I love console gaming. I've been mainly playing on console since my parents bought my first Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis as you may know it) back in the early 1990s (yes, I'm dating myself there). As the years went by, the new consoles of the time were always the things I desired the most. When I started earning my own money, I branched out into having Xbox and PlayStation, as well as dabbling with others like the majestic Sega Dreamcast.
Already, this generation has seen me slim down to a single console. I have owned a PS5, but it wasn't being used much, so I sold it. Despite an increase in the amount of PC gaming I do these days, especially with the Steam Deck, I'm a console guy at heart. I've owned every single iteration of the Xbox and PlayStation consoles to date.
That looks like it's in serious jeopardy, though. The PS5 Pro just debuted at an eyewatering $700, without a disc drive and without even including the vertical stand. Absolutely outrageous. Xbox isn't sitting pretty here, either, with the special edition sparkle-clad 2TB version only undercutting this by $100, without any increase in the performance offered.
If this is the new normal, after more than 30 years, this generation will be my last.
I'm clearly not alone in an intense dislike of the price
I'm not going to start speculating or analyzing markets or earnings, but one thing I am fairly confident of is that Xbox has a better overall position. I'll touch on that shortly, but Microsoft has been building the Xbox ecosystem for a number of years to be more than just the box under your TV.
I'm clearly not alone, though, in my shock and dismay at the price of the PS5 Pro. It was bad enough that Microsoft decided to jump the price to $600 for a 'new' Xbox Series X with a sparkly paint job and another 1TB of storage. This ain't it, chief.
The reveal trailer has a crazy number of dislikes, and people are trashing the price literally everywhere you go on the internet. $700 is a lot, whatever you're buying, but let's not also forget this is a mid-cycle refresh. At some point, there will be a true next-generation release, and it wouldn't take much of a leap to imagine that when these drop, we'll be hovering around this price point.
Consoles used to be a more affordable and much easier way to play games. The PS5 Pro is at a point where it's officially no longer true. Throw around 4K60 and as many buzzwords as you like, it's now in gaming PC territory. So, what's the point of having a console anymore? Especially since your $700 investment is for a fixed piece of hardware that will limit the performance you can get out of newer games in years to come. You may as well buy a PC and deal with a little frustration over drivers and settings and be better off in the long run.
There's simply no need to spend megabucks on a console
The landscape of gaming is so different in 2024 compared to even four years ago when the current generation kicked off. Despite the loss of Google Stadia, cloud gaming continues to grow steadily, and the influx of gaming handhelds is opening up PC gaming to an ever wider audience.
I feel like the overall landscape is beginning to shift more towards just enjoying games again versus an obsession with resolution and the absolute highest detail settings. The Steam Deck is a prime example of this. It's not even as powerful as the likes of the ROG Ally X, but it's affordable and has an enormous library of PC games to play. It gets back to what matters most: the games.
With services like NVIDIA GeForce Now, a high-performance gaming PC is at the fingertips of anyone who owns basically any device with a web browser. With the top subscription tier, I can play Forza Horizon 5 on a better rig than my own desktop gaming PC with access to an RTX 4080. Xbox's own cloud does the same thing, and it's now like playing on an Xbox Series X without the need to buy one and be stuck to the same display in your house all the time.
Or, you know, there is that gaming PC or laptop. Nowadays, you don't have to spend a fortune to have a great experience. Black Friday is coming up, and you can guarantee there will be one or two absolutely scorching deals. A PC is, by its very nature, more useful than a console. And if you absolutely have to play on your big fancy TV, it's not like you can't still do that, even if you might have to sacrifice some resolution. But seriously, 4K gaming isn't all that. It's just more pixels. A higher frame rate will still make a game feel better to play.
Time to talk with our wallets
I am fortunate that I get to play with a lot of incredible hardware at work. But when it comes to what I own and buy with my own money, I think the time has come to seriously think with my wallet (and my head) rather than my heart.
Microsoft already has a $600 console now, and Sony has one at $700. I already have to leave my Xbox Series X at home when I go anywhere, which is where the Steam Deck has really shown its value. But I need a PC to work from, and if I'm going to have to plow that kind of money into something that I can only play games on, it just doesn't make sense anymore. Microsoft and Sony are both bringing their first-party games to PC, so why not just go all-in and have the benefit of playing both on a single platform along with everything else available on Steam, Epic Games, EA, Ubisoft, and so on?
Microsoft and Xbox will be fine; after all, Xbox is as much a PC platform now as it is a console. PlayStation, well, players voting with their wallets is the only thing that will force any form of change. Concord is living proof of that. We're at a critical moment now, and I'm all but convinced my own mind is made up.
