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Analysts Predict Consoles Sales Peak Reached
Thanks to Yahoo News for reprinting the press release regarding financial analysts' predictions that the current videogame console cycle has peaked. According to a spokesman for U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, "We believe spring 2003 marked the midpoint of the current video game cycle", suggesting 2003 "will be the peak year for unit sales of current generation hardware." This may mean leaner times before the next generation of console hardware debuts, predicted by Piper Jaffray for "autumn 2006", and meanwhile, the company is forecasting "...that 22.3 million hardware units will be sold in North America in 2003, a modest increase from 21.1 million units in 2002 and will subsequently decline in 2004 to sales of 20.3 million units as the installed base of video game hardware becomes saturated."
that the amount of fun you can have playing console games peaked in 1990.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
This may mean leaner times before the next generation of console hardware debuts
Not really. Even the companies that don't lose money on their console sales aren't making a whole lot. Game sales are what is important, and the larger installed base should help those.
Super Nintendo had some of the best games ever. Illusion of Gaia, Final Fantasy 3(6), Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World...Not to mention the Super Scope. Shooting your TV with a bazooka is just... ok, retarded. I'm done now.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Who are these guys? Do they speak with any authority on this subject? I read the article and as far as I can tell they're a bunch of financial analysts. Do they have a history of predicting this kind of thing accurately? Is there any reason to listen to these predictions?
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
I suppose a 10% decline is quite steep, but considering the console itself isn't the money maker for the companies, aren't they still expecting huge profits? Consider...if each console owner purchases 1 game per year, with sales as they are you're talking about an increase of ~20 million games per year. This compounds each year of the consoles' "life" such that after 5 years worth of sales like this, you'd be expecting 100 million games sold per year, with a yearly increase in the number of sales. That seems like a decent profit margin.
--trb
Also, with so many people having computers these days, why have a console? Sounds like redundant spending to me.
Sigh. We've been through this many times. Consoles offer different thing than computer games: less online play for the most part, less download mods, and less customization in general, but bigger screens, a different and in some ways much more varied selection of quality games, good standard controls for many games (less so for FPS and RTS) and a pretty much iron clad guarantee that the game will work. The cost is comparable or possibly much less than the cost of keeping a PC up to date w/ video cards and what not.
And despite stuff like the N-Gage and random barely-better-than-homebrew systems coming out, roughly speaking, this generation is defined by consoles released on or before the end of 2001.
(PS2 2000, Xbox, GC 2001, GBA 2001, maybe DC 1999) Every other console has been a day late and a dollar short.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Consoles are cheaper than computers for gaming, I don't care what funny math you freaks pull up. =)
I bought my PS2 for $75 a year ago. It will continue to play brand-new popular games until 2006 when the PS3 comes out. That's 4 years of gaming vs. the 6 months to a year of a video card twice the price. Not counting keeping up with the rest of the hardware and the headaches that come with analyzing system requirements. It's just cheaper and easier to get a console.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
How is this going to affect the next line of consoles? Will it cause the prices to be much higher? Will the number of consoles to be made drop?
/ \ / \ / \ / \ ( l | 3 | 3 | 7 ) \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/
This anonymous analyst predicts that the number of industry analysts peak in stupidity has yet to be reached. Critical mass expected in 2012 when Gartner gets bought out by Microsoft and Illumanti purchased by Intel. The rest are gobbled up by Faux News and King Supreme, George W. Bush and Prince Supreme, John Ashcroft.
In other news...
The major console companies all had a post-peak cigarette today. Nintendo was quoted as saying, "Hold me."
Unfortunatly, the lovefest came to a quick end when Sony and Microsoft got into a fight over who would have to sleep in the wet spot.
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With crappy resolution. Plus, the screen can't usefully occupy more than 100% of your retinas. Most people sit very close to their PCs.
I'm not so sure. If you insist on staying bleeding edge, sure, but how many PC games insist on it? If I'm willing to put up with 640x480@60Hz (same as TV), I can go years between upgrades.
Was your PS2 new or used? I can get used video cards for the cash I carry in my pockets. Plus, as I mentioned above, you don't have to stay bleeding edge to play current games.
