When Will PC Be The Tournament Standard In Fighting Games

[magicattack]

I agree it will be cheaper over the long haul, but the initial cost, time invested and skill set are what people base their decisions on.

Gaming laptops are nice, but I tend to push people the other way. Buy a cheaper laptop to do what is needed. Email, web browsing, pron on the go.

Then invest the money into a gaming pc. 500-1000 and bottom to top of the line, some assembly required.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Sept 26, 2014 13:13:35 GMT -5 magicattack said:

I agree it will be cheaper over the long haul, but the initial cost, time invested and skill set are what people base their decisions on.

Gaming laptops are nice, but I tend to push people the other way. Buy a cheaper laptop to do what is needed. Email, web browsing, pron on the go.

Then invest the money into a gaming pc. 500-1000 and bottom to top of the line, some assembly required.

It doesn't take long for you to get your savings though. The modern consoles are costing $400-$500. Plus $60 games. You get a gaming PC you can use the same peripherals and can use almost any controller, play all of your old and new games, and after that you just upgrade it. No need to keep buying parts. Not to mention the online subscription services many people also pay. Most people are just not very wise when it comes to making purchasing decisions.

Gaming console: $500
TV: $300-$400
Video Player: $300 (if needed)
Cable/Satellite Services: $60-200/month
Desktop: $500
Tablet: $400-$600
Handheld: $300

You can just buy one machine and do all of those services in one and still be mobile and keep your power. Sager has the best price/performance ratio of any gaming laptop (that's what I got), way better than overpriced stuff like Alienware and you can still be mobile. The problem is that most people nowadays are on the go. They don't want to build a desktop and be tied to their basement. They travel to work and college so the mobility is worth it. I use my gaming laptop on the road all of the time, that said I have a gaming desktop since I use it at home and I like having a backup. If I had to choose I'd keep the laptop for the simple reason I can use it anywhere. You can get a very powerful gaming laptop to do that for around a grand. This will suit the needs of the casual more effectively than having a fancy desktop they're tied to at home. That's more of the hardcore, and desktops are slowly going by the wayside.

You can have someone build your gaming computer for you for around $50. Then watch them and ask questions if you have a desire to build.

A lot of it will come down to sponsorship as well. If gaming events are sponsored more by PC in the various communities you will start to see more of them. I'm seeing more and more people lean that way, thought it will take some time I don't think it's unfeasable.

I think mobiles will start to eat through the console market share honestly.

[magicattack]

For me there are 2 problems with only having the 1 machine.

1st is long gaming sessions at home, I mean all day events. The laptop will need to be plugged in sometime.

2nd is what does the significant other do during gaming sessions? For 99% of girls its not going to be watching me play baldurs gate.

Everyone's situation and skillset are different.

I built an htpc specifically for watching movies and TV shows. It has paid for itself based solely on money saved not buying DVDs or blurays.

My gaming pc is close to paying for itself based on saving on games. I built it instead of buying a ps4 or xbox1. If I had more free time to game I would. The savings would only multiply.

Laptops are useful, when I was driving to Atlantic city or flying to Vegas I had the laptop in the room to kill time on. But my situation changed, I haven't been to either in years. My gaming situation is limited to a few rooms in the house.

But I agree on the mobile platform. Everything the laptop has going for it is being produced on the smartphone or tablet.

Eventually there will be a slowdown in gaming again. Similar to what happened in the past. It gets over saturated with systems and lousy games that some are doomed to fail.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Sept 26, 2014 14:42:08 GMT -5 magicattack said:

For me there are 2 problems with only having the 1 machine.

1st is long gaming sessions at home, I mean all day events. The laptop will need to be plugged in sometime.

2nd is what does the significant other do during gaming sessions? For 99% of girls its not going to be watching me play baldurs gate.

Everyone's situation and skillset are different.

I built an htpc specifically for watching movies and TV shows. It has paid for itself based solely on money saved not buying DVDs or blurays.

My gaming pc is close to paying for itself based on saving on games. I built it instead of buying a ps4 or xbox1. If I had more free time to game I would. The savings would only multiply.

Laptops are useful, when I was driving to Atlantic city or flying to Vegas I had the laptop in the room to kill time on. But my situation changed, I haven't been to either in years. My gaming situation is limited to a few rooms in the house.

