The great gaming debate: Are PCs still better than gaming consoles?

Alex Stasenko from GameDev Relay and I debate the best way to game, as lines between the pair start to blur.

Harrison and Alex’s respective gaming setups. (Look, my Canva skills could be better, but is what it is.)

PC Master race: It’s an iconic snub that essentially frames gaming's greatest divide, the split between console and PC gamers.

This line has arguably blurred in recent years. Consoles are taking on the full functionality of mini gaming PCs at an affordable price, while PCs are becoming more like their console brethren, adding broader support for controllers and other accessories. Where once gamers stuck to their lane, now PC and console players are encountering each other in the wild more than ever before. This is due to the broad addition of cross-play functionality, allowing players on any platform to interact with each other in the same game.

So, what is the best way to game? As someone who's only played on gaming consoles for over 20 years, I'm well-qualified to speak on their behalf. But to make things interesting, I've roped in Alex Stasenko from GameDev Relay. He's a game developer, writer, and avid PC gamer who has dabbled in console ownership.

We drew battle lines on five different topics: initial setup costs, value over time, quality of games, graphics and audio, and co-op capabilities. Is PC still supreme? Or has the console closed the gap?

Initial Setup Costs

Harrison: I don't think this is even an argument for consoles. It's clearly the more economical option for gaming. When you consider that a quality gaming PC that can reliably play most games can easily cost north of $1000, currently almost all gaming consoles are under $1000. There's not much to it. The cheapest way into gaming is via a console.

Alex: I faced this problem a number of years ago. Point: consoles. There's no debate here; all you need is a console, headset, and a monitor. After you get this, everything else follows the law of diminishing returns. A PC -- in comparison -- is a luxury option. To get a decent 60 FPS on a computer, you need a beast -- or something close to it -- especially if we're talking about new titles. When I had a limited budget, I opted for PlayStation without a second thought.

Value Over Time

Alex: Well, it really depends. PCs are high maintenance compared to consoles. I can say for a fact that my PS4 is in much better shape compared to my laptop, even though it's two years older. But you can (almost) always upgrade your desktop and get tremendous performance bumps. You can't do that with a console to that extent. As both a PC and console player, I'm getting much more value from PC games these days than I had on my PS4. That's because a medium to high-end PC will get you a better experience when we disregard game prices, sales, and stuff like that. Also, you can use a PC for all sorts of tasks, while the console is mainly for gaming and watching movies.

Harrison: Yeah, fair enough. For consoles, I think this is where it starts to get a bit blurry. From experience, if you regularly play your gaming console, the accessories you've bought for it (controllers, headset, etc.) will have a shelf-life of about two years or so. The console itself lasts around six years before you generally need to upgrade it. The lifecycle of gaming consoles is getting longer — the Nintendo Switch is in its seventh year now. Still, it's cheaper to replace a controller than it is to replace a motherboard or graphics card. So I guess console gaming is improving in this department. There's also a chance you can get more value out of PC games than console games, as they are a lot more open to being modded by players, creating new experiences out of existing games.

Quality of Games

Harrison: Most Xbox and PlayStation games are released — albeit often later — on PC. So my biggest argument here is Nintendo. The Big N has some of the most polished and fun games around, and if you want to play the best of them, you need their gaming console. There are some indie gems that only work on PC. And certain genres, like real-time strategy, are best played on a PC too. But Zelda, Mario, and Pokémon? Many of these games define and set the tone for modern gaming. Would I pick niche PC titles over some of (arguably) the best games on the planet? Probably not. Am I drowning in the Nintendo Kool-Aid? Likely.

Alex: This is a very painful point for me as a former QA. I've seen too many issues across all platforms, so it's hard to be objective. But I have to give this to consoles for only one reason: the majority of games are being developed with a "console-first" POV. We're not even talking about exclusives here. Most PC games are either released on all platforms first or shortly after. And based on what I know, development for consoles is much more complex than for PC, so it's easier to make a console game and then port it to PC. This means that the console version is, by default, going to be more stable.

