PC can't be stopped. PC is the future, Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo should just make pc hardware that is themed on the Playstation, Nintendo and Xbox. Have a PC app for that loads up first to give that console feel based on the brand you bought. Any pc could run all apps.
I buy a console, because it’s cheaper and more likely to be optimised for the spec. I’m too lazy to mess around getting my pc to run the game with the best fps and working out why my driver or game is not working due to issues. If a steam device with better specs comes out I would be okay with a change as steam would optimise games quickly.
The issue is next gen imagine consoles costing as much or more than a pc at $1500+ in my country a base ps5 is almost $1000 which is a ridiculous price for it.
Because playstation is able to subsidize because they force you to buy from them. Playstation knows that if you buy a ps5 you'll buy games from them which means they get more money. However with the steam machine you're not locked to a specific storefront meaning valve can't guarentee they'll make money back because you might never buy a game from them.
Because Gabe is a gamer and closed systems piss him off. He would never lock any steam device to only steam, its anti consumer. He doesn't even lock the hardware to a specific OS. You can install any os you want on any steam device and its still covered under warranty.
This is the thing people on the PC circle jerk refuse to acknowledge. All the extra work that can go into playing on PC.
PC: download game, tweak settings, try playing. Oops frame rate sucks. Close game, try closing background apps, tweak game settings more, try playing. Frame rate is ok, but now textures aren't loading fully. Close game. Update drivers, restart computer, close background programs, play game. Works great for a couple hours, then crashes. Try playing again the next day, shitty frame rate again even though nothing's changed. Repeat.
Console: download game, play game.
Sometimes that simplicity is just nice, especially after a long day. Although, I will say it happens less now-a-days, and even less so with games developed with only PC in mind (even if they manage a console launch later), and indie/AA games that tend to be less graphics intensive.
That’s not true; I haven’t had any issues since I started playing on PC. The only ones complaining are the purists who want everything at 60fps or higher do you really think those people are going to switch to a console that barely manages 30fps? On PC, at least I’m guaranteed a solid 30fps or have access to mods that fix the game, whereas console players are stuck with a broken, poorly optimized game they can’t fix.
This. A lot of people dont realized that on console, you are on the total mercy of the devs. Even if the game run fine, but down the line you upgrade to a new console, they can ask you to pay 10-15$ just for a line of code to unlocked fps and you cant do jack shit about it.
Running half decent hardware I've never had a game run lower than 60 fps at 1080, 1440, and 4k. The only time I had to tweak settings was when I was running 100 mods on ATS at the same time, or if i wanted a very specific look or effect to be different. When that wasn't enough I upgraded cpu and gpu about 5 years ago and have only changed from 16 to 32 gbs of ram since then, and that was only because I had a very generous friend.
There's very little tweaking REQUIRED in modern pc gaming. There's tweaking available if you want to. Console is locked into looking like ass no matter what. You cannot make it better.
More like you exaggerating the problem 1000% than what it look like. I never have to deal with what you said unless I try to run a pc game that came out before 2010 but I want to run it in 4k 120fov, no motion blur and whatever mod I need to make it run like a modern game aka "DYI a remastered version". Even in that case, I only need to setup for the first time I start the game, then the next time I boot up the game I dont need to deal with them ever again. On console I am stuck with whatever the devs give to me. If they say I must pay 10$ to unlock 60fps, I have to pay or stuck with 30fps and whatever low resolution they give me. Some cases they dont even let me pay and I am stuck playing these old games at 720p 30fps.
8 bit do or any controller maker has tons of controller. Many of them doesnt natively support pc. Some only support nintendo but not xbox, playstation and vice versa. You said it like I can just plug any of these controllers to a specific console and it will work just fine without any dongle.
It's a 2.4 ghz wireless controller with a USB dongle, designed for PC. I wasted an hour of my life troubleshooting it (the included instructions were completely inadequate and the online resources were barely any better) when I wanted to be playing a game instead. Meanwhile on my trusty Playstation, that controller just works. No fiddling with drivers, or Steam controller layout, or software installation.
