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[DF] PS5 v PC value comparisons less important than a bleak future for console pricing

Wooxsvan

Member
lets get some subsidized options on hardware for 2 year agreements to PSN like cellphones and carrier plans in the US !

i know sounds horrid but this is how people buy 800-1000 phones every couple years in droves. you say well phone is more useful sure but they dont need the 800 version, they could go buy the 300 version and it would be fine but they dont.
 
Lol, most people will sell their kidneys before jumping to a free ecosystem of playing online. Or make excuses about how PC only has a large form factor when ITX configurations exist. But then again, another excuse is PC isn't plug and play, but they live in 2008.
Yeah I hadn't been a PC gamer since 2007, and I was shocked out how idiot-proof PC gaming is nowadays.
 

TxKnight7

Member
PC has more value in many ways " The day one Games "

BrKb7RY.jpeg
 

AfroRonin

Neo Member
People keep making the flawed assumption that console gaming is for people on a budget, and that those with money will choose the more premium (expensive) option. Odd, since most people evangelizing for PC do so by arguing how much money you'll save. The fact of the matter is, people with high incomes would rather save time/energy when enjoying their entertainment; not money.

phsrTzk.jpeg
 

Zathalus

Member
Right at the top of the article:
"Expect next-gen PCs to compete more directly with PlayStation 6."

It's a convoluted way to downplay PS5 Pro and push a PC vs Playstation narrative, as expected.
Yes, in price. Actually reading the article and it’s pretty clear that it’s not advocating that PlayStation gamers will or should convert to PC gaming. It also lists quite a number of compelling reasons why the comparison is nonsensical. The criticisms are directed at the price and lack of a disc drive, which has been a sore subject for many.

If you’re going to take exception to a single cherry-picked sentence from a lengthy article without even looking at the entire thing holistically you’re just going to reinforce your own bias.
 

bender

What time is it?
While I do think Sony's playing a dangerous game with Pro pricing, if that's a sign of things to come, I think most people overestimate the average consumer's willingness to look at anything beyond upfront pricing (see: lifetime cost of ownership) and consoles still have the advantage here thanks to how much GPU prices have ballooned in recent times.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
"So, to summarise: PS5 Pro is aimed at PlayStation users who have an existing library of games and want the best experience from their console of choice. It offers a streamlined experience that is more user-friendly and doesn't involve any kind of construction and minimal maintenance. In the vast majority of cases, everything just works and continues to work - an area where PC is more cumbersome. And in terms of the Pro itself, what you are getting in terms of 'more GPU', machine learning upscaling and enhanced RT is actually a decent round-up of the core innovations from the PC space, presented in console form with all the advantages of the existing platform and ecosystem. None of this is meant to justify the excessive price-point, but that is the nature of the Pro offering: outside of actually playing games, a console is still very different to a PC."

That's pretty much dead on correct, imo.


TRUTH! PC Master Race just doesn't get it.
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
Yes, in price. Actually reading the article and it’s pretty clear that it’s not advocating that PlayStation gamers will or should convert to PC gaming. It also lists quite a number of compelling reasons why the comparison is nonsensical. The criticisms are directed at the price and lack of a disc drive, which has been a sore subject for many.

If you’re going to take exception to a single cherry-picked sentence from a lengthy article without even looking at the entire thing holistically you’re just going to reinforce your own bias.
The entire article is adressing things that have been discussed to death.
Nothing new was brought to the table.

But like I said, I commend them for finding ways to downplay Playstation (Pro in this case).
Especially since the article is written in a clever way given the closing comment:
"but I do expect that PlayStation 5 Pro and its pricing will be judged on their own merits - not on whether you can build a price-equivalent PC that's as powerful."

Couldn't care less if this makes you feel like I'm biased.
I never even claimed that I'm unbiased.
 

StereoVsn

Member
lets get some subsidized options on hardware for 2 year agreements to PSN like cellphones and carrier plans in the US !

i know sounds horrid but this is how people buy 800-1000 phones every couple years in droves. you say well phone is more useful sure but they dont need the 800 version, they could go buy the 300 version and it would be fine but they dont.
Plenty of places in US offer free financing. BestBuy usually has 12 to 24 months available depending on the time of the year.
 

Zathalus

Member
The entire article is adressing things that have been discussed to death.
Nothing new was brought to the table.

But like I said, I commend them for finding ways to downplay Playstation (Pro in this case).
Especially since the article is written in a clever way given the closing comment:
"but I do expect that PlayStation 5 Pro and its pricing will be judged on their own merits - not on whether you can build a price-equivalent PC that's as powerful."

Couldn't care less if this makes you feel like I'm biased.
I never even claimed that I'm unbiased.
Ah, so you're just bitching because of your dislike of DF.
 

