You cannot afford a few hundred dollars every 3 years instead of 6?
What are you doing playing games then? Those games cost around 60 USD each.
And not everyone can afford a console or PC anyway no matter where you set the bar.
You honestly don’t believe they are simpler, by just a little bit?
Y’see I knew you didn’t read my post right. I am primarily a PC Gamer. I use my 360 for console exclusives and fun with friends in my livingroom. Console games in my experience tend to drop in price quite quickly, as well as abundant pre-owned games. I also didn’t say everyone could afford PC or console, I said a new console every 8 years is less expensive than a new PC every 3. And yes there are a lot of people who can’t afford new spec PCs every 3 years, because sometimes there are other things to prioritise.
Well if they cannot afford a few hundred dollars every 3 years then they probably cannot afford games even if they are priced 30 dollars each or internet.
Even if you cannot afford a few hundred dollars every 3 years you would just play with lower ingame settings.
It’s been close to 3 years for my newest PC build and it can still handle every game on max without the need to lower settings…
If they were to have games keep up with the hardware of PCs I would still be able to play the newest games but they would probably be at medium settings.
I probably wouldn’t need to upgrade until 5-6 years later when lower settings will be unplayable.
Hokay I’m gonna go ahead and assume if someone buys a gaming PC or console they intend to play games. If they couldn’t afford a few games a year then they were probably better off not buying the console or PC as you said.
Now lets assume at launch a console costs £300, and you can pick up pre-owned games at £15 a go. A decent medium range PC could cost maybe £600, with all this new DRM floating about there’s less of a market for second hand games, but there’s a lot less pre-owned games floating about, but the games are in general cheaper, so we’ll say PC games are £15 also.
At the rate I stated above (assuming PC development pace is unrestricted, they are going hell for leather developing) you either need component upgrades every 12 months, or a new PC every 3 years.
Lets go the new PC route. In 8 years you buy 2 PCs at £1200 (total) in the same time you buy 1 console at £300, that is £800 difference, or 53 games. I know it’s not as clear cut as that, but I just wanted to make a point.
Having said that I’m still a PC Gamer.
Actually my pc I built 3 years ago was 600 USD (not sure what the conversion in your currency is because it is changing alot)
And that pc has not been upgraded at all in the past 3 years and can still play just about every game at max settings.
Also the xbox was original priced at 399 USD. Also the 50 USD internet a year and 100 USD wireless device adds up. Or you may want another 40 USD controller to play with friends.
Now you can get an xbox for 300 but I can also build the very same pc I purchased 3 years ago for 400.
Take into account that most console owners still spend hundreds on a computer even if it’s not for gaming.
So when you look at the whole picture you are paying more for the console if you have a computer already.
Or even if you only own a console it is priced close enough to a pc especially when you wait a little before purchasing one.
That’s not the point I was making though. The point I was making was that consoles slow the development of PC games keeping current PC tech relevant for longer, also making PCs more cost effective. I have a 15 year old PC at my feet that’ll still do word/excel/internet. My last few posts have been entirely in the hypothetical.
Well even if they increased the development you could still play games without upgrading you just lower the ingame settings.
Also by your logic we should not have as well developed houses or medical technology because not all people can afford them.
I rather have the best progress possible than slow progress because if I really want something I will work towards saving for it even if I cannot afford it at the time.
At the minute 6 years is about the limit of a medium spec PC playing the latest games (even with the graphics turned down). If development sped up this would decrease. If it sped up significantly, the time your hardware stayed relevant would decrease significantly.
Firstly I didn’t say computer tech should not improve, nor did I say I didn’t want to see it improve. I said it’s nice my current tech stays relevant for longer. It saves me money! I also said some people couldn’t afford to keep up with the rush of technology, its nice they can still game with us too.
Secondly bad analogy, Just because house tech improves does not mean I cannot live in my old house. Nor does the fact medical technology advances stop old treatments working on illnesses (assuming they worked in the first place). If game tech advances it does mean I can’t play it on my old PC.
I don’t disagree with this, except to say if it has good enough gameplay I don’t worry too much bout the eyecandy. Not to say eyecandy is not nice also.
You can save money by not eating as much or wasting as much electricity and you can save more money by not playing games at all.
Everyone has their own value to entertainment and to me 80 USD more a year is not much out of 60,000+ USD.
Heck 80 USD more a year is two games or a few more cheap ones.
Of course you could live in an old house without all the new devices but you could also just stay with your old computer or SNES and play only old games.
neither the house or the consoles and pc will be upgraded but some people are fine with that.
Or maybe the consoles can have seperate engines for games used on them.