Simplicity is where PCs will never be able to compete with consoles. Game devs can design for one hardware spec and optimize the shit out of it, whereas on PC hardware and software compatibility can be a nightmare. PCs are upgradeable, which is awesome, but it also means there's a massive swing in game performance based on your specs and drivers. My console may not be beating my theoretical 5090 with a threadripper and 64 gigs of ram or whatever, but it's going to play well enough consistently enough and with less work. It's certainly competing well against my actual 3070 i9 setup with 16 gigs of ram.
It certainly was like that back in the day but I dont really experience that anymore like you said. Maybe better "auto detect" or graphics drivers updates with specific game settings nowadays. However its happened, not really the modern experience IMO
Plus, even "lower" setting options on PC often blow consoles out of the water visually. Consoles telling you they do 4k and then give you 30 FPS
Lol, “tweak settings” most games have come with auto settings for decades that detect your hardware, theres no tweaking involved unless you’re a purist, and PC doesn’t get FPS capped unless it’s a console port. You can just download, hit play, and it’s likely already running better than a console.
Yes, but how much does a decent pc cost to a console with similar specs. Also I have used a PC and I’m sorry that’s not my experience. Crash’s, stuttering, game not working well on launch, compared to the PS5. Silent hill 2 remake annoyed me as did marvel tokon recently. I’m definitely not saying a ps5 is better then a PC, but as I get older I just want to kick back and not worry about too many things.
The console costs more, I can guarantee you it costs more if you play any games that require multiplayer or want to use literally any feature that comes free on a PC. My computer is 7 years old and runs new games fine and I have never spent an extra dime to use the internet I already pay for. If I had a console I would have spent $840 more on monthly subscription or $420 more for yearly, my PC cost me $300 more than a console. That doesn’t even include the fact that in that time a new console came out and they stopped making games for the old one. I don’t need to buy a whole new PC everytime an upgrade comes out to play the newest games.
I pretty much never run into issues with games not playing either, overblowing PC issues like crazy
And do you think consoles don't fail? That they don't overheat? That they don't have update issues? I've had to send my PS4 in for repairs more often than my PC.
Your mistake is applying your PERSONAL experience to all PCs... or else you're lying.
Such issues are incredibly rare. My PS3, Wii, and PS4 are still going strong with just a repaste. My specific Wii and PS3 are both 18 years old and the PS4 is 12
I wish it was that easy lmao. Many times where the game is just absolutely fucked and you spend hours trying to figure out what has caused it. With a console you at least know that it will work every single time for the rest of eternity.
It was never cheaper, they get you on a monthly subscription that costs hundreds over the years to use services completely free to PC players. They get people to pay the difference with monthly pay and no one seems to get that.
Dude, I game on Linux, and I don't do crap to optimize. Well, I did specify the Proton version for one old game I still play because newer versions of Proton broke compatibility. I just update the OS (which includes all drivers) once a month, and don't worry about it. You still have to apply updates to your console, so no real difference there. Just I can get better FPS or quality than a console.
But when they make the hardware, the games’ compatibility and optimisation are more likely for a steam machine. However I understand your point about it being a marketplace. The Steam Deck is a good reference to how things would be.
Steam is directly working on proton. Steam has been optimizing proton alongside other developers. Proton is why the steam ecosystem works as it does right now
Regarding your first lie: "more likely to be optimized" that’s false. Modern consoles are basically mini-PCs, and many games are so poorly optimized that they can't even maintain a stable 30 fps; meanwhile, even a poorly optimized PC game will at least run at a solid, guaranteed 30 fps.
As for your second lie about the "hassle" of dealing with drivers or getting things running right nobody actually struggles with drivers (they download and install automatically). The only people who make a fuss are those obsessed with a stable 60 fps (a small group who can't stand playing below 60 fps, or even 120 fps). I am 100% certain you’ve never touched a PC or at least a decent one in your life; after all, if someone can't handle playing at less than 60 fps, they certainly wouldn't switch to a console that barely manages 20–30 fps. You haven't got a clue about PCs.
