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[RoadHazard]

We're at the point now where time, money and talent is the barrier for quality visuals, not technology. In fact I'd argue that we've been there for some time.

That's a good point. TLOU2 or GOW running on a lowly PS4 still look better than pretty much everything any 3rd party has released for the new consoles so far. And the reason is, as you say, that even last gen we were at the point where the technology wasn't the primary obstacle to making a great looking game. Someone with less money and/or talent than Naughty Dog/SSM isn't gonna make a game that looks better than those even if they target only PCs with 3090s. Maybe it will run at a higher resolution and framerate, but it won't look more impressive visually.

 

[reinking]

Sure on pc you can play at 300fps with much higher resolutions

You sort of answer your own question right here. Most games these days are developed for consoles first and ported to PC. Dev's are not going to spend a great deal of resources punching above a console weight for PC knowing most people are going to opt for higher and smoother fps. What I find fascinating is now we have console gamers who are willing to sacrifice graphics fidelity for FPS.

 

[Fredrik]

If you’re listing Red Dead Redemption 2 as one of the best looking games ever (which it is) and if it is available on PC and looks better and run better on PC, then how can you say that consoles always have better looking games than PC?

 

[Excess]

Cyberpunk 2077 was one of those rare occurrences where PC really shined because CDPR openly admitted they developed for it and tried to downscale for console.

 

[Justin9mm]

You sort of answer your own question right here. Most games these days are developed for consoles first and ported to PC. Dev's are not going to spend a great deal of resources punching above a console weight for PC knowing most people are going to opt for higher and smoother fps. What I find fascinating is now we have console gamers who are willing to sacrifice graphics fidelity for FPS.

What I find fascinating is PC gamers since this new gen keep saying this same thing over and over like console gamers have somehow made some sort of 180 on what they prefer. The truth is, there are a combination of reasons why people prefer consoles, some don't like to tinker with settings and prefer an almost plug and play situation, some people prefer gaming on their couch with a controller in hand and big screen TV etc whatever it is, there are lots of reasons.. The difference is that console gamers are now given the option they didn't have before and we aren't talking about 1080p or sub 1080p @ 60fps, it's still a dynamic upscaled 4K resolution of usually native 1440p or more, even with Ray Tracing in some situations. Something you are hard pressed to get on a PC for the price of a PS5 or Series X. Why PC gamers act all salty thinking like 'Oh you never cared about fps, you were all like 30fps is fine before and now you care' It's ridiculous.

FWIW I have a gaming PC and consoles, I don't play much my PC anymore because PC gaming takes up more of the little time I have for gaming then just gaming on my console.

And to answer OP's question, saying the best looking games are on console is subjective but games are made and optimised for console as priority because that's where the market is, that's where the money is made!

 

[Hunnybun]

It's obviously because developers don't want to cut out the biggest part of the market by designing for high end PCs.

The funny thing is that wasn't always the case. Up until the mid 2000s there were lots of PC games that just wiped the floor with anything on console. What changed?

They were presumably still sacrificing a lot of money by doing that. Maybe making that sacrifice was just more viable then than now due to the much lower development costs.

 

[molasar]

What specific PC specs we talk about and what game made exclusively for it? Is this the high end gaming PC?

 

[Kenpachii]

Best looking games are on PC. dunno what u are talking about.

 

[MastaKiiLA]

Budget and talent. Probably more the former. Sony probably makes the prettiest games from an art standpoint. Combined with the hardware being competitive with the other consoles that games are designed for, it allows them to stand out.

Asset creation is expensive. Sony funds blockbusters in a way that 3rd parties can't. They can let devs spend years refining a title for a single spec, and build all assets and processes to that spec. Those 3rd party franchises that make bank, are usually spread across many platforms, and are usually serialized so it's more important to slap on a few features and then push it out the door.

If Sony was PC exclusive, and had the same budget, they'd probably release some amazing visuals that stomp on any current console can deliver. That's assuming that coding for low to mid tier rigs wouldn't force tons of compromises in the engines.

Anyway, that's my bullshit theory. It's all subjective anyway.

 

[Pedro Motta]

PC gaming is disappointing nowadays to say the least. All power, no substance.

 

[Beelzebubs]

Consoles are fully tailored suits, PC's are one size fits all elasticated waist slacks. If you can custom tailor the code to dedicated hardware that doesn't have bloat on top it's obviously going to look better in the vast majority of cases.