Apples to apples, it's largely a wash.
well considering i have a Mac and no one offers Mac games anymore i buy consoles so i can continue to play games. although with the way games are today might as well buy the cheapest PC you can until you can't play games on it anymore then do the same. actually thats my plan right now.
...bigger screens...
With crappy resolution. Plus, the screen can't usefully occupy more than 100% of your retinas. Most people sit very close to their PCs.
Actually, I prefer the lower resolutions. When I see, say, Halo on a highend rig at Microcenter, I'm struck by how fake it looks, because the polygons are so crisply edged. Lower rez TV actually has a nice blurring effect.
And size is size; I wouldn't want my friends to gather round the couch facing something the size of my PC's screen.
I'm not so sure. If you insist on staying bleeding edge, sure, but how many PC games insist on it?
I don't know...and I don't have to know. That's why I like sticking with consoles.
Just for giggles I tried running Quake III demo on my 2002 mid-level system. It was beastly slow, esp. for such an older game. Since then I've learned that maybe that's not a representative game, but still. For the social gaming I prefer (i.e. multiplayer but not online) consoles are the only game in town.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
now ill go buy a game cube, play it for a week and then go back to playing the classic zelda. new games are fun, but the classics never die
It was announced today that IBM will be making processors for Nintendo's next generation console. So that means IBM will be involved in developing the processors for all 3 next-gen consoles. Sony obviously has its own thing with the Cell processor, but what about Nintendo and Microsoft. Is it possible that they have basically decided to team up (against Sony)? It is possible that they will both use a PowerPC-type processor on their next console, as well as an ATI graphics core. Could it be that a) they are going to develop one XBox/Nintendo console, or b) that they will make their hardware so similar that porting a game from one to the other would be child's play? Option a) seems very intriguing to me. There would be no question that I would get the XBox/Nintendo console over the PS3-- especially if I could play both Gamecube and XBox games on it.
Also, in an interview with Denis Dyack of Silicon Knights, he said "...it wouldn't surprise me if sometime in the future there is a collaboration [between console makers]. It doesn't mean that there's a less-competitive environment, but it would mean that everyone could worry about making good content instead of the technology. And I think that would be a huge positive shift for our industry." Denis Dyack is very close with Shigeru Miyamoto, and is likely to have some insight and input on Nintendo's plans for the next generation.
What does everybody else think?
codswallop. If the current run of games requires you to spend more than $150 to upgrade the machine you bought 2-3 years ago (a very real possibility), then we're are not talking about "largely a wash."
As for not having to stay on the bleeding edge to play games, that's true: But to be able to play brand-new games on 3yr old hardware at a decent frame rate for more than a few minutes before your machine locks up or crashes is frankly not all that likely. 5yr old hardware? Forget it.
Fair enough. I don't do that sort of thing too often, so that didn't occur to me.
I'll also agree with the blurring you mention, though sometimes the fuzziness gives me a headache.
In general, I don't have a preference one way or the other. On a lot of PC games, I can't see how one could get by without the keyboard (I don't recall if PS2's have a keyboard you can get; by that point, I might as well buy the PC version of the game).
Also, in the last year or two, I've seen a lot more in the way of buggy console games (Enter the Matrix is the obvious example), and I don't know that patching is easy (or even possible, for that matter).
It was used. I'ld love to see a store that had them new for $75. Or maybe not...
Anyways, that was $75 for a whole system, not just a video card. I can get video cards for 5 or 10 bucks too, but then I'm limited to Puzzle Master 4. And now I don't have to read tiny system requirements boxes, just look for the big words that say "Playstation 2". Besides, who wants to hunch over a tiny computer screen when they can lie down on the couch to play games?
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Woo, heated argument avoided.
I'll also agree with the blurring you mention, though sometimes the fuzziness gives me a headache.
Huh. Well, one of my main game buddies usually declines FPS on consoles, it might be the framerate....but I think it's just the framerates that emerge when its doing 4 way split screen, he does ok w/ 2 player co-op Halo (which might be a more powerful system anyway) and whole screen games I think, like Metroid.
