The Cost - PC vs Console Gaming?

ShadowHearth

So Xbox live pays for it self so?

aN.Droid

Find 214 console titles for 2.5k please.

http://www.steamcalculator.com/id/gamemurphy/eu

This is before factoring in sales. I would go as far to say I spent less than 1k euro on these games.

Washington Irving

This thread is going nowhere. Andy has been proven wrong numerous times now but won't just admit it and stop trying to argue for the sake of it.

Andy!!

SaulGoode9 wrote: »

This thread is going nowhere. Andy has been proven wrong numerous times now but won't just admit it and stop trying to argue for the sake of it.

What are you on about. If you go right now and buy an xbox, it will be a third of the price of any gaming PC you can find or build yourself. This is the reality. You are talking ****.

aN.Droid

Andy!! wrote: »

What are you on about. If you go right now and buy an xbox, it will be a third of the price of any gaming PC you can find or build yourself. This is the reality. You are talking ****.

+ xbox live (since you are talking about an xbox)
+ higher price games
+ smaller games library
+ less features than a pc
+ less intuitive than a pc
can go on forever.

Pc is clearly the superior platform. Can't be argued that it is not and it IS cheaper in the long run.

Mr Blobby

I think this has gotten a bit out of hand when people are adding in the price of Batteries in to the mix

But as I said in my earlier post. It all comes to down to how many games you buy.

I've done the math and I save quite a considerable amount because of PC games.

tuxy

Next topic lads, Oasis or Blur?

Andy!!

Limericks wrote: »

Find 214 console titles for 2.5k please.

http://www.steamcalculator.com/id/gamemurphy/eu

This is before factoring in sales. I would go as far to say I spent less than 1k euro on these games.

That cannot be factored in as it artificially inflates numbers. How many of those games did you want? How many came in packs, which you bought for one title? Theres 120 games in my account; I chose to buy and half booted up maybe half.

The comparison would be going and buying a ps3 game and getting a free copy of dance central and my little pony. You didnt choose to spend money on it. It just came with.

Yes, steam is cheap and great. Same for the humble bundles. But just cause there are miserly arseholes who rip off a service intended to fund childrens charities, does not mean console gaming is more expensive. All those extra games are just fluff.

Andy!!

ShadowHearth wrote: »

So Xbox live pays for it self so?

Are you currently intoxicated? What are you even trying to say?

ShadowHearth

Andy!! wrote: »

Are you currently intoxicated? What are you even trying to say?

who is paying for xbox live then? who picks up the tab?

aN.Droid

Andy!! wrote: »

That cannot be factored in as it artificially inflates numbers. How many of those games did you want? How many came in packs, which you bought for one title? Theres 120 games in my account; I chose to buy and half booted up maybe half.

The comparison would be going and buying a ps3 game and getting a free copy of dance central and my little pony. You didnt choose to spend money on it. It just came with.

Yes, steam is cheap and great. Same for the humble bundles. But just cause there miserly arseholes who rip off a service intended to fund childrens charities, does not mean console gaming is more expensive. All those extra games are just fluff.

All those extra games are just fluff?

I would go as far as to say I have played 99% of the games in my steam library and gave 85% of them at least an hours worth of game time and most of them MANY more.

If I didn't want the games I wouldn't of purchased them.

My point still stands. Where can you find 214 console games for the list price (2.5k) never mind what I actually paid for them (less than a grand)

kingtiger

Andy!! wrote: »

And you can play online on ps3 or wii for free too.

I get your point Andy but you still have to purchase a game to play online though

as regards cost this may of been true 10 years ago with the cost of PCs to Consoles

but not anymore a low to mid range GFX card (€120) along with a 350 quid PC from some generic manufacturer will outperform any console on the market at the moment

mikom

Andy!! wrote: »

All those extra games are just fluff.

Sand

Andy!! wrote: »

What are you on about. If you go right now and buy an xbox, it will be a third of the price of any gaming PC you can find or build yourself. This is the reality. You are talking ****.

I'm seeing an X box 360 on sale for 204 euro (down from 250) on the Argos website. You are seriously claiming its impossible to build a gaming PC for less than 612 euro?

Consoles are cheaper hardware wise, but if you spend a *little* bit more on PC hardware you get far, far better performance - and you save the price of a laptop. PCs are *the* best gaming platform, both in performance and bang for buck. Consoles have their niche with the plug and play crowd who for whatever reason aren't comfortable with the whole idea of PC gaming but that's it.

As for the list of exclusives you listed earlier for consoles - sorry, they leave me entirely cold. They're not exclusives if they're not desirable.

Andy!!

Sand wrote: »

I'm seeing an X box 360 on sale for 204 euro (down from 250) on the Argos website. You are seriously claiming its impossible to build a gaming PC for less than 612 euro?

