I'm pretty much done with any modern PC games...

[D3ads]

I only really tend to play older games on my platform. I have a very out of date graphics card which can be changed to a modern one for a stupidly high price, which is probably more expensive than buying an Xbox 360. It seems my 3.2GHZ machine is already out of date and it's not even two years old yet.. It's getting rediculous to keep up as far as I'm concerned.

I might as well just play all the new games on the Xbox 360, all the titles I'm interested in namely: The Darkness, Bioshock, Condemned 1/2, Alan Wake, COD4, Clive Barker's Jherico, F.E.A.R. 2 and GTAIV are all already on or to be released for that platform and sure they'll look better on the PC but for the price you're paying.. is it really worth it? I'm not a fan of controllers though, I like my keyboard and mouse setup and always find playing such games on a console a tedious experience at the best of times.

The only PC only title I'm interested in though is Crysis and I dare say that will probably be released for the Xbox in time.

Am I overreacting or is it fair to say that being up to date in the world of PC gaming takes the piss now? I wouldn't be surprised if Dual core was out of date by 2010 the way things are going at the moment!

Discuss...

[Psy]

£100 isn't that much money.

[BioPulse]

I bought a new pc (entire pc) for about 600 euros, and it's not quite out of date yet, it runs bioshock on high pretty sweet ,thoug not dx10.

A good enough gfx card would be about 100 euros, maybe 150, my x1600GT seems to be doing pretty ok still.

It's not too expensive, if you make sure you have a motherboard you can build on, you can just buy parts for it when needed, i cankeep upgrading mine for quite a while still, eventhough it's not yet necessary.

an AM2 or core2duo mobo is lik 100 euros or so etc. so it's not that bad really.

It just sucks if your mobo is out of date, because replacing that, and the ram / cpu attached to i, costs a bit more.

[Pericolos0]

yeah just get a console . It's not that expensive compared to a PC, your games have awesome graphics, you can play from your couch and you never have to install your games/download patches

[^Slick]

It just sucks if your mobo is out of date, because replacing that, and the ram / cpu attached to i, costs a bit more.

Thats the situation I'm in, I'm still on Socket A, AGP and DDR1.

=(

[Thrik]

Yeah, it's really not that bad at all. Granted, to kit yourself out with high-end components like I tend to can be hard on the wallet (although I don't care since I do work after all -- might as well spend it on stuff I enjoy), but you can get a perfectly competent machine by just going for slightly lesser hardware.

One thing to note (unless you're a filthy warezing bastard) is that in the long run you do save in various areas on the PC. While most people don't count things like this when adding together costs, peripherals can be expensive on consoles, including the proprietary cables they all love to use for hooking up to HD televisions and such, and of course controllers.

Critically, almost all current-generation console games are around £10 to £20 more expensive than their PC counterparts in the shops, which adds up very rapidly.

I guess it comes largely down to taste, though. I simply cannot enjoy consoles as much as the PC due to my enduring love for FPS and RTS games, which still just don't work that well on consoles. If I played more third-person and racing games then I'd probably see a lot more value in a console. No console, Wii included, can match the tactility you get from a mouse when it comes to controlling a battlefield in an RTS and aiming in an FPS.

[Nysuatro]

I just have payed 500 euro for a new graphic card :s

If my parents didn' paid a piece of it i would have bought a console for sure.

[dux]

I'm waiting for my next pay check so I can order the best PC on the market. I mean, if you want to keep up with technology all you need is a decent paying job. Which I understand is easier said than done. I much prefer PC over an xbox anyway, so I'm more than happy to stick with the PC as its served me mighty well on the gaming front.

[Hourences]

I spend an avg of 1000 euro a year on hardware, but really, if you are happy with regular stuff you can keep your pc going for just 200 euro or so a year. A console might be cheaper, but PC's can do so much more.

Dualcore will definitely be out of date by 2010...By the end of 2008 quad core would prolly start taking over dualcores entirely, let alone what happens after.

For people like us modding is what makes the difference between a PC and a console. I dont buy pcs so I can play games, I buy them so I can exercise my hobby and my profession.

If you ever want to map or mod again, get upgraded.

Else a console will do just fine...

[ShaDoW]

I bought a 360 Premium about two days ago.

Rainbow Six: Las Vegas, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Lost Planet and Bioshock have all been games I've been wanting to play on my PC for a long time now. But they just don't run since my x800 doesn't support Shader Model 3.0.

Upgrading my videocard would mean I'd best get a PCI-E card, but that would mean getting a new motherboard. If you upgrade one thing, you always wind up practically buying an all new rig.

So I got the 360 Premium (the Elite isn't worth it, unless you want the 120gb HDD for media storage and HDMI). The console also dropped in price recently, which makes it a nice purchase.

So far I'm enjoying life. ^^ Bioshock plays great, even with a controller. The game looks amazing, I was just stunned how well the 360 was rendering the graphics. That was using component cables on the TV. Now my 360 is hooked up by an HD VGA cable on my 22" Widescreen, and everything looks even sharper.

While a controller might not be a mouse and keyboard, it does have it upsides. For example, last night I tried the MoH: Airborne demo from the Live Marketplace, and the atmosphere in that game is amazing. Add up the fact that you can feel your gun shooting because of the vibrating controller (which makes the experience even more massive). Then add the fact, that thanks to the analog sticks you can actually peek around corners much better and softer. On a PC its usually "Press A and E to peek left and right". And when you do, your character sticks full blown out of the corner as if he was doing calisthenics. Also walking and running can be done a lot smoother with a controller.

But yes, granted. Aiming isn't always that great. And I can't see myself playing an RTS with a controller. But that doesn't mean a controller is "that" bad in the end. Not with singleplayer games anyway...

[Psy]

When it comes to upgrading. You've just got to make sure you get the right stuff. If a new CPU is coming out right around the corner and it requires a new socket, you would have to just wait.

[Mojo]

yeah just get a console . It's not that expensive compared to a PC, your games have awesome graphics, you can play from your couch and you never have to install your games/download patches

You don't have to worry about incompatible hardware. You know the game will run on the console since it was designed for it and will run perfectly on it. A 360 will last for a while since this generation of consoles will be around for some times, whereas with a computer you may have to upgrade it a few more times just to run a few future few games (if you want the flashiest graphics).

[Taylor]

PC Gaming has always been a bit of an oxymoron, but it's in a real slump right now. There's so few genres it actually does right, and they are all getting longer development times and designed for consoles anyway (opposed to the previous after-thought ports). My PC is pretty up to date but I've only really used it for Touhou and game dev, and you don't need an up to date PC for Touhou.

[JamesL]

No disrespect intended to anyone but simply put, get a job and buy both

[Fletch]

People still play PC games?

Seriously, get a freaking console already. It's a quarter of the cost and you get 100% compatibility.