Yes

by Rahman Majere

Created on: April 03, 2011   Last Updated: January 11, 2012

Game consoles are essentially luxury items. Unlike staple food, shelter and clothing, it is clearly not a basic necessity. Consider other common luxuries such as vacations and designer shoes and you can easily see that a video game console is marginally or significantly cheaper in comparison.

Yet for the price of well of several hundred dollars, the gamer gets at least several months of entertainment. More commonly, a decent game console can keep one amused for many years with the occasional title purchase now and then. This boils down to less than a dollar for every game hour and that's quite a bargain indeed provided that the gamer chooses his games wisely.

We have not even considered the replay factor of these games yet. Many console games like the Final Fantasy series offer divergent skill trees and even story elements at times. As such, a single game may well offer dozens, if not hundreds of hours of gaming goodness. Very few items in our possession give us so much value as a game console.

Of course, many of these same strengths of the game console can also be found in the PC whose choice of games can be argued to be wider. It's true that the PC probably has more games made for it than any console. Many would also argue that the PC has greater upgrade options and versatility.

But despite these issues, the game console has strengths of its own. For one thing, the game console itself is often significantly less expensive than a solid gaming PC. The PC's upgrade options are also often a double-edged sword. Without very good knowledge of software and hardware, the PC gamer will often find his games crashing or behaving unexpectedly. In marked contrast, the game console is generally more reliable. This is because the developers have created the console games with a specific platform in mind while a PC game developer has to contend with the great variety of possible configurations that a PC may have. After all, even PCs of the same brand and model can be different from one another depending on the specific drivers and other software that the user has installed. It's also worth noting that the upgrade options of the PC are not completely free as a powerful graphics card can take up as much as half or more of the price of a game console.

Another strength of console games that can justify the cost is its multiplayer features. Computer games have their own multiplayer strengths too, but they don't really lend themselves as well to "hot-seat" multiplayer options. For example, fighting games such as the Street Fighter series are often best played on the console game. The way console games work allow the players to take advantage of their huge and powerful television screens and whatever investments they make in such devices will now reap extra dividends. It's also worth noting that the customized controllers of game consoles are often well suited to party games.

The most dramatic example of this is the new generation of console motion sensors. PS3's Move, Wii and XBox 360 Kinect are all steps towards this new paradigm. You will usually have to fork out a little extra cash for the motion sensors themselves, but the benefits are well worth the price. The sheer range of possibilities are truly exciting as the human body is capable of so many movements and nuances. XBox 360 Kinect, in particular, has shown us a glimpse of such potential with its amazing Dance Central. Together with the ability to download content for a nominal fee, such technology argues for the relative affordability and replay factor of the game console.

In summary, game consoles are generally not too expensive for the sheer amount of entertainment they can offer. Additional devices such as motion sensors and dedicated controllers should not be viewed as additional expenses, but rather as benefits. At any rate, many dealers give generous discounts when bundling up such products. Once the set itself is purchased, the customer can then look forward to countless hours of entertainment especially in this age of highly replayable console game titles!

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