Given all the issues described in this thread, what is the upside of a game console (non-gamer)? Why not get a PC that you can automatically use for other things, can play games from any vendor etc (some of the issues mentioned in the thread).
Are consoles cheaper “per transistor” or sth? If so, why? Is it about the vendor locking you in and charging more per game? That would seem even more skewed against the buyer: buy this pseudo-pc so we can sell you expensive, limited-choice software.
I believe consoles are indeed cheaper because
1. they can be sold at a loss (whether or not they actually are now, they have been historically) as the manufacturers make that back on games
2. they bulk order components and package/market them as a single piece.
I much prefer gaming on consoles because I can't be bothered with all the mental overhead that comes with PC gaming. Like most of us I don't have much time. I turn the console on and I'm instantly playing a version optimised for this hardware. More than happy, even eager, to pay for a version that doesn't have me forever tweaking graphical settings or have me thinking about what the latest advancements in RAM or whatever is.
I'm actually looking forward to Steam Deck as ideally it'll give a much closer to console experience for some PC games I've missed out on.
Edit: I was reminded by another comment that the couch experience of desktop gaming isn't for me either. If I can't operate the whole thing from a gamepad I'm not interested, and last time I gave this a go with a little Lenovo I used for emulation, this still wasn't possible.
- Cheaper than a gaming PC. Of course it depends on your setup but for the same price ($500 MSRP) it would be hard to build a decent rig that plays the current gen new games perfectly
- It just works. Games can have bugs but no hassle with installation, drivers etc. Games are more or less better optimzed because all the devs are working on the same hardware. No 100s different CPU and GPU. And one operating system
- Exclusives. Studios are moving away from it to some extent but some games can still be only played on consoles
- Home entertainment system. Youtube, Netflix, blurays etc.
That being said I have a gaming PC and consoles too mostly becasue of the exclusives
I plop down on my couch, pick up the controller, and it just works.
Whereas on PC I have to go upstairs, usually switch out my work cables and keyboard/mouse, power up the thing, then fire up my game. Definitely less comfortable than the console experience, but on the other hand, there's games that just don't work on consoles (strategy, text-heavy games, etc).
At the moment I play Sekiro on the console and FFXIV on the PC. Both work on the other platform, but both are stronger on the ones I prefer to play them on.
For me it is the ability to jump in, play for 30 mins and get out any time I want. The guarantee that everything that has a label of my console on it will work instead of my PC specs running it in a sub-optimal mode or not running at all. The fact that I don't have to worry about dealing with Windows or PC in general just to play some games but biggest of all, the ability to just pack it up and take it with me wherever I go is immense. That said, I'll be moving to a different city in NA soon kind of semi-permanently and am thinking of building a home PC for work+gaming.
Some great games are playstation exclusive, so if you want to play those, you have no other option.
But the main reason for me is the controller: It's just so much better than any other controller I've connected to a PC. The back triggers have excellent force feedback and in some games the vibrations tell you on what type of surface you're walking. This might not count for XBox users, which can use the controller on their PC.
Also, I use a Mac, and I don't want to bother with setting up a gaming only Windows PC. If I factor in time spent, $500 is worth it.
Playing on a TV is different than on a desk. Of course you can do both with a PC, but often you don't have your PC in the right place to play on the couch in front of your TV.
There are console-exclusive games, depending on which types of games you like those exclusives can be extremely interesting.
A PC is more expensive, almost always has been. If you need a desktop PC anyway, that might not matter much as you only need to factor in the better GPU for gaming. But with the GPU prices right now even a mid-range card is more expensive than a full next-gen console.
Convenience and cost for me. You get significantly better hardware for your money than a PC for the same price, while it is guaranteed that all games you can buy will run as the developer intended it. Just turn it on and play.
The target group for consoles is people who for one thing want the thing to just work, and not have to fiddle with Windows update, drivers for their hardware, maintain Steam/EGS/UPlay/Origin/Gog/itch.io/Humble, and also not pay ridonculous prices for the latest RTX3080 or whatever is the graphics card these days. And this piece of hardware IS also cheaper than the equivalent PC (except right now with the chip shortage where the PS5 is pretty overpriced)... add some exclusives to the mix, and customers buy this.
The fact that a game might be 69.- instead of 59.- on release and for a much longer time without sales on this platform is then suddenly not so important anymore.
> Given all the issues described in this thread, what is the upside of a game console (non-gamer)? Why not get a PC that you can automatically use for other things, can play games from any vendor etc (some of the issues mentioned in the thread).
