What would happen if consoles disappeared and PC gaming was the only available option?

Then Nintendo would be the only ones left behind in the archaic times.

Cause PC would obviously absorb Xbox into it, and PlayStation would absorb into Apple, and we'll have fights about how our MIcrosoft VR dungeons are better than your Apple ones. While Nintendo will make baby toys for toddlers that require using your hands.

It probably be boring. Those PC mustards pays for Star Citizen, that is crazy and china made F2P games dominating charts.

@cainetao11: I love games, been gaming for over 30yrs, but i would never go PC, i have to draw the line somewhere.

PC has its pluses but the standardization that console gaming brings to the equation cannot be understated. Pure PC games are just all over the place and if it was left to their own devices the gaming industry would have suffered.

@ajstyles I disagree, I think PC gaming is amazing, Great, and The best.

You are also stating your opinion. Funny how you missed that.

PC gaming, and gaming in general, will vastly improve. Since there is no lowest-common denominator to develop for, I imagine we would see more risk-taking, more innovation, and greater diversity in the games we receive. It'd be like the late 90s and early 2000s all over again except, you know, current.

Game development budgets would probably be smaller, and studios would need to go back to being craftsman and artists instead of copy-cats and DLC milkers.

There'd be more studios since you don't need to pay MS, Sony, or Nintendo any royalties any more or ask for permission to publish a game. If you want to make a game, you can simply make a game....that's all there is to it.

Independent studios would continue to flourish since PC, the platform that pretty much holds up the independent game industry, would be the only platform to game on.

e-Sports would probably take off for a change instead of being kept alive on life support. PC is the more competitive platform for gaming, with a greater variety of genres, so e-Sports would do really well with a larger pool of players as well.

Hardware development would also get more competitive. We might actually see more companies pop up and offer video cards and processors to challenge AMD, Intel, and Nvidia.

Honestly, I see no negatives to consoles disappearing.

Yeah pretty much this.

Consoles are pretty casual for the most part; the majority of console gamers buy the hit game of the season and play it for a few months until the next one. They are, for the most part, not really invested in gaming, not really enthusiasts. .

Though they do have their die-hard players, no doubt. Though are they really that die-hard on console? I mean yeah they spend a few hours hunting down achievements so...maybe?

AAA is already dying. At the very least. it's a stagnant industry losing ground to vastly superior independent game production and smaller studios.

Look at EA with Anthem, Ubisoft with Ghost Recon, MS with....everything. The only reason PS4 does so well is because they're the least bad, not the best.

I don't want the AAA to be "driven" by anything, I want it to disappear or reinvent itself.

AAA used to mean something, now all it means is "we spent more on marketing than we did on development."

Yeah, it really would be great. All the benefits of a competitive market with none of the exclusive bullshit.

We'd start seeing actual physical PC shops where you'd go in and talk to a guy and he'd build a PC for you or you'd build it yourself or just order one from Dell or whatever.

Meh, the sky has been falling for decades. "Oh no piracy eeeeeeeeeeh here it comes oh that's why we don't get a lot of games blah blah blah."

Streaming? Maybe for some games that can afford it, but for the most part a good chunk of games would be purchased the traditional way.

The bold is factually false. PC has the lowest denominator all the time and every time because it has the largest combination of hardware. Developers have cutoff specs for PC and that specification is the lowest common denominator. The absolute vast majority of exclusive PC games aim for the lowest common denominator. Console gaming forces developers to push that minimum up not down.

There'd be more studios since you don't need to pay MS, Sony, or Nintendo any royalties any more or ask for permission to publish a game.

Royalties are paid to Steam, Epic Games and GOG. So, that would not change. On Epic and GOG you need permission to publish a game.

Hardware development would also get more competitive. We might actually see more companies pop up and offer video cards and processors to challenge AMD, Intel, and Nvidia.

I was referring to the console gamers as the LCD, not the hardware.

