PC, Xbox 360 or PS3?

[James Heard]

Maybe the games get better, unless your console is outmoded by next year's console. At which point you upgrade the PC and you put the console into the attic.

Consoles are on a ticking clock for the cutting edge too, you just don't notice it because you're not allowed to make any transitional adjustments.

 

[drothgery]

Maybe the games get better, unless your console is outmoded by next year's console. At which point you upgrade the PC and you put the console into the attic.

Consoles are on a ticking clock for the cutting edge too, you just don't notice it because you're not allowed to make any transitional adjustments.

But the thing is that a console early in its lifetime costs about as much as a high-end video card. This generation's somewhat more expensive because of the transition to HDTV, almost requiring a new television for most people, but that's not likely to be repeated for quite some time. Whereas if you keep up with the PC gaming upgrade treadmill to play cutting edge games, you'd've picked up three video cards and one pretty much completely new system (CPU, motherboard, RAM, hard drive, new type of media) over the lifetime of a console.

 

[Mallus]

Whereas if you keep up with the PC gaming upgrade treadmill to play cutting edge games, you'd've picked up three video cards and one pretty much completely new system (CPU, motherboard, RAM, hard drive, new type of media) over the lifetime of a console.

Bingo.

Consoles become obsolete more slowly than high-end gaming PC's, new models aren't released annually, and users always have access to the cutting edge games. PC gaming is wonderful, but frankly it requires too big of an investment for me to justify and too much hassle trying to keep abreast of the latest hardware.

I just bought a PS3 and I should be good for the next 4-5 years. Unless of course it really does tank. In which case I'll still have a Blu-ray player...

 

[James Heard]

I guess I'm just failing to see where new PC games are always needing the absolute fastest video card. They'll SAY that a lot of times, but I honestly buying a "last years model" card usually cuts it just fine if you're willing to not put all your sliders up to the max and play on something that looks like it came off of last year's console.

 

[Mallus]

I guess I'm just failing to see where new PC games are always needing the absolute fastest video card.

Nobody here said that they did. What I did say is "A nice thing about consoles is every user gets the top-end experience for the life of the console, without the need to upgrade". Which can't be said about PC gaming.

Whether you care about that top-end experience is another matter entirely.

 

[Simplicity]

You be crazy to get a PS3 right now. Sorry, Sony fans. As much as the Sony is the "better piece of hardware" it also turns out that it's a pain in the butt to program, and the code you write to program it is not very portable. Soooo, PS3's game selection leaves a lot to be desired currently.

XBox360 games that rock: Dead Rising. Oblivion. Halo 3. Overlord. Bioshock. Viva Pinata is a lot of fun, not that anyone bought it. For god's sake, Bioshock. Mass Effect any day now. GTA4 at some point. If you like casual games, you can get PacMan HD, Carcassone, and soon Talisman on the Arcade. Geometry Wars is great of course. There's enough on the Arcade alone to keep you occupied for a couple of months.

PS3 games: uh... Oblivion... (chirp) (chirp)... I hear Heavenly Sword is good for a whole 5 hours of play... (chirp) (chirp)... Eye of Judgement? I hear Flow is original, and you get to hang out in a virtual house with other people who wish they had some games to play. PS3 may some day ascend to a throne of powerhouse platform, but so far everything that has come out for it has either (a) come out for the XBox360 first or (b) has sucked.

PC is of course good, but it's becoming the second release point for a lot of games (especially RPGs). It does still have NWN2, but maybe that isn't that great of a selling point. If you like strategy games, then PC still has quite an edge there... At least until Civilization Revolution comes out. Who knows whether that experiment is going to work though.

 

[Simplicity]

Maybe the games get better, unless your console is outmoded by next year's console. At which point you upgrade the PC and you put the console into the attic.

Consoles are on a ticking clock for the cutting edge too, you just don't notice it because you're not allowed to make any transitional adjustments.

I used to game more than I used to. Now, I get in a good 2 hours of gaming if I'm lucky after my kid goes to bed. With a console, I can bring home a game and those 2 hours are spent playing. With a PC game, I spend the first two hours getting the latest non-certified nVidia driver downloaded and installed, getting the release-day patch from the company that wrote the game, tweaking graphics settings so that my game doesn't lag but still looks good. And then it's time for bed. Oooooh fun.

I used to love playing on PCs, but with less time on my hands, the endless configuring is becoming a real chore.

 

[James Heard]

Nobody here said that they did. What I did say is "A nice thing about consoles is every user gets the top-end experience for the life of the console, without the need to upgrade". Which can't be said about PC gaming.

Whether you care about that top-end experience is another matter entirely.[/QUOTE]
But a console isn't the "top-end experience" after its release on approximately the same sort of schedule you'd expect for generational graphics. It's simply the only experience that console owners have. I like PS2 games too, but as far as graphics went their top-end props were gone for years before the PS3 came out.

All you're getting from a console is a consistent platform which means a little bit less of a patch issue, which I imagine will be a distinction that begins to vanish as more and more consoles go to online gaming experiences and developers get lazy. You get the "top-end" for a while, then you're stuck with last year's top end and you can't upgrade.

 

[Rackhir]

PS3 games: uh... Oblivion... (chirp) (chirp)... I hear Heavenly Sword is good for a whole 5 hours of play... (chirp) (chirp)... Eye of Judgement? I hear Flow is original, and you get to hang out in a virtual house with other people who wish they had some games to play. PS3 may some day ascend to a throne of powerhouse platform, but so far everything that has come out for it has either (a) come out for the XBox360 first or (b) has sucked.

There's also Warhawk and Ratchet and Clank : Tools of Destruction out now. By all accounts R&C is not only a great game, but blows away anything available on the 360. GTA will be out for the PS3 as well and will probably only need a single disk vs the multiple disks the 360 version is likely to require. Metal Gear Solid 4 is a big gun on the horizon for around the end of q1 08. Little Big Planet has gotten a lot of attention. Home (virtual world) is looking quite promising.

Don't forget the 360 wasn't exactly lavish with hot games right off of the bat and it's only in the past few months that many of the big guns have been released for the 360. Yes, the 360's line up is significantly better now. The 360 also had nearly a year headstart on the ps3 not even taking into account the supply problems Sony had for the first couple of months.

 

[James Heard]

To be fair, if Spore were coming out exclusively on a console it would very likely be my most expensive game purchase ever very quickly. Regardless of any other factor other than "putting food on the table."