A console is cheaper, and can be left permanently attached to your TV; and the UX is more focussed than a general purpose PC, and optimized for controller as single input; you probably want a PC—probably a laptop—for other things, but unless you are going to buy a second PC for living room gaming, it isn't really a console substitute.
> Are consoles cheaper “per transistor” or sth?
Yes.
> If so, why? Is it about the vendor locking you in and charging more per game?
Actually, its about the vendor charging developers for access to you; at release AAA game prices are pretty similar console vs. PC (over time, I think PC game prices fall further and faster, but like films games live or die by earlier sales. If you are a buyer that tends to buy games long after release, then PC is much more attractive.)
Cheaper for sure but the underlying complexity is completely hidden on consoles. There are many justifications for why PCs "can be simple" if you just buy pre-built, but that only solves your problem for an unspecified amount of time.
With a console, you buy the latest one and play the games until there's a new one (in the case where money is no object). You never have to worry about settings or optimisation, it just works. You also know exactly when your hardware is out of date because there's a new generation console.
Personally I'm a PC gamer, I currently run an RTX 3070 and I still wonder whether my CPU or RAM are limiting performance because I'm not getting the performance I expected (but wasn't guaranteed by any single vendor for my custom build). This is a problem I can solve, but it would be worth it to me to pay someone else to deal with it because I just don't have the time/inclination.
1. Game availability - lots of good games are not available on PC and will never be.
2. Hardware convenience - just a box you put next to your TV that works from the second you take it out of the packaging.
3. Software convenience - no need to deal with a million compatibility issues, buggy drivers, and all the problems that come with Windows and gaming hardware.
I feel dirty having closed source games installed on my main machine, god forbid Windows. There is sooo much stuff going on in games these days, I don't want that attack surface/system intrusion where I keep my things.
For 300€ I got a computer (PS4 Pro) dedicated to nothing else but gaming. And that's mostly just because I can help it, crave Skyrim and Fallout 4 once or twice a year, anyway.
A worthy PC would cost me at least 800€. Right now, I'd say it's even impossible, because of the graphics card situation and APUs don't match the consoles.
While games can look better on PC, you would also pay another PS4 in electricity costs to run a fancy system, over here.
As a general rule, there's not much difference between one instance of "console X" and another instance of "console X", but the difference between "PC 1" and "PC 2" can be quite substantial. This usually gives a console a longer useful lifespan than a "gaming PC".
As an example, I bought a PS4 late 2013 or early 2014 (honestly can't recall the exact date), and it was performing pretty well for games released, um, whenever I last bought a new game (late 2020, I think). I doubt that a PC from 2013 would have been able to play a "beefy" PC game released late 2020.
I mean, I guess I could chase the forefront of PC hardware, just to support gaming. But, then I'd also have to dual-boot (it is still the case that a substantial amount of PC games need Windows to run on), and lock myself in to updating the PC hardware every 2-3 years, just to keep up with new titles.
Meanwhile, my primary desktop was purchased before my PS4 and still runs linux admirably. Would I get more oomph if I upgraded it? Sure, more (much more) RAM and probably 2x - 4x the number of cores. But, I don't actually have to, it does what it needs to.
For the price it would've taken me to upgrade my aging gaming PC to be able to play AAA games smoothly would've cost about the same as getting both a PS4 Pro and Xbox One X.
That combined with the fact that I don't need to upgrade the consoles for years made the choice really simple.
I still play a few games on my PC (Valheim, Factorio etc), but I'm hoping the Steam Deck will allow me to retire the old beast completely.
I use PCs for gaming because many Playstation titles can also be bought on Steam for a cheaper price. However, I'd be terrified of using my gaming PC for purposes other than gaming because games in general have a poor reputation regarding security and privacy. Many games are outright hostile towards users, with kernel-level DRMs and "privacy policies" and whatnot.
The only pro I can see at the moment for any console is the ability to place it in the living room for the family to share a casual gaming / entertainment experience.
I do have a PC and, while not a "gamer", I enjoy hitting back on the old classics (Age of Empires 2 DE) from time to time.
But that is a personal gaming experience, not to be shared with others in my home.
Any technological question has a car analogy, in this case a PS5 is kind of like a mid range sports car while a PC is… well, a custom car, so pretty much anything.
So why buy a mid range sports car if you can buy an SUV for the same price that you can also go grocery shopping with, or a pickup that you can also haul stuff with?
In the end it always comes down to the use case of the thing, and the people buying consoles are not just interested in playing games, they’re also not interested in the stuff a PC offers.
