How do I choose between the console and PC versions of a game?

Question

How do the versions for PC, PS3 and XBox of modern games (like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Need for Speed, etc.) compare to each other? Is a version for a given platform normally better than the others, are they equivalent, or it depends on the game?

Are there other aspects to be taken into account, besides platform performance (e.g., cheating, multiplayer, DLC availability)?

Answer

I think it depends on the game.

One way that some developers approach developing a game is to make it for one platform first, and then port that to the other platforms - this is typically called having a "lead" platform.

For example, from what I have read DICE is developing Battlefield 3 for the PC first, and then working on the console versions. This can be seen by all the early footage from the PC version, but not really seeing anything on the console versions until E3 this year. Also in this case, the PC version will support more players at once in multiplayer (up to 64 IIRC, not sure on that though).

However for a game like Modern Warfare 3, that (at least from what I've read) seems to focus on the Xbox 360 version first. This is definitely the case for DLC, since Activision has a deal with Microsoft to release all DLC for the 360 first. Also, I don't think they have finalized plans for Call of Duty Elite on the PC yet, due to potential issues with users running their own dedicated servers.

Overall, I think that in order to choose "correctly" you'll need to evaluate each game on its own merits. There are so many ways to develop a game that there really can't be any hard and fast rules that make a certain version always the best one.

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