this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
415 points (97.5% liked)

Games

48521 readers
2377 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] jtrek@startrek.website 42 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Can they both fail? Consoles kind of suck. Closed platform owned by mega corps. Their main appeals of "easy" and "cheaper" haven't been true for years.

Microsoft could have done like a ... Steam machine for windows like 25 years ago. Optimized windows install on certified hardware, games that also play on desktop windows. They could've made steam. Except they couldn't because they're a souless corporate husk full of parasitic ghouls.

Fuck em. Fuck them all.

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Consoles failing isn't going to make PC gaming any better, though. It's certainly not going to drive prices down. Though I'm not sure the inverse is actually true: hugely successful consoles with good competition isn't going to drive component prices down.

Microsoft actually sort of did try that. The Xbox was originally (internally) referred to as the "DirectX box"; it was basically a computer stripped of all parts not necessary for gaming. Microsoft has been pushing DirectX and gaming technologies for decades. You're right though, the games should have also been Windows compatible. I don't know why they weren't. Microsoft is going that way now, sort of, with Play Anywhere games that, if you buy them on Xbox, you can also download them through the Windows Store (which still sucks).

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 1 points 1 day ago

. I don’t know why they weren’t.

I don't know for certain but I have guesses. They probably thought they could make more money from a more closed system. Some middle manager probably had a kpi that benefitted from incompatibility.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

25 years ago, they weren't going to get any closer than the original Xbox did. PC gaming was extraordinarily different from what we know today, and much as you might not want to hear it, a lot of the reasons it got better were also because of Microsoft. The truth is we can only have something like a Steam Machine today because of incremental improvements that have been done over long periods of time. Valve basically started work on Proton right after the first batch of Steam Machines came out and bombed, and it took until 2022 for their next batch of hardware to materialize that made use of it. Closed platforms can fuck off and die these days, but they solved real problems for decades.

[–] Prox@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Their main appeals of "easy" and "cheaper" haven't been true for years.

Please help me get a machine that compares to the PS5/XSX in terms of performance and cost. I'm being serious. Every time I look at putting something together it's gonna be like $1500-$2000.

[–] qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)
  • Used Rtx 3060ti ~ $200
  • Used Ryzen 5 5600x ~ $130
  • Used 16gb ddr4 ~ $60 - $120
  • B550 mobo ~ $80
  • 512gb ssd ~ $60
  • 550w 80+ psu ~ $40
  • CPU cooler ~ $15 (if not included with cpu)
  • Case ~ $10 (optional)
  • Case fans ~ $10 (optional)

Total ~ $570 - $665

Plus you don't have to pay for online and get cheaper (or free 🏴‍☠️) games.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

PS5 and XSX run better at 4k resolution than my 3060ti does at 1440p in at least some games.

And those are all used prices. That nearly 6 year old GPU probably no longer has any warranty, unless someone bought it when the next 2 generations were already out. Not sure I'd trust used memory either when prices are as high as they are right now, people would be hella motivated to try to sell their old failing sticks. I'm also not sure where you'll get a 512GB SSD for $60. Cheapest 512 GB NVMe is 90€ near me. The Playstation has an 825 GB NVMe, or 1TB for some models (2 for pro, but that's overpriced).

The same price range (or a tiny bit less) still gets you a brand new PlayStation 5 with warranty, rather than potentially 5-6 year old components (hell, the DDR4 could be even older). You can also save money on the console too if you go used.

I'm a PC gamer, but let's not kid ourselves by saying that PC gaming isn't more expensive to buy into. It is. You do get a multifunctional machine though. I use mine for work and arguing with strangers on lemmy, for an example.

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The up-front cost of a console is probably cheaper, barring putting some labor in and getting lucky on sales. You're right about that.

A PC has more utility, a larger library, and no subscription fee. That $80/year PsPlus subscription eats into the savings pretty fast. And when your playstation is end-of-life, it's far less useful than an older PC.

I'm sure some PC-building nerds would be happy to help put together a cost effective machine for you, but sadly I'm not that kind of nerd. I splurged on a pre-built machine when I had a nice job.

[–] Prox@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

What did you buy?

[–] imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

1500-2000 PC would be twice as powerful as PS5.

If you pay 1000, you get:

  • 1440p@60 at max settings gaming machine
  • you can play games from all systems (if they are ported to PC)
  • if games are not ported, you got emulation!
  • ginormous backwards compatibility log
  • ability to do whatever you want with it (watch movies, work, browse internet, code, edit photos, whatever you can think of)
  • You also do not have to pay subscription fee to be able to play online
  • Games generally are cheap and can be acquired in bulk
  • 4 times a year Steam sales and free games offered by competitors
  • Can be used with pretty much any gamepad out there + tons of insanely good 3rd party options.
  • If you do not like Windows, Linux can run almost any game.

Btw, 1000 is for a Steam Machine. You can get used parts that are better for even less. And you got a huge bump up if you already have some hardware beforehand.

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone -1 points 1 day ago

Buy a used liquidated office PC, add GPU and SSD. Done.

The current market's kind of making it rough to find that at the moment though.