not be totally correct.
I think I'll always consider myself a PC gamer regardless of what happens, but I find I'm starting to play more and more games on console and less and less games on computer. Especially my beloved shooters. I'm not quite sure why that is, but I have a few thoughts.
Having witnessed so many new games on the horizon - awesome games; beautiful games; huge games...I always have to ask myself, "Can I run that?" Far Cry 4 looks amazing. And if it's anything like it's predecessor, I'm sure it will be. But if my computer can't run it, I'm not going to think that about the game. But if I get it on console, I know it's going to run it. It's going to run on mine just like it would run it on yours (if you have the same console of course).
I find myself already planning on games I want to get...and getting them for a console. This was really emphasized with many of the demos and trailers shown at E3.
One example that happened here recently was with Watch_Dogs. I really love this game and can admit it's in the running for my game of the year (and I don't even own it yet). I considered getting it for PC, but two guys I work with admitted they had problems getting it to run well. One of the guys is sporting a top of the line gaming rig greatly exceeding the recommended specifications. Yet he still has problems with it. The other guy had to tweak all the setting and turn some of them down just to get the game to run stable. I played the game on an Xbox One and it ran fine. So, I will be getting the...yep, you guessed it...the console version. It's not that I would rather play it on that than my PC, but I don't want to buy a game just to test it and see how well it runs. I'd rather just buy it and now how it will run.
It's not just the performance though. It's a few other things.
For example, I find switching between using a keyboard + mouse and a controller takes a lot to get used to. I'm not the most nimble gamer and it takes me a long time to get proficient with controls and how to use them. I can play Titanfall on console just fine, but moving over to PC and I'm horrible. Because I'm used to using a controller. I've played so many games on console that I would normally have played on my PC, that now whenever I try to play something on PC I really struggle with it.
Besides performance and the control configuration, I also like playing the multiplayer on a console because I seem to have more friends (at least more friends I want to play MP with) to choose from.
If it is indeed true and I'm slowly migrating towards console, I guess it's not a bad problem to have. In the end it will potentially save me time and money (I bought Thief on PC and don't like it because it doesn't run very well).
What do you call a gamer who says he's a PC gamer but plays all of his games on console? I don't know, lazy maybe? I still can't believe this is happening to me. I said it never would.
I'm sure you have a platform preference, but has it ever changed over time? Why do you suppose that is?
Cheers.