“You can buy a gaming PC for 120,000 yen.” Japanese people have been seeing an increasing number of advertisements worded this way in the past few days. But what else costs 120,000 yen? A PlayStation 5 Pro, as recently revealed by Sony.
The announcement of the PS5 Pro’s steep price tag has caused significant dissatisfaction both in the US and Europe, where the console will set gamers back $700 and €800 respectively. But much like European gamers, Japanese players are faced with paying even more for the console than people in the US. The 119,980-yen price point is equivalent to over $840, based on recent conversion rates.
To make matters worse, Sony recently hiked the price of standard PS5 console models in Japan. On September 2, the suggested retail price jumped from 66,980 yen (about $463) to 79,980 yen (about $552). Apart from severe backlash across social media, this decision caused the console to sell out all over the country in the days leading up to the price increase and even gave the Xbox a boost in sales.
All that fancy hardware in the pro, and only a handful of games will actually be “enhanced”. Otherwise, it “may stabilize or improve the performance of supported PS4 and PS5 games.”
Seems kind of a waste to me.
Sounds like Valve might need to market the Steam deck harder in Japan. Show that it can be used portably like a PSP/DS and that it can be used as a console with a screen and controller.
It came out much later here than it did in the US, and you still can’t buy it directly from Valve - you have to go through an authorized third party. But I have seen the Asus ROG Ally in electronic stores. I’ve only seen the Steam Deck at one place, and I think that store has an arrangement to sell it exclusively. I haven’t been out looking in a few months, though.
That’s unfortunate. It looks like Zotac is releasing a handheld that looks super similar to the steam deck. https://www.zotac.com/us/page/zotac-gaming-zone-portable-handheld
With all the Xbox game pass advertising it looks like it runs windows. Hopefully one of the handheld Linux distros will work on it.
They were promoting it on last year’s TGS with Harada from Tekken and everything, they aren’t sleeping.
PC is like 3 consoles in one with it getting Xbox games, Sony games on delay, and emulating Nintendo games. Can use mouse or game pad without needing blessing of devs on a game by game basis. And is a productivity device too that can be used for stuff like coding, video editing, 3d modeling, etc.
I’m not sure what’s wrong with your PC, but mine can run a lot more than 3 different consoles worth of games ;)
And of course you’ve also forgotten about Steam, the past 40 years of computer gaming, as well as the easy(easier?) use of all sorts of mods and addons that you just don’t get on one of the major consoles.
Yeah but I am already spending most of time in front of my monitor, if I want to play something casually I will just do it in my living room on my PS5, which rarely happens anyway
Stream your games to your TV. It works great.
Well I am not really playing games anymore, so kinda whatever and I own the the PS5 for when I want to play something
The point is, why get the PS5 when you can just play Steam games? If you don’t have a PC already (sounds like you do though?), you can pick up a Steam Deck for about the same price as a PS5, and if you want to play on a TV, pick up pretty much any Bluetooth controller (I use a PS4 controller) and you’re golden (main caveat is certain MP games). If you do have a PC and your TV is a smart TV, you can probably just install the Steam Link app on it and you’re golden.
It sounds like you already have a PS5, but the point is, if you didn’t, there’s really no reason to get one unless you really want to play certain PS5 exclusives and you’re unwilling to wait for them to come to PC. A Steam Deck doesn’t quite have the same performance as a PS5, but it’s pretty good and probably good enough in most cases.
The steam deck is fine for a handheld, but the performance on a TV is not even close to competitive with a PS5.
Yup, if you want PS5-level performance, you need to build a PC. If you just want to play games, a Steam Deck will do fine.
I’m not talking about “PS5 level”. I’m talking about tolerable.
The performance on modern games is only playable because it’s a handheld. It’s painful on a TV. If you are looking for a device to play modern games on a TV, the steam deck is an awful buy.
Not a very good gaming PC, certainly not as good as the PS5 Pro hardware if you need everything, monitor peripherals, GPU, RAM, etc.
As someone who switched from a console to pc gaming this generation, and started out with a cheap ass pc with meh specs, it will be more than good enough for most people just starting out in PC gaming.
True but it won’t be comparable to the console hardware. Has anyone done a cost/performance analysis of the PS5 Pro? Most of the time the cost is subsidized into the licensing fees involved in order to sell PS5 games.
And that’s kind of where the hidden cost of the PS5 is. Very rarely do you see the same discounts on Sony’s closed store for games.
Exactly. If we’re going to compare PS5 to PC, we need to account for:
- cost of games
- upgrade to next gen
- accessories
- equipment you already have
- other uses for electronics (i.e. if you had a better PC, could that replace your crappy laptop?)
If we limit ourselves to HW, the console will come out on top because it’s subsidized and purpose built. If we take the whole ecosystem into account, the PC most likely wins. On PC, I can play any game that has been released for it since pretty much ever, plus emulation, whereas on PS5, I’m limited to PS4 and PS5 titles. Once you upgrade, your PS5 is essentially ewaste, whereas you could probably repurpose your PC (hand it down to kids, self-hosting, etc).
I’m firmly in the PC camp, and by my math, I’m saving a lot of money vs playing on console. YMMV.
Absolutely and same here being in the PC camp, though I do have a ps5 and switch.
There is also the Steam Deck to consider as it is essentially a subsidised and purpose built PC. The benefit being that the steam deck is an open platform, that allows you to install games from other stores with some workarounds.