A Nintendo DS gets some of the same types of games a console or pc gets but it is build from the bottom up with a completely different graphics engine.
Or they can just make upgrades for consoles lol!
Then they will be even more like computers.
Also I forgot to mention but graphics play an important role in immersion and to me immersion is important.
Improvements in technology also offers more creativity and variety.
Lol, I was kinda puttin the need for food and leccy over the need for games. And don’t diss snes games, some of them rock! I think sega already discovered the futility of upgradable games consoles (having said that 32x has some cracking games too (well 1 okay one).
Sorted!
I never dis SNES games I still own mine. I own my NES too.
We had another NES but back in the 1980s. When we first got the thing my older brothers would fight over the system and my mom used to take it away for certain periods of time. Eventually she got fed up with the fighting and stuck the heel of her shoe into the NES and crushed it…
I didn’t have a NES until after me and my brothers got a SNES for Christmas in 1991. By then I was hooked on the SNES and didn’t play the NES as much.
I also had a gameboy and gamegear…freakin thing ate batteries too fast…damn monster.
Then I had a virtual boy and damn that thing gave headaches and wasn’t that much fun even if the 3d aspect was cool everything was in ugly red making it hard to see.
Remember when consoles just had a hole you stuck games in, they played and that was it? No, you’re probably too young. Consoles are no longer just gaming platforms, you can play music, movies, surf the net and all that other bullshit, sony and microsoft are trying to get you to by a console by pointing out all the fun little trimmings that PC people take for granted, shit, you can even download and install games on your console these days. Consoles essentially ARE just repackaged PCs these days, you can even buy consoles with different harddrive sizes inside them, just wait for the day when you can buy different processors for you PS5/xbox980 and the transition will be complete. You can wipe the harddrive and install linux/windows whatever on them, its just a pre packaged PC with custom software on it.
Oh and windows is trying to make itself out as a ‘platform’ now.
With their faggy new box art it fits right on the shelf with the rest.
Its all bullshit, and I don’t like it.
Woah, what? I’m almost 20. I can certainly remember cartridge gaming.
If you READ my post properly, I asked how PCs are trying to be CONSOLES, not how CONSOLES are trying to be PCs. But you’re probably too young to read.
And for the record, I agree with you. Consoles ARE just PCs, especially now that they’re trying to get into the PC markets with RTS games (cough Halo Wars cough) and a lot of what was previously PC-only functions. And I think its seriously harming them, rather than moving them forwards. The Wii actually showed a way in which consoles could do something different, and that’s forwards. Making consoles likes PCs only moves them sideways.
way to cut off the part where I explained how PCs or at least OSs are trying to come off as console choices
Because I didn’t really see it as a real argument. Windows is a gaming platform, as is OS X (for some games) and Linux (for even fewer). Its not trying to sell itself as a console, its just saying “hay guyz, look here to play all teh c00l games”.
Yes, I do. But simpler =/= less functionality, it just means that the surface functionality is easier to access. Mac has all the functions of Windows, it just has a different (and, in my opinion, easier and better) way of accessing them.
Well shit. I must be doing something wrong, then. I play games on my ‘gaming platform’ about 1% of the time I’m on the computer. And even less time if you count at work. I’ll have to let my work know that all of their workstations are gaming platforms. But, first, I’ll need to do some high-priority financial accounting on the gaming platform before I can do that.
Well yes, they are simpler in every aspect of computing, that’s one of the main reasons I got one. I don’t have/want to think about anything but the tasks I want to do on my computer.
But that doesn’t mean they’re inferior computers. Maybe for gaming, but not for general computing.
Consoles are more suited to platformers than anything else, because of the control scheme. They’re not great at shooters.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my old N64 copy of GE007, but I find that when I try to track an enemy with manual aim, I often lose them because of the analog stick.
Nowadays, it’s mostly the controls that set consoles apart from PCs- that and many developers pump out bad games, knowing that the vast majority of the public will snatch them up just because they bear a brandname that was once good (in the first game). The majority of console-only players have no idea what makes a good game, unfortunately.
sigh Must EVERYONE in this thread be narky about EVERYTHING? I’ll mitigate my previous comment with this: You are working on a computing platform which can be used to, amongst numerous other work-related activities, launch yourself into games. Happy? Consoles are exclusively gaming platforms, Windows/Mac/Linux are much wider platforms capable of doing much more than a dedicated gaming machine ever could. Even ‘dedicated’ gaming computers can do everything that ever other computer can; its all about the software, the input devices are the same.
I am AGREEING with you. Why are we arguing this?