Save your money, buy a Steam Deck or a desktop PC, play games online with the internet service that you already pay a shit ton of money for, and don't look back. It's really stupid that we allowed game consoles to charge us to play online.
Gaming
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Steam deck is a great way to get into PC gaming if you don't have a lot of money or a PC. It can run a lot of games. Enough that you won't get bored any time soon.
Yeah, if you can, get a PC, they might cost more initially but they pay for themselves in the long run. No reason to own a console.
I bet Steam machines would do better if they were released now.
I'm not a console owner, are PlayStation owners really giving Sony $60 a year to play online multiplayer? It shouldn't cost anything in the first place. If Valve or GoG or anyone else started trying to tell me I had to pay them extra to send certain packets through my router, I'd have a good laugh.
I’m not a console owner, are PlayStation owners really giving Sony $60 a year to play online multiplayer?
It all started with the Xbox, since people did not questioned it and received it with open arms the others (Sony and Nintendo) just copied it. It's just matter of time we end up paying on PC too
PC gaming is actually a competitive market that would still give players options to escape that (Gog, steam, Epic, itch and humble dumble, hell even Microsoft store and company launchers), it is not guaranteed to never happen because cartels happen, but it is far more hard and improbable than consoles, which are locked-down computers with unbreakable monopolies installed in then, at the mercy of the feudal lord of choice. PS: not to mention, Piracy, emulators and Libre games on linux.
It used to be charging you to send packets through servers that they (in this case, Sony) own, but now that may or may not be the predominant use case in this era of games as a service where the developer needs to run the game through their own servers anyway. The reason Valve, Epic, and CD Projekt don't charge you for it is because you're paying for it every time you buy a game through their stores, which also used to be a less prominent situation on consoles, but now well more than half of games are bought digitally on consoles as well. So PC has taken more and more market share while consoles continue upping the price of their mandatory subscription fees for online play, and one day they'll sit there scratching their heads, wondering where all of their customers went.
While this is true, it does at least provide access to a large library of games 🤷♂️ im certainly not thrilled about the increase but when your primary game platform is ps5, what can you do
I never did. I only got a PS4 for single player exclusives back in the day. Refused to pay for online access and had no interest in paying a monthly fee for rentals when I already had a backlog. And had my PC for everything else.
The higher upfront hardware costs of a decent PC become more worth it every day. Screw Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.
And it's capable of productivity with free tools like blender, visual studio code, and da vinci resolve. So that extra hardware can be used beyond just gaming.
I view my pc as a hobbyist's tool, instead of solely a gaming device. It has helped me learn many things outside of gaming, all the information it can get me and all the things i can do on it are frankly overwhelming.
Totally worth what I paid for this pc, 100%.
Let's not forget to mention the Steam Deck's low price for pretty great PC gaming. Even more so for the refurbished entry models which are nearly the same price as the last GPU I recommended to someone (secondhand 6700 XT). I've been surprised how good of an experience I've had with Baldur's Gate 3 on the Deck.
Well goodbye PS plus it was nice while it lasted. Jesus Christ why does every fucking service have to enshitify? Why goddamnit?!
I know it's become a meme, but because capitalism. I'm surprised gamers more gamers aren't against it because it only ever makes our favorite hobby so much worse.
I stopped being amazed when console gamers argued on behalf of a billion dollar corporation for why online multiplayer had to be paid.
I've got premium till May next year, always buy on Black Friday sales, cancelled my renewal, I can't justify that price. Hopefully everyone cancels their renewal, they get the message and undo the damage.
Yeah I'm not going to pay any more than what I already pay for PS+ just to help people on Elden Ring. I don't play any of the shit they give you on PS+ anyway so I'm out.
Does Sony really think they can charge more than fucking Game Pass???
Are they still going to auto renew this shit even though they massively increased the price? That should be illegal. I would have never seen the increase until after it was billed if not for this post.
