And the PC master race wins the blood war
I wonder how gta will affect those numbers, and how those numbers will affect the pc release.
“Computers that are just for games, that you can’t do anything else on… And we say what games, and also for lots of them you have to keep paying us to play them… And you can’t have any physical ownership of them anymore”.
FAFO
I hardly ever use my Sony Netflix box anymore.
Mostly because I stopped buying from them digitally because they won’t refund a game if you’ve downloaded a single solitary bit of data, and now they won’t sell physical copies so…
Maybe most people who would want to buy said systems can’t afford 1600 dollars for one when they can’t even afford groceries and gas? Huh, just maybe.
(Used pricing from GameStop)
Play box, x-station 400, who cares
This is called demand destruction.
Congratulations to PCs for winning the console wars :3
The win is in vain if you can’t buy PC hardware either.
There are still many thousands of games playable on older hardware.
Yes you can it’s just now comparable in cost to a flagship console
Wait, can they still be peasants if they’re becoming marginal?
As a PC gamer concerned about game preservation: good. Consoles are just walled hardware fiefdoms.
I looked at buying a ps5 for the first time since it came out a couple weeks ago because I really wanted to play LOTR War in the North again.
Its twice as expensive as it was when it came out.
I just went home and grabbed my old ps2.
Its absolutely insane that this console is so expensive right now.
It is also the last PS I would get because I want physical discs.
The ps5 that comes with a disc drive is useless, as the “physical” copies of games are just empty cases with redemption codes inside.
Wait seriously? No discs at all? For any games?
Nah, that guy is a bit off. I’ve bought several brand new, 2026 titles this year and they all have discs in the box.
The majority as far as I know.
I strongly oppose this view: with my disc drive PS5 I am able to play games I bought second hand and games I borrowed from my local library
Yeah, those games are by far the minority.
I have literally bought the last few brand new, 2026 PS5 games on disc. I’m getting Control Resonant this week on disc.
If you mean GTAVI, then yeah that’s bonkers. But you can get most games with a physical disc currently.
Sounds like it’s gotten better? I remember it being a shit show before I sold my ps5.
Gee, I wonder why!
Do they know most of their customers have budget and they can’t just spend entirety of it for gaming stuff?
There are also their potential customers that will gated by those huge cost for entry-level gaming setup.
Also for those who don’t even have budget, why the hell they gonna participate on those out of reach game ecosystem?
Looking at my own gaming expenses, I’ve definitely stopped buying as much as I did say 10 years ago. To me it seems like the value of what you get for your money has fallen. I can afford it, but why should I? On one side, the corporations are actively trying to lock down everything and make it clear I’m just a guest in their theme park and on the other, they’re offering investment safe sequels and remakes of past successes. I’m also kinda tired of Sony’s “AAA cinematic gaming experiences”.
I may also be getting too old cause all excitement of GTA VI fell through the floor once I learned I can’t own a copy without the explicit approval of either console maker. So fuck that…
Honestly, the value for money in the gaming industry is the best its ever been outside of AAA and consoles.
Market spending correlates this, more money than ever is being spent but its focussed on indies, AAA sales have been dropping and big studios are losing money, deservedly.
Yup, I do this as well. Most of my gaming expenses go towards PC games now.
Honestly the cheapest place to be in gaming is PC even with current prices. I could go to my local thrift store and buy a cheap ass laptop for 50 bucks and play and buy a couple really solid games on steam or GOG for another 50. Would that laptop be great? Probably not but you could do it and there’s also the bonus that if you do upgrade to a proper computer all your games still work.
Finding old gems is difficult, but yep, even with $50 laptop you technically have a lifetime (and 10 times over) worth of old video games available. Graphics and game design was atrocious though.
what would you say is an ideal budget for a mid range build these days? i know it’s prob the absolute worst time to build, but i really want a pc to break free from console life lol.
Hell if I know, I don’t look at PC prices when they’re this high.
