Don't get me wrong, I love computers. But if I were to try and sell someone a computer vs a console for game playing purposes it is much harder to sell them on a computer. Consoles are easy, cheap, and consistent. Computers are problematic, expensive, and have a high learning curve.

While you are sitting in your living room playing on your state of the art console with gay split screen mode with a friend, I'll be down at the local hangout with my obsolete notebook playing with a few dozen friends with a game sytem that supports a mouse.

hey why don't you drop by , if you can get that tv in your car.

Better yet Give me Tribes Gameplay with Hellgate London graphics. That game looks better than Gears of War and its for the PC.

This comment was edited on May 27, 05:01.

High end is 2k. Cutting edge is definitely 4k.

www.sharkyextreme.com

I have found that sight to be an extremely good example of what gaming machines cost these days. It outlines in detail what a 4k cutting edge machines costs. Also outlines a 2k high end machine and a 1k budget machine. They update the custom built pc every few months as new technology becomes available.

Good lord, the original argument wasn't even PC price vs. console price, it was about why you would even think about buying a 360 just for a BF2 that 'looked and played just as good as a PC' when you could just use your current PC without spending the extra $600 to play it? I could understand if the game only existed on the 360 and you were buying it for the 'killer app' factor (i've done it myself with PS1 and PS2 for the Final Fantasy games, so i can understand), or if your PC just wasn't good enough to handle the game, but since the latter reason was never given i was just assuming that wasn't even an issue.

Comparing console vs. PC prices is rediculous because they're two different things with two different uses (mostly), not to mention the wildly varying PC prices when you get into custom builds. Well, that's my opinion anyway.

More tribes 1 plz k thx.

Better yet give me a Gears of War graphics with tribes gameplay. Then you have a winner.

Oh and yes Microsoft, if you really want to market a console as a hardcore gaming platform build the games properly around using a MOUSE AND KEYBOARD vs just a joystick. Anyone who is an enthusiast gamer and competes knows nothing beats the mouse and keyboard VS a joystick. if you do that, and the box is truly beefy it could even make us harcore PC gamers try out a console.

Remember, its us hardcore gamers that make a franchise live beyond its couple weeks of pre-release/ post release glory.

Vivenedi Universal are idiots.

This comment was edited on May 26, 23:15.

You can't include TV's as part of the cost for consoles because people don't buy TV's for consoles, they buy them to watch movies, cable, etc, and in almost all cases already have a tv when they decided to get a console.

Yes, and as we all know there's absolutely nothing else you can do with a PC other than play games.

As for your pricing -- $4k? For a "cutting edge" system? What kind of crap are you putting in that price? A 30" LCD? Please. A "cutting edge" (as in absurd) PC is about $2k. A high-end gaming PC is about $1k. A decent gaming PC is about $500-700.

Given that most people would buy a $500 PC anyway (for all those non-existant other things you can do with a PC), changing out a few things to build a gaming-quality PC isn't that hard.

That said, PC and console gaming is extremely different. The Xbox is probably the closest it's gotten to a PC gaming experience, but it's still far away from what PCs can do. On the flip side, there's a definite convienence factor to consoles, and I couldn't even imagine trying to play head-to-head games on the PC (been there, tried that, it sucked).

Cutting edge pc costs about 4k. But lets be reasonable and assume a person wanting to buy a gaming system has only 1k. That is enough to buy a reasonably good system that can be a decent gaming platform.

By comparison a person can buy a console, for about 300-400 (assuming that is the price for the nexgen stuff) and maybe spend a total of 500 in all for extra stuff.

The computer will be obsolete in about 6-12 months, and if new titles come out after that he's looking at upgrading or playing games in low quality. Console will be state of the art for at least 2 years. All the games will run fine since they are designed for his hardware specifically.

You can argue that point all you want but the numbers don't lie. People are more satisfied purchasing a system for a few hundred dollars that keeps them up to date for at least 2 years than spending at least 1k for 6-12 months.

You can't include TV's as part of the cost for consoles because people don't buy TV's for consoles, they buy them to watch movies, cable, etc, and in almost all cases already have a tv when they decided to get a console.

That is the achilles heal for computers. The consoles use your existing hardware like TV's and stereo systems. PC's need huge monitors, special desks, their own speakers, etc.

Man, the comments in this thread are overal all laughable. I was gonna copy/paste/refute many of them here...but there is so much FUD that I just won't bother and will just make general statements.

For one, price comparisons between consoles and pc's are a moot. The newest pc hardware is as pricey as an import nextgen console with all the bells and whistles (like controlers, memory cards, eyetoys, other input devices, monitor/HDTV convertors [which might not be neccessaryu for the next gen...but what happens in a couple of years when you wanna hook up your HDTV console to the next XLHDTV television?] etc ). To get the newest hardware, console or PC, you spend near enough the same amount of money...but the pc has an upgrade path.

