PC Expenisve Console Cheap...?!?!?!?

[freddiepm61]

Why is a decent PC like £2000, and a console like the xbox 360 that on paper outperforms dual 6800 ultras like £300?
How can the companies make a profit, ot are us PC users just being screwed?
f

 

[Epicenter]

First of all, a 'decent PC' is about 300 GBP. A 'great' PC is about 500. An amazing one is about 700. You're exaggerating or using Alienware's pricing scheme.

The XBox 360 and PS3 are very far from outperforming any system with 2 6800 Ultras. For example, the XBox 360 doesn't even top ONE 6800 Ultra on paper. And if you've seen any footage of it running, it's nowhere near as impressive as a modern PC, it's less impressive than a PC made 4 years ago, so far.

Also, Microsoft and Sony are mostly bullshitting their system specs, like has been done before. Almost everything out is a render-- made on a farm of connected computers, not on the real console, and most screenshots are totally fabricated. Sony and Microsoft have been working to one-up each other for about a year. Whenever one company raises a spec, the other does. They both estimated a ~2 GHz operating frequency on the multiple CPUs or Cell execution cores, etc. then jumped up to 3.2 GHz at about the same time, use the same exact amount of RAM, all changes that occur when one raises their BS fact sheet a little higher and they don't want to be 'left behind'.

Note the disclaimers sayin that the product specs can change at anytime drastically before release and the specs are for educational purposes only.

You really think 3 3.2 GHz PPC cores and an extreme high end nVidia or ATi GPU, or a cell processor and the same.. and 512 MB of GDDR3 (check video cards with this spec, it add hundreds of bucks to the price on its own), a brand new format optical drive (HD-DVD or Blu-Ray), board, PSU, case, and it's all going to come to ~300 GBP? Obviously, what people get at launch is going to be a hell of a lot different from what is announced now.

Hell, Sony was using videos with CGI the quality level of Final Fantasy the Spirits Within (the movie) back when the PS2 launched.

 

[freddiepm61]

Are you sure, both nvidia and sony are saying that the rsx is more powerful than dual ultras, and yes I could be sad or whatever, but I do a 3 year upgrade cycle, and get the best at each time, and my PC cost £2500 which is fx-55, and dual ultra...
and in theory the ps3 should outperform that...
f

 

[Asian Fury]

yea i think your idea of decent pc is way too high and the real value of the xbox 360 and ps3 too low. I'm fairly certain that Microsoft took a loss on every Xbox 1 sold and is planning on doing the same with the Xbox 360. Sony prolly has to do the same to put up hardware rivaling microsoft's. they're planning on making it back through software

 

[freddiepm61]

how will sony make it back through the games?
they licence the tech, but that alone can't make their billions back....
anyway good pc or no, will these things outperform a top end pc, or are we more talking athlon xp 3000+ and a 6600gt?
f

 

[LynxFX]

how will sony make it back through the games?

They get a fee for every single game that is sold. No idea on the actual dollar amount but I've heard in the ~$10 range.

As for hardware, it is always sold at a loss. Just part of the biz. But the price they pay for parts is huge difference from what we pay retail for the same thing.

 

[Lord Nassirbannipal]

Sony will make it back through games because, well, they have the most third-party support, hence the most games. They also have brand recognition.

That's why the PS2 outsold the Xbox and Gamecube by such ridiculous margins.

 

[Buckus]

It's the same pricing model that cell phones and inkjet printers follow. Give away the hardware and charge big time for the ink/games/service.

The idea is to lower the entry barrier to the console/phone/printer world. If they charged what it actually cost them, consoles/phones/printers would not sell so well, or people would hang onto the last-gen technology much longer. It's more profitable to bring more people into the fold and sell them games/ink/service at $50-60 a pop, which is more affordable than say a $800 console. And they know that most people will buy at least 10-20 games for the console, if not more, plus accessories.

Computer manufacturers, on the other hand, do not expect to make money back on service. So they have to sell for cost + profit, because as much as you like your Dell/Alienware/Compaq, you're unlikely to come back and spend $50-60 every other month or so.

 

[pre1014]

pfft, brand name recognition.
you are right, but i wish people knew what brand they were buying. i remember when i was in 6th grade and a kid i knew swore that sony was the best electronics brand in the world. i had recently gone to an ultimate electronics that just opened up and was like nooo, its cheap stuff. Luckily my thoughts on their junk got immediately backed up when i visited a home theatre snob forum for the first time a couple years later.
just because sony sells alot of their junk doesn't make it that good. i own 2 gm vehicles (1 brand new, 1 older than myself) and through my experiences i will never buy another new GM again. same goes for all the sony CD/md/dvd players i bought over the years from them. ooh and a receiver once.