It seems funny to me to think of a keyboard as a controller...it seems so big and clunky and old school in some ways, for everything but text. I mean, I can see where 101 or whatever unique buttons gives you some options...but again, from my multiplayer perspective, a keybaord for each guy would look a bit goofy.
The patching issue can be a problem. I mean Matrix is an extreme case, obviously rushed. But then stuff like SOCOM, cheaters w/ game sharks and just exploiting odd bugs in the game.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
PS2s use a regular USB keyboard, by the way. As for control, some games are better with a keyboard and mouse (FPSs, Civ, etc.) while others (Final Fantasy, Tony Hawk, Dead or Alive Beach Vollyball) would be really hard and a lot less fun without a controller. I personally find controllers easier and more comfortable than keyboards and mice for games.
As for bugs, I rarely see any. Enter the Matrix was a terrible game, badly rushed and a horrible waste of money. Same with Tomb Raider Agel of Darkness, the other famous recent bug-fest. As for the good games, bugs are few and far between.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
One thing to keep in mind is that software (In this case games) sells hardware. So you could see a spike in hardware sales if a killer game comes out for one system and not on the others. Say the "best game ever" comes out on x-box next year. Sure, there are some die hard ps2/gamecube fanboys, but plenty of them would buy a ps2 just to play the "best game ever".
The Cross platform releases are what keep hardware sales down, (good) exclusive titles should make console sales go up.
I'll see your "codswallop" and raise you a "piffle". My current hardware is as follows:
Star Wars: Galaxies is the first game I've encountered that doesn't run at a decent frame rate (btw, TVs run at 60Hz, so that's what I assume you consider "decent"). It runs dog slow (usually <20fps), but it doesn't lock up or crash.
Again, I assert that the money people spend upgrading their hardware is more than is necessary to a decent gaming experience.
Finally, I suspect you're artificially narrowing the definition of "new games" to those which require bleeding edge hardware. Consider Runaway or Hearts of Iron. These games are fairly new and have rather modest hardware requirements. I buy new games all the time, and don't really find my gaming experience unacceptable.
you don't get out much do you? sure they offer LESS games on the mac, but usually it's the better ones... try www.macgamefiles.com and apple's game updates section
admittedly, I have a mac and several consoles dating back to the 80's, but I'm just that kind of guy.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
when FF7 came out for PC, i bought it, installed it, played for 5 minutes and threw it out. Then i went and bough the PS version of it and enjoyed it. Final Fantasy was not meant to be played w/ a KB and Mouse
as well, a few weeks ago i played a PC Demo of Midnight Club 2, i walked away disgusted by the control scheme, while i loved the controls on my PS2.
at the same time, i can't stand Halo on my X-Box, and i can't stand most other FPSs because i need the feel of the Keyboard and the WASD layout. at the same time, i wouldv'e never played Goldeneye on s PC because it was a party game.
oh, and as for Patches, The X-Box's HD allows for Patching, hell, KOTOR is being patched with the same updates the PC Version is Getting. and next summer Sony is coming out with the HD for PS2, which will allow for patching.
in terms of Console V.S. PC, i'll take both and be a happy gamer
/. is overrun by bed-wetting elitist nerds
let it be known, for anything other than servers, a *nix OS sucks
Point taken. My point was that people always compare the cost of an old system to a new video card. It's just not fair.
I guess I carry more cash than you. ;-) Seriously, my GeForce 2 is quite nice, and didn't cost much at all.
Good point. It also makes buying gifts easier since you might not know the recipient's configuration.
I don't know what sorts of games you play, but the ones I get are rarely sedate enough to allow me to lie down. Maybe I'm just the excitable type, but video games tend to get me worked up.
I think that must be the case. Of course, since I use Linux most of the time, it's rare that I install anything on my Windows partition (except games, obviously). I suspect the fact that it's nearly empty is why I run into so few problems. No Office, no ISP software, no spyware, yada yada. Of course, Galaxies proves that I'm going to have to break down and upgrade soon anyway.