Imagine if you will somebody mass produced a high end PC that had fixed hardware specs with a 3090 and developers coded only to that exact architecture. Games would look a lot better than a XSX or PS5.

 

[lh032]

1. Because alot of games developed on console in the first place
2. Most exclusive AAA games were funded by Sony/Microsoft, which means game studios who develop mainly for PC were lack of fundings or have to rely on kickstarters.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Because they target 30 fps

 

[Shmunter]

Games aren’t made for top hardware. Scalability in certain features is not the same as a baseline target made with precision to flex a platform.

 

[Optimus Lime]

Because the 'PC gaming industry' is a shadow of what it was 20 or even 30 years ago. There are so few PC-only devs remaining, especially outside of the indie scene, and the financial returns on aiming a game at the tiny sliver of the market that own top tier hardware just isn't worth it. Combine that with piracy, patientgamer culture, and the fact that the PC market is now dominated by free to play games, and we are where we are - a high-end gaming PC, at this point, is a luxury item for playing upscaled console ports.

 

[Something_something]

Easy: they don't.
From a subjective point of view, you can think whatever you want; from an objective POV however, PC games wipe the floor with their console counterparts.

 

[Danjin44]

This is has less to do with Console has "better" looking games and more to do wth consoles having more "exclusives"which has more to do with the fact that PCs are more open systems.

 

[RCU005]

FS 2020 comes to mind.

That's not a game, that's a tool. I mean it is a game, but it has never been advertised as such. It's until now that suddenly people are hyping it as a game. FS has always been used as a teaching tool for pilots.

 

[Optimus Lime]

Easy: they don't.
From a subjective point of view, you can think whatever you want; from an objective POV however, PC games wipe the floor with their console counterparts.

Which PC exclusive AAA games are you referring to? Which PC game, developed for the PC, has better graphics than TLOU2 or Demon's Souls?

 

[Topher]

If you’re listing Red Dead Redemption 2 as one of the best looking games ever (which it is) and if it is available on PC and looks better and run better on PC, then how can you say that consoles always have better looking games than PC?

Yeah, that really doesn't make any sense. And I have to point out that there is a very good reason why multiplat visual comparisons between consoles blatantly leave PC out of the conversation every single time. All that "Another One" chest-pounding would look pretty silly.

 

[Bryank75]

Cause PC is meant for spreadsheets and are built around the idea of having to be rebooted several times a day as well as other time wasting activities.....these features are very important in the workplace where you have to look way busier than you are.

All the power is primarily routed to those purposes in a PC.

While consoles are about gaming and getting you into the game fast and having fun, this often confuses PC gamers who want to slide settings up and down, load and reload the starting scene of the game and build a cohesive argument to justify spending 3-4 thousand dollars on hardware that will be outdated within a few months. /S

Directly answering the topic.... The console model allows reinvestment in talent / resources and tech that can produce much higher production value games than PC, where it doesn't really benefit companies as much to make 200 million dollars + games.

Although PC has the best indie scene.

(Everything above the '/S' is supposed to be tongue in cheek....)

 

[RiccochetJ]

Consoles are a single hardware spec that devs can optimize like crazy for. PC configurations can be in the hundreds if not thousands which complicates things. Looking at Steam right now, they had 24 million unique users active today and apparently they have approx 120 million unique users every month. League of Legends alone has over 100 million unique active users a month. It just makes financial sense for you want your stuff to run on the lowest spec that makes sense. However, I do like that some games are pushing the envelope. As far as I know right now even the beefiest PC on the market can't run Flight Simulator on max settings. Well, they can run it, but not in any form you would deem acceptable.

 

[Kataploom]

And then capture very small market, yeah nobody is doing that. Even on PC there are majority of people on medium to low end machines.

I'm pretty sure most console ports on PC are very unoptimized due to devs counting on buyers PC brute force more often than not.

Mid end PCs are still way above consoles... See a GTX 1060 running all console ports at 1080p ans 60 fps with superior settings. The thing is that there's no "first party" on PC, which pushes it technically and artictically... Also, most of the time PC exclusives focus more on CPU heavy tasks like RTS or city builder games, games that weren't possible on consoles until last gen and even then the experience is not 1:1 on PC due to Jaguars.

I also was running games on a Ryzen 3 220g with its iGPU Vega 8 at console settings, at consoles framerate but just 720p, and that's one of the lowest end PCs devs target., anything above runs games better than consoles or same so no, low and mid end PCs are not a problem.

