Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Gamers are FURIOUS. I can fix it!”.
Gaming is getting out of control. For a long time. It has been a very straightforward process.. Some new shiny piece of gaming hardware comes out., It’s twice as fast as last.
Generation., Maybe cost a few dollars more, but you can reliably assume that it’s gon na become cheaper and cheaper throughout the life cycle. And the next version is gon na come out. It’S gon na be even better., And that just keeps rinsing and repeating forever.. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening, anymore. Now it’s easy to point at some of the more egregious examples. They’re, just super obvious right, Like Sony, raising the price of the PS5. Look at the Meta Quest 2, what a year or two after it comes out getting a hundred dollar price increase right, Like that’s weird., That’s obvious.! You can see that., But I think the more insidious thing is what’s happening under our very noses.. So, let’s talk PCs for a minute.. Obviously I have quite the history of building gaming, PCs and when I was really in my sort of prime PC building days in 2013, 2014 2015. It was easy to build a cheap gaming pc.. You could spend 100 $ 200 on a graphics card. It would be completely fine..
Those days have been crushed into the ground, not only by the wave of chip, shortages and crypto mining, but also just in the simple fact that these things have gotten wildly more expensive. Just at MSRP. When you’re talking about $ 1,600 for an RTX 4090, that is outrageous, and that is absurd., But you know what That makes everything else. Look normal in comparison. Think about the new Radeon 7900 XTX..
This is a card that delivers really solid performance and it does it at hundreds of dollars less than the competition.. How much does this cost $ 1,000.? Now in a vacuum? That’S crazy town that you’re spending $ 1,000 for an upper mid-range, graphics. Card.. I mean it’s good, but it’s not the best., But when you look at it compared to a $ 1,600 card seems reasonable right, You’re saving money, but it’s all because you’ve changed the perspective.. I feel like I’m getting my crazy hands.
On. You’re changing this perspective of what you think is normal and reasonable.. It’S so easy to think that “, Oh, this, doesn’t affect me.. This is not my problem., I’m just gon na buy a mid-range graphics, card. Or I’m just gon na buy a console or I’m gon na play cloud gaming.”. Actually, if you play cloud gaming, it doesn’t really affect you., But if you’re literally any other kind of gamer, this does affect you. And I think it’s one of those things where it’s insidious, because you don’t really realize it..
It’S like the frog who gets slowly boiled as you turn up the heat on the water and you’re like “. This is fine. It’s kind of hot.
In here. I didn’t notice it.”, Oh a hundred dollars more for my PlayStation 5 is normal. This kind of stuff isn’t the way that tech has traditionally worked..
In the past, the calculus was very simple.. Something would come out. It would become better, cheaper and faster over time., But now what we’re seeing is to hit meaningful performance improvements. You are not just spending another 50 bucks or 100 bucks, you’re spending, hundreds of dollars and even then you’re, not necessarily getting those huge leaps that we’ve expected in the past. [ Matt ]. Are you boiling frogs alive? I don’t boil frogs, but I’ll tell you that if you jump into boiling water you’ll notice it., But if you’re sitting in the hot tub and the heat is slowly being cranked up, you’re gon na find like “.
Oh, this is comfortable.. Oh, this is nice.. Is someone peeing in the water? Oh, it’s getting really warm.” And then you’re like boiled alive cuz, you didn’t realize it., That’s you gamers., It’s time to rise up.. Why is this happening? Well, as with pretty much everything in the world? There’S not a super simple! Straightforward answer, but there are a few key things that are pushing things in my opinion, very much in the wrong direction..
First and the most obvious is inflation supply chain., The stuff that is basically affecting the entire world. Over the last few years. I mean there’s a simple fact that a dollar don’t stretch as far as it used to, but on top of that, you got ta. Consider that if you’re manufacturing products you’ve got ta, make sure that people can actually make them., Then they can put them together.