As for Halo...jesus, guys: if you don't know that it was originally programmed for Mac/PC, you really shouldn't be posting here. Yes, I'm talking to you, Malakai. Know your shit before you post shit, puhlease.

Then there's the whole HDTV crock of shit. Any pc gamer gets better than that with a year old gfx card and a less-than-5-year-old monitor: Dual DVI and some cash gets you better than 2048x1536 (and please don't factor in cost of the display, or I'll have to do the same for your new HDTV which you ain't got...market penetration is shit for HDTV...market penetration for large pc/mac displays is higher :)). Stuman: you are way too easily pleased. Get out more, or even just get out to an electronics store more

MxxCon: too true. Just remember who'll be getting Spore And just remember that in a short time, Pc will be on top again, exactly like how PC gfx outclass any xbox/ps2 gfx nowadays (shit, mere months after xbox/ps2 got released the pc had cards which where at the same levels as their console counterparts...and the pc only got better since then whilst the consoles have per definition stagnated!); there's a reason why that upgrade path the pc offers is a good thing. Let's just hope that the dev's don't let themselves be fettered by the consoles.

Whew....appologies to all (well, most) I have flamed within this post...'s late and I'm pissed (in more ways than one :)).

And finally: big FU to 1up for the award...'snot like the x360 had many other games to choose from

Doesn't look that much different from a dozen other games that are coming out. The 3rd person combat is a major detractor if you're making a shooting-oriented game.

This comment was edited on May 26, 20:46.

You keep on thinking that until the demo comes out.

I coulda sworn the hints i was dropping at me actually playing the game (BF2) about every other day were less than subtle. See, i don't need to think because i know. But hey, i can't force you to believe me. So whatever.

This comment was edited on May 26, 20:34.

Posted by MxxCon
"WE pc gamers made them what they are today!
without us they would still be making unreal1 mods!
these greedy assholes owe us all their sucess!
treating PC as 4th platform is nothing short than a spit in the face of all PC gamers! "

Amen Brother, I couldn't have said it better myself.


This comment was edited on May 26, 20:31.

I can tell you then that you'd be wrong. Let's just say it has to do with where i work. And what games i get to play there. Aside from some extended PS 3.0 support you can safely max everything out on a 9800 Pro and get well above 30 fps.

You keep on thinking that until the demo comes out.

I bought my HDTV specifically for hooking it up to my AIW 9800 Pro. It is an excellent card and I've been very happy with it but the lastest generation of FPS, Doom3, far cry, Half-Life 2, don't run well at maxed settings in 1600x1200.

I tryed running my pc off my HDTV and it just didn't compare to games run off an xbox designed for hdtv.

IMO running pc games onto a 46" hdtv won't look as good as just buying an xbox 360 and using that. And in order to pipe digital 5.1 sound out you need a sound card as well. 75-100$. Onboard audio doesn't cut it, i've had a lot of problems with it, that went away when I installed teh SB Augidy 2 ZS.

No but a G5 Apple Mac has a 30" widescreen monitor. I have to say it's pretty damn sweet.

hehe, so do Microsoft, that's why the XBox 360 playable demos at E3 were running on G5's with dummy 360's sitting there for show!

they've got around 5 months left to cram that sweet code onto the actual target platform...

PC doesn't have a 46" HD TV with 5.1 Digital surroudn sound attached.

No but a G5 Apple Mac has a 30" widescreen monitor. I have to say it's pretty damn sweet. I think my dad and bro were playing 9 movies at once on the screen without a single slowdown, it was only on the tenth that there was. We're still not sure if that was due to CPU,HDD or GFX card limitations. Bloody damn impressive though.

I have my doubts that a 9800 is gonna run BF2 at competative framerates with everything maxed out. sure 10-20fps myabe, but you can't do well with those FPS.

I can tell you then that you'd be wrong. Let's just say it has to do with where i work. And what games i get to play there. Aside from some extended PS 3.0 support you can safely max everything out on a 9800 Pro and get well above 30 fps.

I have my doubts that a 9800 is gonna run BF2 at competative framerates with everything maxed out. sure 10-20fps myabe, but you can't do well with those FPS.

Plus a new video card to run BF2 is going to cost 500 bucks... so yeah I'd fork that over if I could play it on my living room TV.

Fair enough, but i've been using my $150 9800 Pro with $30 store-bought ATI HDTV dongle to play almost all my PC games on my living-room HD set for months now already. And that 9800 will run BF2 just fine at all the max settings, thanks. Oh, not to mention that they're now selling 6800's for $200 that can have all 16 pipelines unlocked with a simple windows program -- and although they don't have HDTV options like ATI cards, that's hardly the $500 you were claiming for the so-called top-of-the-line card you said was needed to play it.

PC doesn't have a 46" HD TV with 5.1 Digital surroudn sound attached.


It could if you wanted it to...mine is hokked up to a 5.1 stereo(the real deal not 5.1 computer speakers). I could hook it up to my HDTV if I wanted to.

This comment was edited on May 26, 19:00.