Why Xbox 360 is losing appeal to new customers.

[shio]

loves2splooge said:

Shio, how much did you spend on PC gaming hardware since 2005 (and you seem like a core PC gamer so I assume that you keep your rig up to date to play the latest stuff right on solid settings right?) If you don't mind answering. This will offer a good cost comparison with the Xbox 360. PC gamers always talk about how gaming rigs are cheap to build but rarely talk about the long-term costs of PC gaming (which is very important to consider because rigs have to be kept up to date and outright replaced after a certain while whereas in this gen, 360 and PS3 will have 6-7 years lifespan at least). And when I mean hardware, I'm talking about the rig(s), upgrades, gaming keyboards and mouse (if you use those instead of the standard stuff), etc.

I think we should leave monitors and HDTVs out of the equation because those have multiple uses outside of gaming. (And you can use the HDTV with PC gaming and the monitor for console gaming. I myself have been considering purchasing a 21-24" 1080p or more monitor because they are cheaper than similarly sized HDTVs and offer better resolution). You could argue that a desktop has use outside of gaming as well (of course though you don't need a gaming rig for everyday computer use. I could even keep my old P4 desktop for that until it eventually craps out. lol) but as someone who is a laptop user (and all my needs are met by the laptop sans playing the more demanding PC games), sell me on building a new desktop (which will only be used for gaming).

I bought a PC in early 2006 (just before the domination of Core Duos), without the monitor it pegged me at $850. Plus a new GPU last year for $150. A total of $1000.

In the last 12 months I bought over 40 PC games, for around $200 maybe.

How about you?