Gaming

I've had laptops, consoles and a steam deck. Nothing comes close to sitting at a desk and gaming on my pc. I don't know what it is I just like my desk. Even when I'm using the steamdeck I sit at my desk.

Linux PC. Almost entirely on a desktop, though I've got a few games (Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, Caves of Qud) that I'll play on a laptop.

Very limited use of Android, if I'm away from a computer, for the mobility.

I've owned a few consoles, but the experience has consistently disappointed me.

• Loading times are worse (well, maybe this has improved, but historically was a pain)

• I can't as trivially flip over to a wiki in a web browser. I smack a button, I'm on another workspace on my PC.

• For some reason, a lot of "deep" games that one spends a lot of time learning, like strategy and milsims, don't have much of a presence on consoles. I like a lot of entrants in those genres.

• Games cost more than the PC. I mean, sure, the console vendor loses money on the hardware, has to make their money back on the games, but that especially makes consoles a bad buy if you're going to get a lot of games.

• The PC has more potential to be upgraded (though I'll concede that consoles have generally improved here).

• I'm not constrained by what the game developer wanted me to do; I can drop in with a memory editor and cheat in a game, can add mods to the game, have control over save state, etc.

The drawbacks of a PC are things that don't really bother me:

• You've got setup and configuration, which I'm gonna do anyway.

• You're more-likely to hit driver or hardware compatibility issues than on a console.

As for mobile...

I would be potentially willing to pay a lot more for mobile games than I do, but the entire commercial game infrastructure on Android is tied to getting a Google account, and I refuse to do that; I don't want Google logging and data-mining what I do. So I almost-exclusively use open-source software on Android. And most good mobile games have made it to the PC.

Honestly, I was kind of unexpectedly disappointed with Android gaming (and this is even based on what I see in the Google Play Store).

Okay, the touchscreen isn't a fantastic input medium for a lot of game genres, but I thought that stuff like multiple-choice choose-your-own-adventure games and gamebook-type games would see a huge renaissance, but some of the main games in that line have been...not that great; Choice of Games has a lot of titles, and some of the writing is good, but the gameplay mechanics are kinda disappointing.

Turn-based strategy games seemed like a good fit for the touchscreen, but as with the console, deep strategy games also haven't been hugely in evidence. As best I can tell, there's a strong focus on games that you can drop into for a few minutes while waiting in a line or something and then drop out of...which is fine, but really constrains the experience. I guess deckbuilders are okay, but the PC does fine there too.

A lot of Android games aren't super-considerate of the battery. Some games that I like on the PC, like real time sim games (Oxygen Not Included or Dwarf Fortress) require constant load and just wouldn't be a great match for a phone running on battery, even if they were present.

I'm not really into games that leverage location, which is one thing that a phone can do that other platforms can't. I could maybe believe that there could be games that could leverage multi-touch support to do things that PCs can't and really get a lot of good out of it, but I haven't seen that.

The screen has major limitations in that few Android devices have a large screen (so they can't expect to control a large portion of your visual arc) and on a touchscreen, your hands are going to be obscuring part of the screen, making things even more difficult for the developer.

Touchscreens have gotten better, but they just don't have reliable, rapid response to input the way that the mouse-and-keyboard (which a PC is guaranteed to have) or a gamepad (which a console is guaranteed to have) have.

Android phones can take external peripherals, but it's hard for a game to expect that they be present, especially since not everyone wants to haul a lot of hardware around with their phone. So you can get game controllers, earphones, a keyboard, or even an external projector, but it's hard for a game to expect that you have them available.

Short Version

I was a console player, now I am on PC. And I harvest the power of emulation alongside playing modern games.

Long Version

I'm an 80s guy and was fortunate enough to experience the 90s in its full glory; from Snes Jrpgs to the transitioning to 3D to the first consoles with internet connection. Nowadays I am a PC player and play ton of games through emulation. And the little cute Steam Deck on my side is the extra fun.