Funny thing is, I think that Half Life 2 will be a major selling point for the next gen game systems. No current game system can produce graphics as good as HL2 (or Doom3). Not saying that these titles will even be availble for the next gen systems, but they do both show how aged the current technology is. Take for instance Max Payne 2. Fucking Amazing looking game, the difference between MP1 and MP2 is striking and it even isn't a true "next gen" title. It will take a lot to dislodge people from their current PS2s as the graphics are good enough. From the specs of the Ps3 I am certain it will be enough to make the PS2 look woefully inferior. Lastly, the price won't matter either. People paid $299 for the PS2 when it came out and will pay $299 when the PS3 comes out. An alliance between M$ and Nintendo would really make a lot of sense for both companies as I am sure both of them realize that there can be only two systems in the end.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Every mention of sales so far this year says that year-to-date sales of consoles are lower than they were last year. GameCube sales are up, but that's not enough to counter a large drop in PS2 sales combined with a small drop in Xbox sales.
Check Nintendo's recent press releases. I think the PS2 year-to-date sales are down 17%, Xbox 5%, and the GameCube up a few percent or so.
Looks like 2002 might've been the peak, unless something unexpected happens next year to drive up sales.
By "new", I'm talking about the popular stuff advertised in magazines and possibly TV (I don't know, I don't watch TV) that's been released in the past couple of months. The cool new stuff people want. I think that's a fair definition. On console, examples would be: Final Fantasy X-2, Tony Hawk Underground, Billy Hatcher (alright, I'm the only one that wants that one), Soul Calibur 2, etc. Obviously, a PS2 will cover all of them (except for Billy Hatcher, but we already decided that I'm the only one that wants it). Consider these popular new PC games: The Sims Making Magic, Civilization 3: Conquests, Final Fantasy XI, and Simpsons Hit in Run. After scouring the system requirements (source: Amazon ) I've discovered that of those 4, you can only play 2 of them. I don't know what types of games you play, but I'ld find it unacceptable to have to investigate every game before I buy it, or find out that if I want to play that cool new game, I have to upgrade my hardware for one game. And, unlike console games, if I don't pick it up now, I may never pick it up because PC games have a much shorter shelf life and no used market. I'll take my system of buying a console a year or two after it comes out for ~$100, and put off worry about not being able to play a new game for another 3 or 4 years.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
The Gamecube was unloading with Zelda, Metroid Prime, and Mario Sunshine (which wasn't that great, but the name alone sold it)
The PS2 was going insane trying to counter the Xbox's online advantage and cranking out/announcing more games to the Greatest Hits list
The Xbox was... well... being itself.
I'm not surprised that Spring 2003 was a high point in the video game console market, but to say the market will suffer from a decline now is both really not saying much and really not doing your research.
On the PC side, they have Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 coming out. That alone is going to eat gamers' time up like MMOGs. Hence the decline.
On the other hand, consoles have MGS:Twin Snakes, Fable, Halo 2, and MGS3. Talk about not expecting big name games.
Depending on how you want to look at it (will Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 be able to go up against Halo 2 and MGS3?) there isn't really much indication that the console market will really go down.
I have a mac and several consoles dating back to the 80's
Smurfs for Atari 2600 is a sweet game.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
lol, yea. Personally, stuff like galaxies, and lately FFXI do nothing but prove to me that DirectX is from the devil, and should be abolished. OpenGL should become the new standard, because then you could tailor the drivers to the game, and pack them with it. Much much better, IMO, and then I could go back to my beloved Mandrake 8.1, although RedHat Fedora looks very very sexy....
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
alone will sell 10mil xboxes.
My point was that people always compare the cost of an old system to a new video card. It's just not fair.
I compared the old system to a new card because the old system can play all the new video games of this console generation (usually lasts about 5 years), whereas, no matter how nice your pretty GeForce2 is, it just won't play all the new games until 2006. By the way, how much did it cost you?
I don't know what sorts of games you play, but the ones I get are rarely sedate enough to allow me to lie down. Maybe I'm just the excitable type, but video games tend to get me worked up.
