The Cost of PC Gaming Vs Console Gaming

[Chris_B]

COD black ops on xbox sold 12 million

Call of duty would sell if the disc jumped out of the box, flipped your entire family the bird and burned down your house. At this point that game sells by name alone and not much more.

 

[LigTasm]

A guy I work with is a prime example of the console gamer who spends more than most PC gamers ever will. He has both an xbox360 and PS3 here in the shop, which he plays on a 32" 720p tv, and looks like total crap. In the last 2 months alone he has bought 17 games which are at a minimum $40. Thats nearly $700 in games in that time period, let alone the other 226 (I counted) games he has in his case. Even assuming he paid ONLY $20 per game thats still $4500 in games, and a more realistic figure of $40 a game nets you nearly 10 grand. I could build a monster rig for that price and play 90% of the same big-title games for $5 off of steam, and still be good for the next 3-4 years of upcoming games.

Call of duty would sell if the disc jumped out of the box, flipped your entire family the bird and burned down your house. At this point that game sells by name alone and not much more.

Isn't that the truth, guys around here won't give it a rest "Damn dawg MW3 be comin out I gotta get down on some gamez yo".

 

[Spewn]

it is if you want to be able to play games more than a few years from now......

A Wii won't be playing games a few years from now if Nintendo releases a new console between now and then. Or at least, the games it'll be playing won't be any better(graphically) than the games you can play on a PC with a $100 video card.

Stop having different standards for each system and acting like you're trying to do a fair comparison.

 

[Staples]

A guy I work with is a prime example of the console gamer who spends more than most PC gamers ever will. He has both an xbox360 and PS3 here in the shop, which he plays on a 32" 720p tv, and looks like total crap. In the last 2 months alone he has bought 17 games which are at a minimum $40. Thats nearly $700 in games in that time period, let alone the other 226 (I counted) games he has in his case. Even assuming he paid ONLY $20 per game thats still $4500 in games, and a more realistic figure of $40 a game nets you nearly 10 grand. I could build a monster rig for that price and play 90% of the same big-title games for $5 off of steam, and still be good for the next 3-4 years of upcoming games.

I'd be interested in the titles he buys. If he is spending a minimum of $40 on console game, then he would have likely spent more than $20 for them on Steam, even at their sale price. $5 games on Steam are usually indie games and console games that came out long long ago, many even for Xbox 1.

It is possible that this top .5% of console gamers spend more on PC than he would have on PC gaming but he is definitely the exception and far from the rule.

 

[Mozex]

You haven't framed your argument in any way. Please define the following terms so I can actually communicate.

Gaming PC: What are the minimum specs?
Console: Which consoles and at which price? 360 and PS3 were much more expensive when they were introduced.
Cost of Gaming:
Are we looking at N brand new AAA titles only? How many is "N", and are we allowing it to vary per person?
Are we including the cost of a TV and/or monitor? If we are, are we only looking at the very cheapest TV/monitor that will do or are we looking at high end or mid range?
Are we including accessories? Do we include a controller for the PC or just a keyboard and mouse? How many controllers for the consoles?
What about subscriptions to Xbox live or PSN+?

$600 PC is not a game rig, please come back when you understand the concept of this thread.......

I play games on it regularly. They are the same games that run on 360 and PS3 and they look better. Thus far my $200 5770 has lasted almost two years without showing any sign of aging. I still run all my games at higher detail and higher resolution than the same title runs on a console. I expect my graphics card will be perfectly adequate for at least another year before I need to start even thinking about lowering the settings off of highest quality.

 

[Mozex]

I found a cheaper entry point into gaming than my PC or my PS3.

 

[LigTasm]

I'd be interested in the titles he buys. If he is spending a minimum of $40 on console game, then he would have likely spent more than $20 for them on Steam, even at their sale price. $5 games on Steam are usually indie games and console games that came out long long ago, many even for Xbox 1.

It is possible that this top .5% of console gamers spend more on PC than he would have on PC gaming but he is definitely the exception and far from the rule.

I was just pointing out the huge cost of it, for example he has COD MW2 and Black Ops for both the 360 and PS3 just so he can play with different groups of people. That just seems silly to me. I agree he is the exception as most people don't buy every single game that comes out just to have it, the point was you can incur huge costs of ownership either way you go if you want to be extreme.

 

[Baker]

This debate has been going on as long as I've been a member, and it's still doing full circles. Same song and dance.

 

[Frog2]

This debate has been going on as long as I've been a member, and it's still doing full circles. Same song and dance.

Yes, but the console "crowd" have very few valid complaints, and in fact, their adoption rates have seen the PC suffer with lower GFX/Phx/MP P2P etc, so imagine the gulf between the 2 if every Tom, Dickhead and Harry grew a pair and learnt how to update a gfx driver FFS.

On top of this, the console nutters keep comparing enthusiast PC equipment to their inferior cheap as chips console and scream, "look at the cost of PC ownership"......truth is, I'm still having a blast on my 2008 PC, a PC that could still run Crysis 2 at 1080p unlike the console kiddies heehheee.

No-one forces anyone to upgrade any of their components, you can always reduced IQ settings and run at hi res, but you have the OPTION of upgrading if you want, whereas with a console you're stuck with the limitations of the HW for the life of that platform, HAHAHAHHAHAA, and that is funny, it's very funny that people truly think they're getting great value from a console, when the truth is, the PC is superior by many criteria, and is nowhere near as expensive or difficult to operate as console "tards" claim.

I also find quite bizarre that people buy huge HDTV's{high definition} only to use a 640p console turd as source material, hahhahahaha, even funnier still, in fact, it's bordering on financial lunacy.

 

[WorldExclusive]

PC gamers can do alot more on their PC then a console user can, HA!

Exactly. I do many tasks with my PC. School, business, design, chat, shop etc, other than play games. Most console owners have $500-1500 laptops they never used outside the house.
Just combine the console and laptop together into a gaming PC, and that person will save a lot of money, with a better experience.

 

[Tudz]

This debate has been going on as long as I've been a member, and it's still doing full circles. Same song and dance.

Yeah, I think the general consensus up until a couple of pages ago was that it depends on the circumstances of the gamer which ends up cheaper... until one person starting arguing that console is always cheaper regardless

 

[syd2o2]

Every console owner has a pc. Hell, everyone has a pc. So called gaming pc is nothing but a regular pc with a stronger gpu and/or psu. And especially nowdays, when games are not that graphically demanding. You can buy a new pc, get a used $100 GPU like GTX 285, and have eye candy that console owners can only dream of. And that's just the hardware.
No, right now, in 2011, it's a lot cheaper to be a "gaming" pc owner.

 

[hierovision]

There's no way to accurately compare the cost of console gaming vs. PC gaming.

PC's are massively flexible in function (virtual machines, software development, graphics design/editing, etc.) and therefore provide more value in day-to-day use than a console dedicated to gaming. It HAS to cost more.