That's great lol. So stick to being a PC gamer and stop whining about a pro version of a console no one is forcing you to buy but millions of others will. 

It’s not really a question of being ‘able to afford it’, but more a question of ‘is it worth the price’.

Drivers also get updated on console, it's just conveniently rolled into the firmware updates. But they happen.
...But on PC drivers can get updated automagically via your normal Windows update if you don't wish to do it manually.

...But a quick check and I am still running with Radeon drivers from February this year. (24.2.1)
...So I still don't get where the maintenance thing comes into it, my system plays the latest games fine.

Every discussion you make in life is surrounded by opinion.
Merely stating "I think it is wrong to push my opinion on others" is literally an opinion being pushed on others.

There are plenty of shit ports on consoles, there are many instances where games on console were simply unplayable on release.

Let's take Pokemon Violet and Scarlett, those games still suffer from poor frame pacing, poor frame rates and other issues... It's been how many years now?
It was also an exclusive high profile release. On PC you can just throw more hardware at the problem.

I could also mention the Master Chief Collection as another technical showstopper... Let's not forget Assassins Creed Unity, Arkham Knight, Mass Effect Andromeda...

Or maybe something like the Chrono Cross Remaster which performs so badly on PS5, it is actually inferior to the PS1 version?

Bad ports are not PC exclusive or a PC issue, it's a developer issue.

Don't get me wrong, I'll definitely get the PS5 Pro, just like I got the Xbox One X and the Playstation 4 Pro, because I am a hoarder of physical console games... But I am not going to fight over the limited launch quantities like I did with the One X/PS4 Pro.

But there is no denying how convenient it is to have a PC with a full digital library verses having to get up and change discs out on console... Plus still requiring 32 terabytes of hard drive space to keep everything installed and updated on my Series X even though my library is entirely physical.

The "Fortnite Diehards" are also likely the last holdouts from the 8th gen with that gamerbase holding onto the PS4 and Xbox One version due to being able to run the game perfectly fine.
Microsoft and Sony and even Nintendo need to convince those gamers to upgrade, which they haven't been successful to do yet.

You can argue all you want, but you are wrong.

Palworld absolutely would not run on my PC until I found the correct driver.  This does not happen on consoles.  Console owners don't have to roll back drivers 

Hogwarts was 100% unplayable, crashing every 5 minutes with complete rebuild of shaders.  This doesn't happen on consoles, especially huge massive releases.  Bad port is not equivalent to unplayable.  Hogwarts was 100% unplayable and it was well documented.

I prefer PC over console and I will not be returning to consoles.  But claiming there isn't additional maintenance on PC is flatly wrong.  

Edit

Also had to flash the bios to prevent cpu damage.  PC, imo, is superior.  But has additional maintenance.

Now I don't play a lot of recent games, but I don't recall any extra maintenance I didn't opt in to (assuming I could automate graphics driver updates). And when there's updates, they generally bother me very little, unlike on consoles, where it's always in the face when I want to do something. For me personally, my recollection is that console maintenance (PS4 is still my most recent console, mind you) is more bothersome than PC maintenance. For all intents and purposes, if I wanted to game on PC and not do much else, PC would be almost zero maintenance for me and almost certainly better than on consoles. Maybe if I played recent games more, my experience would be different, but as someone getting most games maybe a few years late, PC gaming and PC in general is very easy and convenient.

Of course consoles have other convenience features as well that might make them more appealing than PC to some, but maintenance absolutely doesn't need to be a con for PC.

I pre-ordered the pro today, together with a disc drive. I'll trade in my launch PS5, which still gets good trade in value. (CAD 370 store credit, will be a bit less as the original controller has stick drift of course. That's the real scam, controllers. CAD 95 now...)

Not out of laziness, simply more convenient. Plus a new gaming laptop is at least twice the price and sucks to use on the TV. I'll keep my 1060 laptop for browsing and older games. Next one is gonna be Apple anyway, I'm so done with Windows. How many effing times do I have to decline Windows 11, it's asking (and pre-downloading shit) monthly now. And it's ready to install Win 11 again F off. And more updates for Windows 10 it didn't install, 5 updates behind again.

I have to run Throttlestop now to prevent overheating in sleep mode after a Windows update fucked that up. It still occasionally locks up but at least stays at max 60c when it happens. (Setting the screen off and sleep time to the same value has increased the chance of proper sleep mode without locking up to 90% but still happens) And that's after a clean windows re-install which was a pita, didn't solve it.

Maybe the lockups happen when it tries to update in/from sleep mode. Don't know, don't care anymore. I already spend way too much time trying to narrow down the problem. (Including 2 hours on tech chat support) Hmm it's not installing the updates, stuck on Installing 0%. 3 more pending install and one 100% downloading. F Windows.


In a nutshell, looking forward to whatever upgrades the PS5 Pro brings, the bigger SSD, the new car smell, fresh controller, and stuff to just work.

I've already outlined 3 real life examples of extra maintenance I've had to do with PC gaming, all within 12 months of moving to PC.  None of which I've had to do with consoles over 30 years.

For the BIOS flash, to prevent damage to my CPU, I has issues with my computer turning on for a few weeks.  The computer was on but no display.  I had to reset the BIOS back to factory default settings and retried the newest BIOS update.  

All this is documented, including Palworld drivers + Hogwarts crashing, in the PC thread....  because I needed help.  Never once had to seek help on getting a console game to run, despite owning over a dozen consoles spread across 30 years.  

PCs require more work and more knowledge than consoles.  That is just a fact.  I still find PC superior via better fidelity, performance, free online and cheaper games.

But the reality is PC isn't as simple as console, and many people here aren't acknowledging their baseline understanding of computers.  Well over half of the people I know don't even know what ram is... and you think they are going to roll back drivers, optimize settings, troubleshoot crashing and flash bios?  Nah.  

Just because computers are easy for some of us, doesn't mean it is easy for everyone.

I'm not arguing against your experience, I'm just saying it's not a universal experience with PC. "But claiming there isn't additional maintenance on PC is flatly wrong." is a fairly strong statement, which is probably true on average but not necessarily for every person.

I always found PCs worth the extra hassle (and there is still extra hassle with them compared to consoles, even with modern consoles that are not entirely hassle free). One of the reasons is exactly digital library that can span decades of titles (other, and for me the main one, are genres that are very scarce on consoles). True, if we take PS4 as a starting point, I'm guessing from that point in PS history all titles will (probably) be available to future PS consoles, with MS even doing much better job at backward compatibility.

Fair enough.  I suspect most have to deal issues from time to time, but perhaps some PC gamers don't happen into issues.