Holiday console sales are the lowest they've been in decades.

[kupomogli]

Not only are the holiday console sales this are the lowest in decades, consoles in 2025 in are the lowest in over 20 years.

In addition, the PC hardware market and PC gaming sales has hit record sales in 2025.

I'm only bringing this up in another thread because for Playstation I've been saying this for five years now. Yes, one reason why 2025 console sales are at historic lows is because of the increase in console prices, but that doesn't explain the reason for the same historically PC gaming hardware being sold, PC gaming hardware that is going to be "more expensive, than consoles."

When all of these console games are no longer exclusive and you can play them "all" on PC, both Xbox and Playstation. Why buy a Xbox? Why buy a Playstation? Ever since Microsoft has started releasing Xbox games on PC near the Xbox One launch I've stated that Xbox was done, and then the same when Playstation has followed with their releases since the launch of the PS5.

So again, some people are calling the lowest sales of consoles an economy issue, which is partially true, but again, PC sales are the highest they've ever been outselling every other year to date.

By giving up their exclusivity for a short term gains, for millions which is nothing in comparison to what they've cost themselves in the long run and this new 2025 data now proves it. It's clear now that my prediction of Playstation being dead in a decade is pretty spot on. I'm going to call it now, the PS6 is their last console, there is no "traditional" PS7 and Playstation may still exist but definitely not in the form of what we know it to be now.

[Spartacus]

I used to be a PC gamer. Frankly, it was too complicated and expensive to be an enjoyable experience. Every time I've looked into PC gaming it always comes back to being more complicated and expensive than console gaming. I don't know if the PS6 will be Sony's last console. I do know that if Sony makes a PS6, I will buy one. Frankly, I hope they hurry up and release the PS6 so I won't have any regrets about not purchasing a PS5 Pro.

This year Sony offered substantial holiday discounts on consoles and controllers, so I took advantage and loaded up. Bought a PS5 slim as a backup in case my OG PS5 ever dies. Bought a PlayStation Direct exclusive black Ghost of Yotei console. Cause I love collecting special edition consoles. Got caught up on my having one of every color possible for PS5 controller's, plus I bought 6 different limited edition PS5 controllers that were on sale. Even purchasing one that was only available in Asia. Cause I love collecting special edition controllers. Did you know that Walmart has an exclusive PS5 controller color? I have two of those now.

Microsoft had holiday sales on controllers as well and I purchased the three newest from the breaker series. I think the vapor line of colors is next and I'm looking forward to them even though I don't game on an Xbox. Not counting the carbon black and robot white controllers that I keep a good supply of in case I ever do game on an Xbox, I now own 24 different special edition Xbox controllers. I love special edition controllers.

Nintendo did not offer holiday sales that I was aware of, but I bought a proverbial shit ton of Switch games this holiday that were priced under $20. Not that I want to play them on the Switch, but rather because these were good games that I'm proud to own. I wondered if they were discounted this holiday because they were not Switch 2 games.

I don't know if PC games and hardware got a holiday discount this year. I probably never will know.
Nostradamus was a hoax.

[kupomogli]

@Spartacus

24 special edition controllers on a console you don't play is a lot. Honestly, 24 special edition controllers on a console you do play is a lot.

[Spartacus]

On recount I have 2 Xbox 360, 21 Xbox One and 15 Xbox X Limited Edition controllers. They make wonderful shelf candy! I'm retired now, but I used to strap on steel toed boots to earn a living and earning enough to buy the things that makes us happy is an important part of a good life.
Normally, after the holiday shopping spree, I use my cash back rewards to buy Nintendo. A company I despise, mostly due to it's pricing practices. It helps me feel like I did not get completely screwed buying Nintendo products. This year I plan to buy a Xbox X console instead. I had previously avoided using Xbox One and X consoles because I was offended by the requirement to register them with Microsoft before use. But now I understand that the Xbox X is backwards compatible all the way back to original Xbox games. And having the hardware boost while playing old games impresses me. Imagine putting a PS2 disc into a PS5 or a Wii disc into a Switch. That singular difference with it's competitors makes Xbox X gaming a worthy experience. I'm not going to ruin Limited Edition controllers doing it, but I can at least say I game on an Xbox.
I did purchase a new Dell PC this year before the holidays. Not because I wanted to, but because my older PC's operating system expired. It cost a bit less than a new gaming console but did not come with a disc drive. Well, neither does a Switch 2. I had it a few weeks when the power went out while it was hibernating and when I restarted the PC I got a blue screen asking me to enter a Microsoft security code while at the same time it would not recognize my wireless mouse and keyboard. Very frustrating, but not an unusual experience for those using PC's. My work PC would often crash as well. This is supposed to be my future gaming experience? Not on your life!
My hand will never be trained and contorted and into using WASD keys in my lifetime. That much I can predict.

