PC vs Console Edition

I have promised you a big article, so here it is.

Part 1) Pricing

When you first look at the prices of the two editions, you will notice that both are sold at fairly similar prices, £16.00 for Console and £17.95 for the PC/Mac version. However, both come with different things and have different things inside them that you have to pay for if you want them. On PC for instance, to play with other people outside of your LAN region, you have to pay for Realms, which starts at £5.99 per month (it gets cheaper if you pay in bulk) whereas with the Console versions, hop-in hop-out multiplayer is free as is splitscreen, which allows up to 4 players to play on the same device even on the same account. But carrying on with the multiplayer aspects of both, servers are not available on the Console versions. But even if there were servers, it could get quite confusing, as many people would have the same skins. The default skin pack comes with 16 different variants of Steve and Alex and to get more interesting skins, you must pay between £1.50 and £2.50 for further skin packs as you cannot get custom skins. These packs however, often contain up to 50 skins, which can go out of the boundaries custom skins can, with crazy hats, half size models and even upside-down models.

Part 2) World Generation

Console worlds are considerably smaller, which puts off a lot of people when thinking about buying. However, for players who spend most of their time on super-flats, customising is a lot easier. On PC versions, to customise your super-flats, you must either: learn the code that you put in, use a preset (which are quite good) or copy and paste a command off the internet. But in the Xbox and PS versions, this can be done easily in-game with its simple custom super-flat interface. Something that isn't a massive pro or con however, is that when you go to the Nether in super-flat (Console), the Nether is also flat, which makes big Nether builds easier (and you're less likely to lose your portal back home). Speaking of Nether generation, on the PC, Nether warts only spawn inside Nether fortresses, whereas in Console, they can occur on any soul-sand in the Nether, which just makes starting to brew potions that tiny bit easier.

Part 3) Controls

Even though I personally find the Console Controller harder to use and prefer the keyboard and mouse as it is what I use for many other tasks, so I am therefore a lot more familiar and comfortable with it, there is a long list of why it could be superior, so I'm simply going to do a list for this one with pros for both of them. Firstly, Console Controllers: they are more universal than a keyboard, you can move around with them so if you want to sit somewhere else you can, and more smooth movements are possible (such as moving in a constant circle easily) meaning you can do cinematics without installing expensive software. For the keyboard and mouse: because they are used for many other everyday activities they are often more familiar to the user, more precise movements are possible and typing out signs, books and command blocks are easier.

Part 4) Version Exclusives and Conclusion

As with the smaller worlds, being a few updates behind often puts off people wondering which one to buy. However, there are a lot of small version exclusive perks unique to Console, such as: being able to stack cakes to 64, having mule and donkey spawn eggs, and most importantly, being able to play texture packs and mash-up packs easily without the hassle of downloading them. If you are a map-maker though, or just enjoy using command blocks in most of your worlds, the Console versions may take a bit of getting used to with the lack of command blocks. In conclusion, Console is best for people who: want to play with their friends but aren't too bothered about multiplayer servers or having custom skins and want to have a really cool super-flat world without worrying about the codes and PC is best for people who want to play with lots of people who they may not know, want to stand out with a skin that they might have even made themselves and want to be able to use things like command blocks, maps and mods.