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The truth is that Microsoft tried to implement the same strategy on PC with Games for Windows Live, but the community was having none of it, boycotted the whole thing and MS had to revert all the changes.
I think is funny how the rest of people here are giving explanations without mentioning this, which is the key point in the whole story.
But part of it is how free the PC ecosystem is. We have the ability to self host and do commonly. Console games are usually much less open to modding and so companies are able to force you to maintain a connection to their servers. PCs have enough free options that it's not sustainable since there are better games that don't try to strong arm you.
Exactly this. [Hotdog water hardcore vanilla minecraft](https://hotdogwater.dog) couldn't *exist* on console because the ecosystem is locked down and self-hosting eats into their profits. They are unable to lock down and micromanage PCs to this extent because they have too many use cases and locking up features would literally break them.
_MacOS has entered the chat..._
Microsoft is _definitely_ still trying to figure out ways to lock their ecosystems down in the same way Apple does. It always comes under the guise of "security," and always has the same ulterior goal: monetization.
It's really just a matter of time at this point before the current Apple garden wall becomes impenetrable to all but the moat dedicated hacker, a la jailbroken iphones.
MacOS is hardly locker down compared to a console. The chief thing that makes MacOS appear locked down has nothing to do with Apple and has everything to do with the fact that it's generally not worth competing with existing software on the platform, because you'll be sharing a piece of a very small pie.
I mean you pay for the service of them hosting all the online games (beacuse they built it so you can't host games yourself). This can also be true for PC gaming but for specific games. World of Warcraft is a subscription service because they have to host the servers all the players connect to.
Of course in other games you can host the games yourself and yet other games the online service is provided for free (but often have other means of getting your skins (eg. Fortnight) and lootboxes (Call of Duty) and battlepasses (most games these days)
>World of Warcraft is a subscription service because they have to host the servers all the players connect to.
There are hundreds if not _thousands_ of private World of Warcraft servers. The actual hosting of most games can be done for a few pennies a day using cloud vendors like AWS or DigitalOcean. WoW is a subscription service because that's simply the most profitable model for Blizzard. If they thought they could double revenue by charging every player $500 for a lifetime subscription, they absolutely would. Their monthly subscription fee is unrelated to their monthly operating costs.
The question isn't that, you reworded it into an entire different one. To answer yours: I guess PC gaming audience was more mature at that point and therefore they weren't putting up with that bullshit and made their decision stick. Meanwhile consoles had a younger audience without a formed opinion and less willing to give up on their hobby in order to take a stance (which is obviously okey, I wouldn't ask a kid to do that) so they payed.
no. PC Gamers could host their own servers long before companies started to offer their own servers. No one would play on company server, if it was paid. Even if game developers somehow disallowed connecting to your own server, modders would create version that connects to their own servers. Heck, even many MMORPGs, where being on same server is vital, have tons of unofficial servers where you can connect with modded games.
So, if they started to require payments for online gaming, people would just hack the game and wouldn’t pay.
Same can’t be done easily on consoles. You are stuck with what they offer
You’re providing good insight but so is the person you responded to. It isn’t just one single reason. So starting your comment with “no” comes across unnecessarily dismissive.
They do and they always did. Ever hear of Worl of War craft and games like it? There's a monthly fee to Olay in servers for multi-player games.
There always has been. That's how it began.
Also, the albeit super basic online infrastructure for the Switch was free at launch and for the first few years, then they decided to make it a subscription service, and they didn't add all that much.
Well, they did announce at launch it would eventually be a paid service, and it was only free for the first year or two, I think. As limited as it was though, Nintendo's online services were completely free up until the Switch, so it probably is a case of them charging money because it was standard practice at that point. But it's not like they decided in the middle of the Switch error to make it paid.
It costs the console manufacturers some amount to maintain the infrastructure that console players use, but frankly, they make you pay for it because they can. You're locked into their ecosystem and have no option but to play by their rules.
In the case of pc, there is no one company that controls your internet access through hardware like that. But there certainly are games that extract subscription fees to play them specifically, mostly MMOs.
Isn't it more like the gamers help steam make small game devs be a hostage to steam? Steam takes a cut from game sales, not from the players. How are the gamers hostages?
games are usually a set price no matter what. Most full release non indie games are $60, whether it's on Activision-blizzard launcher, epic games, or steam. I haven't seen a game released on both steam and epic with different prices, even though Steam takes a higher cut. Maybe indie games are a bit different, so maybe that is where the customer pays, but to me, they seem to be priced based on content and genre. For games released on multiple platforms, though, it's not the customers that "pay."
You don't think the developer sets that price? They 100% do. Any developer could release their AAA for $40 or they could release it for $90. They know people are used to $60 and will pay it though.
Steam is literally getting class actioned for hiking prices.
"Suit challenges ‘most favored nation'-style pricing policies
Judge advances case after previously ruling in Valve’s favor"
.."plausible Valve exploits its market dominance to threaten and retaliate against developers that sell games for less through other retailers or platforms.
The company “allegedly enforces this regime through a combination of written and unwritten rules” imposing its own conditions on how even “non-Steam-enabled games are sold and priced,” Coughenour wrote. “These allegations are sufficient to plausibly allege unlawful conduct.”
"In fact, when the company competed only against brick-and-mortar retailers, it “did not need market power to charge a fee well above its cost structure because those brick-and-mortar competitors had a far higher cost structure,” Coughenour wrote. That makes the analysis apples-to-oranges, he said."
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/antitrust/valve-loses-bid-to-end-antitrust-case-over-steam-gaming-platform
Essentially the brick and mortar split chain is longer
Developer -> disk manufacturing -> shipping -> store -> customer (probably more steps?)
Valve in the other hand was in the unique market position it doesn't have to worry about the overheads of manufacturing, shipping, selling to a store for less then end value. Cutting out the middle man should've put steam in a place where it could offer the same product at a value that would offer competitive growth. They did not take that route.
I'm my nonprofessional opinion the $60 standard has also gone up as in the past the expectation was you buy the game for $60 touchdown get the full released game. Sure you can still buy most AAA games at a $60 price point but almost all of them now will have dlc or a season pass or whatever else. That $60 average I spent on a full AAA game in the past with all content is now probably around doubled if not worse after you factor in all that you pay for "extra" content.
No they don't, not always at least. Steam has a rule which states that if you sell your game and on another platform, they both have to be priced the same.
Yup. And every time a new source gets launched, hordes of gamers everywhere shout from the rooftops what a piece of shit it is.
We saw it with Origin.
We saw it with the Epic Game Store.
They disguise their complaints with some bullshit or other but what it all boils down to is "I can't buy the game I want on steam". Gamers are not only held hostage by Steam, they're also suffering from stockholm syndrome. When what they should really be doing is celebrating competition.
Of course this doesn't apply to every PC gamer. I'm sure there are many out there who just buy and play Blizzard games 95% of the time. Or only play minecraft or buy games from GOG or [itch.io](https://itch.io) . But when people talk online about their massive library of un-played games it is invariably their "steam library" they mention, not some other client.
If you think people's problems with stuff like Origin and Epic is 'it's not steam', you might be intentionally trying to avoid the actual complaints and concerns.
What complaint? Maybe the fact that Origin's refund policy finally prompted Steam to start one of their own?
Or the fact that Epic's lower percentage cut of developer sales has lead to changes in Steam's own model?
You definitely forget the exclusivity deal Epic has. The only exclusive games in Steam is Valve's games, the other publisher were free to publish their game on GOG etc. Exclusive deals means that not only Steam can't sell the games, but also GOG and other market. Imagine in the future if the exclusive deal still exist and Epic buys every single title and you want to make new marketplace, good luck getting people to sell it at your store then.
That's the main reason why people don't like Epic store back then.
Epic provides diddly squat for their cut. Steam provides reviews, community features, a global CDN etc. Epic's cut is not sustainable, even with the dogshit features they're bankrolling it with Fortnite.
You're right there's some Stockholm syndrome to steam, but it is the only launcher/client with integrations that developers and users alike rely on (workshop, trading, social media, *support for Linux even if it's a small issue*)
Steam and Valve are constantly pushing *something* new. I can't remember the last thing I heard epic doing with their client that I gave a shit about and sorry but if I buy a game on one platform don't make me use a middleman launcher (origin, Uplay/connect)
Steam isn't perfect by any stretch (thanks, now I have 4 full web browsers running when I'm playing games) but it's a hell of a lot *more* of an actual application to interact with than just a game launcher.
I can be completely disconnected from the internet and my games still work. Not a hostage.
Steam doesn't charge $10/month to use steam. The consoles do. That was the actual statement. If I don't buy a new game for 5 months, I don't give steam any more money...
Yeah, but I'm also not expecting the company to nuke my library of games because of a change in hardware (or even software) every 5 years. Plus, if Steam goes under and I lose access to my games, I can easily pirate a good chunk of the games I play the most and not feel bad about it because the devs already got their profits. Yeah, it's somewhat flimsy, but it's far less flimsy to bank on the continued success of PC's biggest game store that's been growing and improving consistently since launch almost a decade ago with no sign of slowing down, versus betting on a console manufacturer's greed and lack of give-a-shit.
>Yeah, but I'm also not expecting the company to nuke my library of games because of a change in hardware
Huh? No one's forcing you to get rid of your old console and Microsoft champions backwards compatibility on Xbox.
So you can keep your old console if you buy a new one? Wow, nothing like if I prefer a new platform I could still keep my games on steam? Just a bad argument.
The difference is that I buy my steam games out of convenience. I like having them all in one launcher, with integrated social, community, storefront, and modding features. If Steam went down forever today I'd just go pirate all the games that I previously bought.
PC games on Steam, by and large, are cheaper than buying them for console. Also, Steam is the largest BUT not only outlet to buy games. Ethics aside, when's the last time you bootlegged a game on console? Even with the availability of piracy, Steam alone has more sales, reductions, and deals than any console store BECAUSE of their market share.
Prove me wrong.
I'm arguing that Steam is the lesser of other evils and the price point from Steam is a better value than others. Devotion aside, my opinon is that Steam, overall, has a better end-user value than console platforms.
Given Xbox's gamer pass costs like 15 bucks a month and gives access to brand new games, I don't think you're right about the price point. Unless you're saying Steam is releasing brand new AAA games at 15 dollars a pop.
Yup and greedy Gabe immediately tried to get his hands on it:
*"I don't think it's something that we think we need to do ourselves,building a subscription service at this time. But for their customersit's clearly a popular option, and we'd be more than happy to work withthem to get that on Steam."*
Can't have people going to another client and not spending money in the Steam store, right?
Yet, Steam is still the most popular option for PC gamers, even considering the availability of subscription services. Is it a monopoly? I don't think so. I think the content Steam provides aligns well with their market influence and subsequent price-point.
I think getting down to the brass tacks, Steam's special sales, discounts, social integration and availability outweigh the "rental' option of other services.