[kupomogli]

You did say you were going to try Ninja Gaiden 2, so you can play that on the Xbox Series X without all the lag since it can run at 60fps with the better performance.

[Gameguy]

So again, some people are calling the lowest sales of consoles an economy issue, which is partially true, but again, PC sales are the highest they've ever been outselling every other year to date.
A lot of people are buying PCs now because they're afraid that the new RAM shortages will cause prices to skyrocket, they're wanting to update their PCs now before they can't otherwise afford to in the near future. New RAM is now being allocated to AI developers rather than general consumers. I'm tempted to buy a new PC for myself but I still don't want to spend that much for an upgrade. My current PC basically does everything I want it to and still has a DVD drive which is useful for me, there's maybe a few things I would need a more powerful PC to do but it's still pretty expensive to upgrade and I really don't like modern operating systems.


You mentioned, "When all of these console games are no longer exclusive and you can play them "all" on PC, both Xbox and Playstation. Why buy a Xbox? Why buy a Playstation?"

I'll ask instead; Why buy a new console when most new games are shit?

Indie games are still selling fine, plenty are doing well and are profitable. It's the AAA studios that aren't doing so well, many large franchises just aren't liked anymore as they're increasingly becoming poor quality. The latest Call of Duty being one example where people are complaining about fighting zombies and spiders when this series was supposed to be an army combat type of experience. Apparently the newest Rainbow Six is crossing over with Attack on Titan. Again, why? There's other similar games I've heard are doing the same thing, but I just can't remember the names right now. There was some new playable game demo shown where youtube creators were playing it as a first look, the quick time events didn't actually do anything and completed themselves even if the player refused to press anything. Add to that endless add-ons or microtransactions and season passes, terrible writing and forced political statements in games, it's all unlikable, soulless trash. Why would people want to buy a console to play this?

People used to buy consoles as media centers and streaming boxes, but people are canceling their streaming services too due to rising costs and poor quality shows being the norm. I'm sure most people can still stream with their existing old consoles too, it's not like the PS3 or 360 era when people were upgrading from their PS2s to use Netflix. The reason most people are buying new consoles now are to create streaming content, not to actually enjoy.

In the past I would want to wait to eventually find a "new" console later at a thrift store or yard sale for under $30-$60, once a new generation came out. At this point, I'm not even interested in the newest generations. I'm not waiting for anything modern to get cheaper.



I did purchase a new Dell PC this year before the holidays. Not because I wanted to, but because my older PC's operating system expired.
What do you mean "expired"? Operating systems still work after official support is discontinued, I've had no problems with this while using my PC almost daily. For security concerns, my free antivirus software still updates daily and really that's all that's needed.

[Spartacus]

I collected video games for a hobby, play them occasionally, and don't worry myself much about the future of the gaming industry because of my age.
The economics of my hobby pretty much precluded my owning or playing games until heavily discounted, but I have found that I finish "new" games much more often than I do "retro" games. Whether this is due to changing difficulty or progression saving, I can't say. But I will say that I am truly impressed with the visual quality of modern games.
I used to feel dismayed by the thought that all games being sold digitally, but that doesn't even concern me now because it just means there is a clear endpoint to my collection and that's a good thing.
And though I would be loathe to game on a PC, with it's entire library being digital I suppose, I was always a bit curious and perhaps even envious of the Steam library. I remind myself that the creators of the original Xbox had considered giving it the capability of playing PC games but concluded that the quantity and quality of PC games was so poor, it would probably damage the reputation of the Xbox console.
Having said that, I know for a fact that playing a bad game of a type that I like is much more enjoyable for me than playing a great game of a type I dislike.
I was intrigued hearing about a new Steam console because of the access to it's library and the fact that it was not a miserable handheld device, but concluded it was not a device designed and dedicated purely for gaming, but more of a media streaming device capable of surfing the internet and reading email to which I have little interest. More's the pity. But if that's where we end up as gamers, well so be it. I still have a collection of unplayed retro games to console myself with.



What do you mean "expired"? Operating systems still work after official support is discontinued, I've had no problems with this while using my PC almost daily. For security concerns, my free antivirus software still updates daily and really that's all that's needed.
I was doing just that, using a "free" antivirus software that constantly nagged me to purchase it with annoying popups. After more than a year of this with no detections, I concluded that my style of PC use that involves no downloads could be conducted safely with an up-to-date operating system alone. This new Dell, the least expensive version they produce was on sale for just under $400, is the quietest PC I have ever been around. It makes absolutely no noise at all. But it is not a gaming PC. At least I don't think it is.