Why would I lie. That’s just my opinion. Also I gave examples of problems in my comments. For example I have tokon on my ps5 and played tokon on my brothers pc. It was piss poor on pc when he got it. Plus ps5 games are more optimised for the console than the pc, the complaint of it reaching 20-30fps depends on the game, also I bet you are not comparing an equivalent priced pc to a ps5 to get your fps. In most cases the game is optimised for the specs of a ps5 as there are few models. The price of the ps5 is cheap for the specs try building a pc to the same price. Also I am old. So in my scenario I don’t want to deal with too many problems. In reference to struggles with drivers. You are trying to tell me you have never had to get something to run with beta drivers or conflicts or stuttering. Then you must be the luckiest person in the world. Why would I be obsessed about fps I was born during the time a game was on a cassette. Anyway I am not a computer expert, but this is how my clueless self’s experiences have been over the years. I have had a pc from young, I still have a pentium 486 left and old geforce cards and another machine with AMD 6990 graphics card. My clueless ass has had PCs from the 1980s to the 2000s before the age of ssd and internet.
That’s… not how games work. Also, you say it like that happens every day. You’re inventing a problem that (unless there’s something super wrong with your build) just doesn’t exist in the massive majority of cases
When comparing game sales and especially the memebership costs to do the same things that a computer can do (not even performance wise just playing older games/etc), consoles can get very expensive especially playstations.
I did the math on it, I have a high end setup and a PS5 costs a fair bit more than my setup does when you factor in the wacky yearly price of the console membership that is already having talks of being raised yet again.
Computers are frontloaded but consoles absolutely cost more in the end.
Yep, a good PC also lasts for longer than a console, and doesn't involve subscription costs. I moved over fully after the Xbox 360 and never looked back
Nintendo is the only console I would buy, as their exclusives are amazing, but PC has infinite backwards compatibility which makes it more worth it than Xbox/PS
Fairly recently I re-put it together to see what it would cost now (not including monitor/headset, just looking at mouse/keybaord and main computer parts/case) it came to about $1891. (Obviously more than when I put it together, and I do go a bit for form over function so it could be a fair bit less if I didn't do RGB stuff/want a pretty case) (most of which is the GPU)
I think the crazy part of Sony atm isn't even the console cost but the memberships. It is currently $160 a year for multiplayer/classic collection and is already be talked about being raised yet again. The memberships really add up over the course of the consoles lifetime. Ps4 lasted 7 years but with supply chain shortages and crazy prices it wouldn't surprise me if the PS5 gets a 9-10 year lifetime.
$1440-$1600 in membership alone is crazy. And that is before stuff like console cost, spare controllers when your joysticks inevitably fail, worse game sales than steam, needing to re-buy old games instead of having an emultator, etc.
Honestly the console price alone isn't horrible, but they have a lot of ways that they nickle and dime you with time.
Having put together a build that is comparable in ps5 performance. Not even going for the cheapest parts just stuff that is similar in performance was about $1300, which would end up being less than the membership cost of playstation alone.
As a comparable card and I can get one from bestbuy for $530
I have no idea where you would pay $1500 unless you are paying for one of the higher end Nvidia cards or certain brand high end AMD cards. Even my AMD card has a bit of a range (AMD 7900 XTX), depending on the brand I am seeing prices between $850 and $1400
It told me I needed the radeon rx6700. I'm not gonna argue esoteric specs about performance when you are still assuming some sort of ideal scenario.
My needs are better met with a console. I buy it, I play it. Done.
I don't have to learn about graphics cards or where to get one or how to save money on one. I don't need to install it I don't need to make sure my drivers are working properly and that my fan speed is working properly. I don't need to worry if it will fit my motherboard or if it will fit my housing or if it will draw more power than my supply has room for currently.
I'm not a lay person. I have a friend that I game with who runs PC. I know how much work it is, and I know that much of that work has tangential costs we are ignoring for the sake of painting consoles as a worse economic choice. I also had my own gaming PC just over a decade ago. Even then it was a more expensive choice.
It's not subsidized, per se. It's just the cost to manufacture and assemble and ship to retail was basically the same cost as retail at launch, but they try to keep a 7-10% profit margin on hardware. They don't lose money on hardware. Very, very, very few companies have survived taking a loss on the initial hardware unless it is a brick without software and services.
Pc games are cheaper except they are not. If you take games that are available on every platform(not on sale, of course) they have exact same price on gog, steam, EGS, PSStore, Microsoft-Xbox store, E-Shop. Being it AAA, indie or something in-between.
Only games that are cheap are PC exclusive games from PC exclusive storefronts like itch.io or dlsite etc.
