[QUOTE="Crzy1"]why on earth would I throw upwards of $500 at a new GTX 280?marriage0

actually, thats another thing that really annoys me, why do people always say "i can get a console for $300 and this GFX card is $500...." dont you understand that much cheaper video cards can still play all the latest games? you dont NEED a GTX 280 or whatever, heck, you dont even need an 8800GTX, i can play EVERYTHING at the moment on my 1 and a half year old 8800GTS 320mb, which now costs £70 retail (around $140)... i can even play crysis with all on high, i just leave AA and AF off and ocasionally put up with a frame rate drop here and there....

i understand what you are saying but the whole "PC's cost $2000+" argument is bullcrap, when i got my machine 18 months ago i spent no more than £450 (approx $900 at the time)... and at that time the PS3 was about the same price....(my specs are in my sig) and i havent upgraded since (apart from an extra £30 for the extra RAM)....

I was pointing at the only upgrade for myself that would bring me any kind of improvement (8800 GTX SLI@1920x1200 atm which are showing their age). I never said "Everyone should be in the market for a GTX 280". While I don't need it, when I'm playing Assassin's Creed and the frame rates drop into the teens at times or when Crysis starts to chug, I contemplate it. As far as I can tell, no one "needs" anything when it comes to gaming, it's a luxury, that's why the argument of shelling out $500 works. The reason I prefer gaming on the PC is that I can usually enjoy higher frame rates and better looks, but that seems to be a thing of the past with crappy ports being all that I see anymore. That being said, I would prefer to keep the money that I would otherwise spend upgrading if I'm winding up with the same or near the same performance on hardware than in total cost me about twice what I gave for my PS3 and 360 combined.

Hate to burst your bubble, but what the hell BF1942 server were you playing on with 255 other people? The most I remember was 64 and that seemed to be pushing it with the size of the maps. The most I've ever seen in a multiplayer game on the PC was Joint Operations at 150 although it got really laggy when the battles started to get concentrated.

I agree that PC gaming is not dead, but it's not doing anything that would make me purchase a new video card this generation and that's what component manufacturers and game developers should be focusing on. If I can play the majority of the games on the horizon on a console that's less than $300 why on earth would I throw upwards of $500 at a new GTX 280?

Hopefully when Intel enters the GPU arena they can actually get some developers on their side, something that AMD and Nvidia haven't had much luck with in the past few years. PC gaming is far from dead, but it seriously needs a shot in the arm right about now. Of the last 5 games I've purchased for the PC, 3 of them were already on consoles and a 4th one is headed to a console in the near future, so you can't say that it's not sharing the same market as the consoles.

Right now, as it stands, PC gaming is an old dog in need of some new tricks. The only thing I see on the horizon seems to be MMO this and FPS that and there's really only a few ways to mix them up, WoW and Crysis are the gold standards for their respective genres right now, and I'm terribly bored with Crysis and I've given up my WoW addiction so on the PC I'm left with games that seem sub-par by comparison and everytime something new comes along it barely does anything to shake up the formula. On the other hand, I have some great games on my consoles like MGS4, GTAIV, Warhawk, Uncharted, Crackdown, Dead Rising, R&C Future and so many others that the PC hasn't even tried to emulate. And the consoles keep getting great exclusives every month, even if they're not extremely, earthshatteringly innovative, they're still great games that are a lot of fun to play if even for a rent, the last great game I remember being released exclusively for the PC was Sins of a Solar Empire which came out over 4 months ago.

Ok, with that rant out of the way, there are some extremely good looking games headed exclusively for the PC later in the year and Spore is at the top of my list, but that leaves about a 6 month dry period in which the PC received no love from developers. I'm not a seasonal gamer, I prefer to play throughout the year and not just during the holidays when I would actually prefer to spend the time with my friends and family, so a release calendar that keeps a steady flow throughout the year would be preferable to hitting me with 12 great games in a little over a month's time.

To conclude, PC gaming is not dead, but it has gotten extremely stale in the past couple of years when compared to it's console brethren and in my eyes that's a big problem, and I hope there's a fix in the near future or I may wind up saving myself some cash and just play on consoles from now on.

Well, since Blu-ray won the day, I'd say that it's an excellent investment at this point. It's well within the price range of the 360 and plays Blu-ray disks as well or better than some standalone players on the market. You have to hope it doesn't brick, which is my main concern, I've heard Sony is a pain to deal with over warranties. That being said, the failure rate is supposedly less than 1/10 of 1% (0.09% or less) and I don't know anyone who owns one that has experienced any cataclysmic failures.

So far mine has been an excellent purchase, but it doesn't get nearly as much play as my 360 and as far as games go, the PS3 has some great ones (MGS4, Uncharted, R&C Future, Warhawk, etc) but I havn't been wowed by any of them like I have some of the 360 exclusives. Going to stop there before this turns into a rant page, but I would whole-heartedly recommend the PS3 to just about anyone, I havn't been disappointed at all with mine.

From what I've noticed, the Playstation 3 generates a lot more heat than the 360, that being said, the PS3 has a much better cooling solution so the heat really isn't a problem unless it starts to affect the temperature of the room. Also, the PS3 can get extremely loud if it has to ramp the fan up to 100%, it generally only does this during extended play session or watching movies, and it normally doesn't keep the fan ramped up long.

As far as flavors for the PS3, you have the 20 GB (discontinued), 40 GB (easiest to find), 60 GB (discontinued) and the 80 GB which has to be bought in a bundle but that's not all that bad since MGS4 is a must have if you're getting a PS3 and it includes the Dual Shock 3. As far as BC goes, I can't keep up anymore. The 2 discontinued models have the emotion engine built in, the 40 GB has no support I believe and the 80 GB has software emulation. From what I've seen of PS2 games on the PS3, you can tell a big difference between the looks coming from a PS2 and the PS3, the PS2 being notably better looking in my opinion.

The 60 GB and 80 GB are the only ones with the multi-card readers for memory sticks. I've found them to be pretty handy, but not something that I would have to have. Just wrote all of this off the top of my head, there may have been changes at some point that I don't know of since I havn't done any research on them since I purchaced one.

So far I'm having a blast, but I havn't gotten out of the newbie area yet (level 19). It has progressed extremely well and I havn't had any lag to speak of and the only problems I've had are from other players which eventually works itself out. When the game launches tomorrow, we may bear witness to the unspeakable horrors like WoW getting a ton of mainstream attention and going downhill for a couple of months with continuous crashes (from boats, no less).

I'm hoping all goes well and they open a handful of other servers to lighten the load so everything works out like it should.

I like linear shooters, I usually ramp up the difficulty to get the most play out of them and give them one solid playthrough, a la COD4. They have a better pace and generally a lot more action than their sandbox siblings which makes for a great ride, but if you ever try to hop back in again, you'll feel a bit of deja vu since just about everything will remain the same (the sniper level in COD4 was so intense the first time I played it but when I played it again, it was boring).

You have to take the games on their merits. COD4, HL, HL2, Bioshock, etc were all great games, but once you've played it once you've seen about everything there is to offer. Crysis, STALKER, Far Cry, Boiling Point and just about any other sandbox shooter are a lot of fun to experiment in, but without a bit of luck, you're not going to get the same kind of rush out of them as you would a linear game.

In the end it's apples to apples, but there are more kinds of apples than you can shake a stick at and none of them taste quite the same, so it really just depends on what you really want to sink your teeth into.