Thoughout history a typical gaming machine could run you over $1000, game consoles often cost under $400. Consoles are very often sold as loss leaders to promote software sales, PCs are not. Oh and that’s just the cost of the box itself; a console is usually designed to attach to a television which has built-in speakers and consoles usually have at least one controller packed in. Computer monitors are sold separately as are any sound equipment. Normie PCs like Dell Inspiron Basic Plus machines might come with a keyboard and mouse but gaming PCs sometimes don’t because they expect you’re going to buy premium peripherals. You’ve got a desk to put this on, right?
Oh also there just isn’t much of a PC gaming culture in Japan. It may be increasing now but in the land of Nintendo, Sega and Sony they play console games.
On the other hand, a PC is good for things that aren’t gaming, like work or something.
TVs are also sold separately though if you are gonna count monitors as extra for PC, wtf. Also you literally have to pay to play online for consoles, thats a joke. Ive saved an insane amount of money by gaming on PC for decades and forgoing consoles overall and its not even close.
For most of the history of home video gaming, a television was primarily purchased for viewing broadcast, cable or satellite TV programming and/or watching movies on tape or DVD. A household that was going to buy a video game machine almost certainly already had at least one television and a game console would be one of the things attached to it. The investment would be considered already made.
That has been true of PC gaming for very small stretches of its existence; PCs have rarely worked on the living room couch so you usually set up a desk scenario with a dedicated monitor. The average PC buyer of the last 30 years would buy a monitor along with the computer.
Yes, if you have no AV equipment at all and want to get into video games you will have to buy some kind of monitor. The typical unwashed mass who has absolutely no AV equipment and wants to play video games will likely buy a Nintendo Switch because he hasn’t heard of a Steam Deck.
I’m not sure how you arrive at that conclusion, “most people already have a TV so it’s not considered an additional purchase, a computer monitor almost always is.”
If you put yourself in the shoes of an average parent Christmas shopping for their 9 year old at some point in the last 30 years, well there’s a Playstation 2 for $299, a controller is included, a memory card is $40, and then we’ll buy 3 games for $60 each, so that’s about $520. We’ll hook it up to the living room TV we already own, it comes with the cable we need to do that, that’s all we need to buy. Or, let’s go over to the computer store and buy a gaming PC. We chose the PS2 era so ~2002, we’re looking at a Windows XP machine with probably a Pentium 4 processor, 512MB of RAM, a 256GB hard drive, a CD-RW drive and a DVD-ROM drive, plus an earlier Nvidia graphics card. Buy it from HP, Compaq, Dell or someone like that, you’re probably looking at $800 to $1000 for the PC itself, then you’re going to need to buy a computer monitor because the graphics card probably only has VGA out and your TV doesn’t have VGA in, so that’s another few hundred bucks you’re going to spend. It likely ships with a basic keyboard and mouse so you’ll get by with those.
Here’s a picture of a computer catalog circa 2000 of Pentium III grade systems advertising prices just shy of $1500 AFTER a $500 discount for a complete desktop setup, probably including the OS and probably some shovelware. And now it’s time to buy some games.
So if you started with the Playstation, you’d have to spend a thousand dollars on a television before you broke even on cost with an equivalent era gaming PC and accoutrements. Oh and you’re going to have to set up the OS and install the games you buy from CD, which has a chance of just not working at all because Windows is flaky. Oh no, that Windows 98 era game that’s still on store shelves in 2002 doesn’t work on Windows XP because of something called NT, you don’t know what that means and little Joshua is pissed. Maybe I should have just bought him a Furby.
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That said, I am a PC gamer, in fact I’m a Linux gamer. I’m typing this on my Ryzen 7700X/Radeon 7900GRE system with a 34 inch 1440p 144Hz monitor and 5.1 surround sound system. I play some hardware intensive games like Satisfactory, I also do my CAD design work on this box. It’s a vastly superior toy to any game console ever made and it’s also a profoundly useful tool.
I felt the need to reach back to the PS2 era because I don’t believe the current crop of game consoles offers the same value proposition. As I think you’re trying to point out, TV and movies nowadays are fucktrash and people are abandoning them, and it’s increasingly likely you don’t own a TV at all because why? The consoles are getting more expensive even though they are still sold as loss leaders, and their making everything they can into a subscription, they’re gonna wring the cash out of you somehow.