But I agree on the mobile platform. Everything the laptop has going for it is being produced on the smartphone or tablet.

Eventually there will be a slowdown in gaming again. Similar to what happened in the past. It gets over saturated with systems and lousy games that some are doomed to fail.

Well I travel a lot for business and the like, which increased my need for a laptop. I can game the entire day on the road without ever going indoors. I use a marine battery and inverter and I have a mount to place it on and I can do everything on the road like it was at home. It's truly awesome. Laptops have plugs though so it isn't an issue. You can also do multiplayer on it if necessary. There are definitely an increasing amount of girls who do game though. Many will watch, or just play along with you. I'm sure they have their own system if they really need it. On top of that smartphones handle all of the sub gaming needs and emergency style stuff. The same thing could be said about a console too, plus that hogs up a tv.

You can even attach an external monitor and use it that way, but of course if you had a bunch of small children you'd be better off getting them a console. I was talking about people who were late teens or so and older.

Well the mobile platform is great because it's super casual and games are cheaper to make and can make large returns. A mobile device won't be as good as a laptop but it is a good time killer

The main thing I like about the laptop is I can do everything, anywhere at any time. I'm actually taking a break from gaming now, but I can still do business work, presentations, art work, photoshop, video editing and compressing, check my mail, etc.

So it's not just the gaming, it's the fact that you can do *everything* on one unit and save a lot of money and have the efficiency. That said I do have a lot of machines that have added up over the years, but I have backups for business purposes in case I have down time and I can afford to do it, but if you're the typical person a laptop will be fine.


Gaming has its ups and downs and the economy sucks and gaming is costing more. You'll likely see them on more platforms (which is happening now).

[gurpwnder]

Sept 26, 2014 16:04:04 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Sept 26, 2014 14:42:08 GMT -5 magicattack said:

The main thing I like about the laptop is I can do everything, anywhere at any time. I'm actually taking a break from gaming now, but I can still do business work, presentations, art work, photoshop, video editing and compressing, check my mail, etc.

Forgive my ignorance, but I've heard that gaming laptops are considerably less cost efficient than gaming PC's.

Your thoughts?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Sept 26, 2014 19:42:26 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Sept 26, 2014 16:04:04 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

The main thing I like about the laptop is I can do everything, anywhere at any time. I'm actually taking a break from gaming now, but I can still do business work, presentations, art work, photoshop, video editing and compressing, check my mail, etc.

Forgive my ignorance, but I've heard that gaming laptops are considerably less cost efficient than gaming PC's.

Your thoughts?

You'll pay more per power/performance compared to something that isn't mobile, but if you shop around and find a good deal, the difference is much more minimized compared to the desktop, especially if you don't buy overpriced stuff like Alienware and Apple (I recommend Sager). I was mentioning the cost of buying several devices vs one gaming laptop which does everything in one.

If you buy a gaming desktop stocked they are horrendously overpriced which is why you build one. The cost of labor is negated by people who do these comparisons amongst other things.

[gurpwnder]

Yeah, I had my PC built by a friend who works at a computer store.  

In general, I've heard that getting the same things in a PC put into a laptop costs CONSIDERABLY more.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Sept 26, 2014 23:11:07 GMT -5 gurpwnder said:

Yeah, I had my PC built by a friend who works at a computer store.  

In general, I've heard that getting the same things in a PC put into a laptop costs CONSIDERABLY more.

You can't build a laptop in that sense, so it's cheaper to get it made. Stores get those parts in bulk.

[magicattack]

If we are going by a cost vs performance comparison then the desktop would win hands down. Especially when the desktop is homebuilt, with no parts markup and cheap labor vs a store bought gaming laptop.

This comparison is why I built my own, but I knew I didn't need portability.

Everyone needs to see what fits their own personal needs.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Sept 27, 2014 6:31:05 GMT -5 magicattack said:

If we are going by a cost vs performance comparison then the desktop would win hands down. Especially when the desktop is homebuilt, with no parts markup and cheap labor vs a store bought gaming laptop.

This comparison is why I built my own, but I knew I didn't need portability.

Everyone needs to see what fits their own personal needs.