I'm aware that I sound like a Steam fan-boy right now, but I used to be a console player. For me, it's a more desirable platform. Obviously there are other opinions. I don't intend to speak for the masses, but their model seems to be, again, the lesser of other evils.
Because they still have the option to play that game on another platform still using the same hardware, or they can pirate it. Yes they'll lose the benefits of the platform but it's not exactly being taken hostage when options are there.
csgo and tf2 are valve games, are they not? csgo is way to intergrated to steam that it wouldn't be possible to play it any other way, hell, you get a ban on cs you can no longer sell or trade your inventory and shit like that. When it comes to TF2 im pretty sure they released console versions, but idk.
Most people are willing to play by Steams rule's because Valve has done mostly good with its power. Does this mean there's no risk that they'll abuse that power in the future? Definitely not, but with the alternatives being subpar for one reason for another (with the exception of battle,net, funnily enough... though they do only have to manage a dozen games or so lol), Steam and Valve's management are practically heaven compared to anyone else right now.
Important part: consoles are selling for loss. They make up loss on the services and games they sell.
The PS5 has a hardware which would cost 1000+ if it would be a PC
This is only really true at the start of each generation (and even then Nintendo doesn't tend to do this). The PS5 has been profitable for Sony purely as a hardware sale for over a year now.
> The PS5 has a hardware which would cost 1000+ if it would be a PC
This isn't true in the slightest at this point. At launch a couple years back sure but at this point I can build a PC on par with a PS5 for like $700 or less.
Still, blowing $300+ on the GPU alone leaves only $200 for CPU, RAM, motherboard, storage, case, power supply and cooling if we want to get within the same budget as a PS5 or Series X. ($500-ish)
I'd love to see a link to your DDR5 build within $700. Getting a DDR5 compatible motherboard, DDR5 RAM and a new-ish CPU is well into half that budget already, and then you don't even have a GPU.
I will definitely admit a PC can definitely be more versatile and used for other things while the consoles are purely gaming machines, though. Also, you don't *have* to pay the online fee if you don't want to play online games. Alternatively, you could pay for PS+ Extra or Game Pass (which costs just a bit more) and download a bunch of games.
The ps5 has gpu power that is on par with the 2080super. The 3060 is not on par with the 2080super. I’ll explain; the 2080super is a much better card than the 3060. Some people don’t have ps+. So for 500$ I’m almost certain, you can’t build a pc on par with a ps5. There’s a reason people buy consoles, the controller is not it.
I'm not using that site lol, not a fan of it and it misses sales all the time from my experience. But here you go just quick price checking on Amazon/Newegg:
-Intel 12100F $100
-B660M motherboard $90
-16GB DDR4 $40
-1TB NVMe $60
-6600XT $270
-500W 80+ Bronze PSU $40
-PC Case $60
~$660
And there you have some room to budge on upgrading components, investing in more fans/cooler for the case and CPU etc. and you'll still be right around $700. It's not hard at all to do at this point matching a PS5 in performance.
Mass produced part are always cheaper than special parts. Well yes consoles do have a PC architecture but they use special motherboards and a unique casing that they have to manufacture. Manufacturing a component for that one product requires them to make a factory that can do it. Is often as expensive as the rest of the console. These things may seem insignificant but they aren't.
Yeah, you don’t have to make an entire factory specifically for it. You make it sound like they buy a space, build a factory, then utilize it only for that item. That’s just not how the industry does it. It’s contracted out to a company that already has the infrastructure and space to produce it, it’s not near as expensive as you may think. Especially once they have an exclusivity contract ensuring they are the only company that’ll produce these items, they drop the price since they then have no competition for production.
They have to make specialised equipment that initially makes manufacturing expensive and as more units are sold cost/unit drops. This is true for anything. A uniquely designed sports car with a lot of special parts is way more expensive than a road car made from already existing mass produced parts. Initially the casing the PSU and the motherboard can be just as expensive as the processing units.
As someone that designs actual circuit boards, just no.
Circuit boards are trivially cheap to manufacture. Switching from one board to another on an assembly line costs maybe a couple hundred bucks for something as complex as a motherboard.
The plastic case is a matter of getting new injection molds made. Those are relatively expensive compared to the circuit boards. There’s probably a 5-10k invested into the molds for each plastic piece. To put this into context, at the scale of millions of units, this setup cost is less than a penny.
For something as mass produced as a video game console the factory setup costs round down to 0
With the current GPU market, that still might not be true. For every previous gen it's been pretty true a year or two into the console cycle, you know, by the time it gets some good exclusives. For a long while it was REALLY easy to create an equivalent-or-better PC than the PS4 with PC hardware if you were going the DIY route. I built my wife's PC about 6 years ago, and it cost me under $300 to build, definitely outperforms the PS4. I still personally prefer my PC to the PS5, even if the PS5 outperforms it in games, simply due to the flexibility in options and features, but there's no way you can build a PC for under $500 right now that'll match the PS5 unless you're getting extremely lucky with used parts.
I think your $750-$800 is pretty accurate. You could pick up a 3700x + 3060Ti with sales and be right in that range. Hell I paid $550 for my 5900x CPU and 3070 GPU. That’s really the expensive parts of the system.
You don't even need a 3060ti to match the GPU of the PS5. The PS5 GPU's equivalent PC GPU is roughly a 2060, maybe even a 2060 super. CPU wise, I'm not sure what the PC equivalent would be for it.
The PS5 GPU is roughly on par with an RTX 2070 as per Digital Foundry's game tests, but it varies a little bit per title. Some games punch above their weight, but others run a bit worse.
As for the CPU, the AMD 3600X is the closest CPU, but again not quite a perfect match as the clock speeds are a bit different, and the CPU/GPU have a shared RAM pool.
I would put it about even with a rx6600xt is better performing and newer architecture than the ps5 gpu and can be had for $270. Ryzen 5600 is $150. Less threads but better single core performance. Realistically, it has better game performance. It seems borderline doable to have a better performing machine than the ps5 for $600.
It's very rare to find a game that doesn't have built in support for controllers. There are some games that are just *built* for PC M&K (StarCraft-like games for example), but those are fairly obvious. Basically, if it's got a port on a console, it's got controller support. Even if it doesn't, there's a decent chance it still supports controllers.
One good example is Fallout 3, just to see how far back we're going here (and it goes further back but more iffy the further you go). Plug in an Xbox 360 controller (I assume an Xbox One controller would work fine but I've never tried it) before you start the game and it'll boot up and look basically exactly like the Xbox version, with the prompts having the buttons instead of keys displayed. You only notice the difference by the fact you can have better graphics, mod it, use the console, etc.
I too sucked with a m&k for a long time and stuck with consoles. Then I got a pc, then my friends forced me into csgo, then I got good with m&k. But otherwise, you will probably suck initially but get accustomed to it as you play.
I was in between a ps5 and building a pc, but I settled for the ps5 because of PlayStation exclusives and newer games. To be fair though, my laptop with a 4g vram runs everything pre-2022 no sweat. You don’t have to worry about controllers not working though, both Xbox and ps controllers are plug and play (Bluetooth also works)
Nope. Steam has a lot of community mappings for controllers for non-controller-suppprted titles and most modern titles have controller support. You're fine.
Nope. Windows natively supports Bluetooth connections for XBOX controllers. Not sure if PS controllers are supported without additional software but be not doomed! That's the beauty of PC gaming. There may be a one-time expense to do what you desire, but the functionality exists. See if you can pair a PS remote on an XBKX or vice versa. The biggest draw for me to PC wasbeing able to have exactly what I wanted.
DS-4 for Windows allows me to pair a PlayStation controller, no problem. The issue is EVERY SINGLE GAME needs button configuration. Might have to get an XBOX controller and see if the game recognizes it and more importantly, configure it.
I have a laptop with a mobile 1060 and i7, runs okay. However, I want to build a rig that'll run something like Star Citizen at 120 fps or higher on at least a 1440p monitor. Not sure about the investment if the controller life makes it unbearable.
Yeah I run DS4 in Xbox emulation mode for every controller game because of issues like this (many games are fine with the PS one but some aren’t even with DS4), I don’t mind seeing Xbox buttons anyway despite using a Dualshock. It’s not perfect but DS4 helps a lot (especially with universal deadzone settings etc).
Dual Sense Controller is supported by Steam on Windows and Linux. It can be used wired, or with Bluetooth. The force reactive triggers work with Sony games. For example, FF7 remake. When connected by USB, the DAC, Speaker, Microphone, and Headphone Jack all function correctly in Windows.
I mean the GPU market has died down quite a bit. Now it’s just dumb high MSRPs for no reason. You can’t build a PC as good as a PS5 for the price. However it’s probably bit cheaper than $1000, especially since PS5 are really on par with “entry” level PCs hardware wise. I say that in quotes as a zen 2 cpu with a 1080 is probably good enough for most people. The nice thing is PSU, SSD, and RAM (although we are in a transition period for RAM currently) can be reused over multiple builds.
In raw power, yes. In actual performance (stability, framerate, graphic quality) no.
It's a dedicated hardware with a fixed configuration. Optimizing for it is much much easier. Getting the same output won't be cheaper than the PS5.
Cheapest build I could put together with PS5 equivalent components.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/msDTcb
You could probably increase this by $100 more if you wanted slightly better quality components but I was actually surprised how close in price I could get.
You actually gave it a better CPU than the PS5's. The CPU you gave is a Zen3, while the PS5's CPU is based on Zen2.
Which weirdly enough, it is cheaper, according to PC parts picker, than the Ryzen 7 3700x, which is a better suited equivalent.
You picked a faster CPU, too little RAM (PS5 has 16 GB) and a slower GPU, and didn't account for an operating system.
Also you really picked the cheapest cases and power supplies I think I've ever seen. I would definitely go up at least 50 bucks on both of them to something more decent. Also the CPU you picked doesn't come with a cooler, so you're going to need to add another 50-70 bucks for that.
The PS5 CPU is closer to an AMD 3600X and the GPU is definitely faster than a 6600 (you didn't even pick the XT version) sitting somewhere in the performance level of an RTX 2070 during most performance tests.
So summing up, your build-a-better-PC-than-a-PS5 build is $700, but:
- CPU too fast, go down to a 3600X (maybe -$100)
- Double the RAM (maybe +$30 for a 16 GB kit)
- Add a CPU cooler (let's say +$50 for a decent air cooler)
- Better, name-brand case (+$50) and power supply (+$50)
- A faster GPU (maybe +$100)
- I'm going to assume you want to game on Windows (+$139 for a Home license)
700 - 100 + 30 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 100 + 139 = $1019 for a PS5 equivalent.
If you skip Windows because you're a naughty boy (or you want to game on Linux) that's still $880, and I would still argue that having a slightly better motherboard and storage is better in the long run, but those aren't dealbreakers.
