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By all accounts, I should be an avid PC gamer.

Many of my favorite console games ” “Fallout 3,” the “Elder Scrolls” series, “Left 4 Dead,” “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” ” play better on the PC, thanks to better performance and the PC scene’s avid community of modders. These hobbyists’ user-created levels and refinements can add dozens of hours of gameplay to already deep titles or, in the case of “Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords,” fix a buggy, incomplete game that was rushed to make a ship date.

I’m a strategy game fiend, but that genre translates poorly to consoles like the Xbox 360, my primary gaming platform. The best strategy experience I’ve found for the 360 thus far is “Culdcept Saga,” but its collectible-card-game mechanics are no substitute for conquering the world, turn-by-turn. “Civilization Revolution” was nice, but games ended too quickly. On the PC, I count “Civilization II” among my favorite games of all time and would love to get my hands on last year’s “Sins of a Solar Empire.”

What’s more, services like GameTap and Steam mean that PC gaming classics like the first two “Fallout” games are just a couple of clicks and a credit card away. Yet if I want to play my copy of “Shadow of the Colossus,” I have to hook up my PlayStation 2. Yuck.

Don’t believe me that PC is the superior gaming platform? Check out PC World’s recent article, “15 Reasons PC Gaming Beats All.”

So what’s my problem, then? Why do I steadfastly resist gaming on a PC? For one, I blame my particular PC, a non-Intel Mac Powerbook laptop. Back when my home PC was a desktop made by Hewlett-Packard, I did occasionally game on it, but the smaller laptop screen and lack of decent games for older Macs kind of make the gaming issue a nonstarter for me these days.

Even though I’ll soon be in the market for either a Windows PC or Intel-powered Mac, my shunning of PC gaming seems likely to continue, though my reasons for it may seem somewhat irrational. Working at a computer for 40 hours or more a week has sapped my desire to spend much freetime sitting at a desk in front of a computer. Now, I’m not exactly the BASE jumping or spelunking type, always in search of an adventure, but getting out of a desk chair and onto the couch for my gaming sessions is crucial, and I’ve discovered laptop gaming just isn’t for me.

I’m fully aware that, with the right setup, I can enjoy PC games on my
HDTV, sitting on my couch with a PC-compatible Xbox 360 controller in
my hand, yet I’m just too lazy to do the work and buy the accessories
to make it happen. Barring some unforeseen fit of newfound desire to
crawl around on my floor connecting wires, I’ll be playing primarily
Xbox 360 and PS3 games this year, with a few Wii titles mixed in for
good measure. That’ll suit my wife just fine. She often uses the computer while I game, or watches TV while I use the computer. So long as I don’t cross the streams of PC and TV, our living room will remain a harmonious one.

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