On 24/01/2012 18:18, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> On the other hand, if an Xbox breaks, the manufacturer can charge you
>> arbitrary amounts of money to fix it. If a PC breaks, you can just
>> replace the offending part, available from a bazillion sources. ;-)
>
>    Do you have any actual figures how much it costs to repair an Xbox 360
> after the warranty has been expired?

No. But I imagine it's cheaper to buy an entire new Xbox.

This is based on my observations of what happens with laptops. Typically 

is obviously absurd. The manufacturers are simply preying on the fact 
that nobody else can supply this part.



would actually pay for...

It's news to me that the Xbox comes with a warranty. Usually MS products 
come with a disclaimer of liability. :-P

>    Anyways, advantages of PC gaming over console gaming:
>
> - Keyboard and mouse. I can't stress this enough.

Granted.

> - As time passes, graphics hardware and graphics get better, while consoles
> are stagnant.

Again, agreed.

> - Many gamers appreciate the ability to mod games, and to download and
> install such mods. This is just not possible in consoles. (Well, not
> unless you want to physically hack your console and get banned from the
> console's online server system and stop being able to do anything online
> and receive upgrades to anything.)

Well, it /could/ be possible, if the makers allowed it. But they don't, 
so that's merely a technicallity.

>    Disadvantages of PC gaming:
>
> - Crashes. From all the PC games I own, *at least* 50% have presented
> crashes in one form or another.

My experience differs.

Granted I've only played Quake 2, HalfLife (and Opposing Force, and Blue 
Shift, and Gunman), HalfLife 2 (plus EP1 and EP2), CounterStrike: 
Source, Portal, Portal 2, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern 
Warfare, Modern Warefare II, Alieans vs Predator (the old one), 
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Oddworld: Abe's Exodus, Bastion, Braid, Batman: 
Arkham Assylum, Crysis, Crysis: Warhead, Cryostasis, Assassin's Creed, 
Assassin's Creed II and a handful of other PC games. (That's over 20 so 
far, if you're counting.) Almost all of these have been entirely 
crash-free the vast majority of the time.

> - Games tend to be optimized for top-of-the-line PCs, often making them a
> pain to play with older PCs.

Again, I'm not sure about that.

People complained about, say, HalfLife 2, but in fact it turns out to 
have surprisingly modest requirements. It played perfectly well for me 



> - Game availability. Many game houses do not port their games for the PC,

Many PC games are not available on consoles. If you have console X, many 
games on console Y are just not available.

I would say that the PC probably has the largest catelogue of games of 
any platform. There may be a few notable titles available only on one 
console, but that aside, there's a fair bit to choose from.

>    Advantages of consoles:
>
> - Plug&play. Really. You just buy a game, put the disk in, and start
> playing. That's it.

I put my new PC together, installed Windows 7, installed the Steam 
client, waited 15 minutes for Crysis to download over the Internet, and 
then I was playing Crysis. That easy.

I take your point though; sometimes things do /not/ go so smoothly. 
Sometimes you really have to bugger around with things to get a game to 
work.

One problem that doesn't seem to exist on consoles is stupid DRM. For 
example, I cannot play Crysis if Process Explorer is running, since it 
is classed as a "hacker tool" (which it obviously isn't).

> - Did I mention no crashes?

Try "fewer crashes". Although, again, I /have/ seen a console crash 
(despite not actually owning one, so I haven't mad much exposure). And 
my PC games don't crash all that often. (With a few titles being 
irritating exceptions.)

> - Games are optimized for the console, so they will usually look as good
> as the console allows, while having a good framerate. This even if you have
> a huge HD TV or LCD monitor.

Quite. There's no fiddling with quality settings to get just the right 
balance of quality and performance. It just *works*.

>    Disadvantages of consoles:
>
> - The controller.
> - Aging hardware.

Indeed.

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