crumas2 said:
No, 360's don't cost nearly as much as a good gaming PC, and they don't need to be upgraded all the time. I got out of PC gaming because it's a huge cash drain to keep a PC upgraded to play the latest titles effectively. |
It goes a bit beyond saying you'd be hard pressed to build even a decent gaming PC for the price of a 360, even at $450 for an Elite.
The price of a decent CPU and graphics card alone would cost $450.
For the sake of arguing, sure, you could buy an 8600GT 256MB for well under $100, and an older Intel Core 2 for under $150. But add MoBo, RAM, HDD, case, PSU and OS and you're still well over $450.
Cut too many corners in terms of components and you'll be left with a gaming PC that isn't capable of playing any of the current games on even minimal settings. Worse yet, you'll be left with a minimum configuration that may not play games a year in the future at a playable frame rate.
The 360 really is a cheap solution to PC gaming, which is one of the problems damaging the PC gaming market and one of the real reasons why PC gamers are so hostile towards consoles more than ever.
But I don't buy the constant upgrade argument against gaming PCs as 100% valid. A decent configuration will last at least two years, which is the general life span of a desktop PC before a major upgrade even for non gaming purposes. Yes, people can stretch their PCs longer (I've been using the same Powerbook without problems for about 4 years), but generally speaking, 2-3 years is average.
The constant upgrading for gaming PCs largely boils down to keeping up with the Joneses and maintaining a "respectable" if not envy inducing rig. The omnipresent PC gamer obsession with high frame rates at high resolutions for the latest games only reinforces this mindset. But there has to be a gauge for performance to justify new hardware. Truth be told, running at 1280x720 at 60fps would be matching high performance for most current 360 and PS3 games. Running at 1920x1080 at 60fps would exceed all but the best games on either platform (of which there may be one or two examples for either the 360 or PS3).
But if you feel the need to run the latest system crushing games at max resolution with all effects on max, then yes, you must pay to upgrade video cards on a 1-2 year basis if buying high end cards. Is it necessary to run the latest games at a playable (30-60fps) frame rate and 1280x720 resolution (minimum)? No.
