Generally I
would have agreed with you Next. I was always a PC gamer (except on exclusives I wanted to play) and I liked the fact I could get better graphics and a better resolution (though with HDTVs, you only get better resolutions on the more expensive monitors, my HDTV is both my monitor and TV screen). However, I found that actually not every game was compatible with every hardware configuration, a problem I never encountered until I spent £700 on a gaming laptop. Some games ran great, I mean Crysis ran nicely on decent settings. However, there were games I had a poor experience running, despite being within spec - even turning them to the lowest settings didn't help. Mass Effect was the worst for it and it was the one that made me paranoid about purchasing other games for my PC. I browsed different tech support forums and found that other people couldn't run certain games because they weren't compatible with their hardware configuration.
It was that which led me into buying a 360, some of the games I had on the PC I re-bought for the 360 just so I could complete them. And I was pretty much guaranteed that if I bought a game, it'd work, I wouldn't need to go to a tech support forum to find tweaks if it didn't (assuming those tweaks even work). I think my £700 would have better spent on buying a £500 lower spec laptop to do work on and use for multimedia and £200 on my 360.
As for paying £40-£50 per game, I rarely have to, normally I buy games second hand, if I don't consider a game to worth £40-50 I usually wait until it goes down in price. I rarely want to buy a game on release anyway because I've got other games to complete or other older releases I've missed out on, eg. I've still not played Brutal Legend and it's going for £10 in my local GAME.
Without buying Steam games or games with protection methods like SecuRom I can trade in my games. I can't trade in the PC versions of Half Life 2, Left4Dead, Mass Effect, Fallout 3 or Prince of Persia, despite me not playing them any more.
I think getting an XBox 360 was actually worth my money. I don't mind paying subscriptions when I want to play multiplayer - to me, that's the
only downside to me having an XBox 360.
The gaming laptop is now dead and the XBox lives on. I could have bought a desktop because they're easier and cheaper to repair, but I don't
need a desktop. A laptop is suitable for my lifestyle, a desktop isn't.
Quote: "Everyone that has a console has a PC so why not use that to do gaming on then your not wasting money on a console."
And I'm sure every PC is suitable for gaming?
EG: My parents have an old eMac, an old Toshiba laptop and a Playstation 3. The eMac does everything they need from a computer, likewise for the laptop (at least after the ram was upgraded). Even if an eMac could run bootcamp with Windows, its hardware is too outdated or low spec and the same for the laptop. There's no hope in hell my Dad could play any of the Call of Duty games on either of them.
[edit]
Quote: "@Seppuku Arts, LIES!!!
you were on your new final fantasy game !!! "
You don't need an XBox Live Gold subscription to play Final Fantasy XI: Online.
It'd be a bit of a cheek to have to pay for PlayOnline's subscription fees
and XBLG.
Click!
