PC Gaming Too Specialised?

Assasins Creed PC 47.00€
Assasins Creed Xbox 360 64.90€
Assasins Creed PS3 67.90€

BioShock PC 46.90€
BioShock Xbox 360 66.90€
BioShock Xbox 360 66.90€

Colin McRae DIRT PC 46.90€
Colin McRae DIRT Colin McRae DIRT Xbox 360 64.90€
Colin McRae DIRT Colin McRae DIRT PS3 64.90€

67/47 => 42% higher price - pretty big difference.

In the US the video games almost always cost $10 more so while more expensive the ratio isn't as bad. You know I just checked and the XBox 360 version of Bioshock is actually $10 CHEAPER at Amazon (it's on sale for $39.99) though typically it is $59.99 while the PC version is $49.99.

Still, if you compare a $1200 PC versus a $600 console you'd have to buy 60 games before you made up the difference in cost (assuming the console games are $10 more) so this whole argument is kind of moot for most people.
 
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In the US the video games almost always cost $10 more so while more expensive the ratio isn't as bad. You know I just checked and the XBox 360 version of Bioshock is actually $10 CHEAPER at Amazon (it's on sale for $39.99) though typically it is $59.99 while the PC version is $49.99.

Those prices are few months old so its possible they have changed. But its more like a rule that new xbox360/PS3 games cost 15-20€ more than PC ones. Lets just take any new game on all platforms...i.e CoD4:

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare PC 49.90€
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare PS3 64.90€
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Xbox 360 64.90€

Still, if you compare a $1200 PC versus a $600 console you'd have to buy 60 games before you made up the difference in cost (assuming the console games are $10 more) so this whole argument is kind of moot for most people.

I didnt say it makes it all equal but it does even it up quite a bit. If you buy 20 (new) games on consoles lifetime then you have paid som 300$ extra. 1200$ for PC / $900 for console.

PC gaming rig can never be truly equal in price to console (unless MS starts to reel in the $) but the difference isnt that big.
 
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Another factor that should be considered in the PC's favor is that most people that own consoles probably own a computer too. If they choose to upgrade their computer instead of buying the console I think the costs would be pretty much even.
 
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Nvidia, Microsoft, EA and Crytek, it's these very companies causing the problems.
Nvidia is constantly pushing newer better graphics over quality of games.
Developers only have so much time to develop thanks m$ constantly throwing away billions of dollars just to stay afloat in the console wars, while simultaneously requiring 50% shorter development schedules.

Companies like ea gladly take the influx of m$ cash, to put out low quality, flashy and repetitive titles, with time tables that come close to slavery of it's employees.
Developers like crytek whose engine is constantly upgraded, tweaked for only one video card company because of payoffs, instead of working on stability, compatibility and important fan creating substance like COOP play.
Plus, the scalability of their engine has always been poor compared to other top engines at the time.

Epic and Valve for example make damn sure not to alienate their customers, by making sure their engines scale to a wide range of machinery.
Sure any engine development company can make a engine that does more mapping than most machines can do, but their are not stupid enough to do it.
Well id was with the release of doom 3, but everyone tried to warn them even their own stock partners.

So these guys are actually up their on stage saying look at us, we care.
This is the same bullshit strategy m$ has been using to try to convince gamers vista is great and we all know how well that's going!
 
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One thing, though - while I agree that the price of PC's often used is inflated and the fact that consoles are subsidized is ignored, the people here are (relatively-speaking) eons beyond the norm in terms of computer skills. If you speak of replacing a graphics board, you have just done more than the overwhelming majority of people will ever do - you might as well be telling someone who doesn't change the oil on their car to change their own transmission. So you have to look at it from that perspective - people see PC's as disposable items that they don't want to fiddle with.
 
