Let's talk about Specs

[Cerebralbore101]

vivster said:

Cerebralbore101 said:

MS no longer talks about lifetime XB1 sales because they lost. The opposite of that is winning, so I guess a brand new computer build must win in the price to performance race then right?

Look man, I love my PC. Both Series X and PS5 look underwhelming. Series X will have few games just like XB1. PS5 lacks proper backwards compatibility, is a bit weaker than I expected, and will likely hand all its exclusives over to PC. I probably won't even get a PS5 until 2022 or later. If I get one at all.

But a console beats a PC in price to performance by 3:1. Even if you were to factor in all the extra things a PC can do, it still winds up lacking dollar for dollar compared to a regular console. It's a premium product for people that don't care about money. If there were such a thing as a $700 PlayStation, with graphics power to match, and full backwards compatibility PC would be some extremely niche market. Like Kosher food. Or Hentai. 

Price/performance does not matter on PC. We all know if all you want to do is play games that are on console and don't care about anything else there is nothing that beats a dedicated console. You go to PC if you want something that console can't do, which is a lot of things. If you go PC gaming you pay not only for performance, you pay for everything else you need to as well. Comparing price/performance of console to PC is like comparing an mp3 player to a smartphone. Of course a smartphone will lose, but it's pretty much irrelevant because a smartphone is a smartphone and people buy it usually to do more with it than just listen to music. That doesn't make the smartphone a loser.

That's why for a PC user it's pretty much irrelevant how much consoles cost. If a PC player needs a graphics or other hardware upgrade he'll pay what he has to and there are great prices out there so PC users do not have to break their bank. It's time for people to stop spread the myth of the rich PC gamer. The vast majority of PC users have mid to low end hardware. Lots of people have their hardware for about as long as a whole console generation or longer and they can easily upgrade their system for cheap instead of buying everything new. It is absolutely possible to pay just as much as console players do to keep up with the games and have a passable rig. It might not be exactly as powerful, but it does other things that consoles don't do and that is the whole point.

If a console existed that was on par with high end PCs for half the price, PC would still be a thing. Poor PC gamers would opt to not pay $700 and rather get a minor upgrade that costs less for them. Rich PC gamers would still opt for a PC that's double as expensive because in the end it is impossible for consoles to hold the performance crown.

I mean think of it that way, the price proposition of consoles is so terrible for some people that they'd rather spend more or get a weaker system just so they don't have to use a console. In that way PC's aren't the little loser brother to consoles, they are the monument of all the failings of consoles. The mere existence of gaming PCs is a sign that consoles are doing something horribly wrong or at least are turning off enough people to make a multi billion industry out of it.

That goes both ways. If PCs are the monument to the failings of consoles, then consoles are the monument to the failings of PCs. Most people have a console instead of a gaming PC. So which fails harder? 

It might not be exactly as powerful, but it does other things that consoles don't do and that is the whole point.

Ah, the peasant build. That's basically the worst of both worlds.