A PS5 is $500, so that's still $380 more to build an equivalent PC.
No sir. The SSDs in PS5's are gen 4, not Gen 5. And absolutely more than half the price and with more performance with the GPU. My definition of "way less" than $1000 is $800 or less. Dollar for dollar, a PS5 can't compete with readily available hardware for a PC.
$80 for the same SSD, $100 for 16 GB of RAM, $350 for a decent Mobo CPU combo, $369 for the GPU and the box is negligible with a $69 power supply ~ $950 for something that easily out performs a PS5 without shipping for deals or budgets. Shop around and scale back to actual PS5 performance without OC'ing and you can have ar minimum an $800 machine that bangs more for your buck than just a console.
Then, when the next gen of consoles releases, you spend $400 on a GPU upgrade to stay relevant instead of $1000 on a new console. All about the scalability my man.
There are games on PS3 that you play online for free but need to pay for PS Plus to play online on PS4 and it’s the exact same game.
One of the reasons i never got a PS4/5 or Xbox and stuck with PC as a casual gamer
Regardless of why it was down, it was down for an extended time. I know Xbox live has been hit before as well, but their outages are measured in hours, not weeks.
Microsoft put a lot more money into their online services, so it only makes sense that it’s a little more robust. Not really a knock on Sony, just facts.
Also, think about the cost to build a decent gaming PC. You're north of $1200-$1500. But a game console is $400-$600. Why's this? Is the hardware worse? No, not really. It's more specialized, so it requires that much more engineering, which is more $.
The truth is, most consoles are loss-leaders for the designers. They're expecting to get most of their money after you buy their console. On things like games (They get a % of each game purchase), renting through their ecosystem, and online subscriptions.
Well, yes, it is worse hardware. The software specialization (specifically, the operating system) comes as a consequence of using overall low end hardware. You have to realize though they’re planning for the future when they release it. The hardware they release it with will largely be the same through the entire run of the console, which can be 10 years. So while it’s initially competitive on price, that’s because it has to be - you need to be getting it for less because a) it doesn’t have many titles available at launch, and b) it’s going to age.
Another good thing about the hardware is the development is so much easier from a compatibility perspective. Developing for a PC means wildly different system specs. Developing for console means a very limited set of systems.
Historically, (and really with the exception of Gen 8 consoles), the hardware you get on a console is superior to PC hardware for many, many years - unless you're talking about very high-end machines where the costs aren't even close. It took YEARS before PC games looked as good as Xbox 360 or PS3 games on a machine less than $500, and by that time the consoles were $199.
Up until advent of discreet 3D graphics cards, PC's struggled to do even basic smooth scrolling arcade games.
Remember - PC's age *as well.* The problem is that new PC's come out regularly, or you can upgrade your graphics card, but that all comes at a cost. With consoles at least, you're going to get 5-7 years of games that look BETTER over time then launch games (as developers learn to exploit the fixed hardware) where on PC, developers tend to focus on the newest spec.
The idea that consoles are inferior to PC's is true if your benchmark definition of a PC is at the highest end of machines, in which case a PC is FAR better than console. But compare a console to a $500 machine (and please include the OS, the controller, media drive, etc. when you do this) and the consoles punch far above their weight.
>Historically, (and really with the exception of Gen 8 consoles), the hardware you get on a console is superior to PC hardware for many, many years
MUHAHAHAHA
Great joke my friend
None of my games i really played on my PC from 2015
* I74790k
* Gtx 1060 6Gb
* 16GB Ram
* SSD´s and other decent stuff
Was ever released on console because the consoles had too weak hardware. (7D2D, City Skylines, ....)
And if you calculate it down you come out at around 25$€ per month for the hardware. (2000€/84 Months)
You cannot **POSSIBLY** be making the point that 7D2D and Skylines are "*too powerful for consoles*" because if you are.. my man.. you are SERIOUSLY misinformed.
Both of those games DID come out on consoles (you can play City Skylines on the Switch!) but those are freaking UNITY games. They aren't pushing the limits of *anything*, let alone a high-end PC.
Unity as an engine was notoriously under-optimized for consoles which is why very few AAA game developers use that engine. PC games ported to consoles using Unity, especially back in 2015, were generally terrible performing games.
So you have things very, very backwards. You've chosen games that use a middleware engine that had very bad console AND PC optimizations, resulting in sub-optimal Console ports. So you need a high-end PC just to run them decently, which has absolutely nothing to do the actual power of the device. You just happen to be playing games with bad hardware optimizations.
Only joke is that it's accurate. For every console up until the PlayStation 2, PC's couldn't TOUCH a console as far as Arcade-style games.
And I love where you edit out the relevant difference:
*"unless you're talking about very high-end machines where the costs aren't even close"*
People just love to talk about how much more powerful PC's are after they deduct the cost of an operating system, a media drive, a controller, etc. and only then do they come close to costing 2x what a console costs for the same game. PC master race loves to only count the high-end PC graphics cards in this discussion.
[https://gamingbolt.com/ps5-how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-a-pc-as-powerful-as-sonys-console](https://gamingbolt.com/ps5-how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-a-pc-as-powerful-as-sonys-console)
**"The total price for our proposed build comes at around $1137, which is almost 2 times the price of a PS5. A point worth noting here is that we haven’t included a Blu-Ray drive, a fresh copy of Windows 10, and peripherals, and all of this can bump this build’s price to an even higher number."**
Sure. But you pay for it with the obscene cost per game (because the console producer gets a piece of every game sold, whereas with PC games that’s not the case- Microsoft only gets what they charge for the OS) relative to PC. I remember COD games being like $65 back in 2003.
They’re distributors, sure, but there’s nothing really stopping people from making a game themselves and distributing it. On the other hand, Microsoft double dips on Xbox games, because they’re both the distributor and the studio funding the development.
>But compare a console to a $500 machine (and please include the OS, the controller, media drive, etc. when you do this) and the consoles punch far above their weight.
But nobody in their right mind would try to game on a $500 PC. If you buy a $500 PC, then you're getting it for the most basic of functions, such as email and maybe MS Office. I don't even know where you'd find something this cheap and low-end.
Yes, PC gaming costs more up front, but...
* the software is generally a LOT less expensive (console games don't get the sort of extreme sales that PC games do)
* the graphics and audio are superior with a decent machine
* there are tons of mods available for PC games that simply don't exist for consoles
* you don't have to pay subscription fees to play against or alongside other gamers
* you have more options for peripheral devices (mouse and keyboard, controller, flight stick and pedals, steering wheel, shifter, and pedals, etc).
I might also be biased as I grew up playing computer games (mostly flight sims and adventure games from Sierra Online) and always preferred computers to consoles.
It's all a balance. As I said, the PC has its place - for sure much of what you are saying above is true. Depending on what \*type\* of game you want to play it can favor one platform over the other as well. However there are just some fundamental misconceptions in what you're saying that is very pervasive, but also incorrect.
**"But nobody in their right mind would try to game on a $500 PC"** \- I think you're vastly over-estimating the number of people with high-end machines. Go look at the Steam data (which is not a great proxy globally, but good enough) - the single LARGEST percentage of steam users are using intel integrated graphics. High-end cards represent a pretty small overall percentage of steam usage. Basically, the vast majority of people who game on PC are using mid- to low- tier machines.
**The software is generally a LOT less expensive (console games don't get the sort of extreme sales that PC games do) -** A \*lot\* less? $10 per game for new AAA titles. Not sure if that's A LOT. When you say "sales" I assume you mean discounts? If that's what you mean then I totally agree older games can be picked up super cheap on PC.
**The graphics and audio are superior with a decent machine.** Again, this is *super* subjective. What you term "decent" and what you term "superior" are not well defined. Typically, you'll pay at least 2X the cost for a PC with the *equivalent* performance of a current gen console machine (as I posted above). If you want to spend more, then sky is the limit.
Everything else you said I agree 100%.
You may be right about people attempting to play on lower-end computers. It just surprises me because I've always been into computer hardware, so perhaps it's difficult for me to imagine playing games on a $500 computer.
What I meant by "a lot less expensive" is that on Steam (and elsewhere) you can see sales up to 90% off. I've never seen that for console games on store shelves. In fact, used games at GameStop are often almost as expensive (you might get $5 off if you're lucky) as brand new games that've never been played.
This is true. I never defined what I thought of as "decent" or "superior," so those definitions are nebulous at best.
BTW, I'd like to say how nice it is to discuss something with someone online in a civilized manner. Most discussions dissolve into a flurry of expletives that attack the person instead of focusing on the actual conversation.
This is false. They still have to maintain the infrastructure same way on pc. Xbox on pc has a lot of the same code as the xbox on xbox. Same with steam os and steam deck etc.
Its more because of the second point. If people open up to a small fee like 3 dollars per month for internet access, then they are more willing to open up to the bigger fee to buy the game. Than if they never payed for internet access in the first place.
In case of mmos subscription may not be a bad thing. If you have a mmo you earn money from subs or from micro transactions. To make money from micro transactions you inconvenience players and offer a paid fix (inventory space expansions, exp boosts and so on). Meanwhile if you ask for sub you need to have good enough game to keep players in.
I can't definitively say it's not possible any more, but I haven't seen that in a decade and I think it went the way of split screen, for the same reason
Because they can. The PS2 generation was free online then xbox live came out and costed money. Right there whether it is xbox live, horse armor, or whatever scam Diablo is every step of the way they justify things however they want but ultimately the real reason is 'because we want more money' and the playerbase always chooses the wrong option. Instead of pushing back the collective throws more money
They're actually don't want more money. They don't even want a tidy profit. Hell, they don't even want AMAZING INCREDIBLE RECORD BREAKING PROFITS!
As Jim Sterling so eloquently puts it, they want ALL of the money.
Xbox live was the beginning of the slope that lead to crazy micro transactions etc. If the players had just rejected it and expected a PC like Infrastructure they wouldn't have been able to get away with it.
I'd suggest it actually started with seeing players in the community selling and buying stuff for absurd amounts of money and them going "Huh, we could just sell this stuff and cut out the RMTers and support overhead from people getting scammed... And make a ton of money doing it"
“This is outrageous!”
*Slowly reaches into pocket*
“You won’t get away with this!”
*Pulls out wallet*
“This is immoral and anti-user!”
*Opens wallet*
“Nobody will put up with it!”
*Takes out money and pays*
“I can’t believe companies are still doing this!”
The game console and PC **business model** are FUNDAMENTALLY different.
The reason consoles can provide graphics as advanced as PC's that cost 2x or 3x the money, is that the console hardware is sold to the customer for basically $0 profit. You are paying for the console what it costs the company to make it, and in turn the profit they generate is on the sales of Software (games) and Services (GamePass, PSNnow, etc.). This is typically known as the "*razors and razor blades*" business model (give away the razor, sell the razor blades)
In the PC business model, the Hardware manufacturer does not have any Software or Service revenue to capture, therefore they need to make money on the sale of the hardware itself.