Bojji

Member
WHAT?!? They're anything BUT that! You clearly don't ever listen to their podcasts cause you'd hear the amount of times that Colin, Chris and Dustin give it to Sony in a very bad way. But hey, they wanna get a Pro so they're corporate shills who receive NOTHING from Sony at all...



They will never be truly criticizing Sony/MS and big publishers. I don't have to listen to them to know that they are promoting what corporations are forcing us to use (digital distribution).
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
Ah, so you're just bitching because of your dislike of DF.
I like DF when they just do tech analyses.

Opinion pieces like this are just clickbait articles where they try to push a narrative.
Just like how they tried to downplay PS5 pre-release. (Wasn't Bagliatelli even part of the Xbox FUD Discord?)

Let's not act like DF doesn't have it's biases.
 
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Zacfoldor

Member
Yeah, bad take. All prices are going up. You think Nvidia will keep flagship prices "low"(lol) now that AMD and intel are out? PC and mobile sales in a slump, only showing growth in the console market atm, and console sales are approaching 75% of mobile while PC only 50%.

PS5 Pro is $699, but the Xbox Series X with 2tb is $599 and the Series X doesn't have a single REAL upgrade(besides 2tb which PS Pro also has). There are multiple entry point tiers for these consoles and the PC.


This shitting on Sony article was your reality yesterday but until somebody proves the WSJ made this above shit up, well...good luck.
 
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twilo99

Gold Member
What is this logic that if you are going to spend over $400 then you might as well spend $1000? Hell, talk yourself all the way up to $3000 then.

Diminishing returns on console hardware above $300-400 are too harsh for me because I see console gaming as "budget" and that's the price point where they can stay competitive against PC... anything above that it makes no sense to not build a PC instead
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly


The only time I find Colin insufferable is when he shills and basically goes balls deep to defend Sony he has a triggering way of turning anything negative into gas lighting retort.

Nib destroyed his point too. Don't fall for Sony trying to push you to digital because their split is comparable more to Nintendo than pc/Xbox and mobile.

Between 60 and 70 percent of sonys 1st party games are sold on physical. The fact that there isn't a disk drive bundled pro is an obvious play from them to drive more people to digital.

I love my physical playstation and switch games.
 
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Killer8

Member
The value comparisons aren't too interesting other than as a fun exercise. I think it's already a foregone conclusion that a mass-produced console taking full advantage of economies of scale is likely going to beat hand selected, equivalently powered PC parts in a Newegg basket.

What is interesting is that because the Pro has gotten in such close proximity of its higher-end PC equivalent (for now), it really feels like it's re-ignited the entire discussion of PC vs console. "Just buy a PC bro" has been a sort of catch-all phrase for years, hinting that PC is just an outright objectively better experience. We're finding that this couldn't be further from the truth, as you can contextualize "better" in terms of much more than just framerates and resolutions. Just how well a device fits the needs and lifestyle of the end user can alone make either platform "better" to them.

It's not all path-traced sunshine and 120fps rainbows on PC and Wichard is spelling out the psychology of why many, many people just cannot be fucked engaging with the platform even if it has the potential to offer more. I think Oliver has been something of a console whisperer at DF and made Wichard actually pause and think about just why consoles still appeal to people so much, even in the face of the "objectively better" alternative (I also spelled some of it out in the other thread).

A bit refreshing to say the least to not see the argument so one-sided.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Diminishing returns on console hardware above $300-400 are too harsh for me because I see console gaming as "budget" and that's the price point where they can stay competitive against PC... anything above that it makes no sense to not build a PC instead

Sure....if that's how you personally look at it then that's fine. To me, I can take that logic in reverse and say the returns at a $1000 PC are not any better than this $700 console and so go with the cheaper option. Of course, that's not factoring in other aspects. Like I said in other posts, a major factor would be where am I planning on playing games.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster

Not really. What sense does it make to use the highest cost item in a particular class of consumer product about the general pricing trends of all items within that class?

Cherry-picking outlier data to forward a point is basic "straw man" argumentation.

Sorry, but I found the manipulation egregiously offensive especially coming from DF, who traditionally avoid price concerns when extolling the virtues of PC hardware.
 

DoomD

Neo Member
Not really. What sense does it make to use the highest cost item in a particular class of consumer product about the general pricing trends of all items within that class?

Cherry-picking outlier data to forward a point is basic "straw man" argumentation.