As soon as you introduce choices, you introduce complexity. People buy consoles because they want to play games with the least amount of complexity involved, and they’re willing to sacrifice those choices because often they don’t even want them in the first place.
Also, consoles often have some games that only come out for that console, so if you’re really interested in a game, sometimes buying the console is your only choice.
Because a lot of people think Windows sucks and is too much to deal with. Linux drivers are a question mark. BSD isn't up to date enough. Plus exclusive titles.
In the PS3 and early PS4 era, yeah you were missing out on PC gaming but nowadays consoles are plenty fast. Plenty fast indeed.
Your wording is a little unclear, I can't tell if you want to know what gamers see in consoles or what non-gamers see in consoles. A dozen ppl have answered the first one so I'll answer the second one.
Since sony sells console hardware at a loss (only Nintendo doesn't do this), jailbreaking PS5 will create demand for the devices in clusters. Lots of research was done on PS3 and PS4 clusters where you could get GPU (and at one time CPU!) for cheaper than anywhere else. In modern times, I suspect people will mine crypto on them.
If so, this is actually really bad news for gamers because it will put the hottest current gen console into the same bidding war with miners as GPUs have been in the past few years.
>Are consoles cheaper “per transistor” or sth? If so, why?
Yes. Because of scale and optimization.
But that's more of a side-effect than the real reason. It's mostly about having a device you can switch on and instantly play. No installing drivers. No picking parts. No incompatibilities.
I've been building my own PCs for over a decade but I'm losing interest. It's such a hassle. I do 90% of my gaming on my Switch. Games I had on Steam for years and barely touched I suddenly play through in a week on the Switch. Why? Convenience.
A few major factors, in roughly decreasing order of subjective importance:
1. Console games are initially more expensive, but you can sell them used when you're done, which isn't possible on PC. I regularly buy games for $100 (Australian pricing) and sell them a month or two months later for $80. (I'd rent them, but rentals don't exist anymore. I keep the ones I really really loved, but sell on most.) On PC, the same game might launch for $10-20 less, but that doesn't make up for not being able to get $80 back from every purchase.
2. Many games are unfortunately exclusive to a particular console, including many of the most popular franchises, e.g. Mario, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and The Legend of Zelda are only on Nintendo consoles. If those are your favorite games, then none of the other factors really matter. And it's much more common for games to be exclusive to a console than exclusive to PC; there's virtually nothing these days that doesn't end up on the consoles, there are usually a couple of major blockbusters every year that don't make it to PC.
3. PC graphics card prices have absolutely skyrocketed due to cryptocurrency mining. I paid $130 for my graphics card seven years ago; the same model regularly sells for $150 on eBay now and when I look at replacing it, I can't find anything that significantly beats it for under $300. I looked at spending my tax return on a multi-part PC upgrade, but to match the performance of the new PlayStation I'd have to spend nearly double its price, and most graphics cards would require me to join a waiting list. (As it is, I went with neither and I'm waiting to see what happens next year.)
4. Formerly, playing games together with friends in the same room. Sadly, this is less and less well-supported on consoles with every year that goes by, but it used to be practically exclusive to them, and not something PC games ever implemented. This was especially important for kids (who make up a huge portion of the market and often have siblings to share the console with) and students (who would hold multiplayer game nights in dorms etc). It matters even for online multiplayer, though. You want the system your best friends have so you can all play together. And that's more likely to be one of the major consoles, and you'll rarely get your whole friend group to switch, especially if it's to a more expensive (at least upfront) option.
No bullshit. PC's have compatibility issues, weird hardware edge-cases where you have to debug with multiple drivers to achieve stable performance (I wish I had only one of those per year of gaming...), etc. Quite simply consoles have issues sometimes, but broadly they are just far too small to really be items. Consistency is king when you just want to play videogames.
Consoles are substantially cheaper. I bought a new pc recently.
Also, people don't need any of the "other stuff", so there is that.
PC has the biggest game library though if you don't have boundaries (include emulators and stuff). You can't get anywhere close. And if stuff is broken, you can fix it. And if stuff is boring, you can cheat to the fun part (single player games!).
I think historically games consoles were seen as more social, something you would play with someone else in the room.
Also I don’t think the target demographic would care much about it not being a pc (otherwise they would buy a pc). There’s a convenience of having a gaming box already set up, plus Playststion can have exclusive titles
To me the big plus is compartmentalizing, having my games in an isolated environment designed /optimized for that makes it easier to keep my computer safe because I no longer have to consider GPU driver availability / stability in Linux or even running Windows in my computer and that's a big plus.