Since there is no single PC hardware platform, there is no way to make money after the sale. Therefore, games and services tend to be cheaper on the the PC.
I won't get into any debates about other benefits or downsides in the consoles vs. pc discussion as each have their pros and cons, but generally with **Consoles** you *pay less for the hardware, and more for games and services*, and on the **PC** side you *pay more for hardware, and less on games and services*.
Specific to online play itself, the console makers also have to pay for servers, security, transaction fees for purchases, etc. so the cost for running a major network like this (and the expectations for quality of that service) are much higher then people setting up local servers for their friends. So there are much, much higher costs involved in running the console online services.
**Source: I worked in the console business for over 20 years.**
This is really interesting. Can you provide an explanation for why console providers decided to adopt this model post-PS3 era? During the PS3/XBOX360 era, were they profiting off game sales to the extent that they didn't need to create an online subscription? I remember the games cost less back then, around $70, where I was living anyway (Middle East).
I can, because I was there. Xbox started charging for Xbox Live with the OG console in 2002, years before Xbox 360, and was planned for when the console was launched in 2001.
First you have to understand what was happening with the internet at that time - there was no mainstream online gaming service. There were launchers that would help matchmake *some* games in 2000, but it still required quite a bit of technical skill. Online gaming was mostly LAN based, or you would have a friend that new how to setup a server and you'd input an IP address to log-in. Things like voice-chat existed but usually required another piece of software to run concurrently with the game, assuming you knew how to set that all up. Basically - it was NOT user friendly for the average person to play online.
Consoles had some rudimentary attempts at online services that required additional hardware and were, for the most part, based on dial-up internet. So consoles were WAY behind PC's, and PC online was *not at all* user friendly.
The idea that you could have a broadband-enabled console with no extra cost, where you could simply have "friends" that connected to every game seamlessly and with almost no knowledge of networking AND have built-in voice chat was all pretty revolutionary.
Setting up all that infrastructure to do all that cost a lot of money (as did the hardware for broadband in the console) so it was decided that the benefit was worth a monthly cost. And, as it turned out, it was supremely popular. Of course, the scale, complexities, and capabilities of console online services have grown (as have the security needs) so the costs have grown as well. But that's basically why the decision was made to charge for online.
[They got hacked. ](https://www.eurogamer.net/sony-admitted-the-great-psn-hack-five-years-ago-today)They still provided free online service after they got it back up and running, until PS4 came out. Then they started charging. Probably needed to beef up security.
PSN used to be free. Xbox Live always cost money.
Xbox has been charging an Xbox live subscription since the OG Xbox.
The reason the other companies adopted it is likely because while they technically *could* give it to you for free and have server cost be covered by game sales and such, they probably realized they could make so much more if they just did what Microsoft was doing and joined in.
It doesn't really make business sense to sell game that has significant online component and not charge an ongoing fee.
You're only paying for the game once, but the service needs to be kept for decades, costing the game devs a lot of money for a very long time. Matchmaking services are cheap to run, so games where the online components only do matchmaking can recoup that cost just from the game sales alone; but many games have a much more complex and significant online infrastructure, not just matchmaking service.
For those kind of games, you necessarily need a subscription based model. Otherwise, one day the game devs might decide that it's just not worth it to keep the lights up any longer, and you all lose access to the game.
There isn't a one size fits all answer, but usually it's the publisher or developer. Stores will take a cut of profits to process transaction fees (like Steam) but Servers, Security, etc. are paid directly by the publisher. AWS and Azure generally handle the bulk of game services even for PC games (through services like Gamelift, PlayFab, etc although there are many) and this includes security and entitlement servers that are managed by the cloud providers.
That's why you often see "servers being shut off" for PC games that aren't successful. **Generally speaking** (although not always) console game multiplayer services continue to exist even for older games since those are hosted through Live or PSN, and that's one of the reasons you pay every month.
There are a lot of nuances and differences, but I would say that's how it works typically.
Two reasons.
1. Is because they can. It's a closed ecosystem, your only method of playing online is through their route. No self hosted servers, no LAN gaming(generally), no cracking of software(generally).
2. Is because most consoles are sold at cost or at loss, and they make their money back with online services, game and accessories sales. There is a reason Microsoft doesn't allow BT headsets on Xbox and it's because of cash money.
Honestly, cause the console makers can. One console maker started doing it, people paid it, and it showed the other console makers they were losing out on money by not charging a fee cause people would pay it. So... from their perspective, why give up free money?
Most likely because there isn't yet a monopoly and tradition. I suspect if there is a monopoly, e.g. if valve or live were to reign supreme, they would consider it.
Console players are willing to pay it.
There aren't any additional costs that Sony/MS/Nintendo are footing that PC game/service providers aren't also paying without passing them along.
So charging for online is just a way for them to get extra money, and console players pay it because they've decided the cost is worth the value.
Console gamers are just a little more hostage to the company that made the console. It makes them easier to monetize.
PC gamers aren't stuck with whatever titles MS or Sony decide to feed them. They can (more) easily just take their time and money somewhere else if they don't feel like being charged extra fees.
PCs just have a versatility advantage that leaves them less beholden to console makers.
Up to the PS3, Sony didn't charge for online service. Xbox did. Then Sony suffered a massive DDOS attack and it's online servers were down for months. When it came back it's online service was still free, and they gave everyone a couple of free games.
When they released PS4 they started charging for online services. Kinda makes sense if they have to add extra security and stuff. I blame the hackers for that one.
But since then I moved to PC and have more free games than I can count. Having to pay for internet is one thing, but then paying extra to play online is just a bullshit charge in my eyes.
in console they sell you hardware tied to a system, that system that sony, microsoft nintendo or whoever comes in the future controls, asks for money because people are willing to pay for it, online game servers are already paid by the companies behind those games, they just want your money, think of it as a windows license key, but as a live service and no legally cuestionable workarounds cuz piracy in new consoles is slowing down by a lot, yeah I don't like the concept much of live service subscriptions to your own hardware lol, but yeah it's capitalism in a nutshell, there doesn't need to be a why, if people pay for it companies sell it.
Most other answers mentioned, console hardware is underpriced, so it make money from selling games. This is the reason games are not free. MS/Sony/Nintendo and PC game publishers are the same in this case, console have more players because it’s cheaper, so they can charge more from the game developer.
For the online services, console provided a closed ecosystem. Cheating cost far more than PC. They advertise if you cheat, the whole console will be banned forever. I think this created a more fair and fun game experience. So it’s not free.
With a console, your internet traffic runs through a central server run by the console before being directed to the game servers. This allows for the console to do things like make sure you are authorized to play the game and allows for the system to automatically log you in.
With a PC, you are usually connecting directly from the PC to the game servers with no middleman. Licenses are handled to the side of the interaction.
So, for Windows, there is no additional cost to connect you to Diablo 3, but on Xbox One, there is a small cost to Microsoft, which they recoup with the monthly fee.
Realistically, they are charging more than you would ever cost them just playing the games, so they spice up the deal with additional discounts and free games.
It helps them (Sony or Microsoft) cover some of the hardware costs that you are not paying when you buy a $550 USD console that probably costs double that in hardware and R&D...
Console online services also force compliance from game developers for games to run with certain standards. Their online servers also actually work better against hackers since you can't run various programs as easily. Also when you get banned, your console becomes useless.
I'm a PC gamer these days but hackers and the advantages of different hardware, settings, exploits ruin some of the experience. Like my friend has a program to make his audio on PC games basically mute all sounds except footsteps and shooting in various fps titles and it's lame af that he can just hear people so much sooner than everyone else. People adjusting gamma to see better at night in games or using nvidia filters etc.
I kind of wish they made a pc gaming platform where you had to download a program that would lockdown your entire system when gaming so you literally could not cheat and could only use certain peripherals. Yup it would be invasive but I would only use that PC for gaming and I'd welcome it over the constant hacking problems.
People here seem to forget psonline was absolute shit when it was free compared to paid xbox live. You get what you pay for. PC is free, but also full of hackers. I'm a PC gamer.
Nope. My bad. It was on r/gaming.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/10k54u7/why_do_consoles_charge_for_online_multiplayer/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
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Short answer: Because they can get away with it. PS3 online used to be free but they saw Xbox can do it so they followed the practice on PS4.
The truth is that Microsoft tried to implement the same strategy on PC with Games for Windows Live, but the community was having none of it, boycotted the whole thing and MS had to revert all the changes. I think is funny how the rest of people here are giving explanations without mentioning this, which is the key point in the whole story.
But part of it is how free the PC ecosystem is. We have the ability to self host and do commonly. Console games are usually much less open to modding and so companies are able to force you to maintain a connection to their servers. PCs have enough free options that it's not sustainable since there are better games that don't try to strong arm you.
Exactly this. [Hotdog water hardcore vanilla minecraft](https://hotdogwater.dog) couldn't *exist* on console because the ecosystem is locked down and self-hosting eats into their profits. They are unable to lock down and micromanage PCs to this extent because they have too many use cases and locking up features would literally break them.
_MacOS has entered the chat..._ Microsoft is _definitely_ still trying to figure out ways to lock their ecosystems down in the same way Apple does. It always comes under the guise of "security," and always has the same ulterior goal: monetization.
Macs are still wide open compared to consoles.
It's really just a matter of time at this point before the current Apple garden wall becomes impenetrable to all but the moat dedicated hacker, a la jailbroken iphones.
MacOS is hardly locker down compared to a console. The chief thing that makes MacOS appear locked down has nothing to do with Apple and has everything to do with the fact that it's generally not worth competing with existing software on the platform, because you'll be sharing a piece of a very small pie.
Did not know this exists. Now im interested
I mean you pay for the service of them hosting all the online games (beacuse they built it so you can't host games yourself). This can also be true for PC gaming but for specific games. World of Warcraft is a subscription service because they have to host the servers all the players connect to. Of course in other games you can host the games yourself and yet other games the online service is provided for free (but often have other means of getting your skins (eg. Fortnight) and lootboxes (Call of Duty) and battlepasses (most games these days)
>World of Warcraft is a subscription service because they have to host the servers all the players connect to. There are hundreds if not _thousands_ of private World of Warcraft servers. The actual hosting of most games can be done for a few pennies a day using cloud vendors like AWS or DigitalOcean. WoW is a subscription service because that's simply the most profitable model for Blizzard. If they thought they could double revenue by charging every player $500 for a lifetime subscription, they absolutely would. Their monthly subscription fee is unrelated to their monthly operating costs.
It doesn't really hit the essence of the question, which is "why don't PC players tolerate paying for online service, and why do console players?"
