You're comparing full price console games to free PC games. There are numerous games on consoles that cost less than €50, and buying the latest AAA releases on PC will cost you more than €50 too

How many free Console games are there? Much less than PC.

It's entirely fair as there is more possibility of free PC games, or them being of negligible cost since you pay lower platform fees.

This is in addition to the opportunity costs you incur of not buying a PC or having a lower powered PC as a PC can be used for other things (ie, office work, taxes, other productivity tasks).

In absolute numbers there are more free games on PC (see itch.io) yes but that kind of doesn't matter. If your game choices are purely driven by cost then a second hand laptop with f2p games is going to be the cheapest approach. If you exclusively want to play f2p games, then a cheap PC or a cheap console doesn't really matter. Buy if you're going to be buying a handful of new releases a year, the difference is more like €10 per game rather than €50

> since you pay lower platform fees

The platform fees (not required by the way) are roughly the cost of one game per year, if not cheaper. Gamepass being a very different discussion (and is available on PC too)

> This is in addition to the opportunity costs you incur of not buying a PC or having a lower powered PC as a PC can be used for other things (ie, office work, taxes, other productivity tasks).

I don't know about you but I don't want my work PC to be where I relax in the evenings, and many people don't want their employers software or information on their personal devices. I also live in a country where I don't have to fill in my own taxes, and almost all of my personal computing needs are met by my phone.

I didn't say you'd have to buy a workplace PC with gaming capabilities, there is plenty of opportunities for a PC to be productive outside work and gaming (such as commenting on HN).

I can do all of those things on my phone (and I do!)

Not all things are quite possible on a phone or as comfortable as you could do them on a PC (I couldn't imagine coding on a phone).

And things aren't always as comfortable on PC as they are on a console. I would much rather the streamlined experience and guaranteed compatibility of a console for playing games, in the same way you would rather a PC for coding over a phone.

I'd love to see people doing their taxes on their console, since by that argument it would be more streamlined.

>This is in addition to the opportunity costs you incur of not buying a PC or having a lower powered PC as a PC can be used for other things (ie, office work, taxes, other productivity tasks).

Work related stuf I do on my work-provided MacBook Pro, that costs me €0. For browsing the web, e-mail and taxes I just use my iPad.

An iPad costs non significant amounts of money and not everyone is privileged enough to get a MacBook Pro for personal work from their employer.

> An iPad costs non significant amounts of money

Less than a PC

If you want to play the kind of games you'd play on a console in a similar quality, your figures will only pay for the GPU, and that just barely. The prices are completely insane right now, PC gaming is not very affordable today.

And PC games also cost money, at least if we're talking about similar types of games as on the consoles.

You can definitely get a GPU for affordable prices if you're willing to wait. The insane prices apply if you want a GPU now.

Also keep in mind that consoles are subject to the very same price increase, it's nearly impossible to obtain a console for the advertised price.

I got a PS5 months ago for the regular price (400 EUR for the digital-only version), and I didn't put that much effort into getting it. A 3060 would be at least 700 EUR right now.

And the GPU prices have been rather expensive, if not as outright insane as right now for years. So PC gaming in general has become less attractive from a financial point while console prices are pretty much the same (though with some difficulty in getting them, for sure).

You don't need a 3060, you can simply get a GPU from a few generations back. You can get a Vega 56 for about 300€ which will play most games in high quality settings without any issues.

Same for all other components, it's no longer true that you need current-gen technology to be able to play with Graphics put on High.

That's still 3/4 of the price of a new console for a used 4 year old GPU. And you still won't be able to match the graphics quality of a PS5 in new games.

> And you still won't be able to match the graphics quality of a PS5 in new games.

And the PS5 won't be able to match the PCs capability of doing productive things when not gaming.

> You can get a Vega 56 for about 300€

No, not really.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=vega+56&_saca...