Sony Boss Says 'PCs Are Difficult to Set Up', Firm Will Focus on PS5

PC has always been popular. I have one but prefer the simplicity of the PS5. I also spend all day at work on a PC so it's the last thing I want to do when I come home.

The console market is still booming and there will always be a market for something that you can plug in and it just works. One way to kill it is charging obscene amounts for new hardware though....

Sony needs to focus on its console. Completely agree.

"The products are clearly displayed in the stores where you buy software, so it’s an intuitive experience."

Weird, I remember that it was difficult for me to figure out how to upgrade my PS4 copy of CP2077 (or was it TW3?) to the PS5 version because it wasn't intuitive at all

Yeah its incredibly difficult to setup a PC 🙄

Mine is hooked up to a monitor and my living room TV and it's very easy for me to play games on either and things like Steam are very simple to use and I'd argue better than any console store

Sure consoles are largely plug and play but even they aren't quite as simple as they used to be. I remember having lots of issues with PS5 and having to work out how to upgrade games and it constantly trying to install PS4 versions of games I had the disc for, plus there's that nonsense "other" which eats up your hard drive space. Oh and the fiasco of not being able to buy games on sale because you have PS Plus.

These days I play more on PC amd have no more issues than I do on console all whilst benefiting from an enormous amount of games that aren't available on consoles

Best way to focus on your current console...by creating more/better software experiences.

Ps1.ps2. Even ps3 with that high prices the focus was on video games.ps4..ps5 sony is on tony Montana sniffing cocaine.sony is like say hello to the bad guy.wtf🤔.word up son

Waiting for shader compilation on PC and shader compilation stutter in games has put me off PC.That and the lack of physical games for reasonable prices too. Not enough people talk about stuttergate on pc

Problem is the console has the online fee. If I plan on playing with friends it's $10 extra a month. Using the console for 4 years will add $480 to the price on the console compared to pc. Arguing that PC's are difficult isn't going to keep working when your console costs $1200 to play with friends.

Their approach seems sound. Consoles aren't going anywhere, as evidenced by PS5 sales. PC gaming is still seen as complex to many. Pre-built PC's are very popular, and building your own is seen as time consuming and elaborate to the average person. The conveince factor is still massive.

If you run into BIOS issues while building a PC it can sometimes get a bit hairy.

@mariomaster96 so intuitive that we had guides on here for how to upgrade many games 😂

So let's speculate: Will Sony hold Bloodborne etc 60fps performance behind a Pro upgrade?

I used to play on high-end rigs but they are more trouble than they're worth in my experience. Always have problems with games and other random bugs to the point where I wonder if it's just me.

Console gaming is great in it's simplicity and the PS5 Pro is a decent alternative to buying another PC right now.

It’s more likely we’ll just move people to a contract model, such as with phones, rather than get them to switch to PC. That’ll hide the price and keep things easy for people. In fact, I’m surprised it hasn’t been pushed more already.

700 isn't very high tbh. I spent a good 3k building a decent pc . Not chance you'll get a decent enough pc for 700 that matches the ps5 ability to have fast loading times

@mariomaster96 weird PlayStation version update story: I got a Vita copy of Retro City Rampage, and it came with cross-buy (remember that?) for PS4. The DX version was a free and automatic upgrade, because life was better then. Anyhoo, my copy wouldn't update on PS4, so I contacted Sony customer service. They tried but failed. Finally, I emailed VBlank, and asked what was going on. Brian Provinciano (the dude what made that game) explained that the Vita version was the only one that would not automatically update, and since my PS4 version came from there, it would not update either. Then he asked me for a good shipping address to send me a free PS4 copy. What a champ. I ended up buying the game on multiple platforms just cause that was so awesome of him.

I will never have a PC. I don’t even have a desk. I use my MacBook at my dining room table if I need to work. I would just simply stop gaming if I needed a PC.

I think he's oversimplifying things, but his point is generally accurate. Configuring a PC for gaming (or playing a specific game) can be challenging for someone who isn't familiar with the process. The PS5 has some unintuitive functions, but those are correctable issues with the UI more than anything, and it's still basically true that with a console you plug it in, put in the game, and play.

This isn’t 1995..

PC has always been the best platforms to experience games.

"PCs are difficult to set up"

Having taken a 12 year hiatus from PC in favor of consoles and then returning to PC, I can honestly say PC gaming has never been easier!

Heck plenty of games have an Auto-Detect Setting. Nvidia has settings profiles for games, too.

If you just simply want to play the game, you almost never have to go into the Settings menus if you don't want to and still have at least console quality settings.

I got God of War for PC recently for like $10. Out of the box in its Original Graphical Preset (which match the PS4 settings), it looks fine and runs at like 140fps @1440p. If you had no care about using Ultra settings (which runs at around 90 - 120 fps @1440p), then all you have to do is push start and go.

People always say, "Well you can't build a PC for $700 to match PS5" - which is true. But a PS5 also doesn't support games prior to PS4 where as PC can cover games over the last...what...50 years?! Granted, sometimes you have to get community patches for really old games (Max Payne has a music bug that is easily fixed with a quick download), but most of those are a Google Search away (or heck, even the Steam Discussion board for the game will have answers with Links) and come with instructions and sometimes even have Installers to guide you through the process!

So, no...you can't get a PC that matches a PS5 for $700, but you can spend $1500 - $2000 for a PS5, PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, Series X, X360, OG Xbox, Switch, Wii U, Wii, Gamcecube, N64, SNES, NES, Dreamcast, Sega CD, Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, Atari, Arcade Machine, Turbo Grafx 16, etc., etc. all wrapped into one - and will probably still outclass the next consoles.

Pc? No thanks. Too much hassle and i prefer the simplicity of the consoles. Buy,unbox,connect the hdmi wire to my tv and start playing game. 😂

PS5 for the big games
Mini PC for the wee steam games

Works for me.

I think that “PCs are harder to set up” is a pretty weak sales pitch for why someone should be in the console ecosystem. But it’s what you’re left with when PlayStation is releasing what would have formerly been exclusive games on PC and trying to train customers to buy games digitally. I get it, they want to expand their customer base and make as much money as possible, but I do think that, in doing so, PC makes more and more sense for gaming enthusiasts.

I would defo get a pc over the likes of a pro...I did actually have a look...but gave me a headache with all the specs and stuff ...I obviously want a good one but I ain't paying something ridiculous...my max would probably be £1'200....I will most likely just wait for the ps6 and next Xbox

I feel like the future conversation is going to be less of "console vs PC," and more of "what console do I want in addition to my PC." I could see a lot of people having a PC and a Switch 2 so they can play basically everything on the market instead of PC and PS6, which will play basically the exact same games as each other and will be less cost effective.

I'll stick to consoles because less hassle. Also, I want play games on a bigger screen (TV) instead of a PC monitor.

Even though games, PS Plus subscriptions and PlayStation consoles prices are increasing it's still more affordable than PC gaming currently.

However exclusives is no longer one of the key selling points to get a PlayStation (if graphics and performance is really important to you) since PC will get a lot of those exclusives eventually anyways.

Personally, I moved from PC primarily to console because I wanted to have a consistent experience and not have to worry about upgrading so it makes sense to me at least.

Fully agree with him about PCs, and glad to see that their main focus is still going to be consoles going forward

I am interested in getting a steam deck sometime in the future, but even with that it looks too fiddly with changing the settings for each game to get them running well. Also people complain about the Pros price yet the Rog Ally X costs £800 and that's just an handheld that still can't play most AAA games at high settings.

£700 for a PC that matches a PS5 Pro is a pipe dream… all the old xbots/new-PC elite trying to do so are making massive compromises that they choose not to delve into as it doesn’t fit their narrative.

They’re just doing the same old schtick but with a new box as they had to move on from Xbox and their own prejudices wouldn’t allow them to go PlayStation.

Here's a better translation:

"We're not worried about console players moving to PC because we know our customers are complete morons and can't operate PCs. We'll continue our efforts to extract as much money from console players as possible; charging them more for the exact same games we price cheaper on PC and forcing them to subscribe to PS+ for the privilege to play online that our PC players can do for free and continue locking cloud saves behind this service. We're also in process of normalising day 1 releases of non-live service games across both console and PC starting with Until Dawn and Lego Horizon. We don't anticipate losing many console players because we have an army of fanboys at our disposal who care more about the company making money than the console they use and will regurgitate why going day 1 on PC is actually a good thing for everyone and how it helps us make more money to invest into bigger games, despite all evidence to the contrary from the past 4 years."

“With PlayStation, you can play the content you purchased as soon as you turn it on “ I’m sure you can do that with PC too

I've been PC gaming since 1994. Those were the golden days when games ran entirely on the CPU with software 3D. Sure, you had your config sys and autoexec bat to edit, so that your mouse and sound driver would load, and to ensure you had enough base memory, but generally once that was sorted the games ran great.

Since the 3D accelerators came in, and we started gaming within Windows and using things like Direct X, they've been a royal pain in the backside in many ways.

Just at the PC level, I find after six months of constant Windows, driver and Software updates, they start developing odd bugs and quirks that necessitates a full clean install.

Then on a game level, don't even get me started. Forget playing games on launch day.

You will spend the entire day downloading third party home brew drivers, and Googling forums for ini file edits to fix the various problems.

When it stutters all over the place, the same web forum mouthpieces who will tell you that PC is cheap and simple, will call you a peasant for "only" having a £1050 card like the RTX4080, when of course "you should have spent £1800 on a 4090, so shut your mouth and stop complaining about game performance when it's your own fault scrub".

The idea that a PC of the same price as a console can match it, is also one of the worst pieces of gaming misinformation in history. You can typically multiply the cost of a console by 4, before I'd even get out of bed for a PC.

That's just the tower..... not including the monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers etc. You guys moan about having to pay £30 for a vertical stand?!

Furthermore, if you imagine a typical console generation on the day the consoles are first released to the public, and imagine a PC that is four times the cost on that day........come back in 6 years when that console is still going strong, and see how well that PC plays the latest games.

You can get 7 years from a console, where as I'd potentially go through 2 complete PC's in that period (new MOBO, RAM and CPU), and possibly multiple GPU upgrades in between. Christ, the top of the range PC with 2 x top of the range GPU's in SLI that I had when the PS4 launched, had been in landfill for years at the point you were all playing RDR2.

Over the same period you can easily spend 8x what you paid for the console.

Even if you e.g. buy a PS5, then sell it and fund the cost of the Pro, you are still spending less in total than any PC I'd consider gaming on. Then you just turn it on and it works.

$700 is reasonable IMO. with a PC you have to also purchase a monitor, Windows, and peripherals if you don't have them already which pushes up the price significantly. I only have an hour or so to play each day, and I don't want to worry about drivers and optimizing the settings

Sorry Sony, but nothing is more fun, than building your own PC. Yes, it is tedious to setup Windows (especially 10 and 11) but a few hack to get access to options is not so much work.

