Gaming platform - PC or Consoles?

[impar]

Greetings!

[Seawolf]

And another 200-300 if you need to upgrade to 2 gigs, and so on. Sadly, the massively pro piracy comments on PC gaming news sites are having a leveling effect on the prevalence of the PC as a gaming platform. Companies that wouldn't have even considered it before (such as iD and Epic) are going head on into consoles...

I won't be surprised to see the PC die off for gaming. It's not really suited to it anymore. Maybe Vista can slow the bleeding somewhat, but in general I'm not believing it.

[Tabajara]

[Seawolf]

PC hardware upgrades (though not replacements) are usually pretty cheap, and most people who use consoles (though I will) don't put them through the PC monitor. So the cost you're talking about (the console itself) can easily be changed factoring in TV upgrades, controller purchases, and any number of other possibilities. Not to mention sending it in for a replacement if it breaks, and/or warranty costs.

You could end up spending 3000 either way if you wanted to. Myself I still average less than 500 every four years on comp hardware.

Consoles really aren't as cheap as is commonly said, when you factor in all the stuff you need.

TV relates to monitor
kb+mouse relate to conrollers
speakers and networking are pretty much the same
So if you're looking at the CPU, mobo, vidcard, RAM, and case as the main differentiating factors, most people can definately get by with 600 in five years.

(That's ignoring that good TVs are significantly more expensive than good monitors, though.)

[Tabajara]

You can use the good the TV for watching cable or movies as well, the console won't be the sole culprit. And 1080p sets are getting cheaper by the day

[Seawolf]

I can use my monitor for watching TV and movies too. I wasn't saying it wasn't useful for anything else, just that it's still an added cost that isn't figured into the base price.

[powerarmour]

Epic (and id) switched to consoles because of growing PC piracy:-

http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MjQ1NjcsLCxobmV3cywsLDE=

[impar]

Greetings!

[Seawolf]

Not sure why you moved the conversation out of the UT3 thread as it was perfectly relevant, if shifting a bit...a warning or something would've been fine. UT used to be a PC only series and the shift to consoles surprised people, so it was a natural branch to the topic.

[Tabajara]

The console market is also much bigger... It is a lot easier to sell millions of units when everyone has the proper hardware to play your game, won't have to deal with configuration issues.