\hoping ps3 and blu-ray bombs so i can watch sony and all their plastic crap burn
\\hates the "popular=the best" mindset
\\\sorry for the rant

 

[freddiepm61]

Sony is not at all bad, and they do make excellent products, however you do also have to pay extra for a brand name...
building it yourself is not too bad though, and if I knew nothing about pcs i would definately go with dell, as they never ever screw around on customer support...
like PC world (UK) for example...
f

 

[xonik]

Some more reasons why consoles are so cheap:

1. Economies of scale. A given circuit board for any popular console will be made in much greater quantities than any PC equivalent. For that matter, any component in a console will be produced in greater quantities and will be cheaper on a per-unit basis when compared with the PC equivalent.

2. Tight integration. Consoles do not require broad compatibility with hundreds of devices. This cuts down on R&D and QA costs as well as part counts, saving costs at all phases of development and production.

3. Massive budgets. Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have huge budgets, allowing them the ability to produce in massive quantities and take risks that smaller companies wouldn't dare to do. This translates to lower prices on hardware, and is recouped by software/games and accessories sales.

On an almost superficial level, consoles have smaller hard drives, slower optical drives, less RAM, and smaller power supplies than most PCs, so that saves money too.

 

[Epicenter]

To the OP: Doing things like buying an FX-55 and 2 6800 Ultras is just ripping yourself off. Paying 200-300% more for a <10% performance gain in games. For a fourth what you paid for that machine you could've had one that's almost as powerful. So .... PCs are not as expensive as you think, you just don't need to be buying the most expensive components in existance.

Your PC won't have any trouble competing with a 360 or a PS3, don't worry about it. Sony and MS are in the obligatory "Lying like a rug" stage before release just like before.

 

[ashmedai]

First of all, a 'decent PC' is about 300 GBP. A 'great' PC is about 500. An amazing one is about 700. You're exaggerating or using Alienware's pricing scheme.

Bingo. As to most of the points in this thread. ^_^

I'm kinda fond of Playstation, but hardware aside it's the software that makes or breaks any hardware that comes out. Myth made the CD-ROM, Final Fantasy made the Playstation, Halo made the X-Box. (I feel really sorry for the X-Box, although the level design has improved a bit.)

 

[nighthawk]

PC upgradability also tends to give it an advantage over consoles in power. A console is pretty much a snapshot of PC technology at the time of its release. After a couple months the PC market will have moved on whereas the console will remain the same.

 

[Talonz]

PC upgradability also tends to give it an advantage over consoles in power. A console is pretty much a snapshot of PC technology at the time of its release.

That's not true at all. In the past, PCs have always been less powerful then their console counterparts. Part of this is because software is specially made for each console, there are no differences within the same line (minor board level revisions don't count). Optimization allows console games to look better in general. Also, consoles output a much lower resolution then their PC counterparts. Consider the SNES, Nintendo 64, Playstation, Playstation 2, X Box etc... For every console machine I can think of in the past, the console has always been more powerful then the PC at the time.

Also, consider the original xbox: it ran with a Celeron and a slower graphics processor then most pcs, yet the output was still much more impressive.

 

[xonik]

I disagree. Take the XBox, for instance. It was released in November of 2001 (see Wikipedia). Here is an example of what PCs were like in 2001:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=1558&p=2

I see Athlons and Pentium 4s in the mid-GHz range, and the fall re-hash of NV30 and R200 family products.

The XBox was generally considered the most powerful of its generation in terms of processing power, too. The PS2 and GameCube had inferior performance, yet we see even the XBox being outperformed by its PC counterparts.

Maybe in previous generations the consoles had a technical advantage, but certainly there is no recent pattern of this behavior.

 

[Epicenter]

That's not true at all. In the past, PCs have always been less powerful then their console counterparts. Part of this is because software is specially made for each console, there are no differences within the same line (minor board level revisions don't count). Optimization allows console games to look better in general. Also, consoles output a much lower resolution then their PC counterparts. Consider the SNES, Nintendo 64, Playstation, Playstation 2, X Box etc... For every console machine I can think of in the past, the console has always been more powerful then the PC at the time.

Also, consider the original xbox: it ran with a Celeron and a slower graphics processor then most pcs, yet the output was still much more impressive.

Um, actually, that's quite false. Consoles have traditionally lagged behind PC technology at the time of their release. Example.

16-bit Gaming Era: Most users had 486's and 386's, the MegaDrive/Genesis used a 68000 @ 7.6 MHz and the SNES used a 65c816 at ~2.3 MHz and each had a hundredth the RAM of your average midrange desktop machine.

32/64-bit Gaming era: Most users had systems like high-end Socket 7 and emerging, Pentium 2 based systems. Cards like GeForces were standard, and games like Quake 2 were annihilating their console ports that were struggling to run them-- systems like the N64 with a 96 MHz R4000 processor and the Playstation 1 with an R3000A around 32 MHz. Again of course, nowhere near as much RAM (this is a moot point, consoles don't run an OS.)