Sorry, but I found the manipulation egregiously offensive especially coming from DF, who traditionally avoid price concerns when extolling the virtues of PC hardware.
But its the precedence that has been set in the console market up till this point, the next gen console has either been more expensive or the same as the leading SKU of the previous gen. Look at PS3 Slim to PS4, PS4 pro to PS5, what makes you think PS5 pro to PS6 won't be the same? Alex from DF said he thinks that the next gen will have a much longer cross gen period than this one so that way there is a cheaper option on the market once PS6 arrives, and to be honest I agree. I think that's the only way a $700 or $800 PS6 could possibly exist and I'm not exactly looking forward to it but unless the PS5 pro completely flops, this might be our future.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
But its the precedence that has been set in the console market up till this point, the next gen console has either been more expensive or the same as the leading SKU of the previous gen. Look at PS3 Slim to PS4, PS4 pro to PS5, what makes you think PS5 pro to PS6 won't be the same? Alex from DF said he thinks that the next gen will have a much longer cross gen period than this one so that way there is a cheaper option on the market once PS6 arrives, and to be honest I agree. I think that's the only way a $700 or $800 PS6 could possibly exist and I'm not exactly looking forward to it but unless the PS5 pro completely flops, this might be our future.

If you are looking to judge a trend, then surely you have to weight based on prevalence? This was my point about the 4090; how many Steam users have hardware of that calibre?

What you need to look at is what the mass-market is picking, because clearly that's more roundly attractive than sheer performance capability!

In the case of PS5 Pro what we have is an item that isn't aimed at the mainstream Playstation user in the same manner as any flagship GPU isn't aimed at the mainstream PC gamer.

What makes the argument even worse and more dishonest though, is the inarguable fact that the console space is always very limited in terms of product choice. Its actually a relatively recent novelty for any platform holder to offer more than a single-spec hardware SKU at a time!

If you look at PS4 Pro as a precedent, it shifted what, 15% of the numbers of the PS4 with a much smaller price hike. So, objectively speaking, how will the PS5 Pro's relative sales compare? I'd expect some variance, but I highly doubt its going to quadruple in volume, which is roughly what it would take for it to become statistically significant to the average RRP of Playstation consoles in this generation!
 

Miles708

Member
You all can ramble and post on socials and act shocked but in the end you will suck it up. Sony knows this, Nvidia knows this, Apple knows this, Microsoft knows this, Adobe knows this.

The only reason everything costs too much is because you all have no willpower to avoid sucking it.

Why should companies sell at a lower price? They're not idiots.
 

BlackTron

Member
Cough...
DF is going to lose their minds dealing with this. The Pro is just going to be the strongest console by such a ridiculous margin. They're going to focus more on value proposition vs a PC than comparing to Xbox. The high price is like a tiny olive branch to hold on to.
 

GHG

Gold Member
$1000 PC > $700+ console
$1000 PC = 500 console
$1000 PC < $300- console


If you are going to compromise on hardware, you might as well take it to the extreme and not spend over $300 on it and enjoy the games, where a $700-800 console is trying to be something it isn't... out of place in my opinion.

The two consoles that make the most sense currently are:

PS5 slim no drive
Xbox Series S

If you want to go above that, might as well build that $1000 PC

We are almost in 2025 and you're still attempting to shill the Series S?

Pathetic.
 

saintjules

Gold Member
I'm getting the Pro day 1, but here I am also loooking at a 4070/Super. Somewhat off topic, but is it better to wait on a Super in terms of availability? Best Buy has the base 4070. Coming from a 2060S
 

Zathalus

Member
I'm getting the Pro day 1, but here I am also loooking at a 4070/Super. Somewhat off topic, but is it better to wait on a Super in terms of availability? Best Buy has the base 4070. Coming from a 2060S
Really depends on your budget. 4070 Super is almost 20% more powerful for a mere $50 more. I’d say it’s better value and worth it if you wait.
 

Kvally

Member
"So, to summarise: PS5 Pro is aimed at PlayStation users who have an existing library of games and want the best experience from their console of choice. It offers a streamlined experience that is more user-friendly and doesn't involve any kind of construction and minimal maintenance. In the vast majority of cases, everything just works and continues to work - an area where PC is more cumbersome. And in terms of the Pro itself, what you are getting in terms of 'more GPU', machine learning upscaling and enhanced RT is actually a decent round-up of the core innovations from the PC space, presented in console form with all the advantages of the existing platform and ecosystem. None of this is meant to justify the excessive price-point, but that is the nature of the Pro offering: outside of actually playing games, a console is still very different to a PC."

That's pretty much dead on correct, imo.
That's why I love you.
 

poodaddy

Gold Member
I just think the pricing is full blown fucked all around right now, and PC is no better than console there.

