Many PC gamers argue that there are literally no redeeming qualities to game consoles compared to PCs, and that consoles are nothing more than greedy money-grabbing schemes, offering sheeple extremely limited single-purpose computer hardware, compared to a gaming PC which can be used for pretty much anything that a computer can do, with no drawbacks whatsoever.
However, I would argue that there are some real advantages to game consoles. And I'm not here talking about artificially imposed "advantages" such as console exclusive games, but actual general advantages.
If it says anything, I presented this list (in a condensed form) in the comment section of a YouTube video that made fun of "console peasants" and made those anti-console arguments above, and the author of the video responded to my comment. However, his response was just a general blanket dismissal. He did not respond to any of my points, nor present any counter-arguments.
So here are the points that I think are genuine advantages of consoles, both from the perspective of the consumers and the developers.
(On that note, let me emphasize that benefiting the developers also benefits the consumers. A successful game developer benefits the consumers, because it allows the developers to create great high-quality big-budget games. This is why I'm including benefits for the developers in this list. It's a mutual benefit.)
1) Every user has the exact same hardware, which means that games are much easier to optimize and make stable.
This has always been the classical and traditional argument, but it's quite true. Admittedly this situation has gotten much better on the PC side, and the problem is not as big as it was 10 years ago, and especially 20 years ago. However, even nowadays the problem of hardware variety still causes problems. There are always examples of games that crash or are inefficient with certain combinations of hardware. (Competition between hardware manufacturers is good for the consumer, but ironically it's not very good for game developers and thus by proxy to the consumers. It's an eternal contradiction.)
Games on console tend to be highly stable (crashes do sometimes happen, but it tends to be quite rare), and often optimized for the hardware. (It helps that the most common game engines used in 99% of games are highly optimized for the console.)
2) Software piracy is significantly rarer on the console side.
This of course benefits mostly the developers, but as noted, what benefits the developers also indirectly benefits the consumers. After all, game developers exist because there exist paying customers. Without paying customers there would be no big game developer companies and huge budget triple-A games.
This is also something that might have evened out a bit in later years, but especially in the past console game sales formed by far the majority of income for game companies. (A friend who worked for one of the biggest game companies told me that for that company the console version of a game typically sold over 10 times more copies than the PC version. This was over a decade ago, and this might have evened out somewhat, but I think it's still true to some extent.) The more money a game company makes, the better games they can afford to make, so it really benefits you as a consumer as well.
3) Consoles tend to have significantly less stability issues caused by system updates.
On consoles there's a very significantly lower risk of having, for example, a graphics driver update causing an endless reboot loop, or BSODs.
This is a very real problem even today. Very recently, for example, and infamously, an Nvidia graphics driver update caused Windows PCs that had a GTX 1060 (one of the most common graphics cards today) to go to an endless reboot loop, as the driver crashed on startup. All kinds of other system driver and similar problems can cause Windows to crash (typically with a BSOD). While this has also become rarer, it's still a problem for many.
Crashes or other problems at the system level are extraordinarily rare on the console side. In general you don't need to fear that a system update will make your console unbootable. (It could happen, of course, but it's extraordinarily unlikely.)
The average gamer isn't tech-savvy. They don't know how to fix a PC that doesn't boot, or has other kinds of problems. It could cost them quite a lot of money to have it fixed by some PC shop.
4) The risk of malware on consoles is almost non-existent.
Viruses, trojans, back-doors, spyware, ransomware, and all other kinds of malware are an eternal problem on PC. And you can't even always trust games that you eg. get from Steam. Even if you never browse the internet and do nothing else than to play Steam games, you could still get malware (there have been many infamous cases, even and especially recently.) Some of this malware may be so borderline that even anti-virus software doesn't catch them, even though they may well be something you don't want running in your computer. There have been many such controversies lately.
Needless to say, on the console side this is pretty much a non-existent problem.
5) The amount of asset flips and scammy non-games that have been created to abuse the digital distribution platform is significantly lower on the console side.
This, in turn, makes especially indie games more visible because it's less buried under all the junk.
Asset-flips and all kinds of non-games created for the intent of abusing the Steam digital distribution platform and its trading card system has been a plague on Steam for many years already, and is showing no signs of ever stopping.
The people who get most hurt by this are indie developers. Their games, many of which are of quite high quality, get buried under the tons of junk, and may never get noticed.
