Cost of Gaming: Comparison

[AdamAnubis]

I did a quick comparison of the 3 Consoles after the below comment made me think as to how accurate it was. Below is an image of a fairly rough set of 10 modern-ish/coming soon games plus a selection of console counterparts. (Was going to use Google Docs, cba setting up an account). What it doesn't take into account however is that you can use the PC for work too, so is a cost saving as with a console you'd likely have a £300 PC or laptop aswell.

Also note I've not included peripherals or displays. Plus, the PS3 doubles up as a blue-ray player, though one can be added to the PC for £40.

I've tried to keep it as balanced as I can, the game selection was mostly chosen from their best sellers pages, though some I added in (mafia, GRID) for variety. All the prices are from amazon too, aren't the best prices where with the hardware I did try to shop around more.

I do find the cost issue funny though, I used to think like many others that PC gaming was expensive due to upgrades etc but is it really?
I've bought 4 games on the PC (Crysis, Warhead, Metro 2033, Red Faction:Guerilla) in the last couple of weeks.
Total cost <£20.

A single 2nd hand PS3 game would easily cost that.
Obviously I could/should compare the same X amount of games but I think PC gaming is comfortably 25-50% cheaper.

From the 'PC Gaming is Dead' thread, it's a valid point. The cost of games is considerably cheaper for PC, and that's mainly based on the newer releases which are pricer for PC anyway. I also ignored PC-only games, and the older ones, such as Crysis, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Empire:Total War, TF2 et al which are all cheap games now, but it's hard to compare them. Include free content such as Mods (hl2/UT3 engines especially) and free games such as Alien Swarm being given out, that also brings the price down if you were to compare just 10 games, rather than 10 identical games.

(Currently, Crysis: £5, STALKER: £6.24 for 2 on steam, Orange box: £13)

The PC is also a fair decent build, it probably could be done cheaper through ebay/old PC parts etc, but this is for comparison's sake and it's a build that will play all games, most of them on high without too many issues. If you have any complaints I'm sure you'll say

EDIT: Gaming costs shown:

[jim]

Interesting actually, and not a massive surprise.

Should also mention that GTA was on Steam for £5, Dragon Age was £20 or £25 I think, far cheaper than consoles during Steam sales. I know some people have gripes with Steam, but your average console gamer wouldn't.

By the time you've spent £200 on a rubbish laptop, I'd rather have a top-notch PC to game and work on.

[Terbinator]

Appreciate the effort put into this, but spending £140 more to play multi-platform games definitely puts another spin on it for me personally.

[AdamAnubis]

Should also mention that GTA was on Steam for £5, Dragon Age was £20 or £25 I think, far cheaper than consoles during Steam sales. I know some people have gripes with Steam, but your average console gamer wouldn't.

Yeah, I was thinking about steam sales but there's no way to factor it in. It's like I bought mirrors edge from steam for £3 and Tales of Valour for £2 in the sale.

Not really sure what's that bad about steam, I check it most days for their sales atm Sometimes have some good stuff on there (like borderlands earlier this week for £6).

I'm adding some more stuff to it briefly, just random games that people/I have and doing costs for that. They're older and not all multiplatform.

How'd you mean Terbinator?

[Terbinator]

How'd you mean Terbinator?

Well, to go the PC route your essentially paying £140 more for no definitive good reason IMO.
You can argue about the better graphics sound and so on so forth - but these then add an extra cost onto the base unit for little gains.

[jim]

No, I agree - you shouldn't include it, but it's something to bear in mind nonetheless. Nothing Sony/Microsoft have ever done comes close to competing with Steam sales.

[jim]

Well, to go the PC route your essentially paying £140 more for no definitive good reason IMO.
You can argue about the better graphics sound and so on so forth - but these then add an extra cost onto the base unit for little gains.

As he pointed out though, you're going to own a computer. It's not as if people these days can manage without a PC of some description.

£140 is a very reasonable budget for a PC.