PC gaming is the best! If mouse & keyboard didn’t give me Carpal Tunnel, I’d be a PC gamer.

@RedShirtRod wait a minute, does access to online multiplayer cost 120 USD per year in the US? Or are you neglecting to include the games that come with? Or deals someone can get online or when there are special discounts that can stack?

My favourite franchise of all time has been Heroes of Might and Magic ever since I played Heroes of Might & Magic 3. So, I keep finding myself getting a new pc when a new one comes out (King's Bounty games are also ace).

But other than that, I find PC gaming a pain. Something always doesn't work because of drivers, etc. So I remember vividly having to look up solutions online and it just sucked the fun out of it. Never had that issue with PS games.

With everything soon to become digital, there's even less reason for bespoke hardware apart from controllers.

A semi upgradable PC in a box that can access the PS store and pair with a DualSense will be the future.

Sony are surely desperate to get out of the console hardware business at this point.

@RedShirtRod $320 at $80 per year. And you can get them cheaper online. I personally don't play online but everyone says a lot of cheaters on PC and the experience is far superior on consoles.

Pc difficult to set up? Maybe for a 4 year old. These days it’s so easy. Okay a full custom hardline water loop is difficult, but not really required.

Does PC threaten Console - not yet, but as PC gets easier (particularly as i understand its now simple to use a normal TV) it may do.
I have always been Console but more and more consider PC.

Unoptimised games / <60fps will be a big contributer - and from Mark Cernys recent presentation, Sony know this. Consoles only have 1 or 2 versions, but are not that powerful, so need careful optimisation to get the best results.

Sony exclusives will help to retain customers (just like they helped build the brand), but if you put them all on PC (or dont release enough)....

I only play consoles and handhelds with their physical games.
I don't care with PC and handphone games.

I grow tired of all the negative comments/articles about the price of the pro and all of the people who say “just build a PC” while ignoring reality. People who want to build a PC will end up spending way more money (and sooo much time patching, updating drivers, etc) over a ten year period than people who just buy the latest PlayStation.

If you can’t afford the PS5 Pro then don’t buy one. If you don’t care about better graphics and faster frame rates then it’s not for you. You don’t have to spend a dime.

That doesn’t make it bad. It doesn’t make the price “eye watering”. The people who demand an included disc drive and then in the next statement talk about building a PC and playing digital games on steam are hypocrites.

People who say “there are no games for the Pro” while also happily buying the latest graphics card don’t see the similarities there lol. Me buying the PS5 Pro is like you upgrading your graphics card for $2000, only it’s far more affordable and I’ll never have to deal with how awful Windows is

@ROBYER1
Is stutter a problem on games older than 2 years old or newer titles?

Stutter frequently comes up when I read up on PC gaming.

Anyone else notice how the Steam Deck is never mentioned in these discussions about PS5 and PC? Weird.

@cardcrusher29 Arkham Knight was notorious for stutter in the day. I got a free key with my brand new top of the range graphics card, and it was so unplayable that I remember running to Asda in my lunch break and buying the PS4 version.

Despite having literally the most powerful GPU on the market.

Same issue with Watchdogs. Countless other titles too back then.

Nowadays there is a lot of shader compilation stutter. Many games resolve this by running the process before playing the first time, or annoyingly every time you update your drivers.

E.g. last night I went to play Dragons Dogma 2 but had to sit there waiting and watching a bar slowly go along the screen, because I’d just recently updated my NVIDIA driver.

Total non issue on console. Don’t get me wrong, DD2 runs GALAXIES better on my PC than PS5, but the money and knowledge required creates a big barrier to entry.

I just want a portable hybrid console, so this makes pc more interesting for me in the future. Have a windows handheld on the go and a egpu dock connected to the TV. If Sony follows suit when the ps6 comes around that would be ideal for me.

However, with the arrogance on display we need to let Sony know that their priorities are set wrong. I hope the pro won't sell well, but I have the suspicion that despite people complaining it'll sell out anyways, because dunno... fomo? Just don't be surprised if the ps6 is a generational half step with a 1000$£€ price tag. Ps5 pro buyers gave Sony the okay for it.

@tameshiyaku PS5 base model owners gave Sony the Ok.

The prices people were prepared to pay for scalped versions at launch, showed Sony exactly how much a large percentage of buyers really think a console is worth to them.

Sony learned a lesson. Why sell for £450 and allow a scalper to make £550 profit off your back, when Sony can just sell it directly for £1000.

Then lower the price over time once all the fans have bought one, and you want to sell to the more casual audience.

That was how it worked 25 years ago. Launched at a high price and gradually dropped.

I feel like building PC today is nowhere near as hard as it used to be back in the 90s and early 00s.
Theres so many safeguards in every component that is basically impossible to F things up. Not to mention all the youtube tutorials.

I think that if anyone is, as sony puts it, “hardcore” enough to shell out 800€ for a Pro then theyre probably capable of buildinga PC.

I wish it was a flop, especially without bluray and vertical stand, but it probably wont.

I'm always going to primarily be a console player. I don't mind PC gaming. I do so when it's the most convenient way of playing something I want to play. (Trails in the Sky 3 and Halo Infinite recently)

It isn't my preferred method of gaming though. I have always preferred the more straightforward approach of console gaming. Plus, while it is true the PS5 Pro is a bit too expensive, you are borderline delusional if you think your going to find a PC that plays games that well for only $700.

"We perfer to focus on upscale tech illiterate consumers, as I believe we clearly demonstrated when announcing the price and specifications of our newest SKU earlier this week."

@Shad361 clearly. I'n 1995 PlayStation had games!

@clicky In some ways I think it's clear, and the focus on RETAIL(??) in his statement that they're ok that PC is for enthusiasts and PlayStation is for normies. And they're ok reaching out to the enthusiasts on PC. They know they're not milking is for vbucks and shark cards on their consoles so they don't care about selling us one. And I'm cool with that if they're willing to support us on PC. As long as they remain consistent in doing so.

@StylesT I think plenty of us could help you hit that budget if you want to go that route . Heck theres a whole game pc builder sim, it's like lawn mower sim but actually cool 😆

@WanderingBullet um.... To play PC games on your TV you just........ Plug the PC..... Into your TV...? 😉

@CrashBandicoat are you buying Pentium 3s in 2024 or something? Most drivers auto update. Most games just run. Some old games need mods. 7 remake, gow, got, xiv, xv, octopath, armored core 5, elden ring, assassin's Creed games, starfield, cyberpunk, you just click play and it runs. Just like a console.

@species yeah it's not that overall different from the 90s, but the differences are windows drivers are way more stable and automatic, parts have failsafes that you can't easily f everything up permanently and brick it, and standards aren't in constant flux so you don't have possible mishahmashes of conflicting standards making a mess of compatibility. This makes a huuuuuuge difference vs then.

I find criticisms about updating drivers (basically all automatic these days) and "crashing" total nonsense. I've gamed about 50/50 PC and Console in the last six years and I've had far more crashes on my PS4/PS5 then I have my PC.

Consoles are just walled garden PCs these days with many of the complaints people used to have of PC (installing games, needing patches/updates, crashes etc). I understand building them can be intimidating, but just get a prebuild, or, better yet, watch the many easy to follow build guides online. I built mine totally from scratch aged thirty with zero prior knowledge, and have done a few complete rebuilds since.

I'm convinced that the most vocal haters of PC online are ultimately people who'd love to have one, but don't have the means to acquire one. It's such an important pillar of the gaming, that it's madness to dismiss it so roundly. PC, home console and handheld are all vitally important to the history of the hobby.

@NEStalgia Oooh ye, i didnt even think of the fact that whole windows installs itself in under 10minutes with all the drivers. Good point haha.

But remember those early Athlon CPUs wih no cover whatsoever so if you didnt install the cooler pixel perfect you would scratch the chip and its game over?
Or even better the actual cooler needed to be latched with a flathead screwdriver and significant force so if you slid even a little bit you would drive it thru the motherboard xD
Good times haha.

Ye today the “pc too hard to build” is no excuse.
I personally deviated from PC gaming for the comfort of just plugging in a box and being able to play. Also couch is more comfy than those modern “gaming” chairs taken straight out of some track tuned honda civic.

Tldr; im old

I'm probably going to pc and whatever Nintendo does next going forward. If Sony do go all digital there won't even be an incentive to pick up any of their stuff late on in the next generation when it's cheaper to collect.

They slowly lost all of the advantages having one of their consoles has this generation. A sad end to my time with playstation, but it was always on the cards I suppose.

Well yeah, the point of a console is to be more straightforward and cheaper than a PC. That’s why they shouldn’t be chasing raw power, alas Sony are f**king idiots.

I switched to consoles in 2014 and never looked back. Before I spent enormous amount of resources and experienced a lot of frustration with PC gaming (mainly due to how Windows works).

For instance, I wanted games to have custom colour correction for my display instead of just ignoring it (due to a specific DX issue) and I could force them to do that with the couple of utilities, one of which forced borderless windowed mode for any game. I wanted performance to stay consistent across a game, but Skyrim on Windows tanked in Markath for like 1/5th of FPS I had in any other part of the game.

And so on, and so forth. I don't believe the problems like that can ever be finally fixed, due to too many unknowns on a PC. Developers can't optimise for unknowns.

If "PCs are difficult to set up" is the best argument you can come up with for people to buy your console, then that's not a good sales pitch.

Sony always won before by offering unique, fun games with an affordable console. But now they've totally lost me this gen. I'd need to spend around £500 just to essentially play PS4 games with better performance. My PS4 was £250. The PS5 is simply not worth double the price.

@species ROFL, make it stop, make it stop! I have that nightmare weekly. I built one of those nightmares and it scarred me for life.

I remember when you needed a floppy drive to install the storage controller driver to install Windows but then it would never load. I remember trying to get USB working on 95 and finally gave up. I had a 98 machine that would bsod and become unbootable and I reinstalled 5 times. Turned out it was a Logitech USB flight stick driver, somehow rendering the whole machine unbootable. Those days are long long gone but they still scar the word pc 😆.

The IBM glass platter Deathstar click off death! I had so many of those things....

I fled all that to console when ps360 came out. Swore I'd never go back. And this 9th Gen sent me back after all lol. I really enjoyed the consoles all this time but honestly, kinda missed PC and didn't realize I did.

Sony you keep making great AAA games just for your console.
Just like Nintendo do.

Since Xbox is making for many devices on release it can’t make an amazing AAA game for love or money. To many devices.
Some third party developers are a having the same trouble.
All just above average games. SW outlaws for example.

Sony/Nintendo keep making those amazing AAA games for your consoles.

