I can't understand why this kind of "news" are only for Steam (PC) and not for consoles that has exactly the same issues, in fact, ALL online games has hacking issues and they solve the problem restoring what was stolen priorto the denunciation. Please, be honest, are you receiving money from Sony or MS to highlight these kind of issues in the most popular platform for holidays?
@RS13: You are facing it from a twisted side, the question is not “Would I be able to run at least some mods?” the question is “if I will want to run mods, why should I buy the version that makes it harder (in the best scenario) and impossible (in most cases)?” Today we have +5.500 mods of Fallout 4 in Nexus http://www.nexusmods.com/games but zero for consoles...
You answered that some people don't have a PC-Gamer, at this point everybody knows how should be played complex games, if they don't have a PC-Gamer yet, they don't care, leave them alone.
@RS13: that is not an answer, is a wishlist, what you need to ask is that if you will possibly be tempted to mod, why would you buy a version of the same game in which probably will be impossible (if nobody port their mods), expensive (if Sony and/or MS monetize that feature), or in the best scenario the less moddable with poor sellection of low-end mods?
Look at Fallout 3 or Skyrim, they have mods like FWE or Falskar, that adds more than any DLC, more than any Expansion, also you can play Fallout 3 AND New Vegas in the same engine with "Tale of Two Wastelands" that runs both games in NV engine at the same time and unifies all Fallout 3 and NV mods in their best versions, those kind of mods are literally impossible in the closed world of consoles.
I've just warned you to not waste your money in the worse version of the same game if you have in mind that someday you will be tempted by a certain mod. In PC you are sure you will be able to run any mod.
@thegroveman: You can use your console to stream movies from your PC but also there are a lot of cheaper devices that aims the same goal and even better than a console.
You already need your laptop, so you need to count the extra money to buy a laptop-gamer and that will be cheaper than a console with expensive games in their worse quality, paying for online, re-buying them each generation, etc.
Also you can play even with a low-end PC, not top graphics games (that in console you can’t either), but you CAN. For example I was without a low-end-PC for months, I’ve downloaded Path of Exile to my laptop and it was so amazing that I still playing it till today in my high-end-PC. People still playing World of Warcraft till today, a game that any PC can run and more addictive than all console games together, in fact there was a change in the policy that warns about addictions and they added a clock to the interface to warn people about time playing)...Don’t like online games? Fine, Titan Quest, ARMA, Starcraft, Pillars of Eternity... there are more offline games (and genera) than all consoles together, retro-compatible and full moddable.
Consoles are not needed anymore, you can buy them if you want, but they are not more not a necessity and cheaper solution to play games anymore.
@thegroveman: all depends on what you want, if you like online gaming you have no choice, PC is mostly the only way. If you love modding, PC, if you love retro-compatibility, PC. If you love some complicated genera as strategy, PC... if you don't care and you play whatever they drop to you, console or PC. That means PC is good for the best, and also for the worst, you have all the choices.
In the past century consoles was a true meaning because PC was expensive and complicated, but today everyone has a PC and can play with it. Consoles are an extra not needed anymore in this century. So if you "don't care", why are you buying a device designed only to play? You "care", be honest. ;)
@phattuna I think the inverse way "if a game is not on PC I don't care", how can I mod a game on consoles? (I'm modder), but also how can I still playing that game in the future when this generation ends? the same to cellphones, a game in an inferior platform means a lot of things less that I'm used to have.
@RS13 yes, always been gaming better, this year I'm playing Arcanum full modded (a game from 2002, encouraged because I still with more of Wasteland 2 and they are pretty similar), retrocompatibility is an advantage all years.
"Modding tools aren't consigned to PC in the long run: CD Projekt Red has expressed interest in bringing Witcher 3 mods to other platforms, and Bethesda has an actual plan to do so."
You’re talking as if modding depended on administrative decisions and pum! by magic consoles will have mods. But is a bit more complex...
1. Mods are individual hobbies from gamers, horizontality is their strength, and there isn’t corporation directive that makes me make a mod for other platform what I don’t care.
2. Mods are made and tested on PC, port and test on consoles is an extra job that most modders want avoid, even to do the Readme file of the mod, take screenshots or video to show what the mod do is an extra unwanted work.
3. Graphics mods, filters, overpopulation, assets with too many polygons, etc, require to exceed the “recommended” or “preferred” requirements. For example: to run Fallout 3 you need a PC equal or better than a PS3, but to run graphic mods you need a PC that (at least) doubles the power of the PS3 (and x10 to run many of them together). Considering that Fallout 4 turns PS4 in a coffee maker, imagine what would happens with filtering, atmosphere, effects, textures 8K, assets full of polygons, more NPCs, bigger areas, forestation, etc...
That’s to start to understand the technical limitations of consoles to modding, but there is even more, like 3rd party programs, for example Fallout 3 to run pretty well a good quantity of mods requires: Script Extender, Mod Manager, Archieveinvalidation, Boss, Large Address Aware Enabler, Fallout Stutter Remover, Fake Fullscreen, FO3Edit, NifScope, merged patches, and more depending the mods requirements. Those programs are from modders or companies, but, even if those tools were released to consoles too, do you imagine a console user dealing with all of that?
So, why Bethesda announced mods to consoles if it is impossible to do with efficiency? I think the main reason is marketing, maybe Sony and/or MS don’t want to see their consoles as shit in comparisons like in modded versions (Skyrim, GTA, Ark, etc), and they provide some mod support as some weapons, nudity would work well (finally on consoles you will not be playing as children with parental control!), and take in mind that could be for paid, nobody knows how it would work because are closed systems, you haven’t control and you will depend on your company to use mods, you never will be able to do whatever you want, have that in mind.
To be clear, think well what you want before buy a game, if you just want to play vanilla (and slow and buggy), you can choose console version, but if you think that you will want to mod someday, you will want the PC version. Is an advise, I’m modder, I know what I’m saying.
@grim0187 is not about if you like or dislike mods, is about what you can DO with your consoles. Buzz Lightyear mods is funny to many people but not for me, so... simple, I didn't downloaded it, in Nexus there are more than 1000 mods for FO4, I personally have nudity (a must have in all games because I'm not a kid that needs "permanent parental control" on my games), some weapons mods, textures, filters, etc, and you can simply ignore mods, the good of PC gaming is that we can chose.
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