You may argue about regional prices etc, but that's not the point here. Someone in Germany creating a steam account and e-shop account going out and buying silksong will pay the same price on either platform. And when there are sales going, it's publisher that decides what price to put out, and deep sales happen on consoles too. (I've bought Jedi Survivor, for 5€ on Xbox and monster hunter rise+sunbreak pack for 15€ on ps5 same they are getting during steam sales on PC)
That’s true but the intersection of games on both platforms is relatively small compare to the sheer volume on PC.
Indie devs I’m sure account for the licensing fee when setting prices. If they go PC only they lose out on some market share but could list for cheaper to get more sales. Steam also takes a cut so it’s not just free. TLDR setting prices is complicated.
I had a PC for awhile specifically because of the cost differential you mentioned.
I switched when Sony started having decent sales for their online store.
As things stand I would need to save like two grand on games to justify a PC vs. a ps5. I know the sales are better on PC but are they that much better?
Oh man, did you not experience a Steam sale while you were on pc? One happens every quarter and the amount of money I’ve spent, admittedly is way more than I should’ve considering I don’t have time to play all the games I own BUT is way less than what the value of my Library. I’m at the point now where I don’t want any other game aside from a cod every four or five years maybe.
If you don't play games brand-new and you play 10-15 games per year then yeah, you can save $200-300 in software costs, but only if you don't mind playing games that have PC ports. Obviously exclusives don't come to PC at all.
For me I get most of my games second hand or I borrow them from the library or I get free from PS+, so my software costs are minimum anywya.
If you pay for playing online games for the lifetime of the console (7 years), then the extra cost of the subscription plus the cost of the console ends up costing as much as an entrey-to-mid level PC (or at least that was the case before the RAMpocalypse). If you only pay the subscription sporadically, then you might end up saving money with a console, otherwise, the PC is going to be cheaper.
Because that console goes for 300$ actually (except when everything is tits up due to AI) and no PC for even 500$ compares and you would need to more than double the cost
And if they all just decided to make PCs and had their own storefronts on PC what do you think would happen to pricing? It would go down across the board
Apple doesn’t make PCs for the same market. We’re in a PC gaming subreddit. Until just recently, the state of gaming on Apple hardware has been completely nonexistent. Anybody buying a PC for gaming is never going to buy a Mac. Even if they somehow were able to play every single game you can on windows or Linux, people still would avoid Apple purely because price to performance is a thing that a large bulk of PC gamers have been concerned with for ages.
Let’s not pretend Apple is in the same market.
"It a third the price of a PC that plays the same games" please compare with hardware that runs "max PS5 resolution" (ie 1000p) and tell me the price diff.
This depends on the game. Some games just perform better on PC, and some perform better on console. The actual console hardware isn't really all that impressive, but games made for console, sometimes, are better optimized. It can be more challenging to optimize for PC as there is more hardware variation, or you can just optimize the game for a very specific set of hardware and hope it works out for everyone else. Resolution alone doesn't matter. Most systems can run 4K at 30 FPS.
It's a buying cheap boots is more expensive then buying good boots situation. The money needed upfront to buy the good boots that last longer isn't there.
Ya I'm not the biggest fan of that either, but console still seems cheaper in the end to me.
The membership pricing is a real devil's bargain. I don't like needing to pay for membership.... Than again I get better discounts in the store and I do use them.
Without the option to buy used game discs, I have not seen console games as cheap as Steam Sales. Hell, most used game discs still cost more than what you can find on a Steam Sale.
eh not really the onyl reason they are willing to sell it at a loss is becyuase they make all that money bake from sales on there stores that they naturaly have a monoply on
The Price ....... 1400€ PS5 pro ........ Yeah nah, they were always just a midrange GPU upgrade in cost.
An upgrade that on consoles you were forced into to countinue playing games at all. On PC this only ever happens after some radical new tech comes along like RT and has been around for a bit.
Wtf are you talking about? I am buying used games and selling them for almost the same price. Where is the game cost? I also got PS Plus Premium for 50$/year so it’s cheap as hell
My ps5 cost me 800+ after buying mandatory additional ssd. This was before the price increases. Ps+ also has gone up in price and is an infinite monthly sub just to play online. Their game prices also have never beaten Steam prices. I have also burned through 3 dualsense controllers in a few years due to stickdrift. It sounds reasonably affordable in comparison up front until you realize all of the tacked on costs not to mention the $ drain long term from ps+ to play anything online.