Mostly, I play Final Fantasies and the like. Basically, I play games instead of watching TV. They may also be why I like console games, they're an easier substitute for TV since I play them on the TV.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Okay, sounds reasonable, but... if you're waiting a year or two to buy the console, you're automatically foregoing the "new" games by default. The end outcome is the same as not upgrading PC hardware and sticking with StarCraft for another year.
(I guess it's not a point in my favor if I said I'd only be inclined to play two of those four games you listed, eh?)
if you're waiting a year or two to buy the console, you're automatically foregoing the "new" games by default
But console games have a used market, unlike PC, and so I can buy them later, for cheaper. Alright, that defeats the point of new, but whatever.
(And no, that's not a point in your favor. Ok, if you ignore the fact that I covered up my logic hole with a "whatever", you can have your point.)
=)
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
I don't recall off-hand, but I think the GeForce 2 was $40. My Voodoo3 up and died suddenly, and not surprisingly, replacements are hard to come by. I didn't want to wait, so I didn't bother comparison shopping (having an out-dated motherboard limited my choices severely).
I, too, insisted on getting away from TV, and getting a PS2 helped. I hadn't touched it in months, but finally got True Crime here a few days ago. Part of my problem is that my TV is smaller than my monitor. Perhaps that colors my opinion too much.
Actually, I'll just concede the whole thing on the basis of the used game market. I was just talking with a coworker a few days ago on this very problem. We both buy far more PC games than we have time to play, just on the theory that we'll get around to it "some day". Obviously, it's a sucking waste of money to buy games new if they'll be in the discount bin by the time we get around to installing them. Half the time, though, games we like (or assume we'll like) are commercial flops, so they're in the bin for all of a weekend before they vanish forever.
That forces us to be wa-a-ay too price conscious for something we'd prefer to buy on a whim, so... yeah, the PS2 is nice.
A few years back, I bought a Voodoo5 for my boyfiend at the time because he really really wanted it. Cost me $250, which, if you recall my comment about carrying $5 or $10, is a lot for me. Not 6 months later he was complaining because, since NVidia took over the video card market, his new games didn't like the overpriced card I gave him. I probably should have taken it out of his computer when I left him. Perhaps that colors my opinion.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Yep, yep, convert to the dark side before you waste all your money! =)
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
To bad you threw FF7PC out. You could have sold it today for quite a bit.
Besides, it may have sucked on PCs of the day, but on todays' machines, that game looks and sounds much better than the PSX version. NVidia card w/FSAA turned on & Yamaha audio w/XG MIDIs turned on make this game perfect on the PC, the better version by far. Buy a suitable controller or PSX controler adapter, and you're all set, plus you don't even have to swap discs or even play with them in the drive if you copy the movies to your HD and edit the registry to look for them there.
So, uhh, basically what they're saying is in about a year i'm going to have to purchase a Playstation 3, a Gamecircle, an XBox2, and upgrade my graphics card/processor to keep current with the video game market.
Between owning 3 PCs, an Atari 2600/7800, NES, SNES, Genesis, SegaCD, Dreamcast, a PS, PS2, a Gamecube, and tons and tons of games over the last few years, I can honestly say this hobby is more expensive than a crack addiction...
"In a Democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve." -Winston Churchill
I game on a Mac laptop. Since it's a laptop, I can't upgrade anything on it. So that costs me nothing! Since it's a Mac, all the games come out 3-6 months later than on a PC, so that extends the amount of time before it can't run the newest games! Plus, having already waited 6 months, it's easy to just wait another 3 till the game is marked down. So I save there too!
So all this time I thought I was being difficult, I was really just being thrifty. Who knew?
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
WHY would you rebuy a console you say? Why not fix it yourself? FOR INSTANCE, the PS2 issue with the LASER being a bit OFF after a few hundred uses. I have personally experienced this, twice. But since i have a library of about 50 games (PS1/PS2) that I enjoy, I'm not about to waste those purchases by waiting for a PS3 to come out, SINCE I purchased a refurb (as oft I do) and I hadn't discovered the issue with the Laser yet, I just boxed my old PS2 back in it's original box, put it in the attic and went out and purchased a full waranty PS2.