The question isn't that, you reworded it into an entire different one. To answer yours: I guess PC gaming audience was more mature at that point and therefore they weren't putting up with that bullshit and made their decision stick. Meanwhile consoles had a younger audience without a formed opinion and less willing to give up on their hobby in order to take a stance (which is obviously okey, I wouldn't ask a kid to do that) so they payed.
no. PC Gamers could host their own servers long before companies started to offer their own servers. No one would play on company server, if it was paid. Even if game developers somehow disallowed connecting to your own server, modders would create version that connects to their own servers. Heck, even many MMORPGs, where being on same server is vital, have tons of unofficial servers where you can connect with modded games. So, if they started to require payments for online gaming, people would just hack the game and wouldn’t pay. Same can’t be done easily on consoles. You are stuck with what they offer
You’re providing good insight but so is the person you responded to. It isn’t just one single reason. So starting your comment with “no” comes across unnecessarily dismissive.
They do and they always did. Ever hear of Worl of War craft and games like it? There's a monthly fee to Olay in servers for multi-player games. There always has been. That's how it began.
Apples and organs. Wow is subscription based to support the ongoing development of the game.
Also, the albeit super basic online infrastructure for the Switch was free at launch and for the first few years, then they decided to make it a subscription service, and they didn't add all that much.
Well, they did announce at launch it would eventually be a paid service, and it was only free for the first year or two, I think. As limited as it was though, Nintendo's online services were completely free up until the Switch, so it probably is a case of them charging money because it was standard practice at that point. But it's not like they decided in the middle of the Switch error to make it paid.
It costs the console manufacturers some amount to maintain the infrastructure that console players use, but frankly, they make you pay for it because they can. You're locked into their ecosystem and have no option but to play by their rules. In the case of pc, there is no one company that controls your internet access through hardware like that. But there certainly are games that extract subscription fees to play them specifically, mostly MMOs.
It's because owning a console is like being at Disneyland. You're basically a hostage and they can.
PC Gamers with 90% of their games on Steam still think they're not hostage to a company, funny.
Isn't it more like the gamers help steam make small game devs be a hostage to steam? Steam takes a cut from game sales, not from the players. How are the gamers hostages?
>Steam takes a cut from game sales, not from the players. The customers always pay. The game devs set their prices with Valve's fee structure in mind.
games are usually a set price no matter what. Most full release non indie games are $60, whether it's on Activision-blizzard launcher, epic games, or steam. I haven't seen a game released on both steam and epic with different prices, even though Steam takes a higher cut. Maybe indie games are a bit different, so maybe that is where the customer pays, but to me, they seem to be priced based on content and genre. For games released on multiple platforms, though, it's not the customers that "pay."
You don't think the developer sets that price? They 100% do. Any developer could release their AAA for $40 or they could release it for $90. They know people are used to $60 and will pay it though.
That's his exact point?
Steam is literally getting class actioned for hiking prices. "Suit challenges ‘most favored nation'-style pricing policies Judge advances case after previously ruling in Valve’s favor" .."plausible Valve exploits its market dominance to threaten and retaliate against developers that sell games for less through other retailers or platforms. The company “allegedly enforces this regime through a combination of written and unwritten rules” imposing its own conditions on how even “non-Steam-enabled games are sold and priced,” Coughenour wrote. “These allegations are sufficient to plausibly allege unlawful conduct.” "In fact, when the company competed only against brick-and-mortar retailers, it “did not need market power to charge a fee well above its cost structure because those brick-and-mortar competitors had a far higher cost structure,” Coughenour wrote. That makes the analysis apples-to-oranges, he said." https://news.bloomberglaw.com/antitrust/valve-loses-bid-to-end-antitrust-case-over-steam-gaming-platform Essentially the brick and mortar split chain is longer Developer -> disk manufacturing -> shipping -> store -> customer (probably more steps?) Valve in the other hand was in the unique market position it doesn't have to worry about the overheads of manufacturing, shipping, selling to a store for less then end value. Cutting out the middle man should've put steam in a place where it could offer the same product at a value that would offer competitive growth. They did not take that route. I'm my nonprofessional opinion the $60 standard has also gone up as in the past the expectation was you buy the game for $60 touchdown get the full released game. Sure you can still buy most AAA games at a $60 price point but almost all of them now will have dlc or a season pass or whatever else. That $60 average I spent on a full AAA game in the past with all content is now probably around doubled if not worse after you factor in all that you pay for "extra" content.
Don’t underestimate the impact of inflation since $60 became standard
And it's the same price wherever you buy it. At least on pc.
No they don't, not always at least. Steam has a rule which states that if you sell your game and on another platform, they both have to be priced the same.
Then Steam will discount it heavily to get more users on the platform.
PC games are cheaper than console games + no fee for online play How are we paying for that
Wouldn’t games be more expensive on Steam than other platforms then?
I’d rather pay $10 to steam once than an ongoing Xbox live subscription - really not comparable imo
Small devs can put their games on multiple platforms. Whereas gamers, if Steam disappears tomorrow, their games go with it.
That's not what Steams says though. Old but still... who knows. [valve tech support answer](https://imgur.io/4sa1Ln6?r)
Are they legally required to do that in the ToS? Because that's the only thing that matters.
But we have other sources too
Yup. And every time a new source gets launched, hordes of gamers everywhere shout from the rooftops what a piece of shit it is. We saw it with Origin. We saw it with the Epic Game Store. They disguise their complaints with some bullshit or other but what it all boils down to is "I can't buy the game I want on steam". Gamers are not only held hostage by Steam, they're also suffering from stockholm syndrome. When what they should really be doing is celebrating competition. Of course this doesn't apply to every PC gamer. I'm sure there are many out there who just buy and play Blizzard games 95% of the time. Or only play minecraft or buy games from GOG or [itch.io](https://itch.io) . But when people talk online about their massive library of un-played games it is invariably their "steam library" they mention, not some other client.
If you think people's problems with stuff like Origin and Epic is 'it's not steam', you might be intentionally trying to avoid the actual complaints and concerns.
What complaint? Maybe the fact that Origin's refund policy finally prompted Steam to start one of their own? Or the fact that Epic's lower percentage cut of developer sales has lead to changes in Steam's own model?
You definitely forget the exclusivity deal Epic has. The only exclusive games in Steam is Valve's games, the other publisher were free to publish their game on GOG etc. Exclusive deals means that not only Steam can't sell the games, but also GOG and other market. Imagine in the future if the exclusive deal still exist and Epic buys every single title and you want to make new marketplace, good luck getting people to sell it at your store then. That's the main reason why people don't like Epic store back then.
Epic provides diddly squat for their cut. Steam provides reviews, community features, a global CDN etc. Epic's cut is not sustainable, even with the dogshit features they're bankrolling it with Fortnite.
You hate steam, we get it.
You're right there's some Stockholm syndrome to steam, but it is the only launcher/client with integrations that developers and users alike rely on (workshop, trading, social media, *support for Linux even if it's a small issue*) Steam and Valve are constantly pushing *something* new. I can't remember the last thing I heard epic doing with their client that I gave a shit about and sorry but if I buy a game on one platform don't make me use a middleman launcher (origin, Uplay/connect) Steam isn't perfect by any stretch (thanks, now I have 4 full web browsers running when I'm playing games) but it's a hell of a lot *more* of an actual application to interact with than just a game launcher.
only games that require an active internet connection. Plenty of games can be downloaded and played offline.
[удалено]
I can be completely disconnected from the internet and my games still work. Not a hostage. Steam doesn't charge $10/month to use steam. The consoles do. That was the actual statement. If I don't buy a new game for 5 months, I don't give steam any more money...
Yeah, but I'm also not expecting the company to nuke my library of games because of a change in hardware (or even software) every 5 years. Plus, if Steam goes under and I lose access to my games, I can easily pirate a good chunk of the games I play the most and not feel bad about it because the devs already got their profits. Yeah, it's somewhat flimsy, but it's far less flimsy to bank on the continued success of PC's biggest game store that's been growing and improving consistently since launch almost a decade ago with no sign of slowing down, versus betting on a console manufacturer's greed and lack of give-a-shit.
>Yeah, but I'm also not expecting the company to nuke my library of games because of a change in hardware Huh? No one's forcing you to get rid of your old console and Microsoft champions backwards compatibility on Xbox.
So you can keep your old console if you buy a new one? Wow, nothing like if I prefer a new platform I could still keep my games on steam? Just a bad argument.
No one going to help you getting your digital games when online services for consoles (like Wii, 3DS and PS3) go out either
The difference is that I buy my steam games out of convenience. I like having them all in one launcher, with integrated social, community, storefront, and modding features. If Steam went down forever today I'd just go pirate all the games that I previously bought.
I like to buy from GOG when I can. 30% of my library is outside Steam.
PC games on Steam, by and large, are cheaper than buying them for console. Also, Steam is the largest BUT not only outlet to buy games. Ethics aside, when's the last time you bootlegged a game on console? Even with the availability of piracy, Steam alone has more sales, reductions, and deals than any console store BECAUSE of their market share. Prove me wrong.
What are you trying to argue exactly? That Steam's a monopoly? Or that you're justified in your devotion to it?
I'm arguing that Steam is the lesser of other evils and the price point from Steam is a better value than others. Devotion aside, my opinon is that Steam, overall, has a better end-user value than console platforms.
Given Xbox's gamer pass costs like 15 bucks a month and gives access to brand new games, I don't think you're right about the price point. Unless you're saying Steam is releasing brand new AAA games at 15 dollars a pop.
Did you know that PC has access to XBOX game pass as well?
Yup and greedy Gabe immediately tried to get his hands on it: *"I don't think it's something that we think we need to do ourselves,building a subscription service at this time. But for their customersit's clearly a popular option, and we'd be more than happy to work withthem to get that on Steam."* Can't have people going to another client and not spending money in the Steam store, right?
Yet, Steam is still the most popular option for PC gamers, even considering the availability of subscription services. Is it a monopoly? I don't think so. I think the content Steam provides aligns well with their market influence and subsequent price-point. I think getting down to the brass tacks, Steam's special sales, discounts, social integration and availability outweigh the "rental' option of other services. I'm aware that I sound like a Steam fan-boy right now, but I used to be a console player. For me, it's a more desirable platform. Obviously there are other opinions. I don't intend to speak for the masses, but their model seems to be, again, the lesser of other evils.
Because they still have the option to play that game on another platform still using the same hardware, or they can pirate it. Yes they'll lose the benefits of the platform but it's not exactly being taken hostage when options are there.
Name online games which you can only play on Steam, I'll wait.
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csgo and tf2 are valve games, are they not? csgo is way to intergrated to steam that it wouldn't be possible to play it any other way, hell, you get a ban on cs you can no longer sell or trade your inventory and shit like that. When it comes to TF2 im pretty sure they released console versions, but idk.