I prefer PC to console....I still have a 2080 and I won't be upgrading until pricing unfucks itself, which seems like at this point may never happen, so I suppose I'm just out on premium PC gaming now. I'm also not spending 700 bucks on a console that I only play a few exclusives on anyway, (for me, it would purely be a Demon's Souls and Spider-Man 2 box as they're the only Sony exclusives I've enjoyed this gen), so I'm in a weird spot with gaming right now.
I don't know, I've got a lot on my plate for the next two years, not a lot of time for gaming right now as it were, and I've got a backlog that could last me a lifetime, and a daughter that's about to turn 13 and my wife's starting her own practice soon and I'll be helping her with that.....maybe I just pull out of the rat race of "modern gaming" altogether and just focus on other stuff and work on interesting titles from the backlog when I get free time.
I think the hobby has finally priced me out.
 

DoomD

Neo Member
If you are looking to judge a trend, then surely you have to weight based on prevalence? This was my point about the 4090; how many Steam users have hardware of that calibre?

What you need to look at is what the mass-market is picking, because clearly that's more roundly attractive than sheer performance capability!

In the case of PS5 Pro what we have is an item that isn't aimed at the mainstream Playstation user in the same manner as any flagship GPU isn't aimed at the mainstream PC gamer.

What makes the argument even worse and more dishonest though, is the inarguable fact that the console space is always very limited in terms of product choice. Its actually a relatively recent novelty for any platform holder to offer more than a single-spec hardware SKU at a time!

If you look at PS4 Pro as a precedent, it shifted what, 15% of the numbers of the PS4 with a much smaller price hike. So, objectively speaking, how will the PS5 Pro's relative sales compare? I'd expect some variance, but I highly doubt its going to quadruple in volume, which is roughly what it would take for it to become statistically significant to the average RRP of Playstation consoles in this generation!
Right, but again what was the price of the PS4 Pro in comparison to the PS5, the new mass market device for Playstation? So regardless of prevalence, the PS4 Pro set the low end price of what a console could be for Sony, and the PS5 came in above that. That's why to me it makes the most sense to have multiple SKUs like GPUs have, as in your provided example. You'll have your high end console with the PS6, the mid spec one with the PS5 Pro and the low end of the PS5.
 

twilo99

Gold Member
We are almost in 2025 and you're still attempting to shill the Series S?

Pathetic.

Why so touchy?

I think the two cheapest consoles from each manufacturer are the best deals if you are looking to buy one currently, you can disagree of course, but you just need to exhibit some strange insecurity along with it for some reason? There is no need...
 

twilo99

Gold Member
Sure....if that's how you personally look at it then that's fine. To me, I can take that logic in reverse and say the returns at a $1000 PC are not any better than this $700 console and so go with the cheaper option. Of course, that's not factoring in other aspects. Like I said in other posts, a major factor would be where am I planning on playing games.

Indeed, that's the foundation for a discussion. Personal preference and one's gaming history significantly influence perspectives on this issue. In my opinion, pairing a mid-tier PC with an affordable console, or perhaps even a handheld device, offers the most comprehensive solution for a wide range of gaming requirements one might have, but then again, that's just me.

I think that a $700-800 console with such outdated hardware such as the PS5 pro ends up being in "no man's land"
 

GHG

Gold Member
Why so touchy?

I think the two cheapest consoles from each manufacturer are the best deals if you are looking to buy one currently, you can disagree of course, but you just need to exhibit some strange insecurity along with it for some reason? There is no need...

What there is no need for is the suggestion that someone should stick to one extreme or the other when it comes to budgets concerning hardware purchases.

In fact, I'll just be blunt and say it's stupid, because when you actually start looking at what it is you're getting for the money with many of the options in between, that's where the value is.

Nobody of sound mind should shop based on price alone, you shop based on value.
 

HL3.exe

Member
I like DF when they just do tech analyses.

Opinion pieces like this are just clickbait articles where they try to push a narrative.
Just like how they tried to downplay PS5 pre-release. (Wasn't Bagliatelli even part of the Xbox FUD Discord?)

Let's not act like DF doesn't have it's biases.
Console wars, console wars never change.

That's the thing about PC and consoles though. The entry cost difference. PC always lost on that front, with high entrance fees on hardware, combined with being depended on console ports for awhile. The 00's where especially brutal with development priorities most of the time going to consoles with lousy PC port as a result, but at least having a PC mod community to sometimes rely on to fix stuff, or even enhanced it above and beyond the original version.

But things are sorta shifting over the years, with increasing, almost unsustainable, costs in consoles hardware + barely any hardware demanding games releasing at the same pace like the 90's/00's/10's. The proposition to buy a subsidized console isn't the same anymore.

So I think it's less of a bias on their part, and more the realities of modern game development and consumer behavior.
 
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