PC gaming: has it blown MS/Sony up?

Consoles are doing better than ever so no they haven't been "blown up". Sony has double the pre-orders than it sold in the first 2 weeks of the PS2 launch in North America already.

I don't see why people are saying things like "sadly" in line with the usual stupid PC elitism. Consoles are great for getting people into gaming and provide a cheap and easy start rather than play about with components/OS/Drivers/etc. Its not the developers fault that we PC gamers expect a better experience(more costly) at a lower or same price as the console counter parts.
 
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5016/jx9v.jpg

Obviously factor in my free shipping, but close enough :p

Damn that's a pretty sweet build, wouldn't it be cheaper to replace the piledriver with an i3 on a intel board if it's for gaming? So many people that I know are interested in PC gaming since they saw what mine can do, but it's always the same scapegoat 'it's too expensive'. This should change their tune. :cool:

Throw in an explanation of how PC games are £10-20 cheaper on release and how the Steam sales work, who could say no?
 
Also its not necessarily a case of £350 for a console or £600 for a PC, it could be a case of, I'm spending £400 on a PC anyway so do I spend a few hundred extra for a gaming PC.

And you also have to factor in the price difference for games too, PC is half the price of consoles, so really PC just looks better in the long run.
 
Damn that's a pretty sweet build, wouldn't it be cheaper to replace the piledriver with an i3 on a intel board if it's for gaming? So many people that I know are interested in PC gaming since they saw what mine can do, but it's always the same scapegoat 'it's too expensive'. This should change their tune. :cool:

Throw in an explanation of how PC games are £10-20 cheaper on release and how the Steam sales work, who could say no?

An Ivy i3 was like £30 dearer, and I think the piledriver actually outperforms it, but there are ways to cut corners, like 4gb RAM to be upgraded later.
 
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5016/jx9v.jpg

Obviously factor in my free shipping, but close enough :p


All fine and dandy but where is the os which is an extra £80 and then a decent cooler about another £30 to get that processor up to par and then the point that gets people stuck.

The knowledge required to build it seen as you can't pick up a pc like that prebuilt for anywhere near that. Even then you still have issues that pop up like driver issues and the like that you just don't have with consoles.

So my point still stands.
 
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Fair point about the OS but then you have something you can CAD out of when your stuck on a level and need a solution, email, social media, OCUK forums and dare I say it, 'nekkid ladies. The pc is so much more than a console will ever be because it's not just a console.
 
I just priced up a capable gaming machine (including a 24" monitor) for £600.

Cheapest ps4 I can find is £350, so not even double.

If you go like-for-like and use an existing tv as a monitor, it brings the pc price down to £480, only a smidgen more than an Xbone.

The price differential just aint what it used to be.

Yeah, but the mental pathways to £600 'gaming capable' machines just don't exist in the mainstream mind.

And besides, if someone came to me and said;
"Matt, I really want to get my own gaming rig, what is best".
I would reply;
"Well, for core gaming experience PC is and always will be far better than the consoles although there is perhaps not as many AAA titles as on console"
(this imaginary person doesn't care about RTS or MMORPGs)
He would then say;
"Great, I got £600 to spend, price me up a gaming rig"
"Erm, just hang on a month or two and get a PS4", I would say.
 
The problem with this is that a PC will need double the specs of a console most of the time in order to surpass it in graphics and performance
well that's not hard looking at the console specs
apart from the memory bandwidth anyway
 
Interesting topic OP (although a little inelegantly put).

You might have a point. The amount of investment it took Sony and MS to trounce graphics on the PC at the time, firstly locked them in to a 10 year console life-cycle, and secondly, was so traumatic as an R&D cost, that they already know that they cannot compete in that arena any more.

Unfortunately, their locked-down systems are very profitable, so don't expect any radical wheel re-invention unless Valve knocks it out of the park with Steam OS.
 
I dont feel any tingle with the newe consoles at all. The 360 I liked but I feel PC will take over with small gaming boxes running steamOS or all the Android gaming. Console gaming just seems to of died out in excitement and we are getting all this media rubbish, I dont want to spend money on something a rasoberry does I want core gaming.

Any hype? I just aint feeling it.

GTA 5 does £500m in 24 hours.

How can you think that console gaming is dying?
 
Unfortunately, their locked-down systems are very profitable, so don't expect any radical wheel re-invention unless Valve knocks it out of the park with Steam OS.

Steam competing on any meaningful scale with the PS4 or XBone woudl be akin to some soda company releasing their own brand of cola and competing in a meaningful way with Pepsi or Coca Cola. This soda company could even be still using real cocaine in their drink, it could taste infinitely nicer, yet have no toxic artificial sweetners or flavouring and be priced cheaper to the point where they were even making a loss on it, yet even after 5 years, it would still likely have a very minor share of the market.
 
Your comparing tech to a different market - just look at RIM and PALM, compared to the likes of Google's Android now ;)
 
I never heard of RIM or PALM, and am only vaguely aware of Google Android. (I am not a smart phone person). Besides, Sony and MS are thee prominent brands in console gaming. Everyone knows what they are and everyone knows that they have to have the same as their friends have got if they are going to game online with each other. Best of luck for any tech company if they think they can break into this market so easily.

Steam would have to release a far superior product for roughly the same price, and thus be prepared to make a big loss just to give themselves a bite of market share. This isn't going to happen. The Steam Box will be a premium downstairs front room product for gamers with disposable incomes who also have £3000 worth of gaming PC upstairs next to their £1000 Aeron desk chairs.
 
While I don't expect the steam box to compete with them, its odd to suggest its impossible or like trying to compete with the likes of Pepsi in the drinks market. Remember when the PlayStation launched, it looked like Sega and Nintendo owned the market at the time, and did there look to be room for Microsoft?
 
While I don't expect the steam box to compete with them, its odd to suggest its impossible or like trying to compete with the likes of Pepsi in the drinks market. Remember when the PlayStation launched, it looked like Sega and Nintendo owned the market at the time, and did there look to be room for Microsoft?

Microsoft, huge corporation that could afford to take a massive hit in order to break into market. Also, it took a monumental fk up from Sony with the PS3 to allow MS into pole position with their xbox 360.

The facts were that Sony (everyone's first choice prior to launch) had released a considerably more expensive console, that was also more powerful, yet you wouldn't think so when you seen games running on it as developers seemed to find it much easier coding for the 360 than the PS3.

Also, prior to the PS3/360 launch, online gaming was never really a concern of those buying a console, and therefore it didn't matter if you had a Saturn, if your mate had an N64, and your other mate had a PS1. Now it does. These days, the kid wants to have the same system as all their mates have got. For this and other reasons is the console market a largely captive market.
 
Very fair points, though I still don't think its impossible for somebody else to break in, and unless Nintendo sort their **** out then third place is up for grabs.

Oh one thing though, I wouldn't say people didn't care about having the same systems as their friends prior to online gaming, being able to swap and borrow with friends was always a big factor.
 
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