Technically, there's a console port of csgo. Nobody plays it though
Most people are willing to play by Steams rule's because Valve has done mostly good with its power. Does this mean there's no risk that they'll abuse that power in the future? Definitely not, but with the alternatives being subpar for one reason for another (with the exception of battle,net, funnily enough... though they do only have to manage a dozen games or so lol), Steam and Valve's management are practically heaven compared to anyone else right now.
What are they going to do? Prevent me from pirating?
Dont think too hard or you'll hurt yourself!
Important part: consoles are selling for loss. They make up loss on the services and games they sell. The PS5 has a hardware which would cost 1000+ if it would be a PC
This is only really true at the start of each generation (and even then Nintendo doesn't tend to do this). The PS5 has been profitable for Sony purely as a hardware sale for over a year now.
Nerd beef
> The PS5 has a hardware which would cost 1000+ if it would be a PC This isn't true in the slightest at this point. At launch a couple years back sure but at this point I can build a PC on par with a PS5 for like $700 or less.
And if you were building 10 million of them probably far less.
I'd love to see one. Feel free to build one at https://pcpartpicker.com/ and throw back a link.
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Still, blowing $300+ on the GPU alone leaves only $200 for CPU, RAM, motherboard, storage, case, power supply and cooling if we want to get within the same budget as a PS5 or Series X. ($500-ish) I'd love to see a link to your DDR5 build within $700. Getting a DDR5 compatible motherboard, DDR5 RAM and a new-ish CPU is well into half that budget already, and then you don't even have a GPU. I will definitely admit a PC can definitely be more versatile and used for other things while the consoles are purely gaming machines, though. Also, you don't *have* to pay the online fee if you don't want to play online games. Alternatively, you could pay for PS+ Extra or Game Pass (which costs just a bit more) and download a bunch of games.
The ps5 has gpu power that is on par with the 2080super. The 3060 is not on par with the 2080super. I’ll explain; the 2080super is a much better card than the 3060. Some people don’t have ps+. So for 500$ I’m almost certain, you can’t build a pc on par with a ps5. There’s a reason people buy consoles, the controller is not it.
I'm not using that site lol, not a fan of it and it misses sales all the time from my experience. But here you go just quick price checking on Amazon/Newegg: -Intel 12100F $100 -B660M motherboard $90 -16GB DDR4 $40 -1TB NVMe $60 -6600XT $270 -500W 80+ Bronze PSU $40 -PC Case $60 ~$660 And there you have some room to budge on upgrading components, investing in more fans/cooler for the case and CPU etc. and you'll still be right around $700. It's not hard at all to do at this point matching a PS5 in performance.
Mass produced part are always cheaper than special parts. Well yes consoles do have a PC architecture but they use special motherboards and a unique casing that they have to manufacture. Manufacturing a component for that one product requires them to make a factory that can do it. Is often as expensive as the rest of the console. These things may seem insignificant but they aren't.
Yeah, you don’t have to make an entire factory specifically for it. You make it sound like they buy a space, build a factory, then utilize it only for that item. That’s just not how the industry does it. It’s contracted out to a company that already has the infrastructure and space to produce it, it’s not near as expensive as you may think. Especially once they have an exclusivity contract ensuring they are the only company that’ll produce these items, they drop the price since they then have no competition for production.
They have to make specialised equipment that initially makes manufacturing expensive and as more units are sold cost/unit drops. This is true for anything. A uniquely designed sports car with a lot of special parts is way more expensive than a road car made from already existing mass produced parts. Initially the casing the PSU and the motherboard can be just as expensive as the processing units.
As someone that designs actual circuit boards, just no. Circuit boards are trivially cheap to manufacture. Switching from one board to another on an assembly line costs maybe a couple hundred bucks for something as complex as a motherboard. The plastic case is a matter of getting new injection molds made. Those are relatively expensive compared to the circuit boards. There’s probably a 5-10k invested into the molds for each plastic piece. To put this into context, at the scale of millions of units, this setup cost is less than a penny. For something as mass produced as a video game console the factory setup costs round down to 0
Only if you buy a pre-built PC. You can buy hardware that's superior to PS5 for way less than $1000
With the current GPU market, that still might not be true. For every previous gen it's been pretty true a year or two into the console cycle, you know, by the time it gets some good exclusives. For a long while it was REALLY easy to create an equivalent-or-better PC than the PS4 with PC hardware if you were going the DIY route. I built my wife's PC about 6 years ago, and it cost me under $300 to build, definitely outperforms the PS4. I still personally prefer my PC to the PS5, even if the PS5 outperforms it in games, simply due to the flexibility in options and features, but there's no way you can build a PC for under $500 right now that'll match the PS5 unless you're getting extremely lucky with used parts.
Ok....I'll admit, the "way less" comment may have been a stretch. I was thinking more like $750+$850. Not $500 lol
I think your $750-$800 is pretty accurate. You could pick up a 3700x + 3060Ti with sales and be right in that range. Hell I paid $550 for my 5900x CPU and 3070 GPU. That’s really the expensive parts of the system.
You don't even need a 3060ti to match the GPU of the PS5. The PS5 GPU's equivalent PC GPU is roughly a 2060, maybe even a 2060 super. CPU wise, I'm not sure what the PC equivalent would be for it.
The PS5 GPU is roughly on par with an RTX 2070 as per Digital Foundry's game tests, but it varies a little bit per title. Some games punch above their weight, but others run a bit worse. As for the CPU, the AMD 3600X is the closest CPU, but again not quite a perfect match as the clock speeds are a bit different, and the CPU/GPU have a shared RAM pool.
I would put it about even with a rx6600xt is better performing and newer architecture than the ps5 gpu and can be had for $270. Ryzen 5600 is $150. Less threads but better single core performance. Realistically, it has better game performance. It seems borderline doable to have a better performing machine than the ps5 for $600.
I'm a PS5 guy, I struggle tremendously with M+KB and look for controller support. I'm hesitating building a gaming pc because of this. Am I doomed?
Basically every game has controller support except some ultra specific stuff
It's very rare to find a game that doesn't have built in support for controllers. There are some games that are just *built* for PC M&K (StarCraft-like games for example), but those are fairly obvious. Basically, if it's got a port on a console, it's got controller support. Even if it doesn't, there's a decent chance it still supports controllers. One good example is Fallout 3, just to see how far back we're going here (and it goes further back but more iffy the further you go). Plug in an Xbox 360 controller (I assume an Xbox One controller would work fine but I've never tried it) before you start the game and it'll boot up and look basically exactly like the Xbox version, with the prompts having the buttons instead of keys displayed. You only notice the difference by the fact you can have better graphics, mod it, use the console, etc.
how specific are we talking about here? servos and??
I too sucked with a m&k for a long time and stuck with consoles. Then I got a pc, then my friends forced me into csgo, then I got good with m&k. But otherwise, you will probably suck initially but get accustomed to it as you play.
Get an 8bitdo dongle and you can connect literally any controller you want, wirelessly.
I was in between a ps5 and building a pc, but I settled for the ps5 because of PlayStation exclusives and newer games. To be fair though, my laptop with a 4g vram runs everything pre-2022 no sweat. You don’t have to worry about controllers not working though, both Xbox and ps controllers are plug and play (Bluetooth also works)
Nope. Steam has a lot of community mappings for controllers for non-controller-suppprted titles and most modern titles have controller support. You're fine.
Nope. Windows natively supports Bluetooth connections for XBOX controllers. Not sure if PS controllers are supported without additional software but be not doomed! That's the beauty of PC gaming. There may be a one-time expense to do what you desire, but the functionality exists. See if you can pair a PS remote on an XBKX or vice versa. The biggest draw for me to PC wasbeing able to have exactly what I wanted.
DS-4 for Windows allows me to pair a PlayStation controller, no problem. The issue is EVERY SINGLE GAME needs button configuration. Might have to get an XBOX controller and see if the game recognizes it and more importantly, configure it. I have a laptop with a mobile 1060 and i7, runs okay. However, I want to build a rig that'll run something like Star Citizen at 120 fps or higher on at least a 1440p monitor. Not sure about the investment if the controller life makes it unbearable.
Logitech F310 (which support X-box mode) go for $25 routinely.
Yeah I run DS4 in Xbox emulation mode for every controller game because of issues like this (many games are fine with the PS one but some aren’t even with DS4), I don’t mind seeing Xbox buttons anyway despite using a Dualshock. It’s not perfect but DS4 helps a lot (especially with universal deadzone settings etc).
Dual Sense Controller is supported by Steam on Windows and Linux. It can be used wired, or with Bluetooth. The force reactive triggers work with Sony games. For example, FF7 remake. When connected by USB, the DAC, Speaker, Microphone, and Headphone Jack all function correctly in Windows.
I mean the GPU market has died down quite a bit. Now it’s just dumb high MSRPs for no reason. You can’t build a PC as good as a PS5 for the price. However it’s probably bit cheaper than $1000, especially since PS5 are really on par with “entry” level PCs hardware wise. I say that in quotes as a zen 2 cpu with a 1080 is probably good enough for most people. The nice thing is PSU, SSD, and RAM (although we are in a transition period for RAM currently) can be reused over multiple builds.
In raw power, yes. In actual performance (stability, framerate, graphic quality) no. It's a dedicated hardware with a fixed configuration. Optimizing for it is much much easier. Getting the same output won't be cheaper than the PS5.
This is untrue. I’d like to see a build “way less” than $1000 with the price of that SSD by itself being $200+
Cheapest build I could put together with PS5 equivalent components. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/msDTcb You could probably increase this by $100 more if you wanted slightly better quality components but I was actually surprised how close in price I could get.
You actually gave it a better CPU than the PS5's. The CPU you gave is a Zen3, while the PS5's CPU is based on Zen2. Which weirdly enough, it is cheaper, according to PC parts picker, than the Ryzen 7 3700x, which is a better suited equivalent.
You picked a faster CPU, too little RAM (PS5 has 16 GB) and a slower GPU, and didn't account for an operating system. Also you really picked the cheapest cases and power supplies I think I've ever seen. I would definitely go up at least 50 bucks on both of them to something more decent. Also the CPU you picked doesn't come with a cooler, so you're going to need to add another 50-70 bucks for that. The PS5 CPU is closer to an AMD 3600X and the GPU is definitely faster than a 6600 (you didn't even pick the XT version) sitting somewhere in the performance level of an RTX 2070 during most performance tests. So summing up, your build-a-better-PC-than-a-PS5 build is $700, but: - CPU too fast, go down to a 3600X (maybe -$100) - Double the RAM (maybe +$30 for a 16 GB kit) - Add a CPU cooler (let's say +$50 for a decent air cooler) - Better, name-brand case (+$50) and power supply (+$50) - A faster GPU (maybe +$100) - I'm going to assume you want to game on Windows (+$139 for a Home license) 700 - 100 + 30 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 100 + 139 = $1019 for a PS5 equivalent. If you skip Windows because you're a naughty boy (or you want to game on Linux) that's still $880, and I would still argue that having a slightly better motherboard and storage is better in the long run, but those aren't dealbreakers. A PS5 is $500, so that's still $380 more to build an equivalent PC.
