I miss the days when $500 could build a “console killer”
These days its like 1500. But you still get all the advantages like being able to do whatever you want with it like using productive software to actually do work. Streaming, editing, rendering, 3D modeling or printing, game dev, etc
You will also most likely still make that difference back over the cycle of one console generation through better game deals and no subscription fees for online play.
Also: INDIE GAMES 🎉✨
Because getting your game published in Sonys or Microsofts store is horrible afaik.
For Xbox its a little bit easier since they launched ID@xbox and pushed it the last few years. Not perfect, but way better than Sony
I’m still a PC player through and through, but I will say that the game subscriptions that give you access to AAA games (albeit sometimes a bit after launch) is pretty enticing. Obviously you get better sales and whatnot through Steam, but not having to shell out 50-70 dollars for a new game is pretty cool.
You didn’t hear? That shit is getting nerfed.
My roommate mentioned there was a price increase recently. It is pretty pricey.
You don’t have to justify buying a PC to your mum and dad because it can do Word anymore lol
It is nowhere near 1500.
More like 800.
For a nice PC that will last you a while 1100 (for like a 9600 + 9060XT)
I would say a console killer has to outperform a current gen console. A Xbox Series X has a GPU equivalent to something between a 9060XT and a 9070XT. So yeah in total 1100€ is probably gonna get you something comparable.
Every guide I’ve seen says even a 9060XT 16gb is very overkill compared to consoles.
That was a brief period when consoles were way over priced for the components they had.
That period repeats every 3-5 years approximatly towards the end of a generation but before the new generation is announced.
We’re at that point now. Hard to believe, but the PS5 has been out for five years now.
The reason it’s not happening this time is because Moore’s Law is dead. The original formulation was that cost of integrated components would be cut in half every x months. The value of x changed around over the years, but settled on 24. That cost factor is gone and probably won’t come back without a major breakthrough.
There are improvements in the size of integrated components (which often gets mistakenly labeled as Moore’s Law), but they aren’t getting cheaper anymore.
Ps5 sets my record for most dead joysticks, followed by the Nintendo Switch joycon disaster.
PS4 I had a few controllers die, but that was parts physically breaking.
PS3 I never lost a controller.
I have to go back to N64 for any other broken controllers where the sticks die or buttons break.
PS3 I had to get a new controller, but only because the dog ate the analog sticks lmao. Still using the Mini USB cable it came with 🫡
I had to replace the Micro USB port in two DS4s. I don’t even blame Sony for it, Micro USB is ass. I do blame them for both controllers getting stick drift later though.
I don’t use the PS5 enough for the controller to break.
I’m 3/3 on ps5 controllers breaking.
I bought the pro controller when it came out and it hasn’t broken.
There was a generation where it was true at the launch of the console. That’s the period I’m talking about. Beating a 5 year old machine is hardly worth bragging about.
We are talking about price relative to performace, not performance in general.
But the cost of the hardware is anyways not so relevant when the price difference of the software easily makes up the difference.
Nah it’s the GPU market. Cryptocurrency briefly exploded and now AI is sucking up all of the GPU manufacturing capacity. Back in 2019 I got my RX580 for $175. The AMD 9070 that released this year is a tier down from that and had an MSRP of $550, but an actual price more like $650. The sweet spot of value PC building has shifted from $750 to $1,500 in just a few years. Some of that is just general inflation that affects all parts, but roughly half of that increase is just from the GPU.
It’s impacting consoles too. Consoles uses to get cheaper over time, with both price drops to existing models and new, cheaper models being released (Sony’s Slim models, things like the Wii Family Edition and Wii Mini, the DSLite, etc). Looking at this generation… The original PS5 with a disc drive debuted at $500 in 2020. The “Slim” version also debuted at $500, and just got a price increase to $550. They released a PS5 Pro at $700, and just increased it to $750.
Nintendo is doing it too. The Switch was $300 for its entire life, and now that the Switch 2 is out consumers would typically expect a price cut to move the existing stock. Instead, Nintendo raised the price to $330. The OLED model went from $350 to $400, and the Lite went from $200 to $230.
And of course Microsoft is in on it too. It’s more complicated to write up since they have different storage variants of the Series S|X, but for example a Series S 512GB was $300 at launch (For some reason I remember seeing them for $250, but maybe that was a Black Friday sale or something). Now it’s $400!
Aren’t a lot of those price increases US centric due to asinine tariffs.
They’ve increased in other countries too. The PS5 digital edition costs £70 more today than it did at launch. In 2024 Sony increased the Japan price of all PS5 versions by ¥13,000.
