Something I learned about PC gaming...

[Vilcus]

My reason for being a console gamer isn't because PC gaming is too expensive. The problem is that I don't have enough money to begin with. I myself don't make much money (no job, I get $20.00 a week to do light cleaning around the apartment), so when my video card exploded I was forced to turn to consoles. I can still play games like Warcraft III and WoW, but I have to put them on minimum settings... I hate crappy replacement video cards.

I've always known that building a decent gaming PC wouldn't cost me any more than $1,000.00. However, because I don't have much money that seems like a lot (could make that much after 3 or 4 weeks at a part time job), and building one wouldn't be a problem (my dad has built every computer he has ever owned, including the ones he got for me). I just hope I'm able to get my system up and running in the next 2 months so that I can enjoy games like Starcraft 2, L4D2 (for the mod support, and simplicity of control), and when it comes out Diablo 3 (lots more than that, but those are ones I'm really looking forward to).

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

PC gaming was expensive. Back when the games were regularly pushing the hardware, there was legitimate reason to spend $2-3k on a cutting-edge system - and that was certainly a far cry from the $200-300 you'd spend on a then-current-gen console.

Now the PC hardware has completely outpaced the software. Crysis is still considered one of the most demanding PC games, and it's three years old. The next Crysis looks to be a downgrade in terms of system reqs; they're intentionally scaling it to work on consoles.

And that's the thrust of it all. Consoles might be inferior in just about every conceivable way, and you might be able to run 90% of PC releases at max settings with only a $700-800 machine. None of that changes the fact that the PS3 and 360 are driving the software side, which means the hardware side of PC gaming is going to be limited.

Long story, short: PCs don't get to fly anymore. They're tethered to console-shaped anchors. This is good for people who want to game on PC without dropping a few thousand dollars, but things aren't so rosy for the folks who enjoy really pushing the tech.

 

[Dys]

I'm sorry, am I missing something? £700 for a gaming PC, and you're all nodding your heads sagely and agreeing wwith how cheap that is?

A new Xbox 360 with a 250 GB hardrive costs, on Argos.co.uk, £190. That's less than a third of what your PC cost you. A 250 GB PS3 costs £285 from Argos, and that comes with two free games. I'm honestly struggling to see what exaclty is cheap about the PC option.

A new xbox, from argos.co.uk, has less than a third of a standard new gaming computer (and presumably this 700 pound above alienware rig has even more power again). 250gb harddrive seems a little insubstancial when we're talking in tb for the desktop. Assuming the xbox 360 will have the same lifespan of a gaming PC[footnote]It won't.[/footnote] there are 5-10 years (more if it's the PC user intends to upgrade it) of online fees, the cost of the screen (how much of that 700 pounds is for a sexy full HD screen?). Extra peripherals such as headsets and games are hugely more expensive as well. Of course, it would be silly of me to mention that I can put together a budget gaming computer[footnote]which is a far more sensible comparison to a gaming console than a cutting edge gaming PC[/footnote] (still with considerably more power than an xbox 360), and get change from $400au +screen (somewhere in the region of 200 pounds, again not including the cost of the screen), which, given the massive price of anything in australia (for example xbox 360s with no hdd or games packaged sell for ~$250au) is pretty cheap.

I'm honestly not seeing how anybody can possibly argue, with a straight face, that console gaming is cheaper than PC gaming, especially when they are using the xbox 360 as a benchmark for consoles.

Yeah, if you know what to do, PC gaming can *sigh* be awesome, but for most average folks who are just trying to play a game here and there and don't want to spend upwards of $700-1500 on a good rig that they'd have to assemble themselves, plus the expenses of upgrading it over time; a one time payment of $200-400 for a pre-assembled PS3 (or Xbox, if paying $50 a year to enjoy online is your thing) that can play most games on the level that a gaming rig can is most definitely a good choice.

Now to tackle the hurdle of there being no mods or modding on consoles...

Absolutely agree. Owning a PC is cheaper when you know what you're doing, but there's an effort involved and for a great many people it's worth spending a little extra on the convenience of a console.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

They are called HD 5770

It's gonna be interesting to see if ATI can match the 5770's straddling the Price/Performance sweetspot again when the HD 6000 series GPUs start dropping later this year.

