USD “per year” prices:
The Essential plan is increasing from $60 to $80.
Extra increasing from $100 to $135.
Premium increasing from $120 to $160.
USD “per year” prices:
The Essential plan is increasing from $60 to $80.
Extra increasing from $100 to $135.
Premium increasing from $120 to $160.
I skipped the PS4 gen to take a break and focus on other aspects of my life that needed attention, but was surprised at prices when I jumped back in. With how expensive gaming has gotten ($70 games, even more expensive consoles, required online payments to fully utilize systems/games, time investment to actually find a console before scalpers) I don’t know what my future in gaming looks like.
There are plenty of high quality indie games that don’t require the latest hardware and have no mtx. If you want to move away from consoles, you could even look at something like a Steam Deck or similar for a pre-configured ready to go system.
These days I primarily play games that are Nintendo IP (Nintendo’s couch co-op output is unrivaled and my partner and I play Nintendo games together often) or Sony exclusives (quality output is top-notch). I on-and-off look at Steam and have never been overwhelmingly impressed by the catalog of indie devs and am generally turned off by the over-saturation of lower-end pixel art prevalent in many indie titles. Sure, every so often something like Celeste or Hades comes along, but it’s somewhat rare for me to be taken by indie games. An immediate example of an indie game I’m playing with a friend right now, Children of Morta, the pixel art design makes it incredibly hard to see what is going on.
I’m also not willing to shell out $1000+ for a PC and accessories that I don’t want nor do I have space for that. The Steam Deck has my attention, but the screen is too low quality for me to pay that much for it - I already lived through that with the Switch. I barely played the Switch handheld and only traveled with it twice. If the Steam Deck has a V2 with a better screen, I’d consider it, but I’d still rather have a tv connected setup as those are way more comfortable to play than a handheld.
Everyone’s got preferences and mine are Sony/Nintendo consoles, a preference I’ve come to over many years and attempts at other things. It just sucks that shit has gotten so expensive again.
There are options for handheld gaming PCs with better screens, but they’ll come at a higher price and with worse battery life.
Are there recommended ones? Steam Deck gets a lot of the spotlight and it’s hard to trust many of the “review” sites anymore, especially with so many sites abusing SEO.