The tariffs aren’t helping, but this has been a trend for years. The gaming console market is not very volatile- prices changes in the US usually happen once every few years, not every few months. The tariffs keep fluctuating all over the place and I would not be shocked if there are more pricing adjustments for consoles specifically next year.
You can blame crypto, you can blame AI, but when it comes down to it everything is worth what people are willing to pay. Clearly companies are pushing that further and further and people keep paying.
I recall it being a period of at least 10 years. A prior generation GPU would run about $150-200. The CPU/Mobo was the most expensive part
You still easily can with second hand components.
It really depends on whether you want the newest games with 128k graphics. I game on a 5 year old Thinkpad* and a first gen switch and am happy about it.
*granted, it was refurbished and still like 2700€, but the same laptop would be cheaper today
The consoles are “cheap” because the controllers, games, and subscription services are expensive.
It’s far, far, far cheaper to game on a PC in the long run. You can buy a pc capable of playing many games for as little as $300 (gmtek or similar micro pc sporting high performance amd cpu). If you want better graphics, you plug a gpu into that for $260 or so (Radeon 9060).
Steam is crazy cheap. Multiple sales a year, and if you don’t like a game you can get a full refund. Free AAA games every week as well from GOG, Epic, and rarely but surely, also Steam.
Yes, Yes, this is true! (I say after spending multiple thousands on a gaming PC where this is absolutely not true).
My Xbox and PlayStation both came with a full normal controller, and console games are constantly on sale. I have absolutely no idea what you’re trying to get at here.
The point of the submission is that PC dumbfucks don’t know how to compare apples to apples. Console gaming is objectively superior due to the benefits of things like warranty, consistency, drivers, software, etc.
A controller is like 20 bucks. My PC can play the vast majority of games ever made out of the box, and for free if I’m willing to commit some crimes.
Software and driver issues like clicking update? Waiting for a reboot?
The same one year warranty that your PC has?
Over 7 years, you’d have to pay $560 to play online on a PS5, assuming they don’t increase the price again. The cheapest PS5, without the disc drive (which is a bad decision if you like cheap games), costs $500.
You can easily build a PC more powerful than a PS5 for $1060, and that’s before you factor in cheaper games.
Over those 7 years, you get 252 free games for the PS5. Meaning the average value of those games has to be like 2.2 for the subscription to pay for itself
They’re not free, you had to pay to access them. The 252 are useless unless you play them and not just a half-dozen titles you like.
And once the sub stops you lose access to the games.
You know what you do get to keep? The games Epic gets giving out to bribe people into using their launcher. I’ve hoarded over 200 games from them, of which I’ve played maybe 30.
I’ve stopped because either it’s been trash games or it’s something that I’d rather play on steam.
Even their exclusives I decided to just wait on because the epic launcher blows.
I don’t think I’m in the majority but I think a non-negligible amount of people would pay a premium to not use epic.
I used some software they gave out, but otherwise I sit on the horde like a digital dragon.
The real reason I’m better than the console plebs is that I still play multiplayer on twenty-year-old games.
Yeah, I just played CS 1.5 with my colleagues during a break. That shit just never gets old.
So old school of you to play 1.5 instead of 1.6
it hits different. dunno.)))) 1.6 feels corporate although not as much as latter iterations.
some $2k beats a console and you get more games, cheaper price, and can do whatever you want with it
so if you’re already getting a computer, it just makes sense
This argument made more sense 20 years ago. Now there’s a lot more people who just don’t need a desktop.
But they need a console?
For a lot less than a desktop that does decent at gaming, yes.
idk about that. I have both and I still prefer using the desktop at home because I can get a much nicer performance out of it than connecting an external display to the laptop. Even for ordinary things like watching a YT video it makes a difference.
people might not need it, but no one who’s not a game developer needs a console either
“Needs” is a tricky word, here.
People want to play games. If they don’t need a desktop otherwise, it’s fine to choose a console for games. The number of people who need a desktop is a lot less than it was 20 years ago.
Where are you living where you can get a good console for $400?
2002
thats how much i paid for a ps5
No one but the once in a blue moon whales are spending 15,000 on a rig. The average rig I build for people is under 1,000 and the setups I see online are usually near there too.
Let’s compare a 6 year price without games.
PC gaming
800 gaming PC 200 mid cycle update to GPU 3-5 years in
PS5
500 non-gaming PC because your ps5 isn’t a useful alternative 500 ps5 650 ps5 pro 4 years in 720 for PlayStation online basic at 10 per month
1000 vs 2370
Laughing at console gamers spending more than the cost of a basic computer on the privilege of using it online via your own internet which you also pay for
PS5
500 non-gaming PC
Come on, dude. Firstly, you can get a non-gaming PC for under $200 easy. Hell, if you know where to look, you can get it for free.
