I have been reading more and more about people posting about FPS in console games and how it impacts the gamers’ experience. First off I want to let anyone who reads this know that this is just my opinion and is mainly based on my experiences with games. So what is my opinion? Frame rate should be locked at whatever number they choose, but locked. Frames shouldn’t go higher or lower than that number. Pick 30 or 60, it doesn’t matter to me as long as it doesn’t change. If it drops, then that’s a problem with that specific game, not with the system of locking the frames.
 
Now I know some of you out there are yelling, sure for most games, but shooters should be at 60 fps because we need the increase in response time. Here is my answer, I KNOW! First and foremost I am a competitive online PC gamer. 100 FPS is my standard, if it dips below 60 I got a problem. My monitor refreshes at 75 hertz and I love the added mouse response time in the extra 25 frames. But 99 % (exaggeration) of the console audience doesn’t care about that performance increase, because you are all playing on a pretty even playing field. If everyone’s game is locked at 30 fps and someone is better than you, it’s not because it should be at 60 fps. It is because HE IS JUST BETTER THAN YOU AT THAT GAME. So play more and get better, with consoles everyone is on a level playing field (generalization), so what does it matter if it’s locked at 30 vs. 60? All that should matter is that’s locked in the first place.
 
So why locked? Because its better…just playing. My example is going to come from my armature counter-strike experience. So back when I started playing I played on a terrible Compaq and dsl. The internet really wasn’t the issue, it was my computer. I would get 100fps most of the time, but then drop down to 60 and even lower when intense fighting and smoke was on screen. This proved to be an issue because the screen would tear and would be really choppy. This made it very hard to hit people. Surprisingly I wasn’t terrible during this period, but I attribute that to the bad teams we played and the fact that it was CAL-O. (If you don’t know what that is don’t sweat it) I noticed that even dropping from 100 to 70 caused a big enough change that was noticeable to most normal people. (I don’t consider myself normal) To fix this I began to lock my frame rate at 60 in hopes of trying to fix the problem. (Pretty obvious solution if you ask me now, but it took me weeks to think if it) That was a solid fix, but eventually as I got older I ended up building a gaming PC and that fixed all of my problems. So to answer the question of “why locked?”, so you never have the experience that I did.
 
One of the big selling point of consoles is that they are supposed to be able to handle the games developed for them no problem. They also cost less than a PC and are more stable. PC gamers please don’t get mad at me for making these generalizations. So why do game developers still make games that have epic frame rate drops, tearing, and no true FPS lock? Who knows, but they need to get their act together. PC gamers have long gotten by because as games progress, so does the technology to support it. Console gamers have not been given the ability to upgrade, but most PC gamers can relate because we can’t all upgrade at the rate that technology gets developed. So PC game developers have always given the gamer in-game options that increase the play-ability and decrease demand on the computer by reducing resolution, graphics levels, and even locking frame rates at any arbitrary rate.
 
So it would seem that I have changed my point. It would seem that I am trying to argue now that console gaming should be more like PC gaming and allow the player to be given the option of turning down the graphics in favor of a more constant fps. Wrong, console developers will never give the player that much control; instead I think developers should learn that gamers are not going to put up with this choppy frame rate. Sure you can render 2000 zombies on screen, but what if the whole game is at 60 fps and drops to sub 30 while you fight. That’s not good or fun. So in conclusion, console developers should take a lesson from their PC developers and realize that it doesn’t matter if you can run Crysis on high, it matters if you can run Crysis on high at 30 fps all the time.