over 9 years of console gaming:

£1200 on 7 console systems of varying prices ($2300)

£4400 on approximately 160 console games ($8000)

approximately £300 on game rentals ($500)

£500 on hdtv ($900) (bought exclusively for the 360 i'll buy soon, which would sharply increase my console system & games total, but i'm not including that in the total since i'm yet to spend it)

so, over 9 years - inflation included, i've spent about £6500 - or $11700 - which is £722/$1300 per year on console gaming

-

over 6 years of pc gaming:

i've owned 3 PCs so far - one cost £1000 ($1850), the other was a refurbished pc which cost me around £150 ($250) and my most recent cost £1000 agan ($1850)

then, i've spent around £500 ($900) on upgrades and peripherals

then, around 75 games, averaging about £25 each ($45) which is £1875 ($3375)

then i subscribed to everquest for two and a half years, that was around £390 ($650)

which brings the total to £4915 or $8875 - or £819/$1479 per year on pc gaming

most of the dollar values are estimates, and i had to throw out some rough estimates to factor in inflation (since this is going back 15 years in all) - but console gaming, all told, isn't much more expensive than pc gaming - some food for thought

another  decline of pc gaming thread got me really worked up this time and my reply nearly started to turn into a dissertation, i thought i may as well blog it since the topic got locked:

1. new consoles launched recently

this is always big news, attention is bound to drift away from pcs temporarily - new consoles are out - all the developers, all the publishers, they all want their slice of the pie chart, there's a golden shower out there and they want to get wet! uh, money shower, i mean money shower

2. dx10/vista

pc gaming has hit puberty, it's going through some changes - we've got a new os shaking things up, we've got a new generation of graphics cards coming out, we've got a new version of directx that is entirely non-backwards-compatible - right now, pc gaming is a spotty, awkward teenager who can't string ten words together without losing control of its voice, it happens to everyone

let's make a distrinction here, to have declined and to be declining are not the same thing, pc gaming has declined - temporarily - because of the above two points, lots and lots of games got shelved temporarily so those serialised franchise sequels with 2007 in the title could fill christmas and birthday lists the world over, and lots and lots and lots of pc games got delay after delay after delay for a few reasons - and yet, in one of pc gaming's worst years ever, we still saw two of the best rts games ever made - and two serious goty contenders in company of heroes and medieval 2 - two goty contenders with our worst ever performance, how'd you like that?

sure, there's not many full blown pc exclusive games any more - but my question is this: so what? how does that signal a marked decline for pc gaming? if the pc is still getting great games (and it is), who cares if the consoles get them too? enjoy playing your fps games with a pad there, little timmy - aiming assistance (now there's a politcally correct term for you) sure is fun, isn't it? - so long as these multiformat titles don't get watered down by the console kiddy massmarket crowd (and if that does happen, that's not a decline for pc gaming but for all gaming), i think it's perfectly fine that the consoles get to experience - albeit only in part - the glory of pc gaming

and let's face it, pretty much 99.5% of system wars isn't about how good the games are, it's about how good the games look - so let's play ball for a moment... sure, the new consoles are very powerful, but that power is very hardcapped by what is by pc standards already some archaic technology - the only thing that's going to happen now as far as the consoles are concerned is developers will learn to make better use of the existing technology - whoopy doo... like a crytek rep said, the next gen consoles don't have the power for high-quality crysis - a year and a half from now, once there's a dozen crysis-or-better quality games out on pcs, and not out on consoles, pcs will suddenly not be included in any of those fanboy rants in system wars about how the 360 is replacing the pc - funny, considering how authoratative they act now

no, the pc has a long, long list of very awesome games on their way - the pc has the best internet support you could hope for, the pc has enormous and incredibly talented modding communities and the pc has convenient access to lots and lots of porn, which seems to be particularly valuable to gamers for some reason! - and, love it or hate it, the pc has much better, much more powerful, much more faster improving technology - it won't be a year before something that's already too good for consoles is being out-teched by some other engine... c'est la vie

as for expensive technology - what? i mean... what? expensive to whom? kids without jobs? this is nothing new - pc gaming has always been that way - pc gaming isn't aimed at kids, it's aimed at young adults and full blown adults, and if you can't afford a gaming pc - and you don't need to drop any more than a couple thousand once every couple years to stay right on the technological speartip - then just wait for your birthday to roll round so daddy can buy you that new nhl game you've been waiting ever since the last nhl game for, timmy - first class flight isn't aimed at you, either, that doesn't mean it's declining... it has its target audience already - people who want first class, people willing to pay for the chateau marguax and the valentino suit - it's not the seething masses, but it's not meant to be, and it never was to begin with - you cannot decline from a position you did not previously hold

