Hello.
My last
blog post was about what kind of gamer I am and to possibly think about what
kind of gamer you are. Just as an extension on that, I concluded that I am in a
strange genre I liked to call Casual Hardcore.
I used to
be properly Hardcore once. Playing games online all night like Halo, the
original CoD, and even in my pre-broadband years – Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight.
Oh the evenings spent on MSN, timing it all just right “Right my IP address
is…..” then having to quickly disconnect, then reconnect because back in those
days of dial-up, after you’d been online for 2 hours you were mercilessly cut
off.
I was a
hardcore PC gamer. Playing online games a lot, especially Guild Wars. Man that
game rocked. But since I left home, started a family and started working for
the Ministry of Defence…my time and spare cash got pretty low. I’m not saying I
couldn’t pay for things, god no. I had to prioritise my cash, like I said in
the previous blog. And back in the day, when I could go to work, come home,
shower, change, eat then just play games to my hearts content I now have other
things that need doing. I still play on a daily basis – I’m currently reliving
my youth somewhat by pumping some hours into Civilisation II (of which you can
read my review to further down on this blog). But I digress. Massively.
This blog
states – It’s better on PC. What is? Online gaming? Sometimes. FPS games?
Definitely. Sports games? Not a chance. But these inane objective questions
aside what exactly do I mean?
Well I’ll
tell you. Officially, graphics and performance. With the recent release of
Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 680 card being shown off royally at E3 using the Unreal 4
engine, and with the soon to come GeForce GTX 690 card being TWICE as powerful.
PC gaming is about to turn a corner which the Xbox 360, PS3 and to a much
lesser non-gaming extent Nintendo Wii cannot catch them on. Yeah you might be
able to have Kinect on the Xbox or the Move on the PS3, but they’re operating
on graphics cards and processors that are years old now.
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| Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 - It looks awesome!! |
Anyone with
even a rudimentary understanding of how computers work, how they evolve and how
quickly that happens; knows that a computer even a year old is considered out
of date. And they’re right. Computer technology is advancing at it’s fastest
rate ever, and consoles get left behind. They are made, they excel and spank
everything else – then they get caught up, overtaken, left behind and
eventually they become relics. Technologically frozen in time like a cowering
resident of Pompeii, cowering in awe at the technologically unstoppable freight
train known as the Desktop Personal Computer.
Nvidia
engineer Simon Green told New Scientist that graphics on PC’s are now about 24
times better than on consoles. Right, let’s not kid ourselves though. An Xbox
360 console, from somewhere like Game online (cos who am I kidding, are there
any left on Highstreets anymore?) with a 250gb HDD, and Kinect ready will cost
you about £150. A top of the range ready made PC will cost you in the region of
about £1500-£3000 – depending on whether you buy like an Alienware computer, or
make one yourself.
Even when
Xbox’s were new, I think I got mine for about £270 with a massive 12gb HDD.
Being an Argos worker, I got mine the day before release because I reserved one
and told my boss I was at college all day the next day. So I got mine early.
Got an iPod Nano when they first came out the same way. Heh.
So look at
the price differences. If you bought a ready made PC today, even for £270 – it
would probably be alright, but nothing ground breaking. In fact, it’d be cheap
shite. A large portion of that £270 would have gone towards Windows 7.
So in
consoles, you’re getting a bargain in reality. A bargain and a gaming
investment. I bought my PC in February 2009, and it still performs quite
admirably. It cost about £800 and was ready made. However I’m getting itchy,
and my wife can tell. I’m looking at building my own computer in the second
half of the year, and I’d be able to build a pretty good future proofed machine
for about £800. For the same specs, I’d be looking at spending at least about
£2000 from somewhere like Alienware, PC Specialist or CyberPowerSystem. Whereas
when the PS4 and Xbox YZ* is released be it late this year, 2013 or as some
analysts in Tokyo
I admit
though…there is 1 sticking point. I’m on my 3rd Xbox. So my almost 7
year love affair with this console has seen 2 resurrections. Bringing the total
cost to about £550. Still a bargain though. My PC as I mentioned cost £800, and
that was 3 ½ years ago, and I want to upgrade. Let me tell you what that means
in a money / time scale. All workings out are approximate.
Xbox: money
/ time
(£)550 /
(days)2465.5 = £0.22 per day. The cost of my 3 Xbox’s have been 22p a day. That
obviously isn’t including games, or DLC just the cost of the machine. 22p a day
for endless hours of entertainment? Yes please.
Let me do
the same analysis on my PC. Again I can’t remember exact amounts or dates so
it’s approximate.
PC: money /
time
(£)800 /
(days)1278 = £0.63 per day. Cheap right! Gaming is the way forward obviously,
but it’s still about 3 times more costly than console gaming and doesn’t last
anywhere near as long – unless you get it right. If I still had my working Xbox
from day 1, the figure above would be minute. It’d be about 11p per day.
Amazing right?
Which is
were I come to the crux of my entire blog post here. Yes top of the line PC’s
are awesome, they’re amazing, they’re brilliant, they’re better than consoles.
But nowhere near as cost effective. Not in the slightest. And you’ll find
yourself wanting to upgrade when you see adverts for new graphics cards and
processors. Something you don’t really get with consoles. You buy a console,
you play on it, and only years down the line when the next gen comes out do you
start getting itchy. My PC is great. I love it. It’s so awesome, but I can’t
help but want more from it. It’s better than my kids PC by a country mile,
which is where she’d end up going, giving them a computer that actually works
(they have Vista…say no more**). The problem with my PC as well though is that
it’s rigid. It’s a Zoostorm PC, and I’ve gotta say, they made a fucking great
computer there. But it’s not really my computer. It’s a Zoostorm computer that
I own. I want my OWN computer. I want to create her, raise her, and watch her
tentatively take her first steps into Windows 7. I want to smile as she logs
onto the internet for the first time and I want to beam with pride as she
downloads my Steam Library games, and rocks the shit out of them. The other
thing is that I thought, maybe I could just upgrade my current PC, throw in
some extra RAM, a new processor. Nope. Pre-made PC’s are generally engineered
to be non-upgradable in any physical way. The motherboard won’t cope with more
RAM, the graphics card is as big as I can put onto it and when I discovered
this. I started looking at her differently.
She’d
changed.
Which is
why I’m going to be laying subtle hints that probably next year, around my
birthday, when the kids are at school I’m taking a couple of days leave…and my
own creation will become a reality. When that happens. You will know about it.
So yeah,
PC’s are better graphically. Who knew?! But consoles are better generally.
Unless you future-proof your PC and allow for expansion – then the world is
your oyster.
*There is
a general acceptance that the PlayStation will continue its numerical
continuation, whereas there is no news on what Microsoft plans to call their
next machine. Most sites seem content and certain that it'll be the Xbox 720, but I’m going for Xbox YZ
“XYZ”
LITTLE FACT:
Microsoft called their 2nd gen console the Xbox 360, as opposed to
the Xbox 2 because the Xbox 2 would be competing with the PS3 and they felt
that the appearance of a 2 being lower than a 3 would give Sony a psychological
edge. Hence the 360 was born.
**I wrote
this blog a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been waiting to go onto the site,
since then I’ve upgraded their computer to Win7. It’s pretty darn good now.
Toolbox 24
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