In the early days of gaming in 1970, video games were, well, lousy. They're much better today because the technology is far more advanced.
Much of that shift has been removing the focus on playing consoles to video games played on computers.
We're most likely on the path of making consoles irrelevant to gaming as personal computer (PC) gaming continues to gain traction, allowing other technologies used for gaming, such as Virtual Reality (VR), to grow as well.
According to a Global Market Insights July report, the value of VR in the game market is expected to grow by 30 per cent between 2024 and 2032 due to continuous advancements in technology and hardware.
When it came to what device was best for playing video games, people focused on consoles and the variety they provided. While PC games were around back then, they were very early concepts of how a PC could run a video game.
However, the concept of playing video games on a PC has since grown drastically.
The number of consoles to choose from has decreased to three from six different options because lines of consoles have been discontinued from companies such as Sega, Atari and SNK since the early 2000s, according to this year’s chart by computer programmer Hugues Johnson.
An advantage that some PC ports of video games get is a wider variety of optimization settings. A simple PC and some video games that can be purchased on the online gaming store Steam can be affordable.
Steam also offers its own VR program, so you can use a video game's built-in graphics settings to optimize the video game for your PC and run the game in lightning speed.
There are also various video game genres, such as first-person shooters like the Call of Duty franchise, which users can control much more smoothly with a keyboard and mouse rather than a controller.
PC users also have access to around 70,000 online game stores sold by Steam or the Epic Games Store, including games exclusively made for VR.
According to Steam sales tracker, these online stores have much to offer between the many different sales.
Between the many different indie game titles, which are usually cheap and first released on Steam before hitting consoles, these video games are being sold at affordable prices.
These facts combined allow PCs to offer a much wider variety of gaming experiences that consoles could only wish to offer.
Affordability, accessibility and offering the future of gaming with VR technology, are other advantages PC games have over consoles such as the Nintendo Switch and PS5.
A 2020 chart on the gaming website Imagine Games Network, commonly known as IGN, revealed consoles used to cost $300 on average.
Current console prices continue to creep upward with the PS5 Pro priced at $960 as the most notorious example, making the price gap between PCs and consoles smaller as the average PC setup only costs around $700.
VR headsets are also starting to become more affordable compared to consoles as the lowest price of a high-end VR headset climbs to $600.
According to Statista, the standard price of video games also increased to $90 from $80 since last year. While consoles have built-in online stores, such as the Nintendo E-Shop or PlayStation store, they typically throw big sales in the 60 to 90 per cent off range mainly on holidays and company anniversaries, which can be rare to come across.
The more common sales tend to be in the 15 to 30 per cent range.
With all of that in mind, PCs have become an excellent alternative to playing video games.
It is no surprise that the PC has become one of the most popular choices among all gamers, and, if it continues to grow at the same rate, it will become the definitive way to play video games and is poised to adapt to VR technology for gaming.