Yea, if you buy a "gaming" desktop from the places that make them they are ridiculously expensive, some go into $6k to $10k range. Way overpriced.

Of course building your own desktop is cheaper than buying a custom built gaming laptop price to performance, but you also have to buy several devices as well, so in essence you have to pay more if you want all of the functions a laptop can give.

The difference isn't as large as people make it; people ignore several factors.

1. If you are simply upgrading a few parts, it will save you money compared to buying a new unit, especially if you are buying parts used. You "can" update Sager gaming laptops over time if you wish to do so which is another reason I recommend them since you can't update most laptops.

2. Everything is marked up because companies have to make money, when you buy a gaming laptop from a good reseller you get a cheaper price than buying it from the actual company that makes the brand in many instances, plus you get military discounts, student discounts, and other discounts depending on the time of the year, you also get a great warranty. The price of the products aren't even that different in many cases. I've often tried to shop around to buy parts after I got the unit when I could have just bought it from the reseller and saved myself the trouble.

3. Labor could be cheap, depending on the person and what their time is worth. Many people take quite a bit of time to build a PC, especially if they don't do it often. Other places assemble them fast and test them. You also have to deal with any issues that might come up (though I recommend building it for the experience alone).

4. Over time the difference gets smaller and smaller. I bought a gaming laptop and built a gaming desktop within months of each other. My gaming laptop ran circles around my old desktop and It was only about a $1100 and it can play any modern game at max settings no problem. So it isn't that bad, I'll probably keep it 3-4 years. My desktop still cost me over a grand to build and it was just me replacing parts. No need for a tower, monitor, peripherals, etc. I still spent over a grand to make it even, but I added another high end graphics card for another $250 which makes my desktop more powerful by a decent amount. If I built everything new and included a new tower, monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, graphics card, mother board, etc, I would have been at about $2k if not more. Without the second graphics card they were similar in power and the price gap wasn't that huge. It will continue to decrease over time.

I think for the typical person they would benefit for a laptop over a desktop since today's population is very mobile. Definitely better than buying one of those silly tablets in terms of functionality.

[magicattack]

If 1 person could only buy 1 item, then yes they would choose the item with the most functionality. That would be a laptop.

But if a family wanted more options at the same time then a single laptop won't be the answer.

A laptop is good at a lot of tasks but its not the best at any specific one of them.

I also would have advised against the overlapping pc build with laptop purchase. If you were set on buying the gaming laptop, I would have suggested an htpc or nas build. Something that would have been cheaper and help compliment the laptop.

[WarMachineRhodey]

Sept 26, 2014 12:41:20 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Sept 26, 2014 12:26:00 GMT -5 magicattack said:

Couple of things as to why PC's aren't going to become the center of the gaming world.

1st is the PC build. Its not finished. The build would require an operating system and peripherals. That would push that build to over $600.

2nd is most people want simplicity. They want to buy a system, take it home, plug it in and play. As simple as building a PC is, some people don't want to put forth the effort.

3rd is piracy. PC games released are usually followed within days of a hacked version to download for free. Sometimes even prior to the official release. That's not to say that the newer consoles won't get hacked, but its safe to say we are a long time off from ps4 and xbox1 being hacked.

I do agree that pc is the way to go. That gives one platform for everyone to use, and everyone is on an even playing field. Simpler to program games. It would save money to the customer.

I just don't seen it happening since the gaming industry is so huge, and everyone wants a piece of the profits.

I find that gaming on the PC is actually cheaper though. When you get a console you need peripherals, expensive games and a tv, etc. Nowadays I actually recommend gaming laptops just because you can replace so many items. People often have consoles, tv, video player, desktop, handheld, and a tablet and/or weak laptop. Once you look at the price of all of those you could have simply bought a gaming desktop or particularly a laptop and be far more mobile and have more gaming power than you would get with a console at a much more efficient price. Especially when you look at the $60 games, not to mention you can play old and new stuff on one system.


The second point is the part you are most correct on and definitely the main reason to get a console outside of exclusives. People want to just plug it in and not have to think much, plus you don't have to worry about different hardware/software conflicts across multiple systems. It isn't that hard and people are using more of these devices anyways, but I imagine one day they can dumb it down even more (without making everything auto like they do now, I hate when my device decides what it's going to do without me doing it). This could help a lot.

