I was planning on building a couple of upper-mid range PC's for gaming early next year, but the more I deal with computers, the less I want to deal with them at home, sorta. I still love playing with the things, but playing games on PC's has always been a gamble, with some games not working, not working well, or once in a while working fantastically along side overall great system performance. This is only getting worse as we approach 32-bit limitations. I don't make the hardware or write the code, so the best I can do is try to put something together that works as best it can at any given moment in time using what can be found online. Adding this time to the already high price of $1500 per PC, gaming on the computer is by no means cheap when done "right".

My family had a great deal of fun with our XBOX. We played that thing to death with all the $5-15 new titles we could find, along side a few exceptional higher priced titles. Budget titles for the consoles (including PS2, PS, Wii) have proven to be a fair value. The games may not always give us the most play time, but they hold their own in the bang-per-buck category. Budget PC games seem to be a whole different breed. I can't count the number of $5 titles I have in my box of 200 PC games that just won't play on much of anything (I don't have that many fingers). Yes, some are old and it's the new hardware, but I swear some of these bargain bin titles are factory rejects, released before a serious patch was slipstreamed into the factory line, as they are new titles that many report enjoy playing, but they just crap out on me. So buying budget titles on the PC has proven to be a failed investment, while the console has given a great deal of fun in return for the cheapest of titles. This leaves no reason to build a gaming PC anything short of a great system since I would want only great, working titles if I'm going to enjoy my expenditure.

So I have started to ponder an alternative. Instead of building two incredible gaming machines that will likely devour a quarter as much maintenance time as play time (unless I only install a couple of major time consuming titles, nothing more), what kind of console setup can I build for under $3G? It has to be two independent setups, as that was the only reason for getting two gaming PC's.

For about $650 I'll get a PS3, an extra controller, and about 3 or 4 titles. (yes, there will be a $399 PS3 by March '07) That leaves me with $850 in my budget for a display. I can easily fit a 32" 1080p LCD with a nice stand for that. Squeezing in the 42" may even be possible by then, if I put it all on cinder blocks. I'll do that for ten more inches Despite loving my high end PC games, I’m seeing a much greater deal with the PS3 and 32” 1080p despite the fewer quality game titles. Since I will always have a budget PC for working on I won’t be “trading in” any functionality by passing on the PC’s.

You could do much the same with the $399 XBOX 360 as well. Doesn't that seem like a hell of a lot more for $1500 than a PC? And you'll now have high def TV and either BluRay or HD DVD, depending on your choice, though that's really a side effect for me as I would not make that any part of the purchase justification since one is still likely to lose.