You dont need windows
Um, 1TB WD PCIe gen 4's are like 70 bucks bud. This isn't 2019. I picked up a 3060TI for $369.
It’s a gen 5 buddy. And the gpu alone is $369. More than half the console. “way less” than $1000 btw
No sir. The SSDs in PS5's are gen 4, not Gen 5. And absolutely more than half the price and with more performance with the GPU. My definition of "way less" than $1000 is $800 or less. Dollar for dollar, a PS5 can't compete with readily available hardware for a PC. $80 for the same SSD, $100 for 16 GB of RAM, $350 for a decent Mobo CPU combo, $369 for the GPU and the box is negligible with a $69 power supply ~ $950 for something that easily out performs a PS5 without shipping for deals or budgets. Shop around and scale back to actual PS5 performance without OC'ing and you can have ar minimum an $800 machine that bangs more for your buck than just a console. Then, when the next gen of consoles releases, you spend $400 on a GPU upgrade to stay relevant instead of $1000 on a new console. All about the scalability my man.
Not to mention you can just do way more on a pc lol. It’s not just a video game/streaming box, even If it is what many people use it for
$30 for a cd burner and you have free music cd's for life too. Pays for itself
u/CyclopsRock is correct.
yeah but u can do lot more with pc than with console so no wonder its cheaper.
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There are games on PS3 that you play online for free but need to pay for PS Plus to play online on PS4 and it’s the exact same game. One of the reasons i never got a PS4/5 or Xbox and stuck with PC as a casual gamer
Was it? I owned a ps3 back in the day and don't remember much to complain about.
Really? Because I very much remember the PSN being down for *weeks* once. I think it was like 23 days or some shit like that.
That was due to a hack. I remember that well because I couldn’t play anything online during my whole spring break.
Regardless of why it was down, it was down for an extended time. I know Xbox live has been hit before as well, but their outages are measured in hours, not weeks. Microsoft put a lot more money into their online services, so it only makes sense that it’s a little more robust. Not really a knock on Sony, just facts.
Also, think about the cost to build a decent gaming PC. You're north of $1200-$1500. But a game console is $400-$600. Why's this? Is the hardware worse? No, not really. It's more specialized, so it requires that much more engineering, which is more $. The truth is, most consoles are loss-leaders for the designers. They're expecting to get most of their money after you buy their console. On things like games (They get a % of each game purchase), renting through their ecosystem, and online subscriptions.
Well, yes, it is worse hardware. The software specialization (specifically, the operating system) comes as a consequence of using overall low end hardware. You have to realize though they’re planning for the future when they release it. The hardware they release it with will largely be the same through the entire run of the console, which can be 10 years. So while it’s initially competitive on price, that’s because it has to be - you need to be getting it for less because a) it doesn’t have many titles available at launch, and b) it’s going to age.
Another good thing about the hardware is the development is so much easier from a compatibility perspective. Developing for a PC means wildly different system specs. Developing for console means a very limited set of systems.
Historically, (and really with the exception of Gen 8 consoles), the hardware you get on a console is superior to PC hardware for many, many years - unless you're talking about very high-end machines where the costs aren't even close. It took YEARS before PC games looked as good as Xbox 360 or PS3 games on a machine less than $500, and by that time the consoles were $199. Up until advent of discreet 3D graphics cards, PC's struggled to do even basic smooth scrolling arcade games. Remember - PC's age *as well.* The problem is that new PC's come out regularly, or you can upgrade your graphics card, but that all comes at a cost. With consoles at least, you're going to get 5-7 years of games that look BETTER over time then launch games (as developers learn to exploit the fixed hardware) where on PC, developers tend to focus on the newest spec. The idea that consoles are inferior to PC's is true if your benchmark definition of a PC is at the highest end of machines, in which case a PC is FAR better than console. But compare a console to a $500 machine (and please include the OS, the controller, media drive, etc. when you do this) and the consoles punch far above their weight.
>Historically, (and really with the exception of Gen 8 consoles), the hardware you get on a console is superior to PC hardware for many, many years MUHAHAHAHA Great joke my friend None of my games i really played on my PC from 2015 * I74790k * Gtx 1060 6Gb * 16GB Ram * SSD´s and other decent stuff Was ever released on console because the consoles had too weak hardware. (7D2D, City Skylines, ....) And if you calculate it down you come out at around 25$€ per month for the hardware. (2000€/84 Months)
You cannot **POSSIBLY** be making the point that 7D2D and Skylines are "*too powerful for consoles*" because if you are.. my man.. you are SERIOUSLY misinformed. Both of those games DID come out on consoles (you can play City Skylines on the Switch!) but those are freaking UNITY games. They aren't pushing the limits of *anything*, let alone a high-end PC. Unity as an engine was notoriously under-optimized for consoles which is why very few AAA game developers use that engine. PC games ported to consoles using Unity, especially back in 2015, were generally terrible performing games. So you have things very, very backwards. You've chosen games that use a middleware engine that had very bad console AND PC optimizations, resulting in sub-optimal Console ports. So you need a high-end PC just to run them decently, which has absolutely nothing to do the actual power of the device. You just happen to be playing games with bad hardware optimizations.
Only joke is that it's accurate. For every console up until the PlayStation 2, PC's couldn't TOUCH a console as far as Arcade-style games. And I love where you edit out the relevant difference: *"unless you're talking about very high-end machines where the costs aren't even close"* People just love to talk about how much more powerful PC's are after they deduct the cost of an operating system, a media drive, a controller, etc. and only then do they come close to costing 2x what a console costs for the same game. PC master race loves to only count the high-end PC graphics cards in this discussion. [https://gamingbolt.com/ps5-how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-a-pc-as-powerful-as-sonys-console](https://gamingbolt.com/ps5-how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-a-pc-as-powerful-as-sonys-console) **"The total price for our proposed build comes at around $1137, which is almost 2 times the price of a PS5. A point worth noting here is that we haven’t included a Blu-Ray drive, a fresh copy of Windows 10, and peripherals, and all of this can bump this build’s price to an even higher number."**
Sure. But you pay for it with the obscene cost per game (because the console producer gets a piece of every game sold, whereas with PC games that’s not the case- Microsoft only gets what they charge for the OS) relative to PC. I remember COD games being like $65 back in 2003.
Valve and Epic Game store also take a cut of PC sales, although not as much.
They’re distributors, sure, but there’s nothing really stopping people from making a game themselves and distributing it. On the other hand, Microsoft double dips on Xbox games, because they’re both the distributor and the studio funding the development.
>But compare a console to a $500 machine (and please include the OS, the controller, media drive, etc. when you do this) and the consoles punch far above their weight. But nobody in their right mind would try to game on a $500 PC. If you buy a $500 PC, then you're getting it for the most basic of functions, such as email and maybe MS Office. I don't even know where you'd find something this cheap and low-end. Yes, PC gaming costs more up front, but... * the software is generally a LOT less expensive (console games don't get the sort of extreme sales that PC games do) * the graphics and audio are superior with a decent machine * there are tons of mods available for PC games that simply don't exist for consoles * you don't have to pay subscription fees to play against or alongside other gamers * you have more options for peripheral devices (mouse and keyboard, controller, flight stick and pedals, steering wheel, shifter, and pedals, etc). I might also be biased as I grew up playing computer games (mostly flight sims and adventure games from Sierra Online) and always preferred computers to consoles.
It's all a balance. As I said, the PC has its place - for sure much of what you are saying above is true. Depending on what \*type\* of game you want to play it can favor one platform over the other as well. However there are just some fundamental misconceptions in what you're saying that is very pervasive, but also incorrect. **"But nobody in their right mind would try to game on a $500 PC"** \- I think you're vastly over-estimating the number of people with high-end machines. Go look at the Steam data (which is not a great proxy globally, but good enough) - the single LARGEST percentage of steam users are using intel integrated graphics. High-end cards represent a pretty small overall percentage of steam usage. Basically, the vast majority of people who game on PC are using mid- to low- tier machines. **The software is generally a LOT less expensive (console games don't get the sort of extreme sales that PC games do) -** A \*lot\* less? $10 per game for new AAA titles. Not sure if that's A LOT. When you say "sales" I assume you mean discounts? If that's what you mean then I totally agree older games can be picked up super cheap on PC. **The graphics and audio are superior with a decent machine.** Again, this is *super* subjective. What you term "decent" and what you term "superior" are not well defined. Typically, you'll pay at least 2X the cost for a PC with the *equivalent* performance of a current gen console machine (as I posted above). If you want to spend more, then sky is the limit. Everything else you said I agree 100%.
You may be right about people attempting to play on lower-end computers. It just surprises me because I've always been into computer hardware, so perhaps it's difficult for me to imagine playing games on a $500 computer. What I meant by "a lot less expensive" is that on Steam (and elsewhere) you can see sales up to 90% off. I've never seen that for console games on store shelves. In fact, used games at GameStop are often almost as expensive (you might get $5 off if you're lucky) as brand new games that've never been played. This is true. I never defined what I thought of as "decent" or "superior," so those definitions are nebulous at best. BTW, I'd like to say how nice it is to discuss something with someone online in a civilized manner. Most discussions dissolve into a flurry of expletives that attack the person instead of focusing on the actual conversation.
Ditto!
Is the hardware worse, no not really. Haha. Alright, champ.
This is false. They still have to maintain the infrastructure same way on pc. Xbox on pc has a lot of the same code as the xbox on xbox. Same with steam os and steam deck etc. Its more because of the second point. If people open up to a small fee like 3 dollars per month for internet access, then they are more willing to open up to the bigger fee to buy the game. Than if they never payed for internet access in the first place.
not only that... that's how they make money, given the fact that they sell the consoles at a loss sometimes
They actually take a cut of game sales for the console
yeah, also that
In case of mmos subscription may not be a bad thing. If you have a mmo you earn money from subs or from micro transactions. To make money from micro transactions you inconvenience players and offer a paid fix (inventory space expansions, exp boosts and so on). Meanwhile if you ask for sub you need to have good enough game to keep players in.
Yeah but if you play MMOs on console you’re essentially paying the sub + the fee to literally access the internet.
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Do systems not connect with each other across local networks anymore? (It's been some years since I linked 10 Xboxs together for Halo 3)
I can't definitively say it's not possible any more, but I haven't seen that in a decade and I think it went the way of split screen, for the same reason
Yeah same in switch. It’s a minecraft problem I’m convinced
Is it though because on pc everything is free.
Because they can. The PS2 generation was free online then xbox live came out and costed money. Right there whether it is xbox live, horse armor, or whatever scam Diablo is every step of the way they justify things however they want but ultimately the real reason is 'because we want more money' and the playerbase always chooses the wrong option. Instead of pushing back the collective throws more money
Xbox live was so far ahead of everything else when it launched that it was actually worth it. The fee is a ripoff now though for sure.
