Well let's see:
- Free online
- Modding
- Use whatever controller you want
- Portability through the Steam Deck or Steam Link on your phone
- Higher framerates as 30 FPS is rearing it's ugly head again
- Cheaper game prices
- Don't have to buy two separate boxes for Playstation and Xbox games
- And of course...well...pic related:
I mean you don't have to buy a 4090 (nor should you that card is overkill and it's power supply requirements are absurd. It's so massive it needs railguards to keep it from falling off the motherboard.)
You can get a 3070 for $500, or a 3060 Ti for $450, or hell even a 3060 for $300 (which is what I have) and still get astounding performance compared to the new consoles. Or hell doesn't have to be Nvidia, can go AMD.
Bro you're capping. 6000 games are marked verified or playable on ProtonDB. That's not a subset that's half of the entire Steam database, and that number is mainly major titles that got tested. Many more titles that haven't been tested most likely work out of the box. SteamOS and Proton took away virtually all of the headache of trying to do Linux Gaming. It's easier than ever to switch to Linux thanks to the Steam Deck.
The markings on ProtonDB have been proven many times to be often optimistic at best.
Often they’re rated, then an update breaks them but the ratings aren’t changed. Or they’re missing multiplayer features but are otherwise “playable”
Yes Steamdeck and Proton are amazing at what they do, but they’re still a long way away from where they need to be to be a comfortable experience switching over from windows.
Comparing desktop GPUs to consoles is meaningless. The numbers just don’t translate into real world.
While a 3060 may be more powerful by spec, it doesn’t benefit from the same level of optimisation that comes from the fixed hardware of consoles (it is this fixed hardware reason that previously allowed apple hardware to perform so favourably against more “powerful” and open hardware systems).
Yes PC gaming will always be the crop of outright performance, that can’t be argued. But for the cost of a console you won’t get near its performance with a PC for the same money. And for 90% of people console performance is more than adequate.
While people often trot out the “cheaper games” argument, that is usually only the case when buying comparable games long after release, or from key sites which are often supplied by theft. Even considering the price differences. Usually the price difference isn’t so great over the lifespan of the console to make up for the difference in hardware costs.
To comment on free online play, I’d say as a multi platform gamer, the experience of the paid online services are far better than the toxic cesspit that is online PC gaming.
While we’re talking about pros and cons, PC has more smurfs and far more cheaters than you’ll ever come across on console.
Edit:
The screenshot of Spider-Man comparisons is just bizarre as you’re comparing against much more expensive hardware. How about performance and visual comparison of Spider-Man running on PS5 vs a £400 brand new PC build?
