USD “per year” prices:
The Essential plan is increasing from $60 to $80.
Extra increasing from $100 to $135.
Premium increasing from $120 to $160.
That’s a big fucking increase, I was only paying 99 for Extra. I won’t continue to do so, it’s just not worth it anymore. Xbox and PSN increases are pushing me back out of gaming, and no, a PC is not the answer because if I had the 2k for a gaming PC, that would almost last a console generation, I wouldn’t be complaining about PSN/XBL increases.
There are plenty of low-spec games to be played on PC as well. If you’re talking about multiplayer games, most of them target a lower spec.
I spent the last week playing through Firewatch by Campo Santo, it was fucking brilliant. I could live with just those games if I needed to because it was great.
if I had the 2k for a gaming PC, that would almost last a console generation
I paid ~$850 total for my rig, in 2018, and it’s still going strong. Might not have RTX, but from what I’ve seen on my PS5, not only do games barely use RTX, very few of those that do use it in a way that makes a visual difference.
PC bros jerking off to 120 FPS, etc drive me nuts. If you play games just to compete over frames per second and not to enjoy games what are you doing? I’ve had multiple convos with PC nuts who said nothing about the game they were playing, just talked about how their rig was handling it.
Dude/dudette, I’m playing on a Switch. I don’t care lol
I don’t give a care about anything over 60 unless I’m playing competitive shooters and at that point my graphics are at a minimum. A 1070ti was killing it for me at 1440p 144hz in Apex and even Cyberpunk was running pretty clean.
It’s a pure luxury to get anything over 60 in modern single player games. Tears of the Kingdom does have frame drops, but the gameplay is so good I don’t care.
I built my pc about 3 months ago and paid the same. Amd 6700xt graphics card and ryzen 5 5600 X cpu, so it’s not a slouch by any means. Hell I just compiled gentoo and installed baldurs gate 3 in an evening, that’s pretty fuckin good. Sure, you pay around 1k for the PC. But you also get a computer that can be used for more than just gaming. I work on my computer and play games, plus the cost for upgrades will be much smaller compared to getting a whole new console. I’d say no matter what it’s worth it to get into pc gaming or just using a PC in general.
What would you say is the minimum GPU to get if you wanted it to last say 4-5 years, obviously knowing over time you’ll need to use a lower setting?
You could get literally any current generation card, or even a previous gen card, and not only will it last 4-5 years, you probably won’t even have to lower settings over time. Big leaps in graphics aren’t happening like they used to. The only new tech that came out between getting my GPU and now is raytracing. Pretty much every brand new game still defaults to Ultra settings, and I get pretty and high fps in everything I can throw at it, save for a few games that perform horribly on everything (like ARMA 3).
Gotta agree at least to a degree, in the current market 4-5 years feels less ambitious than in the past, at least in terms of staying within official minimum requirements. Elden Ring released in 2022 with a minimum requirement of an NVidia 1060… That card released around 2016.
4-5 years puts you at the end of the gen, there’s no way something like a used 6700XT doesn’t stay within minimums for that period (it’s probably overshooting it by quite a bit) and it leaves you like 500 bucks for the rest of the computer in that example 850 budget, which is more than enough. It can be done.
In what world do you need 2k for a gaming PC?
If you want to completely crush stuff like Cyberpunk and Starfield you could bother. The only reason I run what I do is that I need a workhorse and make money with my PC too.
I general I recommend the “Fast Motorcycle” principle for PC building. You can spend extra money for the “Fast Car” or Luxury Car” or even ball out for the “Fast Luxury Car”.
Depending on the task, a fast motorcycle will get you there quicker than other builds. When building for a gaming PC, just get basic cores with high clocks and spend a bit of extra money on a step up graphics cards.
I could build a pretty shredding PC for about ~$800 right now.
Back to your point, a $2k PC is basically a fast luxury car. I could have multiple adobe products open simultaneously, or do YouTube at the same time as Satisfactory or Cities Skylines. It’s a nice to have but if you aren’t doing heavy simultaneous tasks it’s not worth the money.
Exactly. If you just want to compete pricewise with a PS5 then a PC is not that hard to justify.
Say the generation will last you another 6 years. That’s 432 euro for PS Plus Essential alone. Add the cost of the PS5 with a disk drive, that’s another 460 euro. That’s 892 euro for just the device itself. That’ll get you a decently beefy PC that can do more than just gaming. Add on some piracy for the more morally ambiguous among us (and let’s be honest, buying second hand also doesn’t net the studio any profits) and you got a pretty comparable package without being locked into Sony’s ecosystem.
I think I paid about 850$ for my oc with no discounts and it’s pretty high end. The people spending 2k on their computer are usually buying ridiculous things that are just fluff on fluff with no real use. I think I’ll spend maybe 150 bucks when I upgrade what’s needed in the next maybe 5 years.
I skipped the PS4 gen to take a break and focus on other aspects of my life that needed attention, but was surprised at prices when I jumped back in. With how expensive gaming has gotten ($70 games, even more expensive consoles, required online payments to fully utilize systems/games, time investment to actually find a console before scalpers) I don’t know what my future in gaming looks like.
There are plenty of high quality indie games that don’t require the latest hardware and have no mtx. If you want to move away from consoles, you could even look at something like a Steam Deck or similar for a pre-configured ready to go system.
These days I primarily play games that are Nintendo IP (Nintendo’s couch co-op output is unrivaled and my partner and I play Nintendo games together often) or Sony exclusives (quality output is top-notch). I on-and-off look at Steam and have never been overwhelmingly impressed by the catalog of indie devs and am generally turned off by the over-saturation of lower-end pixel art prevalent in many indie titles. Sure, every so often something like Celeste or Hades comes along, but it’s somewhat rare for me to be taken by indie games. An immediate example of an indie game I’m playing with a friend right now, Children of Morta, the pixel art design makes it incredibly hard to see what is going on.
I’m also not willing to shell out $1000+ for a PC and accessories that I don’t want nor do I have space for that. The Steam Deck has my attention, but the screen is too low quality for me to pay that much for it; I already lived through that with the Switch. I barely played the Switch handheld and only traveled with it twice. If the Steam Deck has a V2 with a better screen, I’d consider it, but I’d still rather have a tv connected setup as those are way more comfortable to play than a handheld.
Everyone’s got preferences and mine are Sony/Nintendo consoles, a preference I’ve come to over many years and attempts at other things. It just sucks that shit has gotten so expensive again.
There are options for handheld gaming PCs with better screens, but they’ll come at a higher price and with worse battery life.
Are there recommended ones? Steam Deck gets a lot of the spotlight and it’s hard to trust many of the “review” sites anymore, especially with so many sites abusing SEO.
If you want SteamOS, your best bet is still Steam Deck. If you don’t mind using Windows on a device that’s not built for it (which does come with the benefit of compatibility and Game Pass), that’s where most of these other options are going. I hear good things about the ROG Ally; seems like that’s the go-to if Steam Deck doesn’t get the job done for you. If you want some thorough reviews to help you out, check out The Phawx on YouTube. That guy has been doing thorough reviews of handheld gaming PCs for a long time now, and you’ll be able to figure out which one is the one for you.
Thanks - I’ll check out that channel. Appreciate it.
Woof…those a big increases. I’m glad I dropped it last year when I realized the only MP games I played were F2P games that don’t need the subscription for online.
Bread has whooped my ass too. I am not having fun.
