They hate us cause they anus...

Lackluster exclusives... Did I seriously hear a PC guy try to say consoles lack the exclusives? Go look up the highest reviewed exclusive games of all time. How many of those are on PC?

Also, why do you need headroom for future proofing when you only paid $400 for the box to begin with? You do realize "future proofing" for PC means a $400-1000 GPU alone, and then you'll probably want to upgrade that CPU and RAM while you're at it.

Cost. Ease of use. Convenience. Consoles do all the things that most gamers want much quicker, easier, and cheaper. Just like there are some gamers who don't care about the difference from 900p to 1080p, there are just as many who don't care about spending double to reduce jaggies or improve texture resolution. Most of them don't have 4k TVs to enjoy any resolution boost above 1080p, and 30fps extra isn't worth $800 extra. Not to mention, with software improvements over time, and developers being able to custom tailor their games to run on a specific hardware configuration, the systems do a respectable job with keeping up with the more powerful hardware out there.

So, by the time you finish fumbling with drivers, waiting for the patch that enables the game to run right on your brand of video card, figuring out why the game won't let you install it because your username had the wrong character in it, etc... I will have already played through the game.

Neither side is the "right" way to go about it. One side just gets on with it and plays the damn game, the other demands perfection in their games with the best available hardware, and sometimes, they get it. Others, not so much.

One side can't fault the other for wanting the best version, the other side can't fault the one for not wanting to bother with all that headache just to play a damn video game.

its a hard bet to make. hindsight is always 20/20.

After Driveclub's reception, hard to say it would have done well enough to compete. It's easy to dream of such a thing, but to make it happen? It's taken how long for CoD to be dethroned? And it was dethroned by Hogwart's Legacy and has gained it right back just the next year.

Futbol.

Agree that all you just posted are great games. Expedition 33 is one of my favorites. Spent a large chunk of time on BG3 in 2023. Another for my all-time list.

My point though not well articulated in the OG post is that we would get more of the games of the quality you mentioned if so many valuable resources were not allocated to FTP slop and/or heavy monetization schemes. Some of what used to be my favorite franchises have been ruined by them.

To sum it up, I would like to see games like 33 outperform the profits made by games like Fortnite so more resources are allocated to great games. When heavily monetized FTP games are at the top of the list, we end up being stuck with a significant chunk of games that are not good. Or worst case scenario games that spend years in development, but get cancelled due to industry trend chasing.

Perhaps, and I hope you’re right. A shift is needed IMO