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

Because Windows and its code. As long as the old code is still there, it will be a pain to play on pc. ARM windows could change that.

 

[Arioco]

Because MOST PCs are not more powerful than consoles. xD And the games have to run on them too.

 

[Fafalada]

To the op, the answer is always

FS 2020 comes to mind.

Same answer as above, while calling it a game is a real stretch, it's a marketing vehicle for Azure, and budgeted accordingly.

 

[Optimus Lime]

Counterpoint to this thread - why does the PC always have the most interesting games?

TLOU2 definitely looks amazing. On the PS5 on my LG C9 it's absolutely stunning. Why does the thought of actually playing it for any length of time sound like too great of an imposition on the thousands of hours that I'd rather be spending in Factorio? Or Deep Rock Galactic? Or Satisfactory?

 

[mansoor1980]

Because Windows and its code. As long as the old code is still there, it will be a pain to play on pc. ARM windows could change that.

ARM windows? sir can u kindly explain

 

[Optimus Lime]

ARM windows? sir can u kindly explain

ARM processors.

 

[Brofist]

Aw how cute, another PC hate topic. Bu bu bu my plastic box is better than Aunt Mildred's old Dell, so that makes me still better right???

 

[mansoor1980]

ARM processors.

ARM CPUs running windows? what are the advantages?

 

[Optimus Lime]

Aw how cute, another PC hate topic. Bu bu bu my plastic box is better than Aunt Mildred's old Dell, so that makes me still better right???

Is it a PC hate thread? Discussing the relative strengths of different platform's first party output seems like a reasonable thing to do on a video game forum.

 

[Brofist]

Is it a PC hate thread? Discussing the relative strengths of different platform's first party output seems like a reasonable thing to do on a video game forum.

Not OP per se but the pig piling that ensued

 

[iHaunter]

Because no one owns PC. There is no company really, if any, making AAA first party games for PC. Especially with VPNs + Pirating.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

Beautiful looking games are about more than just having the most raw performance available. It's budget, talent, and time.

 

[Kumomeme]

devs able to focus to develop their game, pour their budget/time based on specific fixed specs while squeeze/maxing all the visuals and performance without need to worry of lowest denominator (ex. pc need to support wide range of specs out there especially low range spec)

also due to fixed custom hardware, the console can has more 'juice' to its tech. for example the i/o on ps5, unified memory in ps4/x1x, custom gpu features and the api has less overhead than something designed to support wide range, multiple devices like directx on windows. think example of ios vs android situation.

 

[jigglet]

Also cause a lot of console gamers stick their fingers in their ears and say “everything about 30fps doesn’t matter bla bla bla” or "everything above 60fps is declining returns".

It takes a lot of horsepower to run a game at 2x or 4x the frames, and if you refuse to acknowledge what an improvement it can make to the gameplay it’s very easy to come to the conclusion that PC games are only marginally better.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

Single player games are more profitable on console, so they have bigger budgets.

Thats why PC biggest exclusive games all free-to-play cartoony games. They gave up. That shit is spreading to console too but I bless Sony for saving the AAA space. Fallen Order, Tomb Raider, Souls series, etc were all possible because of Sony. We could have really fallen into some multiplayer hell if the PS3 failed. As much as I dont like Ubisoft, Assassin‘s creed deserves some credit for that.

 

[Something_something]

Which PC exclusive AAA games are you referring to? Which PC game, developed for the PC, has better graphics than TLOU2 or Demon's Souls?

Games like Marbles and Star Citizen look better, even in the eyes of any average Joe. Others like Minecraft or Quake RTX have better lighting than anything on consoles. Games like Arma 3, TW Warhammer, Beam NG drive, Teardown amongst others have features that make them more technically impressive, and they can be seen even if they are the result of superior physics. Then of course you have plenty of multiplatform games which look better than exclusives, such as Cyberpunk 2077, MS flight simulator 2020, Control, RDR2 or Metro Exodus.
I’m not denying that games like TLOU 2 and Demon Souls look good, but they are good games making heavy compromises due to the hardware they are running on. Lighting, first and foremost, is several steps below some of the PC games named above, you can also add resolution, fps, reflections, shadows, ambient occlusion, tessellation, LODs, procedural animations, volumetric fog and anything you can think of; they can always go higher on PC (even beyond vanilla options in many instances) and they affect the way a game looks. Anyway, even if somebody can’t spot differences, they’re still there and while not subjectively important for the person, they will always be significant in a number-crunching (quantifiable) way.
I’m not sure why certain people seem to believe some first party developers are geniuses while other developers can’t put two and two together; you can’t match what any talented (or up-to-date with current techniques) developer can do with a 3090 by using a 2060, magic doesn’t exist and in a era where games consist of thousands of line of code and APIs are efficient, optimization stands for compromises.

