[jwells89]

Even with all the improvements in the last couple of decades, PC gaming is a much more tinkery, finicky, and even error prone experience than console gaming is.

You’ve got to contend with the mess that is Windows (Linux is improving but is even more tinkery) and its idiosyncrasies, keeping drivers up to date in some cases and rolling them back in others depending on what the driver update improves/breaks. You’ve got to know what makes a gaming PC good so you don’t get ripped off with some giant overpriced ball of aggressively angled plastic and LEDs with terrible airflow. You’ve gotta know to wipe and reinstall clean Windows or at least how to remove bloatware. And if you really want to get the most out of the experience, you need to know how to build a PC and how to set up RAM speeds in BIOS and all that. And even after all that, there’s a decent chance you’ll come home from work hoping to fire up your favorite game only to find that some combination of factors has broken it, leaving you SOL until the game gets another update or you dive under the hood to fix it yourself.

Meanwhile with e.g. a PS5 you just buy it, put it on your TV stand, plug it in, and boot it up. Boom, it’s running your games optimally, no knowledge or tinkering required. It doesn’t randomly break, it reliably just works.

I have a custom gaming tower and it’s nice to have but damn if it isn’t a pain in the rear from time to time. I can absolutely see the appeal in something more plug and play even at the cost of some performance.