I am primary an iOS developer so I’m not interested in a MacBook + a PC setup
So for gaming i choose an xbox console and for the 70$ Price I subscribed to xbox game pass ultimate (it’s 15$/mo) but I have access to all 1st party games day one with more than 200 games in the backlog which I don’t have time to play them
As a casual gamer, for me it's largely that i'm playing a game from the comfort of my sofa and using the big screen vs using a PC at the desk I've been working at all day.
Plus there's still a culture of buying and selling hard copy console games which can make the net running cost next to nothing.
I have a beast of a desktop PC but still find myself getting into console games far more than PC games.
I think when I'm at my desk there's always this nagging feeling telling me I could be doing something more productive (code, music, learning) whereas on the sofa with a console I don't feel that.
Consoles are cheaper, self contained, and get away from the "yer just a casual" bro'ness of computer gamers. It's not present everywhere, but it is quite common. Works out of the box with no need to spend hours configure for max performance. No RGB issues.
You have to use Windows or deal with weird compatibility hacks?
I’m really looking forward to the Steam deck. It may not have the power of current-gen consoles, but it takes so many good things about current consoles and combines them together. Openness of a PC, not Windows, portable + docking, etc.
Valve has improved the Steam experience for Steamdeck, along with the Proton compatibility layer. Then they added "Great on Steamdeck" that will encourage devs to aim for better controller support.
Now there are rumours Valve is working on a new "console".
Imho once there is a "console" that is basically Steamdeck with builtin Steam store and a powerful GPU... in otherword a fully capable PC with desktop performance + the console user experience (or almost there) there is strictly no reason to buy a Sony/Nintendo console anymore.... especially since SEGA, Sony & al are porting more and more games to PC.
I think we are all in a better place if those platforms converge, and Sony/Nintendo just focus on making great games. But it doesn't matter anyway, since if Valve can release an actually good "console" experience, with builtin Steam store... Nintendo and Sony have nothing more to offer bar a few exclusives.
Because modern PC gaming anticheat software is worse than malware. They analyze everything you every do on your PC. They scan and upload your personal files.
If I have to have a separate machine for gaming to have some privacy I'm going to just buy a console.
Gaming on PC generally means Windows, many of us don't want it on our computers, which would mean "getting a PC" would not result in a computer that you'd want to use for other things.
For me it’s the fact that you buy one and you know that all games will perform reasonably well for the next 5 or so years. A mediocre gaming pc now won’t be able to play the games that come out in 2027.
I prefer PC gaming, but I can see the value of a system that works out of the box with fixed specs that the game developer has to take under account to ensure a playable experience.
I can't game on PC anymore because of RSI when using mouse. Even for cross platform games, the console version usually has far superior controller support.
These keys are symmetric, so they can be used for decryption. With these symmetric keys you might be able to decrypt games, videos, save files etc sitting on the disk. I don't believe signing will be possible, nobody uses symmetric keys for signing games.
What this does is increase the possibility of someone finding how to bypass the signature verification check and then running their own code.
No, signing is done with asymmetric keys. Someone sign with their private key so you can verify it with their public key, basically.
Symmetric keys are used to encrypt the code for updates, generally to prevent unintentional leak of secrets or just to prevent reverse engineering.
I'm not in the jailbreaking space, but I guess that what it means here is that some people may find flaws in the code and leverage them to potentially bypass the signature verification, although this might prove very difficult to do.
It might also help emulating the PS5 behavior which in turns could lead to some modding/cheating for some games. Who knows ?
> It means ultimately that decrypted firmware files will be available for hackers. This would make reverse engineering of the PS5 firmware possible, and from there, open possibilities for finding future exploits and/or write custom firmwares or Homebrew enablers.
> Fail0verflow have stated in the past that Jailbroken consoles are not worth it anymore since they are so close to computers in features and functionality
Interesting. I don't own a PS5, but Xbox seems to be pretty much a PC [1] (weeeell, like a Chromecast-style PC anyways). The main reason to legitimately jailbreak a PS4 back in the day was to get back the Linux functionality Sony took away from its users, and to run emulators possibly.
It's interesting that the hacker communities acknowledge that the legitimate reasons for jailbreaking your PS5 are not many, at least not yet.
If you disconnect your PS5 from the internet now, then yes, probably, in a few years. I would anticipate Sony using updates and e-fuses to prevent its use on any console that stays live.
