At launch I'd say all the new consoles are in the higher or mid range of most gaming PC out there, not including those self made rigs that cost over 1000$. All I can say both Xbone and PS4 are way, way more powerfull than my current gaming rig and if I'd slump the prize tag of those both consoles together I'd get something better. (Here in Finland it would be around 1000 €. Xbone is about 500, PS4 is 450).

Also consoles and PC aren't as straightforward to compare, as they harness the tech a bit differently. Consoles usually allow the games to tap into resources more efficiently, so they can get more out of seemingly less powerfull hardware than avarage PC is.

agree 100%

consoles are designed for one purpose, to be a worldwide standard, across the board, to play higher end games for the general masses. every piece of hardware exactly the same, therefore everyone able to play the current games for the hardware

pcs, well, the permutations, differences, etc in both hardware and os make this a completely different beast.

and lets not forget, pc's werent really designed initially in conception for gaming, thats something that came later...... consoles, of course, were.

http://youtu.be/pbgvzVgfoSc

The hardware isn't the be all end all for consoles. I'm more concerned with this need to push set top box functionality over being a gaming system. That's a huge industry problem imo. Xbox live is really bad where your just paying to play with people who are paying and a console kill switch in case anyone is caught messing with an Xboxes innards. It's nice to have the functionality, but it should not be the driving force behind a gaming console.

Also there's nothing wrong with consoles as specialized PC's. It should have been like that years ago. People got marketed the idea that gaming consoles were special machines. They were just PC's that specialized in games. 600 dollars for a gaming rig might be cutting it close. I think were looking more at 800 for a PC that goes above the newest consoles on the market. One thing I can tell you 600 dollars or less worth of PC would get you a PC that can run youtube, Hulu, and Netflix on your tv like a boss.

You know what gets me,

I am into all the old retro stuff with getting my C64 back last year. Things like the Spectrum, Amstrad, Amiga, Atari 800 & ST etc.

It REALLY bugs me out when you get people calling these old computers consoles, if you look on eBay for example you will see things like Classic / Rare ZX Spectrum Console (Change to C64, Amiga etc where applicable, and see how many are isted so RARE goes out the window!!) with joystick and games fully tested and working.

It's not a damned console, its a home computer!!!

Then throw in the fact they say tested and fully working but they don't include the tape deck or the joystick interface (Sometimes no leads or PSU either) if its a 48 or 128k (Non + models) so how exactly did they hook that joystick up to it!!

This is what get when technology comes more and more pervasive. One devices wants to penetrate its usability spehere further from what it was originally planned for and as consoles are set togetehr with TV's increasing that spehere as a wholesome entertainment center that can be also controlled by other means than a controller alone.

The same has already happened with phones, when smart phones turned into multipurpose communication, entertainment etc. devices, far beyond what phones originally were. It is a technological evolution I don't see stopping anytime soon.

console = few exclusive good games that will need yet another emulator in the future to be played again. -_-'

I doubt you tablet can do this (warning: bad language)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q5okb9Vc8SY

Well I wouldn't quite call it an evolution for technology. More like an adaptation for businesses. The OP is on to something here. While I doubt 600 will get him an XB1 buster PC, it will get a PC that can do things much better than the XB1 and be near or on par with it graphically. Do we need TV's, Blu-Ray players, and consoles all trying to get on netflix/hulu/other streaming service? Why can't we just have a tv with a kick ass refresh rate, contrast ratio, proper legacy interlacing, or a BluRay/DVD player with extreme buffering abilities? Phones have the distinct advantage of being portable and it comes at a sacrifice of having a large screen or the ability to have extremely fast networking ability so I can see where someone might need such a device (Consequently a lot of smartphones seemed to have stopped improving the phone part entirely based on the level of complaints with some of the devices). But with consoles I think people will wise up to what it is they are getting (a glorified somewhat subsidized PC with restricted online access and ability to play games).

I have to admit to you I'm not entirely unbiased. I was and am a huge fan of the original Xbox. That console pretty much brought PC design to game consoles (dedicated GPU that was decent, hard drive in every unit [no more worrying about save storage!] online and lan networking, usb based controllers, games that looked phenomenally better and were more original [I think Sega gave a lot of Dreamcast titles on it]). Then I saw what happened on the 360. Now keep in mind the graphics were still a big bump up so that was good, but that's about where the good stopped. Now you were expected to buy a hard drive separate, the online service wasn't actually adding servers to games nor actively stopping cheating. Advertising dominates all of the UI. The price of digital games never decreases ever and getting a game on sale is a rare occurrence, red ring of death, drm shenanigans with your online content (I lost over 90 dollars worth of DLC when they forced XBLive account into using windows live via hotmail.)

5 years.......... so......thats a fair amount of time and then worthwhile for the average 350-400 pounds for the console, however many games etc, and then a new computer in 5 years, where on average people spend alot of money either upgrading a gaming laptop every 3 or upgrading their desktop whenever.

i dont see a problem, its either get one or dont..... its like saying, i like audis, i drive an audi, "well i drive a bmw, so your audi is rubbish" ......it makes no sense or point.


im actually glad im moving away from pc gaming and such and going back to console route, i cant be doing with the elitism.

Keep in mind that consoles tend to get cheaper over the years as well, at the very latest when they introduce new revisions (like "Slim" etc.), plus developers learn to make better use of the specific setup over the course of a console generation so on PC you will still need to upgrade your graphics card occasionally to maintain the same visual quality as in the newest console releases.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/171158-can-you-build-a-gaming-pc-better-than-the-ps4-for-400

am not a tech guru but this article suggests it's possible

although a bit unfair to go for such comparison, couse some of the tech designed is especially favouring the console, from what i understand

I love my console, because I can't upgrade my graphics card on my pc all the time. I'm at the point now where newer games coming out are once again sliding out my reach.

On par with the XB1 graphically? Now, that's something i'm curious to see. Have you ever seen Ryse by yourself (not on YT videos since the compression takes away all the details)? Not to mention the fact that the software for consoles improve over time. Just look at how much the PS3 and the Xbox 360 improved over the years. The first Resistance looked like a PS2 game for fuck's sake, and The Last of Us looks fantastic even today.

Even if you compare multiplatform titles (avaliable on consoles and PCs), you'll still notice that you need much more than U$600 to achieve the same level of performance in gaming as a PS4 or Xbox One. Heck, even a GTX Titan struggles to maintain playable framerates in COD Ghosts (check the Digital Foundry analysis if you don't believe me), while the Xbox One and the PS4 can easily keep up with with 60 frames per second (the PS4 version does suffer a bit more when it comes to frame rates, but it runs at 1080p). A similar situation happens in Battlefield 4.
Are you sure about that? Consoles get cheaper over the years once the production costs go down and the technology becomes more mature. The Xbox 360 costs around U$179, i doubt you can get a PC better than the Xbox 360 for gaming for that price. I really do.