Barozi said:
Well the games are definitely cheaper, but you're definitely right about something.
If you're going to buy a PC you most likely won't get a cheap ass one, because if you did you'd need to replace ALL parts in a few years. So you're going to get a more expensive one that is more future proof and yet after some years you're angry that you can't run the games at full details and you buy a new CPU because on its own it's not that expensive..... and then you buy more because the GPU now sucks compared to the new CPU and so on.
So yeah PC gaming is not really cheap. Though it can be worth it.
I bought a completely new PC in 2009 for 700€ ($900 incl. tax). Because Skyrim didn't run as good I bought a new GPU (GTX 580) for 200€ ($260) even though my old one (4890HD) was still pretty good. Now I'm also buying more RAM for 35€ ($45). But then I'm thinking that my CPU (E8400 dual core overclocked to 3.6GHz) sucks compared to the other parts and even though I don't plan to replace it, I probably will next year or in two years.
And obviously the power consumption is much higher, which doesn't help in these times.
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So, saving 742% on hardware isn't worth spending 33% more for a game. Got it!
I'm not suggesting that somewhere in your response you aren't agreeing with me, I'm just saying that saving 33% per game versus spending potentially 742% more for hardware doesn't really make sense.
For the cost of the computer I priced out at the end, a person could buy 75 full-priced console games. If you divide up those 75 games over the past 7 years, that's over 10 games per year.
The amount saved on 75 games ($1500), just barely pays for the initial investment you decribed above. The problem is that over that same 7 year period it's unlikely that you'd be able to play a brand new game on a 7 year old computer.
Note: I'm making the assumption that a full-priced PC game is $40. Mileage may vary by where you purchase your game and whether you purchase it on sale.