@Dragon83 Thank you for saying that. I have tried my best to tell people you can not match consoles at their price point in performance with PC. Sure $700 is high for a console and making people jump around saying untrue things. Show me a $700 PC with Ray tracing and RDNA3/4 hybrid with a 2TB SSD and i will buy 3 of them and resell them. Thanks for spreading the word. You are not going to get this tech in any machine $700 or under. Is it a little high maybe, but is the tech inside really good and will make the PS5 and Series console looking weak in a year or 2, yes I believe so and thats why i am getting a PRO.

Nishino's right. Console still have the advantage when comes to convenience of plug and play.

Back in 2009, I used to own a gaming rig that can run Crysis 1 and The Witcher 2 at mid setting. Building the rig wasn't that hard for me but definitely not as cheap as buying a console.

What put me off with PC gaming was the amount of times where the VGA driver doesn't work or not compatible with older games.

Not to mention the constant upgrade like every 3-4 years if you want to keep up with the tech. A new RAM, CPU, and VGA possibly not working with your 3-4 years old motherboard because they have different slot. So that means you need to buy a new motherboard if you want a new RAM, CPU, & VGA. And the new motherboard or VGA could not fit with your old case which means you need to buy a new case too. It's so annoying and requires a lot of money and time just to build the rig.

Of course there's a fullset PC that you can buy without spending the time to build it. But they some time more expensives than build your own.

Oh and yeah PC doesn't have physical copy anymore and i always prefer physical over digital. That's why i abandoned PC gaming since 2013/14 and used my PC for work or browsing only.

But looking ahead, if PS6 is fully digital then i'm done with Sony. Might jump to Nintendo if Switch 2 still used cartridge or any physical media.

@HonestHick
Totally agree, hope we both manage to get a preorder PS5 Pro in the 26th.

@OldGamer999 i just seen a report from JeZ saying moral at Xbox is low right now with another 650 people let go. He also let on that many of the dev’s don’t know the future of GP or the Xbox console. We all know they are going to do another gen, likely 2026, but plans after that aren’t great around the halls at MS the report says. I hate that they backed themselves into the GP or bust corner and with the PS5 Pro even i won’t be buying any multi plats on Xbox no more and anyone on here knows I bought 90% of my 3rd party titles on Xbox cause i like the controller more. They need to get a clear plan and be open with the public with it soon, when GTA 6 comes out PS5 is going to really pile it on Xbox.

@OldGamer999 yeah buddy i am going to try and get it pre ordered i have been talking about the PS5 Pro and the lack of a pro from MS for a year it feels like. I said i wanted a console that could preform to higher quality levels. Sony built a monster, the RDNA 3/4 hybrid is really nice with the PSSR, we are finally getting 4K 60 and i ain’t going to let the money get in my way. Sell or trade my PS5 and pay the difference and get to enjoy the experience i want. 😊

@cardcrusher29 Mostly modern AAA games even the last 5 years on pc.. It's a major pc problem recently

@HonestHick I really need to flog my Series X. All I've done on it in the last six months is watch Frieren on Crunchyroll and play Silent Hill: Downpour through BC.

@HonestHick
I will sell my PS5 digital slim, so that will go towards my PS5 Pro.
Not to fussed about a disc drive, I’m totally all digital on all consoles.

@HonestHick Not trying to change your mind, in fact my personal recommendation for you specifically is to remain with the consoles, because I know the added effort in PC isn't for you (even if it's a fun hobby in and of itself.)

However. I have to object to the price fallacy. Of course you can't get a $700 pic to match it's performance directly, and nobody is saying you can. However the TOTAL cost over 10 or 15 years needs to be considered. However with the PC you're getting something either equals or curb stomps PS5 pro, replaces series x with a whole other class, plays the whole of 1990 onward, games upgrade with hardware forever or till they max out without wondering about buying unlock patches and remasters, games are cheaper on general, no online fees, and the same rig might even beat ps6/xb7 or if not might upgrade to best them for the same or lower price than them.

The argument can never be "oh no 700 pc tops this." It's a disposable consumable vs a long term maintainable repairable machine thats cheaper to run. Yeah you pay a ton more up front but then you're enjoying savings, custom performance, and are in a commodity hardware software market rather than being beholden to "lifestyle brand" pricing strategies.

Tldr; I'd rather have the Peterbilt than the Mercedes even if it does cost more . It'll still be running when the Mercedes had been scrapped a decade before.

All that said, I still recommend console for you. You're an apple guy. They round the corners so your kind can't hurt yourselves

@HonestHick @PuppetMaster I've been saying this all ps5 gen. You can't build a gaming rig that will run games to the same standard as the ps5 for under a £1000. So all these people saying they are going to turn to pc gaming are going to be spending so much more than £700 when the ps5 Pro drops. I've had arguments with people on this site who say they can build a gaming rig that will be better than a ps5 for not that much more than a ps5 costs but when I've challenged them to build it and show everybody here it running games that exist on the ps5 they suddenly turn mute and you don't hear from them again. Consoles are very convenient for just the plug and play aspect. £700 for the ps5 Pro is not too much and yes of course I'd like it to be cheaper but it is what it is and no amount of moaning is going to change it.

@PuppetMaster You have a similar history to myself with PC. You perfectly described the experience in 2008. The woes then. That's about when I bailed too. And the end of physical. And back then remember how it was almost required to run custom loop liquid?

I've had all the same arguments against for years but you might be happy to know a lot of that remains in the past. The rate of upgrades, the driver woes, the constant standards changes that each upgrade meant replacing everything? You can really plan around that much better now. You can really run a rig much longer than that these days if you don't mind not having the very shiniest reflections on whatever the newest game 6 years from now have. Any recent CPU today likely will destroy the one in PS6 ,too, so if you don't need the latest that exists because it exists you can go a long time. A GPU upgrade every 3-5 years isn't different from mid gen console apparently now. Similar pricing.

You'll be back. You know it

Sony's approach of PC releases and high prices drives me towards PC that I am actually convinced to buy one. Just waiting for new HW to be announced

@PCPS4XB @naruball It's $10 a month for the average consumer, the same group this guy thinks are concerned about building PC's. Can you find it cheaper? Sure. I can also buy a PS5 for less than $500 or get a 4070 ti for less than $700. I'm going off what Sony is charging, not the cheapest.

I also don't count free games because if you're just wanting to play online, these are just added stuff. Epic has a free game they give out weekly. Don't have to subscribe to get it. It's nice but free games don't matter if all you're wanting is to play the game you bought with your friends.

Point I'm making isn't that Playstation is pointless, it's that the software and interface is going to start matter a lot more. Saying people aren't going to look at other options because of something like difficulty of use or price isn't going to work anymore.

@jrt87 i am keeping my Series X as i still really like the console and Gears of War E Day is my most wanted title ever. I am a HUGE gears fan. So if that don’t come to PS i would be highly upset i didn’t have a Xbox, so i ain’t doing that. I will just pay the price from swapping out PS5 to Pro. 😊

But i mean yeah if you ain’t using it that is more funds for you to use on something you would better enjoy!

@jrt87 i have to agree with you. When I built my PC many,many moons ago I hardly ever had crashes but it was the constant updates and conflicts that really irked me. Windows updates really hacked me off. I built a amd fx6300 based pc mainly because the price of the cpu (£85) was cheap and the overclock potential was very good. I threw in 16 gig of ram and a msi gtx970 and all was good for about 5 years until the power supply went kaput. It still runs well to this day but its my wife's work station now as its just not up to playing modern games and it will be expensive to upgrade it and truth be told I just can't be arsed..I'm 52 this year and just want an easy hassle free gaming twighlight.

PCs have the big advantage of being able to do more than just gaming. Even if I wasn't a gamer, I'd still want a PC of some kind.

I've found myself playing on PC more these days as I'm still on PS4. Though, my PC is starting to get a little old as well. At some point, I'll want to upgrade something. The price point of the PS5 Pro along with concerns that the PS6 might follow suit is making me think a PC upgrade would be the better investment.

@NEStalgia yeah i am staying with Apple computers for sure that wouldn’t change even if i did build a gaming PC. Windows is trash to me. I mean i work on it enough to know it’s bad. Windows 11 is laughable.

Sure if PC is what the player wants then it’s a different class with different abilities and rules entirely. I say go for it for those that want that. Heck when MS announced all their games where coming day and date to PC, this very site said all they needed this gen was a PS5 and a PC and here we are again the same people on the fence for PC. But i digress, we all knew they weren’t’ going to build a rig.

For the consoles players such as myself, dating back to the Super Nes beginning days, consoles are not 15 year investment and i am glad, i enjoy the process of buying into the next generation with all new features and whistles. However to your point i hate having to pay for online play. That one i have nothing but hate for. Rumor is the next Xbox is going away from online paywall. Believe it when i see it. But i am really happy with the specs and what PS5 Pro will be able to achieve. It’s a good fit for me. I am looking forward to it and my Dual Sense Edge will finally get some use. Haha

@OldGamer999 yeah i could care less about a disc drive, i haven’t used one of those in any device in over 10 years. For those that do it does suck it’s an extra cost. But physical collectors are slowly but surely losing advantages by the year. It’s not going to be long that consoles join the rest of the consumer electronics market and be disc less.

@HonestHick
Apart from Switch 2.
It’s will interesting next generation if it’s all digital.
I’m thinking it might well be.

In the long term Playstation games on PC will kill Playstation. Every release devalues their brand and customer loyalty. Yes PS player's have to wait longer but they get the better version and play online without a fee, and they have access to PC and Xbox exclusives. My money is on Xbox launching a gamer focused version of Windows 11 on their next Xbox, which can access games pass, steam etc. so plays everything (except Nintendo exclusives.).

@ROBYER1 @CrashBandicoat
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on stuttering and PC gaming.

With the PS6 and Xbox Series Y 100% certainly costing more than the present equivalent of the AMD 6800XT or Nvidia 3080, it's time for me to save and research thoroughly where my limited entertainment budget should go with regards to a more stable 60fps experience.

@Northern_munkey there was something about PSUs back then. Mine from that era blew too, though these days the good ones have 10 year warranty so it's a free fix if it doesn't blow anything else. My xsx PSU failed 11 months and 3 weeks in. Got a warranty swap but another week and I'd have been buying a new console!

@NEStalgia I was very lucky it didn't do any damage really and I got a new one pretty cheap which is still in there.

@K-Wud It would be amazing if Microsoft made a Windows for Gaming and made it available for all PCs - imagine cutting out significant amounts of overhead with a barebones version of Windows that only runs games/game storefronts

This whole debate about buying a PC over a PS5 Pro is ridiculous to me.

Sony have shown that the PS5 Pro is an absolutely pointless purchase based on the price and actual improvements made. Forget about PCs and the cost to build one, it's not worth £700.

some ports? almost all ps4/ps5 'exclusives' are on pc now. the current waiting time is about 2 years. this strategy will surely continue as exclusive games don't bring enough profit, so Sony needs the PC market

they don't want to support PC because they rather you spend $700 on a console and not buy a PC for gaming. Sony is such a trash company and I'm glad sites like PushSquare to calling them out this garbage.