we had a hiccup year in 2006, but it was hardly indicative of any kind of longrunning trend, we hit a speedbumb, we stubbed our toe on the door, we accidently shot the hostage - it happens, it's happened before, it'll happen again - but there's tons of great stuff coming

just look at the launch lineup for 2007, decline? no way, man, it's called peaks and troughs

it's no secret that ubisoft's pc versions - ports - haven't been stellar recently... after the abysmal GRAW and the less than spectacular SC: DA - it would be quite forgivable for a pc gamer to shun future ubi releases

but don't - i bought rainbow six: vegas on a whim, i'd been a r6 purist so i hadn't played a rainbow six game since rogue spear, and i am damn glad i grabbed a copy of vegas

the game looks awesome, and runs very nicely on pcs (my pc, anyway) - and while it may still be a dumbed down version of the R6 that purists know and love, the combat is simply amazing and there is a real sense of the eliteness of the soldiers and the lethality of the combat - and you're still in control of a team, and since many areas have multiple access points, there's still a sense of planning and coordination as you attack from multiple angles

so, yeah, if you're reading this - and you overlooked vegas, just don't.. the game is a little one note - every level is more or less the same, but it's a great tactical action combat experience, especially if you can get it cheap

firstly - get rid of the cash, this is a desolate abandoned zone in the middle of nowhere, where supplies should be extremely limited and extremely valuable - what use is a cash based economy?

everything should be entirely item-trade based - so every thing you get, means giving up something else of appropriate value - this would seriously limit your character exclusively to, say, an assault rifle - or a shotgun, or whatever - but i think that would be a good thing, forcing difficult choices from the player would enhance the element of survival

i also think food should be either in short supply or very valuable - or both, i found a general sense of pointlessness throughout most of the game as i casually took my time completing quests, with no real motivation to complete the main quest arc until 'd exhausted everything else - and feel that the need for food and supplies should force exploration and advancement

i also feel that, leading on from that, the mainquest arc should be on a checkpoint timer of some kind - so you can only spend so long in each area - for some reason i do not know, but could easily be worked into the game - and so you cannot waste time casually wandering around, but due to the rarity and importance of supplies, you simply have no choice but to complete optional side missions, for the resources they give

this would lend the game a heavy sense of desperation and urgency, mostly copied from fallout - the sense that you should be doing that but first you gotta do this for the resources it gives, but if you do this you might not have time to do that - i think it would fit perfectly with the feel of the game

right now, for example, i have heavy armour and a rifle with a scope, over 60 bandages and around 700 rounds - i can kill just about anything with any problems, and the game is just a fairly generic (albeit brilliant) run n gun shooter from here on in

and that's precisely what the game shouldn't be 

so i spent all day yesterday really familiarising myself with the 360 and especially gears of war

it looks beautiful, coop is fun - but the game is dull

i played the first three hours of the campaign (coop), then about two hours worth of single player spread over several bits of the game, most notably the train level and the driving level

after less than three hours of play, i was totally sick of it, and i found little appeal in the online play

it looks beautiful, and it plays nice, but like most console games - it has a short lifespan, limited appeal and little or no replay value

i also spent a long time checking out cod3 - where the hell does gamespot get the idea that it plays like call of duty 2? did they even play it? cod3 played like a tedious generic straightforward shooter, and playing with a pad is awkward and frustrating - call of duty 2 was an amazing and intense experience with stunning firefight after bloody firefight... call of duty 3 is just bad

i also checked out a demo of superman, rainbow six: vegas and a few others and.. well, pretty much, i realise it was a total kneejerk reaction to this year's bad state of PC gaming - no matter how bad pc gaming may get with buggy, unfinished releases and massive amounts of games slipping to the post-dx10/vista era, and with expensive upgrades to stay on the knifepoint, pc gaming is still way better than anything consoles offer

first thing i did when i got home from the 360 session was do a quick sum:

360: £270 with gow bundled
cod3: £40
pzd: £20
graw: £20
32" 1080i hdtv: £400

total cost: £750
total lifespan: approx 75 hours
total of £10 per hour of okay gameplay

medieval 2: £24.99

total cost: £24.99
total lifespan: approx 200 hours
total of £0.12 per hour of awesome gameplay

the effective cost of owning a 360 would obviously drop over time as i play it more, but a quick sum shows that, even without factoring in the cost of addiotional games, i'd have to play 4 hours a day every day for three and a half years for the 360 to be as cost effective as just one top-end pc game - and people say consoles are cheap - wow!

sorry i doubted you, pc gaming!!