> Fail0verflow have stated in the past that Jailbroken consoles are not worth it anymore since they are so close to computers in features and functionality
They're right, its just a PC now. Its crazy, I can't think of anyone who wants a console that has a rough computer equivalent of a Ryzen 7 3700X, 5700 RT with ray tracing, shares 16GB GDDR6 ram, a blu-ray drive, with a 1GB NVME drive for $500+tax (in store stock and not scalped, and even scalped at $900 its not easy to match PC hardware). Who wants to hack such a device for legitimate reasons like using it as a computer? Nobody, its not worth it!
> They're right, its just a PC now. Its crazy, I can't think of anyone who wants a console that has a rough computer equivalent of a Ryzen 7 3700X, 5700 RT with ray tracing, shares 16GB GDDR6 ram, a blu-ray drive, with a 1GB NVME drive for $500 (in stock and not scalped).
The way I view it is as paying a subscription for support, I bought a PS4 at launch and the fact it can play the newest Call of Duty at 60fps looking decent is absolutely worth the price. I'm not a PC gamer so I'm curious if a PC from 2013 that cost like $400 would hold up as well.
Now the PS5 is out I view it as time to pay the next sub of $500 to have a guaranteed level of performance for the next console cycle
I live in a third world country. What's funny is we have a lot of PlayStations and powerful video cards and top-level processors available. We just don't have any money to buy them. Maybe I should set up a mail-order business to serve Western hardware enthusiasts.
If you look at sales chart, Sony is selling as many PS5 as they sold PS4 during the same launch period. It's just that demand is higher; the fact that they are able to make as much during a chip shortage says a lot of their supply chain expertise (same could be said of MS, Nintendo, Samsung, LG, Apple etc.).
It really varies with markets. In UK it's pretty hard(although over the last year I've managed to help several of my friends buy one, it's just a matter of setting up discord notifications), in Poland they are easily available, you can just walk into a store and buy one no problem. Or several places have stock available for delivery. No big deal.
Here in Australia we put our names on a waiting list at one of the big name retailers, just by walking into the store. About a week later we got a call that there was stock.
So while the stock doesn't hang around, it seems like it is now at least possible to get one without too much fuss.
I sincerely hope the first thing someone does, is create an unofficial patch to allow people to use old third-party (and first-party) joypads. Locking down which joypads you can use seemed like a mean spirited move from Sony.
While not impossible, this seems like a huge amount of work for an independent developer. I don’t think any old controller is plug and play as soon as you remove one if clause disabling them, there’s probably a significant amount of work involved in getting them to work.
What do you mean “prepared”? If you break your hardware by installing custom software on it, that has never been covered by your warranty (although companies may still replace the hardware out of good will or being incapable of detecting the modification).
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
rich_sasha|4 years ago
Are consoles cheaper “per transistor” or sth? If so, why? Is it about the vendor locking you in and charging more per game? That would seem even more skewed against the buyer: buy this pseudo-pc so we can sell you expensive, limited-choice software.
SirHound|4 years ago
I much prefer gaming on consoles because I can't be bothered with all the mental overhead that comes with PC gaming. Like most of us I don't have much time. I turn the console on and I'm instantly playing a version optimised for this hardware. More than happy, even eager, to pay for a version that doesn't have me forever tweaking graphical settings or have me thinking about what the latest advancements in RAM or whatever is.
I'm actually looking forward to Steam Deck as ideally it'll give a much closer to console experience for some PC games I've missed out on.
Edit: I was reminded by another comment that the couch experience of desktop gaming isn't for me either. If I can't operate the whole thing from a gamepad I'm not interested, and last time I gave this a go with a little Lenovo I used for emulation, this still wasn't possible.
haunter|4 years ago
- It just works. Games can have bugs but no hassle with installation, drivers etc. Games are more or less better optimzed because all the devs are working on the same hardware. No 100s different CPU and GPU. And one operating system
- Exclusives. Studios are moving away from it to some extent but some games can still be only played on consoles
- Home entertainment system. Youtube, Netflix, blurays etc.
That being said I have a gaming PC and consoles too mostly becasue of the exclusives
Cthulhu_|4 years ago
Whereas on PC I have to go upstairs, usually switch out my work cables and keyboard/mouse, power up the thing, then fire up my game. Definitely less comfortable than the console experience, but on the other hand, there's games that just don't work on consoles (strategy, text-heavy games, etc).
At the moment I play Sekiro on the console and FFXIV on the PC. Both work on the other platform, but both are stronger on the ones I prefer to play them on.
owaislone|4 years ago
BasilPH|4 years ago
But the main reason for me is the controller: It's just so much better than any other controller I've connected to a PC. The back triggers have excellent force feedback and in some games the vibrations tell you on what type of surface you're walking. This might not count for XBox users, which can use the controller on their PC.