They can ship them.. All of those costs have risen quite a lot, which does explain things like the PS5 and the Quest costing more right. It simply costs more to make these things than it did two three years ago. Then there’s the simple fact that it is incredibly complicated and expensive to develop games right, I mean just how it gets harder and harder to develop chips that are more and more powerful..
So too does it become more and more difficult and expensive to develop a game which is incredibly well supported. Has amazing, graphics. That’S super well battle, tested., All this stuff costs money.. So what can we actually do about this? Well, the good thing is, there are still good deals and smart decisions.
You can make to become a well-rounded gamer and enjoy titles and enjoy the latest and greatest for years to come.. Now the first and most obvious will be, of course, build a pc.. That’S the smart move all the time right, While at the moment, I’m pretty concerned about what this next generation of graphics cards are gon na cost. But you could still build a PC that will give you years of enjoyment fairly. Straightforward.
Makes sense right Or maybe we could buy ourselves a console.. You could get yourself a PS5 for a little more than it used to and it does the same thing and there’s probably gon na be a PS5 Slim coming, but that’s an option right now.. I think what might make a little bit more sense to look at the Xbox side of things, because the prices a have stayed the same on the Series X and it is fairly readily available.
Or you can look at the Series S which has actually seen a Price cut., But if you’re thinking about oh, I want to get into gaming, I wan na make sure that I’m buying a piece of hardware that is going to last for years in the future.. The Series S for 250 bucks is a very reasonable bet, or you can get a little bit more spicy.. There’S this little thing called the Steam Deck, which has very much been a success when you look at this year as far as gaming hardware., This is a fully self-contained unit. You don’t have to buy an extra TV or controllers or anything like that..
That’S actually a very, very respectable choice, and I think it’s a big reason why the Steam Deck has seen the success that it has is because for 400 bucks you really can’t beat it when it comes to performance. The problem, though, on top of just the fact That – and this is much more of a personal take, so you know don’t get upset but that Steam Deck’s too big just to be real. The Steam Deck is way too big..
Now I get that it’s relatively comfortable. It’S got lots of controls, there’s a lot of good things with the Steam Deck., I’m not saying anything about that., But for me the Steam Deck while is a very respectable option.. I don’t necessarily feel great about it for the long term which leads me to, and I cannot believe I’m about to say this – the solution to all of our problems., The one piece of gaming hardware that is very low on compromise that has stayed incredibly cheap, cheaper Than anything else, I’ve mentioned today., And that has a massive game library that continues to grow every single day., The solution, my friends, the Switch Lite. Yeah. You heard me right.
The best new piece of gaming hardware. You can get your hands on right. Now is a three-year-old $ 200 basic version of the Nintendo Switch., So that might be a little bit of a hot take but hear me out here cuz. I actually think that there are some real merits to the Switch Lite., First and foremost being the price.
$ 200 is a price that you just simply cannot get anything else. For. I mean the Series: S is the closest like $ 250, although it is on a temporary sale, but for 250 bucks you still need the TV.
You still need extra stuff. You may need extra memory cards, whatever the case is. The Switch Lite you can buy.
It and be completely happy standalone or spend $ 20 and throw a microSD card in., And while the Series S does play pretty much all Xbox games, you are playing it in a little bit more of a limited capacity. And yes, absolutely the biggest downside of the Switch Lite is the fact that you cannot play it in dock mode, like you can, with a traditional Switch. And depending on who you are. That may or may not be a big problem. For me as someone who very much games on portable devices and almost never needs to dock. That is actually not only not a huge downside..
There are actually some upsides to choosing the Switch Lite hardware over the traditional Switch.. First and foremost for me is size.. Now I get it you’re listening to a guy who’s, a little bit weird, who likes holding flippy phones and small devices and other things in my hands.. But the thing with the Switch Lite is that it is the smallest device on this entire list..