You are correct however in PC having the worst of the worst in terms of games, but it also has the best of the best. Console is just thoroughly mediocre because, as I said, they try to appeal to the LCD crowd.

If this were music, consoles would be selling you Britanny Spears, Beyonce, and all kinds of pop; PC wouldn't be selling you anything they'd just be like "listen to what you want".

@Pedro I did not miss that people like you would think that( I knew that), PC gaming is objectively the best (Fact), and two I don't go around insulting console gaming like he does to PC gaming and that is why I responded how I did. I will never back down to people like him, I hate people like that and will never feel bad about going off on any of those types of people.

@mrbojangles25: PC is for hermits to brag about their rigs while pirating games and playing indie games on it lol.

What you call the "lowest-common denominator" is actually what gives most 3rd party developers a foundation or standard. Like @Pedro said, games would be all over the place. Absolutely no one would develop games of higher quality just because they don't have to release it for consoles, that's just absurd. In fact, games overall would be lower quality due to devs not wanting to take the risk of making a game which they don't know how many systems would run, or how many people would even buy the game because of performance issues.

There wouldn't be more diversity. Maybe you're talking about PC games diversity? In that case I agree.

I agree.

There wouldn't be more studios because the gaming industry would be smaller. I don't know where you got the idea that by having fewer options the market would be bigger. That is absurd.

I guess by royalties you mean what you have to pay to a specific store to publish your game on it? If you think you don't have to pay anything on PC, I have some bad news for you...

Independent studios will continue to flourish either way. Consoles support indie development, just not scammy garbage that steam is too busy to filter and that you have to eat daily. They have something called quality control.

I agree.

I agree.

Far too many. It's actually really hard not to see them.

I do agree to some extent. A lot of console players are just people who buy 2-3 games a year or just play FTP games, but the same could be said about a lot of PC gamers. Some others are a lot more into gaming than the mayority of PC gamers but they (or we) don't really give a crap about pixels and frames. A lot of people actually look down on those who grew up playing only PC games (not me, to each their own). But really, they have no idea what they've missed.

Not on console, it isn't. Try other platforms.

Ok.

No. Again, try other platforms.

You really need to play more games.

Quit gaming.

Almost nobody who games enough to come to a subsection of a dying place called System Wars would quit gaming. You’re all full of shit.

It doesn't matter if the poster you are responding to is a fanatic. PC gaming is NOT objectively the best. All you doing is becoming equally fanatical.

@Pedro It is objectively the best (Fact) and I am not going to argue any further as I don't have the time and it would just go nowhere as we will never see eye to eye on this. It does matter that he is and what he says is BS and I hate people like that. You are not going to change the facts that I know so please give it up, I am done talking to you, and I can tell that we are people that can't like each other and I stand by all of my statements as facts. I hate PC Gaming haters and will fight brutal and kill to defend against what I know to be Bullshit, if only I had the time. I don't care what you think of me. We are just going to have to agree that we are different people, and not talk any further.

No its not, no matter how much times you falsely state its an objective fact. Here is a fact, PC gaming is made of non specific hardware. There are millions of hardware configurations with possibly billions of varying experiences. Just this fact removes any semblance of it being objectively the best because PC gaming has and will continue to represent a non specific gaming experience.

Don't confuse your personal preference to facts. Your statement is currently on the same level of bullshit as the poster you are complaining about. What makes you worse is your claim that you will fight brutal and kill to defend against people who disagree with you. Its time for you to not only re-evaluate your priorities but to differentiate your opinion from fact.

