On the costs of being a PC gamer”
First, let us dispel some myths. Ones like “You never have to upgrade a console.” This is untrue, just about every console generation has had upgrades attached to it, or parts you had to replace. Sega Genesis has tons of mods and upgrades, N64 had the expansion pack, and anyone who owned a PS1 spent a ton on memory cards, because they had game saves that took up the whole darn thing. Last gen some had to pay an upgrade fee to unlock the online portion of games if they bought used, and Microsoft gamers had to pay just for online, adding almost $400 to the cost of their console.
On top of that, hard drives. The base unit of the MS console is unable to play later games, such as Battlefield 4. You either had to purchase the bundle, or upgrade. Similarly both consoles released with way too little memory for things like DLC and late generation installs.
In the current gen both consoles put online behind a pay wall, and released with HDDs way too small for for a library of 4 games with DLC. Particularly now that we are seeing updates that measure double digit gigs. Both consoles also require installing disks, so both consoles will require the purchase of extra equipment just to play games without deleting the ones you have.
And this is even without going into peripherals.
Second myth, once you buy a console you are good for that generation. This one is just silly. Without modular consoles, you can not simply replace a part if it fails. You must replace the unit, or take it to a third party repair shop and risk a ban, assuming you don't wish to pay a hundred bucks to ship it in. Not to mention the fact that PS released an update that bricked millions of consoles last generation, and MS had the red ring of death to deal with.
Unless someone is extremely lucky, they will replace their console in two or three years, likely buying a bundle with upgraded equipment, because release consoles lack basic functionality like hardware space to play a handful of games.
The cost to play on the PS, with full access to multiplayer, is at least $700 this console generation. That assumes it, and your console, lasts six years without the need to upgrade, replace it, or pay for a repair. For the Xbox it is about $850. That is without going into things like the fact that games cost more on both systems then PC.
Consoles do have the lowest barrier to entry, but they milk you in half a dozen ways, making the long term costs overtake PC gaming by a wide margin, even before you factor in the discount PC gamers get when buying games. While someone can easily spend thousands of dollars over the course of a few years ensuring they never have to deal with “poor quality” like 1080p at 60 fps, a person happy with a console quality experience is going to pay far less to game on a PC then a PS4.
There are a lot of great things on the PS4 that are not on the PC, such as Naughty Dog and JRPGs. At the end of the day however, console gamers are paying extra to access that content. There is no cheaper way to game then being a PC peasant who doesn't even know what AA is. Master race pays through the nose, but even they have to go a bit crazy to surpass what console gamers spend. Mostly because of Steam. Only way a console gamer pays less is if they buy their console to play one game a year, like the Haloed Gears of Battleduty.
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