The Evolution of Gaming Platforms
The gaming landscape has changed significantly over the last 20 years. It has gone from being a small, albeit beloved, pastime to what is now the biggest form of entertainment. Consoles have, of course, played a huge role in this growth, introducing gaming to a much larger demographic than the PCs of old could ever accomplish.
Fast forward to today, and while consoles are still a huge contributor to the continued growth of the industry, it is PC gaming that has arguably seen the greatest degree of incremental growth over the past 20-30 years. What was once a somewhat niche market, favored by enthusiasts, is now garnering more and more mainstream appeal. Fantastic game availability, user-friendly store fronts, easier-to-manage operating systems, popularity amongst the influencer/streaming community, and a wide variety of hardware choices are but a few of the factors contributing to this.
The Hardware Divide
As someone who did a lot of PC gaming and PC hardware “tinkering” back in my teens before moving exclusively to console gaming (until very recently), I wanted to take the time to delve into the state of PC gaming from my perspective now vs then and how it stacks up against the modern-day console experience.
I recently built a top-of-the-line gaming PC and so my experience can likely be described as “best case” though I have also recently built a PC for my daughter with much more modest specs. In researching for this article, I have spent time on both of these hardware configurations.
- Build 1:
- AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
- RTX 4090
- 32GB DDR5 6000 RAM
- 2TB M.2 SSD (7000MB/s Read/6500MB/s Write)
- Build 2:
- AMD Ryzen 3 3100
- Geforce RTX 1660 Super
- 250GB SATA SSD (500MB/s Read/350MB/s Write)
- 16GB RAM
The Purchase Process
Purchase. That’s right, the divergence of these platforms starts before you turn them on, and it is the first glimpse we see of the pros and cons of both. For consoles, this is relatively simple. You decide what “ecosystem” you want to be in and buy the console.
Now for PC, this is where its biggest strength lies, but also its potential barrier to entry. The number of hardware permutations is almost limitless. This can be daunting at the very least, especially for someone new to PC gaming/building. However, the benefit of this is being able to fine-tune your experience and build/purchase a computer that meets your own specific needs, not least of which being budget.
The Gaming Experience
So, you have got your console or PC home, ready to get some gaming done. This is where the console, in my opinion, offers the most user-friendly experience. You plug it in, you create an account, you play a game.
Now, on PC, this initial “out-of-the-box” experience differs depending on if you have a prebuilt PC (which likely has Windows pre-installed) or if you are building yourself. Either way, it is very unlikely that you will be able to “plug n play” without a bit of tinkering in order to get the best experience.
The Game Selection
Games. If you are reading this article, it is likely that games are what you are here for and this is where, in my opinion, PC gaming has come on in leaps and bounds over the past 20 years. PC gaming today offers, in my opinion, the greatest diversity of any platform and the greatest freedom in how you choose to consume gaming content.
All this said, consoles are of course no slouch in the games department with PlayStation having that exclusivity window on its big tentpole single-player games whilst Nintendo remains the only one of the “big three” that still has true exclusives on its hugely successful Switch platform.
The Gaming Experience Customization
But it doesn’t stop with what games are available...