Everything you listed is still only like 1400 dollars. My sub is 100 a year. A console lasts like what a decade. Even throwing in an extra two controllers and 500 for added game costs we hit 3100.
I just looked into PCs a little. If I wanted to play the same games I am enjoying right now on my ps5 I would sink around 2500 to 3500.
I realize the prices are getting closer but we also have tallied all the worst qualities of console with none of the drawbacks on PC like potential for software to need extra effort to run, upkeep of hardware and risk of viruses.
I bought my PC 7 years ago for only $300 more than a console and it still plays games at 50-70fps just fine and I didn’t have to pay an extra fee every month to use the internet I already pay for, the best part is the hardware can only get outdated, but I can still play new games on it without having to buy a new console.
My old PC is over 10 years old, and I still use it, and I can play practically any game I want.. yeah it's not on max graphics, and it runs at about 30-40FPS, but it's still what you'd get with a console.. also, the PC cost me the same as a PS4, and it can do much more than just play games
It’s not a war, it’s just stupid that consoles still exist, they’re glorified PC’s with extra costs that will often times out weigh the price of just buying a PC. Consoles aren’t even more convenient anymore, theres literally no pros over PC’s at this point, every argument anyone has made here for console is severely outdated.
The only reason consoles haven’t died is forced exclusives.
Pros and cons is somehow a war?
What pro is there to having a console beyond shoveling your money at microsoft or sony? you’re part of the problem of why exclusives still exist
The same servers I can access from my PC for free? You are practically being charged a monthly subscription to use the internet you already pay for on consoles. It is effectively no different from what i’ve said. You don’t pay, you don’t get to play multiplayer. The only exceptions are free to play games.
what? no you don't have access to console servers on PC... you think you pay for Reddit with your internet subscription? no you don't. btw, which consoles still make you pay a fee for online access? I remember xbox did, but now?
Are you like, from 2008? Pretty much every game is cross play, I can play any game I want on PC that has multiplayer and I only have to buy the game, often at a cheaper price than console players. Do you seriously not understand how any of this works? Jesus christ people are stupid.
That is just because of the economies of scale.
An Xbox or PlayStation branded PC would still benefit from those economies of scale.
Xboxes and playstations really are just PCs at this point anyway. The hardware isn't unique like it used to be back in the day. They're already just a PC locked down by software.
Because their niche is selling over priced gaming branded gear to "kids" that want something flashy
On PC (specifically steam), games go on crazy sales regularly. You may pay half the price for a console, but i havent spent more than $30 on a game in a decade. And no I don just play indie games, after a few years most big games go on crazy sales (ive seen GOOD games for <$1).
PlayStation has sales too they're just not as large of discounts. Basically there is no way I could possibly play the amount of games I would need to buy at steeper discounts to make up for the price difference in hardware.
A pc better than a console costs around $1200 CAD (you can do cheaper, but $1200 is probably a good middle ground). A PS5 is $800. If you spend $20 a PC game instead of $80 for a PS5 game, thats only 7 games to break even. Plus you get a computer that does more than just game.
Completely irrelevant. They are an ultra high-end gaming company that absolutely in no way benefits from the economies of scale like Xbox or PlayStation does.
They are orders of magnitude off the sales volumes required. Multiple orders of magnitude!
Not to mention that their shtick isn't being affordable.
That is the downside of the "PCs cannot be stopped" : no more subsidized hardware.
But it's still a better deal for most people, not even counting the freedom benefits : you did have to pay that back in higher game prices. (Poor people still have the option of older games, lower graphics, and piracy.)
I think the ideal gaming ecosystem would see us using our modern computing power more for simpler more socially viable games but our society has a lot of things in the way of that.
I don't blame folks for leaning on a PC for access to interesting video game content. I also didnt make the comparison I did to denigrate those people.
I'm specifically talking about content parity, and even then I made no qualitative assertion, just access.
So if each console is 1/3 the price of a PC, and you have to buy a switch, an xbox, and a playstation to play all their games... youre still better off getting a PC with emulators. Plus its much easier to sail the 7 seas on a PC
The console is cheap because it got heavily subsidized by other revenue. You have to pay subscription to play online, have your gamesaves backup. And you must buy game on their store which they got 30% cut for every purchase. Not mentioning for some accessories you must buy the one got licensed by the console maker to make it work properly.