Consoles are cheaper hardware wise, but if you spend a *little* bit more on PC hardware you get far, far better performance - and you save the price of a laptop. PCs are *the* best gaming platform, both in performance and bang for buck. Consoles have their niche with the plug and play crowd who for whatever reason aren't comfortable with the whole idea of PC gaming but that's it.

As for the list of exclusives you listed earlier for consoles - sorry, they leave me entirely cold. They're not exclusives if they're not desirable.

Argos?? Lol. Not even my gran buys in argos, the price gougers. Try gamestop or even better, HMV.

And exclusives are exclusives if they are only released on a single platform. Thats kind of what they mean by exclusive. Has nowt to do with whether you want it or not. I couldnt give a **** about Rome Total War for example. That does not mean that it is not platform exclusive.

But again this thread is purely about cost. It is not supposed to be a consoles v PC thread, though the master race are trying very hard to make it so.

gizmo

ShadowHearth wrote: »

And yeah, let's look at it now. 440eu for Xbox on release. Plus 350eu for Xbox live plus batteries for controller or plug and play kit about 20eu? So it costed a person to play fully his Xbox 800eu+++ these 7 years. Sorry, but PC built for 800eu back then would still play all games all these years on higher settings then Xbox. Fact, like it or not. And we are talking about a release Xbox. How many people got slim ones already instead of old ones? Lets count that on top? What about cheaper games all these years on PC?
The one disadvantage is that you would had to pay more as initial investment, but it then pays for itself down the line. If that person who payed 440eu for that Xbox back in 2005 would just gone to take a small loan of 800eu and bough a gaming PC, he would actually had spent less by this date, a lot less.

So wait a second, mind blow! PC gaming was cheaper and is cheaper then console !!!! Wtf?!

Finally, someone actually compared like with like. The fact that people are comparing a ~€400 PC built now to a seven year old piece of hardware proves absolutely nothing of note.

As was highlighted in the opening posts, a PC built around 2005-06 could still keep up with the consoles, based on equivalent settings, in many cases. These are based on actual benches, not just conjecture. That PC though, would have cost a lot more than a launch console. For comparison sake, the minimum CPU required in that machine would have been a C2D E6600 which was, at launch, $318. Since this was a new architecture from Intel, there was no viable upgrade path so you were talking about an entirely new PC build, internally at least. I couldn't even hazard a guess what this would have cost but let's just go with "considerably more expensive than a console".

The 360 was, for reference, $399 on launch.

To ensure performance was similar over the following years, you would have probably needed to upgrade the RAM in that PC. Remember, this was 2005 where having 2GB was far more common than 4GB. And you probably would have needed a new GPU along the way, not the latest and greatest but certainly something better than the 7-series Geforce which were out around that time. The dual core CPU would continue to be a bottleneck in some games, not at all in others. If memory serves me correctly you could have swapped out the C2D CPU with the C2Q without changing mobo.

On the console side, the likelihood of needing a second console in that time would be fairly high. You also have the online sub for XBL if you went for that one.

The average savings on PC games at launch is about £10 so over the course of the year you could be looking at £100 savings. If you were a "waiter" you could probably save more on PC games too since their bottom-out level is generally lower than their console equivalents.

So over all? PC gaming appears to have a higher initial investment but, over the course of the entire generation, most likely balances out depending on the survival rate of your console, platform of choice with regards online systems and the number of games one buys. If you arrive to the party later then you're more likely to get a more powerful PC for the same price as the console. Towards the end of the console generation it's no contest.

Personally I couldn't give a flying ****. The only thing that has bummed me out more about gaming this generation, apart from the constant stream of bile and negativity constantly spewed everywhere, is this "superior platform" bull****. See my lovely Geforce 670 sitting in my case? It's ****ing great, I love it. It allowed me to nearly max out BF3 at my desired res, jack up Max Payne 3 to Ultra, see the lovely PhysX powered effects in Borderlands 2 and take advantage of all of the DX11 niceties in Crysis 2 (eventually). Know what it didn't let me do? Play Vanquish, Bayonetta, Journey or Mario Galaxy.

Andy!!

kingtiger wrote: »

I get your point Andy but you still have to purchase a game to play online though

as regards cost this may of been true 10 years ago with the cost of PCs to Consoles

but not anymore a low to mid range GFX card (€120) along with a 350 quid PC from some generic manufacturer will outperform any console on the market at the moment

Same with pc games, you still have to pay the entry fee.

And the numbers you list are still much more than the price of an xbox, ps3 or wii. Hell its more than an xbox and wii together.

