Op-ed: Slowed manufacturing advancements are upending the way tech progresses.

"These price increases have multiple intertwining causes, some direct and some less so: inflation, pandemic-era supply crunches, the unpredictable trade policies of the Trump administration, and a gradual shift among console makers away from selling hardware at a loss or breaking even in the hopes that game sales will subsidize the hardware. And you never want to rule out good old shareholder-prioritizing corporate greed.

But one major factor, both in the price increases and in the reduction in drastic “slim”-style redesigns, is technical: the death of Moore’s Law and a noticeable slowdown in the rate at which processors and graphics chips can improve."

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    25 days ago

    Yeah, GPU prices are kinda ridiculous, but a 7600 is probably good enough to match console quality (essentially the same as the 6650XT, so get whatever is cheaper), and I see those going for $330. It should be more like $250, so maybe you can find it closer to that amount when there’s a sale. Add $500-600 for mobo, CPU, PSU, RAM storage, and a crappy case, and you have a decent gaming rig. Maybe I’m short by $100 or so, but that should be somewhere in the ballpark.

    So $900-1000 for a PC. That’s about double a console, extra if you need keyboard, monitor, etc. Let’s say that’s $500. So now we’re 3x a console.

    Entry cost is certainly higher, so what do you get in return?

    • deeper catalogue
    • large discounts on older games (anything older than a year or so)
    • emulation and other PC tasks
    • can upgrade piecemeal - next console gen, just need a new CPU + GPU, and if you go AMD, you can probably skip a gen on your mobo + RAM
    • can repurpose old PC once you rebuild it (my old PC is my NAS)
    • generally no need to pay a sub for multiplayer

    Depending on how many and what types of games you play, it may or may not be cheaper. I play a ton of indies and rarely play AAA new releases, so a console would be a lot more expensive for me. I also have hundreds of games, and probably play 40 or so in a given year (last year was 50 IIRC). If I save just $10 per game, it would be the same price as a console after 2 years, but I save far more since I wait for sales. Also, I’ll have a PC anyway, so technically I should only count the extra stuff I buy for playing games, as in my GPU.