Has a console ever depreciated as quickly as the Xbox One ?

[Gameguy]

I think you are just stating two sides of the same coin. I'm on Gameguy's side of it, though. If the hardware is essentially the same, why buy the less capable console? Just get the PC, play nearly all the same games, but also do all the other things that people do with PCs. That's my interpretation, anyway.

I agree with you about a surge when new games hit. Seems inevitable.

That's exactly what I was getting at. If consoles are the same price point as a PC, you might as well just buy a PC which has less limitations with how you use it.

Not really. His whole argument was that consoles should be $300 or less and yet given that modern consoles are almost identical to low end PCs, it seems impossible to meet that price point. Where can you find a $300 PC with as much memory, hard drive space, as powerful a processor and graphics card, along with the same audio capability and HD output, plus a Blu Ray drive? Unless you're building it yourself and using low end components and not using any Microsoft or other licensed software, I think building a PC for that amount is pretty difficult or impossible and it probably wouldn't perform as well as either a PS4 or Xbox One. You can buy or build a PC for $500, but is it going to have the same longevity as the PS4 or Xbox One as a viable gaming platform? Not in my experience unless you aren't playing graphics and processor intensive games.

I see owning a console as giving up some performance in exchange for the ability to play games that will likely never come to the PC and avoiding the obsolescence that comes quickly to low end PCs, especially for gaming. I actually own a PC and a MAC that are both used for modern gaming, but if I had to pick either a console for gaming or a PC, I would always go for the console even if the pricing is similar.

My argument was that as a casual consumer, it doesn't seem like a good deal to spend more than $300 on a console. Since the current Wii U released at $299.99, it's more than just possible for consoles to be released at that price point. If a console was $500 today, I would spend a bit more to buy a new PC and stick to that. At least when there doesn't appear to be any exclusive games that look like must own titles. Consoles aren't even just for playing games anymore, they're like media players for streaming video. Any PC can do that too. Just reading up on the "benefits" of this Xbox One console, it includes a built-in Skype client for videoconferencing, the ability to use voice commands and gestures to navigate the console's user interface, cloud computing, the ability to automatically record and share video highlights from gameplay, and support for live streaming gameplay online. How many of these things would help improve the way games play? It just sounds like upgrades for a new computer. I'm not going to buy a new console at $500 just so I can use voice commands to boot up a game, or so I can Skype with people, or upload gameplay videos to youtube or other video sites. I can already do that with my PC, not that I bother with that either. Also, when we personally buy new computers they tend to be used regularly for about 10 years before they're too old to be useable for daily use. Consoles are usually replaced every 5 years or so, it's just not worth spending so much on them.

There was a time when consoles were actually more suitable for games than PCs, back when Super Mario Bros came out side scrolling games of that quality weren't possible on home computers, it wasn't for a few years until Commander Keen pulled it off on the PC. Those days are long gone, computers are just as capable as consoles for playing games.

I was also a bit confused by the article that you posted, I assume you posted it to support your argument but the article actually supports my view.

To be honest, while hitting the £420 price of an Xbone is eminently possible, I’d recommend you spend just a little more on a games PC than that – it’ll last you longer, there’s more scope for upgrading later, games will look fancier and you won’t have to spend a week trawling price comparison sites. Either way, the idea that a beefy games PC costs thousands of dollars/pounds is an outdated and wildly inaccurate one.