Do you guys remember when prices used to go up like 3-5%? I guess corporations started taking notes from the fricken DMV.
If you guys ever wonder why a seemingly modern computer goes for half of what a normal PC costs, this is why. They'll milk you dry with subscriptions like this
Well, that's another reason to consider completely switching over to gaming on PC. The free games are nice, but the quality always varies month to month and I really have to wonder if it's worth it to stay subscribed.
considering that Sony doesn’t offer PS+ Day 1 Launches, unlike Xbox
They don't offer them as often as on Game Pass, but there are some day 1 launches on Extra.
As with most subscription models, the value proposition will probably decrease as we move forward (one only has to glance at streaming services to see what awaits us in the gaming space imo...). Bummer, but expected.
I share your sentiment. I previously owned an Xbox 360 but had been in the Sony camp for the past decade. For a few months I had a gamepass subscription without an Xbox console and I'm currently a PS+ premium member. The fact that you get day 1 access to first-party titles from Microsoft AND they have a gamepass streaming app on Android and PC is huge. I may have to reconsider the value proposition of my Sony services.
Whelp, I was keeping the sub purely because the games they give you monthly and so my ex could still play online, but nvm. Gonna cancel because it's not worth the cost. The games they give out monthly are usually mid and the online services haven't improved since the PS3 days when it was free.
Still don't have a PS5, and definitely not getting one now. Fuck off, Sony.
By comparison Nintendo charges 24.99 a year (In Canada) Its a much simpler service but you also get access to some of their old catalogue online.
Or even cheaper just use Steam.
Yup just cancelled my subscription, once i followed the link to confirm from Playstation not heresy. And yeah what a way to announce it, douches.
I'm a long time Playstation fan, had every system.
sigh
looks up from her PC Gaming Rig You guys are paying for online plah?
Yeah, i'm gonna axe my PS Plus account. It ain't worth it. PS5 has no games.
Ah yes sell these consoles at discount in one month raise the subscription plans next month. Win-win
Thanks for the info. Canceled today.
Jesus I'm so glad I haven't bought a console since the N64. Console players just get non-stop reamed.
This price hike is absurd - fortunately the only game I play online (Warframe) is implementing cross-save soon, so I'll be able to move away from Playstation and stop renewing Plus - 80 dollars for online pay and cloud saves is robbery, how greedy can you get?!
I don't think you have to pay for plus for warframe. I used to play in PlayStation and I haven't had plus since I got 3 free months with my PlayStation
Even better - I can just let it lapse then and still play using my preferred controller - thanks for letting me know!
PSA: You can use literally any controller you want on PC.
Wait, console players still have to pay to play online? Wtf? How have people kept purchasing these things?
Ah yes, another very "for the players"-move indeed
The columns were out of alignment for me, so I thought I'd display it as a table:
Tier | Original Pricing | New Pricing |
---|---|---|
PS Plus Essential | £49.99 / $59.99 | £59.99 / $79.99 |
PS Plus Extra | £83.99 / $99.99 | £99.99 / $134.99 |
PS Plus Premium | £99.99 / $119.99 | £119.99 / $159.99 |
There was a promo where all PlayStation Now subscription gets converted 1:1 with PS Plus Premium before Plus launched. Found some cheap Now gift cards online and stocked up until 2029. Suddenly that's feeling like a much better deal.
I used to own both a Series X, PS5 and have my gaming PC (all in the same room - desktop currently has an i5 13500, RTX 3090 24GB, 4TB of NVME storage & 128GB ram)
Got myself a 5m hdmi lead capable of driving my 4k/120 TV and just ended up using my pc for everything now.
I just switch sources between my monitor and tv when I want to game on the couch. Any mouse/keyboard input needed, I do it on the Unified remote app on my phone and fire up Steam big picture on the tv.
Sold the PS5 and XBOX and ditched two more subscriptions hitting me every month.
No regrets so far.