Andy!!

gizmo wrote: »

Finally, someone actually compared like with like.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.

marco_polo

Andy!! wrote: »

My pc is sitting here beside me heating my apartment and it sounds like someone is hoovering two floors down, but sure chips give off heat

If thats the case should probably RMA that ASUS DCII cooled Nvidia card that you were telling me you a had a few weeks ago in the B&U forum.

Or perhaps you are exaggerating?

Andy!!

marco_polo wrote: »

If thats the case should probably RMA that ASUS DCII cooled Nvidia card that you were telling me you a had a few weeks ago in the B&U forum.

Or perhaps you are exaggerating?

The card is cool, thats what my temp app says anyway. Its my place that is warm. Thats kind of the idea behind the cooling takes the heat of the chip, shoots it out the vents. Yes my card is a regular ASUS DCII 660ti 2gb; and its working perfectly as far as I know. But it has been on all day. And Im sure the processor is also saving me some money on my heating bills too

gizmo

Andy!! wrote: »

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.

Perhaps read the entire post and realise what part of his quoted post I was referring to when I said like with like.

marco_polo

Andy!! wrote: »

The card is cool, thats what my temp app says anyway. Its my place that is warm. Thats kind of the idea behind the cooling takes the heat of the chip, shoots it out the vents. Yes my card is a regular ASUS DCII 660ti 2gb; and its working perfectly as far as I know. But it has been on all day. And Im sure the processor is also saving me some money on my heating bills too

Sorry your original reply was to krudler post about the "ludicrous fan noise" on the X360, I guess I am to take it then your PC doesn't in fact sound like "someone is hoovering two floors down", and you were just arguing with him for the sake of it?

Andy!!

marco_polo wrote: »

Sorry your original reply was to krudler post about the "ludicrous fan noise" on the X360, I guess I am to take it then your PC doesn't in fact sound like "someone is hoovering two floors down", and you were just arguing with him for the sake of it?

No no the ASUS 660ti is quite loud especially when gaming and I probably wouldnt recommend it to someone for that reason. Dunno if the MSI equivalent is quiter but the asus is too loud for my liking. I find myself wanting to use headphones when gaming. Im watching a movie at the moment and there is noticeable noise.

Andy!!

gizmo wrote: »

Perhaps read the entire post and realise what part of his quoted post I was referring to when I said like with like.

Shadow is doing the exact opposite of comparing like for like. Simple as.

Sand

Andy!! wrote: »

Argos?? Lol. Not even my gran buys in argos, the price gougers. Try gamestop or even better, HMV.

Yeah, I'm seeing it might run in the family. Gamestop is charging 20 euro extra for the same console.

And exclusives are exclusives if they are only released on a single platform. Thats kind of what they mean by exclusive. Has nowt to do with whether you want it or not. I couldnt give a **** about Rome Total War for example. That does not mean that it is not platform exclusive.

Oh, so its kind of like the clap being an exclusive? Why are you offering it up as a selling point for consoles again? People want to buy a console to play games they don't want?

But again this thread is purely about cost. It is not supposed to be a consoles v PC thread, though the master race are trying very hard to make it so.

Cost is only relevant when compared to benefits delivered. When it comes to consoles you'll pay less upfront and more over time to get a lot less. Some people are comfortable with that because consoles fit more with what they want. Grand. Part of being the PC master race is that I can be magnanimous. It's okay to play consoles. I wont lose any sleep over it.

kingtiger

Andy!! wrote: »

Same with pc games, you still have to pay the entry fee.

Entry fee

playing World of tanks for nearly two years and haven't spent a cent yet

also have been playing a recent release called Planetscape, never paid anything for that either

Andy!!

kingtiger wrote: »

Entry fee

playing World of tanks for nearly two years and haven't spent a cent yet

also have been playing a recent release called Planetscape, never paid anything for that either

Theres free gaming to be had with consoles too, specifically PS+.

krudler

Andy!! wrote: »

Theres free gaming to be had with consoles too, specifically PS+.

hows that free? you pay for ps+ and can only play the games while your subscription is active, once it expires the games are set back to their trial modes, all you're doing is essentially leasing the games.

IngazZagni

I'm a relatively casual gamer in that I could go a couple months without playing a game. For this reason it's a no brainer that a console is better to have than a PC, and why I play most games on PS3 over a 360 (I have both) because I didn't want to be paying for online when I rarely use it but its nice to be there.

For sure a new beefy PC will be able to play games with better graphics than consoles but I don't want to be worrying do I have the best components in my PC to play the game at max settings and then having to update them every so often. Sure just even reading the Far Cry 3 thread even those with the beefiest PC's are having framerate issues.

Washington Irving

Andy!! wrote: »

Theres free gaming to be had with consoles too, specifically PS+.

PS+ is €50 a year and has a far smaller 'free' games catalogue than PC