I played this year Breath of the Wild from the Switch, but through emulation on my PC in 60 fps, higher resolution and with my Xbox gamepad. Got all or almost all shrines in the game with over 130 hours playtime (Edit: Played it this year on Yuzu BTW. They started suing while I was playing.)! And besides that, I play old Romhacks and mods of old console games for the SNES, in example translations, bug fixes or just new stages (like DLCs from the community!). Or play games to beat highscores and times from your friends or other players in the community. There is so much to explore through emulation.

If you have a good PC and the patience, then I recommend you to get into emulation a little bit. Maybe not as hardcore as I do, but for your favorite consoles and games. You can play games that you missed back in the day in example, or just waste 20 minutes testing old games and then go back to modern games. It's such a fun experience.

For sheer versatility you can't beat PC, so that is going to have to be my choice. Having flexibility between KB+M and controller, having access to mods and tweaks and (typically) having a wider array of graphics/performance options to tailor to your preferences makes for an unbeatable package.

That being said (and it pains me to say this given my distaste for Nintendo), I absolutely loved the 3DS. The dual screens were cool, it had good ergonomics for me and a nice weight in your hands and there was something very satisfying in the mechanics of flipping it open or listening to the click as you slam it shut. It's just a really nice device to use.

PC. Most often mouse or keyboard and mouse. Sometimes gamepad, then maybe streaming to my TV and sofa. I have a SteamDeck, but it's not getting much use. Like my Vive.

PCVR.

Even if I'm playing a regular non-VR game, I like playing it in a VR environment so I can have a bigger screen than my biggest display IRL. I spend a lot of time in VRChat on the native Quest app while using a 2D remote desktop app that runs in the menu overlay to play Elden Ring.

Tabletop in person. I miss it. Secondly, in-person co-op. These are two mediums are being extinguished because of how difficult it is to profit from humans relating to one another in person and giving each other things for free.

I enjoy PC as I can emulate classic console, DOS, etc. games too. My OS of choice is Linux

I get the charm of a console for gaming. Just switch it on and go. Still prefer a PC at the end of the day though. For once my preferred genres are very unrepresented on consoles and since I dabble in DIY I do not have that level of freedom on a console or mobile phone. Well, do some extend. Fiddling around with key remappers that hijack on the accessibility system is horrible. Anyway, I enjoy tinkering and this is not really something consoles are known for, no?

This said it is very amazing that I can just e.g. fire up Waydroid nowadays, connect an X360 controller and play AmongUs with the little one on my Linux PC. That level of possibilities is mind boggling.

Steam Deck on lunch breaks, travel, and shorter sessions at home. PC when I want max settings gameplay. I tend to play games that can wrap up a loop in ≈30min on the Deck and more graphically intense/immersive/grindy games on the PC.

My desktop which I got hooked up to a monitor and also a TV, so I switch between the two depending on if I want something super responsive or a cinematic couch experience.

Been also supplementing that with my Steam Deck where I can pick up playing the same game and continue my progress with a handheld.

My favorite console has got to be the original Xbox. I would play it all day when I was younger and to this day I still use it because emulation is iffy for a lot of titles. Games from that era from like 1999 to 2006 hit home for me and I love replaying the greats like Knights of the Old Republic, Halo 2, and 007 Nightfire.

For everything else I do a lot of steam gaming and emulating on my linux pc, steam deck, and mobile. I use mobile for casual, quick, or pauseable games, steam deck for games that "feel" right like racing games and old adventure games, and pc for longer gaming sessions, or mouse and keyboard games like Starcraft and Age of Empires.

It's hard to beat pc because it can litterally do everything better (except maybe portability) and you can customize it into anything, so it's definitely the objective winner, but og Xbox is still my biased favorite.

Mouse and keyboard are my bread and butter, I don't particularly enjoy gamepads, but the Steam Deck gets around this thanks to having touchpads and gyro, so I don't mind using it when nothing else is available.

Playstation/Xbox.

I love multiplayer shooters, obviously hate cheaters. If I have to install a rootkit on my primary machine to play and still come across cheaters, I may as well just get a console with heavily discounted hardware cost and peace of mind that the only thing people can really abuse are xim/cronuses. Also it feels nice that everyone in the match will be on a level playing field in terms of hardware specs and I’m never tempted to buy a new graphics card, CPU or cooling just to eek out a few extra fps.

Crossplay off all the way.