@Northern_munkey Yeah mine was weird. It was a new build at the time. I lost a WD Raptor (warranty.). Then another raptor (warranty), I lost a GPU (warranty was a sham, off brand) then lost another GPU both with very little use on them. Then after a few years the machine would spontaneously reboot sometimes, then one day or just never came back up. That whole time I think a dodgy PSU was eating my hardware. Vowed id never buy thermaltake again. Their fans are good though.

@CrashBandicoat of course that goes for every consumer electronic, but the crass difference between the PS4 to pro and the ps5 to pro is extreme, while this gen is not nearly being pushed enough so far. It will just set a bad precedent from here on out that shouldn't be supported.
Scalpers are bad, but people buying from scalpers, man... money can neither buy money or a brain.

After you wait 20 minutes to install the game you just bought (and hope there is no day 1 patch).

Only system that is mostly instantaneous is the switch. As most games can be booted from the cartridge as is and the UI is pretty much only there to get you to the games. I have a series x and a PS5 and I like them well enough but that long wait to get from purchase to play is why I game primarily on the Switch. Also the days of PC being difficult to get running are mostly over.

One can pitch the convenience of console without misrepresenting both consoles or PC.

Even if one could build a PC for the same cost as PS5 Pro, what would be the point? To go through all that hassle building a rig, installing and configuring windows, which is a huge kerfuffle, dealing with launchers and you still have to buy a keyboard, mouse and controller, only to then needing a decent monitor since PCs aren’t living room friendly. One would then want a much more powerful PC to make it worth it, so would cost more.

The PS5 pro is expensive for a home console, and concerning for game preservation and ownership in regards to the blu ray drive, but it’s cheap relative to PC gaming. Though the gap is narrowing.

@NEStalgia @Northern_munkey @Puppetmaster

I am not the smartest PC builder in the world as focus on Apple products. But i do like to read about gaming PC’s. So i know a little. Far far far less than NES and Munkey. But i want to double and triple down on this cause it’s a fact.

You can not right now get a RDNA 4 chip with AI upscaling and Ray tracing with a 2 TB SSD at those speeds for $700. Moores law is dead is saying there is no AMD chip for PC with this feature set. This is a AMD Sony hybrid that only exist on PS5 Pro and it is POWERFUL. So much so it took FF to near Max settings running a locked 60. To me and again i know thats subjective but to me thats worth $700 dollars when you factor it all in. Also outside of GTA and a few other titles that are CPU bound games, 98% of the games made right now and in development are GPU bound games. Meaning the Pro even with only a 10% bump to the CPU is going to run games at a locked 60 with great settings. As a console gamer, this is what i want and am willing to pay for. Again for those that would take that money and add more to get a PC, I understand, especially if that is a device you really want to play on and maintain and all the such. When i log off my work computer i am so happy to be away from windows, the updates, the freezes etc etc. it’s back to Apple and consoles for me and they just work. I think Sony is in great position to have a Pro console cause they have a base console that is selling and has a good size user base. MS is struggling to sell what they have now, so a $700 dollar pro Xbox does them very little and i will end on all this banter about the PS6 will be $700, that is non sense. Sony knows they sell more base units and have a market there that is willing to pay up to $500 for a large marketshare of users and they won’t just give that away. But i expect we will see a PS6 Pro and oh the price of that, who knows. Just know I respect the heck out of you guys, i am just kicking the can around enjoying your company. In no way am i trying to sell you on a device nor say the one you choose isn’t good or right for you. I have learned so much talking to NES and others, this is enjoyable to me. So again enjoy your device and i hope we get some killers games soon to enjoy them on. Cause the hardware is a means to a end, it’s the games that count and how you want to experience them.

@RedShirtRod depends most popular play with friends games are free.

@HonestHick eeehhh...yeeeah.... And also no.

Yes you can't get that spec for 700 but that goes under the tco mentioned before. 700 initial, but not cost of ownership over the lifecycle of the product.

But with regard to AMD. They are infamous for boasting of amazing theoretical performance and paying a lot of influencers to cheerlead amazing new AMD cards, only for the final product to run hot, eat power, and still underperform the price equivalent Nvidia part. Which is why they have less than 10% of the market. Also they already said they're not chasing Nvidia performance targets anymore and are going after the higher margin mid-range to buy market share through value. Realistically I wouldn't overestimate any amd GPU. Especially a bundled apu at 700 with Sony prestige Mark up attached.

What you're likely seeing is pssr maybe working very well, or maybe working very well on that title as a showcase. Will it perform better than dlss3? Probably not,I can't imagine as a newcomer Sony managed to out ai the heavyweight king of ai. Could be wrong. Maybe it's dlss4 tier?

Either way we have Mark Cerny himself stating a 45% effective increase. We don't need to speculate from marketing demos. 45% is ok but but amazing. Not $700 amazing. The rest is upscaling. Which..... Pc already had.

It's an upgrade, and yeah, in the console space you're not getting better right now, of course it's a $700 2 year trinket until ps6 is better and hundreds less.... To be as soon as console stopped being about one affordable machine to last year's and years and get the best of experiences meant for it and just became pc games pushing pc visual targets, and now the consoles want us to upgrade our GPU every few years at PC GPU prices for less than you get for the PC GPU price to get the intended experience......I just don't get the point of not just doing PC. Seems just as expensive if not moreso over time. Tech the only reason adding storage to PS5 isn't insanely expensive is because it used the PC part and the PC market drove costs down.

Again not suggesting you ought to go the PC route. But this thing is still a rip off in value 😂. For me, I knew before this launched it would be 700+, and that, Xbox being Xbox, and psvr2 being... Present?.... That all pushed me over 😁

PCs are not hard or complicated anymore, if i can do it anyone can. albeit i joined the master race 2 years ago with a high end prebuilt

I literally just plugged in , installed steam & played.

"PCs are difficult to set up"
Mainly because Windows Update forcing things up yours every other week if you don't go to the register and disable some things.

Honestly, the day people throw everything Microsoft related in the garbage will be a better day for the world.

@playstation1995 the OG ps3 could play ps1 and ps2 games, but the ps5 pro is expensive for no reason 😂

@K-Wud nah playstation will always be around because there will always be a market for console , an area that they dominate. the playstation division is $onys bread & butter

@Slidebomb
Saying that Xbox is a windows machine for games is the same as saying that both Switch and PS5 are FreeBSD machines for games.

We both know that isn't true and that both systems are way too different.

@NEStalgia yeah AMD can’t touch Nvidia, and i don’t think PSSR is DLSS. But it’s clearly going to be good and a huge boost. They have time to improve it over the years. I believe Pro will show some nice gains in the coming months and many dev’s once they get it will start to use it really well and it’s all at $100 dollars more than the new limited edition 2TB series X. I mean that really is a stretch in price to me. Xbox is going backwards with tech, while Sony is giving me performance, even if at a cost i think they should have gotten to $600, but with Wi-Fi 7 and 2TB cost aside they did actually. Cause the extra storage for sure is a bump in cost. Xbox uses Wi-Fi 4. So Sony tries, they ain’t perfect. I am a hard critic on them but man Xbox is just dropping the ball all over the place. I will get the Xbox Handheld and it better be the start to better things from them or Sony is going to eat their lunch even more.

This ain’t the early 2000s any more… PC aren't an hustle to setup at all. This whole “PC are too hard to use” dead back in early 2010’s. But I don’t know why we listening to PC advice from someone who haven’t had to set up PC before. He pays IT to do that.

TBH the only people who still find PC difficult are a small subset of 30s year olds and any one older than 40s. My generation and the generations coming behind mine have been using computers since before we could walk…

So good luck PlayStation. Your days are dwindling.

@AverageGamer pipe down, Junior, some of us oldilocks had to endure DOS gaming. If you Never debated between a Diamond Stealth and Matrox Millennium, you're not a REAL PC gamer lol 😂

@HonestHick Yeah the price of the 2tb x is high, though I also think it's priced to discount at the holidays "save $100!" While pro won't see discounts, and the Xbox 2tb has the disc drive while pro doesn't. I don't use mine and you don't use yours but that's an $80 difference, the pro with a stand and a drive is $810. So not equal comparison.

Though I still don't understand why Wi-Fi in consoles matters, I run Ethernet always, but PC nerd habit I guess. Still even sakurai told smash players to share always use Ethernet. And modern TVs being Internet ready you'd think most people have Ethernet at their TV now.

@nyr2k2 what configuration??
I turn on the pc, launch steam but game install game and hit play.

Y’all are nuts if you think this has been anything different for more than a decade.

Difficult to set up? Heard it all now, it's never been simpler to do than it is these days, even building them is like Lego.
If something is "difficult" to set up... perhaps...crazy idea, but, learn?
I'm not a mechanic, but I rebuild motorcycles and engines for fun, because I learned. I don't get why people think sorting out a PC is rocket science when it's dead simple. If young teenage me could do it back in the days of windows 98, anyone can do it...best way to learn is to just have a go, do a bit of reading about parts etc, and build!

I think $700 is way too much for a PS5 Pro. But $700 isn’t going to get you a powerful PC either. At least not if you include a monitor, Widows 11 license, mouse, and keyboard.

Building a PC and configuring it for gaming is complex today? It has never been so easy! Damn, my first PC was in the mid-90ies and I can tell you that it was WAY more difficult to setup at that time. Remember creating a boot floppy disk for each game and spending hours in the IRQ management to get the sound card popping a noise without a crash? MS-DOS gaming was an hardcore thing!!!

I have GeForce Now and an Nvidia Shield Pro, and it's actually a good alternative for those who want PC games without much hassle... And you can play on a TV.

@B0udoir IRQ.....shudder, there's a word I haven't heard in so long I forgot it existed. Now that was nightmare fuel.

@PrettyPawsome Not to mention we assume he's assuming "setting up" a PC means building. And yeah there's gotchas for the non technically minded we take for granted that we already know. Things like XMP/EXPO would drive non techies nuts. But you can walk into a store that sells computers and buy one. Click next a few dozen times and you're ready to use the Xbox store if downloading steam is too hard lol. Just like you don't have to build your own PlayStation. Other than screwing in the stand. Sold separately. And Sony already trained everyone in PC upgrading with the M2 bay....

@RedShirtRod yeah Sony is charging $80 for the yr... What most people get

@NEStalgia IRQ 5, DMA 1. It’s still vivid in my memory. Could be a good nickname.

@NEStalgia @B0udoir I had a Diamond Monster 3D accelerator (Voodoo 1). I remember there was a cable that had a male and female VGA adapter. One screwed into the onboard video output and the other connected to the monitor. I remember playing the original Unreal for the first time and wondering how the graphics in that game were even possible!

