Sadly, you and I are not representative of the whole market.

Also, many kids today go to school with chromebooks because that's what teachers use to taught them. So, telling the parents to buy a Windows based laptop for the kid so he/she can also use it to play isn't going to work.

I would never use the same computer for work and gameplay.

My gaming desktop is only used for gaming for an example, I dont even use the browser or use any other program aside from what I use for gaming related.

For me, PC is (well, was, before the GPU market nonsense) great value, because I can do so much with it. Gaming? Sure. Internet stuff? Sure. Dev stuff? Sure. Probably lots of other things as well.

If gaming wasn't, uh, appealing enough, e.g. because of (too) poor pricing, I'd probably do other stuff instead. I know there's things I'd like to do more of, but gaming often feels like a decent enough way to spend my free time. I'd probably do more reading and software dev stuff at least, and maybe in general spend more time learning new things. It's a good thing I have enough of an opportunity to learn things at my work as well, since we're constantly seeking to improve things. It's probably pretty normal in software development, at least to an extent, but I imagine other similar jobs would leave me doing more similar stuff every day. I guess one perk of working in a relatively small company is that things just keep evolving, especially as the company grows.

Well, I would hypothetically loose only 1/3rd of my gaming (not in gaming time though), since I'm TTRPG, boardgame and VG gamer, so other 2 would just fill that game time as well.

But honestly, who are we kidding - we all probably have backlogs that can serve us for he rest of our lives.

I would literally change schools if there was a mandate against having a Windows notebook which 99% of the business/professional world uses.
But I also wouldn't buy my kid a laptop that was more than $400 AUD, something like an Intel N200+8GB of Ram is more than sufficient for school based tasks, plus no reason to get upset if it gets broken or stolen. - Just replace it.

But you are right, we are the exception and not the rule.

Can't remember if I already posted this at some point in the past, but for those who retro game on PC AND like for their retro games look similar to how they used to look on CRTs, while playing them on modern displays, I've bumped into this nice program that acts as "glass" of a sort that can go over anything and apply shaders that emulate all sorts of things - ShaderGlass:

https://github.com/mausimus/ShaderGlass?tab=readme-ov-file

Lot of emulators have their own shaders for that, but nice thing about this it can go over everything (videos included), either as window you put over something, or you can tell it what window to use as input. There's a lot of shaders inside, emulating all sorts of things, CRTs, VHS, FXAA, with ability to import your own, as well as to tweak parameters.

Multiple life times :P

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 prices nearing official MSRP in Finland

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-prices-nearing-official-msrp-in-finland

Colorful launches trade-in for GeForce 16–40 series GPUs, offers up to $1,080 towards RTX 50 purchase

https://videocardz.com/newz/colorful-launches-trade-in-for-geforce-16-40-series-gpus-offers-up-to-1080-towards-rtx-50-purchase

XFX Radeon RX 9060 XT 16/8GB GPUs with 3.3 GHz clock listed by retailer, price starts at $449

https://videocardz.com/newz/xfx-radeon-rx-9060-xt-16-8gb-gpus-with-3-3-ghz-clock-listed-by-retailer-price-starts-at-449

Intel throwing out the Intel Arc Pro B60 with 24GB of VRAM. - Basically an ARC B580 but with double the amount of VRAM and a small increase in bandwidth, targeting professional users. - Interesting to see how it performs when VRAM limited (Which happens even with 12GB) when compared against the B580.
https://www.guru3d.com/story/intel-arc-pro-b60-24gb-battlemage-bmgg21-architecture/

The only thing that prevents me from going all in on Intel Graphics on my Desktop is *still* the terrible drivers, my work notebook has Intel Graphics and despite frequent updates, weird graphics rendering bugs are still present in many games. I.E. Red Sky in Crysis.

And how, the Friday gaming news:

SALES/PLAYER COUNTS & DEALS

The Humble Store has a new edition of its On Sale This Week Deals, with up to 98% discounts. The length of the deals vary greatly, from 5 to 52 and even 295 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/on-sale-now/.

Fanatical has a couple things:

• The BYO Bento Bundle (Spring 2025) is here with 19 titles to choose from for your bundles of 3+, 5+ or 7+ games during 34 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-bento-bundle
• Also, for Bundlefest, they’re doing a competition with a chance to win a bundle with 3 games for joining the newsletter. Learn more at the bundles page: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

The mod that aimed to recreate Counter-Strike 1.6 in CS:GO is now officially cancelled following 'abrupt actions by Valve that prevent us from releasing' the project
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/the-mod-that-aimed-to-recreate-counter-strike-1-6-in-cs-go-is-now-officially-cancelled-following-abrupt-actions-by-valve-that-prevent-us-from-releasing-the-project/
Despite a brief blip of hope that a way forward may be found, the ambitious Counter-Strike mod Classic Offensive has been officially cancelled.
"After eight years of development, and despite being officially Greenlit by Valve in 2017, we are devastated to announce the cancellation of Classic Offensive," the development team wrote in a message posted to Reddit. "This decision follows abrupt actions by Valve that prevent us from releasing or continuing development on the project."

Oblivion Remastered mod makes being a stealthy murder king easy, boosting your sneak attack damage modifiers from good to Grim Reaper
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/oblivion-remastered-mod-makes-being-a-stealthy-murder-king-easy-boosting-your-sneak-attack-damage-modifiers-from-good-to-grim-reaper/
If, like me, you enjoy playing stealthy characters in fantasy RPGs, then a new mod that boosts sneak attack damage multipliers in Oblivion Remastered is well worth checking out.
As standard in Oblivion Remastered, almost all weapon types deal the same sneak attack multipliers, which are x2 at Novice, before climbing (and crucially stalling) at x3 for Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert and Master. The remaster has some more notable damage boosts for daggers (in a change over original Oblivion), but it's just not the same and still lacks role-playing-friendly progression.
Now don't get me wrong, landing a x2 or x3 sneak attack from stealth does do a good chunk of damage to a foe. What it often doesn't do, however, is one-shot tougher opponents (especially at higher levels of the game), which can feel a bit cheap when you shoot them directly in the eye with an arrow or bring a claymore down upon their neck from the shadows. Like, nobody, survives that, right?
Luckily, though, the 'Increased sneak attack damage multiplier' mod by Ismttt moves to address that, making sneak attack damage multipliers more potent at higher levels of stealth mastery with an improving linear progression.
So now, for example, striking a foe with a bow unseen will deal x2 damage multiplier at Novice level, but then climb to x3 at Apprentice, x4 at Journeyman, x5 at Expert, and x6 at Master level. The better you get at stealthily striking from the shadows with your weapons, the more damage you will deal, unlike the base game where that stalls.
>> The article has one screenshot of the mod.

GAMING NEWS

Mafia: The Old Country has Denuvo, PC requirements revealed
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/mafia-the-old-country-has-denuvo-pc-requirements-revealed/
2K Games revealed that Mafia: The Old Country will use the Denuvo anti-tamper tech. Moreover, the publisher shared the game’s official PC requirements, and confirmed its rumored August 8th release date. So, let’s see what PC system you’ll need to run it.

Alien: Rogue Incursion Evolved Edition is coming to Steam on September 30th for non-VR gamers
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/alien-rogue-incursion-evolved-edition-is-coming-to-steam-on-september-30th-for-non-vr-gamers/
Remember the VR Alien game, Alien Rogue Incursion? Well, Survios has decided to do what Valve did not do with Half-Life: Alyx, and release a non-VR version of it.