I wasn't arguing for me personally, I was arguing for the visible trend in the market.Note: I'm not saying go sell your current hardware. However, when the time comes to upgrade, look and see what the true price of a gaming PC/laptop is vs. buying a console.
But What About the Cost?
If you are an hobbyist of any sort, you undoubtedly spend more money on your hobby than people with a casual interest do. In gaming, there is no real reason this shouldn't also extend to the hardware itself. When you build a PC, yes, upfront you are spending more money than a casual fan who would just walk into a store and buy a locked down console box. But this is no different than any other area. When you are an enthusiasts you generally are more invested, intellectually, emotionally, and financially. You probably buy more $50 and $60 games than the average person. It is no different to say you also spend more money on your gaming hardware than the average person who just walks into a store and buys a $399 Xbox.
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Furthermore, you are no longer at the mercy of console developers in terms of how much you are willing to spend on your hardware or determine when your hardware is obsolete. Upgrade as you go or simply lower some settings until you are ready to spend some more cash. Your system becomes "outdated" when you decide it is, not when a console maker stops releasing games for it.
I wasn't arguing for me personally, I was arguing for the visible trend in the market.
I own a gaming PC that cost me ~1300EUR last year (That was from scratch [except Monitor], as I hadn't owned a desktop in 14 years). For me personally it was not worth it. The exclusive games I anticipated didn't turn out to be as good as I was hoping for. I fell in the same trap as with disappointing consoles, where you buy before they have the games you know you want, rather than you think you want.
And the graphics upgrade was nice, but not worth the price for me. That doesn't mean that I think everyone who chooses a gaming PC is an idiot, it just means that after paying that much and not getting what I feel out of it sucked for me. (One more time: for me.)
I've been told on GAF that I paid too much because the higher you go the less you get per dollar and I fell in that trap of being overly excited.
And I get to test the claim that buying a high end PC in 2012 is going to be enough to play all next-gen games at better settings which was a common sentiment in a thread on this forum.
And Dark Souls!
Actually Capcom, Sega and Konami seem to be getting it and are generally heading in the direction of offering more and more support. It's really only Square, Namco and a few other major Japanese publishers that still need to start offering PC versions. But there are positive signs.
Why are PC gamers always so starved for attention? If it's not asking about a console game coming to their platform, it's some thread about trying to convert console owners over.
Besides, the tablet is taking over you platform. Consumers don't need big hulking desktops anymore. Time to switch over to consoles and join the winning side.
Excellent post, nbthedude. I don't think you give enough attention to the very frugal PC gamers out there. My dual-core PC cost $320 to build 2 years ago. It totally sucks but it's about on par if not a little better than an Xbox 360. I just ordered a quad-core CPU for $75 -- the original CPU cost $60. I can upgrade when I want and choose the parts that I want to upgrade.
To anyone curious, you do not need to spend $500 or $800 or $1000+ on a gaming PC. Even if you can't keep up with new games, there's a huge library of classics to catch up on for $5-$10 every Steam sale.
Aside from Battlefield 3, most big-budget PC games are console ports. Since the 360 is so old, you can match it or beat it very cheaply. $5 games are a godsend. Of course, when the new consoles come out, a $300 PC probably won't be able to keep up.
Anyway, there's nothing even close to the Humble Indie Bundle on consoles. I just paid $5.50 for 7 indie games, and I know for certain most of them are good. Alan Wake, an awesome console game, has an awesome PC port that can be had for $0.01, $1, or $10. You set the price in Humble Bundle sales.
Do you miss GameSharks? I do. I couldn't for the life of me finish the final level of Cave Story. So I found out how to give myself extra health and finished the game. Sure, it was cheating. There's also plenty of mods out there, as the OP mentioned. Just Cause 2 is absolutely great with mods. You can fly or shoot grapples very far, or use a "supercar" that can traverse any terrain easily. These aren't quite "cheats" in the traditional sense. They're more in the vein of cool hacks that you used to see all the time as Action Replay codes. The 360 and PS3 don't allow hacks, so if you want anything cool, it has to be on PC (or Wii).
Why are PC gamers always so starved for attention? If it's not asking about a console game coming to their platform, it's some thread about trying to convert console owners over.
Besides, the tablet is taking over you platform. Consumers don't need big hulking desktops anymore. Time to switch over to consoles and join the winning side.
Oh I have more teraflops and a better CPU and a SSD and all that. But I don't have more VRAM than I anticipate next-gen games using.A 1300 Euro PC is not going to be the most efficient financial choice. Anyone could have told you that. I'm talking about $800 PCs that do 85% of what your much more expensive rig does. I'm a little shocked that your rig won't be up to snuff for next gen, as mine greatly outperforms the PS4 in pretty much every regard, and it cost $1k in 2012.
Not in BF3, there I'm usually one of the first and depending on the wait times at the start I can get a decent advantage for the first flags.I'm assuming that modern PC games have solved that issue and games now wait for everyone to join before starting the round?
A 1300 Euro PC is not going to be the most efficient financial choice. Anyone could have told you that. I'm talking about $800 PCs that do 85% of what your much more expensive rig does. I'm a little shocked that your rig won't be up to snuff for next gen, as mine greatly outperforms the PS4 in pretty much every regard, and it cost $1k in 2012.
Steam alone has far far far more features than XBL, and you can run it as an overlay over most non-Steam games. Steam groups with scheduled invites are even commonly used for non-Steam games, since anybody online will get a pop-up notification. Then there's mumble, Skype and all the other ways to voice or video chat.
