Blargle, starting reading this and typing a reply to it around 3:40am AEDT, now it's around 6:25am AEDT!
TL;DR for those who want condense and don't want to have to scroll to the end of the post:
For the person trying to start a PC Vs. Console flamewar - good bloody luck. Not every PC gamer hates consoles because "they aren't a PC!", some of us have a gamut from general apathy for the bulk of the market to distilled hatred of a console maker due to how they've shafted the PC realm over the past near-30 years.
Yes you CAN build a system for as low as $500 USD or as high as $2,500 USD, but it mostly relies on WHAT you want the system to do, what length of time you expect the system to be running for before you have to completely replace it, and how much you're looking to spend on parts and quality V. quantity of them.
For the "rift" between "PC Gamers" and "Console Gamers", there's an even LARGER one between "Windows Users", "Mac Users" and "Linux Geeks"!
I'll get into the realm of cost of consoles and their games Vs. the cost of buying parts of a gaming computer, and the recurring costs for things like internet, and the difference in price jacking (for EVERYTHING) between USA & Australia in a later post.
Also, if you wanna talk about TFU (Totally Fucked Up) things (to borrow a term and phrase from AngryAussie on YT) - then talk about how Australia has absolutely ~NO R-18+ rating for video games~ which causes things to be EXTRA delayed as they get cut down to MA-15+ or not released in Australia ~AT ALL~. (some games like Duke Nukem 3D did get RC, then MA-15+ after 'locking out' things to be sold here before shit hit the fan over a patch available on the maker's site basically did away with the parental lock and the classification board tried pulling the game, but that's neither here nor there)
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I'm a PC gamer, been one most of my life. I do ~NOT~ hate console gamers or the majority of console and their games.
Until I bought my DSi (then DS Lite) for the HeartGold/SoulSilver (then Diamond/Pearl/Platinum) Pokemon games, I had not touched a handheld console or game since the days of Pokemon Red/Blue and Crash Test Dummies on the old GameBoy (and even then, they were borrowed), as I didn't find much interest in the bulk of handheld games 'till my DSi and even then it was mostly nostalgia for the series as a whole.
Last TV console I found to be worth possibly getting was a N64 for Pokemon stadium 1/2 & 007: GoldenEye (Multiplayer), before I got introduced to Wii Sports a year or two ago at a friends place, which eventually led me to getting a Wii of my own only a month ago (and it hasn't seen much use yet, but that'll change).
In the years between my last playing of a N64 and getting my Wii, I had played various PlayStation and X-Box games like Abe's Oddysey on the PS1 and Halo 1 on the X-Box, both at friends places, but they failed to sway me to the Console side. However, at a PC Lan party back in '06, I was introduced to Halo 1 on the PC and got hooked on it, whilst the same game on the X-Box got nothing but apathy out of me, and this eventually lead me to getting Halo 1 for PC a year or so ago.
Now, I've been playing games on the PC since about 1993 (same time I was watching the Original Mighty Morphing Power Rangers, with Jason/Austin St. John, Billy/David Yost, Zack/Walter Jones, Trini/Thuy Trang (R.I.P.), Kimberly/Amy Jo Johnson, Tommy/Jason David Frank, Rocky/Steve Cardinas, Adam/Johnny Yong Bosch, Aisha/Karen Ashley & Katherine/Catherine Sutherland), and since then I've played games ranging from Zoombinis, 3001: A Math Oddysey and Lemmings, to DOOM/2/Final/Ultimate (Screw Doom 3!), Grand Theft Auto 2, Duke Nukem, Rise Of The Triad, Quake 3 (Opena Arena for a Free/Open Source Software version) and Team Fortress 2 to Starcraft, Diablo, Diablo II/Lord of Destruction and Warcraft 3/Frozen Throne, to Star Trek Online, City of Heroes/Villians and World of Warcraft. I even own a copy of Minecraft that I run on my refurbished Dell Optiplex GX520 (3GHz 64-bit P4) with XP Home SP3, or my refurbished Optiplex 745 (2.13GHz 64-bit Core 2 Duo) with Ubuntu 10.10, and I actually tend to get better game play out of Minecraft under LINUX than I do in Win XP, and both systems cost me under $400 AUD before I put in a old PCI ATI Radeon 9250 (256MB) into the GX520 and a semi-recent PCI-E NVidia 9400GT (1GB) into the 745, and Linux isn't even TRYING to make the most out of the possible power of the 9400GT (put my 32-bit XP Pro on that system, and it'd probably SCREAM along, even though it's 32-bit OS on 64-bit hardware).
Now, yes you can play the bulk of those on <$500 USD systems, but (personally) to get the best performance out of games like STO (which I was BARELY running on a old 32-bit 3GHz P4 with 3GB of DDR1 RAM and a NVidia 7600GS AGP that I'd been using in one form or another since 2004 to 2010) or TF2 and have a system that'll last you a good 4-5 years, you need a system around the $1000-1250 USD mark in parts, as that gives you access to better quality parts and a somewhat wider range of parts to choose from for building a decent custom PC gaming rig.
Also, whilst I generally harbour no ill will towards consoles, their games or their gamers, I do have a beef with one particualr console maker/developer/producer who is also a company who swipes code from other operating systems, hacks it up, then jams it in their own OS and tries to screw of the end user with a PoS EULA and retail prices upto 5, maybe even 6 or 7 times what they charge big-name OEM's for the same thing, and even hack-out functions that are usable and even wanted OUTSIDE the business enterprise.
Yes, I do prefer Open Source software, and only work with Windows since a significant portion of what I do on my PC is generally locked to a Windows-only market (I'm not enough of a pretentious arsehole with a crapload of money to burn whilst kissing the arse of Jobs to go Mac, maybe if I WORKED for Apple, then I'd use Apple products, but until then it's general PC market for me).
Yes, I know that Linux isn't common enough for the "average joe" and isn't Microsoft Windows, but it's slowly moving to have a Windows-like design and look to it whilst trying to make it more on the pre-built PC market which already has Microsoft and Apple trying to beat the hell out of the other over it (and most of the advances of Linux on pre-built desktops like those sold by Dell and HP has in the past been met with dirty tactics from MS about cutting access to cheap copies of Windows and CD keys for it on their machines).
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Sturmdolch said:
I think you're taking the loudest minority and saying every PC Gamer is like that. With that logic, every British person is Margaret Thatcher, every American is Texan, and every gamer is a loud nerd. It's not nice to stereotype.
And to widen the band of stereotypes a touch further with one that hits hard to me - "Every Australian is Crocodile (friggen) Dundee/Steve Irwin!". Yes, I absolutely HATE the stereotype that all ~CAUCASIAN~ Australians (aka: ones with roots back to the UK, maybe US) are 6'4", built like a brick outhouse and wear hats with crocodile teeth in them, who walk around shirtless (or with shirts that are more form-fitting vests) and beat the crap out of any living thing in their way (see: Saxton Hale for a game-based example).
