Cost of gaming PC's in the PS4/XBO era

[BRiT]

Hah, after a quick google I see that the regular price is $60/year, with the typical "on sale" price being $50. So it's even more expensive than I thought.

The suggested retail price is $60 with non-sales prices being $50 and typical sales at $40 with rock bottom sales prices of $35/36. It used to be very common to find them at $30. The service is redeemable up to 3 years and they have no expiration dates. I would hope no one pays full suggested retail prices.

I stocked up early on the cheap codes, 8 years at $30 and 2 years at $36. My 10 year average price until the end of 2015 is $31.20 per year.

 

[homerdog]

Seems like if you wanna buy a 12mo subscription from some place you're heard of you'll be paying at least ~$50. I am confident that there may be exceptions somewhere out there in the World Wide Web, but they are hidden well enough.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Seems like if you wanna buy a 12mo subscription from some place you're heard of you'll be paying at least ~$50. I am confident that there may be exceptions somewhere out there in the World Wide Web, but they are hidden well enough.

No. I've never paid more than $44. That was last year when I got it off xbl. I've bought from Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon for $40 or less. Unless you've never heard of those places...

 

[homerdog]

There is a large disconnect between what you two are saying and the current prices of Xbox Live subscriptions on planet earth.

I promise it won't hurt my feelings at all if you prove me wrong, I wouldn't buy it if it was free. Or get it... if it was free I couldn't buy it obviously. Nevermind.

 

[AlphaWolf]

There is a large disconnect between what you two are saying and the current prices of Xbox Live subscriptions on planet earth.

I promise it won't hurt my feelings at all if you prove me wrong, I wouldn't buy it if it was free. Or get it... if it was free I couldn't buy it obviously. Nevermind.

Problem exists between your chair and keyboard. If you had looked on friday you would have trouble finding a chain retailer asking more than $40.

 

[homerdog]

I see so the problem is that I don't have a time machine between my keyboard and chair.

 

[AlphaWolf]

You're not understanding what sale price means is the issue.

 

[BRiT]

Now now, lets all calm down, no need to get nasty with finger pointing.

I think Homedog doesn't understand the concept of sales and the concept of better sales nor the frequency of them.

The frequency of the sales hitting $40 is at least once every 3 months at all the major sellers such as NewEgg, Amazon, EBay, Walmart, Target, Buy.com, BestBuy. The sales aren't always at the same time. It's typical during any given month you can find it somewhere for $40. If you only have a couple months left on your subscription you shouldn't have any difficulty in renewing for $40.

The frequency the best sales is at least once every once every 6 months where some of the major sellers such as NewEgg, Amazon, Buy.com and EBay have it listed at $35/$36. These sales aren't always at the same time either. These are harder to come by but do happen regularly so if you're stocked up for a year you shouldn't have difficulty in renewing for the $35/$36 price.

 

[homerdog]

Now now, lets all calm down, no need to get nasty with finger pointing.

I think Homedog doesn't understand the concept of sales and the concept of better sales nor the frequency of them.

*Nevermind I mistook your meaning.

The frequency of the sales hitting $40 is at least once every 3 months at all the major sellers such as NewEgg, Amazon, EBay, Walmart, Target, Buy.com, BestBuy. The sales aren't always at the same time. It's typical during any given month you can find it somewhere for $40. If you only have a couple months left on your subscription you shouldn't have any difficulty in renewing for $40.

The frequency the best sales is at least once every once every 6 months where some of the major sellers such as NewEgg, Amazon, Buy.com and EBay have it listed at $35/$36. These sales aren't always at the same time either. These are harder to come by but do happen regularly so if you're stocked up for a year you shouldn't have difficulty in renewing for the $35/$36 price.

That's fine. I simply searched for 12mo Xbox Live subscriptions and reported my findings. I don't doubt that it goes on sale sometimes... most things do.

Anyway this is about the stupidest argument I've had on the Internet. No further posts on the subject from me.

 

[Malo]

It looks like that software allows 3D Blu-Ray playback too which the consoles lack so it seems like the argument actually swings back the other way.

Wait what? The new consoles can't do 3D Bluray?

 

[pjbliverpool]

It doesn't seem so, not at launch anyway.

 

[ninelven]

3. There can be no re-use of old PC components that you already own.

Why would any sane person buy something they do not want or need and for which they have no use? Being able to use one's old case, power supply, DVD drive, etc is one of the inherent benefits of building a PC.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Why would any sane person buy something they do not want or need and for which they have no use? Being able to use one's old case, power supply, DVD drive, etc is one of the inherent benefits of building a PC.

So my console slaughtering PC costs $0? I can just reuse all of my components.

 

[joker454]

So my console slaughtering PC costs $0? I can just reuse all of my components.