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One thing, though - while I agree that the price of PC's often used is inflated and the fact that consoles are subsidized is ignored, the people here are (relatively-speaking) eons beyond the norm in terms of computer skills. If you speak of replacing a graphics board, you have just done more than the overwhelming majority of people will ever do - you might as well be telling someone who doesn't change the oil on their car to change their own transmission. So you have to look at it from that perspective - people see PC's as disposable items that they don't want to fiddle with.

WOVST GAM EVAR!!! IT DANT LOADZZZ OMG!!!
 
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I agree. Building your own computer is amazingly easy for somebody with even a rudimentary knowledge of how things work. I built my current computer (which is holding it's own with the newest games) for about $1000 (no monitor) about 3 years ago, and it was extremely simple. Here's a link for step by step directions.

http://www.build-your-own-computers.com/


The hardest part is doing the research on what you want, and also driving around town to get the various parts at a discount (or getting the best prices online). Once you have everything you need, it's really not that tough to do. You can save a ton of money. I encourage everyone to teach themselves to build their own computer at some point; it's worth it, rewarding, and takes an afternoon to be up and running. Just a suggestion.
 
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Actually, that is the 13-year olds who pretend to be more tech-savvy than they actually are ... ;)

Ahh sorry, I decided to drop psychology fairly early (truth).
 
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I do think the leaders of the PC world are letting us down. While I completely understand they have their own shareholders to worry about, some foresight might protect and grow the market to their future benefit. Microsoft had an opportunity with the GfW initiative but the actual result is just a smidge better than worthless. Just a smidge.

It's a million little things that could be so easily improved. From the average Joe user that gets frustrated when they try a game on their business-class PC and can't get it to work to errors because a user has the August build of directx and the game required the October build, so you get some obscure message about an audio failure.
 
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Building your own computer is very easy and I quickly learned back when I first started using computers back when I was 7. I have been think about a way to have a computer cost $6000 and the only way is getting ripped off by Alienware which increases the price of there computers by 2.5 times the actual cost or by getting parts that are either not ment for the end user or are way beyond what would be considered the high-end in gaming.

PS. If you actually gave Vista a chance and disabled User Account Control then you would probably like Vista better then XP. I have been using Vista since final and have had very few problems unlike I had with XP and those problems have been solved through newer drivers. XP was a piece of crap that I had to repair every couple of months and Vista has been fine since I first installed it.
 
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Microsoft had an opportunity with the GfW initiative but the actual result is just a smidge better than worthless. Just a smidge.

I honestly think it is *worse* than useless - it is a just barely veiled attempt to bring more PC gamers to the XBOX360 and standardize that system ...
 
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PC users I think just need to be a little more patient. If you want the latest and greatest, RIGHT NOW of anything, youre gonna pay. I dont care what it is.

Anything when it first comes out is totally expensive, that's what cracks me up about pc users when theyre moaning about it. It's basic economics, if they can find people to pay it, theyre gonna sell it to ya.

Me personally, I generally wait a while. Get games and hardware that have aged a little, and I'm not talking about Dwarf friggen Fortress for crissake. Wait 6 months, wait a year, there's tons of older games you can play in the meantime. Right now you can go online and buy FEAR, Doom III, Oblivion, etx, all "Second Coming" games that were wallet-busters at release time for bargain prices now. Go play the Spellforce games, or hunt down the IceWind Dale super edition or whatever with all of em in there. Same with hardware. Yeah, when youre buying something that's damn near military-grade technology when it's released, youre gonna pay thru the nose for it.

Wait til the next wave hits, then buy a nice card that still totally kicks ass. I'm still running a 7600 GT, and while it'll prolly get eaten alive by Crysis, I'd expect nothing less. Yet it eats alive most older titles, I have no problems. I'll get a new card for a couple hundred sometime in the coming year, pick up Crysis Gold Pack with expansion for 19.99 somewhere online as well in the future, and wonder what everyone was caterwauling about. I'm not saying that I never buy new stuff, but I certainly expect to pay the price for keeping up with the Joneses!

