Which gaming platform is superior? Is it the dedicated hardware hidden under the hood of the stylish PlayStation 4 Pro or the customizable powerhouses we know as PC? It’s hard to settle such a debate based on raw power and price alone since there’s more to each variant than that. Both console makers and computer component manufacturers do their best to offer their users the most sophisticated and efficient hardware for the lowest possible price, making them available and attractive to as large a number of users as possible. Hardware alone can’t decide this debate, so let’s take a look at other things that may be able to settle it once and for all (or it may not…).
Flexibility
There’s no way to upgrade a PlayStation’s hardware given the nature of the platform. But with the PS4 Pro, Sony has matched the hardware of a good gaming PC – it has been given an octa-core CPU, a superior GPU, and 8GB of RAM, making it capable of running games at a 4K resolution, and all this for a price starting around $400. No $400 PC will ever deliver so much bang for your buck.
PC has an unfair advantage in this clash: its flexibility. PC gamers who are dissatisfied with their computer’s performance can upgrade it one part at a time, adding more RAM, a faster GPU, a faster storage device (after all, games do read and write data continuously from the hard drive), and the list could go on. Yet the flexibility of the PC goes beyond hardware: it can be used to play an incredible variety of games, many of them are not available for PS4 users.
Take the Vegas Palms, for example. The Vegas Palms is an online gaming venue – one of many – that offers its players a massive collection of casual games to play online in a web browser. Unfortunately for PS4 users, for example, visiting https://www.vegaspalmscasino.com/ from the console’s built-in browser will be useless – most Vegas Palms games are built in Flash, and Sony does not support this obsolete but often useful platform. Some Vegas Palms games are built in HTML5, making them cross-platform and run on a PS4, too, but these are just a handful, too few for enjoying the complete experience on your console.
Besides, a PC can be used for far more than just gaming – but that’s a topic for another time.
Virtual reality
PS4 users can now get into cyberspace thanks to the freshly introduced PlayStation VR. It will offer players an experience comparable to that of a gaming PC, and for a lower price, too – a PSVR headset will set you back about $400, while the Oculus Rift complete with its Touch controller costs $598. What inclines the balance toward the PSVR’s advantage is that it works with the PS4, too – this means that you won’t have to upgrade to play with it (whereas the minimum PC configuration that allows VR games to be played costs around $800). Still, you might want to upgrade to PS4 Pro to use the PSVR as the extra processing power will surely improve your experience a lot.
Overall, the PSVR is indeed the cheaper system but when it comes to content, the PC might have a slight advantage – for now at least.
As you might have expected, not even the new and improved hardware and capabilities could settle the debate. PC gamers will continue to claim their platform’s superiority but this won’t stop PS4 (Pro) fans from enjoying their experiences on their beloved consoles.
