Ex-Xbox Exec
X Xbox Xec Series X|S
People have been telling me that consoles are dying and everyone will play on PC instead for over 30 years. The convenience factor of the all-in-one hardware, and the supported lifetime of the platform, can’t be understated. I can see docked phones being a replacement at some point. But I’d be surprised if PCs ever squash out consoles.
Aside from convenience, the price really is a lot cheaper than equivalent PCs. An RTX 4070 alone costs as much as a playstation 5 (with disc), and that comes with a controller too.
But you don’t really need a 4070 for gaming. Just like you don’t need a F150 to drive to work (most people don’t at least). Plenty of lower end hardware does the job well. Over the course of the systems lifetime a PC can be very competitive in terms of prices for games. And it can be used for more than just gaming.
Yeah, it’s the wrong generation and has a little too much power, the closest would probably be a 3060 which was available shortly after the launch of the PS5. But it was still more than half the price of a PS5 and you need more than a GPU for a computer.
That’s not really a fair comparison though. The ps5 has nowhere near the gpu power of a 4070. The PS5 is equal to like a low-mid range PC. Also console players are paying yearly subscription fees to play multiplayer. Plus you can think of the display as a cost as well. You need a monitor or TV, just like a PC. PC is likely more expensive overall, but not by as much as people think. Plus PC gives you so many perks over consoles. So you’re getting a ton more functionality for your money. It’s really not a HUGE DEAL to get a console once you factor these things in. Deal, sure. But not a huge deal.
Im a lifelong PC enthusiast, but I recently bought a PS5.
The amount of games you can play instantly with 14€ a month is overwhelming!
I could never build A equivalent Pc for the same price.
I came to realize that I prefer picking up the ps5 controller and get a game started in less than 30~ seconds instead of gaming on my PC.
People dont deal with more freedom, I know I dont. I have a pc and ps5 and prefer the simplicity of the ps5 setup which is a big selling point.
PC is already larger than active users on both PlayStations combined, and it didn’t used to be that way. Given the Steam Deck and what Microsoft have been saying about handhelds and their next console(s), you’re looking at a very real possibility that the next Xbox is just a PC with a different UI, like the Steam Deck.
Now we’re in philosophical territory with questions like, “What is a console?” It runs PC games, but you can navigate it with a controller. It has most console features but is malleable enough to have most PC features.
Yeah, but now you can buy an all-in-one convenient PC to plug on your TV with almost 100% retro compatibility, it’s called the Steam Deck and it’s awesome.
It may not be a replacement, though they can work hand in hand amazingly.
I’ve found that as long as I leave my pc running at home, I’m able to just hop on 4G mobile data through my phone and stream the vast majority of games.
I wouldn’t try this for multi-player games, but when I want to play Warhammer when I’m away this does the trick!
Or even at home, no more hauling the pc to the TV. Stick it in the corner, and simply stream over wifi.
Personally the only games not able to played on my deck are games like Starfield, which thankfully doesn’t bother me one bit. (Though it worked perfectly being streamed from my 1660ti).
Now if you’re a graphics snob then no, the deck can not compare to a pc. But neither can a console.
Does the deck dock to TV? I always thought the Switch should have a pro dock to upscale when docked.
Im with you except for the “supported lifetime,” I have a PC that can play the original Doom alongside Cyberpunk 2077 with raytracing, and literally everything in between.
My PS3 can play at most a decade worth of games. It is obsolete.
My PS3 can play at most a decade worth of games. It is obsolete.
Sure, but so is the PC that someone bought around the time the original Doom was released.
Not necessarily. You can incremently upgrade your pc over time. Typically for cheaper than a brand new console. Generally as long as you have a nice enough mobo, you could just replace the GPU and suddenly “be able to play next gen games”
I still believe mobile PC’s (like the ROG or Deck) will be the new consoles of the future. Why the hell would I trap myself to a room every time I want to play a game? Now I can walk to any random forest, lake, area, and go play Cyberpunk 2077 for 4 hours with nothing but nature.
Right. Fair enough. But, as another user said, I can upgrade that PC. I’ve technically had the “same PC” since like 2015. At this point, there are no pieces of the original left, but I never went out and spend $1000 on a new rig up front.
