brandyinindiana said:
Either way, no matter which one of us is right or wrong in this, it still doesn't change the fact that you WILL have to eventually upgrade your PC (whether its in a year or ten years makes no nevermind), which is my original point to begin with - an individual console is cheaper in the long run. And even if Sony reaches PS100, buying each console in that line will still be a matter of choice, not necessity, whereas with computers, even if you're not in them specifically for the gaming, you have other programs to run, videos to watch and so on that could do with a bit of a boost every now and again.
Your logic's broken. Of course "an individual console" is going to be cheaper than, say, a PC that's been upgraded three times; but by the same token, I could say that an 'individual' (un-upgraded) gaming PC is cheaper than buying an Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox 720. You upgrade your PC to advance to an approximate "next generation"; it's
exactly the same thing you do with consoles when you buy a PS3 after your PS2, or a 360 after your Xbox. Except that upgrading your PC's gaming components at those intervals (you don't need to replace everything, obviously) can cost you up to a hundred bucks less than a release-time console (over a hundred if we're comparing PC to PS3). That's leaving out the massive technical superiority, which is significant even if you don't care about eyecandy (practically a blank cheque for HD space, 4+ times the memory, massively superior control options, you're an alt-tab away from any PC or web utility you could possibly need, there's the modding scene...) The notion that PC gaming is sooo much more expensive than console gaming for no gain is a myth (bolstered by the ripoff merchants at Dell and similar companies, but PC-shopping is like any shopping -- if you don't inform yourself, you're liable to get bitten). Consoles have their uses (casual social gaming, and... that's about it), but considering it's the very thing they're built for, they're pretty inferior games platforms. They've got the numbers though, so hey, if it brings in more cash for CDPR, then good for them. As for the whole Witcher-Rise thing, yeah, it was a stupid move to aggressively promote a console port on a forum (and sister site) which have naturally evolved to contain people who are (a) PC gamers who (b) already own The Witcher, but come on, I think CDPR have earned a little trust and goodwill beyond that, haven't they? They've made what I'm tempted to call the best game on ANY platform in the past three or four years (it pisses ferociously on overhyped tosh like Mass Effect and Fallout 3), and they then put a
lot of manpower into consolidating its place with a hefty giveaway patching that most other studios wouldn't dream of doing. Why should we assume that CDPR have suddenly turned into Ubisoft Shanghai just because they deign to bless the consoles with their awesome work? Are there other indicators that I've just missed? If it's because of the effort they're taking on the console release, then I think that reflects very well on their studio character -- I hate half-arsed console-to-PC ports (ie, every port I've ever played apart from, oh, Splinter Cell 3) and the attitude behind them, so even though I'm not going to play it, I'm glad CDPR don't want to saddle Xbox/PS3 players with a half-arsed
PC-to-console port.It's early days for CDPR (release-wise), but they've kicked off with an attitude comparable to Valve in their conscientiousness towards PC gamers; we should save complaints about bad news for when we actually
get some bad news, not just... slightly-disappointing-in-its-irrelevance news.
