PC Gaming Crushes Console Gaming in New Survey

tetris42 said:
Yeah, a lot of people don't realize / believe how much cheaper PC gaming is in the long term if you're budget oriented. If you're patient and ONLY buy during major sales and don't have to have the brand new thing, the game costs come out significantly cheaper in the long term, even if the hardware cost is more than consoles upfront.
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Not really. You can always apply the same logic to consoles as well. Consoles have been $200-250 the past few years and they're not that old. You can always wait for discounts or get them used (for example, Halo 4 is ~ $7-8 now). Steam sales haven't been noteworthy for a while. A number of big console games go cheaper by 50% before they do on Steam these days.

The only real negative about consoles price wise is the online requirement. At ~$50 for six years, you'd run $300 is fees. Tack that onto a $300 console and you're at $600. Which is still likely cheaper and will age better than a 6-7 year old PC. I'm going to imagine a PS4 runs something like Assassin's Creed Origins better than a circa 2013 PC that cost $500-600. Not to mention, an Xbox/PS controller will blow a shiity $10 mouse & keyboard out of the water for most games.

PC is best for quality and many other things but price isn't one of them.

focbde said:
Agree totally... bought a PS4 Pro about 10 months ago and whilst it will never replace my main PC gaming rig, I actually really like it for what it is... and there are great exclusives as you say. Loved the Drake's series...
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I really want to give the Drake series a try. Wish they weren't PS exclusive.
 
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XBox and PS controllers work on the PC too though, and then you also have the M+KB.

Really though, it doesn't matter that much which way you go. There are tradeoffs, or you can own all of the above. No use arguing over the price, because either way you go, you'll need software, peripherals, display hardware (whether you have it to start or not, there's always the urge to upgrade if it's a monitor or a TV) etc. etc. It really doesn't matter much at all. I have a nice desktop game PC. I also have a nice living room PC. I almost want more TV upgrades than I do monitor upgrades.

Unless you're talking absolute top-end on whatever the platform, they're fairly interchangeable. Obviously a 32 core CPU and dual RTX Ti cards with 32+ GB of memory is going to cost more than 99% of console setups. But then, you could buy an XBOneX and then all of a sudden want a 77" OLED. You can go completely nuts or very conservative in just about any hobby imaginable including games.
 
vegeta535 said:
Not really. Console games drop in price rather quickly nowadays also. After a month you can typically get a AAA game like God of war for $40. You can get horizon Dawn zero compelete for as low as $15 after a year. These are the major titles. Lesser titles hit the bargin bin faster and cheaper.
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Flogger23m said:
Not really. You can always apply the same logic to consoles as well. Consoles have been $200-250 the past few years and they're not that old. You can always wait for discounts or get them used (for example, Halo 4 is ~ $7-8 now). Steam sales haven't been noteworthy for a while. A number of big console games go cheaper by 50% before they do on Steam these days.
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Whatever. I bought Vermintide for $5, Fallout New Vegas for $3.29, Steep for $6. And this is for AAA games, not indie titles, where consoles get demolished. And keep in mind, this is all TOTAL, no shipping costs. You want to go REALLY cheap, PC is still where it's at in the long haul. You have to wait until the major sales and see what has the best ratio. For consoles, even if they hit the same price, you still have to pay shipping costs. I think you underestimate just how cheap it gets on PC if that's your goal. It's not just what's on the front page of steam. There's chepassgamer, humble bundles, fanatical, etc.
 
biggles said:
Well whenever there is a multi-platform release the PC version comes out better (higher framerates, better resolutions, better shadows, draw distances, etc). And more of the games are now multi-platform as there seem to be less exclusives. I think that the consoles being underpowered has played a role. Finally, Steam sales mean you can get the games way cheaper than on console. So yeah PC gaming FTW even more than in the past.
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Being underpowered hasn't been historically a major issue, but that combined with weak dev tools or a difficult platform doesn't help. Because the last few generations have had very similar APIs to those of PCs, the incentive to just make PC games is pretty strong, because then you just have to cut out a few features or reduce the detail in a few areas, and then do some standard porting procedure (plus platform specific stuff), and you have multiple ports ready to go.
 
tetris42 said:
Whatever. I bought Vermintide for $5, Fallout New Vegas for $3.29, Steep for $6. And this is for AAA games, not indie titles, where consoles get demolished. And keep in mind, this is all TOTAL, no shipping costs. You want to go REALLY cheap, PC is still where it's at in the long haul. You have to wait until the major sales and see what has the best ratio. For consoles, even if they hit the same price, you still have to pay shipping costs. I think you underestimate just how cheap it gets on PC if that's your goal. It's not just what's on the front page of steam. There's chepassgamer, humble bundles, fanatical, etc.
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Oh sure you can get some PC games cheaper, but it isn't nearly as good as it used to be back when AAA games were $5 in a year. Especially when you factor in the hardware costs. A brand new $204 Xbox One and a handful of mixed new and used games for $30-40 isn't a bad deal if you need something super cheap that can reliably play current games. I almost went in on that deal but aide from the Halo series nothing really interests me on Xbox.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Is that the right video for this story???

View attachment 103531
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Well I was going to use a stock photo of someone playing a video game. Then I thought about it for a second and realized that the best community of guys are right here on [H]ardforum. I immediately thought... why not showcase the talented and really cool people here instead? Plus I got to showcase the watercooling section also which is ALWAYS awesome to look through and marvel at the creations that people come up with.

That was my thinking.

:)
 
Flogger23m said:
Not really. You can always apply the same logic to consoles as well. Consoles have been $200-250 the past few years and they're not that old. You can always wait for discounts or get them used (for example, Halo 4 is ~ $7-8 now). Steam sales haven't been noteworthy for a while. A number of big console games go cheaper by 50% before they do on Steam these days.
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That is really a criticism of steam only. You can get games 20-30% less to begin with elsewhere, and by the time steam drops prices to 50% of their price you can get the games for scraps from alternate vendors.
 
other than exclusives, consoles just do not offer enough bang for the $ imo... but when GTA6 comes out and i have to wait a year to play it.. well... jealous does not even come close. LOL
 
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