128-bit Gaming Era (bittage becoming more and more irrelvant a term, I know ): Most users had Pentium 3 and Athlon systems, GeForce 2 level graphics cards. The Dreamcast was outpacing a lot of PCs with its graphics, but the PS2 was not due to having a relatively weak graphics subsystem.

XBox: I'll compare this separately as it's not REALLY a console. When it came out, it used a Celeron rather than a Pentium III or an Athlon or Duron, heavily lacking in the cache department. It lagged heavily behind the higher end processors gamers were using. It had to run an OS, yet only had 64 MB of RAM. The graphics chip was GeForce 3 based, yet more powerful cards were available on the PC side things and the GF4 was right around the bend, PC users snatched them up shortly after the XBox was out. A large percentage of XBox games are just PC ports with their INI Files edited to lock the game to Low settings (you can turn it up if you want. It'll just be godawful slow, a slideshow .. and crash a lot.)

The statement made earlier in this thread about upgradability really shows. The XBox was a decent gaming machine when it came out, so was the PS2 and the Dreamcast, but they were not the top dog of gaming then. Now, when the system's lifespans are hit .. PC hardware has been revolutionized. When the XBox came out most users had a 866 MHz P3 or a 900 MHz Athlon or similar, and a GeForce 3. Now, we're using GeForce 6 series cards, 2-3 GHz CPUs with on-die memory controllers from AMD and 3-4 GHz Pentium 4s from Intel ... and the hardware on the consoles has just stagnated resulting in lower and lower quality ports as PC games are moved over to them.

Consoles are very far from being ahead of the curve compared to PC gaming, you should look back a bit and you'll see history proves me right here.

 

[Talonz]

Maybe in previous generations the consoles had a technical advantage, but certainly there is no recent pattern of this behavior.

Fair enough. It's been a while since a new console has been released

The statement made earlier in this thread about upgradability really shows. The XBox was a decent gaming machine when it came out, so was the PS2 and the Dreamcast, but they were not the top dog of gaming then. Now, when the system's lifespans are hit .. PC hardware has been revolutionized. When the XBox came out most users had a 866 MHz P3 or a 900 MHz Athlon or similar, and a GeForce 3. Now, we're using GeForce 6 series cards, 2-3 GHz CPUs with on-die memory controllers from AMD and 3-4 GHz Pentium 4s from Intel ... and the hardware on the consoles has just stagnated resulting in lower and lower quality ports as PC games are moved over to them.

Yes, however I don't want a console that can be upgraded, do you? I want a machine where I can plug some controllers into and have some fun with my friends without worrying about crashes, incompatabilities, or hardware requirements.


When I say that the consoles have had the lead, I refer to the end product, not to the actual hardware. For example: Remember how much the N64 shook up the gaming world with its 3d graphics? Also, an example thats pretty key to my argument is Halo. With just a Celeron and a Gf 3, it had cutting edge graphics and gameplay. More recently, Halo 2, still has decent graphics.

My point is not that past consoles have led the PCs in technological brute force. Rather, the end product that shows up on your screen is often much more impressive then what PCs have to offer at launch time.

 

[xonik]

Eh, even in October of '96, with the release of the N64, 3Dfx had released the Voodoo 3D card, so again I'm not convinced. And Halo's graphics never impressed me in console form, but hey, I'll have my opinion and you'll have yours. Same goes for every console's offerings in the past decade. The consoles' graphics were moderately impressive, but no better than the best PCs could offer at the time, and usually, the PC had superior display resolution to boot.

 

[Epicenter]

And Halo's graphics never impressed me in console form, but hey, I'll have my opinion and you'll have yours.

Hey, Halo looks great if you think 'great' means 'no light mapping', 'low polygon count models' and 'blurry textures'.

 

[Shakezilla]

It's the same pricing model that cell phones and inkjet printers follow. Give away the hardware and charge big time for the ink/games/service.

The idea is to lower the entry barrier to the console/phone/printer world. If they charged what it actually cost them, consoles/phones/printers would not sell so well, or people would hang onto the last-gen technology much longer. It's more profitable to bring more people into the fold and sell them games/ink/service at $50-60 a pop, which is more affordable than say a $800 console. And they know that most people will buy at least 10-20 games for the console, if not more, plus accessories.

Computer manufacturers, on the other hand, do not expect to make money back on service. So they have to sell for cost + profit, because as much as you like your Dell/Alienware/Compaq, you're unlikely to come back and spend $50-60 every other month or so.

Thats why I buy my games used for under 20 dollars unless it is something I absolutley need right then. at $5.15 an hour I dont get buy many $50 games.
I will probably wait till the first price drop to get a XboX360 or PS3.

 

[Buckus]

Thats why I buy my games used for under 20 dollars unless it is something I absolutley need right then. at $5.15 an hour I dont get buy many $50 games.
I will probably wait till the first price drop to get a XboX360 or PS3.

You need to get that promotion to HEAD burger flipper, then you can afford $25 used games