Still wayyy above $500 per 7-8 years. My PC is a $2000 workstation bought last year and my $500 3060 can't even show better graphics in God of War than my PS5 doing backwards compatibility, lol. It can do so much more tho' - but for gaming I can't defend it.
You don't need a $1000 GFX card, but if you don't have it - is there really that much difference between PS5 and PC - I can't see it.
Well, what
@VFX_Veteran said (tho the range of how far that can go limit-wise may depend on the game, and again your setup). But outside of tech, for me personally, I'd also be getting mod support, a larger range of controller support, possible VR support (it could come before a PSVR2 option for the PS version is available), cheaper game MSRP, etc.
Plus again in my case, I am still interested in some of Microsoft's games, I do a lot of work on PC and until I get a MiSTER setup or an Analogue system, it's where I do most of my retro gaming as well. Basically, I can make a single platform at this point my go-to for gaming (aside from Nintendo) and save money over time because, again, there's stuff like online MP free on PC but I would be paying at least $60/year on PS and another $60/year on Xbox to do. And personally, I don't "need" the PC version when I'm playing it, to be balls-out above the console version. I genuinely wouldn't even consider something like a 3080/3090 or 7900 XT unless I needed it for work-related purposes & graphics-intensive productivity.
Otherwise, I'm not big into competitive gaming unless it's fighters and you really don't need more than 60 Hz for those, that also helps me keep the CPU in scope. Plus for my use-case I have a laptop as well, been thinking of building a desktop maybe sometime next year, so I can just get a new GPU that's friendly for an eGPU and then I can slot it in my PC when I want to use it there.
But that said, the stuff I listed as benefits for ME like no paying for online MP, cheaper game MSRP, stuff like that? I don't hold those against the console AT ALL. And if Sony weren't doing this PC push, I'd be perfectly fine getting a PS5, maybe not look into a desktop PC (for productivity work my current laptop is just fine, at least for now), and maybe get a Series S for the Xbox games a bit later with a cheap GP sub.
So I'd of been spending $500 for the PS5, $300 for the Series S, probably $350 for the Switch 2, way less than $120/year for GamePass (with all the ways you can get it for very cheap), and $60/year over a course of let's just say 5 years ($300) for PS+. Meanwhile I could just stick to my laptop for a good while and maybe once needed, upgrade to a beefier one some years down the line, but that wouldn't be driven by anything gaming-wise. Basically, that's $1450 - $1500 on hardware and services with that approach over the course of the rest of the generation, which I'd of been fine with. The only things I'd be missing out on are mod support, and standard KB & M support for input features-wise, but that's no big deal.
But if Sony are committing the live-service games to PC Day 1 (expected, and good decision, long as crossplay is optional and console users can use KB & M), and bringing ALL their 1P games to PC at least a year following the console release...AND they're still considering cross-play for select games beyond GOW Ragnarok going forward? Well, I still have a PS4, and I don't have FOMO so if I decided it better to invest in a PC, that $800 between a PS5 & Series S, I can put that towards a PC & GPU. Again, I don't need anything leagues beyond the consoles, just adequate enough, and also good enough for productivity work. A 7500 or 4060, or 4060 Ti, maybe even a 4050 or 4050 Ti, would be good enough and still have performance headroom over the consoles. A decent mid-spec CPU, good-enough SSD, I can technically use a television on it if I want...and actually I'd be freed up of another upwards $400 because I wouldn't be paying for PS+ and GP over the course of the gen.
In my case tho I'd also invest in an eGPU for the laptop and that'd probably work out to $200 or $300, so I'm probably in effect aren't saving any money with that approach vs. just getting a PS5 & Series S, PS+ and whatnot. But taking the PC approach, I'd now have a pretty good PC for current-gen gaming at console-like settings, no need to pay for online MP, I can get Sony & MS games Day 1 for cheaper vs. on console, I have something even beefier for retro gaming setups, I have mod support if I want it, monitor support (I'd get that with console too but still), KB & M support as standard (doesn't matter much for me; I'm not big into FPS games and while I could technically use a keyboard for fighters, I'd prob just get a Hitbox instead), and I can use the same setup between that PC and my current laptop for my productivity work.
So that's kind of how I'm looking at it, though the decision actually isn't final. Still got some time to think it over, weigh benefits & drawbacks, all that stuff. I'm just saying, with Sony's PC strategy now, that's enabling me to consider going PC a lot more seriously than if they were taking a different strategy WRT that platform. The wild part is I would have absolutely no issue with just getting a PS5, I'm not one of these dudes basically trying to "trick" Sony into going big on PC or port-begging for PC. That said, Sony just seem naturally inclined to push PC a lot more, so considering other stuff gaming-wise I'm interested in, and that if the opportunity to centralize my gaming habits to just two platforms (PC & Switch 2) instead of four (PS5, Series S, PC & Switch)...why
not do that?
Really though, people in my type of scenario are probably like less than 3% of total PS owners or would-be owners, we're a minority even among the hardcore & core gamers, and aren't representative of the casual and mainstream market in any way. That's why I can understand Sony's business sense to take this approach as they probably have enough data to support their decision (tho I still have my worry on how it impacts the "whales" of the PS ecosystem; it'd be nice if we ever got revenue & profit numbers for Xbox from MS because that would give us something to work with data-wise), but I can also see how it's creating an opportunity for me to centralize most of my gaming to a single device platform instead of multiple.
If Nintendo by some chance ever decides they'll do ports to PC for all their games (either Day 1 or staggered out by some years), then for me personally, that's just another device I don't really need when I can get the content somewhere else. Again, though, that type of gamer profile/mentality is
probably like 3% of the total console owner market, if not less. The only thing I'm curious about is how many "whales" (I don't consider myself a whale in spending terms
) have a similar outlook and are considering doing something similar (and more specifically, how many of them are both big into buying Sony 1P games and almost all of their 3P games and MTX from, who are considering a similar jump).
