ampersandrewConfirmed: PS5 console prices are being raised by $100 | VGC
SammyJK
ripcordConsoles were also a lot simpler then. And we were finding lots of ways to reduce cost ( chip count reduction, etc) as technology evolved rapidly
Were consoles really simpler then? Seems like consoles today are just like PCs whereas decades ago they all had custom shit.
Paranoid FactoidMy ColecoVision kicks your Atari ass. Don’t you be mouthing off about ‘simple!’
Kyden FumoflySame with RAM, HDD space, GPUs, Phones… Shit the whole tech industry really sucks today.
Its because they’ve already burned through all the good ideas and iterative designs have reached the point of diminishing returns. What’s something 2026 tech can do that six-year-old 2020 tech couldn’t? With the introduction of AI, a lot of tech has become objectively worse with no replacements in sight.
Great news for the steam machine. The price difference gets smaller as they raise closing the gap.
Thanks xbox for leaving the market to allow this.
Xbox had already begun raising prices for the same reason Sony’s doing so now.
NOT_RICKBut we still don’t even actually know what the steam machine is going to cost yet, do we? Could be a fucking fortune.
It almost certainly will be, but so is everything else.
Why do people buy a console instead of a PC? I just can’t understand, seriously.
There are fewer and fewer reasons as time goes on, but the big one is that it’s usually a lower up-front cost (in a lot of cases, still is) and just works without any fuss. We might find the fuss on PC to be pretty minimal, but on console, it approaches 0. PCs have gotten easier to work with, people have become more literate in how to use them, and the long-term savings on PC with a significantly sized library have become more apparent, but there will always still be a market for something like a console, even if that means they abandon some of their defining traits in order to survive the future.
Naho_ZakoYup. I wanted to play FF VII Rebirth, but apparently SE can’t be assed to optimize their flagship game for PC, so I stuck with the PS5 version because it just works. I don’t want to deal with stuttering and downloading weird drivers to get it to maybe not stutter. I don’t care about mods and ultimate graphics. I just want to play the game.
BigDaddySlim“…and just works without any fuss”
Unless you bought an Xbox One/Xbox One X and found out the software was total shit and you can find yourself forcing system software repairs and having video cut out issues on the One X. The amount of times I had to download a repair tool to a flashdrive for the Xbone is embarrassing even for Microslop.
Otherwise your statement is correct
LemmyngI mean, when it comes to console exclusives, some can’t be beat. Nintendo and Sony have proven that console exclusives still drive sales.
Mat Piscatella of Circana makes a good argument that they haven’t proven that. A lot of Xbox titles became all-time PS5 best-sellers immediately after getting ported. People who wanted to play those games could have bought an Xbox at any point to play them before the multiplatform strategy was announced, but they didn’t. He would argue that people have already settled into their platform of choice and just wait for the games they want to come there. Something like a third of all console players (at least Xbox/PS) are only playing multiplatform live service games on those consoles, not any of the marquis exclusives.
And to be honest, that makes sense. In the grand scheme of things, there aren’t even that many exclusives anymore, compared to the deluge that there might have been in the 5th/6th gens.
This is a good point, but leaves Nintendo out of the consideration
And I don’t have data for this, because I’m not an analyst, and Piscatella shares what he shares, so all I’ve got are anecdotal observations.
- Some Nintendo properties have extremely strong moats, as Warren Buffet might call them. Pokemon, Mario, and Zelda especially. Even if a new property like Splatoon does well, it doesn’t mean it’s a system seller the way old exclusives used to be. The lower bound for this moat is clearly what the Wii U did in sales.
- Switch 1 was very popular with children, as the machine is cheaper and more durable than handheld PC equivalents. It was very easy to end up with multiple Switch 1s per household. The industry outside of mobile and Nintendo has done, from what I can tell, a horrendous job of catering to children compared to how it used to.