There is quite a lot of junk on the console side too, but it's just a tiny fraction of what it is on Steam. This is because the threshold for getting a game published on the consoles is much, much higher. Quality control is also much higher (not so much in terms of gameplay and content quality, but in terms of deterring abuse of the system or the customers.)
However, I would argue that there are some real advantages to game consoles. And I'm not here talking about artificially imposed "advantages" such as console exclusive games, but actual general advantages.
If it says anything, I presented this list (in a condensed form) in the comment section of a YouTube video that made fun of "console peasants" and made those anti-console arguments above, and the author of the video responded to my comment. However, his response was just a general blanket dismissal. He did not respond to any of my points, nor present any counter-arguments.
So here are the points that I think are genuine advantages of consoles, both from the perspective of the consumers and the developers.
(On that note, let me emphasize that benefiting the developers also benefits the consumers. A successful game developer benefits the consumers, because it allows the developers to create great high-quality big-budget games. This is why I'm including benefits for the developers in this list. It's a mutual benefit.)
1) Every user has the exact same hardware, which means that games are much easier to optimize and make stable.
This has always been the classical and traditional argument, but it's quite true. Admittedly this situation has gotten much better on the PC side, and the problem is not as big as it was 10 years ago, and especially 20 years ago. However, even nowadays the problem of hardware variety still causes problems. There are always examples of games that crash or are inefficient with certain combinations of hardware. (Competition between hardware manufacturers is good for the consumer, but ironically it's not very good for game developers and thus by proxy to the consumers. It's an eternal contradiction.)
Games on console tend to be highly stable (crashes do sometimes happen, but it tends to be quite rare), and often optimized for the hardware. (It helps that the most common game engines used in 99% of games are highly optimized for the console.)
2) Software piracy is significantly rarer on the console side.
This of course benefits mostly the developers, but as noted, what benefits the developers also indirectly benefits the consumers. After all, game developers exist because there exist paying customers. Without paying customers there would be no big game developer companies and huge budget triple-A games.
This is also something that might have evened out a bit in later years, but especially in the past console game sales formed by far the majority of income for game companies. (A friend who worked for one of the biggest game companies told me that for that company the console version of a game typically sold over 10 times more copies than the PC version. This was over a decade ago, and this might have evened out somewhat, but I think it's still true to some extent.) The more money a game company makes, the better games they can afford to make, so it really benefits you as a consumer as well.
3) Consoles tend to have significantly less stability issues caused by system updates.
On consoles there's a very significantly lower risk of having, for example, a graphics driver update causing an endless reboot loop, or BSODs.
This is a very real problem even today. Very recently, for example, and infamously, an Nvidia graphics driver update caused Windows PCs that had a GTX 1060 (one of the most common graphics cards today) to go to an endless reboot loop, as the driver crashed on startup. All kinds of other system driver and similar problems can cause Windows to crash (typically with a BSOD). While this has also become rarer, it's still a problem for many.
Crashes or other problems at the system level are extraordinarily rare on the console side. In general you don't need to fear that a system update will make your console unbootable. (It could happen, of course, but it's extraordinarily unlikely.)
The average gamer isn't tech-savvy. They don't know how to fix a PC that doesn't boot, or has other kinds of problems. It could cost them quite a lot of money to have it fixed by some PC shop.
4) The risk of malware on consoles is almost non-existent.
Viruses, trojans, back-doors, spyware, ransomware, and all other kinds of malware are an eternal problem on PC. And you can't even always trust games that you eg. get from Steam. Even if you never browse the internet and do nothing else than to play Steam games, you could still get malware (there have been many infamous cases, even and especially recently.) Some of this malware may be so borderline that even anti-virus software doesn't catch them, even though they may well be something you don't want running in your computer. There have been many such controversies lately.
Needless to say, on the console side this is pretty much a non-existent problem.
5) The amount of asset flips and scammy non-games that have been created to abuse the digital distribution platform is significantly lower on the console side.
This, in turn, makes especially indie games more visible because it's less buried under all the junk.
Asset-flips and all kinds of non-games created for the intent of abusing the Steam digital distribution platform and its trading card system has been a plague on Steam for many years already, and is showing no signs of ever stopping.
The people who get most hurt by this are indie developers. Their games, many of which are of quite high quality, get buried under the tons of junk, and may never get noticed.
There is quite a lot of junk on the console side too, but it's just a tiny fraction of what it is on Steam. This is because the threshold for getting a game published on the consoles is much, much higher. Quality control is also much higher (not so much in terms of gameplay and content quality, but in terms of deterring abuse of the system or the customers.)
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