But every console comes with controllers; you can't separate the price of the controller from them. Additional accessories are usually bundled with the games that use them, so they're part of the game's cost. And the subscription service (should there be one) is a yearly cost, so it can't be compared with a fixed initial cost.



Yes, if you can upgrade your PC at all. Some OEM machines don't let you do more than maybe drop a videocard and some RAM in the box. The non-standard power supplies on some OEM machines don't let you add anything to the box. Remember: OEMs want you to buy a new computer from them, not upgrade your old machine. So expect to add on the cost of a power supply to that.

And then there are older machines like both of mine. If I were to do any significant CPU or RAM upgrade, I'd need a motherboard swap because the modern AMD chips do not support my older 939 socket. DDR2 RAM is the standard, but my motherboard is old enough that it can't use DDR2. So add on another $100 for a new motherboard.



Exactly. This market is called, "everyone not us." Nintendo owns this market, which is why they're making obscene money off of them.

How many grandparents play PC games? Contrast that to the number that play Wii games, and you'll understand.



Only if you exclude Wii games, which top out at $50 (except for those with bundled accessories).



My home theater system (720p LCD projector, 5.1 surround) cost about $3000. I bought it neither for my computer nor for my consoles, yet I have both connected to them. It doesn't belong to my computer, my consoles, my DVD player, or anything of the like. It was a stand-alone purchase that justified itself.

A monitor ultimately is for a computer. It has little value outside of that. By contrast, a home theater system has many uses; it is valuable outside of the context of an individual console.

The point I'm making is that including the monitor in the price for a computer but not including a TV for an Xbox is not a fair comparison.



That's still a whole lot better than trying to upgrade consoles. Consoles want you to upgrade the whole thing as well.



The power supply, like pretty much everything else, is a replaceable unit in a PC. Although I actually haven't seen anybody use a proprietary one.



This is true. Any upgrades that require a motherboard upgrade are expensive. They are generally rare, however.



This is true. In fact, I wonder if it's not so much the Xbox and the PS3 that are a threat to the PC, but rather the Wii.

But it IS a fair comparison; YOUR comparison is the one that is unfair. By your logic, we should NOT factor cost of the keyboard into the price of the PC because most standard console sets only come with ONE controller while the PC comes with TWO (mouse AND keyboard).




Not necessarily, and even when they are, they can be more expensive. It's the one main reason I've put off upgrading my PC: to do so would require that I spend an extra $125 on what would otherwise be a $75 PSU simply because Dell doesn't make it's PSU's and motherboards to retail specifications.


Mad Cat

It is a fair comparison.

If you need Product X to use Product Y, and Product X has no viable uses without Product Y, then Product X is clearly just a component of Product Y. Therefore it makes sense to include the price of X in the cost of getting Y.

A computer case, for example. You might use it as a paperweight without the rest of a PC's components. But that's about it. It has no value without the other components of a computer. And the other components cannot be used without it (unless you need to electrocute yourself). Therefore its cost should be folded into the total cost of the computer.

A television however, has uses outside of a console. The console needs a TV, but the TV does not need a console. A TV without a console is still a functioning piece of machinery that a person would reasonably purchase and make significant use of. A monitor without a computer is not.

That's how the logic works.



Yes, but it's very easy (no messy installation of hardware and drivers) and is only necessary once every 5-8 years. PC upgrades are more frequent.



The Wii is a threat to everything in the videogame industry. If you don't think you're competing with the Wii in the industry, you're deluding yourself.



The proper car analogy is Ferrari vs. VW Bug. We know which sells more, and we know why. Too bad that most of the industry is trying to peddle Ferraris...

There's different types of games in the PC market, and a different demographic plays them. I love strategy and sandbox-type building games, which are almost exclusively the domain of the PC, and probably will be for a long time.

PC gaming isn't going to die anytime soon, but it is more of a niche audience than console gaming ever was.

Simply put, the reason why PC gaming is suffering is due to Microsoft's desire to pimp out their beloved X-Box, offering exclusive libraries and focus upon graphics and twitchy gameplay over any substantial content. They rely on a consumer base that will buy a game, either drool happily at the focus upon graphics, or if they are dissatisfied with how the hype turned out they will buy into a new game's empty promises and hype as some kind of balm to alleviate the hurt from the last overglorified shooter clone.

Rinse and repeat.

Fable? Had to be axed down for the X-Box capabilities, as what was originally intended would have fit upon most PCs quite easily.

Oblivion? The over-hyped Radiant AI had to take a lobotomy because the X-Box couldn't handle it, and to make the PC version with the real Radiant AI would have made a difference console owners would have been howling over.

BioShock? Don't get me started...

PC titles are now being subject to mistreatment given the focus upon consoles by many developers. For instance, Fallout was a great old-school pen and paper CRPG, designed to be that way by the original developers. The "new" developers of a sequel aren't interested at all in keeping to the same kind of quality and depth, but instead are offering a flavoring of their current market design, simply because they didn't want to take the effort of making a setting of their own.

