Intrinsic said:
And this is the nonsense (sorry, just getting really frustrated) that Pc gamers keep bringing into this argumnet. What else you can or can't do with a PC has nothing to do with playing a game or not playing a game on a PC. That has no bearing on this discussion at all. If someone has only $500-$700 to spend on a device. And his primary reason for wanting to buy this device is to play games. He may already have a laptop that does everything he wants a PC to do or even just a tablet that he is content with or God forbid a phone. He just wants something to play his games on now. This person is faced with two options. Buy a console, or buy/build a dedicated gaming rig. Its that simple. Nothing more, nothing less. Whatever he bought the device for is what he would use the device for the most. My PS4, can also do more than just play games. But all I care about is its ability to play games. And at the end of the day, if I post a screenshot here of my PS4 running COD:AW and you post a screenshot of yours. And yours looks better. If you are asked, what are you running that on, your answer would be an overclocked pentium cpu and a $190 GPU with 8GB RAM. The answer to that question will not entail how well your PC can run word or photoshop. Cause the only thing we are talking about here is that screenshot of the game you posted. If he is better of building a PC withhis $700, if playing on PCs are better, if it would cost him les down the road... are all irrelevant to this particular topic. This isn't about which platform is better or how much you spent. That is not what i meant by $350-$400 consoles. What I meant is that $350-$400 represents an estimate of what the hardwrae costs inside the console. So if its performance is being compared to a PC running a game, its only fair that itbe compared to a PC with a similar "hardware" price point. If you read my last few posts in one of them a clearly described exactly what I mean. |
If all that mattered was the ability to play games (and no other multimedia functions) then why would those features be advertised by the companies and why would they even be implemented in the costs of producing the system? Why didn't Sony just use more powerful hardware instead of spending money for their software to support multimedia applications like Netflix? Quite obviously that is part of the console's appeal and it will allow for more consoles to sell. I'm sure there are a minority of consumers who only want their devices to play games and would not care if these other features were not present. However, when you have a heading "hardware" and you are doing a cost-analysis, you must look at all hardware. But anyway, let me just list a few things my PC can do, relevant to gaming that a PS4 (without a PC) can't do (as well) currently (and no cheap laptop can either.)
I can stream any game I play and have a social interaction involved with that gameplay through whichever application I choose (i.e Twich, Ustream) better than a PS4 can.
I can record my gameplay at resolutions of 1080p and put them online for commentary better than a PS4 can.
I can modify my games to my choosing, eliminating game breaking glitches, poor framerates, improving graphics, and gameplay.
I can play games on multiple monitors.
I can play old games at high resolutions and framerates.
All of these improve the gaming experience, and therefore are directly relevant to gaming. Graphical capability and performance isn't the only hardware feature that involves a cost. In the price of the PC one pays more for a more versatile Operating System that can perform many gaming-related functions. One also pays for a GPU that can perform functions like outputting to two (or more monitors), meanwhile such features are obsolete and unnecessary in console-gaming, and therefore do not factor when developing the GPU of a PS4/Xbone.
That is just one example of why comparing a $350-$400 console and a $350-$400 PC will not work fairly. If we are only speaking of graphics, then we should then only add up components that influence graphics (not the operating system, for example.) However, there is much more to PC gaming than just "better graphics" and the type of hardware found in PC builds reflect this (some people choose a weaker Nvidia card at the same price-point because it has shandowplay, for example.)
The flaw in the argument is this:
"shoudn't it only be fair to compare a PC that cost just as much and will give you the exact same things in the box?"
What you get in the box, even at the same pricepoint is not the same. What you are paying for, is not the exact same. In your opening post you said nothing about performance or graphics. You mentioned, "what is in the box." It was generally labeled "hardware", which is more than just performance and graphics, and it just so happens that one can get more freedoms out of PC hardware to game how we want than with console hardware, regardless of graphics. That is why costs of components would be higher, there are more things a PC GPU must be designed for than a console GPU. There are more things a PC OS must be designed for than a console OS. There are more things a PC CPU must be designed for than a console cpu. And some of these "more things" are relevant to playing video games and sharing your experiences with the ever-more social gaming community. If somebody chooses to game on a PC it is because they want these "more things" included. PC gaming isn't only about having the better graphics and the faster framerates. They are corollary to the main experience, an experience which is not free by the way.
