Augen said:
The cost of owning a system can go many ways. For example, you don't "have to" buy PS+. I did and have played online games less than 50 hours (almost all of that was Diablo III) in the 2-3 years had it. I have it for the games and discounts it provides. I figured it up and due to getting PS+ on sale for $30 a year has saved me well over $100 in games I would have bought if I didn't buy PS+ to get them free or discounted. I like Nintendo, but their games are notorious for holding price and not going on sale. I already own a dozen PS4 games that I paid less than $20 for. Some of these games were only 6-9 months old when I bought them. Now, this is specific to me because I am a high volume gamer. I buy ~20 games a year, so that $10-20 difference on each title comes out to $200-400 a year, or $1000-2000 over the course of the system's life. I think each gamer has different habits that shape the perceived value any console has. Buying peripharals, services, games, hard drives, etc. can vary greatly so really all we can say is the base consoles cost X or Y. |
We hear that argument so often: PSN+/XBLG is required and therefore an automatic added cost to a console which leads to the conclusion that all buyers will be paying for five years of service, raising the cost of the console by $250 or whatever one paid for their subscription time, therefore making said consoles more expensive than other options by comparison.
I don't agree with this.
As someone who doesn't buy a console for the explicit purpose of playing online as most of my preferred games are single player, I exclusively buy PSN+ subscription time when it coincides with big sales on games I was willing to buy. Then I just ride out the remainder of my subscription until a big PSN+ sale pops up and then repeat the process.
As a result of PSN+ sales, the subscription fees are negated and I still end up paying less for the vast majority of my games.
Of course, if it weren't for the PSN+ sales, which ape the Steam sales that resulted in my acquiring a huge catalog of PC games, I wouldn't be paying for the service.
It's all a matter of perspective, but your way of breaking down lifetime cost of supporting a platform (console) is a more accurate assessment of the overall cost. Add the cost of the subscription fees over the years the console is being used. Subtract the discounts provided by said subsciption.
If one wishes to add non hardware costs to the initial price of the console, which is ridiculous; you pay what you paid for the console, taking advantage of PSN+ sales over 5 years will likely result in your PS4 being free or costing negative dollars if you buy enough games, which is equally ridiculous.
