PlayStation and Xbox may get the most attention, but many hardcore gamers say PCs are still the best option.
They've got some good reasons for saying so, including having more control over hardware, better graphics, and better prices.
Here are the best things about PC gaming, according to a survey of PC gamers earlier this year by video game consultants EEDAR:
Why is control over hardware such a big deal?
PC gamers can upgrade the components inside their computers whenever they want because each component is easily removable, which allows them to stay on the bleeding edge of video games.
Console gamers, on the other hand, are largely stuck with the components their consoles were released with. They can't exchange components with new ones to make games look better, or take advantage of new developments in video game graphics.
The fact that consoles aren't upgradeable makes them theoretically obsolete the moment they're released. It also means that PC gaming is always ahead of console gaming in terms of graphics, as processing power is always increasing while consoles remain static.
This makes it easy for PC gaming to have better graphics.
Video games on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 look very good — certainly much better than their predecessors, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It's because Microsoft and Sony are using much newer, more powerful components for their new consoles.
But the components can only be so good, otherwise the console becomes prohibitively expensive for the average person. When Sony announced the $500 price of the PlayStation 3, people in the audience gasped. So, there's a limit to even a next-gen console's graphical capabilities, even though game developers can design games that far exceed those capabilities.
Of course, it depends on how powerful your PC is, but you don't need a top-of-the line $3,000 gaming rig to run games at higher graphics than consoles can handle. A $400 computer can easily equal or outperform even the Xbox One or PS4.
In short, PC gaming is cheaper.
And that's not even getting into the other ways you get a better value with PC.
While console platforms are catching up, PC gaming platforms like Steam and Origin are much quicker to offer sales and discounts than their console counterparts. I can buy "Tomb Raider" on Steam for $19.99, while the Xbox Live store only offers the "Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition" for $29.99.
The ability to run a full desktop operating system also makes PCs more versatile than a console. For example, you can do some work using Microsoft Office on a PC, and you can run other software that's simply not available on consoles. So, PCs do offer more value than consoles in that respect.
What else is there?
PC gamers also prefer PCs over consoles because their friends are also using PCs, which lets them play online multiplayer games together. There are relatively few cross-platform multiplayer games where PC and console gamers can play together.
Others like the "mods" they can easily add to their PC games — player-created derivations of the base game — whereas console versions of games rarely get mod support. There's also a vast library of games that aren't available on consoles, like the hugely popular "League of Legends."
Multiple control options is big to some PC gamers, as not everyone likes to use controllers for certain games. Some prefer to play first-person-shooters like "Call of Duty" with a keyboard and mouse over a controller, for example.
