So I've been thinking for the past few days that I, for a number of reasons, would like to sell my current gaming PC and focus my gaming efforts purely on the consoles I own (XB1X, PS4, Switch and the Oculus Quest). This, also for a number of reasons, seems like it would be a ridiculous idea. After all, the PC experience is much better in almost every single way compared to the console one. Better controls, better framerates, better graphics, near-infinite backwards compatability, and so on.
However. I also feel that, despite being an overall better experience, it is an experience that has caused me more stress than it really should have done. It's a better experience, but in no way is it a simpler experience, and I'm starting to think that it would be better for my own mental health if I opted for that simpler experience even if it meant 'missing out' on the better one.
My reasons are as follows:
1) The regular stress of having to 'fix things'
I thought my PC was going very well. When I initially built it it worked OK (after a few hiccups) and whilst playing games like DOOM Eternal and Resident Evil 3 the experience was great. However, now that it's matured even a little bit, and now that I'm playing a wider variety of games, I realise how many games don't tend to give a 'great' experience in terms of consistency. For instance I was trying to play a bit of Far Cry: New Dawn and the game would simply not stay at a stable framerate despite not properly utilising either my CPU or GPU. That could point to dying components, or a software issue, or anything else really; it's just so hard to tell.
Whilst I realise that many of these issues could be down to either my components or how I've set things up, the fact of the matter is that 'fixing' those problems often requires fairly significant and/or complicated changes, ones that are rarely less than a simple 'google' away. Some people may be able to deal with that sort of thing, but I personally find it frustrating to no end.
2) The constant desire to have 'more'
PC is inherently a very scalable platform. That brings with it many benefits, being that people can often 'get into' PC gaming quite easily, especially if they aren't going for more high-end titles. However, it also comes with the caveat that you are almost always wanting 'more' than the console experience. The default is 60fps, but then now we have tech such as 120/144hz displays and ray-tracing which only increase the power demands required to get the 'best possible experience.
Meanwhile on consoles if you have a PS4 Pro and Xbox One X then you will get the best experiences on consoles right now. Later this year you can buy a PS5 and Series X to get the best experience for at least a few more years. It might be 30fps, it might not be native 4K, but you're going to get an experience that is at the very least optimised to what your platform can handle. You don't always have that concern that you're 'missing out'; unless, of course, you want to move over to PC.
3) The console experience is... fine
I figured this out whilst playing some AC: Odyssey on my late-game Xbox One X save. Yes, the game is 30fps and not exactly at 4K but compared to how it was on PC I didn't particularly find my experience to be all that, well, worse in the end. That's in some way because framerate locks are going to be more consistent and better framepaced than any fps lock you can put on PC, and as someone who's very much sensitive to it I often feel like 30 or 60fps on console feels much nicer than the same thing on PC.
Then I realised that, when it comes to gaming, I don't really 'care' all that much when I'm actually sitting down to play things for prolonged periods of time. For instance I played long, long sessions of TLoU:P2 when that game came out and enjoyed it despite it being a non-native 4K game running at 30fps played with a controller. Meanwhile on PC the aforementioned desire for 'more', alongside the generally less-optimised experience, means that I find it very challenging to really reach that state.
For future games that I may pick up the console experience is going to be pretty good as well, especially with next-gen consoles coming out that will offer free upgrades and the like.
4) PC Gaming is not great for certain living situations
This is true for me both monetarily and situationally. Monetarily because I had bought my PC with some short-term cash (cash that I really should have just saved), and my income is, well, the income of a part-time retail worker. I don't have the kind of consistent income that would allow me to upgrade, maintain, and look after a PC. Situationally because my current living arrangements means I don't have a desk or any real place to situate my PC. I also don't have that much room to maintain my PC in an 'easy' way; no big tables or anything. I had to build it on a tiny kitchen counter, for example. SImilarly playing PC gaming on a 4K TV means that I'm almost always going to be playing with less-than-native-res, which isn't a problem in the few games that support DLSS but is a problem in the vast majority of games that don't.
IN CONCLUSION
This thread may be a bit of a rant but, yeah, I've decided that it will be best for me to sell my PC and focus on console gaming and, well, other things. I was wondering, then, whether anyone here has ever decided to do the same thing. That is moving from console to PC and then back again. If so, what reasons did you do it for?