Speaking for myself, even if I wasn’t pissed off at how Nintendo operates as a company and decided not to be a customer of theirs anymore, they’re still running into the same problems that caused me to lose interest in PlayStation. They can’t put out enough exclusives to justify a $500 machine to play them, since I’m going to be playing everything else, at better settings, for the same or lower price, on PC.
I find it hard to argue with that as I also don’t have data one way or another.
I’ve personally decided that I’m not going to be purchasing any games on console that are available for PC. I was always a console gamer, from the (really dating myself here) Mattel Electronics IntelliVision to the PS5. But more and more they don’t feel worth it to me, and I’ve absolutely loved gaming on my Steam Deck.
Of course, Nintendo is almost certainly never going to bring their games to PC. I am a sucker for Zelda or Metroid, so I usually have a Nintendo console of some sort.
Of course, Nintendo is almost certainly never going to bring their games to PC. I am a sucker for Zelda or Metroid, so I usually have a Nintendo console of some sort.
There’s always emulators
Absolutely. Been there since Nesticle.
There are always a few games that I don’t want to wait for emulation to get right, and the majority of those are Nintendo’s
Also I feel like Nintendo is losing its stranglehold on really good games in their own niche of wimsical platformers that are accessible and fun, but still provide some challenge if you seek it out.
See Astrobot. Hoping for more games in this same vein because its a winner.
pokemon is pretty much slop now, because masuda was “burn out” from making the game for decades.
TwinTitansOne of the best platformers ever made. Absolutely blew me away.
baronvonjPeople who wanted to play those games could have bought an Xbox at any point to play them before the multiplatform strategy was announced,
But then they would have had to use an Xbox. 😋
Something like a third of all console players (at least Xbox/PS) are only playing multiplatform live service games on those consoles, not any of the marquis exclusives.
PC totally makes sense for them, if they can afford the min. requirements.
rozodruwhat console exclusives for the PS5? it has 7. that’s it. only 7 that you can ONLY play on the PS5. (used to be 8 but Death Stranding 2 just came out on PC). and of those 7 maybe ONE of which is a console seller, maybe, and that’s Astro Bot and while it’s a good game I say that as a massive stretch that it’s worth a $650 point of entry.
the ps5 doesn’t have any exclusives that drive sales. none.
It’s funny how we never count the thousands of games you can only play on PC as exclusives. If we throw in emulators and backwards compatibility, there’s just absolutely no contest.
Not to say that there aren’t great exclusives for the consoles, just that the PC ones seem to always get ignored.
I think a lot of the conversation around exclusives comes from the standpoint of what keeps a console player from switching from one console to another (whether that’s a PC, a PS5, an Xbox, etc.), so PC exclusives don’t really factor into it because PC players are almost always a PC gamer plus a console player rather than somebody who is switching from a PC to a console.
That said, I think a lot of people in the industry (and console gamers) really underestimate the vastness of PC exclusives that exist thanks to the indie scene. Most people will think of PC exclusive genres like RTS games, but few people think of Bloodborne Nightmare Kart or all the tiny indie RPG/horror/etc. projects that come out all the time as a reason to switch from a console.
The cost of building a gaming PC has also gone up dramatically.
A whole ps5 is about the current price of just a decent “value” video card. Toss in your ram and storage and you’re looking at three times the price.
Because I like sitting down after a long day and playing games on my big ass oled tv.
I don’t like sitting down and turning on my computer so that it can update Windows, then the game itself needs to be updated. Then the game runs like shit because my graphics drivers updated to a newer version that doesn’t work well with the game I’m playing. So then I have to do some research to find the best driver version to downgrade to. So then I finally get the driver issue fixed and start the game, but now my controller isn’t working because the windows update broke the Logitech drivers my controller needs. So now it’s been two hours, I’m tired, I didn’t get to play any games, and I still have more work to do tomorrow to get things working.
This comment. But now imagine not beeing computer literate. While consoles lost a bit of their appeal in ease of use the last two generation they’re still a nice little walled garden where most of the stuff is just working for you in the background.
