The Future of the Console

[Slothy]

PCs may be more powerful but more power is not necessary to make a great game.

You keep mentioning as though it's important to the point I was making but not only is it irrelevant I never even argued otherwise.

But assuming that people are going to do that is pointless and just skews your estimation.

Seeing as I didn't make such an assumption I have to disagree. The reality is that most people I know don't buy netbooks, and even a bottom of the barrel laptop running the worst hardware on the market from my casual browsing of the section the odd time I go to Future Shop tells me people are going to be spending at the bare minimum $350+tax for a complete piece of tit laptop that will likely be toast in 3-4 years. I literally went with the bare minimum price I can imagine for a mediocre laptop, and adding the cost of just about any console onto that will be almost the cost of simply buying a computer that's going to give you sufficient power to play games for the next 5 years minimum.

Similarly, not everyone leaves things on all the time, so that assumption is also nonconducive.

So what if they don't leave their PC on all of the time? Maintain a PC well and it will start quite quickly, especially with decent hardware in it. I can start up my computer from being completely shut down and be opening Steam in not much more time than it takes to start up my PS3 and get to the menu screen in a game. My point was that realistically, Del's argument that he likes to start playing a game within a minute of hitting the power button is a non-issue, and it really is. Factor in things like sleep or standby modes in computers and it's even less of an issue.

And honestly, I don't know anyone who shuts down their computer save for their laptops on occasion. Even then, most people just close the top and let it go into sleep mode. My assumption that not only do most people not shut down their computers, but that it's unnecessary is based on first hand knowledge of the habits of dozens of friends and family.

A console costs £200, a gaming PC costs £800+; that is the only definite information we have regarding the base cost.

Again, I offered up the real cost for mine, not to mention have experience building great PC's for others for less money, and years of browsing prices for major manufacturers. This isn't some guess work that you could build or buy a PC that will last you five years easy for the cost of buying a mediocre PC or laptop and a console. This is years of my own first hand experience in how much this stuff costs. Most people seem to think gaming PC and equate it with top of the line processors, 16GB of RAM, and $500 graphics cards. The reality is that not having stuff does not mean you won't be able to run top of the line AAA games released five years from now and have them look good. Far from it with a little smart shopping. When it comes to buying a PC, a little knowledge goes a long way.

The additional costs you should focus on is that of the games, since they are the only necessary part of gaming other that the medium.

I could focus on the costs of the games, but considering games tend to be cheaper on the PC, that's a point of comparison that the consoles have already lost. Factor in the utterly absurd deals Steam runs almost every single day and the comparison only gets worse for them.

Anyways this thread is really turning into a personal preference one.

Agreed, which is largely why I'm staying away from discussing what people find fun. I could care less if Del or anyone else prefers console gaming. It has no impact on my life and is about as important to me as what colour underwear the people in the house at the end of the street wear. But if we're going to start talking about gaming on a PC being too expensive I'm going to argue the point because in most cases I don't buy it. Sure, if you're never going to buy a PC or laptop anyway then it's more expensive than a console. But if you're already buying a middle of the road laptop or PC, my simple point is that for the incremental cost of buying a console as well, you can have a gaming ready PC that will serve you well for years.

Again, I'm not trying to convince Del or anybody else to skip the next console generation and buy a gaming ready PC instead. I really don't give a tit if they do or don't. I do care when they start arguing that PC gaming is prohibitively expensive though because it's not only demonstrably false, the comparison only further breaks down when you factor in game prices. Honestly, for the last few years I've been able to play more PC games for less money than I have console games. Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of my console games that I own, and have enjoyed a lot of stuff that released this generation, but PC gaming is costing me a lot less these days despite buying considerably more.