Modern consoles with digital games already blur the lines on console generations, but like, very few games are even using the PS5 to max.
PC you can decide your own “generation”, and if you upgrade your PC, you don’t have to buy remakes, you just turn the settings up.
Between that and locking yourself to one entity to buy games from, there’s a lot of downsides to consoles and not many upsides left.
I was always a fan of consoles, everything is packaged nicely and you only had to worry about buying the game itself.
Eventually I ran into the problem where Sony prevented me from starting a DLC I bought and downloaded simply because the base game is validated for a different region. Umm I’m sorry I live in a different country now?? Couldn’t get their AI chatbot to help with refunds either (but honestly shouldn’t they prevent purchasing in the first place…)
Bit the bullet and built a PC instead. Fuck Sony.
The worst part of this for me is that I remember when you could build a PC with better specs than a console for the same price. Now we’re coming back full circle to where that might be possible again, but graphics cards never truly came down from their inflated crypto mining prices. So that means consoles are just getting more expensive and everybody is losing.
Remember when everyone though the PS3 was insane at 599 US dollars?
For context, $599 in 2006 dollars equals $911.41 in 2024
PS1 launched at $299 in September 1995, which would be about $614 right now.
PS2 launched also at $299 in October 2000, which would be about $541 right now.
PS3 launched at $599 in November 2006, which would be about $935 right now.
PS4 launched at $399 in November 2013, which would be about $538 right now.
PS4 Pro launched at $399 in November 2016, which would be about $520 right now.
PS5 Digital launched at $399 in November 2020, which would be about $482 right now.
PS5 Disc launched at $499 in November 2020, which would be about $603 right now.
It’s also worth noting that the launch PS3 also had a whole PS2 inside of it, which partially explains the inflated price point. I say partially since I’m prrety sure that a PS2 slim cost a lot less than $330 in 2006 dollars; they could have just bundled both consoles or offered a rebate on a PS2 purchase and called it a day.
But friendly reminder: games are almost always cheaper on PC. Maybe not at first, but very quickly.
I’ve been looking for an excuse to switch to pc.
Maybe I’m too Canadian to understand but where on earth are you able to build a decent gaming PC able to play the latest AAA games on high graphics for $700?
No really, please tell me. I want to upgrade my PC.
Edit: For everyone trying to explain it to me.
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There’s more to a PC than a CPU and GPU. Those of you giving me only those 2 that make up more than half of the $700 are kind of reinforcing my point.
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The key thing here is running AAA games on high settings using this budget. You can’t really do that.
I think this article is sensationalizing the situation a bit. It could be $700 (if you already have a case, hdds, psu, and cooling on hand.)
But really comes down to your desired resolution and frame rate. I know plenty of people who are fine with 1080p and 60fps.
1440, 2160 120 is another story. The higher end gpu would likely require a slightly higher tier PSU and more efficient cooling which could add a few bucks to the GPU and CPU investment.
I recommend checking out PC part picker to see what your ideal components would shake out to.
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Steam Deck all the way. Also Sony’s been shit since at least the 2011 hack.
You can also get PC games from all kinds of sources and sales that ultimately are far cheaper than the pithy Playstation sales. It greatly offsets costs over time.
You also have far more backwards compatibility and flexibility especially to do things with controller profiles and mods, etc.
Not to mention in 5 years you can replace one part on the pc and increase performance.
You don’t need to upgrade every part every time
While this is technically true, in practice I’ve found there’s always something the old PC is missing, tech wise.
Socket change. Ram version change. New version of PCIe.
Effectively you need to do mobo/cpu/ram all together.
The only other components are GPU and storage, which I agree are generally transferable, but depending on age you may want to upgrade too.
I guess PSU but that is thankfully something you almost never need to upgrade, unless your new GPU sucks down a lot more watts.
Maybe if I had an AM5 board I would be in a better state, but currently on AM4 so my upgrade paths are limited (already on a 5000 series chip).
You can’t even get probably the equivalent graphics card in there for less than $700. I still think PCs are more expensive.
You can get a comparable GPU for $400 used (rx 6900 xt) and still have $300 for everything else.
Thinking is but a step on the path to knowing.
Does it have to be equivalent? There are plenty of builds that will work just fine for gaming, they just aren’t 1440p or 4k, or 120hz.
There’s also that these computers can do a lot more than just game, so while you’re not getting “top of the line” graphical fidelity from your console, you can actually use it to browse the web, or run some software in your home.
Then there’s also the fact that if you want to play online it requires you pay a subscription. So even just the $10 a month for the subscription is $120 a year for every year you didn’t buy a PC instead.
So, are PC’s really more expensive, or is it the fallacy of needing the absolute best and then paying out the nose in after-ownership fees for the entire duration you own the console?
I’m just going to hang out over here with my (modded) PC games from the early 2000s that I love so much…
Modern AAA gaming is not for me.
I enjoy a AAA now and then but console prices are definitely not for me.
Why would I buy a digital only console for 700 usd? My pc is digital only. The only reason I even buy consoles is physical games, but Sony wants to stop giving that option.
No problem, you can put a disc drive in it for a mere $80 more!