Graphics and Audio

Alex: PCs all the way. As I mentioned above, computers are much more customizable, and as long as you can afford it, you can dial up those graphic settings as high as you want. Buy yourself a 144 Hz 4K monitor, external video card, more RAM, better processor, etc. And even though you can do the same for a console (if we're talking about a better monitor), you are limited by the hardware inside the box.

Harrison: Can't help but agree. I guess my only argument here is that you generally need to pay more for both. Consoles come bundled with an affordable baseline of graphics and sound technology that are generally pretty good in terms of overall gaming standards. I also don't have to get buried in settings around graphics and frame rate with consoles, engineering what works best for my current hardware. I can plug and play, which is great.

Co-op Capabilities

Harrison: This is an uphill battle for me. Collaboration is baked into PC gaming. Console integrations with platforms like Discord have happened way too late in the piece. For me, despite paying for it, online gaming on the Nintendo Switch fails more often than it works. I think this will become key for the next generation -- if there is one -- of gaming consoles, but for now, compared to PC gamers, console players have a tougher time playing with one another.

Alex: This is where I just have to go with PCs because you don't need to pay extra to play games online as you do with PS (for example). An argument can also be made regarding console manufacturers' security, as we've seen a bunch of hacks during the past 10 years or so when Sony failed to protect the data. But it's honestly just better on all fronts if we take game-specific quirks out of the equation. This is based on my experience with PlayStation and PC games over the years.

What do you reckon? Consoles or PCs? Anything we missed? Give us your take in the comments.

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What I'm Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

The angriest moon around. Source: Nintendo.

I'm not sure whether this is the first game to build its premise around the film "Groundhog Day," but I reckon it's certainly up there as one of the best time-loop games of all time.

It's a Zelda game, so you play as young swordsman Link, who is (this time) trying to stop a cursed mask from ending the world. In what feels like a gimmick inspired by Japan's rail network, this great cataclysm -- the moon ramming into the planet -- is on a strict timeline. You have approximately three days (54 minutes of game time) to prevent it from happening.

But how can you save the world in three days? Well, you can't. Not without the help of time travel — hence the "Groundhog Day" reference.

The entire world of Majora's Mask is a puzzle box that unfolds over the three-day period. Every non-playable character in the game operates on a schedule that you can change by interacting with them. Gaining certain items or abilities helps you master the timeline, skip interactions, and finish sections of the game within that 72-hour window. Each reset of the timeline brings you a step closer to solving the greater puzzle posed by the game.

Majora's Mask is a smaller title compared to its well-known predecessor, Ocarina of Time. But what it lacks in length, it makes up for in complexity. The puzzles in Majora's Mask still stand strong by modern gaming standards. It's also one of the few Zelda games where Link becomes — through donning special masks — a fish-like Zora, rock-hard Goron, and weedy Deku Scrub. It's also much darker than Ocarina of Time, delving into themes around death, fatalism, and destiny.

Navigating its time loop feels incredibly satisfying, yet accessible compared to many other modern games attempting the same mechanic. The first title that springs to mind here is the first-person shooter Deathloop, which is again an incredibly well-made game, but its time shenanigans are a notch more difficult to manage than Majora's Mask.

This game is begging for a remaster. There was a newer version released for Nintendo 3DS years ago that updated the graphics, some boss mechanics (albeit not for the better), frame rate, and modernised some of the puzzles. But I suspect this isn't the last we'll hear of it.

If you can tolerate Nintendo 64's sluggish frame rate — by today's standards — and some retro graphics, it's well worth giving it a go.

Worth playing if you like: Any of the Zelda games and games that create time-based pressure on the player like Deathloop, Persona 5, and Dead Rising.

Available on: Nintendo Switch, via the Nintendo 64 emulator which is available from Nintendo's subscription service.

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