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BlueFalcon on 09 October 2014
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Intrinsic said:
  • Console gaming is always going to be more straightforward than PC gaming. I hope we can all at least agree on this. No, don't say or think that cause you can everyone can or that everyone likes the idea of tinkering with parts and components and drivers. Console gaming will always be more plug and play than PC gaming.
  • But lets forget that and delve into this part swapping theory of yours. So basically you are talking about buying used parts and swapping them with what you ahve at periodical intervals. By your estimates you are talking about putting in a $300+ GPU three to 4  years later for instance that will give you 4-5 times the performance of what you have in a PS4. Cool, no argument there. But this is where the PC gamer logic baffles me. Are PCs the only place you can find used parts? How much will a used PS4 cost in 3 years time?So what if at that time you could also get a used PS4 for $170?
  • then this talk about saving money and buying 40 games at $40 and 60. Come on, lets be honest here.... how many AAA games are released on PC each year that have that $40 asking price to begin with? Do you guys realize that 15-20 of those 40 console games you mention are exclusives? And lastly, if you are smart enough to know that games on PCs are cheaper... you have to also be smart enough to know that its possible to buy games used on consoles right?

 


1. PC gaming is becoming more plug and play over time:

GeForce Experience/ AMD Raptr - You select the game and it lets you optimize the game settings for your GPU/rig. It can also download the latest drivers. With consoles you have to do updates all the time too; so what difference is there to install drivers on a PC?

2. Well, if you don't want to buy a used i7 4790K, you can just pay that now upfront. If you looked at the total cost of ownership, you can either take the larger hit in invetment now, or later when you upgrade. It doesn't change the argument that the total cost of ownership on PCs is often less than consoles. In fact, with the money saved on not buying cross-platorm games on consoles, but rather on the PC, I buy a console and its exclusives.

3. No, it's not talking about 40 exclusives. When in the last 10 years did any console have 40 solid exclusives worth buying? PS2/PS3 never had that many exclusives worth buying. You'd be lucky to scrap 40 Amazing A+ exclusives across all of Xbox 360/Wii and PS3. As far as buying used games for console, PC games on sale are even cheaper ($5-10 for Tomb Raider, Far Cry 3, Dishonered, Hitman Absolution, GTA IV, Saints Row the Third the Full Package, Batman Arkham games, AC games, The Witcher 2, Metro games). If you start talking about buying used console games vs. PC games on sale at places like GOG, Steam, Origin, Humble Bundle, things get far worse for consoles as their cost of ownership just keeps rising even more.

Don't forget that now when you buy an Intel CPU, AMD or NV GPU, you often get 2-3 free games. So over the next 7-8 years as you upgrade 2-3x with the money saved on console games, you'll get 4-9 free PC games. 

I only buy consoles for single player exclusives and multiplayer games that friends play. Otherwise, every generation they become less and less relevant as PC becomes easier  to plug into your living room (Steam Big Picture), and PC parts last longer than ever (Core i7 920 @ 4.0Ghz from 2008 is still fast enough to pair with a GTX970), while GPUs continue to increase in speed 2X every 3 years. 

Once 4K TVs / Monitors drop in price, in 2-3 years PCs will be gaming at PS5/XB2 level of details. Again, I am not saying consoles are not great - they are! But console gamers overestimate the cost of PC gaming and vastly underestimate the cost of console gaming. The best imo is to get both a PC and a console so that way you can save the most money on buying 95% of cross-platform titles on the PC and buy only console exclusives and some sports games / multiplayer with friends on consoles. If you only own a PC, you miss out on the best exclusives on consoles. If you only own consoles, you get inferior graphics in 95% of cross-platform titles while paying a lot more to get those games. Also, sooner or later those 500GB hard drives on original PS4/XB1 will be too full, forcing you to spend more $ to get a new 1-2 TB HDD. 

 

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Even if you could buy a PS4/XB1 for $200 today, it's still cheaper to own a PC over 8 years and it gets cheaper the more games you buy. Why did this thread lead to get a PC? Because if you have a PC you wouldn't need to complain about 900/30 fps on consoles for cross-platform games. You'd get your Uncharted 4 and Last of Us Remastered, Destiny, Bloodbourne, etc. on PS4 and everything cross-platform for cheaper + better graphics on the PC. Then, it wouldn't matter if AC Unity ran at 640x480 at 15 fps on the PS4. That's why I really don't care about the performance of any cross-platform title on consoles -- and why would I? Why would I pay $60 for a game that runs worse in every way and looks worse? Consoles = exclusives, sports games, multiplayer with friends. PC = everything else. It's a win-win combination. Most console gamers just haven't realized this yet. And now with 970M being so fast in laptops, most kids going to college these days can game on their laptop over 4 years without having to bring a console into the dorms. 

And once you have kids and a wife, you'll probably want some privacy from time to time - for this a desktop gaming PC at home is perfect.