I probably should have had the first one repaired, but I was in the general lazy mood I get when thinking about consoles in general. After a particularly long day the last thing I want to do is fight with a screw casing, or a small hex screwdriver to get a stupid laser aligned.
This tax on laziness, probably will sell an additional several hundred units, if only cause the average consumer isn't even going to think of having their console repaired.
Today I was in an Orange County CA GameStop and the manager was talking about how another store in the district had over 400 preorders for Halo 2 and that many were over 200... He was upset that his store only had a little over a hundred. Now, I am not the smartest man in the world but it seems that if Halo 2 has this many preorders in one county with several months to go until launch date, saying that Halo 2 will sell less than 10 million copies is a little short-sighted. I think that the game will indeed move Xboxes and a lot of people with Xboxes and no Halo (Such as myself; I bought it for KOTOR) will pick up Halo 2.
Because:
- Many console games aren't released for PC. Ever seen Zelda, Mario Kart, SSBM, or Viewtiful Joe on the PC? The list of excellent games that will never see the PC is huge.
- Because consoles are much easier. Buy game, put disk in, play. No patching, no updating drivers.
- Quality control is (mostly) better on console games. Look at the mess even big budget PC games like BF1942 are before the fifth patch or so.
- Consoles are cheap. 80UKP for a gamecube for example - that's less than my PC's processor cost.
Penny-Arcade had it right when they said if you're a gamer and you *don't* own a console, you're missing out. I game on a PC a lot, but I still use my gamecube.
Is the console "dick swinging" going to end and the REALLY good console games come out?
Some of the best console titles end up being mid - late gen games to the console.
FFVII-IX, Syphon Filter, MGS; Shenmue, surely others I've missed, it seems that truly innovative titles hit a console late in it's development cycle.
The financial analysts behind these "revelations" have sold video game interests short. These prognosticators are no better at telling the future than Miss Cleo. Remember, analysts are the folks responsible for encouraging millions of Americans to invest and lose billions in tech stocks. Funny thing about the future ... it hasn't happened yet. Makes it hard to say what happens there!
_/\ - Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.
Besides, it may have sucked on PCs of the day, but on todays' machines, that game looks and sounds much better than the PSX version. NVidia card w/FSAA turned on & Yamaha audio w/XG MIDIs turned on make this game perfect on the PC, the better version by far.
hmm when did they release a patch so that FFVII would work with an nVidia card? (It was, after all, a Glide-based game).
FFVIII had a patch that made it work, but the movies played upside down (and when characters were in the scene they were often right-side up, making it even more odd to play).
I agree that the graphics on the PC version of FF7 were superior, but the game only handled a limited subset of PC hardware well, and was basically a better experience on the PSOne. That being said, I still have both versions of both FF7 and FF8.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
I just have to point out that, although I agree with you to a degree (I stopped upgrading video cards to buy consoles every 6 months instead), with the exception of the video card he listed, I had a better PC before I bought a PS1, and that exception is only because the GeForce 2 card is only a couple of years old. You'd be hard pressed, however, to find many games either out now or coming out soon that require more than a P3-1GHz, 256-512MB RAM, and a GeForce 2 (maybe even MX). My system hasn't had a single hardware upgrade in over a year and is running a GF4Ti, P4-2GHz, and 512MB of RAM. The last hardware upgrade was the video card, and the only reason I upgraded to the P4 was because my P3 self-destructed after moving across the country.
I used to be one of the guys that upgraded video cards every 6-12 months and many other portions of the system in the interim. At this point, though, the hardware has pushed well past the software, and the only reason I have all of the US-released consoles of this generation is simply because I didn't have any reason to buy new video cards, CPUs, etc. to play whatever games I feel like playing on the PC. I'd rather have the freedom to pick up any game and play it than be limited by system requirements, whether it's because I don't have a new graphics card or because I don't have an XBox (which is, in itself, a system requirement).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
As an added bonus, with less than 25% of PC game titles actually being ported to the Mac, the savings by not being able to play 75% of the games released for the PC means you can actually afford a Mac (though I must admit that when it comes to laptops/notebooks, the Macs are competetive pricewise).
-PainKilleR-[CE]