500 ps5 650 ps5 pro 4 years in
Why not just… not upgrade the PS5? Save yourself $650. If you want to “balance” things, the PC guy can save $200 on their own upgrade.
Wait for the PS6, which will be out in '27/'28 and just enjoy the OG console that was released in '20 for the life of the platform.
Like, this is obviously not an apple to apple comparison. And that’s spotting you a generous $800 PC build out of the gate. You’re simply not building a PS5 quality rig in 2020 for $800.
720 for PlayStation online basic at 10 per month
Do I get to charge the PC owner the release price of every PSO title released for free? Because that’s going to come out far higher than $720 over six years.
Are you playing any MMOs on that PC? Should we be charging you the base rate for those as well?
I’m not even a PS5 guy. I tapped out at 4 and game on my PC happily. But I’m not going to pretend console gamers are doing 3x my spend just because it’s possible to do so.
Only a tiny minority of PC gamers pay monthly for anything.
You can’t upgrade the PS5, and the sale price of your 5-year-old unit is like $100.
Free games aren’t included in the 10 per month.
The cost of 18 per month to also have old games costs 1300 over 6 years.
The PC you can get for $200 will be awful to use or die within 3 years or both. It will be ridiculous to repair, so you will buy another 200 special hating the shit you bought both times.
Basically at the root a PC and a console are both good for about 6 years but the 700-1300 you pay for online is going to dwarf the buy up from acceptable PC to gaming PC+ hardware.
Cheap PC are the value option expensive pc are the quality option.
Consoles are kind of in between.
Only a tiny minority of PC gamers pay monthly for anything.
That’s simply not true.
I didn’t say they didn’t watch netflix or have internet.
PC gamers don’t pay a monthly fee connected to their gaming.
Free games aren’t included in the 10 per month
Yes they are. 3 free games a month.
Reading this gave me a headache
Would you like a meme with 8 or less characters and a 2nd grade reading level to calm you down?
No, thanks! I’d instead like a handful of punctuation and proper formatting, for instance:
500 non-gaming PC because your ps5 isn’t a useful alternative 500 ps5 650 ps5 pro 4 years in 720 for PlayStation online basic at 10 per month
With no commas, periods, or maybe a dollar sign before the numbers, if I didn’t know you were making a price comparison, it would just seem you’re just throwing a bunch of numbers around without making any sense.
500 non-gaming PC because your ps5 isn’t a useful alternative
That’s kind of a non-argument. I know a lot of people with desktop gaming PCs who also have a laptop (for school, uni, whatever). The people I know who only play games on console usually don’t have a desktop, they only have a laptop that’s not suitable for gaming. I also know a lot of people who play games on console and PC and therefore have both, plus usually a laptop. And then I also know a lot of people who don’t have ps+/xbox-whatever because they don’t play online games.
I don’t think its a non-argument. If we are talking about PC gaming as a budget option the fact that you CAN have JUST a singular device isn’t obviated by the fact that some people have a separate general purpose PC any more than it is because some people still a $5000 GPU on a $15000 device.
Good, but nowadays the difference for flagship spec is more $800/$3000.
My console from 2020 runs games about the same as PC hardware from 2018. If you built a 2018 spec PC today it would beat the Xbox Series X and PS5, but unlike the consoles, PC components have reduced in price.
Which means the difference with available hardware and matched SSD size would be $650/$900
My gaming PC is also a digital audio workstation, a photo editing platform, a video editing platform, a home theatre PC, and a platform for spreadsheets and financial planning.
Why do people keep reposting this shit?
Which console costs 400$?
Which reasonably price optimized PC costs 15k$?
Yes PCs are more expensive than consoles, but they also hold more value, are more versatile and have lower costs for the Games themselves.
To each their own, we’re alle gamers.
Fine, im in Canada and a ps5 costs $500 and a decent current gen gaming pc costs about $3000 where I am. And no I am no interested in building a pc anymore than I am building a ps5. So off the shelf you’re looking at a 1.5-2k pc just to match the ps5. So not 15k but easily triple the cost of a ps5.
What I like about consoles is that I know the game will always work on my console. I could buy a top end pc and it won’t play next years top games that well
Idk about the prices in canada but 3000 CAD shouldn’t give you a “decent current gen gaming pc”. This is already high end territory where you’re already burning money unnecessarly just to have the latest an greatest. For 2500 CAD you can get a prebuild 9070 XT + 7800X3D system (here). This system destroys the PS5 performance wise. I can get 240-300 FPS in the Finals while the PS5 can get a max of 120 FPS in performance mode with hits to the visual fidelity.
