Games consoles have become more like PCs, and with subscription services such as Xbox Game Pass blurring the lines between PC and console gaming, which is the better platform for gamers in 2022? Guy Cocker investigates

NOWHERE DOES tribalism exist to quite the same extent as in the gaming world.

Whether it was Atari vs Commodore in the 1980s, Nintendo vs Sega in the 1990s, or Xbox vs PlayStation in the 2000s, generations of gamers have spent decades pledging their allegiance and going to war over their platforms of choice, whether that’s in the playground or on forums like Reddit.

In the last few years, though, that rivalry has settled into more of a “can’t we just all get along?” kind of vibe.

That’s thanks to the evolving strategies of platform holders such as Xbox and PlayStation, who rather than preciously guarding their crown jewels like Halo and God of War as they once did, are now happy to release them on PC, sometimes dayand-date with their lead platform. Both PlayStation and Xbox also have game streaming services that actively work with PC, meaning you don’t even have to own one of their consoles anymore.

That said, games consoles have had their place recently, especially over the last couple of years where entertainment options have been more limited to the home. As a result, game playing time increased by 39 percent, driving record revenues for the industry. True, the PS5 and Xbox Series X were nearly as difficult to source as PC graphics cards over the same period, but they brought with them some fantastic games, 4K 120Hz graphics, and in the case of the PlayStation, innovative new controllers.

So where does this leave consoles in 2022? Is it still worth dropping $300- $500 on a dedicated games console, or is it better to spend that money on a powerful GPU to beef up your PC rig?

Well, dear Maximum PC reader, we’ve put in the hard work of playing games on a variety of PCs and consoles so we can form a definitive verdict. If you’re going to game, are you better off doing it on console or PC? Let’s find out.

HARDWARE

W ith hardware, the whole PC vs console debate at first appears to be unfair, given that you can buy a GPU such as the RTX 3090 Ti ($1,999) or RX 6950 XT ($1,099) that blows any games console out of the water when it comes to raw performance. Indeed, the RX 6800 XT ($649) and RTX 3080 ($699) both offer PS5 and Xbox Series X-beating performance on paper, although good luck finding either card for those prices at retail right now.

That’s just the situation today— later this year, AMD is set to introduce its first RDNA 3-based graphics cards, which should offer a generational leap forward in performance. When that happens, you can expect performance and feature sets that leave the RDNA 2-based games consoles firmly in the dust. The same should also be true for Nvidia’s Lovelace-based 4000 series cards, although if tradition is anything to go by, these will sell for much higher prices.

The PC has so much free content that you could go a long time without actually spending any cash.

The RTX 3090 Ti blows consoles out of the water, performancewise. But it also costs $2,000.

© STEAM

While the prices for dedicated GPUs are still inflated, the wild cards here for PCs are the value to be found in buying pre-built desktops and laptops. Here, you can find a 3070-based laptop (such as the Lenovo Legion 5) or a 3070 Ti based desktop (like the HP OMEN 25L) that will trade blows with a games console for under $1000.