I don't think some of the commentators are making a like for like comparison. I can't argue the point regarding the PC upgrade cycle, you could upgrade every six months to keep ahead of the curve, but you don't have to.
I assume by the fact your commenting in here using coherent English without typo's, your sat at a PC, not squinting at the the TV screen from your couch or fumbling trying to type on a game pad. Sure, everyone has a PC nowadays, you'd probable have one even if you didn't game. Now to make an average PC capable of gaming you would probably need a new video card and RAM. I can't vouch for the states, but in the UK mid - high end upgrades for these items would set you back about the same or probably less than a PS3. I was surprised to read on Kotaku the other day, the "average" console owner only owns around 6 or 7 games. Again, in the UK, you pay around a £10 premium for a console game over it's PC equivalent, so there's an additional £60. If you console of choice is Xbox, then you need to pay the lovely M$ online gaming tax for the honour of allowing your friend to host a a game of Halo 3 you both own. So the real total cost of ownership is a fair bit higher than the ticket price.
Compatibility is much less of an issue than it was from the 98 - XP upgrade, but in 2001 when you bought a PS game, it couldn't be patched, so had to have gone "gold" (in the old meaning of the term) before it could be released, rather than the rolling Beta's that seem to released for the consoles currently, for problems/features to be patched later. It would seem that whilst PC issues are decreasing, Consoles are getting worse.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some PC gaming fanboy (mac fanboy if anything), I own a mid spec gaming PC which is over 12 months old and has played the latest batch of releases quite hapily (Far Cry 2, Crysis Warhead included), whilst at the same time pulled my hair out over Pro Evo debacles of the last 2 years, and the seemingly endless wait for AAA titles to land on PS3.
The logical conclusion for the evolution of consoles is a standard that means any game will run on any machine (probably streaming from the cloud) and the only thing that will differentiate Sony from Nintendo from MS will be features. Surely this platform already exists in the form of a PC?
I feel the Counter-Strike for consoles is the telling analogy, it's Valves long term view of games, almost as platforms, periodic refreshes, new content, (nearly always gratis!) actively encouraging user generated content and in some cases turning that content into new IP, is what elevates them above the EA's of this world. If you look at the Battlefield series, they have managed to fragment their community repeatedly, selling an untold number off add-ons, map packs and special missions they have drained it's identity. They have no choice but to pitch an entirely new product every cycle, and so yes, they are prisoners to their own business models.
It may have took valve close on 10 years, but boy was the TF sequel worth the wait. I'm sure at any number of occasions they could have spat out a sequel to cash in on. As a result I feel a brand loyalty to them, and am quite happy to trust that when they release a new game, be it a sequel or a new IP, it's going to be worth the $60 (or nearer $90 for those of us living in rip off Britain) and am happy to pay, but will continue to assume that an EA annual rehash will be little more than the said unpdated roster with a fiddly special move that anyone with a job/partner/pet/fat fingers will have little hope of repeating with any regularity.
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alexthecamel's Comments
I don't think some of the commentators are making a like for like comparison. I can't argue the point regarding the PC upgrade cycle, you could upgrade every six months to keep ahead of the curve, but you don't have to.
I assume by the fact your commenting in here using coherent English without typo's, your sat at a PC, not squinting at the the TV screen from your couch or fumbling trying to type on a game pad. Sure, everyone has a PC nowadays, you'd probable have one even if you didn't game. Now to make an average PC capable of gaming you would probably need a new video card and RAM. I can't vouch for the states, but in the UK mid - high end upgrades for these items would set you back about the same or probably less than a PS3. I was surprised to read on Kotaku the other day, the "average" console owner only owns around 6 or 7 games. Again, in the UK, you pay around a £10 premium for a console game over it's PC equivalent, so there's an additional £60. If you console of choice is Xbox, then you need to pay the lovely M$ online gaming tax for the honour of allowing your friend to host a a game of Halo 3 you both own. So the real total cost of ownership is a fair bit higher than the ticket price.
Compatibility is much less of an issue than it was from the 98 - XP upgrade, but in 2001 when you bought a PS game, it couldn't be patched, so had to have gone "gold" (in the old meaning of the term) before it could be released, rather than the rolling Beta's that seem to released for the consoles currently, for problems/features to be patched later. It would seem that whilst PC issues are decreasing, Consoles are getting worse.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some PC gaming fanboy (mac fanboy if anything), I own a mid spec gaming PC which is over 12 months old and has played the latest batch of releases quite hapily (Far Cry 2, Crysis Warhead included), whilst at the same time pulled my hair out over Pro Evo debacles of the last 2 years, and the seemingly endless wait for AAA titles to land on PS3.
The logical conclusion for the evolution of consoles is a standard that means any game will run on any machine (probably streaming from the cloud) and the only thing that will differentiate Sony from Nintendo from MS will be features. Surely this platform already exists in the form of a PC?
I feel the Counter-Strike for consoles is the telling analogy, it's Valves long term view of games, almost as platforms, periodic refreshes, new content, (nearly always gratis!) actively encouraging user generated content and in some cases turning that content into new IP, is what elevates them above the EA's of this world. If you look at the Battlefield series, they have managed to fragment their community repeatedly, selling an untold number off add-ons, map packs and special missions they have drained it's identity. They have no choice but to pitch an entirely new product every cycle, and so yes, they are prisoners to their own business models.
It may have took valve close on 10 years, but boy was the TF sequel worth the wait. I'm sure at any number of occasions they could have spat out a sequel to cash in on. As a result I feel a brand loyalty to them, and am quite happy to trust that when they release a new game, be it a sequel or a new IP, it's going to be worth the $60 (or nearer $90 for those of us living in rip off Britain) and am happy to pay, but will continue to assume that an EA annual rehash will be little more than the said unpdated roster with a fiddly special move that anyone with a job/partner/pet/fat fingers will have little hope of repeating with any regularity.
All alexthecamel's Comments