If someone with no AV equipment at all asked ME how to get into PC gaming, I’m gonna recommend a Steam Deck. It’s got everything you need to start playing, no accessories required, excellent UX, repairable hardware, can run LibreOffice, you can plug it into a monitor or television when/if you get one, and you don’t have to be a lizard people oligarch to afford it. Oh and at this exact moment in history it isn’t the flickering stub of a once tall candle with its successor waiting in the wings like the Nintendo Switch.
People are less likely to own a TV already these days though than they used to be so the price calculation for consoles favors them a lot less if you take that into account. Not to mention that console games tend to be more expensive than PC games, especially indie PC games now that triple A is more of a warning label than an indicator of quality.
People have been buying Madden and Call Of Duty reliably for decades now. Doesn’t matter if they’re good or cheap, there are people who identify as “a person who buys Madden and Call Of Duty.”
Those are individual games though, console games are just much more expensive on average. There isn’t as much available on the cheaper end of the market.
Nah, a lot of people just buy whatever their friends have, and only own a handful of games (Madden, FIFA, etc) and just don’t think about it.
Look at how many people can’t afford the cars they own and roll negative equity into the next one, or look at how much credit card debt people have on average. People just buy without thinking too much.
Yeah, to rephrase my post the other way around, buying a console and just a few games is only really possible because it is carried by people who don’t carefully weigh if that is a financially sound decision.
I mean yeah but you don’t need an expensive computer to play games. In the mid 2010s I spent loads of time playing games on my ~$200 something Asus netbook, and more recently I was using an old Dell Precision from 2011 I got for $25 and put a $75 GPU into from like 2018 until 2023.
I guess maybe the difference is that people who don’t buy expensive consoles or computers also don’t buy expensive games. For the most part I don’t buy things unless they have a sale for like under $30, so even though I’ve bought a lot of games I’ve probably paid less total money for games than the average console player.
Thoughout history a typical gaming machine could run you over $1000, game consoles often cost under $400. Consoles are very often sold as loss leaders to promote software sales, PCs are not. Oh and that’s just the cost of the box itself; a console is usually designed to attach to a television which has built-in speakers and consoles usually have at least one controller packed in. Computer monitors are sold separately as are any sound equipment. Normie PCs like Dell
InspironBasic Plus machines might come with a keyboard and mouse but gaming PCs sometimes don’t because they expect you’re going to buy premium peripherals. You’ve got a desk to put this on, right?Oh also there just isn’t much of a PC gaming culture in Japan. It may be increasing now but in the land of Nintendo, Sega and Sony they play console games.
On the other hand, a PC is good for things that aren’t gaming, like work or something.
TVs are also sold separately though if you are gonna count monitors as extra for PC, wtf. Also you literally have to pay to play online for consoles, thats a joke. Ive saved an insane amount of money by gaming on PC for decades and forgoing consoles overall and its not even close.
For most of the history of home video gaming, a television was primarily purchased for viewing broadcast, cable or satellite TV programming and/or watching movies on tape or DVD. A household that was going to buy a video game machine almost certainly already had at least one television and a game console would be one of the things attached to it. The investment would be considered already made.
That has been true of PC gaming for very small stretches of its existence; PCs have rarely worked on the living room couch so you usually set up a desk scenario with a dedicated monitor. The average PC buyer of the last 30 years would buy a monitor along with the computer.
Yes, if you have no AV equipment at all and want to get into video games you will have to buy some kind of monitor. The typical unwashed mass who has absolutely no AV equipment and wants to play video games will likely buy a Nintendo Switch because he hasn’t heard of a Steam Deck.
Your point makes the case for PC gaming, not consoles lol
I’m not sure how you arrive at that conclusion, “most people already have a TV so it’s not considered an additional purchase, a computer monitor almost always is.”