Plug and Play was still young then - and sometimes didn't work as expected, requiring manual intervention.

I remember, in college, I upgraded from 8MB of RAM to a whopping 32MB of RAM. I was hot stuff!

I also remember being the only person to be able to play GLQuake when everyone else had to rely on software rendering. I could see rockets coming at me from a mile away due to the light corona that were added - made people so mad during out dorm Deathmatch nights.

I still relive those glory days of DOS using DOSBox as well as using the official Roland SoundCanvas VA virtual synthesizer, FalcoSoft Midi Player to host SCVA (I also use MUNT for MT-32 and CM-32L emulation), LoopMidi to act as a virtual Midi Port, and CoolSoft Midi mapper to ensure that all Midi files played in Windows are routed to the FalcoSoft Midi player using LoopMidi rather than using the built-in Windows GS Synth.

And if anyone who reads what I wrote is scratching their heads at the complexity of it all will now understand that everything I do is actually even less complicated than it used to be with requiring an actual Roland SC-55 unit, cables to connect to the external Midi device, cables to connect back to your computers Audio In port so that the music comes out of your PC speakers along with the game audio, and then going into setup executables for every game to ensure Music and Audio devices are pointing to the correct place.

Heck, I remember you had to setup how many simultaneous sounds you would like to have as some sound cards could only handle a few sounds at a time. DOOM had a max of 8 possible sounds at once.

Plus, there was a huge difference between using General Midi, Soundblaster, Gravis Ultrasound, MT-32, and even AWE32 music! Redbook - or CD audio - wasn't around for a while and that was only 16-bit 44Khz Stereo. It was years before digital 24-bit 48Khz multichannel audio came around for games!

It's great that DOOM 1 & 2 on Steam still has the original WAD files because sometimes its fun playing them through DOSBox (though I will say that the Enhanced Music for E1M1 of DOOM in the latest release is amazing). The best part is that it still requires going into the Setup to change some settings - thankfully they added the option to do so. With the previous DOOM on Steam, you had to find the DOOM setup.exe online to change settings (or edit the cfg file if you had the menu option numbers memorized).

I mean, sure there are Source Ports like GZDoom that require no extra setup, but that just goes to show how much easier gaming has changed today.

But I think I have officially aged myself.

Open mouth, insert foot.

@GamingFan4Lyf "Plug and Pray" you mean? Lol. Yeah PnP was another way of saying "manual trial and error".

Unreal 1 was amazing. I'm still sad they never revisited it. It became an arena shooter in tournament. We got unreal 2 which was nothing like what made 1 great. Such a waste of an amazing IP and legendary game. And amazing soundtrack.

Lol the rest of that, while I never bothered with half of it is sadly all familiar terms even if I'd forgotten half of them existed. Gravis ultrasound. Man that takes me back!

Sooo....WTF were you on the fence doing PC again? 😂. You have an obligation to redo the custom rig now!

@NEStalgia I am not on the fence anymore. I pulled the trigger about a month ago! I missed this world!

I am very tempted to sell my Xbox Series X as I really don't need it anymore except to some of the games I don't have on PC (yet, but plan to at some point in the future).

The PS5 I will keep just because there are still games there that aren't on PC (and may not be guaranteed to get PC releases) - but if/when FF7 Rebirth, Astro Bot, Demon's Souls, Spider-Man 2, and Stellar Blade ever come to PC, I will get rid of the PS5 too as those are the only games I have that don't have PC equivalents.

I can always emulate the Xbox and PlayStation games I own that don't have official PC releases and never will (e.g. Resistance, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Uncharted 1 - 3, etc.).

I have 6TB of space to work with between 2 internal M.2 drives (1 2TB Western Digital Blue 6GB/s read that came with the PC and is the primary system drive and 1 2TB Samsung 990 Pro 7.4GB/s Read that I got for $150 and have almost filled up with games) and 1 2TB External HDD that I used to have hooked up to my Series X that I use for Emulators and applicable games as well as set as my default Windows Downloads location (to help save on Write operations on my M.2 drives).

its not like pc gaming is new though , i mean pc's have been around forever. most people are into pc games or console games. how many people are going to give up console gaming for a 3-4k pc?

@twitchtvpat $4k? If going with all custom hardloop with all EK fittings maybe. 3k will buy top of the line before going exotic. Most people would be looking at 1.2k to 2.5k depending on if they want a bit better than a pro or want to make a run at ps6. 3k is if you want to trash ps6 in 2024. 4k is if you have more money for vanity than sense. Remembering that PS5+pro is also 1.2k....

I know I know you're not a believer..... But they're just so many funny ideas about price out there.

@GamingFan4Lyf Stellar Blade is already confirmed, and I believe rebirth is but not dated, so yeah it's down to the others. I'm sure sm2 will. Thing NEEDS to make back more money. I care more about LEGO horizon than whatever ND is working on next lol. For me it's Astro bot that's the one to wait for.

I did make sure to go for very high write endurance drives rather than typical consumer drives to avoid having to worry much in the era of 100gb installs.

@CrashBandicoat thank you for being honest and speaking the truth about PC gaming. I was a PC gamer for many years before switching to consoles, and what you describe is exactly why I switched. Now I spend all of that time fiddling with drivers and settings (like you said, sometimes days), just getting to play games with zero hassle. Maybe a lot of people don’t mind the hassle, but I sure hated it (and that’s as someone who used to build servers as part of my job). It just felt like more work!

@NEStalgia 3k upwards to 4k , but i parted out a pc recently of stuff in what i would considered an ideal pc , and it came out to more like almost 5.5k , with a i9 14900, 4900 gpu , 64gb ddr5 6k ram, dual 4tb nvme 2.0 hard drives , i don't have funny ideas about prices , i built a 2k pc when the 3060's came out and it was a little over 2k , i mean it still holds up for the most part.

Console is compact. PC and monitor take too much space. I was trying to find a decent laptop. 1200 - 1700 euro for asus f16. And there are so many versions. PS you turn on and play. Yes, everything is overpriced on it. Pro is just for geeks. I am waiting for switch 2.

@RedShirtRod again, you're saying it costs 10 USD a month, so that would be 120 per year. That's not the case. It's 80 per year.

You're saying that someone who games online for four years will get a monthly subscription for 48 months straight without ever choosing the yearly subscription? Come on now...

@NEStalgia Yeah, and some of y'all are still acting like it the DOS days. XD

My sister's coworker 8-year-old son just finished building him a customer gaming PC. Granted, I helped by providing a good site find parts. But PC gaming is not hard anymore.

@twitchtvpat Bruh, that vastly better than just an "ideal PC"... An i9 14900, 4900 gpu , 64gb ddr5 6k ram, dual 4tb nvme 2.0 hard drives... is not a PC. That is a workstation. You're not just buying that for gaming. You are buying that if your CAD rendering, 3D modeling, video edit.... etc.

Most PC's bought from any retailer come with Windows preinstalled. The ps4 has a wide library of games but no backwards compatibility with older Playstation consoles. The ps5 is a powerful console but the biggest issue is that there are minimal ps5 exclusive games. And a good chunk of the titles are remastered ps4 versions or games that are available for both ps5 and ps4. Astrobot isn't going to instantly boost sales. If Sony had 5-6 games like Astrobot that would make a difference. Live service games ONLY work if they have a solid core game.

@Northern_munkey While PS5 Pro isn't for me but yeah, there's no way building a gaming rig with the same specs like PS5 Pro will be cheaper than 700 bucks. A high end GPU that equivalent to PS5 Pro alone will cost 500-600 bucks or more. We're not even talking the CPU, RAM, SSD, power supply, and a good case. It could cost 1000+ bucks to build a gaming rig that as good if not better than PS5 Pro.

PlayStation’s problem is that they are committed to making powerful out of the box hardware to run photo realistic style games, but a new generation of gamers couldn’t care about that. Games like Among Us, Fortnite, and Five Nights at Freddie’s don’t need a PS5 to run. If anything the biggest competition PS5 has is PS4, and let’s not forget Nintendo. If you add mobile and tablet it there is a lot of ‘good enough’ ways to play games these days that don’t cost Four to Seven hundred quid.

It's not the difficulty of building the pc is the quality of life features of consoles like rest mode and being able to handle everything from the couch with the controller

Kind of true, you can watch youtube video for building a pc but not everyone have the time for that. I'm used to build my own pc but the reason I mostly play AAA games on console is because it's waay easier to set my tv and home theatre with console rather than pc. Windows and tv play <really> don't mix well.

@AverageGamer I don't know about that. My Dad is 58 and he was one building our home PC back in the 90s when he was in his mid to late 20s/early 30s. His generation came of age as the home PC emerged and became commonplace in most homes.

I'm mid 30s now and grew up installing stuff on DOS and having to deal with the various the wild west days of early 3D acceleration settings etc. Spent most of my 20s using Linux on my uni laptop.

I've read it's actually the younger generation who've grown up with touchscreens and walled garden OS who the ones who are mostly falling behind when it comes to knowledge of desktop PC hardware/operating systems.

To me, PC’s are just faff. You spend half your life playing with settings and worrying if a game is compatible with your setup. I prefer consoles because you switch it on and you set it up once. It’s quicker and easier to get into the game. Because I use a Windows laptop and Mac for work, the last thing I want to do is faff about in my own time.

The amount of boomers here is incredible.

I get the impulse of saying: "I could build a PC" and " I can make it so cheap that the people considering a PS5 Pro would call the alternative a no-brainer".

Every point of departure is of course different, as is every use case. Some have a good TV, others might have an excellent computer screen. Although both a PC and a PS5 Pro will work with either, you'd be inclined towards a PS5 Pro if you want to be on the couch in front of the TV. Conversely, if you game on the workstation you gravitate towards PCs although I see many desks have s PS5 instead of a desktop.

Building a PC from scratch and future-proofing it costs around 1600-3000 dollars, and going into a deals-site on Eurogamer tells you why: there are multiple components and they cost a lot of money. Never mind actually having them available to ship immediately.

Then you have to put the things together, takes hours you could have spent working to earn money 🤑 Then comes the settings - a session or three for each game will be required.

The argument "At this price point, you might as well build a PC" is therefore pretty disingenuous. That is the actual 'dressing up as a clown-meme' in my opinion.

My solution is to probably stick with PS5 as the improvement, as I have said before, is incremental and I am one of the people who couldn't even see a difference in the presentation.

I will always happily be a console peasant.

