ONLINE/MULTIPLAYER
You have to give Microsoft credit, the company went allin on online gaming with its Xbox Live service and, while it was the first premium online offering of its kind, it revolutionized multiplayer gaming across both console and PC. (Yes, we know Sega got there first on the Dreamcast, but Xbox Live was the real deal). It was also a canny business move—PlayStation responded with PS Plus and monthly games and Xbox replied with Game Pass, which has now delivered on the long-promised ‘Netflix of games’.
Today, Xbox and PlayStation’s online offerings are great from a functionality perspective, but expensive if all you want to do is play with your friends. PS Plus Essential and Xbox Live Gold are both $10 per month or $60 per year, effectively priced highly to push you towards their $15 per month PS Plus Extra and Xbox Game Pass offerings, which include hundreds of games. But do that, and fail to make savings with an annual subscription, and you’re effectively paying them $540 every three years—the same as buying a new console.
Aside from certain games, such as WorldofWarcraft and other MMOs, PC gaming multiplayer is completely free. Discord has made it easy to party up with friends and maintain communication while moving between games. That said, there are a few minor annoyances. Maintaining different friends lists across platforms like Steam, Epic, and EA Origin is a faff, and it’s an alltoo-frequent occurrence between friends where some people will have a game on Steam and others will have it on Game Pass, and the two won’t play together.
So for ease of use, it’s definitely consoles, but if you don’t want to bleed money just to game with friends, PC is the way to go.