 

[DeaconSawyer]

For any PC gamers wondering if their computer can run a game just check out systemrequirementslab.com and click can you run it. It will give you a dropdown menu of most games, and check your system specs. against the required etc.

 

[Hateren47]

They are called HD 5770

It's gonna be interesting to see if ATI can match the 5770's straddling the Price/Performance sweetspot again when the HD 6000 series GPUs start dropping later this year.

I think they have a pretty good thing going and I predict they will go for about the same price and keeping the 6870, 6890 and dual-GPU 6970 for the high-end crowd. Also it's hopefully gonna be the generation where my 4870 is gonna have to find something else to do. It still plays really well so I might just wait till the next generation of consoles come out before upgrading.

 

[auronvi]

My gaming rig cost me about $800 total to make.

I have yet to find anything I can't run max/max at 1920x1080 resolution with a second monitor running 1680x1050

My PC is 2 years old at this point too. When I see people spending over $1000 in PC equipment for gaming I cry a little inside. Such a pointless waste.

Don't cry. See you spent 800 dollars on a machine that I would have to say cost someone about 2000 dollars 2 years before. Now I get there is a happy medium where you can get a good computer that will last a while for a decent price. I bought my rig a little while back for about 1000 dollars and it also runs everything tip top but I am now seeing my computer slowly become obsolete. I think I will get another computer in about a year.

If I had the money though, I would totally have one of those 5000 dollar amazing triple monitor behemoths of a computer with 2 processors and triple video card... why? Cause it would be nothing short of amazing.

 

[Funkysandwich]

Building my own PC was the best thing I ever did. I started with a Dell inspiron 530S that cost AUD$1050 four years ago, and now I have spent AUD$550 on a new case, motherboard, GPU, processor, 800GB hard drive and some DDR3 RAM. All I kept from the dell was the screen, keyboard and speakers. The Dell is now a media PC with a TV card, and I can run pretty much anything on my gaming PC's.

For those unsure about building PC's, it's really easy. It's like Lego. Just try not to break anything, and make sure the power is disconnected.

And for those who claim PC gaming is more expensive, I spent AUD$550 on my gaming PC, and over here an Xbox 360 is still at least AUD$440. Since I need a PC anyway, it works out better for me. Plus games are cheaper too.

 

[Hateren47]

My gaming rig cost me about $800 total to make.

I have yet to find anything I can't run max/max at 1920x1080 resolution with a second monitor running 1680x1050

My PC is 2 years old at this point too. When I see people spending over $1000 in PC equipment for gaming I cry a little inside. Such a pointless waste.

Don't cry. See you spent 800 dollars on a machine that I would have to say cost someone about 2000 dollars 2 years before. Now I get there is a happy medium where you can get a good computer that will last a while for a decent price. I bought my rig a little while back for about 1000 dollars and it also runs everything tip top but I am now seeing my computer slowly become obsolete. I think I will get another computer in about a year.

If I had the money though, I would totally have one of those 5000 dollar amazing triple monitor behemoths of a computer with 2 processors and triple video card... why? Cause it would be nothing short of amazing.

And you can get some of that money back by renting it to Pixar for rendering Toy Story 4

 

[Pegghead]

If I had the money I'd probably fork out for a real nice gaming pc, but this ol' girls served me well and she runs the games I like to play (mostly older titles).

 

[Signa]

Money isn't the problem with PC gaming, it's the troubleshooting that turns me off of it. I buy to play, not to troubleshoot. If I buy a game and have to troubleshoot, that's annoying. If there's a problem that takes more than 2 days to fix, that's unacceptable, and I had to troubleshoot next to everything I bought for the PC.

I like this post. Console users are far too willing to throw out the "too expensive" argument and not even look at prices to see how wrong they are about it. THIS argument on the other hand, I can buy, because not everyone has the time, patience, or know-how to deal with the inevitable issues that can crop up while using a PC.