PC is in a league of its own and even first party games benefit from running on better hardware, that’s just the way it is.

 

[Optimus Lime]

Games like Marbles and Star Citizen look better, even in the eyes of any average Joe. Others like Minecraft or Quake RTX have better lighting than anything on consoles. Games like Arma 3, TW Warhammer, Beam NG drive, Teardown amongst others have features that make them more technically impressive, and they can be seen even if they are the result of superior physics.

You think Minecraft RTX looks better than TLOU2?

You think Teardown is a better looking game than Ghost Of Tsushima?

Come on.

 

[bender]

PC Gaming peaked with the Voodoo2.

 

[Something_something]

You think Minecraft RTX looks better than TLOU2?

You think Teardown is a better looking game than Ghost Of Tsushima?

Come on.

The way they look is irrelevant: they have better lighting (and particles regarding Teardown) and that's a fact. If you're so much into subjective looks why not provide examples of impressive games running on the Switch or on cellphones?
Maybe because they don't have the secret sauce, I guess.

 

[MightySquirrel]

Let me ask this same question again? Just imagine for a second you're a developer.

Why would you make a game only exclusive to the PC, especially a high budget one, when you can simply lower the settings to medium or so and port it to consoles and it will still manage to run at 30 fps?

Especially now with last few gens when consoles are essentially just little limited PC's with very same hardware, so very easy to downport games.

 

[Optimus Lime]

The way they look is irrelevant: they have better lighting (and particles regarding Teardown) and that's a fact. If you're so much into subjective looks why not provide examples of impressive games running on the Switch or on cellphones?
Maybe because they don't have the secret sauce, I guess.

Well, the way they look isn't irrelevant, since the topic of this thread is 'why do consoles always have the best looking games'.

If you wanted to have a thread about which games have the most impressive physics engines or raytraced lighting, you should definitely start one - I'll be right with you praising Minecraft RTX or Teardown.

This thread is about which games are the best looking. Pretending that you don't know what that means is silly.

 

[Optimus Lime]

Let me ask this same question again? Just imagine for a second you're a developer.

Why would you make a game only exclusive to the PC, especially a high budget one, when you can simply lower the settings to medium or so and port it to consoles and it will still manage to run at 30 fps?

Especially now with last few gens when consoles are essentially just little limited PC's with very same hardware, so very easy to downport games.

Most console games have a 60 or higher performance mode. The old 30 fps standard died with the PS4/Xbox One.

 

[JimmyRustler]

Because high production values lead to high production costs, and high production costs incentivize developers and publishers to release their game on as many platforms as possible in order to recoup their investment.

The days where a small company like early to mid 2000s Crytek could make a game that's both an AAA blockbuster and a graphical milestone are long gone.

Yeah, came in to say this. The high end market in PC gaming is very, very small and developing a game for those few people is just not economical any more. It‘s that simple.

 

[bitbydeath]

Star Citizen shits on R&C from orbit.

What people think the worlds in Star Citizen look like:

What Star Citizen actually looks like:

What people think the Character Models look like in Star Citizen:

What character models actually look like in Star Citizen:

I don't know why people keep running with the idea that Star Citizen is a good looking game without actually looking at it.

 

[MightySquirrel]

Most console games have a 60 or higher performance mode. The old 30 fps standard died with the PS4/Xbox One.

I had 7 year console cycle in mind with that comment. Unlike on PC scene where you can get ~40% uplift every year or two.

Very few multiplats in 4-5 years will have 60 fps mode [apart from shooters] just too far behind PC's at that time. Even lowest end gfx cars will be 4-5 times faster.

 

[Tchu-Espresso]

More talented exclusive developers that are able to make use of the low level APIs, doesn’t hurt.

 

[Optimus Lime]

I had 7 year console cycle in mind with that comment. Unlike on PC scene where you can get ~40% uplift every year or two.

Very few multiplats in 4-5 years will have 60 fps mode [apart from shooters] just too far behind PC's at that time. Even lowest end gfx cars will be 4-5 times faster.

So, you think that in 4-5 years, we will be back to 30fps?