I havent bought a current-gen console since the 360 for various reasons. But i get why somebody just wants a playstation and not a gaming pc.
because pc gaming is a huge pain in the ass.
console gaming is not.
Look, I won’t argue that console gaming is easier, but if you think you need to spend hours resolving driver issues on PC, you must not have owned one in a decade. I’m on Linux and playing Windows games without driver issues these days. On the dreaded nvidia drivers that everyone says are awful on Linux (they CAN have issues, but it’s not that common these days). On Windows there should be even fewer issues with gaming in particular since the games are actually made for that platform.
Idk man I’ve been a PC gamer for decades, and in my long career in IT have been a subject matter expert on both Linux and Windows systems and this is just straight up cope.
Drivers and compatibility issues and such are much better now than they were 15 years ago, but at the end of the day you buy a console and you get a guaranteed 8-10 years of running every game with zero problems. Thats something we will never, ever get on PC. It’s just not possible.
i was trying to game on my pc a few months ago and just gave up due to the constant crashes on top of hours of wasted time trying to ‘resolve the issue’.
you can keep telling me how stupid and wrong i am, but my experience of PC gaming is it’s the same as it was in the 90s. the only games i don’t have tehcnical issues with are the indie ones, that don’t even need gpu to run.
my ps5… just works. everytime.
right, and if it doesn’t happen to you it happens to nobdoy else right?
literally any game that requires a GPU for me. across several PCs. I am too old to waste time with that shit anymore. Console gaming is way better for me, it just works.
and if PC gaming was so ‘cheap’ y’all wouldn’t be screaming and crying on here everyday about component prices going up
I don’t anymore, ps5 was my last and I barely use it. It wasn’t worth buying, but I use my ps4 incredibly heavily.
I used to do console because it was easier. You also know a game put out for a system is compatible with your hardware. You don’t have to fiddle with things to get them to work properly, much less well.
It used to be a decent value proposition. It was worth it enough that I’ve had every non-handheld console for decades. The games would be sold cheap used, they always worked, and used consoles were cheap. If you stuck with the secondhand market you could get a system and like 20 games for the price of buying the system and one game of $50 value new. But you could also resell the games if needed for some reason. It was an investment, and it definitely paid off. My collections is worth almost 10 grand now, and I certainly didn’t spend half that much on it, when each game was $10 or less.
Those value propositions changed when physical media stopped being the main thing. Now used games sell for near what new ones do, because they just didn’t make that many. And why would they continue to make them when everyone downloads?
So now your question is valid, but it didn’t used to be in the same way.
Since the Sega MegaDrive, I’ve always been a console kid.
Hal-5700X
SharkWeekCan’t speak for other people, but as a patient gamer it’s a combination of cost and longevity - I can get about 15 years out of a console.
I only upgraded from an original xbox to an xbox 360 because I found it in a dumpster (I did have to fix it and buy a controller, so it wasn’t ideal). My wife’s PS4 is now 11 years old and still works.
I was too damn patient and missed the end of the steam sale this week FFS.
You won’t believe how much time I can get out of a PC, if I wanted to. Backwards compatibility plus frequent sales, plus emulators and mods.
There’s a bunch of reasons why someone might prefer one over the other, but longevity absolutely goes to PC, no question.
Seriously. I have some DDR3 RAM and a motherboard with processor laying around somewhere that I recently was considering digging out to make a second computer out of as a home storage/media server/pihole analogue, and I bet I could still get low quality settings on most recent games to play nicely with whatever parts I can scrabble together.
Idk man I still play my PS3 online to this day.
Not kidding. It has held up quite well.
It’s more cost efficient, and less of a headache to deal with anomalous problems like bugs and driver issues that can be as specific to your unique combination of PC hardware.
It’s not more cost efficient when you include paying for games and 2nd internet.
As a matter of fact, it is.