 

[Super Toast]

I just started PC gaming myself and I'm finding to be great fun. And like you said, it's nowhere near as expensive as people say.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

They are called HD 5770

It's gonna be interesting to see if ATI can match the 5770's straddling the Price/Performance sweetspot again when the HD 6000 series GPUs start dropping later this year.

I think they have a pretty good thing going and I predict they will go for about the same price and keeping the 6870, 6890 and dual-GPU 6970 for the high-end crowd. Also it's hopefully gonna be the generation where my 4870 is gonna have to find something else to do. It still plays really well so I might just wait till the next generation of consoles come out before upgrading.

Yeah, I'm in 'wait and see' mode because my HD 3870s have gotten a bit long in the tooth and I should have the cash for a moderate upgrade of my main rig next year. Upside is that I can firmware hack my 3870s into the equivalent FireGL workstation GPUs for use in a renderbox. Go Team Cheap Bastard!

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

if you want to say pc gaming is cheap you must specify how goddamn cheap games for it are off of a system such as steam... for insance i've only spent like... $200-$300Canadian on games in the last like 2 or so years... i have somewhere aproaching 200 games on steam... i think last time i did a count it was at something like 179 or so... cuz they have package deals... then they have deals on package deals... i got the entire rockstar lineup including all of their GTA titles some racing games they made... bully something else and... yeah it cost me i believe somewhere in the range of $20 for the whole bloody package... so yeah it cost as much as a used sports game in a retail store... to get pretty much all of the games rockstar has for the pc...
just an example for ya...

not to mention my pc has had maybe $1200 spent on it in the last... 8 years... mainly upgrading in chunks... i've fully rebuilt the hardware in it roughly 5 times... and it runs... EVERYTHING... i cannot find anything that it cannot handle... and the only part on it that's gonna be replaced soonish is the cpu, still has an old dual core 2.4 in it... 'course i got that for $60 like 2 years ago... so y'know...

 

[ZombieGenesis]

Money isn't the problem with PC gaming, it's the troubleshooting that turns me off of it. I buy to play, not to troubleshoot. If I buy a game and have to troubleshoot, that's annoying. If there's a problem that takes more than 2 days to fix, that's unacceptable, and I had to troubleshoot next to everything I bought for the PC.

I like this post. Console users are far too willing to throw out the "too expensive" argument and not even look at prices to see how wrong they are about it. THIS argument on the other hand, I can buy, because not everyone has the time, patience, or know-how to deal with the inevitable issues that can crop up while using a PC.

Yeah, I think we can accept that PC software tends to have its pitfalls in gaming. It's just that with a bit of patience we do tend to overcome them, but I suppose it's not for everybody. I myself had a doozy of a time trying to get Fallout 3 to run properly, but in the end it was just software trickery and I worked around it.

Not sure if I can wait on the new ATI releases (since they'll come out here later anyway) to drop the prices of the older cards. I'm getting my EVGA GTX 470 for £200 anyway, which in the UK is a pretty good deal. (£232 on NewEgg)

 

[The Undoer]

In my opinion, PC gaming is more value for money. What a lot of gamers don't take into account is the ammount of things you can actually do with a PC. I got my current one for £500 around 5 years ago, and it runs anything - Not on full, but it stills runs them just fine.

 

[hawkeye52]

I'm sorry, am I missing something? £700 for a gaming PC, and you're all nodding your heads sagely and agreeing wwith how cheap that is?

A new Xbox 360 with a 250 GB hardrive costs, on Argos.co.uk, £190. That's less than a third of what your PC cost you. A 250 GB PS3 costs £285 from Argos, and that comes with two free games. I'm honestly struggling to see what exaclty is cheap about the PC option.

the xbox is a good 5 years old now which costs you around £190 still. ok i will take a comp that was made in that era and compare the price

nvidea geforce fx5500 graphics: £16
intel celeron 2.93GHZ processor: £35
1GB of ram: £14
20 GB hard disk: £38
a cheap keyboard and mouse together: £14
19" widescreen monitor: £15
£22 for dvd drive
£42 for motherboard
psu plus cooling £51

£247 which is cheaper then a ps3 and could probably run most of the older games plus some of the newer less demanding games.

the pc im currently on can run all modern games without a problem on medium to high graphics and its roughly 2-3 years old now i think and it costs if custom built.

