sc94597 said:
Upper mid-tier (RTX XX60ti - XX70) PCs are probably going to be comparable to the PS6 when it releases, especially if it is delayed. An upper mid-tier PC has cost about $1000 - $1300 since 2020. The price of individual components have shifted (in 2020 there was a GPU crisis; in 2026 it's a ram crisis), but the overall price of such systems have been mostly stable. I bought an RTX 3060ti pre-build PC in 2021 (pre-build because of the GPU shortage) for $1200 and that was in the middle of the GPU crisis induced by GPU crypto-mining. RTX 3060ti's hit about $600 then, separately. Similarly, you can get RTX 5060ti prebuilds for that same price today. A PS5 cost $500 then. A PS6 at a hypothetical $700 is a lot closer to the $1000 - $1300 upper-mid range PC, price-wise, than the PS5 was in 2021. So it doesn't sound unreasonable for a $1000-$1300 RTX 6060ti PC to start cutting into a $700 - $800 PS6's sales. The ram price increases for PC's have mostly been counteracted by the fact that CPUs are a lot cheaper-per-performance than they have been historically. Both Intel and AMD have great mid-tier CPUs, especially when talking about gaming in the $200 - $300 range. GPU's are also a lot lower than they were 5 years ago, even if not as low as they were 15-20 years ago. |
2027/2028 upper-mid tier PC's >>>> current low-mid tier PC's. PS6 will probably trade blows with a 5080 and beat it overall outside rasterization. When I hear "Lower-Mid tier PC" I think Series S to PS5. Not PS6 lol.
And I think your take is too optimistic. PC GPU prices will likely skyrocket by 2028. I also think Sony might launch an entry level PS6 (more comparable to PS5) as a cheap "PS6 Handheld" variant, but without the battery or screen (like the Vita TV). So their entry point will be a lot lower than $800, but of course with a fraction of the capability.
PC is definitely a threat to Sony in the long run. But it's not going to kill the brand too soon (may not even be enough to stop Playstafion's generational revenue + profit growth) and I'm pretty sure the RAM situation will affect PC hardware sales a lot more than Playstation until RAM prices go down.
The power per dollar difference between PS5DE (at launch) and PC is probably never going to be repeated (PS5's only major flaw was a lack of ML based upscaling). But Sony couldn't capitalize on it (PS5DE was hardly available for two years), and the console's price kept increasing. Pretty sure I heard PC beat PS4 and Xbox One in power per dollar at some point in the generation, so PS5 was overall a win for consoles in this respect.