Also, I use a Mac, and I don't want to bother with setting up a gaming only Windows PC. If I factor in time spent, $500 is worth it.
fabian2k|4 years ago
There are console-exclusive games, depending on which types of games you like those exclusives can be extremely interesting.
A PC is more expensive, almost always has been. If you need a desktop PC anyway, that might not matter much as you only need to factor in the better GPU for gaming. But with the GPU prices right now even a mid-range card is more expensive than a full next-gen console.
dajonker|4 years ago
shocks|4 years ago
I was a “PC gamer” for years, but consoles are better for plug and play group/sofa gaming.
cyxxon|4 years ago
The fact that a game might be 69.- instead of 59.- on release and for a much longer time without sales on this platform is then suddenly not so important anymore.
dragonwriter|4 years ago
A console is cheaper, and can be left permanently attached to your TV; and the UX is more focussed than a general purpose PC, and optimized for controller as single input; you probably want a PC—probably a laptop—for other things, but unless you are going to buy a second PC for living room gaming, it isn't really a console substitute.
> Are consoles cheaper “per transistor” or sth?
Yes.
> If so, why? Is it about the vendor locking you in and charging more per game?
Actually, its about the vendor charging developers for access to you; at release AAA game prices are pretty similar console vs. PC (over time, I think PC game prices fall further and faster, but like films games live or die by earlier sales. If you are a buyer that tends to buy games long after release, then PC is much more attractive.)
rovek|4 years ago
With a console, you buy the latest one and play the games until there's a new one (in the case where money is no object). You never have to worry about settings or optimisation, it just works. You also know exactly when your hardware is out of date because there's a new generation console.
Personally I'm a PC gamer, I currently run an RTX 3070 and I still wonder whether my CPU or RAM are limiting performance because I'm not getting the performance I expected (but wasn't guaranteed by any single vendor for my custom build). This is a problem I can solve, but it would be worth it to me to pay someone else to deal with it because I just don't have the time/inclination.
Maybe I should buy a console...
user-the-name|4 years ago
2. Hardware convenience - just a box you put next to your TV that works from the second you take it out of the packaging.
3. Software convenience - no need to deal with a million compatibility issues, buggy drivers, and all the problems that come with Windows and gaming hardware.
48tdsic7|4 years ago
For 300€ I got a computer (PS4 Pro) dedicated to nothing else but gaming. And that's mostly just because I can help it, crave Skyrim and Fallout 4 once or twice a year, anyway.
A worthy PC would cost me at least 800€. Right now, I'd say it's even impossible, because of the graphics card situation and APUs don't match the consoles.
While games can look better on PC, you would also pay another PS4 in electricity costs to run a fancy system, over here.
randomswede|4 years ago
As an example, I bought a PS4 late 2013 or early 2014 (honestly can't recall the exact date), and it was performing pretty well for games released, um, whenever I last bought a new game (late 2020, I think). I doubt that a PC from 2013 would have been able to play a "beefy" PC game released late 2020.
I mean, I guess I could chase the forefront of PC hardware, just to support gaming. But, then I'd also have to dual-boot (it is still the case that a substantial amount of PC games need Windows to run on), and lock myself in to updating the PC hardware every 2-3 years, just to keep up with new titles.
Meanwhile, my primary desktop was purchased before my PS4 and still runs linux admirably. Would I get more oomph if I upgraded it? Sure, more (much more) RAM and probably 2x - 4x the number of cores. But, I don't actually have to, it does what it needs to.
theshrike79|4 years ago
For the price it would've taken me to upgrade my aging gaming PC to be able to play AAA games smoothly would've cost about the same as getting both a PS4 Pro and Xbox One X.
That combined with the fact that I don't need to upgrade the consoles for years made the choice really simple.
I still play a few games on my PC (Valheim, Factorio etc), but I'm hoping the Steam Deck will allow me to retire the old beast completely.
soraminazuki|4 years ago
factorialboy|4 years ago
The only pro I can see at the moment for any console is the ability to place it in the living room for the family to share a casual gaming / entertainment experience.
I do have a PC and, while not a "gamer", I enjoy hitting back on the old classics (Age of Empires 2 DE) from time to time.
But that is a personal gaming experience, not to be shared with others in my home.
hnarn|4 years ago
So why buy a mid range sports car if you can buy an SUV for the same price that you can also go grocery shopping with, or a pickup that you can also haul stuff with?