It is the cheapest and I think it’s actually the best version of the Switch., My daily console. The thing that I play most often is my Switch Lite, which again is three years old at this point.. You know what’s really funny about this. Is that the reason the Switch Lite is the deal that it is is because Nintendo are doing their completely own thing., The spec of the Switch Lite yeah, that’s running a 2015 mobile Nvidia, processor., Yeah, sure they’ve updated it it’s a little bit more efficient and whatnot, But the performance level of this is not high., And yet what Nintendo have done is they have an absolutely enormous library of terrific games which have been incredibly well optimized for the hardware. And while the Switch is not powerful by any stretch of the imagination, it is Good enough to play a surprisingly wide variety of games, including some fairly new AAA stuff. Now for downsides, it is not fully compatible with all Switch games.. There are a few titles that really do require Joy-Cons, which means that, while they will technically work on the Switch Lite, you’ll need to actually buy an extra set of Joy-Cons or sometimes like a Pro Controller and obviously games that are more multiplayer in nature.. You’Re.
Probably not gon na do an eight-person Smash Tournament on your Switch Lite.. Well, if you do props my friend., That’s pretty impressive., But to me the smaller size is a big win.. Also there’s smaller things like just. I don’t like using a Switch with the Joy-Cons attached. To me that sort of it feels creaky. It feels like a little bit of that flex., Whereas the Switch Lite is a single-piece unit. That is all fully contained., And on top of that that smaller screen, I think, actually pays dividends when it comes to playing a lot of mobile games because yeah you can plug in your Switch OLED to the TV and look at 480p blown up on a 4K Tv., Oh boy, that’s a great experience.
Or I can play on a small 5.5 inch, 720p screen, which is way way more forgiving on some of the shall we say, potato-like, graphics, that you can sometimes run it into on the Switch.. I’M way way more. Okay with that on the smaller display., I’m not saying that the Switch Lite is the console for everybody, obviously not right, But I think a lot of people have completely been sleeping on the Switch Lite when, in fact, I think it is a terrific value. Proposition. And honestly, it might be the best Switch you can buy right now, especially if you have an older Switch right.
I think a lot of people have like maybe a 2017 model of the Switch, the battery’s starting to die.. You could always leave that thing on the dock or whatever., But as far as the actual portable console to carry with you every day, the Switch Lite is way smaller than the Switch or the Steam Deck has better battery life than the Steam Deck. And, in my Opinion, it is just a nicer overall piece of hardware., I know that’s a little controversial cause, it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles and stuff.
But for me I like the small size and I like the fact that it doesn’t get loud and hot in my hand.. It’S just I’m telling you I’m getting fired up right, now., But the Switch Lite is such a good device and to see gaming evolving at the pace that it’s at prices, ballooning to astronomical figures left right and center. And yet you got this little Switch Lite that no one pays attention to which I think is absolutely one of the uncovered gems.
I almost said uncut gems, that’s not quite right, one of the uncovered gems of the gaming space.. Look I get that my bias is showing cuz, I’m perfectly happy to play my Pokemon games on my Switch Lite in portable mode forever. Right, Like that’s, not everyone., I fully understand that., But if you look at the overall state of gaming right now, it is both vibrant and has massive storm clouds on the horizon, because the games that we are seeing right now are amazing. The art that developers are Crafting is truly something that we have never seen. And I think we’re gon na look back on these years as some of the best for gaming ever.. But on the flip side, the costs associated with some of this stuff, not only from the gaming perspective, but also the hardware that companies are trying to develop to keep on the cutting edge, is quickly getting out of control..
And I don’t think, there’s a good answer here. Right I mean you could take the Nintendo approach of. We don’t need that latest and greatest hardware, all the time..
Maybe we take our foot off the gas a little bit focus on trying to deliver something which is actually affordable right, That’s a reasonable solution, but it doesn’t push the industry forward. And the traditional stuff that has pushed the industry forward has gotten so bananas, so disconnected From reality that I really wonder where it lands. Like are we all just gon na accept $ 1,000 graphics cards? Are we all just gon na accept that consoles are gon na be 7- 8- $ 900? Maybe or maybe we all buy ourselves, a Series S, a Steam Deck or a Switch Lite, and we live our happy little lives, not knowing the true potential of piles of money and effortless resources. .