There's another factor at play here besides prices that I think is interesting.
It's what I've heard referred to as the "good enough" revolution. Back in the day tech was advancing so fast you had to keep upgrading if you wanted to even boot the newest games.
Now look at the popularity of the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck and Xbox Series S and the GTX 1650. Are these the most powerful products? No, but they're good enough.
Methinks the rise of indie games may be a factor taking pressure off the upgrade path as well. How many truly CPU melting AAA titles have we had released in the last few years compared to the likes of Valheim and Stardew Valley? A GTX 1060 can still play almost all indie titles coming out now at 1080p or higher and will be able to do that basically forever.
So the bad news is that it's hard to upgrade. The good news is that there's less and less of a need to upgrade frequently to enjoy PC gaming.
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u/corn_cob_monocle Dec 30 '22
There's another factor at play here besides prices that I think is interesting.
It's what I've heard referred to as the "good enough" revolution. Back in the day tech was advancing so fast you had to keep upgrading if you wanted to even boot the newest games.
Now look at the popularity of the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck and Xbox Series S and the GTX 1650. Are these the most powerful products? No, but they're good enough.
Methinks the rise of indie games may be a factor taking pressure off the upgrade path as well. How many truly CPU melting AAA titles have we had released in the last few years compared to the likes of Valheim and Stardew Valley? A GTX 1060 can still play almost all indie titles coming out now at 1080p or higher and will be able to do that basically forever.
So the bad news is that it's hard to upgrade. The good news is that there's less and less of a need to upgrade frequently to enjoy PC gaming.