> actually that is what saved them from the dumpster like quality
Did it? Lot's of gamers see consoles as something that holds developers back from using better hardware, since they need to target 5 year old systems. Quality both artistic and technical isn't something consoles can claim to be leading in. And clearly, "consolization" in its various forms isn't something gamers appreciate, when it spills out into PC gaming.
On the contrary, professional game developers love game consoles, precisily because they have a stable platform to target for at least 5 years, instead of dealing with each customer being a special case.
And that in spite of some bad apples still going through the gates, the large majority of flappy bird clones never makes.
Easier to work with doesn't make it higher quality overall. General perception of console games is exactly reduced quality, in the sense of art and games mechanics (due to mass market appeal and controller oriented design) and in technical aspects simply due to outdated hardware.
Incumbent consoles are trying to dig themselves out of this perception now, but they got it very deservedly.
There's a big difference between "not using cutting edge hardware" and "unplayable games sold at full price that become literal trash before they're ever even opened".
The average game on a console is going to be higher quality than the average game on PC because the average game on PC has to include the game I made in Visual Basic 6 when I was in high school. With no gatekeeper ensuring basic quality, my VB6 game is every bit as legitimate of a game as Battlefield 5. They both hold the title of "PC Game", but only one of them could ever be called "Xbox Game" because Microsoft would never allow my game on their console.
I don't think "average game" is a valuable metric. What is an "average book", or "average film"? Art isn't measured by averages really, but by what's available. I'd say, PC gaming offers better tools for artistic expression, including more complex games that console market deems as not fitting.
Technical limitations that hold developers back are only part of it. Another issue is simply creative control of incumbent console owners. PC gaming doesn't have it, so creators can do whatever they want. And masterpieces are always a minority, no matter in what form of art.
I feel like you're still missing the point. Your argument is that consoles have "dumpster quality" games simply because their hardware is outdated compared to state-of-the-art PC hardware, which is such a non-sequitur that I'm not even going to touch it.
Pre-crash there were tons of high quality artistic masterpieces on consoles too. But it was swimming in absolute garbage [1], turning a lot of customers off [2], losing their trust [3], and threatening the entire platform [4]. If you haven't followed any of these links yet, PC gaming still has that problem.
The argument isn't that PCs have more powerful hardware (the reality of which is debatable [5]). The argument is "do console makers guarantee quality better post-crash than they did pre-crash" and the answer is unequivocally yes. The question you then raised was "do console makers guarantee quality better than PC games" and I would still argue unequivocally yes. And then I would point out that PC gaming benefits from this, because if Activision wants Call of Duty to sell on consoles, they're going to make sure it passes Sony and Microsoft's quality standards, which then the PC game most likely will pass as well.
This isn't always true, of course, because there are plenty of times a game runs better on consoles than it does on PC [6]. That's probably what you refer to as "consolization", but again that's just missing the point. People buy consoles these days because they work and they work consistently. That's directly the result of the post-crash quality control that console makers implemented.
If you don't want to touch the topic, then don't. It's quite obvious outdated nature of consoles hardware is holding developers back, and "consolization" spills out to PC gaming, to the irritation of many gamers. You don't need gaming articles to know that.
> That's probably what you refer to as "consolization"
No, I refer to cut down design, oversimplified interfaces, lack of depth and etc. which were characteristic for console games, backfiring to PC games, when developers don't want to do extra work and simply use "one size fits all" method to save time.
Technical limitations is only part of the problem. The bigger one I'd say is the incumbents' control over the platform and heavy mass market bend. Quality has many meanings, and poor art (in many meanings of the word art, not simply graphics like you might think) caused by mass market commercialization can justifiably be understood as reduced quality.
So, I'll stick to what I said. Incumbent consoles didn't save games from worse quality, they actually made them worse.
Recent Nintendo eShop and PlayStation store releases are quickly driving down the average console quality. (See Life of Black Tiger, for example). Though, I must admit, it is not something I'm actually concerned about.
Sure, you can make good art with minimal tools. But consoles for a long time were not after good art (in its various meanings), but after mass market. So art suffered, same as technical side of things. My point is, consoles don't have any claim for higher quality in all meanings of the word.
Did it? Lot's of gamers see consoles as something that holds developers back from using better hardware, since they need to target 5 year old systems. Quality both artistic and technical isn't something consoles can claim to be leading in. And clearly, "consolization" in its various forms isn't something gamers appreciate, when it spills out into PC gaming.