@Pedro Would you prefer I say gaming on a mid to high end gaming PC is objectively Better than console gaming. I am OK with someone liking to game on consoles for whatever their reasons, but the experience does not vary that much when you have a nice gaming PC. We will have to agree to disagree I believe on this issue. I may have gotten a little carried away in my anger but I am better than that poster since I never hate on console gaming and he hates on PC gaming. There are some aspects I agree with you are preference, but can you at least agree that PC gaming is capable of having better graphics and performance as well as many other advantages over any console, better control options, free online, and way better backwards compatibility and freedom of choice, and so much more and it is for a fact better in those areas. Also I feel that FPS, Graphics being better are objective facts, liking a game better like an exclusive is subjective. I also find the ease of use to be Subjective as I find PC gaming easier to use and less of a hassle, as I don't have room to hook up another box in my place and having all my games on one system is super convenient and easy to use, now that is a subjective opinion by me right there, see I know the difference. I am spending way more time that I really have, If you respond in your normal manner and I don't respond know it is because I don't have the time, not because I think what you said is in any way true or that I agree with you as I will not , if it is like your other posts. I am also not as bad as him and no matter how many times you say that it will never be true.

BS I would rather quit gaming then play on PC.

@latech84: Well that is a more reasonable response. I don't agree all of your assertions but that's fine. We like what we like. :)

@i_p_daily: Please. Forza plays the same on PC.

Doesn't matter I would become a retro gamer and just keep my current consoles, if worst came to worst I would still have thousands of games to play.

@i_p_daily: So you like your Xbox and not the actual games. Got it.

Well naturally, of course I spent 20,000 dollars to play 2D indies and brag about it.

I mean I do live in my mom's basement after all, what else am I going to do.

No I said would become a retro gamer which would require me to buy old CONSOLES (never said which ones) and I would still have THOUSANDS of GAMES to play, not sure how I can make that any clearer for you. And yet you got that I like Xbox & not games from that? oh well better luck next time :)

@i_p_daily: Which has nothing to do with what we’re saying. You have an Xbox because you like the Xbox and not the games on it. The fact you’d go to retro gaming has nothing to do with that.

Love the sarcasm, which i'm sure also has some truth to it lol.

I like the Xbox because its not a PC AND the games on it, It wouldn't matter if it was a Switch or PS4 as long as its a console. I refuse to game on PC, its just that simple :)

@zaryia:

If...

They'd still make amiibos though right?

@i_p_daily: Then you don’t actually like games. Simple as that.

@i_p_daily: What exactly do you fear if you were to game on PC? Change is good. (Depends who you ask of course)

Then you accomplished your mission. Coolyfett has played games on PC, but Coolyfett would never own a PC for gaming. That is what PlayStation is for.

Yes.

Nerds need more friends. They have no one to play with.

You should probably read the thread title....

No other platform has as many AAA titles as PC this gen.

"Do you guys not have phones?" :P

But seriously, these companies haven't cared about "poor" people for years now. Let's not forget about what Don Matrrick & MS tried to pull with the XBone. They have all wanted to push for "always online"; thats another reason why everyone is pushing game streaming so heavily now.

Game quality would improve as competition would move to game developers and away from walled garden manufacturers that need to gate content to get hardware sales.

It's nice seeing the folks who aren't actually into games but rather just love their particular plastic box of choice. Fragile gamers.

Someone would just make a system for other players. Same thing what Sega, Nintento, Microsoft, Sony and others did.

I did, I argued won't happen any time soon!!!!

I think a lot of people would discover how similar console and PC gaming are.

I would probably be forced to lose interest in gaming since it would become too expensive and because gaming and building a system would become much more complicated than I care for. I like getting a prebuilt device for which developers fit games around, instead of the specs of my system needing to match a game falling on me.

I treat my gaming PC as a console cause I use a controller to play my games when KB/M isn't needed, I turn it on like a console, it takes me to the OS as a console and I select the game I want to play as a console. Yep, I really don't see the difference here.

Did I mention, free online?

He said it was just a hypothetical situation.

In the case they were "poof gone", these AAA games would still be made. Just they would only release on PC. Like they already do. The people who play those games would now play them on PC instead, and that revenue would shift to PC. Only they wouldn't have to deal with low fps and low settings.