I was seriously considering getting a PS5 until I saw the costs of the games + hardware.

  • Guy Fleegman@startrek.website
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    PC player complaining about the cost of a PlayStation is new to me. Isn’t it normally the other way around? Isn’t a PS5 about as expensive as a decent GPU alone?

    • ExoMonk@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      21
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yeah the PS5 is pretty reasonably priced for what you get. I think the issue is two fold:

      1. We already have really expensive machines that probably play games much better than the PS5 in frames and quality so buying another machine for a handful of games is just not in the cards.
      2. Many of us much prefer keyboard/mouse and using controllers is really hard when you’ve not done it in many years.

      I think we just wish Playstation was more friendly to PC players and not have these long exclusives (they’ve gotten a lot better recently though). Microsoft for example is a lot friendlier to PC players than Sony. Pretty much all MS first party games are on PC pretty much day one and many of them are on GamePass day one as well.

      • iamak@infosec.pub
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        1 year ago

        All MS first party games are on PC because MS owns the PC ecosystem. Not because MS is friendlier💀

        • ExoMonk@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah while MS does also “own” the PC ecosystem via Windows, I’d bet MS probably makes more money off of an individual Xbox player than a PC player which should make them a bit less friendly to PC.

          For starters:

          • Steam takes a 30% cut of all sales
          • Sales and prices are usually much better on Steam than consoles so a lot of people wait for that number to drop over time
          • For most multiplayer games you need to pay for Xbox Gold which is upwards of $50-$60 a year (or gamepass which is even more, though you get more out of it).
          • You have to buy the console (this really depends on if MS actually makes money on console sales though) to play the game too.

          Microsoft doesn’t have to put their games on PC if they don’t want to and in the past they kind of didn’t (no one liked GFWL). They could totally go the exclusive route again, but I think MS knows that Xbox die-hard will buy an Xbox console and obviously buy the games on the xbox store for whatever it cost. PC players will also buy it if it’s a good game and a good price and, this is crucial, is on Steam.

          PC players are an untapped resource of potential customers; That’s why Sony finally decided to also cave and put their games on Steam. Money is money, but the difference is MS is betting big on GamePass and good-will right now since they are behind Sony in sales. I think because they’re behind Sony and trying to earn that good-will back, MS becomes more friendly to PC by putting their games on PC day one and on GamePass day one whereas Sony is still going with the 1-year (or more) PS5 exclusivity thing.

          The interesting thing will be if MS ever gets back on top again, who knows what that looks like, but it’ll probably suck.

          • iminahurry@discuss.tchncs.de
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Your last line reminds me of AMD Vs Intel battle. AMD was cheaper and better value for a lot of years till they were lagging behind Intel on performance. But the moment they attained parity with Intel with their Zen CPUs, they also started pricing their CPUs higher than Intel and also completely abandoned the low end market. Intel’s cheapest 12th gen CPU is currently more than 20% cheaper than AMDs cheapest Ryzen 5000 series CPU here in India.

          • iamak@infosec.pub
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            I agree with most of your points. Just wanted to point out that for MS games Linux compatibility is planned. Not saying that other studios are supporting Linux, very few are but I wanted say that MS is Windows friendly not PC friendly.

            • ExoMonk@beehaw.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              That’s totally fair. I’m not sure where MS’ steam games fall on “working with linux” via Proton. I haven’t heard them being actively hostile like Bungie is with Destiny, but I’m not sure where that’s at.

      • Guy Fleegman@startrek.website
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        That’s all true and it’s never really bothered me because, possible hot take incoming, PS exclusives are pretty milquetoast. I will concede that Sony’s first party studios have honed their ability to make “open world third person action game with crafting and stealth elements” with impressive consistency, but that’s the most common genre of AAA game and IMO Sony isn’t even making the best ones, just accessible and consistently above average ones.

        If you want that kind of game you have a zillion options on every platform.

      • SuperSaiyanSwag@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        If PC is your platform of choice and you’re looking for alternative then yea, ps5 or any other console won’t fulfill that need. If you’re looking for a complimentary console then ps5/switch are perfect depending on what you’re looking for in exclusives and functionality.

        • ExoMonk@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I agree with that for most people. I’m a bit of a weirdo who has a PC and Xbox Series X. I bought the X purely so I can play Destiny from my recliner chair on days where I just can’t sit at my desk anymore. It (along with GamePass) has also benefited my wife immensely. She’s played so many games on GamePass on the Xbox, it’s great.

          Most recently I tried to make my PC hybrid between desk and TV and the experience was so frustratingly bad. Trying to send audio to 2 different places was bad (even with Voicemeter) and then the monitors kept getting all screwed up because of the TV being sometimes seen and sometimes not. It was a terrible experience. Eventually I said screw it and built a completely dedicated PC for my tv couch gaming and it honestly works pretty damn great.

      • TheOakTree@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I just want Bloodborne, Ghost of Tsushima, and FFXVI on PC. The first is a wash, the second might be coming soon, and the third needs a year to be ported.

        Pretty decent mix of situations, I guess.

    • gk99@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      Just quickly checking Amazon, a 3060 will run people a little less than $300. Now, if you want the newest hardware, yeah, it’s overpriced to hell and back and we’ve been complaining about it for about half a decade, but a 1060 6GB from 2016 still handles a vast number of games, it’s what my wife runs in her build to date. In addition, games tend to cost more digitally on console because there’s no competition of storefronts, whereas PC has key and bundle sites plus countless competing storefronts that want your money, or even Epic and GOG that regularly do “please use our service” game giveaways.

      Either way though, nobody wants to pay an additional $400 just for the privilege of playing a handful of games. That cost is almost 6 full-priced games alone.

    • NightOwl@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s more that a PC capable of playing games is something a lot of PC gamers are going to have regardless of whether the PS5 has exclusives they want to play or not. Its something they might go onto use for stuff like Blender or video editing or any other productivity based work. So the idea of dropping the cost of a GPU just to play exclusive games is not the most enticing, since it’s not hardware that is going to do anything but be able to play games.

      So console are cheap to someone that will not have a device that is satisfactory for gaming, but when you already do and will the price is steep. Since at the point you may prefer to spend that money towards more PC upgrades, or buying other hardware that offers something that is lacking in your set up like nice speakers or a VR headset or headphones or just save the money.

      So for a console to catch the eye of a PC gamer I think the switch has actually done the best job. It’s not just another display dependent hardware that PC owners already have and will have, but something portable. It offers a unique hardware experience that makes it more alluring to buy than just gatewalled games being what makes it stand out.

      • Venutian Spring@lemmy.fmhy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s why I just bought a steam deck to supplement my PC. I can sit on the couch and play, or take it with me and play wherever I am. Plus, it’s the basically best emulator on the market. Oh and I can play any switch game I care to play on it too.

    • MJBrune@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Yes but also you can play almost every game out there. Many exclusives for PC exist because that’s simply the platform the developer can afford. Xbox and playstation are expensive to release on and very gate keeping to what releases.

      PC is also the biggest game platform. No one has an exact count of games released for it. Additionally games I bought 20 years ago still work on my PC. I have a top of the line PC with all the bells and whistles. Windows 11 still lets you run games from decades ago without updates to the game because they focus on backwards compatibility. Even if it doesn’t work out of the gate there is windows compatibility mode that go back to XP built into the os.

      So all of that means I have 1000 games that I purchased on steam, my kids can play and I don’t need to do anything like pull out some archaic box that might have popped a cap or broken entirely. Or in the case of my nes, a format to hook up to TV’s that simply doesn’t exist or work without special equipment.