By law, you legally do not.

I'm just going by what the books say, nothing more.

I want to add that another example of a purely digital download is Microsoft's Office programs. You cannot not, any longer, receive a hardcopy of the software in any way, shape or form. You simply buy the license, not the program, and then download the program from the Cloud.

This was very true ten or so years ago, but the PS3 seemed to slowly erase the plug in and play aspect with each year and now with all these new limitations on the gaming your PC and its installs have more plug in and play...ness than consoles seem to now.

I was hoping you'd bring this up. :D

While true, I wanted to play Assassin's Creed 2 the other day. I had to roll back my Video Card Drivers, wipe them from the registry and locate suitable ones for my OEM. It wasn't exactly an easy task.

The "load and play" concept is still much more evident in consoles than it is in PCs. None of it sways me though, but I can see how it would with others.

I guess it's luck of the draw as well, I've yet to have any real problems with my PC games but I've only been PC gaming as an adult for a few years.

The pro's to console gaming is once you buy the console, you don't have to upgrade the damn thing for the next 5 to 8 years to play new games on it. Yeah yeah, I know people will say "BUT OMG IT CAN CRASH RROD?!" but your PC is more likely to die than your console is unless there's a legitimate hardware malfunction (which, on one of the models of the 360, there was).

If you know what you are doing, you can make a gaming PC last as long as a console can before you need to upgrade it. My shitty ass Laptop which is like three years old can play sanbox games from last year. Yeah not on like ULTRA MEGA SETTINGS but the games still function.

But the components in a PC and in a console are the same. Motherboard, processor, GPU, heatsink (which was the issue on the 360) so the chances are really the same.

In fact, if you pit a gaming PC against a console, I'd say the console has more chances of having hardware failure simply because the OEM uses cheaper parts. Though I'd say less now, since AMD is picking up both of the "power" consoles.

I also have no problem with upgrading a graphics card (or anything for that matter) since PCs are generally provided with better graphics, even in ports. Skyrim and AC 3 show this.

Though I get what you're saying. It's about ease of use, bottom line.

Which is the main reason I moved away from console gaming.

Ease of use isn't something that applies to games consoles any more. Remember the days when you had to install a game on the PC and basically go on holiday and come back and maybe it'll be done? But then there was this console sold for under two hundred pounds which had limited tech but allowed you to plug and play literally?

Yeah that was a decade ago now. Not only are consoles no longer the cheaper option, they aren't the easiest option either.

Great discussion fella's! I just want to look at both consoles as objectively as possible and get all the fact straight before the time comes.

Mind you I have no idea how steam works :D that's just what I hear.

Well, you were correct in your assumption until almost a week ago.

Mind you, Steam does something that Microsoft would probably not do (or perhaps not as often) and that's have massive sales. I've bought games before I've never played and plan to because they're dirt cheap.

Alan Wake franchise was 3 bucks the other day on Steam.