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Lets see who wants to point out advantages of buying Ps2 games.......
Lets see who wants to point out advantages of buying Ps2 games.......
PS2 - soon to be £129.99.
Games - if you look in the right places are £25-£35.
Over say a 6 year lifespan, buying 5 games per year, that's:
6 x 5 x 30 (av) + 130
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Total - £1030.00
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PC - for a machine capable of playing most games these days £450+ (and that plus can be huge).
Games - often cheaper than PS2, perhaps £20 rather than £30.
Over the same 6 years, buying 5 games per year that's:
6 x 5 x 20 (av) + 450 + (£100 upgrades over 6 years, or a more powerful computer to start with)
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Total - £1150.00
(And that's going easy on the upgrades and PC cost)
Comparing the games prices doesn't really work I think, and both work out roughly the same over a long period of time, and even then, I know plenty of people who have spent over £800 on their PC.
The usual PC argument is that graphics are better, in which case it often needs an even better PC, though once the money is put in, it is true that PCs can look very nice. Still, its gameplay that counts.
PS2 - Buy game, take home, read 32 page manual, pop disc in, play.
The extra tenner is worth the peace of mind. Unless you take Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness as an example, that'll crash whatever format you buy it for.
Agree completely.
Software testing goes out the window with PCs purely because they can rely on download patches to fix problems.
I'd therefore argue that the 5 - 10 pound difference is probably spent on software testing to ensure they don't need to recall the PS2 versions because the last level isn't loading etc.
It's been mentioned before, but I still hope that the addition of hard drives and broadband doesn't see the patch-fix plague come to PS2.
Consoles - nice chairs, no hardware problems, no bugs, nice controllers, always work.
You could always just stop buying PS2 games.
I'm sure Sony will miss your money and reduce their prices right away.
To be honest, I have never really had problems getting PC games to work. Not saying that other people don't, but I've been fairly lucky.
Although game prices are coming down now. When the N64 was out, games on it generally cost £50, and in a few cases reached £60. At least now most games are only £40.
The reason console games cost £40 a pop is due to licensing costs from the console manufacturers to allow developers to produce games on their consoles.
The big companies aren't content with allowing anyone to make really good games for their systems to try to punt a few more, what they actually want to do is licence out the ability to produce games and effectively make developers pay a premium to release good software.
That's why you will see identical games come out for the PC at least a tenner cheaper despite the PC being a more complicated development environment and much more prone to piracy than any other platform.
Put basically, console manufacturers get a slice of whatever you pay for that latest and greatest game. AS well as the publisher, the developer, the retail chain you buy it from, the marketing company and any 3rd party companies which work is farmed out to in terms of artwork, sound effects, licencing technologies (i.e. game engines, compression systems, la la).
Basically what you are doing when buying a console game is giving a little bit of money to a lot of people.
I know how hard it is though. I walked around virgin, hmv and game yesterday thinking if games were only £20 for the new releases, I would buy three right now, £60 would only buy me a single full price and a budget game at that rate, it's just not right.
So I'm off to finish FFX, GTA:Vice City and be content with the games I've got. I'll chip in for KOTOR on my Xbox, and maybe Mario Kart for my Cube before Christmas, but at the state of play in the games industry at the moment, that's all I'll be buying, oh, don't forget the already pre-ordered Pro Evo 3, but that's £120 between now and Christmas, where the same amount could have bought me games at a price i'm willing to be at a more constant rate.
Boo hoo.
PC games if you buy broadband you pay monthly but if you do online on ps2 and pay per minute for a whole month it would cost much much more than just normal pc online gaming.
> PC - Buy game, take home, read 125 page manual, pop disc in, install,
> pop disc 2 in, install, pop disc 3 in, install, read first section of
> manual again in detail to discover why it isn't running, open 30 page
> ReadMe.txt and download latest patch, play, crash, download latest
> update, play, visit the official forums to find out why the
> GnargleBasher doesn't drop the StarBangledWhip and discover there's a
> fix for it in the next update due in a few weeks.
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Your PC must suck.
Only games I've had problems with are EA ones, because they in fact, suck balls.
> Your PC must suck.
My PC stopped sucking when I chucked it out and spent £1100 quid on a new one. The old one was 3 years old :(
My PS2 is 3 years old too. Luckily it won't cost me £1100 quid in the near future to replace it.