This gen of consoles hasn't really delivered for me. And that's going to be a different statement for everyone. I wanted VR, we got it but not the best selection. GT7 won't allow the gimble effect to switch off, if it does I've missed it, and no driving games are really cutting it. So I moved to PC. I don't want live service, I don't care for online, and I've found a library of games that my pc can play with ease. I don't know how to overclock or any shizzle like that but it's also letting me plug in whatever controller I like and set it how I want. Oh and PSVR2 finally has a proper racing game to throw at my eyes. But this is my preference, you guys use yours and I shall be happy knowing we play games our way. 😁

@EfYI that's interesting. I spent £1500 on a pc, took 6 hours to get to windows boot and I've never done it before. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience too. Depends on skill level I suppose and I have a 35 year background of engineering.

@Wizardweb there is no word processor on mine. 😂 But I see your point, and used it. Just like the golf one that spoilt a good walk, and here I am with an 18 handicap.🥲

@Slippship

My point exactly!

Over double the price, 6 hours put into assembly, and wait until you want to install mods or tweak graphics, it is a huge time sink.

35 years of technical experience will ensure your success in putting RAM onto the Motherboard, yes. But think of the thousands of people bluffing that they are going to build a computer all to be part of a crowd online. It is just a bunch of people clowning about 🤡

Indulge me and write what parts you chose?

Ha PCs are too complicated. Trying to convince himself or the casual gamer?

Never mind, they really aren't difficult at all.

Do I prefer to plug in a console and play? Sure, but I like to tinker as well so a PC would be no problem to me, the additional cost isn't an issue, and if I'm laying down £700+ to game (and really it would be closer to £900 by the time we include a disk drive, stand and additional dual sense), it sure as hell won't be on a console where I am locked into an ecosystem and locked hardware.

If this is the price point where console gaming is heading towards for the next gen, I'll be taking my money and putting it into a PC where I can play what little I play online for free, where I can sink as much or a little as I want into it at any given time, where I have a multitude of store fronts and sites to purchase games, where I can take a mouse and keyboard for my strategy games, a control pad to play Forza, then maybe switch it up to Spiderman afterwards.

Yeah, consoles are more convenient to a point, but I think if this pricing is the way forward, it will have reached the point where the convenience just doesn't provide value for money for me.

He certainly has a point there. Relative simplicity of access as compared to PCs has always been among the innate perks of console gaming. When I got my desktop back in 2006, I had naively different priorities (even having my trusty Mega Drive traded in at the time, although in its case, the already discovered emulation did boast reasonably more efficiency), but the following years, both the student days and the eventual partial return to PC games in the late New Tens, would come to bust that misconception in varied ways. The current situation where my most robust PC gaming hardware is pretty much a Linux machine doesn't help either.😅 On the other hand, that machine does grant me portable access to the existing PlayStation branchouts, so I'd be a hypocrite to say I didn't welcome more of those possibly happening. coughgravityrush2cough

Can't help but feel the £700 price tag is an early adopters tax. The price will come down. It's only a matter of time. Until then, I will continue to play my launch day PS5 and play on PC. I am well covered to play any games I want to. My steam library is huge and there hasn't been a wealth of PS5 games coming out on PS5 that I actually want to play. If Sony's plan was to make me want to get a PS5 Pro on launch day; they have failed spectacularly.

@Slippship LOL! The thing I use least is Word! I’m a software project analyst, so it’s all BI Tools, code, macros, process maps, finance and “collaboration tools” (hate that phrase).. I just want to sit on the couch and play games on my big tv with no fuss, not sit at a desk.

@Juga_Juga seriously they need to go back to making games like nintend.
No politics in it just amazing stories
Like horizon 1 and the first 3 uncharted games
Including making a real gran turismo.

I've been 'dipping my toes' in pc gaming recently with a couple of mini pcs and the oled steamdeck and there's a lot to like. Tbf my main focus is emulation but I've been impressed with how much free stuff is available. Obviously no charge for online but the amount of free games each month from epic, gog and amazon (if you have prime) imo is better than either plus or gp and I subscribe to both. If I ever decide to go 1 system only it will definitely be pc

if Steam made there own PC (NOT HANDHELD) with similar graphics power to a PS5 or XBSX and also running SteamOS then I would be very interested.
I don't want a gaming PC with Windows installed and then have to mess about with the game settings for 20 mins before playing each game.

The £700 PS5 Pro and the lack of games from Sony this generation is definitely making me think I would consider looking elsewhere when we get to the PS6.

@kirkn They tried the "steam machine" some years ago and failed miserably.

PCs are great, You can chose the components You want without being limited to a single manufacturer (faster CPU? faster GPU? more RAM? nicer case ? More silent cooling solution? More ports? ). But the choice also means that You get a less polished overall experience compared to a solution provided by a single manufacturer e.g. PC vs Apple.

More component variety also means that game developers will not have tested Your particular configuration and the experience may vary depending on how close Your configuration is with respect to the configurations which have been used for development or testing.

Then there is the potential advantage to more incrementally upgrade the system. However, upgrades are not always uncorrelated. You want a faster CPU ? Possible, but the CPU You want requires a new socket or more power. So You have to upgrade the motherboard and PSU at the same time. Maybe also the cooling solution. The motherboard You want uses a different memory standard, so You need new memory modules. You upgraded to a shiny new graphics card, but to actually make full use of it, You also need a faster CPU. Choice is great but not all combinations make sense or are even possible.

Game development happens likely on pretty recent hardware, not something that is 5 years old. So, if the games should look good and perform reasonable. You presumably have to upgrade more often. A console has one (or two) version(s) over the cycle of ~8 years, and typically the games perform okay for the entire cycle. I think even nowadays most games also released for PS4 still run decently. At least it seems that many people are still not urged to upgrade.

They are useful for other things than just games, but they are also not tailored just for games. That also means You pay for something You do not need to run games. Games are also not necessarily the most trustworthy pieces of software (in particular free to play games). So, with the game You may also install some malware, which could steal Your banking credentials, or encrypts the data You need for work.

Finally there is the price, You can have a cheaper PC compared to a PS5, but it won't be anywhere close in gaming performance of a PS5, Even today It seems only possible to match the performance of a PS5 when using second hand components. If You want something to match the PS5 pro You are certainly looking at a price well above 1k EUR/USD/GBP. Likely even 1.5k if You want something that lasts. You likely upgrade more often than once during a 8 year cycle. So, even if You managed to stay in budget close to a e.g. PS5 You presumably spend more over the course of 8 years. Since there are better PC components every year, PC components also loose there value faster. Which might be an advantage if You use second hand components, but then You may not have any warranty.

Anyway in terms of price and simplicity there is nothing that beats a console. Although, today a console is also not just plug and play anymore, since You have to setup Your account, fiddle eventually with settings until it works well with Your TV and audio solution, pair controllers and such. Not a big deal but less simple than a PS1/2

What he means is that Sony has been having a hard time optimising games for the PC (just to mention the Horizon ZD and The Last of Us debacles). Ghost of Tsushima is the first great port that they put out (okay, Rarchet was also good). Also, PC players don’t want another account to set up (sic) to play games on their platform. This is what’s bugging the Sony brass. I do have a PS5, but rarely use it and if I do it’s only for games I can’t play on my ROG Ally (my mini PC of sorts)- The Last Guardian, TLoU2 etc. Going forward I will definitely keep buying handheld PCs because of my lifestyle and limited time for gaming (can always hook them up to a tv). I doubt I will buy a PS6 after what I have witnesses from Sony this gen (price hikes, close to zero first party output, profit over platform approach).

@AverageGamer you have to keep in mind i said , "my idea of an ideal pc". if i was going to do a new pc i would want something that is much better then the one i currently have.

Just wanted to give some points on why people might favor console over PC, havent read all the posts so theres probably going to be a lot of overlap.

• PS exclusives. Not all exclusives come to PC and if they do, it could be years later.
• Better suited for living room play and big screen gaming, also couch co op, not everyone wants to be tied to a desk when gaming.
• Ease of use, just plug and play. No time spent building or upgrading parts.
• Lower cost of purchase
• Longer life cycle, a console will be supported for atleast a generation of around 7 years.
• Games are usually made for console, so games will typically work well on console, because they are tailor made for them. PC however, with its userbase having a large variety of components will not always run well. Stutterfest, shader compilation, anyone?
• No need for tweaking settings, all games work the same on console. Games are often also made to make full advantage of the PS5 hardware. On PC because of teh varied components people have, a game is probably not tailored to your system.
• Physical media. Having the ability to resell your games if yoy want. I dont know, do some PC games still have physical copies? I think their all digital now, right?
• Stable OS. Because of the versatility of PC, you also have more chance of things like malware, viruses or crashes.
• Drivers, mods etc. might be easy for people who are good with tech, but for the average casual gamer isnt something they want to be bothered with.
• Some games arent compatibile or run worse with certain hardware(like some games preferring nvidia or amd gpus for some features), or require additional firmware or driver updates.
• Also, as previously alluded to by a poster. Upgrading parts to your PC sometimes means you will have to upgrade more than those parts. Like upgrading a CPu or GPU, might mean your motherboard or power supply might need upgrading too. Not to mention incompatibility or creating bottlenecks between hardware, if you dont know what you're doing.

Im definitely not against PC btw, i have gamed on PC before and might be a PC gamer again in the future. I just wanted to clarify that there are still lots of reasons for people to favor console. Yes, PC is much easier than before, but its a bit disingenuous to say its as easy as console.

There is some truth to the statement that PCs are difficult to set up. I have no PC knowledge, but have a very good gaming PC. I bought it, pre-built, 5 or 6 years ago for £2600, and have since spent a further £600 on it by upgrading the graphics card and memory.

When I started playing on PCs right at the start of the PS4/Xbox One era (I was egged into doing it because my two mates who didn't want to get an Xbox One), gaming on a PC was far, far more difficult than it is now. We lost many a nights gaming because at least one of us could not get a game running, and many games were, for me, unplayable because they did not have controller support.

These days, things are certainly different; games tend to be pretty much ready to play from the get go, without needing to mess around with the settings too much. Controller support is widely available, certainly in most of the bigger games, though as an example, when Baldur's Gate 3 launched in Early Access in October of 2020, it did not have controller support. Indeed, it did not get it until it's full launch in October last year.

On the subject of BG3, I do play the game in full 4K, but at times, my even my expensive PC struggles with the game, particularly when the game first starts, but it does tend to settle down after a while. My mate bought a new PC earlier this year, and it runs the game fine though. He did spend £4600 on his, so make of that what you will..!

So, first off, I do not think even those that know what they are doing could build a PC equivalent to the PS5 Pro for £700. Those that don't know what they're doing would have no hope! Ultimately, I think you would have to spend pretty big to match it, and still more if you wanted to have every game running at 60FPS and 4K. Consoles are an easy option, and for most of us, are perfectly fine...

@Mikey856 and it's not that I'm trying to persuade people that console gaming is inherently "better" but everyone should remember that people want different things out of the hobby. For some it's the best choice.

Same goes for the new Pro. It shouldn't be hard to realise that there's a decent portion of gamers out there who want high-end graphics/performance but also don't want the hassle of building a new PC and keeping it running without issues.

