People who say “it was never the case” are misremembering history.
Yes, consoles are sold at a loss initially. However, the price-to-performance ratio (in terms of frames per second) consistently decreases over time, regardless of what console manufacturers do.
For example, the original PlayStation was released in 1994 at a cost of $600. By the end of 1999, just six years later, you could emulate its games on a fairly inexpensive, older PC. In 1994, while the first Doom ran on a relatively costly i386/i486, it was impossible to match the arcade-quality graphics of PlayStation games like Tekken 1 to 3. However, by the time the PlayStation 2 was released, it became feasible to use an affordable older PC with a low to mid-range GPU to exceed the graphical capabilities of any console available at that time.
The only period when consoles were truly cheap—meaning they were sold at a loss—was during the first few months after their release. If you already owned a PC, you could easily surpass the performance of newly released consoles by simply upgrading your GPU.
With new parts yes, but except for a brief period after a new console is released you can buy used PC parts for playing games of similar graphically fidelity for about the same price or slightly cheaper.
When has that ever been the case? The age-old tradeoff has always been that consoles are restrictive and un-upgradable, but cheaper than building a PC due to fixed parts costs and loss-leader strategies.
There’s sometimes a period right at the start of a new generation where the cost for the newest and shiniest console outpaces equivalent pc hardware, but that gap disappears within a year or two every time.
PS3 era. $600 for the PS3 or ~$500 for a PC that performed similarly if you just wanted to play games and not also include an expensive ass Blu-ray drive.
I hope we get another time where you can build a PC that matches or surpasses the latest consoles, at a lower cost. It’s been a while.
People who say “it was never the case” are misremembering history.
Yes, consoles are sold at a loss initially. However, the price-to-performance ratio (in terms of frames per second) consistently decreases over time, regardless of what console manufacturers do.
For example, the original PlayStation was released in 1994 at a cost of $600. By the end of 1999, just six years later, you could emulate its games on a fairly inexpensive, older PC. In 1994, while the first Doom ran on a relatively costly i386/i486, it was impossible to match the arcade-quality graphics of PlayStation games like Tekken 1 to 3. However, by the time the PlayStation 2 was released, it became feasible to use an affordable older PC with a low to mid-range GPU to exceed the graphical capabilities of any console available at that time.
The only period when consoles were truly cheap—meaning they were sold at a loss—was during the first few months after their release. If you already owned a PC, you could easily surpass the performance of newly released consoles by simply upgrading your GPU.
I’ve been gaming on the PC since the 386 days and I don’t ever recall a time where a PC was ever cheaper than a console.
With new parts yes, but except for a brief period after a new console is released you can buy used PC parts for playing games of similar graphically fidelity for about the same price or slightly cheaper.
When has that ever been the case? The age-old tradeoff has always been that consoles are restrictive and un-upgradable, but cheaper than building a PC due to fixed parts costs and loss-leader strategies.
There’s sometimes a period right at the start of a new generation where the cost for the newest and shiniest console outpaces equivalent pc hardware, but that gap disappears within a year or two every time.
PS3 era. $600 for the PS3 or ~$500 for a PC that performed similarly if you just wanted to play games and not also include an expensive ass Blu-ray drive.
So what you’re saying is it was possible to undercut the ps3 in cost of you weren’t building a machine of equivalent capability.