£22 for RAM
£38 for processor
£67 for graphics
£42 for 200 GB hard disk
£58 for 20 inch monitor
£22 for dvd drive
£42 for motherboard
psu plus cooling £51
then £15 for mouse and keyboard

so this is £357 and it isnt that expensive in the end and out of the 3 comps i own plus laptop (my famiy has 2 houses in cyprus and we move between them a lot and i live in england for half the year) this is the second most expensive with my most expensive pc being around £500 and easily outshines any console currently out on specs alone never mind the external uses it has such as being able to web browse and do work off it.

so as you can see from above pc gaming can be just as cheap as console gaming if not cheaper then a console (as long as you dont look for a gaming laptop you are fine) since we can custom build our machine and upgrade it when need be as opposed to buying a whole new system when the next console comes out.

 

[Skizle]

Well at least that's one of you.

Now for the rest who list "oh it's sooo expenisve" as a reason as to why PC gaming is "dying".

Well it is a legitimate excuse. To get a GREAT gaming PC it will cost you around $700 or more

I'm a little bit on the pissed side, but as far as I can work out $700 is in the region of £500. For something that can do 3000 things as well as play games, that's dirt cheap.

Well when your working for minimum wage and getting around 20-25 hours a week and only getting to keep about $50 (around £30) after bills, then yea its expensive. And I'm sure I'm not the only former console player (or console player that wants to get into PC gaming
) that has had (or has) this situation and wanted to get a great PC. Which I did, but I spent around $1100 for mine so I wouldn't have to invest in it for a while.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Oh good, here comes the recursive 'platform of choice' superiority circle jerk. It's what happens when a large quantity of fans are pulled together away from any alternate view points, for example for a thread that only addresses them. One negative comment about the platform and before you know it you get a quote chain of people sneering about the competitors without any further input from the person who started it.

PS. My Xbox has red ringed once. Then I got it repaired for free as it was under the free three-year extended warranty for Red Rings.

PPS. Yes, PCs have more uses but everyone has access to a PC anyway, it's just that it's probably nowhere near in a state to be playing any recent game releases and as such would cost about as much to upgrade as it would to replace completely.

It's not really a circle jerk or anything, there's a proven defect in the 360's architecture, one that doesn't exist on PC's. Do PC's crash? Yes. Do PC's freeze? Yes. But, the 360 does this also, RRoD aside. I've never had a PC simply _die_ while I was playing games/turning it on. Have I done stupid shit with a PC that caused its death? Yes. Have I seen other people perform similar things? Yes. But, die because I turned it on, or played a game? Hell no.

I don't begrudge anyone their console of choice, it's about entertainment, after all. What entertains one person, doesn't necessarily 'do it' for the next person. But, avoiding discussion on a very real sticking point of any bit of hardware, is rather silly.

Oh no, I wasn't calling it a circle jerk because of the point made, but instead because he quoted someone who quoted me rather tha actually quoting the original post I made. I'm probably overthinking things by saying that, but you must've seen it before when people start a quote chain despite the original commenter being long gone.

I'm sorry, am I missing something? £700 for a gaming PC, and you're all nodding your heads sagely and agreeing wwith how cheap that is?

A new Xbox 360 with a 250 GB hardrive costs, on Argos.co.uk, £190. That's less than a third of what your PC cost you. A 250 GB PS3 costs £285 from Argos, and that comes with two free games. I'm honestly struggling to see what exaclty is cheap about the PC option.

Add in the price of a TV for the 360 and a PC for the internets, and word processing, and photo editing and all those other PC things you do and get back to us.

Oh sorry, I also forgot the price of my house, and the electricity supply, and lighting so that I can play games. I also forgot to pay for my clothes, and food so that I don't fall over sideways half way through playing the game.

My point is, everyone owns a TV and everyone owns a PC (more or less everyone, anyway). What not everyone owns is a PC that is up to scratch to play modern games, and you'd have to upgrade pretty thoroughly to get to that point.

 

[Sev72]

Was that a super stealthy advertisement?