The money you save on not paying for Gold can be used to run a private server for your favorite game. The ultimate social feature.
Except that it doesn't have eight cores and unified ram. If your pc is still up to snuff three/four years into the PS4 I will eat my hat.
Thanks for the feedback. So, it seems as though I'd be giving up very little if I went away from console to PC. I expect console exclusives to diminish since all console architectures will basically be PC architectures next gen as well.
Well, here's another question if you guys don't mind sharing your thoughts. Back in the days of Quake 3 Arena, players with faster machines would actually have an advantage in the game in that their PC would load the levels and they would enter the arena and start battle before the slower players. I'm assuming that modern PC games have solved that issue and games now wait for everyone to join before starting the round?
take that pc elitists]
nbthedude said:Actually Capcom, Sega and Konami seem to be getting it and are generally heading in the direction of offering more and more support. It's really only Square, Namco and a few other major Japanese publishers that still need to start offering PC versions. But there are positive signs.
Thanks for the feedback. So, it seems as though I'd be giving up very little if I went away from console to PC. I expect console exclusives to diminish since all console architectures will basically be PC architectures next gen as well.
Well, here's another question if you guys don't mind sharing your thoughts. Back in the days of Quake 3 Arena, players with faster machines would actually have an advantage in the game in that their PC would load the levels faster and they would enter the arena and start battle before the slower players. I'm assuming that modern PC games have solved that issue and games now wait for everyone to join before starting the round?
Oh I have more teraflops and a better CPU and a SSD and all that. But I don't have more VRAM than I anticipate next-gen games using.
Also its not APU which means I have the PCI-E bottleneck which is unknown at this point if that is going to make a big difference.
I'm not saying it won't run the games better, it's all theoretical at this point. I'm just skeptical that I will.
Not in BF3, there I'm usually one of the first and depending on the wait times at the start I can get a decent advantage for the first flags.
DOTA 2 waits for everyone to load. But that game is also the pinnacle of competitive gaming.
From this post, you show that you obviously know nothing of the current PC market.
My wife's PC is right next to mine, I just play LAN with her.
There are to many issues with PC's for me to get really into it. Hopefully the steam box is a real thing and it address the major issues with pc gaming so its not so confusing.
Just got an xbox controller so i will look into playing more games on pc that work with it. Alot of games dont support it and you have to find a program to may work, i hear xpadder is good but then you have to hope it doesnt give you a virus or what ever. After years of hearing about the ps3 controller with motionjoy someone made a thread about what a terrible program it was and how it caused major problems.
Then if you want to build a pc the best way would be to build it yourself but how would i know if i have a gpu that is useless because the cpu it too weak etc. Then there is actually putting it together. Would need a very detailed guide, not going to spend tons of money for a puzzle i dont know i can complete. Although people say its very easy to connect together, how do i know im not buying stuff thats incompatible with the others? Then there are games your not sure if they can even run on your rig. I just want to play the game and not deal with dumb stuff like that.
Except that it doesn't have eight cores and unified ram. If your pc is still up to snuff three/four years into the PS4 I will eat my hat.
Out of interest, what in your mind does maintaining a PC consist of?
It had better be, otherwise you wouldn't last October.My i5 3570K demolishes a Jaguar CPU. My GPU memory bandwidth and flops is almost twice that of a PS4.
Willing to bet you don't. My four year old gaming rig demolished my xbox 360. The latter still plays games fine, unlike the former.I think I'll be just fine.
It had better be, otherwise you wouldn't last October.
Willing to bet you don't. My four year old gaming rig demolished my xbox 360. The latter still plays games fine, unlike the former.
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PC gamers starved for attention...right. Tablet taking over PC...show me a tablet that can run Crysis 3. Sorry I don't play F2P/Freemium games with ridiculous in game prices. I also like to have actual buttons.
Desktops are only "big hulking" machines because the builder wanted it that way. There are plenty of small machines that have better IQ than consoles present and future.
Winning side...winning what? PC's are in another league as compared to consoles...there is nothing to win. Some people like me go over board on hardware. (3960X, 3x7970, 32G ram, etc), but my machine can also crush anything on the market and building is in some ways more fun that just hooking up a console.
Haven't really touched my consoles in a very long time outside of Forza or checking the PSN store.
I would like to purchase a new console, or both, but I have little faith in the DRM policies of Microsoft and Sony. While PC's haven't had a used game market in eons, the PC market also has tons of titles and sales that really make people "want" to spend money. If the new console DRM policies come with reduced prices and sales, great...but I seriously doubt that's going to happen.
I thought that would've been well known by now, but you're welcome.Thanks for your expert analysis. All it lacked was something about "coded to the metal" and "8GBGDDR5."
Well this was mainly the god-awful patching. Sony still has massive routing issues in some countries.
After gaming on the platform for awhile it's hard to deny it. If you're just talking about games like game games and no favorites blah blah blah. I'm not sure how it isn't THE platform or stage for them. The versatility that devs and users get from the platform is crazy. The shit people are allowed to do on it is amazing. It's a double edge sword no doubt, but when it is done right its just amazing.
The Kickstarters, digital distribution competition, that Sonic generation mod like who asked dude to do that? Ridiculous
Love those little shits out of nowhere on the platform that somehow become big shit.
32 people.I'm not gonna read this thread because it's probably another console vs PC bitchfest. I'm just gonna ask how many people arguing for console gaming over PC gaming have actually experienced both.