PC Gaming /Console Gaming cost in the future

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I'm basically with Caamsa,earlier this year I had decided to upgrade my monitor and it was just when HD_LCD was coming out, so I bought a 19" widescreen HD TV i type and hooked it up to a 7600GT and used the DVI input,movies and games are unbelievable, plus I can grab the remote and change the input to cable and lay in bed and watch whatever interests me, but I am not a console player-never liked them and until the graphics and the play quality get better I'm not interested, give me a KB so I can assign the actions, a hyper 9 year old I am not
 
Wii, $250. 2nd nunchuck $20, Wii play with second controller $50, recharging station $25, Component out $25.
As I said, AROUND the cost of my PS3. Granted I spent a little extra for the LED station and such, but it's still close.
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So the $399 PS3 comes with all those comparable accessories? That’s like comparing the price of two PCs, one that cost $400 and another that cost $1000. Then adding the price of monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, printer desk, etc. to the $400 one but not the $1000 one and saying “See it cost just as much”. Actually you can do that with just about anything. You can add $20,000 in extras to a $30,000 dollar car and say “look it cost just as much as a $50,000 car”. Or you can compare a fully furnished $100,000 house to an empty $200,000 one.
But the Wii is not just cheaper up front, it’s cheaper in the long run to. For one games are cheaper. Also the Wii-mote is much more versital and makes specialty controllers much cheaper. Buying a gun type of controller for other consoles requires buying what amounts to a whole new controller. For the Wii it’s just a adapter for your existing controllers. I think when you see stand alone Guitars(no game) for the Wii they’ll be cheaper then PS2/3 or Xbox versions. Component cables are dirt cheap as long as you’re not stupid enough to buy them from a retail store.
Besides all that the Wii and PS3 fill very different market segments so to compare the two is silly anyways. For me the Wii is a nice compliment to my PC for gaming. A PS3(or Xbox360) would just be a waste of money for me.
 


Nice selective quoting. You forgot to include what I said here. The PS3/360 don't do it for you, that's cool. As I said before, I have a home theater in my finished basement and got the PS3 mainly for Blu-ray to complement my HD DVD player as at the time it cost the same as a stand alone Sony Blu-ray player. So, from my point of view, the PS3 was "free". But you are correct in saying that the Wii, in the shot-term as well as the long-term, is cheaper. My point was, costs do add up when you add extras, as with any gaming console.

I.E. the compentent cables for the Wii are Wii specific, you need rechargeable batteries for the Wii remote, etc. The PS3 uses non-specific HDMI, and the controller is rechargeable from the get-go. Yes, retail stores rape you for Component/HDMI cables. They generally charge $100 for a 6ft HDMI were as I got my two 35ft HDMI cables for the projector for $43 w/shipping each online.


 
Actually you don't NEED rechargeable batteries for the Wii. Any AA batteries will do and they last for a while since they're Bluetooth. Also I don't see much of a point in whether or not component cables are specific to one system or not. I paid $9 (shipping included) for my component cables. Assuming the Wii last at least 3 years I don't think I'll be kicking myself in the a$$ because I can't re-use them on something else. Anyways my point is that you can manipulate the price of anything if you really want to justify it, like your "free" PS3.
 
I guess I'm not sure why you were compairing PS3 and Wii prices in the first place. They're different and don't necessarily compete for the same market segmant. The same can be said for PC costs vs Console costs. You can look at the costs any way you want to justify which is cheaper or cost more.
 
To the OP,

Console prices aren't going to spiral out of control for several reasons. First off, all the attempts to make a console that carries a real premium price over it's competitors haven't gone so well. Sony was the latest victim of this where its sales weren't very good until it cut the prices. They were still selling more ps2's then ps3's as of December 15th. I haven't looked in a while though.

Second, the console makers start designing the next generation the day the current generation ships. Therefore, the next xbox will be based around components available in 2005. There will be some updates of course, and they'll base it on what was the high end in 2005. But 2005's l33tsauce is 2009's generic bin.

Third, console makers have a much more robust profit strategy than pc makers. Console makers can live with a new console taking 2 years to break even (like xbox did and ps3 will) because of the way game sales work.

Finally, Nintendo sales clearly prove that buyers will make sacrifices in cutting edge content if you present a good gaming experience.


Now in general, I think PC game makers are in trouble. Crysis, the 'must have' title sold very poorly. Game requirements are confusing for average users. PC sales are moving rapidly toward laptops-even for photoediting and former 'high end' applications. Online play for PC's is a mixed bag- you can truly buy your way to an advantage. You are constantly watching for people with cheat mods, etc. An xbox controller may not feel quite as precise, but at least the guy you are playing against has the same problem.

Yes I can hook my pc up to my tv. My PC is a full tower though and that would be unsightly and loud in the living room. Sure I can make a HTPC, would I want to though? They are a pain in the ass and I certainly wouldn't recommend 1 to an average user. If you think the calls from your sister in law about installing a printer are annoying, think about the fun you'd have diagnosing their htpc.

