From a customer perspective, like 80% of the population is functionally tech-illiterate. They want to play games with the confidence that things will “just work”. They buy the console, it has everything they need for a set price, they hook it to the TV, they choose a game, everything just works, and if it doesn’t they know it’s defective and they can just return it.
From a developer perspective, the hardware is fixed, so you don’t need to consider every possible configuration of hardware, (CPU, GPU, displays, disk speed, controller, etc) windowing, OS versions, driver versions, etc. Every single one of these factors adds another dimension to testing requirements and debugging. You also get lower-level access to hardware, which allows for more granular optimizations. As a result, the console designers can put mid-range hw in it and expect devs to squeeze out performance compareable to high end PCs.
As a customer, I prefer PC, but as a dev, PC is kind of awful to deal with. So much time spent hunting down weird little corner cases that only occur in very certain circumstances.
Broadfern@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Once upon a time, video game consoles offered the convenience of plug-and-play gaming, and living room comfort.
Not everyone wanted to build a PC and play with keyboard and mouse, and even still playing those PC games can be a hassle to set up on a TV if you’re common-denominator-levels of tech unsavvy. (Read: not the average Lemmy user)
Valve has brought that forward some with Steam Deck and eventually steam machine but by and large most PC gamers are Windows users.
That said, console platforms have gotten so increasingly hostile towards customers between pricing, licensing, download times and walled-garden tactics that they’ve painted themselves out of an increasing chunk of the games market.
People would rather set up a computer and a controller than buy a console, and it’s the corpo’s own fault.
dreamkeeper@literature.cafe 1 day ago
You guys said the same thing about the switch 2 and it sold extremely well.
The world doesn’t revolve around PC games.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
It’s been a slow but steady transition. PC used to not even be worth big publishers’ time to make a half-assed port, and now over 20 years later, in most cases, it’s 50%+ of their customers and revenue.
k0e3@lemmy.ca 5 hours ago
Anecdotal account, so please take with a big grain of salt.
I want to add to support your position: even in Japan, we’re seeing sections dedicated to PC gaming in normie electronics stores. It might not be the dominant platform yet, but it’s definitely gaining mainstream acceptance with Twitch streamers becoming more prominent as well. It’s slow, but it’s happening even in the land of consoles.
Broadfern@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
They’re not building PCs but they are buying/using laptops, and, to a lesser extent, prebuilts. I’ve also built a few gaming PCs on request from otherwise “casual” consumers though that’s a smaller portion of the market.
v0rld@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The Switch still offers the plug-and-play experience the other consoles lost.
The other points still apply, but the Nintendo crowd doesn’t seem to mind being fucked sideways.