Why do gaming consoles even exist?

[sdifox]

It's time to get on the boat with Bilbo and the elves. You have no place in this world anymore.

Posting from the boat.

 

[Midwayman]

I'm inclined to think humanity goes back a bit further than that, old people have been boning for ages.

Have you heard the rate of STDs at old folks homes?

 

[nakedfrog]

Have you heard the rate of STDs at old folks homes?

Yes, yes I have

 

[nakedfrog]

@highland145 That's why it's important to get tested regularly

 

[highland145]

@highland145 That's why it's important to get tested regularly

At a certain age, why bother?

 

[nakedfrog]

At a certain age, why bother?

I guess it depends on whether you're a resident or if you're a good samaritan cleaning cobwebs from the rafters.

 

[highland145]

I guess it depends on whether you're a resident or if you're a good samaritan cleaning cobwebs from the rafters.

And I bet there are some cobwebs.

 

[interchange]

With phones and tablets becoming more and more common devices to interface with electronics, console gaming systems are inching closer to those territories, but also the lines between what we think of as a computer task and as a mobile device task are getting much blurrier. Lots of households don't have a traditional desktop PC.

And to that end, it is much easier to have universal compatibility and predictability in gameplay/controls with a console where everyone has the exact same hardware.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Back in the days of Atari, NES, Playstation 1 etc the idea was that they were plug and play and everything just works 100% of the time, short of maybe having to blow in a cartridge once in a while. (there's debate as to if that did anything or not) No need to deal with configuring anything or updates or any of that crap. You buy it, you plug it in, and you can start playing right away and it just works.

Now days though consoles are basically just proprietary computers running proprietary operating systems with proprietary game engines that are heavily cloud based. They're also not so plug and play anymore, you need to setup an account and tie to the cloud and all that BS and also deal with updates and hope their servers never go down. Similar stuff you need to deal with on a PC. The main reason for getting a console now would be for if there's specific games you want to play that aren't available on PC or for social gaming (like in a party type setting) as computer games aren't really suited for that type of game play. Ex: games like multi player (with people in same room) racing games and what not.

 

[JM Aggie08]

What a stupid question.

 

[eikelbijter]

Do not forget "brand whores"! I live next to one and he literally says things as stupid as: I can only ever buy a Playstation.

 

[sdifox]

Do not forget "brand whores"! I live next to one and he literally says things as stupid as: I can only ever buy a Playstation.

Eh? I could never buy an Apple computer now. Why is that an issue?

 

[Staples]

I play FPS (most the games I play) on PC but consoles are great for most types of games.

I think the biggest advancement for PC games (and this happened like 15 years ago) is that they made the Xbox controller standard so all the buttons are already mapped. It was such a PITA mapping everything to a controller in the 90s.

I play co op games with my son on console all the time. There are PC elitists out there but who the hell cares. As long as you are having fun. On PC, I find myself screwing with video settings and the like way more than I care to admit.

 

[eikelbijter]

Eh? I could never buy an Apple computer now. Why is that an issue?

There's a big difference between "never..... now" and "ever". I'm not sure what your point is...

R

 

[sactoking]

Back in the days of Atari, NES, Playstation 1 etc the idea was that they were plug and play and everything just works 100% of the time, short of maybe having to blow in a cartridge once in a while. (there's debate as to if that did anything or not) No need to deal with configuring anything or updates or any of that crap. You buy it, you plug it in, and you can start playing right away and it just works.

Now days though consoles are basically just proprietary computers running proprietary operating systems with proprietary game engines that are heavily cloud based. They're also not so plug and play anymore, you need to setup an account and tie to the cloud and all that BS and also deal with updates and hope their servers never go down. Similar stuff you need to deal with on a PC. The main reason for getting a console now would be for if there's specific games you want to play that aren't available on PC or for social gaming (like in a party type setting) as computer games aren't really suited for that type of game play. Ex: games like multi player (with people in same room) racing games and what not.

To add to this, in the late 80s and early 90s a NES was $150 or so while a SNES was about $200. At the same time a Hewlett-Packard 60mHz Pentium with 4MB of RAM and 100MB hard drive ran about $1500-2000.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Eh? I could never buy an Apple computer now. Why is that an issue?

Sucks to be poor.