With PS5 pre-orders live, is there any hope for PC enthusiasts?
Game consoles are enjoyed by hundreds of millions of players around the world (over 112 million units of PS4 were sold and it's not even in the top 3 of most popular consoles of all times).
And the popularity of consoles is not that surprising - you pay relatively low-cost upfront, and enjoy a guaranteed period of at least 7 years of peace of mind. All games work as intended, all accessories work as intended, you just sit back on a couch and enjoy the latest games.
Some people even argue that console gaming is cheaper than PC gaming. In the PS4 era that myth was debunked multiple times, and the internet is full of "console-killers" gaming desktops. However with the release of PS5 it seems to be coming back.
After all - you pay just 500€ and you get to enjoy all the latest games with stunning visuals in 8K resolution. No PC for 500€ could possibly hope to compete, right?
Well - not exactly. Just like 200€ Xbox One S (released back in 2016) despite having "4K" on the box, does not really render games in 4K, new generation consoles do not have nearly enough power to render video games in 8K.
Sony and Microsoft are not charities. Sure, they can sell consoles without making a profit (or even making a small loss - that would be made up by selling expensive accessories, subscriptions, and taking a 30% cut on every game sold on their platforms). But they were not selling components worth 2000€ for 200€ back in 2016, and they are not selling components worth 3000€ for 500€ in 2020.
Although preorders for PlayStation 5 are live, the consoles are not out yet and were not thoroughly tested. But we can reasonably estimate how powerful they are based on technical specifications "on paper", claims made by developers who had access to PS5 developer kits, and most importantly on how well the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo was running in a comparison between a gaming laptop and PlayStation 5.
So in order to easily match the PS5 level of performance we need a graphics card equivalent to RTX 2080 Mobile Max-Q (which is roughly on par with standard desktop RTX 2060) and an 8-core Zen 2 Ryzen processor clocked at up to 3.5 GHz.
Most blogs are probably waiting until late October for new RTX 3060 graphics cards (or new Radeon Big Navi graphics cards), and 4th generation Ryzen processors to come out, before they can make headlines with their "new generation console-killers".
And that would make sense - if you can wait a little longer until late October.
But if you need to make a purchase right now (a birthday, or any other occasion perhaps?), Is it possible to match PlayStation 5 specifications for roughly 500€?
As you can see it is perfectly possible to build a gaming desktop from new components that will be roughly on par with PlayStation 5. Desktop-grade factory-overclocked RTX 2060 combined with 2nd generation 6-core Ryzen 5 2600 clocked up to 3.9 GHz (and 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, and fast M.2 SSD) won't have any issues with running the latest games with acceptable settings for many years to come.
Consoles also have other problems - expensive games and accessories (PS5 gamepads cost 69.99€ and announced PS5 games will cost 79.99€ on release), mandatory €59.99 per year PlayStation Plus subscription (you can theoretically play offline games without the subscription, but even many single-player titles require you to be "always online" and therefore require the subscription) and costly repairs (that is if repairs will be possible at all - perhaps within warranty period they will simply replace your unit and after that - you will be out of luck; while with desktops if something breaks you can just replace one broken component).
Gaming on a couch if fun and hassle-free. But it never was (and probably never will be) cheaper than gaming on budget-oriented desktops.