(Opinion piece) Hello, PC gaming here: Are the consoles OK? With sales dropping and confidence declining, how close are we to the end of consoles as we know them?
With sales dropping and confidence declining, how close are we to the end of consoles as we know them?
You're viewing a single thread.
Consoles aren't going anywhere so long as GPU manufacturers keep scalping their userbase. A console costs less than just a GPU these days, with mostly comparable performance.
Mid-range GPUs still exist, they just dont get the same coverage as the top-end cards. An RTX 4060 is set at $300 which is much cheaper than a PS5 or Series X
$300 for the GPU only. You still need the rest of the PC to play games. The CPU will be at least $150 for anything that will run newer games basically at all, and then your RAM will be at least another $50. Now add on the case, fans, cooler, and any other accessories and for a mid-to-low range PC you've already passed the price of a premium console.
I've been a PC gamer for 3 decades. Most budget conscious PC gamers I know upgrade individual components as needed. Done this way, you can easily get more for your money than having to buy a new console every cycle.
Yes, but if you don't have a PC, or one even remotely good enough, that cost is all up front.
Either way, you end up spending more on PC hardware than console hardware. For the price and for a person that isnt an enthusiast, they really don't have a need to go to PC, when console does everything they want.
Don't forget that games are significantly cheaper on PC, especially if you wait for the first sale (which'll come much quicker on PC). The upfront cost is indeed higher, but depending on how many games you buy you'll probably recoup that cost within one console generation.
I mean, technically every game can be free on PC. But overall anyone that has a gaming PC and a console will definitely be spending more on the PC, unless they are given PC parta for free or something.
The way I see it: PC has a high upfront cost with minimal maintenance/upgrade cost to continue using it with newer releases for years.
Consoles have a cheaper upfront cost but no maintenance/upgrade. Once it's obsolete (as determined by the industry, not the owner) then you are forced to buy a new console for new releases.
For me, in practice, I know for a fact that I have spent less on my PC components and games than I would if I wanted the same experience on a console.
No one is arguing that PCs cost less than consoles. The original point made was that consoles were cheaper than graphics cards alone, which isn't exactly accurate
With consoles, you also run into the planned obselescense problem. If I bought an Xbox in 2015, I would now be at a point where the industry has decided my console belongs in a trash and I need to buy a new one if I want to play modern games. But with my relatively modest gaming PC I built in 2015, I can still play most modern games if I turn the graphics settings down. I haven't upgraded a single part in my 2015 build in years and it still works fine for my usage.
A Ryzen 5600 is less than that and already beats the CPU in the PS5/X1X, especially in gaming.
The "mid-to-low range PC" already beats both consoles and when you consider that games are generally cheaper on PC and you don't have to subscribe to a service just to play online, you're quickly arriving at a point where PC gaming is cheaper while offering superior performance.
The "mid-to-low range PC" already beats both consoles
But not for the money. The console manufacturers sell their systems at a loss, which is something PC part manufacturers can’t do.
This is entirely true, and you don't deserve the down votes from people who refuse to face it.
Building an equivalent system to a console, without a whole lot of luck being involved as far as finding deals goes, is likely to cost nearly double. This is speaking from experience, my current mid-tier PC, which almost performs as well as a current Gen console, cost about $400, and without, as said above, the ludicrous luck I had finding some deals, would've cost about $600, as the GPU alone, one that isn't actually very good at all, retails for over $300.