[Gameguy]

I collected video games for a hobby, play them occasionally, and don't worry myself much about the future of the gaming industry because of my age.
The economics of my hobby pretty much precluded my owning or playing games until heavily discounted, but I have found that I finish "new" games much more often than I do "retro" games. Whether this is due to changing difficulty or progression saving, I can't say. But I will say that I am truly impressed with the visual quality of modern games.
I used to feel dismayed by the thought that all games being sold digitally, but that doesn't even concern me now because it just means there is a clear endpoint to my collection and that's a good thing.
And though I would be loathe to game on a PC, with it's entire library being digital I suppose, I was always a bit curious and perhaps even envious of the Steam library. I remind myself that the creators of the original Xbox had considered giving it the capability of playing PC games but concluded that the quantity and quality of PC games was so poor, it would probably damage the reputation of the Xbox console.
Having said that, I know for a fact that playing a bad game of a type that I like is much more enjoyable for me than playing a great game of a type I dislike.
I was intrigued hearing about a new Steam console because of the access to it's library and the fact that it was not a miserable handheld device, but concluded it was not a device designed and dedicated purely for gaming, but more of a media streaming device capable of surfing the internet and reading email to which I have little interest. More's the pity. But if that's where we end up as gamers, well so be it. I still have a collection of unplayed retro games to console myself with.
I agree with you that modern games are far easier to complete than older games, that's partly why new games are more appealing for use as streaming content. Just push forward and you can complete them with minimal struggle. I would do the same if I was streaming, not that I would personally enjoy playing most for myself. I also agree with your view on an endpoint to a collection, I don't view digital only games as being part of a real collection. There's more than enough media that already exists for me to consume in my lifetime, I'm not desperate to look for more new media. I rarely play games anymore at all, I mostly seem to watch videos on youtube which are pretty high quality these days compared to 15+ years ago and are free to access.

The issue I now have with Steam is that plenty of older games are compatible with Windows 7 and can run on my PC, but the Steam launcher itself now requires Windows 10 so I can't access any of those titles on my PC. I only ever used freeware from Steam, but if I actually paid for digital games I would be angry that I could no longer play them just because the service itself changed, not that the software can't run on my PC.



I was doing just that, using a "free" antivirus software that constantly nagged me to purchase it with annoying popups. After more than a year of this with no detections, I concluded that my style of PC use that involves no downloads could be conducted safely with an up-to-date operating system alone. This new Dell, the least expensive version they produce was on sale for just under $400, is the quietest PC I have ever been around. It makes absolutely no noise at all. But it is not a gaming PC. At least I don't think it is.
I didn't notice until you mentioned it, but I haven't been getting those daily popups with my antivirus for a long time. It's actually nice, but otherwise the software is far worse than it used to be. I'm using Avira and it really went downhill once Norton bought the company, it just seems like a different version of Norton antivirus with the interface and added bloat. Still most of the free antivirus programs have been bought out by larger companies so I don't really feel like looking for another one. Only within the last few weeks did it alert me to a detection which it stopped, that was the first time in over a year since it last found a detection. It's still nice that it's working as it should, I'm still using Windows 7 so new security updates for Chrome and Windows aren't really available. Though there are other internet browsers that are still being updated for Windows 7 so I should be looking into switching soon. I still wouldn't trust a new operating system alone to protect me from intrusions, I would still want an antivirus as well.

[kupomogli]

I'll ask instead; Why buy a new console when most new games are shit?

Sorry I didn't respond, though I do partially agree with that. A lot of new games feel kind of underwhelming, but maybe I've just gotten to the point that my expectations are too high to enjoy most games. --- Or at the very least most modern gamines because gaming now days opts to attempt to pad things out excessively, whether it's open world, procedural garbage, or the absurd amount of text dumps found in modern gaming.

But considering that the console is both Sony and Nintendo's lifeline, it would do well for them to not allow them to die out. Any physical collector should hope this isn't the case. I'll continue purchasing anything that I'm interested in until physical media completely dies out, but the efforts from Sony and Nintendo are pushing it along faster than it should have come.


Indie games are still selling fine, plenty are doing well and are profitable. It's the AAA studios that aren't doing so well, many large franchises just aren't liked anymore as they're increasingly becoming poor quality.

I actually disagree. While "some indies" are great games, I feel that some of them that have released aren't. For instance, Shinobi Art of Vengeance has some good combat, but it's still full of modern day garbage, and the game looks like ass, like a low effort flash game. Of course it's going to be profitable when it kind of feels slapped together. And if you consider the price that a lot of these lower budget games are requesting, there's much to complain about indie games as their are AAA games. Not every game is Hollow Knight, not every game is Expedition 33. And as physical collectors, it's also more expensive than it is digitally(in most cases.)

However, how often does a new indie game release now days that's either procedurally generated, a card game, a short platformer, 2D exploration game, or a 2D adventure game(Broken Sword/Visual Novel esque that's usually only a few hours in length.) There's very little originality now days whether it's indie or not and outside of the 2D exploration games, is it really all that expensive to develop these style of games above on modern development tools?

[kupomogli]

I will say some things about modern gaming, give my opinion on games here and there.

