Except you definitely make up for it and probably pay more (depending on what hardware cost your comparing to of course) on the consoles. All three consoles have subscription-based services that are more or less required. Some of the controllers for the consoles are as much or more than a keyboard or mouse. You rarely see a price decline of any of the games (especially Nintendo), and certainly nothing as near as what you'll find on PC.

So consoles are a cheap upfront cost that's recouped overtime. I'm not saying that consoles are definitely more expensive, but the true cost of ownership is somewhat muddled.

[–] heavy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago

I don't really agree with that, at least outside of niche situations. The upfront cost on a PC today puts the cost for playing on consoles much cheaper up front such that it would take years to make up the difference, even if you were paying for Game Pass.

My point isn't some pedantry over PC vs Console and cost nit-picking. Its that consoles aren't a bad deal. It's OK for people to own and play games on a console, and they work well for a lot of people.

I've been putting together PCs for a while now and the idea that they're more affordable for playing games than on consoles is becoming more and more of a misnomer. You can thank the major part duopolies for that. I don't think console companies aren't greedy or somehow noble, but consoles are still fill a gap and enable people to play games.