How is Bethesda making Fallout 3? Into "Oblivion with Guns", their own words after they promised back at their acquisition of the title that it "would not be Oblivion with guns". Yes, a pen and paper RPG has been turned into a FPS, and the developer shamelessly lies about it.

The gaming press is partially to blame, because they eat up every word the developer says without having any spine to call them on their lies, hype, and broken promises. So far, the X-Box has made a liar out of Peter Molyneaux, Bethesda Softworks, and pretty much every other PC/X-Box developer out there.

So if you want to know who is blame for this mess, it's Microsoft and their monopolistic attitude, again. Remember back when their earlier versions of MS-DOS and Windows would purposefully break competitor's software designed for those OS? They are doing the same thing for hardware upgrades, and now gaming.

Cherish your PC developers, because they are willing to offer quality instead of cashing in on shiny, vapid gameplay.

I think it's only slightly justified to include a monitor in the price of the computer. It's pretty much just second nature that makes me say "yes, the cost of the monitor should be included". But OTOH, it's entirely possible to run a computer from a HDTV with little or no extra cost (if you do your research).

In addition, for what it's worth, I'm one of the few who actually includes a TV in his console gaming total (yes, my TV is solely for the use of my PS2 (and someday, PS3)).

Well, what we are talking about here is highly situational: How much it costs to upgrade is largely going to depend on what you already have. Truth be known, this is a hard thing to generalize because it's a case by case basis. In addition, personal tastes also factor into the decision. I personally don't care about sound, so it's very unlikely I'll buy a sound card, even for gaming.

So this is more a statistical argument than a true logical argument, as there are a lot of possible situations. The truth is, when it comes down to it, it's going to depend on personal preference and the cost of upgrading the existing system.

Actually, somebody else paid for my monitor. My old monitor was a hand down from my parents, and my new one is a gift from somebody who had bought a new LCD one.

In any case, I bet that TVs are generally paid for. Last I heard, stores don't give them away for free. Whether it's "part and parcel" is a meaningless phrase.

Again, it's largely situational and depends on what components you already have on hand.



You can go for the cheapest Inspiron from Dell's website, use their customize option and slap in a GeForce 8300, and you'll have something that will play nearly all games for $779. Not a really high end gaming machine, but it's a quad core with 2 GB of RAM, so it's certainly not shabby either. No messing around with building a system, either, since they do it at Dell.

Monitors are also low intensity, designed for close viewing. Aperature size is relative to distance.

Alfonse, shit resolution is a factual statement within the frame of thinking that 20 year old technology equivalences are shit. If you have a cell phone the size of a car battery, you have a shitty cell phone. That the television industry as a whole is populated entirely by overpriced shit due to a lack of media requirements, does not change that TV's have shit resolution. TV's are not widespread either, not anymore than PC's are anyway. We're up around 70% household computer access right now, TV's are around 99%, but that's just the US. The majority of households without a PC in this country are elderly without children around. The younger generations are much more likely to have a PC. For the target of game manufacturers, they aren't very far off at all.

On to the logic statement.

The argument that all extraneous components to a console are needed for other things besides console gaming. A valid argument, they are useful without the console.

Logically, one that isn't an idiot would then discount all costs incurred in PC ownership that are not solely used for gaming. Since you can all type, and generally form coherent sentences, I seriously doubt than even the worst offenders are dumb enough to not grasp the alternative uses for a PC while partaking in one of them. You cannot be ignorant of the other uses either do to the aforementioned current activity.

With all the information and intellect necessary to reach the conclusion, my conclusion is that you're unable to apply logical standards. If anyone prefers to be an idiot savant capable of arguing on the internet and nothing else, I'll buy that though.

I think the thing that bothers me most about this thread is the ennui being exhibited by 'teh hard kore gamz0rs' who think that if you don't know how to build a computer, from scratch, in less than sixty seconds with your penis tied behind your back, you don't deserve to be a gamer.

This elitist attitude does more to drive away users than I think you all realize, and is the biggest reason why I hope PC gaming dies -

You're a bunch of pricks and I want your feelings to be hurt.

Can't be any worse than my 6800, which could play most games before I retired it only a couple of months ago. It probably would've struggled with the new DirectX 10 games, but it could certainly play all of the DirectX 9 games I threw at it.

I imagine the 8300, being two generations newer than the 6800, would certainly perform as least as well as the 6800.

But then again, I could be wrong. My 6800 was a 256 MB card, which pretty much top of the line when they were first released (I got it a few years later, when they were cheaper), and I was surprised that most of the 8600s and below only offered that much. I wanted to upgrade the memory on the card as well as the chipset, so I held out until the 9600s came out with good reviews and came with 512 MB.

In any case, Dell offers higher end cards as options when customizing. The 8600 is also an option, as well as a couple ATI cards. Sounds like their systems are a lot more flexible than you claim they are.