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Gaming PC Makers Take Aim at Lucrative Niche
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."
Well mine cost $1000 and will play UK2k4 just fine... so there! :p
"With price tags from US$2,000 to $5,000, the market is luring heavyweights..."
:)
I can't see myself paying that much for a gaming machine. I can buy a PS2/XBOX/GAMECUBE for less than 200 dollars. I could even buy all three and a decent amount of games for each system for less than 2,000. I know, they can only play games but isn't that the point of a gaming pc? I wouldn't want to put my gaming pc on the internet, because then I would have to worry about viruses, which means I have to install a firewall, virus scanner etc which would just slow down my game play. A gaming system works like it should. I don't have to make sure I have the newest video card, all games will work. It plays games with no blue screens, drivers to intall, or patches. Not to mention its easy to stick in my car and play where ever I can find a tv.
I just want my phantom console.
Great, but why did it take them so long to figure out that people don't need new 3GHz Dells just to run word processors and internet explorer (at least until MS Longhorn comes out...)?
Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
How many people really spend $5,000 on a gaming machine?
It takes a lot of horsepower to run TuxRacer at full speed...
I bought my Athlon XP 2200+ and ECS motherboard for $70 from fry's, 1 gig of ram for $200 after rebates, and a Radeon 9800 non-pro for $150. Overclocked the cpu to 3200+ speed and flashed the 9800 to a pro. A new large hard drive will cost you about $100, a decent case + power supply $50, and all the "other stuff" maybe $100 total.
That's under $800 for a top-of-the-line system, when I got it.
People who spend $400 on a 512 meg ram module because it does 2-2-2 timing are just dumb, and have money to burn.
~Berj
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Perfect timing for that "Hardware will be free" rhetoric of Bill and Scott to take form.
:)
I almost started a business doing this once. Then I saw Falcon Northwest and Alienware and realized that there wasn't room in the market for another one.
I figured that as PCs became commoditized and as commonplace as your average toaster that the elitists of the world would want some way to stratify PC ownership. Same reason that there are Kias, and there are Porsches. The small-penis crowd needs to validate itself through what it owns.
Like in any industry, there will be the ultra-highend enthusiast niche. Alienware, VoodooPC, Falcon NW, and others have been catering to these kind of users for years. Any commentary about pricing is pointless: these people pay big bucks to get bragging rights to the fastest, most tricked out, and beautiful (damn, that alienware case is gorgeous) machines money can buy.
It's the same in many industries, especially the automotive industry. Any commentary about how "it's different with cars, they aren't obselete in 3 years" is pointless: the automotive industry's pace of improvement and innovation is much, much slower than the PC industry's.
And just like with cars, we have nerds who buy honda civics and rice them up with neon lights, big, loud heatsink fans, awesome paintjobs, spoilers, etc etc. (case modders if you're dense).
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Console drawback #1: Closed bootloader. Without 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. Imagine a CD player that can't play CDs from outside the RIAA. Modchips violate the DMCA and foreign counterparts, and non-hackers would find it even harder to set up a buffer-overflow exploit (as seen in Phantasy Star Online for GameCube and MechAssault for Xbox) than to set up a dedicated gaming PC.
Console drawback #2: No widespread support for keyboard and mouse. Many players prefer to use a keyboard and mouse for some game genres such as shooters and battlefield simulations, but console games tend not to try to read them, even if you have a keyboard and mouse hooked up through the PS2 or Xbox console's USB port.
I admit, I've bought two Alienware computers in recent years. They're stylish and after years of building and tweaking, I just wanted something cool out of the box.
But I got a link to their new ALX line in my mailbox yesterday and about fainted when I got to the bottom line.
Price: $4,799.00
As low as $144 per month!
For that price it should not only run games well, it should go ahead and finish Half Life 2, Duke Nukem Forever, Doom III and go ahead and port over Halo 2 all while I sleep.
PCs are better than video game consoles for certain types of games, mainly strategy and RPG games.
Until video game consoles come up with good replacements for the keyboard and mouse, that fact will remain.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
About 5 years ago, I built a 233 Mhz Pentium II machine for about $500. Each year, I put $100 - $200 into hardware upgrades and I have a machine that will very comfortably play today's games (ex. Tron 2.0, Vice City, UT2K4) and I still haven't spent more than $1500. On top of that, I was able to Frankenstein some parts from the old computer and buy a $30 case/power supply and I now have a spare computer that can read e-mail, surf the net, and play games along the age of RA2, Quake 3, and UT.
My new 10MB hard drive sure beats the hell out of my Tape Drive, and the 64K ram upgrade should be all I ever need, especially since my 8088 comes in at a whopping 4.77 MHz - kick ass! I get 2 FPS on Ultima I, and I just found the EXOTIC ARMOR. Not to mention Zork is as smooth as silk.
Intel Pentium 4/ 2.8C GHz 800MHz FSB, 512K Cache $180
ATI RADEON 9800PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR $222
1Gb RAM Corsair TwinX1024-4400 $435
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum $165
Maxtor 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive $207
ASUS "P4C800-E DELUXE" i875P Chipset Motherboard $179
SubTotal: 1388
Add the case, the keyboard and the mouse... I really don't see how you can get a gaming maching for more than 3k...
