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0 pointsofficeplant1y ago0 comments

>Gamers not being able to find an affordable option is still a problem.

Used to think about this often because I had a side hobby of building and selling computers for friends and coworkers that wanted to get into gaming, but otherwise had no use for a powerful computer.

For the longest time I could still put together $800-$1000 PC's that could blow consoles away and provide great value for the money.

Now days I almost want to recommend they go back to console gaming. Seeing older ps5's on store shelves hit $349.99 during the holidays really cemented that idea. Its so astronomically expensive for a PC build at the moment unless you can be convinced to buy a gaming laptop on a deep sale.

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dolni1y ago

One edge that PCs have is massive catalog.

Consoles have historically not done so well with backwards compatibility (at most one generation). I don't do much console gaming but _I think_ that is changing.

There is also something to be said about catalog portability via something like a Steam Deck.

officeplantOP1y ago

Cheaper options like the Steam Deck are definitely a boon to the industry. Especially the idea of "good enough" gaming at lower resolutions on smaller screens.

Personally, I just don't like that its attached to steam. Which is why I can be hesitant to suggest consoles as well now that they have soft killed their physical game options. Unless you go out of your way to get the add-on drive for PS5, etc

Its been nice to see backwards compatibility coming back in modern consoles to some extent with Xbox especially if you have a Series-X with the disc drive.

I killed my steam account with 300+ games just because I didn't see a future where steam would actually let me own the games. Repurchased everything I could on GoG and gave up on games locked to Windows/Mac AppStores, Epic, and Steam. So I'm not exactly fond of hardware attached to that platform, but that doesn't stop someone from just loading it up with games from a service like GoG and running them thru steam or Heroic Launcher.

2024 took some massive leaps forward with getting a proton-like experience without steam and that gives me a lot of hope for future progress on Linux gaming.

brokenmachine1y ago

>Unless you go out of your way to get the add-on drive for PS5

Just out of interest, if I bought a PS5 with the drive, and a physical game, would that work forever (just for single-player games)?

Like you, I like to own the things I pay for, so it's a non-starter for me if it doesn't.

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