[AdamAnubis]

I agree that the Xbox is a very good value gaming console, and is alot cheaper than a PC to buy. However, it's the cost of the games that I have the issue with. For one, there's lots of free games for the PC (Wolfenstein ET, plus all of the mods for HL2 like Insurgency) but the fact that on just 5 games there's a £50 price difference...if you have many games that'll soon make the money up that you thought you'd saved. The gap closes to £40 difference.

And that's ignoring the fact that you'll already have a PC (or added £300+ to the cost by having a laptop) which would take the cost to £731 vs £573.

Just added the games comparison image.

[Phage]

I simply cannot see why you'd want to pay for a PC and a console.

[danroyle]

I simply cannot see why you'd want to pay for a PC and a console.

i have both for two very different reasons.

The pc i love my shooting games and RTS like Supreme commander and starcraft 2

My ps3 i use for sport games Fifa 10 Tiger woods 10 final fantasy and all the ps1 versions GT5 in 2 months and probably most importantly watching blu-ray. I know i could get a blu ray player for my pc but i got a big Hd telly with surround sound and that is a far more pleasurable experience for watching films.

There are so many things a pc does Good and alot of things a console does good neither platform is perfect, If i had to choose it would be my pc but i love my ps3 also.

[Biscuit]

Sorry to be a total nerd but that's probably not how i would have done the table. I would have listed the hardware along the top and then alll the possible costs/features down the left. So down the left you would have 'baseline cost', '200+GB HDD', 'Blu Ray player', '24" display', 'Laptop' etc etc. Obviously if you are int he PC column you dont fill in the laptop one and if your in the PS3 one you dont fill in the blu ray. That way you can see the total cost of the same experience based on each platform. If anyone doesnt care about a feature of a certain platform then they can just minus the value of that row from the total to see how that makes it stack up for them.

Im also not sure the specs of that PC stack up against its competition.

Its a damn good bit of effort and thought put into it though, cheers!

[kalniel]

Good effort AdamAnubis

I simply cannot see why you'd want to pay for a PC and a console.

Have you tried word processing on consoles? Using spreadsheets? Coding? *shudders*

But on the other hand I think consoles make quite a good long-term hassle-free gaming choice if you're into those kinds of games, so I can certainly see the point of wanting a PC/mac + console. I still have a gamecube because it's simply so much fun with four people.

[jim]

I simply cannot see why you'd want to pay for a PC and a console.

Option 1: Gaming PC + PS3 gives you a high power PC for day-to-day tasks, and a platform to play pretty much any game on the market - RTS, Flight Sim, RPG, adventure, so on so forth. Then you've got the PS3 for exclusives like GT5, Ratchet & Clank, Uncharted, early titles like GTA IV, Red Dead Redemption, and proper versions of games like FIFA.

Option 2: Laptop/Netbook + PS3 gives you a slow PC so that you can use Facebook, Amazon, BBC News, and whatever else average Joe does on the internet these days. Probably post stupid questions on Yahoo questions.

Both seem perfectly sensible reasons to buy a PC and a console.

[AdamAnubis]

Sorry to be a total nerd but that's probably not how i would have done the table.

Hmm, I see what you mean but sounds a bit complex and I was trying to make it fairly simple/basic and I wasn't in the best mood for fighting with table layouts I was tempted to try and make a graph out of it, swiftly gave up though

I think the specs are fairly good, I can't see it being unable to play many games on equivalent and above settings to the consoles.

Thanks though

[OilSheikh]

Nice work mate. PC games are always cheaper than console counterparts for some reason. Anyone care to explain?

[Terbinator]

Or you could be in the position I was in and have a PS3, 360 and an old school Sempron 3000+ before i got the rig on the left; not a choice of picking one of 3 and sodding useless for everything other than word processing.

I've got [for arguments sake] 5 years out of the Xbox and nearly 2 out of the PS3.
It's the best set up, why?
Because lets me play all the games I want (not interested in Wii) as well as top draw exclusives in GT5 and Reach.