Do you want new or are you willing to cobble together used stuff? If new, $1k is probably about as low as you want to go, but you can definitely squeeze lower. If you’re interested in used stuff, it really depends on what kind performance you’re looking for. You can put together a computer that’s around ps5 performance for around $500 using an old office pc and like a Radeon 6700. I did something similar to kind of meet ps4 performance back in the day when I was a broke student.
i was thinking maybe getting a pre built i saw something around 1100 usd on micro center cause i dont really know jack about building my own pc. i am fortunate to have buddies game share their huge ps libraries and steam libraries so selection of games is def not an issue. i just dont really know much about compatibility and which is good with what. but for performance wise i would LIKE solid 1440p gaming across the board, 60fps or higher works for me. do you think i should suck it up and build now or pre build and upgrade later?
Fair enough, you really aren’t spending much more, if any at all, on microcenter prebuilts if you’re lucky enough to have one close. There are tons of resources for learning, but if your time is worth more than the hundred bucks or so and you don’t care about customizing it to your needs, wants, or preferences, that’s totally understandable.
But yeah, tough time to get/build a gaming pc. Imo there are a few different strategies to deal with the crazy prices.
- suck it up pay whatever it is to get what you want.
- get a good base platform and skimp on some components that can be easily upgraded later.
- get an old relatively dirt cheap system as a stopgap. Office pc + gpu? Gaming laptop with broken screen? But probably won’t have much resale value when/if prices do come down
Personally if I didn’t already have a pc and old parts laying around I’d go with #2. Get a case I like, decent mobo, cpu, psu. And I’d get a used couple generation old gpu, and absolute minimum viable amount of ram and storage until prices come down. Or I get a raise lol
Currently my desktop is a ryzen 7 1700 and Radeon 5700. It’s getting pretty old now, and if prices weren’t insane I’d have upgraded by now. But tbh, it’s fine. I don’t really care about playing the latest AAA games, and all the games I am interested in playing run absolutely fine at 1440p. So for the time being, it’s fine. I could upgrade the cpu pretty massively for not much money, but eh I’m really not bothered enough to do that until I get a new gpu. But a modest gpu upgrade is a ton of money, so not quite worth it to me yet.
Edit: oh and yeah if you do just grab a prebuilt, you will probably want at least a 9060xt or 5060ti for the gpu if you want to play like brand new AAA games at 1440p and high-ish settings
PC also has uncountable choice of affordable games thanks to the indie scene booming. AAA is dying and Im here for it
50 might be pushing it here, that is super old and low spec. Even an N150 laptop costs more. Can comfortably find 10th gen i5 desktops for under £200 though. Laptops seem to cost quite a bit more if I skim across CEX. I suspect being easier to store helps as they don’t want to move them so quickly while desktops are taking up more space and they want to shift it faster.
Downside with those desktops is that its often full of proprietary HP or dell bullshit. But then laptops are even worse so I guess that is your choice. Still, CEX have got a 5 year warranty on second hand things which is pretty good.
I was actually thinking quite out of date actually. Also the thrift store near me tends to have piss cheap laptops cause they are locked or have wipped drives. But even if it’s say 16 years old you could still play Kotor, Republic Cammandos, every Fallout up until 4, Dragon Age Origins, and plenty more modern no but good absolutely.
I would probably see if factorio can run on it. Rimworld too.
Modded? No. Unmodded? Maybe. I used to run an ultra modded NV save on a shitty laptop from 2010.
Maybe a decent refurbished gaming laptop for slightly more than $9 hundred dollars or so but yeah, I rather would buy refurbished or used
It’s the K-shaped economy.
25% stopped buying. 50% are buying and dealing with things as best they can. And the last 25% are rolling in it and paying exorbitant prices to show off and balancing out the losses.
There’s a big Xbox shortage right now and it’s been like this for months. Where it’s difficult to find new Xboxes in stores outside of scalpers selling a handful of overpriced units. The listings I can find on my local Pricerunner site is almost 3 times what it cost back when it launched. It’s surprising it hasn’t dropped more than it has.
