> Today there are a ton of cheap 2nd hand console available on different markets, and much thanks to hard-copies they still bring plenty of enjoyment for a cheap coin.
You're missing the point of the parent comment. They aren't saying they had access to no games at all, but rather that they couldn't afford to play the latest games.
Nvidia's cloud gaming service costs $10/month, compared to $10 a month just for multiplayer access on an Xbox or PlayStation plus the $300-$500 upfront cost of buying the console itself.
So there's no doubt that even with the savings of a used last generation console, you would still save a lot of money with cloud gaming.
Just for clarity, I'm not necessarily saying I like cloud gaming. I think if you can afford the hardware to do local gaming, it's a better experience. But it's way more expensive to render everything locally for obvious reasons. Even just the electricity needed to power a gaming PC is expensive.