The Pros and Cons of PC Gaming vs Console Gaming

The war for gaming supremacy has raged for decades, ever since PCs first implemented games and since the first console release. If you’re not interested in getting into a war with someone and you just want to know which gaming route is right for you, we can help you out. Both PC and console gaming have their advantages and disadvantages, usually in direct opposition to the other. If you’re like most people and you don’t feel like splitting your attention between two devices, you’ll want to take a look at the pros and cons of PC gaming vs console gaming. It could save you money and a couple of headaches as well.

Console Gaming Pros

More Comfortable To Play

If gaming is a big hobby for you, it’s worth looking into why you enjoy the hobby as a whole. If a big part of why you enjoy gaming is to relax and unwind after work or when stressful times are getting you down, console gaming may have the edge over PCs. Unless you shell out a ton of money for a quality office or gaming chair, PC gaming can become an exercise in endurance over long periods of time.

Console gaming is great because you can plug in the console wherever it fits, find a comfy place to sit or lie down, and allow yourself to veg out for a while. Console controllers are specifically designed to be easy to hold, which differs greatly from the finger gymnastics you’ll need to perform to play PC games at a high level.

Simplicity

Ask any PC gamer about the components of their PC and how often they need to upgrade to stay up to date with current games. You’ll get a laundry list of aspects they need to tackle before they play for real. Console gaming comes out ahead, if the last thing you want to worry about is whether or not a game will actually function on your medium of choice. The vast majority of the time, you can rely on the console company to provide easy upgrades and patches.

Gaming on a console means that you are playing on the hardware designed for the game. PC gaming might be a large section of the gaming community, but those games must be able to run on consoles. This means they are often designed to run optimally on certain consoles, and then tuned up or down for PC players.

Console Gaming Cons

Pay To Play Online

Online gaming is a huge part of today’s gaming world. If you want to play with your friends on a console, you’ll need to shell out some cash. PC gaming allows for free access so you can play with others. Every major console in the new generation requires a subscription fee to play online.

Less Customizability

When you play on a console, what you see is what you get. You rarely get the option to mess around with a game’s settings or display features. While a game may look good on a console, it’s always going to fall behind a PC with up-to-date components. If you enjoy tweaking the look and feel of your games, you might be better off choosing a PC.

PC Gaming Pros

You Can Upgrade Everything

PC gaming is quite different from console gaming because you truly get the opportunity to go all out. For the diehard gaming enthusiast, you can get much better visuals and a better performance on a PC as long as you’re willing to upgrade your computer regularly.

The customizability of a PC is one of its biggest draws. You can bump up the RAM for faster processing, get a new graphics card to really make the games shine, or buy a new power supply so everything runs smoother. The choices are yours to make, and that’s a big plus for many people who are tech-conscious and enjoy upgrading their computers.

Wider Range of Games

With PC gaming, you don’t have to adhere to the console wars or pay attention to the companies constantly vying for new and exclusive games. Most games exclusive to one console eventually become available to PC players. If you want the greatest access to all sorts of different games, a PC might be for you.

This also applies to older games that you can’t play on this generation’s consoles. The PC has the benefit of being able to play almost any game from any era, whereas consoles are still struggling with a lot of backward compatibility issues. If you like playing old games and don’t want them to become obsolete, a PC can breathe new life into them.

PC Gaming Cons

More Expensive

To get the real benefits of PC gaming, you will need to open your wallet a little bit more than you might expect. You only have to pay every few years for a new console. When you’re on a PC, you can anticipate frequent upgrades for graphics cards, processors, and other components, and that can really add up if you are always trying to stay as current as possible.

Complexity

In stark contrast to the console’s reliability and ease of use, PC gaming can be a real pain to deal with if you’re a beginner. You’ll need to learn and understand a lot of lingo if you want to create a good PC, and much of it is very dense technological vernacular. You may not know exactly how many gigahertz or teraflops you’re looking for, and that can be very frustrating when you’re just starting.

We hope taking a look at the pros and cons of PC gaming vs console gaming has shed some light on which one is right for you. No matter which one you choose, you should protect yourself from the detrimental effects of long gaming sessions. That’s why Glassy Eyewear makes video game glasses specifically designed to keep you in the game for longer. Avoid the harmful blue light giving you eye strain or a painful headache.