Square Enix has pretty much risen from the ashes and while they're not gen 5 Squaresoft, they've been a better company now than they have at any other point in time. Like on the level of PS2 Squaresoft and Enix in comparison to anything else.

Bandai Namco have unfortunately gotten worse because of exactly what you've mentioned, microtransactions, season passes. There's been five console and PC Dragon Ball games across two entire generations and every one of them has been a dumping ground for DLC. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, Dragon Ball Z Kakarot, Dragon Ball Fighter Z, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero which I think this one didn't do very well and they just abandoned it, and that new League of Legends Dragon Ball which will probably get a lot of support now because it's yet another microtransaction game.

I'm a huge fan of Gundam and I loved seeing new Gundam games, because the games were often times great games, but with the popularity of Gundam Extreme Vs in the arcades there's not going to be any of that, Gundam Battle Operation 2 is a free to play microtransaction game that you can't even get into anymore as it's a gacha game so if you haven't been playing it from the start or you quit, good luck the game ever catching up. Outside of the new Gundam game that's a VR exclusive movie rather than a game, there's really been nothing in years outside of SRW.

Falcom is dead and imo they've been dead. Ever since Kondo became CEO they've been headed towards making games even cheaper than they have before. The games generally have good gameplay, but play any Trails game and it's the same game as the last with about 70/30 text over gameplay and I'm talking about gameplay in its entirety. Ys8 was I feel like was the perfect text/gameplay cut off, but then Ys9 was an open world land mass of a town/outside with a few dungeons in and outside of town, gameplay was actually better than Ys8 or at least feels like they tried to make it a bit more weighty and balanced, and filled with fetch quests and text dumps. It wasn't bad, but it was really underwhelming. But Ys10 took the text dumps to a whole new level, there's about 85-90% text within the first five hours of the game and sure, it gets better, better as in, only about 70% for the remainder of the game maybe. But a lot of that is now filled with this open world map where you're on a boat. The new dungeons are rather mediocre, the boss battles are the worst designed battles in the series, atleast the ones I've played. And then Falcom decides that's not enough, that they're going to release a second more complete version of the game like Atlus does. From now on I'm done with Falcom period. It was one of the best developers and now I consider it one of the absolute worst.

Then Atlus. Atlus is also dead. Remember back in the day when Atlus USA would publish all of these great games we never got in the west? Yeah, that's definitely no longer a thing, mainly since the majority of Japanese games now days are just visual novels or shmups. Kind of like how we have The Pokemon Company, Atlus is now just "The Persona Company." They're not just Persona now days but they certainly feel like it, and what have they really released outside of Metaphor(Persona,) Persona 5, some other versions of Persona 5, remasters, and Soul Hackers 2(SMT Persona) and SMT5... twice? In the past decade if you answered nothing, you're right. They've literally released nothing.

Sega's at least been on top of their game with Yakuza, but with the bigger cities even that has become more open world than it has before. However I'd say this is still a franchise worth owning. Yakuza is the kind of game I would still recommend to anyone who is interested in gaming provided they can handle the heavy storyline text dumps the series has. Because the storyline to this game both main quests and side quests are generally good. They actually have fairly good writers within that team.

The reason to get into Yakuza, though, is because even with all the padding it may have, it functions as a diverse sandbox of experiences. While it's a decent beat em up or RPG, depending on which one you play, it's got a massive variety of activies that you're never forced to focus on just one thing. You can break up the monotony by focusing on one of many activies. While there has been a lot of overlap since Judgment, there's usually a few real arcade games unique to each one alongside others. While I will say the earlier games had a lot of good mini games, Lost Judgment in particular has a lot of bad mini games(boxing and Hama of the Dead are the only two I really like) and I don't exactly like the progression of the game either despite liking the first, so I can't really say if I'd even like the latest three Yakuza releases.

Yakuza Kiwami 3 is a remake of the third game and it's the first game in the series that's introducing Game Gear games. I'm just hoping that Master of Darkness and Defenders of Oasis make it. I never really cared for Game Gear but I do like those games. Lost Judgment was the first release of Master System games and it included eight games, 15 Master System games are included in Infinite Wealth(I've actually just found the full list of 12 games has been posted and it's a bunch of stuff I really don't care about, why include exclusive games where you can just give us worse versions of games found on other collections. Thanks Sega, my interest has now waned with this one. I'll pick it up during a Black Friday sale or something)

[Steve W]

I wouldn't mind buying a PS5. It's just the cost of it is a bit much for me, considering I've got more bills to pay lately. After the PS2/Xbox/GameCube era I only jumped aboard the Xbox 360 train just to have it red ring on me. So I gave up on modern consoles... until I bought my first PS3 at a used book store for $55. A week later I bought an Xbox 360 Slim at a thrift store for twentysomething, and later that year a PS4 for $75 at a flea market. Then a Wii for $9.99 at a Salvation Army and a Wii U at a GameXchange for $129. The only thing that nudged me back into the modern-ish game console era was because I could find used systems at a reasonable price. Now I can only find dirt-filled PS5 consoles for a bit under $300. Not really feeling like I'm getting a bargain. I wouldn't be buying it for AAA games, since that industry seems to be collapsing under its own incompetence, I'd be buying it for fun indie titles. And I can already get those on the PS4. So there's no real motivation to upgrade. Maybe I'll pick up a used Switch if it goes down in price enough, but I don't ever see myself getting a Switch 2.

