Age-old videogame v. PC decision plagues birthday boy

My birthday is coming up, and I’m going to have a few
hundred dollars to blow on something, so I figure I’ll blow
it on video games since I’ve been out of the loop for about a
year now. I can’t believe that I don’t even have a
console or any games for my computer, being the huge geek that I
purport to be!

Thus my birthday begs the age-old gamer question: to PC or to
console?

In my research for the ultimate gaming experience I learned an
interesting fact: Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo lose money on each
video game console they sell. The console gaming market relies
solely on its software for profits because a portion of every game
you buy goes to the console maker.

Despite the need to spend more on each game, I like the console
game market because it puts out a lot of excellent games.

PC gaming is completely different ““ hardware makers have
to make money on their hardware and game makers make money on their
games. I learned that the latest king of the graphics cards is the
recently released Nvidia GeForce FX 5800 Ultra, with ATI’s
Radeon 9700 Pro just a smidgen behind in performance. Either of
these cards will set me back $400. Four-hundred freaking dollars?
For that price I could buy a console, two games and some extra
controllers!

Luckily, computer games are less expensive than console games
and the selection is much larger, although the quality of the
average game is much lower because there isn’t as much of a
monetary barrier to make a PC game. So I’m still on the fence
at this point.

Clearly, PCs have immensely greater potential graphically and
their games cost less, but in many cases there’s a sacrifice
in quality. And it appears that the superior graphics quality that
PCs can offer is becoming less and less of a draw since the
“bad” graphics of PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox
aren’t that bad at all.

It’s preposterous that one year after buying a top of the
line $3,000 computer I have to deal with choppy framerates and poor
textures on PC games just because I don’t have the FX 30
billion or whatever card Nvidia popped out of its silicon womb last
week.

The console market is much different in this respect. Sony,
whose PS2 is the oldest console on the market by one year, sold
100,000 more consoles in the last three months of 2002 than
Microsoft’s Xbox. A console gets better with age because the
library of games grows. Microsoft actually reported a quarterly
loss of $348 million for its Xbox, and in the wake of that loss
they have released a new bargain program in which select games will
cost only $19.99. These “platinum hits” include many of
the best games from last year.

I think if you like video games, you can’t go wrong with
any three of the consoles out there right now, but the best deal
seems to be the Xbox. While the GameCube costs less overall, it
doesn’t include a DVD player and has fewer features and a
smaller game selection. But don’t tell a Nintendo loyalist
that I said that.

For now, I think I’ll just sit on my few hundred dollars
and see what happens. I know I won’t be shelling out $400
just to be able to run the two or three PC games actually worth
playing right now.

If you’d like to give Esposito your birthday wishes or
any free gaming gear, e-mail him at
[email protected].