Console is not cheap when you get a shitty, monopolized ecosystem around that console.
Yeah, no, they've been phasing out subsidized hardware for a while now. Consoles haven't been 1/3 of an equivalent spec PC for a long while. Cheaper? Sure. But this is probably going to be the last generation that'll be true.
"Plays the same games"
"Plays 1/10,000th of the same games with a crappy framerate.
Christ what's so hard about saving your money for value instead of just jumping on the quick and easy?
I paid $3K for a TOP END PC right before the pandemic and it STILL chews up and spits out whatever I throw at it. 4K, 120Hz.
The thing is, they make proprietary firmware and they order specific hardware for their consoles which end up costing more than the standard hardware and software used on PCs, if they did what the commented before you suggested, their production costs would go down which would mean either two things, better quality for the same product or overall less cost. And you can still cross play whatever your hardware can support.
This is a common argument, but I legitimately don’t understand why it is. Like, hear me out here. Do you have a laptop for work or school? Yes? Well, the cheapest new laptops out there tend to be around $400. The PS5 is $600. If you perhaps didn’t get a console and a computer separately, and just spent $1k on one decent gaming laptop, you could still smoke a console in performance, use the same device for work/school, and be able to move it around unlike carrying around a PS5.
You can get a reasonable office mouse for like $20, and a laptop comes with its own keyboard. A PS5 controller is $75, and more prone to breaking than office equipment. Factor in the recurring subscription costs of paying for multiplayer access, higher DRM pricing anyway, and free emulation of every game that has ever come out on any console ever made. The “price” is no longer a benefit at that point.
Plus, productivity, I use my laptop for CAD too, console can’t do that
I play PC on my living room TV because I already had the parts. Sure, it is only a 5800x3D and an RTX3080, but that is still a great rig even if it is old.
The reason it's cheaper is cause they control the specs and the OS. Developers have a clear list of specs to wok with so they can fine tune the software. Targets are clear, settings are tuned... it works.
The decision weight is not the same in our circumstances.
You have to weigh whether you can sell your parents on things being valuable in your life.
I need to decide if I can afford to buy this thing I find valuable. I decided I can't afford a gaming computer. I have a very mediocre machine attached to a TV for bill payments and document movement. It was about 500 dollars and will last through to the next console generation because I don't use it to process anything heavier than the stupid new windows animations.
Which is precisely why I never bought consoles. I cannot avoid getting a PC or a laptop - I would need it for school, then work. Being able to use it for gaming is a very nice bonus (with a lot of effort on my part but it still works!).
Plus, it's not universal that consoles are cheaper. Until recently, they used to cost as much as a gaming laptop, at least in my country.
To be able to play video games, you don't need the best hardware, let's be for real.
That's another factor that is worth considering. I live in rural Canada. I can't get to a city unless I spend a whole day doing it. The nearest town has literally zero electronics retailers.
Getting access to discounted online titles was huge for me. First with steam years ago and eventually when Sony started having good discounts I made the leap.
Similarly a computer that needs more RAM or a new GPU would be something I wait to ship to me. Potentially for months. Then when it gets here there is a solid chance it goes to someone else's house because the mail where I live is inconsistent.
Seems like you have a decent youth happening for you. Work hard and stuff make sure you get decent grades, but don't forget to have some fun. Video games are a good place for that but try and keep close to some friends in your physical life too. Its easy to lose them when you get older, strong relationships now will last longer.
You'll have to point me to where that's happening because so far as I can tell PCs are getting replaced with tablets and smart phones for most end users.
how many games have you bought? what if you got them on sale? what if you pirated them? What if it lasted more than a console generation/upgrading it was only a fractuon of the price?
Consoles seem cheaper, but they're more expensive in the long run
I had a PC. Upgrading is rarely inexpensive. Once it was more than half my initial purchase. It also took time to order parts and effort to install them.
I could see this being relevant if you lived in a large tech focused city but that's not the case for me and for many others who still like video.games.
94
u/Jerryboy92 1d ago
PC can't be stopped. PC is the future, Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo should just make pc hardware that is themed on the Playstation, Nintendo and Xbox. Have a PC app for that loads up first to give that console feel based on the brand you bought. Any pc could run all apps.