[Gameguy]

I actually disagree. While "some indies" are great games, I feel that some of them that have released aren't. For instance, Shinobi Art of Vengeance has some good combat, but it's still full of modern day garbage, and the game looks like ass, like a low effort flash game. Of course it's going to be profitable when it kind of feels slapped together. And if you consider the price that a lot of these lower budget games are requesting, there's much to complain about indie games as their are AAA games. Not every game is Hollow Knight, not every game is Expedition 33. And as physical collectors, it's also more expensive than it is digitally(in most cases.)

However, how often does a new indie game release now days that's either procedurally generated, a card game, a short platformer, 2D exploration game, or a 2D adventure game(Broken Sword/Visual Novel esque that's usually only a few hours in length.) There's very little originality now days whether it's indie or not and outside of the 2D exploration games, is it really all that expensive to develop these style of games above on modern development tools?
I'd just like to quickly clarify that I only meant that indie games are profitable compared to AAA games, not that indie games are mostly high quality or great games to actually play. It's like how low budget horror films are usually profitable but are far from being actual good movies, personally I never liked the Friday the 13th movies but they still made a lot of them.

You're right about the issues with modern games, like being overly large worlds spread out and padded rather than being full of actual content. There's a lot I don't like about modern games in general. Even with me liking adventure games I don't like how short they now are, they feel like the freeware adventure games that were widely available about 15-20 years ago made in Adventure Game Studio, which were fine for free games but not worth paying for. I mostly like games from the PS2 era or earlier, there's hardly any from the PS3/360 era I actually like. There's probably some modern games I would like but I haven't been paying close attention to modern releases, I've mentally checked out of modern console games at this point. Just like I don't pay attention to Star Wars or Marvel movies anymore.

[kupomogli]

I was never a big adventure fan outside of some I do really like, so couldn't help you there, but if there are other genres you're into outside of FPS games and shmups I'd throw you some recommendations.

[JSoup]

I ended up getting a PS5 when Sony was doing the e-mail invites for first come, first serve orders during the initial shortage. And even then, I knew the only reasons I was getting was A. My PS4 was pretty beat up and B. So I could play the new Ratchet & Clank. The second reason is also why I got a PS3 and 4. Otherwise it's basically been serving as a theoretically better PS4 minus many of the UI features I liked. And I'd like to say it gets a lot of use these days, but I'd be lying. I don't console game as much as in years past.

I can't really comment much on modern gaming, or at least not in the way kupo does. I'm aware of stuff, I keep up on goings on, but.....I'd rather just knock out a few quick titles on Steam for achievements and then go back to WoW. Almost all the activity you see on my PSN is my partner before bed.

[kupomogli]

I agree with Jsoup here, the PS5 is only really as great as it is, is because it's really just a PS4. I've said it plenty of times the PS5 as its own console is the most disappointing I've ever been with a Playstation aside from the Vita.

However, it's also worth the purchase for me because I'll only purchase the PS5 versions of the games since they have better graphics and performance. There are some games where the PS4 version doesn't matter because it's going to be 1080p/60 regardless and if it is 4k, you probably won't notice the difference. However, most games only have a PS5 version as a physical release.

PS5 has a terrible controller though. If you like the original Xbox Duke controller then maybe you'll like it, but to me it just feels really uncomfortable because all of the extra bulk to it where imo they perfected the PS4 controller. They made it impossible to use the PS4 controller on PS5 games even when you turn off the unique dualsense features which makes the PS5 controller no different functionally.

I've been considering buying this one USB throughput device that's got a unique code like if it was a PS5 controller, but this one cannot be disabled because each of them include a unique PS5 controller ID chip inside them despite not being officially licsensed. I think it's Besavior P5Mate, but I'd have to look more into that. I've already got my two PS4 controllers that still work modded to no longer get stick drift so they're basically the perfect controller just can't play PS5 games.

PS5 can obviously play PS5 and PS4 games, but then you have games that are uncapped framerate and are now perfectly playable. Here are just a few examples of games that run 60fps when played on PS5.