In the end it always comes down to the use case of the thing, and the people buying consoles are not just interested in playing games, they’re also not interested in the stuff a PC offers.
As soon as you introduce choices, you introduce complexity. People buy consoles because they want to play games with the least amount of complexity involved, and they’re willing to sacrifice those choices because often they don’t even want them in the first place.
Also, consoles often have some games that only come out for that console, so if you’re really interested in a game, sometimes buying the console is your only choice.
Bancakes|4 years ago
In the PS3 and early PS4 era, yeah you were missing out on PC gaming but nowadays consoles are plenty fast. Plenty fast indeed.
somehnacct3757|4 years ago
Since sony sells console hardware at a loss (only Nintendo doesn't do this), jailbreaking PS5 will create demand for the devices in clusters. Lots of research was done on PS3 and PS4 clusters where you could get GPU (and at one time CPU!) for cheaper than anywhere else. In modern times, I suspect people will mine crypto on them.
If so, this is actually really bad news for gamers because it will put the hottest current gen console into the same bidding war with miners as GPUs have been in the past few years.
nothis|4 years ago
Yes. Because of scale and optimization.
But that's more of a side-effect than the real reason. It's mostly about having a device you can switch on and instantly play. No installing drivers. No picking parts. No incompatibilities.
I've been building my own PCs for over a decade but I'm losing interest. It's such a hassle. I do 90% of my gaming on my Switch. Games I had on Steam for years and barely touched I suddenly play through in a week on the Switch. Why? Convenience.
chalupa-man|4 years ago
1. Console games are initially more expensive, but you can sell them used when you're done, which isn't possible on PC. I regularly buy games for $100 (Australian pricing) and sell them a month or two months later for $80. (I'd rent them, but rentals don't exist anymore. I keep the ones I really really loved, but sell on most.) On PC, the same game might launch for $10-20 less, but that doesn't make up for not being able to get $80 back from every purchase.
2. Many games are unfortunately exclusive to a particular console, including many of the most popular franchises, e.g. Mario, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and The Legend of Zelda are only on Nintendo consoles. If those are your favorite games, then none of the other factors really matter. And it's much more common for games to be exclusive to a console than exclusive to PC; there's virtually nothing these days that doesn't end up on the consoles, there are usually a couple of major blockbusters every year that don't make it to PC.
3. PC graphics card prices have absolutely skyrocketed due to cryptocurrency mining. I paid $130 for my graphics card seven years ago; the same model regularly sells for $150 on eBay now and when I look at replacing it, I can't find anything that significantly beats it for under $300. I looked at spending my tax return on a multi-part PC upgrade, but to match the performance of the new PlayStation I'd have to spend nearly double its price, and most graphics cards would require me to join a waiting list. (As it is, I went with neither and I'm waiting to see what happens next year.)
4. Formerly, playing games together with friends in the same room. Sadly, this is less and less well-supported on consoles with every year that goes by, but it used to be practically exclusive to them, and not something PC games ever implemented. This was especially important for kids (who make up a huge portion of the market and often have siblings to share the console with) and students (who would hold multiplayer game nights in dorms etc). It matters even for online multiplayer, though. You want the system your best friends have so you can all play together. And that's more likely to be one of the major consoles, and you'll rarely get your whole friend group to switch, especially if it's to a more expensive (at least upfront) option.
krageon|4 years ago
No bullshit. PC's have compatibility issues, weird hardware edge-cases where you have to debug with multiple drivers to achieve stable performance (I wish I had only one of those per year of gaming...), etc. Quite simply consoles have issues sometimes, but broadly they are just far too small to really be items. Consistency is king when you just want to play videogames.
Fire-Dragon-DoL|4 years ago
Also, people don't need any of the "other stuff", so there is that.
PC has the biggest game library though if you don't have boundaries (include emulators and stuff). You can't get anywhere close. And if stuff is broken, you can fix it. And if stuff is boring, you can cheat to the fun part (single player games!).
unknown|4 years ago
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jayflux|4 years ago
Also I don’t think the target demographic would care much about it not being a pc (otherwise they would buy a pc). There’s a convenience of having a gaming box already set up, plus Playststion can have exclusive titles
l-albertovich|4 years ago
SalimoS|4 years ago
So for gaming i choose an xbox console and for the 70$ Price I subscribed to xbox game pass ultimate (it’s 15$/mo) but I have access to all 1st party games day one with more than 200 games in the backlog which I don’t have time to play them
ImportOllie|4 years ago
Plus there's still a culture of buying and selling hard copy console games which can make the net running cost next to nothing.
kingrolo|4 years ago
I think when I'm at my desk there's always this nagging feeling telling me I could be doing something more productive (code, music, learning) whereas on the sofa with a console I don't feel that.
stjohnswarts|4 years ago
dayvid|4 years ago
I’m really looking forward to the Steam deck. It may not have the power of current-gen consoles, but it takes so many good things about current consoles and combines them together. Openness of a PC, not Windows, portable + docking, etc.
