如果您想在当今时代玩电子游戏(video games)，那就没有更多选择了。您可以拿起智能手机(smartphone)或跳上游戏流媒体(game streaming)服务并立即开始游戏。但是，对于大多数将视频游戏作为主要娱乐形式的人来说，有两种选择：PC 与主机。
游戏机是专门制造的游戏机，可提供即插即用游戏，无需乱搞游戏设置。它们也很实惠，或者至少它们的初始价格标签是。
另一方面，PC 提供了完整的硬件灵活性，而且，如果你花的钱够多的话，它还能提供任何游戏机都无法比拟的游戏马力。除了新一代游戏机推出时可能是正确的。
虽然 PC 平台通常是优质视频游戏性能的发源地，但游戏玩家常常对作为 PC 游戏玩家的感知价格犹豫不决。问题是这种看法是否准确。正如我们将看到的，答案取决于你如何看待事物。
硬件成本
没有两种方法。将游戏机带回家所需的资金少于购买同等或更好的游戏 PC 的费用。随着控制台寿命的延长，这一事实发生了变化。由于控制台硬件没有改变，新的 PC 硬件以更低的价格变得更强大。因此，最终控制台的类似要价将为您提供具有更好规格的 PC。
为什么游戏机这么便宜？这有几个原因。游戏机制造商获得了优惠的硬件价格，因为他们制造了数以百万计的游戏机。游戏机制造商也不需要从他们的游戏机上获利。通常，他们要么收支平衡，要么在每个单位上亏损。
这是可以接受的，因为所谓的“附加率”。就控制台而言，这是指用户必须购买才能真正使用其机器的游戏、服务和配件。因此，即使主机硬件本身不赚钱，销售第一款游戏、配件或订阅也能立即获利。
对于个人电脑，每个组件都有利润空间。各个制造商需要对硬件进行回报，否则就没有意义了。这样做的最终结果是，从每美元性能的角度来看，PC 比游戏机更贵。然而，这还不是全部。更准确地说，PC 的前期成本更高。但是，如果我们看一下典型控制台的整个生命周期的成本，情况就会发生变化。
软件成本
由于游戏机是一个封闭的平台，游戏开发者需要为在该系统上发布游戏的特权付费。这以每售出一份副本的费用形式出现。与其对自己的利润造成打击，不如将成本转嫁给主机游戏玩家。所以你会发现，在发布时，主机游戏的成本高于 PC 上的同款游戏。
那不是全部！由于几个不同的分销商竞争 PC 游戏销售，您几乎不会为 PC 游戏支付零售价。无论是预购折扣还是发布后几个月甚至几周的降价，PC 游戏总是有惊人的优惠。相比之下，主机(Console)游戏往往会更长时间地保持原价。当它们开始销售时，它们的降价幅度也远不及 PC 上的降价幅度。
这就是 PC 与控制台游戏价格的主要均衡器发挥作用的地方。但是，这显然在很大程度上取决于您购买了多少游戏。
为了论证的缘故，假设一款主机游戏的平均成本比 PC 版本高 10 美元。如果您在五年内每月购买一款游戏，那就是 10 美元x 12个月 x 5 年。相当于600美元。
如果您将 600 美元添加到您最初购买的游戏机中并购买了 1000 美元的 PC，那么您的总支出将是相同的。如今，1000 美元可以买到相当不错的游戏笔记本电脑或台式机。然而，这只是主机游戏玩家必须应对的隐藏成本之一。
在线服务费用
由于PC提供了一个开放的平台，玩家不必为多人游戏等功能付费给第三方。在游戏机上，在线多人游戏通常是为订阅服务保留的，这是您可能需要支付的任何实际游戏订阅的补充。
任天堂(Nintendo)、索尼(Sony)和微软(Microsoft)都通过在组合中加入折扣和“免费”数字游戏来增加交易。因此，是否值得付出代价将取决于个人。但是，最重要的是，如果您想完全在线玩，费用不是可选的。
因此，增值方面并没有那么重要。如果将每月在线多人游戏订阅的差异与游戏价格的平均差异相加，它会进一步平衡 PC 和游戏机硬件在游戏机生命周期内的价格差异。
升级费用
接下来，我们需要考虑升级 PC 的成本。首先(First)，在其控制台等效生成过程中升级到 PC 是可选(optional)的。至少在跨平台游戏方面。
控制台最近的一项发展是中代升级。这给了我们PlayStation 4 Pro 和 Xbox One X。这些都不是必不可少的升级，但它们确实为图形功能提供了相当实惠的提升。
这些中代机器的 CPU 几乎没有变化。(CPUs)因此，如果您对中代 PC 做了同样的事情并且只升级GPU，那么您将花费与在新的更新控制台上一样多（或更少）的费用。从这个角度来看，在比较 PC 与控制台时，升级的影响可以忽略不计。
你需要一台电脑来做其他事情吗？
计算比较成本时的下一个重要考虑因素是，除了游戏之外，您是否需要一台计算机。如果您确实需要一台不只是玩游戏的电脑，那么控制台的成本就超出了(addition)非游戏 PC 的成本。
在这种情况下，您不妨将成本加在一起并获得游戏 PC。如果您根本不需要 PC，那么我们可以将其排除在成本比较之外。
对成本的不同看法
正如我们所见，如果您查看典型游戏机生命周期内的总拥有成本，PC 与游戏机的成本差异并没有想象中那么显着。当然，高端 PC 可能非常昂贵，但这并不是极端情况的比较。
再说一次，我们不应该忘记游戏机也有独特的优势。例如，它们被设计为共享的家用机器，而不是个人的。此外，他们不需要太多的技术知识来操作或购买。然而，从纯粹的成本角度来看，如果你能负担得起更高的前期价格，那么在等式的 PC 端就有一个强有力的论据。
Is A Gaming PC Really More Expensive Than A Console?