Resident Evil Revelations 2
Monster Hunter World
Lichdom Battlemage(20fps on PS4 to around 50-60fps.)
Sekiro(unpatched)
Dark Souls 3 The Fire Fades physical release

[MidnightRider]

I couldn't speak to what's going on, I was kinda burning out on the direction of gaming by the end of the 6th generation. Recovered a bit when I wound up with the last generation of handhelds and a Switch. Which, I don't know how the experience has been with others, but mine shoul have been called a Nintendo Crash. Swear I've had better luck with PC software. Then there's every game needing to get patched. Then those drifting Joy-Cons...(thankfully 8bitdo exists)

I'm at the point where even with more 2D indie games getting physical releases(beat 'em ups having always been my favorite genre), I just don't care anymore. I'd rather just stick by the pixel cartridge era of gaming, and even at that, the ones that can be beaten in under a couple hours.

[calthaer]

It's taken 20+ years, but Steam has finally killed console gaming. Things sure have changed since this thread ~15+ years ago:
https://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?141904-Anyone-considering-a-switch-to-PC-gaming

There are so many great games on Steam that it's tough to keep up. Want to game on the go? There's a SteamDeck now - don't have one myself but the people who have one rave about it. I myself use an old Surface Go tablet, which is just fine for portable gaming with a gamepad if one runs low-powered games. You even have GBA games like Castlevania showing up on Steam. If revisiting the classics isn't ideal, there are plenty of indie games imitating the classics to keep one occupied.

I just can't think of any reason in 2026 to own a console - especially if you like retro games. Sure, video cards and memory are expensive - but you don't need a lot of that if you aren't running the latest and greatest. With emulation, the entirety of gaming's history is available to you in a way that's just not available on the latest PlayStation, XBOX, or Switch - all of which are gated communities with a limited selection. PC Gaming has never seen better days.

[JSoup]

It doesn't help that "keeping up" as a notion has been slowly phasing out of gaming parlance. I open community discussions, I see more people repeating "you're not supposed to play everything" than not. Which is such a change from years past where we still had that 80s nerd energy of "do all the things". Not that people who want to do it all don't still exist, achievement hunting circles run on the notion of number go up.


It's taken 20+ years, but Steam has finally killed console gaming. Things sure have changed since this thread ~15+ years ago:
https://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?141904-Anyone-considering-a-switch-to-PC-gaming

I know this wasn't the point, but the most immediately noticeably change is all the users who haven't been around in years. Like, what did Poofta do to get banned. And then I check his profile, and the last person to look at it (before me) was Frankie. This site is such tomb sometimes.

[Niku-Sama]

This doesnt surprise me at all.
People are running out of money, everything costs more and wages have not caught up and wont for a long time at this point. The economy needs to crash at this point because it all needs a big reset, again. Hopefully if it goes again it can recover properly. we're still riding a false economy since the shutdown and now we are paying for all that govt. money we got to "live" on for free. Atleast in the states.

Console makers are also going 3 different ways

Microsoft has pretty much given up

Sony is trucking along like normal but wont officially drop any prices or give the consumers any breaks, just more pro consoles.

Nintendo has gone full disney with the "you dont own anything and you'll like it" with their new console which honestly has no system selling games


This time around i might get a PS5. I almost jumped on the ghosts of yotei version but for the price i bought a 9070xt and glad i did. i bought it at $650 and now its up over $800 because RAM.
Consoles will go up too. Nintendo might be dead to me if they keep up this key card, lifetime license bull shit. Xbox has no interest. PS5 seems to be getting the quirky titles that the switch was getting before but we'll see

I might buy a switch 2 if i find one in a thrift store for cheap.

oh wait those dont exist either...

[kupomogli]

Hopefully if it goes again it can recover properly. we're still riding a false economy since the shutdown and now we are paying for all that govt. money we got to "live" on for free. Atleast in the states.

I didn't get to live off free money, I was still employed from before and after covid hit. And after recently becoming unemployed, thankfully I have money saved up because the maximum UI pays out in Alabama and FL is $275. Pretty ridiculous. If someone didn't already own their own home that's not even enough to live off of.

Before covid FL was a lot higher, they gave away all this money to people who weren't employed and were never even looking for jobs for years and now the people who actually worked don't get anything.

*edit*

Let me take a backstep from that because I do know that there are people who legitimately couldn't find jobs, but I also know there were a lot of people who just sat back to collect money. I don't want to generalize anymore and say everyone did, but there were a lot of people who did.

[JSoup]

I like to think that much of the 'sat back to collect' people were folks in a position where there wasn't much of an alternative. We were fortunate in that my work was through a private clinic so we just did our thing and my partners job was semi-government. We were able to keep working through all the madness.

[kupomogli]

I'm not going to say I told you so, but I told you so.

Sony just shut down yet ANOTHER studio, this time BluePoint. The only reason that Playstation is profitable at this point is because it's been the only home console worth considering because of Microsoft's Xbox One fiasco, but this company is just heading towards the same path as Xbox.

Xbox is now finally officially dead and this has been the case for months now, but the two former head of Xbox members being forced out confirms it.