I assume most of the people on this board are above average to extremely computer savvy. I think pc gamers simply don't realize how arcane your knowledge base needs to be to be a pc gamer compared to the average joe.
 
I assume most of the people on this board are above average to extremely computer savvy. I think pc gamers simply don't realize how arcane your knowledge base needs to be to be a pc gamer compared to the average joe.
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I think this will change as developers along with MS and there experience with the XBox will make PC gaming more comfortable (both in ease of use and in cost) to the average user. Also as technology increases the level of hardware needed for gaming will start to platue out and come more in line with what the average PC has. You don't have to go to far back into the past to remember a time when things like using your PC for music, video, pictures or even the internet were considered for enthusiast only. PCs aren't going anywhere anytime soon and neither are video games, so it just makes sense that the two will remain intertwined.
 


That's trickle down economics there. $500 graphic cards are $100 2 years later. The latest and greatest games will always require the latest and greatest hardware. Games drive the video side of the PC industry and will never plateau. We wouldn't settle for that and you know it. 😉
 
You don't have to go to far back into the past to remember a time when things like using your PC for music, video, pictures or even the internet were considered for enthusiast only.
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$2100 / mo dial-up internet ftw! Now you can probably get 3 bonded T-1's for that price.
 
Games drive the video side of the PC industry and will never plateau.
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So what happens when we reach complete photo realism? Looking at Crysis and other DX10 samples we're pretty close especially compaired to just a couple years ago (or console games today). I believe that eventually these types of incredible graphics and the hardware to produce them will become common place. Think about this; For a long time computers required a math co-processor to handle complex mathematical computations. If you told somebody back then that these would be completely unnecessary and that even the most basic of PC could handle such things with ease they probably wouldn't have believed you. I think the same thing will happen with computer graphics where no body will even give a second thought about having incredible graphics processing power in any PC. There is already the beggings of a push towards more powerful IGPs. I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years or so if integrated graphics are in the same place as integrated sound is today. You'll have a few die hards holding on to they're dedicated graphics, but most of us will be using integrated versions that work just as well but at a fraction of the cost.
 



I kind of agree with you. The only problem is that it will still be a small subset of pc users who understand what you need to view a game of this caliber. Then when the equipment to view a game of this caliber becomes mainstream- it will also be available in a console. I would say if anything, integrated graphics processors will bring consoles closer to pc's in quality and it will result in an overall savings. I think it's interesting that AMD/ATI is pinning a lot of their plans on integrated graphics. I remember seeing something along the lines of there being 26million annual laptop sales, of those 20 million used an IGP. Laptop sales are going up, tower sales are going down. IGP's currently suck but apparently 77% of laptop users don't care.
 
IGP's currently suck but apparently 77% of laptop users don't care.
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Probably because 77% of all laptops are bought for business. 😛 That's how we purchase machines. We either get IGP's or the worst graphics card that will still work on the system. Then we never have to worry about people installing games on their PC's, or better yet, letting their children install games on the PC.
 
Well my original response on this thread was along the lines (or at least I intended it to be) that PC and console gaming will eventually converge. What the end result will look like is not readily evident but here's two things I know. 1. People are going to own PCs, and increasingly so. 2. People are going to game and increasingly so. It seems like the two would stick together. If anything the console is the third wheel in this and while successful will benefit more by evolving towards PCs.
 


You have a point. It's hard to tell what the ratio of home users vs business users is. Home users will often say their laptop is a business expense for tax purposes.

I'd still say a significant portion of home use laptops are igps. Also, laptop sales are going up in both business and home use. But let's say your example is accurate- 6 million laptops were sold with separate (read: better) graphics by gamers. This means that the lowly graphic's on a Wii were prefered for the purpose of gaming by 2 to 1 over "gaming" laptops. I don't have igp numbers for towers but I'd be willing to bet that Xbox plus PS3 beat out the "gaming" towers handily. Realizing laptops are the current pc growth area, I would expect the current trend of developers moving toward console formats will grow. In fact, I'd say if a game could be done on a console, a developer would have to be nuts not to at least cross-platform the game.
 


I could see this. I think MS has had this vision for a long time and the tools may just be coming around. I think Sony is on this bus too. I think it will take a company like MS or Sony to really pull this off and get started. It would take a simplified stable UI with great security that basically couldn't take changes and downloads unless it got filtered through MS or Sony. PC Geeks will cry foul because it will take software integration to a new high (twice as draconian as Mac is). If you look at the Xbox360 live content delivery, you can see the seeds for MS's vision of a full HTPC. Give the 360 more memory and a larger harddrive and add a "productivity" blade and you are almost there. I'm not being a fanboi- I just remember MS started talking about this 10 years ago.
 
Well the XBox 360 is already a Media Extender for Windows. Why not a version of that which allows you to use your PCs hardware to to play games in your living room?
 



That made me laugh.

MS and Frigidaire have the pc/fridge with upc scanner now- that's just an online update away from solitaire and maijong on your fridge. After that, nothing surprises me (the day I start inventorying anything but beer in my fridge is the day I end it all).
 
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