Patience, young grasshoppers

by the way Spellforce II @ GoGamer 9.90 Uncle Sammy keepin an eye out for ya there, example of good "old" games you can play on a system not military-grade ='.'=
 
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If you actually gave Vista a chance and disabled User Account Control then you would probably like Vista better then XP.
Once I - as an admin - discover the place where Vista allows you to enter command line options, I probably might think better about it. The way it is now, I'm running a triple boot setup with Linux (for crafting), XP (for gaming) and Vista (for gaming), though I might just as well dump Vista because the few games it likes to cooperate with run just as well under XP. Perhaps one day I'll imitate hubby and make it a single boot machine after all, running the Win games from a virtual machine.
 
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Changing a graphics card is no harder than i.e changing a bicycle tire/breaks or oils to your car. Infact in somways its easier because you dont have to dirty your hands, its less complex and doesnt need muscle power.

I thinks its more todo with attitude than anything else.

The future pc contenter for consoles might be mini-pc:
http://www.zinside.com/images/mini_pc.jpg
http://www.portset.co.uk/images/minipc1a.jpg

They just need to release integrated graphics cards that can run all new games on max settings. The most common integrated graphics chipset is almost useless in gaming.

by the way Spellforce II @ GoGamer 9.90 Uncle Sammy keepin an eye out for ya there, example of good "old" games you can play on a system not military-grade ='.'=

Just FYI SP2 has starforce but the addon has an installer that removes it (or somthing like that). So I suggest buying both.
 
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They just need to release integrated graphics cards that can run all new games on max settings. The most common integrated graphics chipset is almost useless in gaming.

That is a big problem ... every one of these 'mini' systems has crap specs. What I would *love* is a Mac Mini type system but with some *real* hardware. I mean, I can run*everything* on my MacBook Pro, why not pack it into a Mini?!?!
 
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I agree. Building your own computer is amazingly easy for somebody with even a rudimentary knowledge of how things work.

I'm sorry, but I'd rather not fiddle with things like motherboards, CPU's and thermal gel. Changing a graphics card and inserting some RAM, sure, but not that. Uh-uh. I'm a software guy, not hardware!

Maybe that's just paranoid, but I envision myself breaking the damn thing or applying too much/too little of the damn gel and mucking things up some way or another. Besides, you can get some stores to build it for you for free or very cheap if you buy all the parts with them (which may not always be the best deal, but meh.)

Oh, and nice tinfoil hats some people have! I like the way it stops reality beams from entering your brain. :D
 
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Changing cpu is dangerous because you *can* break it (i would recommend rookies to do cpu + mb + mem in shop). But stuff like graphics/sound card is much easier. All you need to do is remove few screws, one power cable and press down one pin and presto. Its no harder than changing a lightbulb.

Besides by the time you need to change it its propably worthless anyways so
whether it breaks or not doesnt matter so much. Thats how I got into the business.

That is a big problem ... every one of these 'mini' systems has crap specs. What I would *love* is a Mac Mini type system but with some *real* hardware. I mean, I can run*everything* on my MacBook Pro, why not pack it into a Mini?!?!

Gaming mini with full wireless setup. That would be quite the livingroom comfort.
 
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The way its going to have to go again, is the way of Indie or small start up developers with something to prove.

The PC needs to come full circle.. The RPG needs another renaissance along with many other genre's.. The PC got huge from rpg's, then flight sims.. FPS had a time too with doom and unreal tourney.. But FPS's really haven't progressed that much and I think those kind of games are on the way out quite frankly.. Sure, you'll always have your unreal head.. But PC's still are more feasable for team matchups in games like BF2, and the PC offers much more freedom to anyone if they know how to use it.

if PC gaming IS too specialized, well.. Thats good. Thats how its supposed to be.. And in my view.. is what will keep pc gaming going.. Not kill it..

I think it needs to be more specialized if anything..
 
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