Taking all starting costs into account and other things... Say a this console and PC will last 5 years before any upgrading... That is 60euro/year for online subs which is an extra 300 euro on the running cost of a console while on PC online costs are nil MMOs aside. snip
See this is what I mean about people making things up or picking and choosing what info to relay that works best to help bring forward the sub point they are trying to make.
The made up date on shelf life before upgrade is wrong on two points. First the current gen consoles have reached five years (the 360 is five years old this month) with no sign of replacement for the 360 yet and the PS3 has a claimed shelf life of ten years at least according to its designer. A PC built 5 years ago for the same cost as a 360 will not be playing modern games in any way that you could call playable.
The imaginary cost of 'subs' for playing consoles on line?? The 360 has a free on line service and the PS3 is plain and simple free. I;ve had my PS3 for 3 years and beyond the cost of my broadband I have paid nothing to play my PS3 on line.
Do you see what I meant when I said people pick and chose what info to relay that best suits whatever point they are trying to make?
Saying that the cost of games comparative is a valid point however you would never recoup the cost difference between a PC and a console in the time frame between having to upgrade your PC and that's based on buying only brand new games at launch prices.
Yeah, now I am not gonna go trawling the net for a whole bunch of TV and monitors what I am gonna do is go to one site and chose the cheapest 22inch TV and 22inch monitor.
http://www.dabs.com/products/best-value-22--hd-lcd-tv-dvd-with-freeview-card-reader-and-usb-port-622J.html?refs=51550000
http://www.dabs.com/products/hannsg-hz221dpb-22--widescreen-1680-x-1050-5ms-dvi-d-vga-lcd-monitor-with-speakers-6ZYB.html?refs=396680000
'About as much' That's what I said, that's the cheapest 22inch monitor and the cheapest 22' TV and the difference is £44. So yeah, kinda.
Plus, monitors will ALWAYS be better quality than TVs, for resolution, refresh rate, response times, colour reproduction, contrast ratio, blacks, brightness...well, everything.
Both use TFT panels
The TV has a better resolution
The monitor beats the TV by a massive 1ms in refresh rate
They both have the exact same contrast ratio at 1000:1
The TV beats the monitor in brightness display 300 vs 250
They both have 16.7million colour display range
They both have the same viewing angle
Anyway I think you see where I am going here. However just to even things up here's a monitor of the same size in the price range as the TV
http://www.dabs.com/products/viewsonic-vg2227wm-22--widescreen-1920-x-1080-5ms-dvi-d-vga-lcd-monitor-with-speakers-70X6.html?refs=396680000
Both use TFT panels
Both have the same resolution
The monitor beats the TV again by a massive 1ms in refresh rate
They both have 1000:1 contrast ratio
They both have the same brightness at 300cd/m(square)
The colour display range isn;t their for the Viewsonic
They both have the same viewing angle
I think we can agree that the statement 'Plus, monitors will ALWAYS be better quality than TVs' is just not true and that's before we point out that the TV comes with a freeview tuner that you would need to pay at least another £20 for if you wanted to install one in your PC.
True, if you were to buy all the components to a PC all at once it would cost more than a console, but the entire point is that PC's save money in the long run.
Except that they don't. Your next statement says that PCs can last years without an upgrade the flaw in that argument is that the longer you leave it until your next upgrade the more you need to spend to keep the hardware matched. If you built a PC in 2005, even a high end rig for the time, and tried to stick even a modest 260GTX in to it now, you would need at least the following
In 2005 the Core 2 Duo had not been released which means you would be using an Athlon 64 or P4, both WILL bottle neck a 260GTX
You need a new CPU? you need a new mobo and more than likely new RAM
In 2005 you would be using Windows XP to get the best out of a 260 you would need DX10 which means you would need a new OS; Vista or 7
If you had some foresight you may have a PSU that is powerful enough but in 2005 I was using a 6800GS I know for a fact that the PSU I had then would not run my current 260GTX
The OP argues that people over spec gaming PCs, recommending that you need more than you do. In this case you go to the complete opposite. You can't wait five years with a PC and then slap the latest GPU or CPU in it and expect it to work correctly. You either do a one off large scale upgrade or you have to slowly but surely upgrade over time. The cost is more manageable than spending a one off sum on a console but the cost is still going to be more in the long run.