If you put yourself in the shoes of an average parent Christmas shopping for their 9 year old at some point in the last 30 years, well there’s a Playstation 2 for $299, a controller is included, a memory card is $40, and then we’ll buy 3 games for $60 each, so that’s about $520. We’ll hook it up to the living room TV we already own, it comes with the cable we need to do that, that’s all we need to buy. Or, let’s go over to the computer store and buy a gaming PC. We chose the PS2 era so ~2002, we’re looking at a Windows XP machine with probably a Pentium 4 processor, 512MB of RAM, a 256GB hard drive, a CD-RW drive and a DVD-ROM drive, plus an earlier Nvidia graphics card. Buy it from HP, Compaq, Dell or someone like that, you’re probably looking at $800 to $1000 for the PC itself, then you’re going to need to buy a computer monitor because the graphics card probably only has VGA out and your TV doesn’t have VGA in, so that’s another few hundred bucks you’re going to spend. It likely ships with a basic keyboard and mouse so you’ll get by with those.
Here’s a picture of a computer catalog circa 2000 of Pentium III grade systems advertising prices just shy of $1500 AFTER a $500 discount for a complete desktop setup, probably including the OS and probably some shovelware. And now it’s time to buy some games.
So if you started with the Playstation, you’d have to spend a thousand dollars on a television before you broke even on cost with an equivalent era gaming PC and accoutrements. Oh and you’re going to have to set up the OS and install the games you buy from CD, which has a chance of just not working at all because Windows is flaky. Oh no, that Windows 98 era game that’s still on store shelves in 2002 doesn’t work on Windows XP because of something called NT, you don’t know what that means and little Joshua is pissed. Maybe I should have just bought him a Furby.
===
That said, I am a PC gamer, in fact I’m a Linux gamer. I’m typing this on my Ryzen 7700X/Radeon 7900GRE system with a 34 inch 1440p 144Hz monitor and 5.1 surround sound system. I play some hardware intensive games like Satisfactory, I also do my CAD design work on this box. It’s a vastly superior toy to any game console ever made and it’s also a profoundly useful tool.
I felt the need to reach back to the PS2 era because I don’t believe the current crop of game consoles offers the same value proposition. As I think you’re trying to point out, TV and movies nowadays are fucktrash and people are abandoning them, and it’s increasingly likely you don’t own a TV at all because why? The consoles are getting more expensive even though they are still sold as loss leaders, and their making everything they can into a subscription, they’re gonna wring the cash out of you somehow.
If someone with no AV equipment at all asked ME how to get into PC gaming, I’m gonna recommend a Steam Deck. It’s got everything you need to start playing, no accessories required, excellent UX, repairable hardware, can run LibreOffice, you can plug it into a monitor or television when/if you get one, and you don’t have to be a lizard people oligarch to afford it. Oh and at this exact moment in history it isn’t the flickering stub of a once tall candle with its successor waiting in the wings like the Nintendo Switch.
People are less likely to own a TV already these days though than they used to be so the price calculation for consoles favors them a lot less if you take that into account. Not to mention that console games tend to be more expensive than PC games, especially indie PC games now that triple A is more of a warning label than an indicator of quality.
People have been buying Madden and Call Of Duty reliably for decades now. Doesn’t matter if they’re good or cheap, there are people who identify as “a person who buys Madden and Call Of Duty.”
Those are individual games though, console games are just much more expensive on average. There isn’t as much available on the cheaper end of the market.
So? How many people bought a Switch to play Breath of the Wild and basically nothing else?
Probably very few among the people who carefully weighed which system gives them the better bang for their buck.
Nah, a lot of people just buy whatever their friends have, and only own a handful of games (Madden, FIFA, etc) and just don’t think about it.
Look at how many people can’t afford the cars they own and roll negative equity into the next one, or look at how much credit card debt people have on average. People just buy without thinking too much.
Yeah, to rephrase my post the other way around, buying a console and just a few games is only really possible because it is carried by people who don’t carefully weigh if that is a financially sound decision.
I mean yeah but you don’t need an expensive computer to play games. In the mid 2010s I spent loads of time playing games on my ~$200 something Asus netbook, and more recently I was using an old Dell Precision from 2011 I got for $25 and put a $75 GPU into from like 2018 until 2023.
I guess maybe the difference is that people who don’t buy expensive consoles or computers also don’t buy expensive games. For the most part I don’t buy things unless they have a sale for like under $30, so even though I’ve bought a lot of games I’ve probably paid less total money for games than the average console player.