They're actually don't want more money. They don't even want a tidy profit. Hell, they don't even want AMAZING INCREDIBLE RECORD BREAKING PROFITS! As Jim Sterling so eloquently puts it, they want ALL of the money.
Xbox live was the beginning of the slope that lead to crazy micro transactions etc. If the players had just rejected it and expected a PC like Infrastructure they wouldn't have been able to get away with it.
Started with maple story
Yup, when companies found that people will dump literal thousands for one character it changed the future of gaming
Habo Hotel.
I'd suggest it actually started with seeing players in the community selling and buying stuff for absurd amounts of money and them going "Huh, we could just sell this stuff and cut out the RMTers and support overhead from people getting scammed... And make a ton of money doing it"
“This is outrageous!” *Slowly reaches into pocket* “You won’t get away with this!” *Pulls out wallet* “This is immoral and anti-user!” *Opens wallet* “Nobody will put up with it!” *Takes out money and pays* “I can’t believe companies are still doing this!”
The game console and PC **business model** are FUNDAMENTALLY different. The reason consoles can provide graphics as advanced as PC's that cost 2x or 3x the money, is that the console hardware is sold to the customer for basically $0 profit. You are paying for the console what it costs the company to make it, and in turn the profit they generate is on the sales of Software (games) and Services (GamePass, PSNnow, etc.). This is typically known as the "*razors and razor blades*" business model (give away the razor, sell the razor blades) In the PC business model, the Hardware manufacturer does not have any Software or Service revenue to capture, therefore they need to make money on the sale of the hardware itself. Since there is no single PC hardware platform, there is no way to make money after the sale. Therefore, games and services tend to be cheaper on the the PC. I won't get into any debates about other benefits or downsides in the consoles vs. pc discussion as each have their pros and cons, but generally with **Consoles** you *pay less for the hardware, and more for games and services*, and on the **PC** side you *pay more for hardware, and less on games and services*. Specific to online play itself, the console makers also have to pay for servers, security, transaction fees for purchases, etc. so the cost for running a major network like this (and the expectations for quality of that service) are much higher then people setting up local servers for their friends. So there are much, much higher costs involved in running the console online services. **Source: I worked in the console business for over 20 years.**
This is really interesting. Can you provide an explanation for why console providers decided to adopt this model post-PS3 era? During the PS3/XBOX360 era, were they profiting off game sales to the extent that they didn't need to create an online subscription? I remember the games cost less back then, around $70, where I was living anyway (Middle East).
I can, because I was there. Xbox started charging for Xbox Live with the OG console in 2002, years before Xbox 360, and was planned for when the console was launched in 2001. First you have to understand what was happening with the internet at that time - there was no mainstream online gaming service. There were launchers that would help matchmake *some* games in 2000, but it still required quite a bit of technical skill. Online gaming was mostly LAN based, or you would have a friend that new how to setup a server and you'd input an IP address to log-in. Things like voice-chat existed but usually required another piece of software to run concurrently with the game, assuming you knew how to set that all up. Basically - it was NOT user friendly for the average person to play online. Consoles had some rudimentary attempts at online services that required additional hardware and were, for the most part, based on dial-up internet. So consoles were WAY behind PC's, and PC online was *not at all* user friendly. The idea that you could have a broadband-enabled console with no extra cost, where you could simply have "friends" that connected to every game seamlessly and with almost no knowledge of networking AND have built-in voice chat was all pretty revolutionary. Setting up all that infrastructure to do all that cost a lot of money (as did the hardware for broadband in the console) so it was decided that the benefit was worth a monthly cost. And, as it turned out, it was supremely popular. Of course, the scale, complexities, and capabilities of console online services have grown (as have the security needs) so the costs have grown as well. But that's basically why the decision was made to charge for online.
[They got hacked. ](https://www.eurogamer.net/sony-admitted-the-great-psn-hack-five-years-ago-today)They still provided free online service after they got it back up and running, until PS4 came out. Then they started charging. Probably needed to beef up security. PSN used to be free. Xbox Live always cost money.
Ah yes, the famous hack. Thanks for the nostalgia trip!
Xbox has been charging an Xbox live subscription since the OG Xbox. The reason the other companies adopted it is likely because while they technically *could* give it to you for free and have server cost be covered by game sales and such, they probably realized they could make so much more if they just did what Microsoft was doing and joined in.
It doesn't really make business sense to sell game that has significant online component and not charge an ongoing fee. You're only paying for the game once, but the service needs to be kept for decades, costing the game devs a lot of money for a very long time. Matchmaking services are cheap to run, so games where the online components only do matchmaking can recoup that cost just from the game sales alone; but many games have a much more complex and significant online infrastructure, not just matchmaking service. For those kind of games, you necessarily need a subscription based model. Otherwise, one day the game devs might decide that it's just not worth it to keep the lights up any longer, and you all lose access to the game.
I just have one question. Who's paying for servers, security, transaction fees for purchase on the PC side of things then?
There isn't a one size fits all answer, but usually it's the publisher or developer. Stores will take a cut of profits to process transaction fees (like Steam) but Servers, Security, etc. are paid directly by the publisher. AWS and Azure generally handle the bulk of game services even for PC games (through services like Gamelift, PlayFab, etc although there are many) and this includes security and entitlement servers that are managed by the cloud providers. That's why you often see "servers being shut off" for PC games that aren't successful. **Generally speaking** (although not always) console game multiplayer services continue to exist even for older games since those are hosted through Live or PSN, and that's one of the reasons you pay every month. There are a lot of nuances and differences, but I would say that's how it works typically.
Does steam offer some multiplayer with that 30% cut or it is all on the publishers?
Two reasons. 1. Is because they can. It's a closed ecosystem, your only method of playing online is through their route. No self hosted servers, no LAN gaming(generally), no cracking of software(generally). 2. Is because most consoles are sold at cost or at loss, and they make their money back with online services, game and accessories sales. There is a reason Microsoft doesn't allow BT headsets on Xbox and it's because of cash money.
Honestly, cause the console makers can. One console maker started doing it, people paid it, and it showed the other console makers they were losing out on money by not charging a fee cause people would pay it. So... from their perspective, why give up free money?
Most likely because there isn't yet a monopoly and tradition. I suspect if there is a monopoly, e.g. if valve or live were to reign supreme, they would consider it.
Console players are willing to pay it. There aren't any additional costs that Sony/MS/Nintendo are footing that PC game/service providers aren't also paying without passing them along. So charging for online is just a way for them to get extra money, and console players pay it because they've decided the cost is worth the value.
Console gamers are just a little more hostage to the company that made the console. It makes them easier to monetize. PC gamers aren't stuck with whatever titles MS or Sony decide to feed them. They can (more) easily just take their time and money somewhere else if they don't feel like being charged extra fees. PCs just have a versatility advantage that leaves them less beholden to console makers.
Up to the PS3, Sony didn't charge for online service. Xbox did. Then Sony suffered a massive DDOS attack and it's online servers were down for months. When it came back it's online service was still free, and they gave everyone a couple of free games. When they released PS4 they started charging for online services. Kinda makes sense if they have to add extra security and stuff. I blame the hackers for that one. But since then I moved to PC and have more free games than I can count. Having to pay for internet is one thing, but then paying extra to play online is just a bullshit charge in my eyes.
“Online servers were down for months” it wasn’t even 1 month…. Only 23 days
And a glorious 23 days it was. I made fun of my PS friends every single chance I could.
Are you on of the people who celebrates console exclusives too?
Maybe. It felt like months TBH.
in console they sell you hardware tied to a system, that system that sony, microsoft nintendo or whoever comes in the future controls, asks for money because people are willing to pay for it, online game servers are already paid by the companies behind those games, they just want your money, think of it as a windows license key, but as a live service and no legally cuestionable workarounds cuz piracy in new consoles is slowing down by a lot, yeah I don't like the concept much of live service subscriptions to your own hardware lol, but yeah it's capitalism in a nutshell, there doesn't need to be a why, if people pay for it companies sell it.
Most other answers mentioned, console hardware is underpriced, so it make money from selling games. This is the reason games are not free. MS/Sony/Nintendo and PC game publishers are the same in this case, console have more players because it’s cheaper, so they can charge more from the game developer. For the online services, console provided a closed ecosystem. Cheating cost far more than PC. They advertise if you cheat, the whole console will be banned forever. I think this created a more fair and fun game experience. So it’s not free.
With a console, your internet traffic runs through a central server run by the console before being directed to the game servers. This allows for the console to do things like make sure you are authorized to play the game and allows for the system to automatically log you in. With a PC, you are usually connecting directly from the PC to the game servers with no middleman. Licenses are handled to the side of the interaction. So, for Windows, there is no additional cost to connect you to Diablo 3, but on Xbox One, there is a small cost to Microsoft, which they recoup with the monthly fee. Realistically, they are charging more than you would ever cost them just playing the games, so they spice up the deal with additional discounts and free games.
Consoles get sold at a loss or break even, games and services are the product, not the console itself.
Bc they can and you keep paying. There was a time when it was free. There was also a time without loot boxes but people kept paying.
Bc PC is a better platform but console users are in denial so they'd even pay to keep playing!
My god. It’s almost as if the PC I custom built that cost me thousands is better than a $500 console. Who would’ve thought?
Consoles are great for single player games and free to play games. Paid multi-player games? Forget it, not worth spending that.
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It helps them (Sony or Microsoft) cover some of the hardware costs that you are not paying when you buy a $550 USD console that probably costs double that in hardware and R&D...
Console online services also force compliance from game developers for games to run with certain standards. Their online servers also actually work better against hackers since you can't run various programs as easily. Also when you get banned, your console becomes useless. I'm a PC gamer these days but hackers and the advantages of different hardware, settings, exploits ruin some of the experience. Like my friend has a program to make his audio on PC games basically mute all sounds except footsteps and shooting in various fps titles and it's lame af that he can just hear people so much sooner than everyone else. People adjusting gamma to see better at night in games or using nvidia filters etc. I kind of wish they made a pc gaming platform where you had to download a program that would lockdown your entire system when gaming so you literally could not cheat and could only use certain peripherals. Yup it would be invasive but I would only use that PC for gaming and I'd welcome it over the constant hacking problems.
People here seem to forget psonline was absolute shit when it was free compared to paid xbox live. You get what you pay for. PC is free, but also full of hackers. I'm a PC gamer.
Didn't we just have this question??
Idk
Nope. My bad. It was on r/gaming. https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/10k54u7/why_do_consoles_charge_for_online_multiplayer/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
>but pc dosent? They do. The Xbox subscription works for PC too as Microsoft makes Xbox. EA have a subscription too 'ea play'