Also, that still doesn’t make consoles look amy better. Because, when the PS3 became obsolete, and I went and got a PS4, what happened to my PS3 library? It’s still locked to my PS3. Even if we did have to go buy new computers every 7 years, they’s still all run the original Doom as well as newer games, and everything in between. All this, while also being able to file my taxes.
The improvements of steam and proton, steamlink and big picture mode make it possible to run great games on your TV. Its not „just turn on“ yet but we‘re getting there. I wanted a PS5 when they were unavailable but I since managed to play my favorite games on my tv with a ps4 controller and dont see the point to buy back into a locked up computer with a fancy case for games that have microstransactions gallore.
Its not „just turn on“ yet but we‘re getting there
I think we are 99% there. If you make a decent AMD based machine, install Bazzite on it, you can set it to “Open in Big Picture mode on startup”. After the initial configuration in desktop mode (you need to do this only once during installation), you can just start the PC and sit in your couch. No need to download drivers or any desktop shenanigans. You control it using any standard game controller. No need for a mouse/kb; just start and play.
Thats pretty awesome! :) thanks for sharing. Do you know by any chance if kodi has a steam app somewhere? I‘m going with a raspberry pi and it works well as a client for media but not yet for steam.
As long as there are killer 1st party titles exclusive to a console platform, there’s a reason to buy one.
Personally, I love Zelda, Mario, and most recently I’ve been excited about the new Astro Bot game about to come out.
Outside of Steam Deck emulation, you need a console to play those, and I do enjoy the convenience.
The last Xbox worth buying was the 360, because all Xbox titles are released on other platforms now - eliminating the need for an Xbox console.
As long as there are killer 1st party titles exclusive to a console platform, there’s a reason to buy one.
Counterargument: some of us consider this kind of arbitrary BS a reason NOT to buy one.
And that’s before you even consider the additional crap consoles pull, like Nintendo making the only way to back up your saves a fucking subscription service.
Especially now that there are maybe 2 or 3 “killer apps” per the life cycle of a console at this point. Why would I pay $600 to buy a console, just for 3 exclusives?
If there was an entire panel of awesome exclusives like back in the PS3/360 era, it would make more sense. But as it stands, the amount of good games on PC just dwarfs what’s on any console.
I would agree with your last statement, but in the case of Xbox i think it is by design. They already excitedly talk about windows handhelds being the future and its because the console market has almost always been a loss, even back to the Sega selling massively under production cost to try and take ground from Nintendo. Games were always what made the profit.
In the case of Xbox, their business model for a long time has been moving to a live service streaming model, i don’t think they want to be in the console market. If they can move their app on all kinds of devices, they can skip the investment of the console and instead focus on what the real profit driver was all along.
The new-gen console is actually trending 7 per cent ahead of the PS4 in the United States launch aligned.
And how much do you think the drop in Xbox is? It’s way more than 7 percent. The problem for Sony isn’t that its console is dying; it’s that they’re approaching market saturation. They’ve got their market cornered in a way that they never have, and they’ve only got a 7 percent lead off of the last generation. Peak dollars spent on consoles was back in 2009, when all three consoles were in very healthy competition. Many PS4 users are happy to stay on PS4, because the games they play are over 10 years old, like Grand Theft Auto V and Minecraft, so there’s no need to upgrade.
Meanwhile, a console that launched with some idea of every game running at 60 FPS is now compromising on that (it was inevitable, but people believed otherwise). Games that used to be console exclusive are now coming out on PC, where you don’t need to pay a subscription fee to play online and your library always comes with the assumption that every game you have will be forward compatible. Even if you buy the new PlayStation, there’s no promise that your old games will run at better resolutions and frame rates. The controller you bought 10 years ago still works on PC, but Sony says you need to buy the new one, even if the game you’re playing uses none of its new features. The VR system you bought before doesn’t play the new VR games. For all sorts of economic realities, not the least of which are certification processes and licensing fees, there’s a good chance that game you really want to play is on PC long before it’s on console, in early access or otherwise. There are no competing storefronts for digital releases, so you can only pay what Sony says you have to pay. Consoles also aren’t even significantly cheaper than an equivalent PC anymore, and they run basically the same hardware under the hood, so the reasons for a console as we know them today to exist are fewer and fewer as time goes on.
