Consoles and PC's, who really has it cheaper? [long, bored, hopefully not boring, rant]

[Marvzl1357]

Just skip to the end if you couldn't be bothered reading, I'm not fussed. 

 

Just an off thought I had, with the advent of 4k TV's and everyone diving in on that shit like dogs to a ball, and also the "next-gen" consoles having come out around the same time, I was wondering who really saves money with their gaming set up as a whole (from scratch or a complete upgrade). 

And by as a whole I mean including the freaking monitor because that seems to be something everyone leaves out. 

 

Let's look at a standard UHD 55" TV that's worth its salt, in Australia at least, (hence all costs are in aud) they're about $1500-2000, a PS4 XB1 is about $500 with the PS4 being slightly cheaper, all in all that's $2000-$2500 for the underpowered console displaying its only sometimes 1080p rarely 60fps output on a 4k TV (that probably has oversampling turned on because TV's are dumb).

Meanwhile PC's, with what I would consider a pretty high end computer on my pccg wishlist (in spoilers)

Spoiler

Sapphire R9 390, i5 6600k, Asus z170-AR mobo, 16gb hyperx fury ddr4, 850 evo 250gb m.2 ssd, WD black 1tb, cryorig R1 cooler, evga psu, WITH windows 10 AND most importantly ASUS MG279Q 1440p 144hz ips display. oh and a $80 ish case.

INCLUDING WINDOWS AND A MONITOR, that comes to *Drum rolllllll* $2500, actually slightly under that, and I can easily make that $500 or so cheaper by choosing a standard sata ssd, 380x, 8gb ram, a cheaper cooler, and a slightly less awesome monitor, but preferably not. So my range is $2000-$2500.

 

So in the end, consoles, $2000-$2500, my wishlist pc $2000-$2500. Wow same range who would've thunk! spelling is a joke

What benefits do consoles have? Oled and (unutilised) 4k (monitor dependent), couch convenience, and some more entertaining exclusives. For me, the only real win is the oled, which isn't even on all 4k TV's. But I want my oled pc monitors damnit.

What benefits do pc's have? Free multiplayer, freedom of hardware, scalable and always better graphics, True >1080p >60fps display, F-ing Freesync and G-Sync, keyboard/mouse, and more use than just a gaming box,

Obviously the benefits could go for much longer but that's the main ones for me. 

 

And the other factor to account for, is game prices. Console games are consistently $80-$100 here, with my console playing friends saying $70 for rainbow six siege "isn't that bad, that's pretty cheap". I swear I've never bought more than 4 games over $50 because I've always stocked up on games during steam/origin sales.

Obviously if we have a same initial cost for the entire set-up but one has cheaper games, i.e. running costs, the one with cheaper games will win out in the end. And on top of that once you get a good monitor, you're not going to replace it for years to come. But does that really decide it...

 

Another important factor is enjoyment, of course if a game looks better and runs smoother it's going to be instantly more appealing to the eyes, but I suppose many console players don't really have an eye for detail and don't really care about graphics, hence this part is subjective, pc wins for me though.

 

Lastly, upgradessss. PC's are constantly pushed in terms of graphics as new games come out, and to achieve an even comparable result on consoles devs will have to either optimise the heck out of it or use trickery to make their game appear to have better graphics, so no need to upgrade console gpu's. But the increase in graphics means a need to increase gpu power, once every 3-4 years is when I upgrade my gpu, but that's it, that's all I have to upgrade unless pci-e gets ditched for something. So that's $400-$500 every 3-4 years, money that probably has been saved by cheaper games. 

Soooooo actually they ended up costing the same. oh poo. 

 

So if you've bothered to read all of my bored thoughts, cool, high five. I'll try to summarise it all.

All in all, I've concluded that from the ground up, (no display, no console/pc), and including games, PC's and consoles really cost about the same to game on. Consoles have more expensive displays whereas PC's have more expensive systems, you see, one up one down. Console games are more expensive but PC's need an upgrade every few years, another one up one down thing. Altogether, the cost IS about the same.

Non monetarily, PC's almost always have better graphics, that is not a debate, that is fact, but can be worse than consoles if you drop the graphical settings of course.

BUT PC's have the extra usefulness of just being a PC, YOU CAN ACTUALLY DO THINGS ON IT, and that, in my mind is why PC's will always be a superior existence when it comes down to gaming and computing. 

But for this comparison I've only done high end vs console, if you do mid range vs console I'm pretty sure that pc gaming would be decisively cheaper. 

 

Ok, rant done. Like it if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment if you want to share your opinion, rip me apart for horrible logic, or just say "k" I don't really mind. 

Thanks for reading

[Majestic]

Lower the settings to cope for graphical fidelity increase.

DirectX12 soon to cope for poor performance on PC, requiring more overhead with ports.

Steamsales.

 

/thread

[Marvzl1357]

1 minute ago, Majestic said:

Lower the settings to cope for graphical fidelity increase.

DirectX12 soon to cope for poor performance on PC, requiring more overhead with ports.

Steamsales.

 

/thread

Boom, done, pc gaming is cheaper.

Not wrong though...

[Majestic]

Doesn't mean I'm advocating for a single platform per se. Eventhough exclusives suck.

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

I won't buy a new GPU every 3 or 4 years. I will just lower the graphics as the lower graphics of the future will probably be the high-ultra settings of today. I plan on keeping my GPU for at least 6 years.

[The_Sandman]

But if you consider that most people already own a TV when they think about getting a PC or a console, the console option is way cheaper. I myself own a gaming PC and a console, and i like both. Most of my friends got themselves a console (even if i tried to convice them to get a pc :D). The argument was always the same:

 

 

(Prices are from Switzerland)

They all already owned a TV, so they just had to buy a console which is about 300$ - 350$ now for a PS4. So basically just 350$ and they were good to go.

 

If they would buy a PC that can play modern AAA titles on decent settings 1080p 60FPS (say something with an Intel CPU and at least a r9 380) it would cost about 1000$ and that's without a monitor. Add a decent monitor to it and your on something like 1250$.

 

 

So the problem here is, that even if you know the benefits of PC-Gaming (>1080p / high framerates / better graphics), it costs almost 1000$ more than the console approach. And that's why more people here play on consoles than on PCs

 

Edit: I forgot to mention a thing: Event if you start from nothing, like OP said, most people will get a TV anyways sooner or later. It's just something that everyone has in the house.

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

35 minutes ago, Camastral said:

But if you consider that most people already own a TV when they think about getting a PC or a console, the console option is way cheaper. I myself own a gaming PC and a console, and i like both. Most of my friends got themselves a console (even if i tried to convice them to get a pc :D). The argument was always the same:

 

 

(Prices are from Switzerland)

They all already owned a TV, so they just had to buy a console which is about 300$ - 350$ now for a PS4. So basically just 350$ and they were good to go.

 

If they would buy a PC that can play modern AAA titles on decent settings 1080p 60FPS (say something with an Intel CPU and at least a r9 380) it would cost about 1000$ and that's without a monitor. Add a decent monitor to it and your on something like 1250$.

 

 

So the problem here is, that even if you know the benefits of PC-Gaming (>1080p / high framerates / better graphics), it costs almost 1000$ more than the console approach. And that's why more people here play on consoles than on PCs

 

Edit: I forgot to mention a thing: Event if you start from nothing, like OP said, most people will get a TV anyways sooner or later. It's just something that everyone has in the house.

 

No. It's not going to cost someone 1000$ USD to play 1080p 60 FPS without peripherals.

[kronickiller]

pc's especially if u dont pay for games lol