AltruisticGapHN|4 years ago
Valve has improved the Steam experience for Steamdeck, along with the Proton compatibility layer. Then they added "Great on Steamdeck" that will encourage devs to aim for better controller support.
Now there are rumours Valve is working on a new "console".
Imho once there is a "console" that is basically Steamdeck with builtin Steam store and a powerful GPU... in otherword a fully capable PC with desktop performance + the console user experience (or almost there) there is strictly no reason to buy a Sony/Nintendo console anymore.... especially since SEGA, Sony & al are porting more and more games to PC.
I think we are all in a better place if those platforms converge, and Sony/Nintendo just focus on making great games. But it doesn't matter anyway, since if Valve can release an actually good "console" experience, with builtin Steam store... Nintendo and Sony have nothing more to offer bar a few exclusives.
punkbuster|4 years ago
If I have to have a separate machine for gaming to have some privacy I'm going to just buy a console.
madeofpalk|4 years ago
fulafel|4 years ago
drexlspivey|4 years ago
m-p-3|4 years ago
plif|4 years ago
I can't game on PC anymore because of RSI when using mouse. Even for cross platform games, the console version usually has far superior controller support.
wly_cdgr|4 years ago
slimbods|4 years ago
icemelt8|4 years ago
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aufhebung|4 years ago
politelemon|4 years ago
What this does is increase the possibility of someone finding how to bypass the signature verification check and then running their own code.
_notreallyme_|4 years ago
I'm not in the jailbreaking space, but I guess that what it means here is that some people may find flaws in the code and leverage them to potentially bypass the signature verification, although this might prove very difficult to do. It might also help emulating the PS5 behavior which in turns could lead to some modding/cheating for some games. Who knows ?
isaacfrond|4 years ago
rvz|4 years ago
> It means ultimately that decrypted firmware files will be available for hackers. This would make reverse engineering of the PS5 firmware possible, and from there, open possibilities for finding future exploits and/or write custom firmwares or Homebrew enablers.
[0] https://wololo.net/2021/11/08/ps5-exploit-fail0verflow-show-...
BossingAround|4 years ago
Interesting. I don't own a PS5, but Xbox seems to be pretty much a PC [1] (weeeell, like a Chromecast-style PC anyways). The main reason to legitimately jailbreak a PS4 back in the day was to get back the Linux functionality Sony took away from its users, and to run emulators possibly.
It's interesting that the hacker communities acknowledge that the legitimate reasons for jailbreaking your PS5 are not many, at least not yet.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw_4kiYvEmE
kungito|4 years ago
causi|4 years ago
GhettoComputers|4 years ago
They're right, its just a PC now. Its crazy, I can't think of anyone who wants a console that has a rough computer equivalent of a Ryzen 7 3700X, 5700 RT with ray tracing, shares 16GB GDDR6 ram, a blu-ray drive, with a 1GB NVME drive for $500+tax (in store stock and not scalped, and even scalped at $900 its not easy to match PC hardware). Who wants to hack such a device for legitimate reasons like using it as a computer? Nobody, its not worth it!
yur3i__|4 years ago
The way I view it is as paying a subscription for support, I bought a PS4 at launch and the fact it can play the newest Call of Duty at 60fps looking decent is absolutely worth the price. I'm not a PC gamer so I'm curious if a PC from 2013 that cost like $400 would hold up as well.
Now the PS5 is out I view it as time to pay the next sub of $500 to have a guaranteed level of performance for the next console cycle
kumarvvr|4 years ago
Been a long while since I built a PC.
innocentoldguy|4 years ago
5e92cb50239222b|4 years ago
Aissen|4 years ago
gambiting|4 years ago
For instance https://m.euro.com.pl/konsole-playstation-5/sony-playstation...
It says "up to 7 days delivery" but when I ordered one few weeks ago it arrived next day anyway.
Nursie|4 years ago
So while the stock doesn't hang around, it seems like it is now at least possible to get one without too much fuss.
dynamite-ready|4 years ago
hnarn|4 years ago
wly_cdgr|4 years ago
mekster|4 years ago
hnarn|4 years ago
rStar|4 years ago
rStar|4 years ago