Console games have a lot of pirates too actually, many games have more console pirates than PC games, considering you can buy them sooooooo cheap. I find games on sale for like 20 for $10, or 5 for $5. These are big name games too, not the budget games.

I bought the entire GTA series for only $7. There are sales all of the time on sites like www.cheapshark.com. No real need to pirate anything when the prices are super low. There's even a site with voluntary donations where you can get a game for $1. Much better than paying $65 for a game like most console players do.


I think the mobile market is where many developers are going to look to cut down costs. Console gaming just isn't price friendly in many ways even though it is simple and "mainstream". I see people doing cheap gaming on fast and small devices. They aren't going to be basement dwelling PC enthusiasts, but they'll have what works for them.

Im speaking for myself specifically on this one but i also like the ability of not having to buy a new arcade stick for every time a new console comes out. now granted they release cycle is about 5-8 years so its not often but arcade sticks are not cheap(the good ones anyway) and they also take up a good amount of space. I have an old ps2 tekken 5 stick that came out in 2005 that i still use to this day on pc.  The ps3 did it right allowing ps2 controllers to work with an adapter but then sony decided to just remove backwards compatability with ps3/ps2 controllers on the ps4 eventhough there are usb ports on it. the xbox 360 to the xbox one is the same issue. Also like what c master said you need peripherals to use a pc. If you already have a flat screen tv you dont even need to buy a computer monitor. Just hook up your pc to the tv screen via dvi, vga or hdmi and viola.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Yea, consoles have a short lifespan in the span of things. The other problem is if I'm in a break when it comes to gaming my console collects dust. My PC is still in use. I got two arcade sticks and two hitboxes and I'm glad I don't have to replace them soon on my PC. Also I can play any game on my PC that I was able to play before. No need to store around multiple consoles. I have old stuff sitting around nowadays that gets no use like my SNES genesis. I half want to donate them but I don't know who'd play them except for someone who was a retro junkie. It would be nice if I could sell them to a retro collector though lol.

Sept 27, 2014 12:05:49 GMT -5 magicattack said:

If 1 person could only buy 1 item, then yes they would choose the item with the most functionality. That would be a laptop.

But if a family wanted more options at the same time then a single laptop won't be the answer.

A laptop is good at a lot of tasks but its not the best at any specific one of them.

I also would have advised against the overlapping pc build with laptop purchase. If you were set on buying the gaming laptop, I would have suggested an htpc or nas build. Something that would have been cheaper and help compliment the laptop.

Well one device wouldn't be enough for a large family with gaming needs no matter what you got. People have different interests and like I mentioned before I'd never recommend an expensive computer for young children. Mobile or not. That said a young adult may live at home with his family and would benefit greatly from a laptop. Many people have a wife and kids and want a personal work machine and fun machine that allows them to take it on the go or into another room if the wife/kids come in and things get noisy.

I think PC's are pretty much the best at everything (desktop or latptop) except maybe pocket portability if you need that service. They do everything else extremely well which is why I like them more than consoles. Nowadays people have smart phones, handhelds, and their own machine for even small children so it's not too big a deal.

It's not recommended for most people to buy a gaming laptop and a PC because of the price but I wanted to be able to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted on the go and at home. My desktop was having some issues with hardware since it was aging, so I just ended up replacing everything. I wanted to have a second machine running in case I had some downtime with one (I do the same thing with my other tools), and I wanted to be able to handle all of the needs on both units. The laptop was necessary since I was on the road a lot, but the parts in my desktop needed an upgrade too. I didn't replace the entire thing, the main part was the graphics card, cpu, and ram. You know how it is though. You always add on a bit more than you initially plan.

There are other benefits like heavy multi tasking. For instance I'd often do video compression on one computer while gaming on another when I'm at home, I also have a backup for all of the storage I've amassed. Also I have other specialst things I do. Right now I'm using both devices simultaneously. I'm typing and doing work on this computer, while using my 22HD art tablet and doing image editing on the other due to my current setup, so having 2 heavy duty computers is best for me. I wouldn't say that most others need it, I'd recommend one machine for them in most cases.