You can already buy a fairly cheap PC that can play games better than the PS5 can, it can play nearly every PS5 game, it can play every Xbox game, it requires no subscription, you're not locked down by specific hardware so you can use any controller you want, you can easily emulate everything you want. Instead of port begging for that remaster, PC is digital only anyways, go and download it, etc.

Playstation and Nintendo matter to me simply because I collect, but most people don't so there's a clear trajectory and I've been calling it out since the launch of the PS5.

Listen to this in the background.

https://youtu.be/0fAW9LpntQ4

[JSoup]

I'm not really surprised. Once this became a race to the bottom, which became obvious for me towards the end of the PS3's life, it was just a matter of time. The final nail for me was billon dollar 10 year long dev cycles for games no one wanted being a thing.


Xbox is now finally officially dead and this has been the case for months now, but the two former head of Xbox members being forced out confirms it.


That, and them directly saying XBox is being sunsetted and that the new CEO's main job will be that transition.

[Tron 2.0]

I'm not going to say I told you so, but I told you so.


You can already buy a fairly cheap PC that can play games better than the PS5 can, it can play nearly every PS5 game, it can play every Xbox game, it requires no subscription, you're not locked down by specific hardware so you can use any controller you want, you can easily emulate everything you want. Instead of port begging for that remaster, PC is digital only anyways, go and download it, etc.

Playstation and Nintendo matter to me simply because I collect, but most people don't so there's a clear trajectory and I've been calling it out since the launch of the PS5.

Listen to this in the background.

https://youtu.be/0fAW9LpntQ4
Buy a fairly cheap PC !? What maybe for a older model that's been refurbish sure but not a newer one thanks to the ram chip shortage being bought up for ai to use in data centers so that's not the case anymore.Heck even the steam deck is sold out because of it.For sony for shutting down bluepoint baffling to say at least and it was one of sony best studio's to.Either way i'm fine currently with a base PS5 and switch one i'm not to concern with buying anymore hardware at this point.

[Niku-Sama]

I didn't get to live off free money, I was still employed from before and after covid hit. And after recently becoming unemployed, thankfully I have money saved up because the maximum UI pays out in Alabama and FL is $275.

no i wasnt talking about unemployment insurance i was talking about the several payments people got from the fed so they would spend more.

i worked all through the rona at rehab place. it was ass... but i worked

[Tanooki]

I hit your realization back with the PS4 early in its life. I ended up with one and it got used about a year, then another just for blu rays because the offerings sucked compared to PS3 it was just a waste of time and money. I lucked out though having got this costco bundle on it, so I parted out the games they cut the box open to throw in there, the few others I had, and all the rest and got out breaking even which isn't normal. I just in the last dozen years have got a high end gaming laptop instead that lasts about a decade for usefulness because I noticed anything interesting hit PC, cost far less on PC, didn't have the shitty bottlenecks of rotten frame time vs rate on consoles to stay on budget too. MS I saw the writing on the wall even earlier, they were co-releasing stuff on MS store and steam, and their xbox360 pads forward were USB based, and steam etc all catered to console buttons, THEIR colors/backwards to Nintendo lettering too. It just seemed dumb.

The exception due to their handheld forwardness/hybrid now NS1 (and 2) along with the unique games it gets, or gets made 1st/2nd party you can't get elsewhere are and continue to be their island onto their own that seems to buck the failure trends of dedicated system sales. For a good dozen years it had made more sense to have a PC and a Nintendo to get that near total experience, more than most could ever really need. And even at a higher end PC price, you don't need something massive. My decade old i7/32gb ram/980 nvidia chipped system could outpace a PS4pro still at 1080p which is a laugh, a decade old PC shit stomping a modern console. What i have now will destroy a PS5pro and outpace a perspective 6 perhaps 6pro if the timing plays out.

Yet I don't even bother anymore, I work a career and a ptjob too. I mostly will just use the Switch2 for 1/2 gaming, and then one of the far fewer consoles I've kept and one of the games I have as I don't add much anymore. Right now, just working (modern) on Metroid Prime 4 and Animal Crossing NS2ed (I erased my years old area to start over fresh which is rewarding and so updated now it's like new.)

[kupomogli]

And I always keep bringing up exclusives because Microsoft and Sony were never making money bringing them to PC and Sony clearly hasn't been making billions of dollars because of their exclusives. What exclusives does the PS5 have, they've literally released almost no first party titles that haven't been complete money pits.

Instead of these 400 million dollar money pits, Sony could have released at the very least 10 high quality single player exclusives during that time. People would be interested in buying a PS5 if that's the only place you could play them, if they weren't on PC and there was no intention of ever being on PC. Or Sony could have not closed down all those AA studios they owned and made budget games that are around 10-20 million alongside some 40 million AAA games and they'd have 20-40 games on the PS5 instead of one Concord.