If you want to play video games in this day and age there have never been more options. You can grab a smartphone or hop on a game streaming service and be playing in no time. However, for most people who play video games as a primary form of entertainment, there are two choices: PC vs console.
Consoles are purpose-built gaming machines that offer plug-and-play gaming with no need to mess about with game settings. They are also pretty affordable, or at least their initial price tag is.
PCs, on the other hand, offer complete hardware flexibility and, if you spend enough, the sort of gaming horsepower that no console can match. Except perhaps right as a new generation of consoles launches.
While the PC platform is, in general the home of premium video game performance, gamers often baulk at the perceived price of being a PC gamer. The question is whether that perception is accurate. The answer, as we’ll see, depends on how you look at things.
The Hardware Costs
There’s no two ways about it. The amount of money you have to hand over to take a console home is less than you’d pay for an equivalent or better gaming PC. As a console’s lifespan rolls along, that fact changes. Since the console hardware doesn’t change, new PC hardware becomes more powerful at a lower price. So eventually a similar asking price for the console will net you a PC with better specifications.
Why are consoles so much cheaper? There are a few reasons for this. Console makers get preferential hardware prices because they build millions and millions of consoles. Console makers also don’t need to make a profit on their consoles. Often they either break even or take a loss on each unit.
This is acceptable because of something known as the “attach rate”. In the case of a console, this refers to the games, services and accessories users must buy to get any real use out of their machine. So even if the console hardware itself doesn’t make any money, there’s instant profit from the sale of the first game, accessory or subscription.
With PCs, every component has a profit margin. The individual manufacturers need to make a return on the hardware or there’d be no point. The end result of this is that, from a performance-per-dollar point of view, PCs are more expensive than consoles. However that’s not the whole story. It would be more accurate to say that PCs cost more upfront. But if we look at the cost over the lifespan of a typical console, that picture changes.
The Software Costs
Because consoles are a closed platform, game developers need to pay for the privilege of releasing games on that system. This comes in the form of a fee attached to every copy sold. Rather than take a hit to their own profits, that cost is passed on to the console gamer. So you’ll find that, at launch, console games cost more than the same title on PC.
That’s not all! Since several different distributors compete for PC game sales, you’ll hardly ever pay retail price for a PC game. Whether it’s a pre-order discount or price cuts mere months or even weeks after launch, there are always amazing deals to be had on PC games. Console games, in contrast, tend to hold their full price for much longer. They also don’t enjoy price cuts nearly as deep as those on PC when they do go on sale.
This is where the main equalizer in the price of gaming on PC vs console comes into play. However, this clearly depends heavily on how many games you buy.
For argument’s sake, let’s say that a console game costs $10 more than the PC version on average. If you buy one game a month for five years, that would be $10 x 12 months x 5 years. Equalling $600.
If you had added that $600 to your initial console purchase and bought a $1000 PC instead, your total expenditure would have been the same. These days, a $1000 can buy a pretty decent gaming laptop or desktop. However that’s just one area of hidden cost that console gamers have to contend with.
Online Services Costs
Since the PC offers an open platform, players don’t have to pay for functions such as multiplayer to a third party. On consoles, online multiplayer is usually reserved for a subscription service, which is in addition to any actual game subscriptions you might have to pay.
Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have all sweetened the deal by adding discounts and “free” digital games into the mix. So whether that’s worth the cost will be up to individuals. However, the bottom line is that if you want to play online at all the fee isn’t optional.
So the value added aspects don’t carry that much weight. If you add the difference in monthly online multiplayer subscriptions to the average difference in game prices, it further equalizes the price difference between PC and console hardware over the console life cycle.
Upgrade Costs
Next, we need to factor in the cost of upgrading a PC. First of all, upgrades to PC over the course of it’s console equivalent generation is optional. At least when it comes to cross-platform games.
A rather recent development with consoles is the mid-generation upgrade. Which gave us the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X. Neither of these were essential upgrades, but they did offer a fairly affordable bump to graphical power.
The CPUs for these mid-generation machines were virtually unchanged. So if you did the same thing to your PC mid-generation and only upgrade the GPU, then you’d spend about as much (or less) as you would on a new, updated console. From that point of view upgrading has a negligible effect when comparing PC vs console.
Do You Need A PC For Other Things?
The next important consideration when calculating comparative cost is whether you need a computer for anything besides gaming. If you do need a computer for more than gaming, then the console’s cost is in addition to that of a non-gaming PC.
In that case, you might as well add the costs together and get the gaming PC. If you don’t need a PC at all, then we can leave it out of the cost comparison.
A Different Perspective On Costs
As we’ve seen, if you look at the total cost of ownership over the lifespan of the typical console, the cost differences of PC vs console aren’t nearly as dramatic as they’ve been made out to be. Of course, PCs can be incredibly expensive at the high end, but this is not a comparison of extremes.
Then again, we shouldn’t forget that consoles have unique advantages as well. For example, they are designed to be shared household machines rather than being personal. Also, they don’t require as much technical knowledge to operate or buy. However, from a pure cost perspective, if you can afford a higher upfront price, there’s a strong argument to be made on the PC side of the equation.