And yes a PS5 is 579 CAD as far as I can see, so a lot cheaper.
However as I stated a PC can run way more different games even without taking emulation into account. Furthermore on PS5 you have to pay 110 CAD/year to play online and PC games generally are cheaper than console games. So there is a significant amount of money you’ll save on the software.
Additionally you kinda are forced to buy a new console when the new generation arrives while I can use my PC for the newest games as long as I want to or the hardware just can’t handle it anymore.
And lastly a PC can also be used for non gaming stuff. You can even get use of the performance for 3D modeling, Video editing, running LLMs or whatever.
So as I stated before both have their use cases, a PC is definetly more expensive up front buy it also just offers more value. At the end it doesn’t matter and everyone can play games on the hardware they want to.
Are we still on this exhausted argument? What’s next Apple or Samsung? People need to chill, just do you, enjoy your gaming experience on whatever you like
Its a funny image with PC owners laughing at ourselves for paying exorbitantly more for a silly crown and you are angry about an “argument”.
Angry?! Brother I couldn’t really care less about this subject, have you seen the comments? People already started fueding so fast, it had to be said, and I give it maximum a week, before another meme surfaces and people will start the same thing all over again, exactly as it used to be on reddit
You clearly are angry with your interpretation of the attitudes in this thread. No one is “feuding”
it had to be said
No, no it did not.
the same thing all over again
As is the cyclical nature of memes, and more evidence it absolutely did not need to be said, because it was dead wrong.
You insist on telling me how I should I feel, so I see no point to this discussion
Yet you posted the initial useless comment that does the same thing.
Every opinion to convince other people is that.
Found the console gamer
Nah, I’m a long-standing pc gamer and I’m so tired of people fighting this stupid fight. If console people can’t afford a pc and want to game on the couch, that’s great. I just happen to be able to afford the fucked up prices nowadays and want to game at a desk with a mouse and keyboard and run a browser and stuff at the same time or whatever. It really doesn’t matter anymore because nobody is gonna convince anybody else of anything and all you’re doing is being an asshole to somebody. Wanna actually improve things? Stop making the world worse.
Do you Think I was trying to hide or something? You would be sorely mistaken, been around this idiotic fued long enough to learn to respect other people’s preferences, that’s all
That would be me and yes, I am morally and intellectually superior to all PC gamers combined.
What moral or intellectual superiority are you talking about? Is this supposed to be sarcasm, maybe? Not really sure what to do with that comment
Just talking shit to bottom of the barrel worthless dumbfucks.
For $800 I think you can get a laptop that is more powerful than consoles, with similar GPU power, but you also get all the benefits of PC gaming. You can’t even mod most console games, which is reason enough to never buy a console. It’s just a way inferior way to game.
Divide PC by 10 and add 300 dollars to console.
I’m certain you can build a $15K USD computer, I bet Linus Tech Tips does it regularly, but idk who tf is doing that when an nVidia 3090Ti is only $1080 and is ranked #23 on PassMark.
Why are you considering buying a 3090 Ti for $1080??? It’s an old card and shouldn’t be near that amount when you can get better performance for less money out of a 9070 xt or 5070 ti.
It’s an old #23rd best card in the world, complete without the faulty newer nVidia cables and sockets, but yeah theres no way people need to spend $15k.
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I have a 3080ti and its even less, and I’m still on max settings in every game at 1440p.
I actually went with a 3080 that had more VRAM than the Ti version at the cost of slightly lower performance, but this unintentionally crashes some games and applications which are not made to handle more than the 4GB memory limit in some 32 bit softwares. It’s too powerful lmao. Someday we’re going to encounter a similar issue when cards regularly reach up to 64GB VRAM.
There is a program that fixes that iirc, I used it for New Vegas. Somebody here will know what it’s called.
ENBoost?
If it wasn’t for Slyrim and thousands of mods, I would agree with you😅
Minecraft would also like a word!
It’s been a while since I played modded Minecraft, but absolutely!
I’ve got a modpack that graphically overhauls literally everything and Skyrim runs fine. It came out over a decade ago and made on the same engine as FO:3, it’s probably hitting the upper limits of its resource requirements if it hasn’t already.
Ever try Lorerim?
Yes, and if you’re genuinely spending $15,000 on a rig you are not competing with a goddamn Playstation; at that point you’re either mixing it with low end datacenters or you’ve now got a ziggurat of monitors on your desk that could backdrop a Daft Punk concert. I just built a pretty much top of the line (AMD based, mind you) machine a few months ago for under $3000. I could have gotten away with less, but I didn’t feel like it.
I suspect that many morons with nothing but decades-old experience, if even any to begin with, still have no comprehension of just how cheap computers are.