Yup that's what mine cost, exactly 0$. I haven't had to upgrade anything on my gaming pc and I can still play all the new and old games without issue, and with better visuals and frame rate than the new consoles. Why some people insist on having to start from scratch and re-buy everything every time makes no sense to me. I mean what, do console guys re-buy their tv's as well with every generation since they insist on buying everything from scratch? I don't get it.

 

[Npl]

Yup that's what mine cost, exactly 0$. I haven't had to upgrade anything on my gaming pc and I can still play all the new and old games without issue, and with better visuals and frame rate than the new consoles. Why some people insist on having to start from scratch and re-buy everything every time makes no sense to me. I mean what, do console guys re-buy their tv's as well with every generation since they insist on buying everything from scratch? I don't get it.

If you buy a new console the old one will still work, if you scavenge parts from a PC the rest will be bloody useless. Apart from that I doubt the PC you already got is as old or older than the last-gen consoles, which means you had more upgrades along the way and invalidates your 0$. Apples and Oranges stuff...

I still think ill get a PS4 somewhere down the way, the consoles are a bit better off with some good exclusives but not by much

 

[joker454]

If you buy a new console the old one will still work, if you scavenge parts from a PC the rest will be bloody useless. Apart from that I doubt the PC you already got is as old or older than the last-gen consoles, which means you had more upgrades along the way and invalidates your 0$. Apples and Oranges stuff...

I still think ill get a PS4 somewhere down the way, the consoles are a bit better off with some good exclusives but not by much

Not really apples and oranges in this case since many people had to rebuy their old consoles because they broke. I had 3 Xbox 360's and 3 PS3's for example, some replaced under warranty, some I had to re-buy myself when they broke. In any case there are certain pc parts even going back to 2006 that you don't need to re-buy, ever. Stuff like the Windows licence which can be re-installed on other machines even though people insist it can't, or the case, hdd's, etc. All you ever have to change is the mobo+cpu if your pc is > 3 years old, or just your gpu if it's newer than that. It's $200 for an old quad core sandy bridge cpu + mobo, shove that into your old pc case and reuse all your old ram and parts. Add a $150 gpu and you're set. Spend more on the gpu if you want even better visuals and framerate.

This entire comparison is flawed because the terms are totally flawed. It's like saying ok price out what it will cost you to move to a new house, but oh yeah you have to re-buy all your old furniture, you can't use any of your existing stuff. Well yeah with such odd terms sure it'll cost a ton, but why in heck would anyone ever do that? And likewise if you are to assume "start from scratch" then the same must be done for the consoles. Meaning if you have to buy everything from scratch on pc and assume they have nothing, then assume they have nothing on consoles as well to be fair meaning they have to buy old gen and new gen to be able to play everything. It's not fair to assume one set of rules for pricing pc, then assume a different set of rules when pricing console.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Why would any sane person buy something they do not want or need and for which they have no use? Being able to use one's old case, power supply, DVD drive, etc is one of the inherent benefits of building a PC.

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree that when looking at individual cases you'd want to exclude the cost of whatever existing PC components you want to re-use.

But that's not practical for a general comparison of the bill of materials for a given PC performance. How would you choose which parts to exclude? And where's the relevance to someone who has no existing PC? Or at least not one with any parts worth re-using in a new high end games machine?

 

[AlphaWolf]

No no PCs are free cuz I already have one, but my xbox one is also free because I already have that.

 

[joker454]

Ok, so we build them from scratch. Throw everything out to the dumpster, start over, I am Joe Consumer walking into the store with nothing at all gaming related in my household, I am starting from zero. Price? $700 to build a new pc and $500 to get a new console. Console wins! Clearly console is the cheaper way to go, I'll go with that. To heck with overpriced pc's only crazy elitists go that route.

Cool my new console is hooked up, let's sit down now and play some games. I heard Far Cry 3 was really good, let's try that on my shiny new cheaper than pc console. Hmm can't play that. Ok let's play the new Saints Row game I heard that's really good. Hmm, can't play that either. How about the newest Bioshock game, it reviewed really well! Hmm can't play that. Ok how about (insert any one of dozens of high ranked high selling games here), that should look cool on my new console! Nope, can't play that either.

So you can't play much of anything on your new console when you could have played them all on your new pc. But then again you saved $200 so for the purposes of the comparison console still wins. Yup, makes sense to me, it's not like playing games is important anyways when choosing a game playing device. It's all about throwing everything into the garbage, starting over and saving $200. Console wins.

 

[zed]

Cool my new pc is hooked up, let's sit down now and play some games. I heard Ryse was really good graphics, let's try that on my shiny new better than console pc. Hmm can't play that. Dead Rising 3, Forza Motorsport 5.
Cuts both ways

Anyways why would you want to play them on the PC, you cant hardly tell the difference from the console versions