Is PC gaming cheap or expensive compared to consoles?

cuz I can

I bought the Deus Ex series for $6. I can't complain about the price of the games. Plus that you can make a pretty good gaming PC for around the price of a PS4.

nein

Higher initial investment for sure. I see people saying they can build console-beating PC's for around the same price as consoles, but those machines are almost uniformally short-sighted when you look at upgrade paths and the higher upgrade frequency. IMO you need to spend in the region of £800-1000 to get a PC that pretty much maximises price-to-performance and also nets you solid reusable parts (case, PSU etc). So yeah, the actual buy in price is about the same as that of 2-3 consoles combined if you want to do it right.

That will net you a machine that can max out (or at least play 50+fps on High) most games - and will deliver a good experience on most games (even if you eventually have to drop down to medium) for 3-4 years to come. Sure, you might want to upgrade again after 3 years, but it's not as expensive as it looks if you actually put the money in the first time as you can resell (good) parts which should cut your upgrade costs by half.

Add to that the fact that you won't be upgrading many of the parts (PSU, OS, case, CPU cooler and possibly both motherboard and memory) and the cost of upgrading will run the price of a new CPU + Graphics Card (albeit 50% off after you trade the old stuff in). So £800-1000 in set-up, and then £300-400 every few 3-4 years depending on how up to date/high fidelity you want your experience to be. I'd imagine you could almost double that timeframe if you don't mind playing at 30fps or going down to low (TBF most games these days are actually quite good looking even on low).

With that said however, once you start factoring in software things look very different as the price disparity between console and PC is at times as much as 10 times. It's insane. From a sheer software savings point of view you save a fortune. And I guess you don't have to pay for online (though TBF, I don't factor that in as I don't play online on consoles either).

I mean sure, you COULD go the cheaper route but let's be honest, how many PC gamers here actually do that? Surely if you want to see the benefits of the platform you'd pay more initially for that experience. A console-oriented gamer isn't going to go to the effort of building/researching a machine /components simply to get a similar experience that could have had with a console either.

I built my PC in early 2010 or 2011? cant remember..I didnt go all out..I spent like 700$..wasnt trying to outdo my consoles. I was simply wanting to build a new pc because my other one was so outdated. I was more less building it to be newer and better than what I had.

At $700 that's not exactly a budget machine to be honest :D

Of course PC gaming is cheaper than console gaming, it being more expensive is one of the biggest myths.

-The games are cheaper

-There is no fee in place to be allowed to play online

-The accessoires are cheaper

-There are actual free and freeware games, not free as in: Free as long as you PAY for something.

-If you focus on the classics, indies and well optimized games like Source games you don't even need expensive hardware to enjoy hundreds of thousands of PC games.

The only thing expensive about pc gaming is the hardware. And it's totally up to you how expensive or cheap you make that. Frankly, my PC could cost me a million euro and I would still find that a more worthwhile investment than paying Microsoft or Sony fifty euro a year to unlock the online component for my games...

PC gaming is as cheap as it has ever been.. If you got a I5 2500k which released in early 2011 for just over $200, you struck into one of the best deals in the history of pc hardware.. In the second half of 2015 a overclocked I5 2500k matches and surpasses the current mainstream i5.. The 2500k still does not bottleneck any video card on the market place..

Sure it is when you take into account of OS costs and the fact that it is actually a COMPUTER and not a device with minimal multimedia functions and just for gaming.. If anything it really tells you how much in trouble consoles are in which full blown pc's are being released not much more expensive than them on top of performing better all while being a fully functional pc..

500-750$ is bottom..751-1000$ is mid...1001-3000$ is high..anything higher is superhigh.. this is sort of my chart of pricing..and categorizing

It entirely depends on what you want. I find it to be a better experience so PC gaming all the way.

Strange thing about game cost is that console games have never been so cheap in the past. I really don't remember console games dropping in price so fast--or fluctuating. The Order was just $20 the other day. I was surprised when games were listed from $17 to $30 that were sort of new. Quite strange, especially when you see the digital price much higher.

That's true. My gaming rig is going on seven years old now lol, and when tax time comes around next year, I'll be building a brand new rig, but the games that it can play have new content constantly being created. Skyrim anybody? The Doctor and his TARDIS in Skyrim. Need I say more? Also, my rig can play current games that aren't as demanding like KSP.

I can watch a blue ray movie, listen to any music from any source I like with any audio or video player I like. I can record video from my cable box on to my hard drive using the capture box and software I bought, and the browsing experience is infinitely better on PC than consoles. All of this is just plain better on PC.

Seriously, guys?