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Gaming PC Makers Take Aim at Lucrative Niche

Posted by michael on from the old-age-and-treachery-beats-youth-and-megahertz dept.

Cymage writes "Yahoo (Reuters) reports that gaming PCs are now a high profit area, and that the bigger players (Dell, HP) are trying to get into the market: 'In an age when a new PC can cost just a few hundred dollars, an adolescent need for speed is creating a profitable niche for souped-up gaming computers at the ultra-costly end of the market.' How many people really spend $5,000 on a gaming machine? Mine cost less than $2,000, and I can play UT2k4 and others on it just fine."

3 of 485 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No thanks by nizo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yep, thats why I bought my PS2 when my old DVD player broke. I was sick of trying to get games to work under MS Windows, plus my daughter could now play while I got work done on my PC. And considering I have only had something like 3 crashes with the PS2 in the year and a half I have owned it, I am a pretty happy camper. Plus now they are selling the PS2 with a network adapter.......

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    I Am My Own Worst Enemy
  2. Re:Independent games? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Informative

    ithout a modchip or a buffer-overflow exploit, the consoles cannot run games from studios that aren't yet big enough to attract a Major Licensed Publisher's attention.

    This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I know many of the wippersnappers here are too young to remember it, but Nintendo began this trend after their original NES system was spammed with tons of crap games. Just about every "game company" was building a boring rip-off game of some sort (anyone remember Karate Kid?) and selling it for $$$.

    Nintendo knew that poor quality of titles was what killed the Atari 2600 (E.T. anyone?). Thus they implemented a "Nintendo Seal of Quality" for their NES system. This worked well as a stop-gap measure. Then when Nintendo released the Super-NES, they used a combination of legal and technical tactics to make sure that only games that passed strict Nintendo quality standards were released to the public. This was mostly successful, so Nintendo tightened up again for the N64.

    The end result of all this is that there were very few "bad" games released for the Super-NES and N64. Sure, Nintendo pushed a family friendly, "cartoony" style, but the games really were fun. Many other console manufacturers decided that this was a worthwhile strategy and have followed Nintendo's lead with various degrees of success.

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    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  3. Real gamers build their own by MBraynard · · Score: 3, Informative
    And they are a LOT less expensive. You can build a SOTA machine for $2000. Only a moron buys these machines that have 2-3-4x markup on parts. Want to know how to build a machine?

    First, decide what parts to use by looking at Tom's hardware or some other site you trust that builds extreme machines for testing the latest components. This is where you get your template.

    Then go to Pricewatch and maybe froogle to find the lowest prices on the components while double checking the vendors reputation on Reseller Ratings.

    Finally, have a friend who has a little experience come over and put that beauty together.

    I spec'ed out a top of the line Alienware machine against building my own with the same or better components and cut the price by more than half.