£700 (or even £800 with the disc drive) for a decent 3070Ti-equivalent console with machine-learning upscaling and far better RT performance seems like an alright deal to me. It's not like Sony can swallow any of the cost themselves, like they would with the PS6, as it's a relatively niche product.

As someone who has been building PC's for 20 years I would challenge anyone to build a PC from scratch with the equivalent PS5 Pro spec. With off the shelf retail parts it can't be done. The GPU equivalent alone is almost the cost of the console then you have to factor in a Zen3 CPU, your motherboard, ram, nvme storage, power supply, expansion cards, cooling system, case, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Depending on the retailer that's atleast £1500 for a basic setup. Not including Microsoft's extortionate price for Windows 11. I'm not justifying the price of the PS5 Pro but for all the people who are like "I'm going to PC" good luck to you. Good luck waiting 2+ years for games that might not come. Good luck to regular maintenance, good luck to expensive upgrades, good luck to replacing your liquid aluminium and cooling system for optimal performance every 2 years. Good luck to the price of games on Steam these days and good luck to all the third party logins for playing games i.e. Ubisoft, EA, MS, PS, etc.

I was done with PC gaming years ago. I don't care for the headache anymore.

That's a very reasonable take, I think.

Pc building is not difficult. This a misconception. If you can turn a screwdriver, you can build a pc. There are thousands of youtube videos that walk you through it step by step, it is simple. If you can follow the instructions on a box of mac n cheese then you can probably follow these step by step guides. People are just lazy.

Once you have one build you just need to upgrade one component or two each time to outpace the consoles. $700 goes a long ways when you no longer need to buy a case, storage, power supply, etc. Those factoring into the console cost will always hold back the specs compared to a pc. The initial build will be more but you won't be asked to pay for another complete build every 4 years.

They do make pre-builds as well.

"While there’s been much handwringing over whether an equivalent computer can be created for $700"

The price point wouldn't be $700. Up here in Canada, the PS5 was $700CAD after tax. If I were to buy a PS5 Pro, I'd be throwing around $1k at the "upgrade", so the question is within a single console generation can I build a comparable PC for $1,700? Once it's built, it becomes a question of whether or not upgrades are cheaper or more expensive than buying a console and it's mid-cycle upgrade per generation (a GPU that supports 4K, over 60fps and ray tracing can be purchased for less than $700USD, so I'd say PCs have become cheaper from here on, after the initial cost).

@ZeroSum Yes, console-only fanboys being very disingenuous. Getting defensive because they are rapidly ceding the long term value proposition of owning a console over investing into the PC ecosystem.

If you build a PC shrewdly in 2024 instead of buying PS5 Pro, you're not going to need to buy a PS6 in a few years either. Wonder how many also drop £1000+ on laptops, too. Sure, if you need a portable computer for work/education etc, then that form factor is necessary. But if you just sit around your house 99% of the time you're using a computer, then you don't need that device either once you build a gaming PC.

@Mikey856 The amount of Steam Decks sold is actually pretty good when you consider the fact that it's only sold on the Steam store, it's reach is pretty limited, and that it's Valve and not a corporation trying to sell a load of consoles like the big three console manufacturers. Also, it's a portal to the Steam store itself.

That being said, I can imagine why you didn't like the handheld, and that's understandable. It's not really for me either, and it's not really as console-user friendly as some people make it out to be, at least when considering PC settings (I don't own a Steam Deck, so I could be wrong there).
I think that it's still a cool device, and I do think that it's a great product for many, but yeah, its reach is niche, and I'm not to interested in getting one, at least for now.

@Joabra01Swe It's anti-PC gaming circlejerk 101

• Costs £1000s every few years
• Games crash all the time
• Constant updates and incompatibility errors
• Windows breaks everything every update
• You have to spend hours changing settings before you can play a game (when choosing a preset is no harder than picking 'fidelity' or 'performance' on console)
• Keyboard and mouse controls suck

@jrt87 You’ll get some nerdy older folks that been messing with PC since when they came to the market, but that the outlier not the norm. Both of my parents not that much older than your father.. But both of them struggle to do the simplest of things. I don’t know what they’re going to do when I move out in a couple of weeks, and as some who IT support for residential customers. Most PC issues calls came from the 50+ age range.

“I'm mid 30s now and grew up installing stuff on DOS and having to deal with the various the wild west days of early 3D acceleration settings etc. Spent most of my 20s using Linux on my uni laptop.”

I did say a small subset of people over 30, not all 30 year olds.

I read one article about the younger generation falling behind in, don’t know it the same article as the one you seen. But falling behind was in terms of using a PC in an office environments… And that was because PC has always be an entertainment device, not a workhorse. It also doesn’t help that mid way through my school years, we switch from window based machines to chrome books and everything became google drive. So unfortunately my generation struggles trying to figure out how to fax something vs just installing Steam to play a game or set up a Minecraft server.

@twitchtvpat 4k is extreme and loaded with extras "just because" though no gaming rig needs 8tb especially when comparing to a 2tb console. 3k is "no expenses really spared top of the line. Both are extreme enthusiast above even normal high end PC conversion though. 4080 and 4090 have no place in normal high end, that's extreme enthusiast stuff. And an Intel build... Well if you know you need it you need it. You pay more. But it's not what I'd recommend anyone building a gaming rig maximizing their budget.

We all agree on has higher up front cost but throwing 3k+figures is unreasonable for people comparing what real budgets for real good gaming rigs are.

@Joabra01Swe Notice how I was talking about my personal opinion rather than getting personal and talking bad about people that game on PCs. It's funny how defensive, personal, and childish people get when anyone disagrees with them. You should play Astro Bot, because that game might bring some joy into your life

@OldGamer999 the only digital consoles from Xbox and Sony are coming. Sony will continue to sell an add on into the future is my guess. I could be wrong but i think they will give that option for a little longer still. Xbox i would be shocked to see them not just go digital, Nintendo will keep the carts. They seem to be working well for them. But it is going to be a secondary option, the consoles design is going to center around digital. Even with all the games Sony sells on PS, 80% of their revenue is digital, when that hit’s 90-95% i think it’s over for discs.

@AverageGamer Haha I know that, I'm in the pc camp. I just had to retort about us "old folks" not knowing pc. We suffered the trenches so you don't have to

8 years old and building though. Even me being me, and I've been building since the 90s, I'd never trust 8 year old me even with today's builds though 😂

@HonestHick to be fair most of that revenue is dlc/mtx, then even for people that by physical. We don't know that their real sales split is and he's hinting here the importance of retail software presence to them. Though that easily could become code cards on a shelf, they are the only company of the 3 that STOPPED selling those.

@DualWielding rest mode is the big one. That's one thing I miss from console. It does work on PC but unreliably by game, like I've found octopath2, rune factory 5, p3 reload, little kitty big city so work great with sleep/hibernate. But elden ring, armored core, live a live, a few others I've run, don't. Though I've heard steam is actually suspends fine so that's more a windows thing and may well improve if rumors of Xbox being more full windows based are true with the handheld. That would update windows itself too.

@EfYI "35 years of technical experience will ensure your success in putting RAM onto the Motherboard"

It takes 35 years to figure out how to successfully stick a thing into a matching slot? 🤣

@LogicStrikesAgain most of your points are good and reasonable and valid. But I'll disagree with at least two. Consoles don't have longer lifespan anymore. Not with mid gen upgrades. You have the same life span. Upgrade to keep up our stay where you are and enjoy it for what it does, while PC let's you customize performance a bit more to get what you want from it. And you don't need to upgrade all components all the time so key components last a good while.

Also "Better suited for living room play and big screen gaming, also couch co op, not everyone wants to be tied to a desk when gaming." Pc hasn't been tied to desks for ages. You plug it in. Like an Xbox. I mean windows natively has Xbox UI overlays now. Same great couch play as consoles. And just to add to it, native PC handhelds exist. Native PlayStation handhelds do not.

@Fiendish-Beaver keep in mind when we talk 4k60 in pc land we're usually talking native resolution and comparing to 4090 and 7900xtx cranking out raw raster 4k. In console we're always talking low internal resolution scaled..... Which even 4060s can competently do. If you're running native 4k bg3 you're already running well higher spec than the consoles even on that 6 year old rig.

@GADG3Tx87 "replacing your liquid aluminium"

If you've still been using metallic conductive thermal paste for the past 15 years, no wonder you're having trouble....

"the price of games on Steam"

I mean there's a PlayStation publisher sale going on right now with good prices.... And third party sellers have even new releases like wukong and got+iki (new on pc) for $48 or lower already.

@BacklogBrad don't forget that nobody seems to own a keyboard or a mouse, and people with 70" OLED displays seem worried about buying a little PC monitor unlike their PS5 that apparently needs no display device connected ... No wonder they haven't been bothered by 30ish fps.

I mean consoles used to be the cheap and easy option, however modern PCs are pretty much plug and play and for £700+ you can get a PC that matches the PS5 Pro specs and these days all the good PS and Xbox games to PC anyway plus all the PC exclusives

If this is the price turned going forwards can we expect the PS6 and the next Xbox to cost £700/800 as a base? Plus paying for an online subscription and the increase in digital game prices a PS6 or new Xbox could be let's say £800, plus maybe 2 new digital games due to no disc drive that's £70 each so £140 and then £60 for the most basic PS+ subscription that's £1000 that is absurd and with most of the western worlds experiencing financial issues this won't go well down well

Oh and are we forgetting the greedy $ony just switch the currency symbols for countries in Europe compared to USA, that is Apple level of greed

On a similar subject this will play into Microsofts hands nicely, Sony can't afford to take hits to lower the cost on consoles but Microsoft who have pretty much unlimited money can easily come in and severely undercut the PS5 Pro, similar to the Xbox 360 undercutting the PS3

@kirkn they tried to do steam machines before , and it wasn't that successful.

@NEStalgia
Whether it's a AIO water cooler or liquid metal both forms are recommended to be replaced every 12-24 months. Even if you're using purified/distilled they don't last forever. Each needing a top-up and a replacement in time.

This dude is like the other execs who are completely clueless. Hard to set up a PC? What's this guy smoking? It's not even hard to build one! They can keep denying reality buts gonna catch up to them both in consoles and TVs. The Charge more, give less mentality will end up sinking the ship.

@GADG3Tx87 So WTF are consoles made of Unicorn Dust and Adamantium heatsinks?

You can buy one of them and have it last forever without ever cracking the case and I am pretty sure they aren't using anything special that can't be bought for a PC - in fact, I am sure a console has cheaper components to keep costs down.

@GADG3Tx87 actually you don't have to factor in monitors. You can use your TV just like a console.

@Joabra01Swe how many people already have a tv though , its not an extra expense if you already have a tv , it would be like including the cost of electricity in using your pc or console. however unless you already have a monitor then yeah it is an extra cost if you are buying a new pc.