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
I think the same philosophy goes to having a comfortable bed, chair, etc. Money's made to be spent, and what better place to spend it than on something I use most every day?
Who needs a hummer?
Every single male on this planet.....
oh wait... are you talking about the truck with that name?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
A big, simple reason innovation in cars (or airplanes, or coffee makers) is slower than that in computers: computers are still a young industry. Bill Gates likes to use this sort of comparison by way of arguing that MS hasn't stifled innovation: "If airplanes had changed as much between 1980 and today as computers, they'd fly us cross-country for 50 cents in ten minutes," that kind of thing. But all those other industries changed at a vastly higher rate when they were young too. Flying machines changed an awful lot from Santos-Dumont's balloons to World War I to the German jets at the end of WWII, in every imaginable way, right?
But back to your point: Cars won't be obsolete in 3 or 5 years, and that difference really isn't "pointless." If I trick up my Civic, it'll be out-of-style in three years, but it'll get me there on the gas they sell at SA. With a gaming computer, I can spend through the nose and be below box specs for some of the games that come out next year. Partly that's just the young industry again. But you know, you can still find places to land your biplane.
Between the gaming wonks trying to one-up each other and the game studios whose idea of innovation is better texture effects in FPS titles, the lack of imagination is pretty amazing. You'd think this would be such a creative thing, games, but instead we get the equivalent of U.S. blockbuster movies over and over again. You'd think the wonks would at least show some individuality in their tastes... Car geeks and EAA airplane kit builders are a lot more interesting, for my two cents.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
For the past 20 years, I have been an avid computer gamer and have had countless hours of fun playing games from Manic Miner and Jetpac, through Speedball 2 and Alien Breed, to Doom(s), Civilization(s), Half-Life & Unreal (Tournament(s)).
Today, I still play all of those games, some through the marvels of emulators. All of them, and more, are as immersive now as they were then.
However, I think we would be in agreement that playing Manic Miner at a higher frame rate or resolution would not enhance, in any way, the excellent playability of the original game.
Carrying this forward through my list of games, whilst many of them enjoy 3D rendering technology and first-person perspective, they all have one thing in common - they are all just games.
What I mean by this statement is that I do not need to be immersed in lifelike graphics in order to enjoy gaming - that's because I am possessed of an intellect that tells me that when I am staring at a PC monitor blasting aliens/jumping ledges, I am in a fantasy state of conciousness. At this level of conciousness, I immerse myself (thank you very much) into a game - sure, graphics will assist in my self-propelled immersion but the main catalyst for rocketing me into that world of make believe will be... and allow me to blow the dust off of this word as it has not one that is often used... gameplay.
Now, call me revolutionary but I don't actually give a tinker's nostril about a game that is whizzing past me at 50000 frames per second at 20480 x 10240 resolution if I have to keep simultaneously poking my brain through my earhole to stop it going comatose through lack of stimulation.
Therefore, if you don't mind, I think I'd rather stay just here, building my bland white-coloured PCs with 100 pound/euro/dollar graphic cards for 1/4 of the cost of one of your "HumungoFastPenileViper GX" gaming PCs, secure in the knowledge that I retain enough currency to enjoy financing some social contact and interaction in the real world also.
Good day to you.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
A high powered rig *will* make you perform better in a resource intensive game such as Dark Age of Camelot, where the computer must render hundreds of characters and effects simultaniously at a high framerate to keep you in the battle. I play on a 3GHz P4 with a gig of ram and a Radeon 9800 pro, and I still have some trouble in certain situations with a large number of players. And yes, my system is *very* clean.
I keep forgetting my place. Jesus is for losers. Why do I still play to the crowd?
A friend of mine spent closer to $10K on his gaming rig, buying not only a completely new system from the ground up using only the newest and highest-end (read: most pricey) hardware, but also the highest end set of 7.1 surround speakers he could get.
I believe he's running an Athlon 64 FX processor but other than that I don't know too much about his system.
Here's the best part:
We're having a LAN party at his place this weekend and he's not even going to be playing. He very rarely uses his PC at all, let alone to play games.
Model 551, Chambered in 6mm
Just yesterday I priced out a very high end gaming machine for $3k (the CPU alone, no monitor / keyboard / mouse etc -- sweet p4 3.4 EE / 2 GB corsair / 2x200GB SATA Raid 0 / heatsink etc. / sweet case / 550 Power / ATI x800 256MB)
That $3k computer worth of parts can only be made possible by knowledge of the system and optimized for performance by mastery of hardware tweaking and overclocking.
The $400 machines for sale on Dell take relatively little knowledge to put together. The expensive machiens by vendors such as Alienware include much more knowledge about the interworkings and optimizations of the individual parts.
Since duplicating this knowledge is free, that is where the profit to be made is.
The only problem I would have with this is the people who will be wasting their money buying these high end gaming machines when they only need the mid range Dell machines.