Its the old story - they are different sections of the market place. People are in (whatever) sector for different reasons, its why the age old pointless console V pc shouting will rumble on for ever and never be resolved. It compares chalk and cheese. At the end of the day, who cares? As long as the user is happy with where they are, whichever sector they are in, thats great.

Life's too short ...

Regards
Zy

I'm a PC gamer, mind you, and I'm getting to the point where I'm gaming increasingly on console. I'm happy with either, but it'd be darn nice if computers cost a sane amount compared to consoles. Without increasing console prices.

They do, they're absurdly cheap by comparison.

The budget PC is no longer a monster that eats small children, you can spend under a grand and get a very nice box these days. Consoles on the other hand aren't particularly useful aside from the gaming aspect and have almost doubled in price in the last ten years instead of halved. You don't actually need the $400 video card, you just need one to play the very few games that are all graphics and no content and should be skipped anyway.

True, but the problem is that laptops and whatnot do cost a lot.

Until they run into a bug that makes the game practically unplayable. Then the tech support people start banging their heads against their desk when the player says "What drivers? I'm just playing on the computer not with my car!"




But, as we just got through explaining, laptops are NOT gaming machines, and thus, their cost is completely irrelevant and superfluous to the discussion. You might as well have pointed out, "But gas prices are above $100 a barrel".


Mad Cat

I use a laptop for gaming, ok? So you can't say they're not gaming machines. They're perfectly competent gaming machines.

You can certainly use them for gaming, but they are VERY costly for that and still won't give you the performance that a cheaper desktop would. In practical terms, you CAN play games on them, just not very well (unless the games are much older) as they are not designed for that purpose.


Mad Cat

Heh, the quad core, SLI notebooks would beg to differ on the second point. The problem is they really aren't laptops at that point, too hot to sit on your lap, they need ventilation too, so a flat surface for the feet is mandatory, and they burn through their battery in 20 minutes anyway, so you can't really use them in such a fashion even if you bring your desk with you.

If price isn't an issue, ream yourself and match the desktops. As soon as they come out with a mobile version of the 9800's, I'm sure some crazy fucker will be selling those in quad core SLI notebooks too.

Laptops are fine for gaming, you've just got to be prepared to pay more for the same specs as a desktop. That'd be expected though, since you benefit from the mobility+reduced size of the laptop. I have a laptop that I use for all my modern games (it's about 1 year newer than my desktop and marginally better performance wise; they both cost about the same price), and it runs things like gal civ 2, half life 2, and dawn of war fine (I'm not interested in playing the latest Crysis, only playing decent games from the last 5 years or so that won't cost a fortune to play, and so far it's had no trouble playing whatever I've given it). Of course it was a job trying to find a laptop that was suitable for gaming when I was looking for them - most would have pitiful graphics cards alongside very fast processors+other specs, meaning they'd cost more than the one I ended up getting, and would run fewer games, while those it could run it'd run worse!

. . . which rarely happens, although there are exceptions. nVidia made the mistake of creating new drivers for a new OS and releasing a new product line all at the same time, which was asking for trouble. Once the drivers are stable, however, there's not much of a need to continue updating them.

. . . and it's not as if the consoles have never had stability problems, especially with the new consoles which tend to run very hot.

. . . and oh, yeah, consoles can't really be upgraded at all. It's not as if you can buy a new video card and make your games look better in a console. The games all end up looking the same, for better or for worse.

Psychoak got a good point on laptops. I've yet to find a good laptop for gaming that rivals any top of the line desktop though. Perhaps there is one for me by xmas 08 with a 'cheap' price tag (a la erathoniel). Yeah right! I expect holes in my wallet.

Art is for the sophisticated eye (no punt intended on the eye though).

Bush can blow anyday about his "mass deception" war. We just wasted 8 years of our resources to take down one dictatorship for another (Bin Laden).

PC games will be around. Its existence will prevail as long there are PC gamers enthousiasts out there. However, PC games quality (decent graphics, gameplay, decent UI, and so on) will truly depend on gamers making the right choices (support games that deliver the kind of quality of the original Homeworld and the few I came to love, just as many of you have among other titles).

I owned my first pc called Commodore 64 and some of you probably remember. Then a few consoles like Nintendo and then Sega systems and marveled at the simplicity of early consoles.

Today, I totally disregard the consoles and stick with PC games that are deemed worthy to play and they are few. It sure helps me to stay in shape because of it. Thanks to the "greed" of corporates trying to make a quick buck on us, gamers.

That's my take on this issue.

True, but you don't need a top of the line desktop to play the vast majority of games. Only Crysis really needs something with that much power.



Agreed. I don't think they will go away, I simply think they will change. Perhaps a bit more indie, perhaps a bit less professional, but that really doesn't bother me that much. I don't need more games like Crysis as long as they are fun.

"Art is for the sophisticated eye (no punt intended on the eye though).

Bush can blow anyday about his "mass deception" war. We just wasted 8 years of our resources to take down one dictatorship for another (Bin Laden)."

Wtf? Hello stoner, nice to meet you...

What is this Bush bashing about?

My laptop wasn't that expensive. Only a little more than the desktop.

Well you can't have mods on consoles so pc games are here to stay.