@GamingFan4Lyf
The PS5 uses liquid aluminium and air cooling which it can get away with in its form factor. And the liquid aluminium won't last forever either. Most gaming enthusiasts build their PC's using cooling AIO radiators that have to be kept topped up. Big difference in both approaches and cost. You forget that buying in the bulk of thousands Sony get parts very cheaply. A consumer buying the likes of a RTX4050 and a Zen3 will already have exceeded the cost of a PS5 Pro before buying anything else needed. Not to mention that the APU in the consoles is custom made anyway.

@GADG3Tx87 custom loop sure, they're a PITA with an even worse price tag to maintain and flush, but AIOs don't need annual or 2 year replacements. Most have at least 4 year warranty and expected life. Cooler Master mostly only has 1 year warranty yet ironically seems to have one of the highest lifespans over some with better warranty. Pays to have a spare on hand in case of pump failure or excess permeation and coolant loss but while most can do a 4 year replacement as preventative maintenance plenty of them last the useful life of the CPU they're on, plenty run 7 years etc. And for the console conversion crowd air coolers are probably fine.

Most of the AIO failures seem to be either known design issues (Enermax and the curdling coolant, Be Silent! With the odd, on-hose pump that has high failure rates. I had an Enermax pump barely last 1 week....) or people mounting them front, lines up, rad below block because stupid marketing images show it that way.

@GADG3Tx87 So the real moral of the story is to not use liquid metal and switch to Air Cooling.

Got it! 👍

@BTC4FET I see a lot of people saying "Its not even hard to build your own PC". I think they're missing the point. Casual gamers just arent interested in building their own gaming machine.

Its not 'hard' to do some DIY tasks like installing flooring or painting, but a lot of people still choose to hire people to do it out of convenience and saving time.

You can build your own surround sound speaker system by chosing all the components and putting it together, but many people arent interested and find it far simpler to buy prebuild.

Telling someone its so easy to build your own PC is not gonna convince anyone who isnt interested in doing that. Its the same reason people spend money for contracters and prebuild sound systems.

It doesnt matter how easy it is. Spending 6 hours or more building a PC, including researching components and troubleshooting, especially when youre a beginner is not easier than buying a console that works out of the box.

@LogicStrikesAgain The debate about the difficulty of building is a red Herring. You didn't have to build one you can get one off the shelf just like a console. It's about the difficulty of "setup" (like logging in and clicking next a few times?) not the difficulty of custom builds. There's a LOT more companies making PCs you just walk up and pay for and plug in than making consoles, anyway.

Sure most are also going to talk about the ease of building but that doesn't actually matter. You can diy, or have it done for you.

Anyone interested in this site could easily build their own. Casuals not reading sites like this can buy a box to plug in and play from the same store they buy PlayStations from

@GamingFan4Lyf Or use AIOs made this decade

They can be but otherwise, while people say oh PC, I go yeah I know the setup is ignored and the PC is suitable platform. But it's not THAT difficult if you know what your doing and many people sometimes are willing to jump onboard, those willing to/smart enough to.

As if the PS5 storefront and many versions or the store/menu levels aren't confusing at all. XD PS4 was simpler Sony. XD

Prebuilds are a thing for a reason, you ask what games you want to play with it/are you streaming, etc. If the staff are good enough they can work around it, same as a casual if they are willing to. They can price things however much, same with retailers, same with Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo, it's customer laziness then complexity in some cases and people going eh just pay up or don't.

It's not that hard to understand people wanting things simple to use/simple minded people, easy to understand and not 3 clicks out of reach or easy to understand how to press buttons, tweaks settings or just play the game and laziness to think further than the bare minimum. XD

As if some types of people aren't easy to read by what they say/do and whatever is socially status relevant or emotionally related or whatever is simple to act on.

Prices may be high but you can get cheaper and build it yourself or whatever the prebuilds will scale it for besides heir prices varying besides retail stores prebuilds on display. Just because people can be too lazy or not understand the specs, what is compatible to slot in or are not interested in tracking things down like many collectors game hunting do in retro stores, ebay/Facebook Marketplace or EB games or other stores.

That's on the casuals not being interested in waiting/working things out and want things simple. The same people willing to go to other stores are likely the same types of people still willing to build a PC and go yep I can wait and the achievement was worth it in the end, they may mess up but it was still worth the effort

If drivers work, if parts are capable enough, if specs of games are considered, if settings are tweaked. How is it any different then quality/performance mode, the presets besides the advanced dropdown lists/sliders are still there.

They are becoming a more simplified PC version settings menu just without the drivers and part swapping really. XD

@NEStalgia I know, it is a red herring. I am aware you can buy prebuild.

But i keep seeing people mentioning "building a pc is so easy". So i wanted to adress it, thats why i replied to the person i replied to. He is 1 of many saying that. That argument is obviously partly meant to convince people. Im just saying its not gonna work, because not everyones interested in building their PC, doesnt matter how "easy" people make it out to be.

@NEStalgia My pre-build (which was made by CyberPowerPC but bought from Best Buy) has an AIO connected to the CPU.

No idea what brand as it has the CyberPowerPC logo - though it looks similar to a Corsair AIO.

@LogicStrikesAgain The comment was about setup. The argument it's tough to set up by Sony is completely false. The easy build comment was a side note.

@BTC4FET I know, didnt mean to single you out or anything. You just happened to be the last to say it. But ive seen many saying it. So i just wanted to adress it. I know its a bit off topic, but everybody keeps mentioning it so yeah..

I came from a gaming PC to a console. I didn't want to waste any more time adjusting game options.

@LogicStrikesAgain no worries. It's all good.

@GamingFan4Lyf If it looks like a Corsair it probably is. I think they use Aestek pumps like most. I have cooler master, they use their own design. Weirdly short warranty yet they seem to rarely fail. Mostly just wear out from evaporation before the pumps fail. I'm stuck on the low end because I needed a block that could mount with the stock AMD mounting brackets since I didn't want to ever remove the mobo to add a new bracket. That's the only bad part of aio is no standard mounting so if replacing it it's best to see if it looks like it takes similar brackets. Mine did but who knows in 4+years

I wish more had refillable radiators. Only Be Quiet does that I know of. I wanted one for that but they use a unique pump design that's not on the block but on the tubing, and there's too many failure reports. Plus they have a different mounting than anyone. I like their psus though.

I think PS console is priority for Sony. PC comes second and they made the right call not to do same date besides some of the remasters and multiplayer games

I think it´s fine if Sony wants to stay console focused. I have seen plenty of people voice their preference towards the ease of use a console offers. I don´t think it outweighs the benefits a good PC setup brings to the table (stable performance, mods, etc.), but it´s great to have options.

As it stands though, I only own consoles because of their exclusive titles. I do wish Sony increased their line up dramatically. Getting a console for like 5 games (there are more, but I´m not interested in all of those) is always just a little iffy

I read a large proportion of comments stipulating that we should be comfortable with the price based on its peformance (for the money) and plug-and-play properties. But we seem to be conveniently ignoring another point... console gaming has predominately been the lowest barrier of entry into AAA gaming. It now feels like we're on the precipice of every hardcore gaming choice becoming expensive. Its not equitable and makes me concerned about the potential price of PS6. Even to buy a high spec smartphone you're looking at about £1000. So you see my point, and as I write this I realise XBOX sees this point all to clearly, which means the transition to next-gen consoles could be very interesting indeed.
PS6 = Premium
XBOX = Affordable Subscription model that streams to ANY device 👀

@jrt87 From my experience you are 100% right, when people say they are good with a computer now it means very little other than I can boot up a browser and login to a 365, and in reality you can do most of that on a tablet. Its a world apart from anyone who grew up with machines running DOS, 3.11, 95 and worked up from there. If you had to work around PC's when they were a pita then I find you have a much better understanding of them in general.

I tend to agree. I switched from PC to consoles in around 2015 because PC was just too time-consuming.

But. (Big but). One of the reason, was financial affordability of consoles compared to PC. But when I look at price of PS5 Pro, I really doubt that PS6 will cost less than 699€. In that price-point I'm just better with building a PC.

@Jey887
Work all day on PCs as well and I use to make the same comment “when I get home from work the last thing I want is to be on a PC”

But then a friend convinced me and I built a PC. Have it setup to my 77” Sony OLED (no mouse or keyboard) boots into Steam BPM in seconds thanks to SSD and I’m gaming with my DualSense

Not hard to setup at all

@BTC4FET exactly , I don’t have a monitor or mouse and keyboard connected to my PC.
I sit on the couch with it connected to my OLED TV and use my Dualsense controller with Steam BPM

@Bobtheking That's fair enough but it isn't for me. I still use my PC for PC related things and I do not want it located in the living room. Sounds like you have a sweet set up but it must have cost a pretty penny. I'm lazy and tight with my cash so I'll stick to PS5 and my LG B4. Looks good enough to my aging eyes.

My work PC can play games, but I had never even installed Steam. Then I purchased the PSVR2 PC adapter out of sheer curiosity and man oh man... I'm definitely buying the PS5 Pro.

And BTW, I'm an app developer. I can troubleshoot anything on my PC but, when it's time to relax, the last thing I want is to fiddle with it.

@NEStalgia you have to keep in mind the more you spend on the initial the less you'll need to upgrade. the less you spend for a budget pc , it won't last as long. which in the end if some one is really on a budget and can't spend as much on a pc, you might as well buy a console honestly.

@twitchtvpat Yeah, that's of course true, and definitely needs to factor into people's budgets.

I think the big thing with PC is the holistic view of where your gaming is. If it's about "get the best I can get today for the lowest dollar spend possible, screw tomorrow" yeah, hard to beat console. I think if you're someone into the gaming hobby as an enthusiast, the kind of people hanging out here, that have big libraries, the kind of people saying "I want folders and themes!" every time there's a firmware update, there's a longer view to be had of either spending more on a future forward machine as an investment into the next decade of your gaming hobby, or spending low, knowing it's not a long-term machine but is an investment into your future software purchases, your ever-accumulating backlog, and it keeping with you for the long haul, etc.

Of course for the casual consumer that just wants to pick up a box to play CoD real pretty.....that's one kind of consumer and PC is not really a match for them. For most of the kind of people here that have collections going back to Ape Escape, ever growing backlogs, revisits retro games, etc, etc, that 10, 20 year holistic outlook in the investment carries a lot of weight and PC has a lot of sense. For the casual consumer it's just something to do, that's a bit of fun now and then, and yeah, the ecosystem approach doesn't mean much to them. For the kind of people here, I think most of us here plan to game until we can't hold a controller anymore, and have gamed since we could first hold a controller. It's a way of life for us, and the finances of balacing what we spend into walled gardens vs taking off the chains for the next few decades of our hobby warrants some soul searching as to what the costs really are.