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Comment by ahelwer | Hacker News Reader

The 2008-2017 period was great for PC gaming. Now graphics cards alone cost as much or more than an entire console. The prices only seem to go up. Game streaming has the opportunity to dramatically decrease costs. I think it will work.

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You don't need to buy a high-end graphics card. Those are for hobbyists who enjoy buying the latest kit and fitting water coolers etc. for its own sake.

17" Dell with a GeForce mobile whatever-it-comes-with will let you play everything fine for 5ish years if you're into the latest shooters, longer for other genres.

Try to find any PC build that competes with modern console MSRP today. It can't be done, not even close. The equivalent gpu, the gtx 1070, goes used for $300. PC gaming fans are still living eight years in the past when the frugality argument was true. Time to update your beliefs.

Now compare it to the cost of a streaming box & subscription.

Having the latest graphics is probably a fairly niche interest I would think? Fairly exhausting to keep up with, and tends to be a bit cyclic: consoles are ahead for a few years, then behind, then jump ahead again.

I think for most people the decision on PC vs a particular console is:

* Which types of games tend to be available on that platform.

* Which specific games that they like are available on that platform.

* Inertial / brand loyalty based on what gaming machine they had on the past.

* If they play multiplayer, what their friends have.

* How much they like tinkering with / get frustrated fighting against computers.

Try to find any PC build that competes with modern console MSRP today.

If you're willing to build your own and buy second hand components on ebay you can just about put together a PC that is competitive with a modern console, at around the same price. But yea, if you're buying new from reputable dealers it's pretty much impossible.

I don't think you can. The 1070 is $300 used. That gives you $200 to fit in a case, fans, PSU, SSD, motherboard, RAM, and CPU. No way. A comparable CPU would cost at least $100 used by itself.

Graphics cards have ranged across the price spectrum for the past 20 years. The first GeForce "Titan" card was $1000 and came out right in the middle of that time range (2013). I'm not sure what PC market you were watching for the past 20 years, but it's not the one I remember.

Titan was the most premium card available and probably not representative of a typical build.

Sure, but it also remains the defining example of "ludicrously expensive graphics card". The card below it, the GTX 780, was $650, which is still more expensive than any current generation consoles. Meanwhile the current top and 2nd tier GeForce cards (3090 and 3080) have MSRPs of $1500 and $700, which are more expensive, but not outrageously so. I just don't think it's accurate to paint a picture of the market from 2008-2017 as affordable in contrast with the current expensive market.

In 2013 you could drop to the mid-tier GTX 770 for $399 and get more performance either Xbox one or PS4.

I don't think you are wrong, just more lenient in your definition of affordable. It is compounded by the supply constraints, and markups over retail we are currently seeing. I can buy a 3090 right now on amazon, but it is $2,450, 5x the console price. Titan was ~2x console price.

Titan MSRP is $1,499; unfortunately the only units for sale on Amazon are from scalpers.

MSRP doesn't matter anymore. These cards are so difficult to get that they basically go used for MSRP, and on the secondary market for nearly a multiple of MSRP.

As are the modern cards that cost $1000. You can spend significantly less that that and still play all the modern titles at high settings and 1080p60fps easily. (Or 4k if you're willing to make the same compromises on framerate that consoles do)

The minimum card you need to play current games on 1080p/60fps/high settings is about a GTX 1070, a four-year-old card which goes for $300 used. Remember we're comparing this to the cost of using a game streaming service.

Obviously at least over the short term the streaming service ends up cheaper (although with stadia charging for games it depends on how many you buy and how much more they are there than on steam, especially with sales). I was just calling out the implication that the standard price for a GPU that runs modern titles well was more than a current gen console, it's not.

(Amusingly I'm running the exact card you mentioned, and I did buy it for about $450 NZD used, although the going rate is more like $350 now on the local used market).

I already have friends for whom it’s cheaper to own a computer and use streaming systems (Shadow?) than it is to own a single Gaming PC.

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