Then it's like, oh wow, maybe I should get a PS5 because look at all these games I can't play on the Xbox , PC, or Switch.

There's one finally thing about exclusives. Being exclusive has more of a perceived value on being a better game, this isn't just opinion, this is a fact. There's a lot of mediocre games across all consoles that are highly praised simply because of their exclusivity. Don't hate me because I'm going to start with Dreamcast.

Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, and Sonic Adventure are either mediocre or just trash. I never liked these games back when they were new. I always felt that while the gameplay was unique, the games were too porly paced, too jank, etc.

As an RPG fan, I've played through the entire first and second dungeon of Skies of Arcadia. I'm just not seeing what everyone loves about this game and I'm more inclined to believe that it's the same reason everyone loves these overhyped hidden gems. They're cult classics that some people with bad taste just constantly praised and now everyone thinks these are masterpieces so people parrot the same thing without having ever played the games, but in reality, these were never better than a 4/10 to 6/10 game which is between a bit mediocre, decent/good, or good in my own rating.

That's the power of exclusivity. It makes games that only be decent or even good games be considered better games. Is Dark Cloud a great game? Well, now it's a 10/10 because the exclusivity makes people have that much more attachment to it, because it's only playable on the PS2.

But as I said I'll give other games.

Japanese exclusives. These aren't console exclusives usually, but if you're a weeb and you're upset that you can't play Final Fantasy Type 0, Final Fantasy 3, Bahamut Lagoon, etc, you may have played fan translations of the games before any official launch of some of them. When people finally had the chance to play Final Fantasy 3 and Type 0 in the west, these games were criticized as not being very good, because that's exactly the case. They're not very good games. The only people who stated that they were these masterpiece games are these weebs who played the Japanese versions of the games and had a perceived increased value of their quality simply because they were they were the only ones who've played them.

And especially for Type 0 the PSP isn't such an old console, there's a lot of great action games on the PSP. There's a lot of great action games on the PS1, Nightmare Creatures is one of my favorite action adventure beat em up of all time, so it's not that the game "aged poorly." As people like to say. It's the game was never good.

And from all of this, I've came up with a term that I always use when mocking people. "The best games you've never played." I say this mockingly because while there are a lot of amazing games that people have not played, it's way too often you see all of these highly praised cult classic games that aren't good games and these are those that fall under my "best games you've never played category." Mocking people for their trash opinions.

Now everything isn't a "bad game." Because like I said, exclusivity elevates the game from a great game like Dark Cloud to 10/10 in people's minds. Horizon Zero Dawn is a merely good game, with a very Monster Hunter like loop except the time to kill for both the enemy and the player is quick, making it an enjoyable experience, the opene world and fetch quests as well as the limited play style of only using a bow. It's a good game that's just got all of the modern day padding you'd expect, but since it was at one time considered exclusive, most Sony fanboys will call it a 10/10.

[kupomogli]

Eight years later here's a video of Real Life Fake Wizard stating everything I've been saying again and again now that Sony's cancelling their PC porting. It took them eight years to realize there was no reason to buy a Playstation because they were releasing all their games on PC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zyyqgqSTwA

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

The prices just aren't going down and the games don't really play or look any better on PS5 / Xbox Series XS than their predecessors. Switch 2 is a slight difference, but "you don't own the game you spent $80 on"? The business side of the gaming industry has been effed for close to a decade.

[JSoup]

I do find it funny that companies are still trying to target their original "core audience" from years past with those price tags. I'm not 8 any more, I know $50 was probably too much for games I bought with what money I had at that time, nothing I've seen suggests the current even higher price is worth the exchange. It's funny running across devs in discord who are weirded out that I won't buy a game they're working on that I've admitted interest in. It's not hard to work out, I'll get it down the road when the price drops. Again, I'm not 8 anymore. I can wait a couple years for a video game to become reasonably priced.

In example, Spider-Man 2 just had it's second highest player count of all time on the PSN. The reason? It's a PSN+ freebie for February. Various trophy hunting forums are full of people who were interested in the game but knew it would come to the service as a freebie eventually. So we all waited over two years instead of paying up.

[JSoup]

Double post, but:

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mgafq7tiw22q

"NEW: Sony no longer plans to release PlayStation games on PC, sources tell Bloomberg News, a major shift in strategy that sees the console maker returning to exclusivity after six years of flirting with multiplatform."

[kupomogli]

Yeah, that was what I mentioned. It took Sony this long to realize that they were ruining their brand and pushing their own fanbase to PC while making next to nothing compared to what they've lost as a business.

[Tron 2.0]

Double post, but:

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mgafq7tiw22q

"NEW: Sony no longer plans to release PlayStation games on PC, sources tell Bloomberg News, a major shift in strategy that sees the console maker returning to exclusivity after six years of flirting with multiplatform."
I got no investment in pc gaming since i mostly play on consoles but talk about a reverse course on sony part.