Not sure what to tell you, but a Mac is the last platform to go to for gaming. Apple has zero interest in gaming and have made the platform virtually hostile to gaming development.
Steam regularly has sales (really good sales, like under $5) for fairly modern games (within the last 10 years).
Wait for a sale on something like an AMD Beelink and use that.
Like I replied to another comment, the Mac was necessary for work (art and music) and was light years ahead of anything else that can be obtained at its price point ($575).
I also switched my tower out for an M4 mini last year. It surprised me how much I fell in love with it and Mac OS. Retro game corps has a great emulation on Mac video, though I also ended up with a Beelink SER9 that I use exclusively for game streaming. I’m sure there is a substantial cost, but I wish more developers would release for Apple silicon. They’re truly excellent machines.
Because Sony and Microsoft make most of their money from other sources. That isn't to says their game studios aren't big, just that they don't make 90% of revenue.
But they have gaming divisions which are technically their own companies. This chart js definitely cherry-picking. I didn’t even mention that “gaming” is highly subjective already. There’s more than just MS & Sony missing from this chart.
I don’t know you, but I have more games in my library than gaming hours in a month. I haven’t touched anything released in the past three years, and mostly replay older games and emulators. The entire PS1 and PS2 library, as well as Nintendo 64, GBA, DS, etc… can be played on your fridge, and you can pirate those games for free, or buy their remasters (if they’s any) for cheap.
Steam Deck is the answer for now. You may still be able to get one of the discontinued LCD models on the cheap, but GamePass is now as expensive as buying a game every month, so it’s better to buy than subscribe. They also make excellent PCs and homelab devices. We bought several LCD versions for the lab instead of Pi 5s, because they are such a good deal.
Really interesting take, especially on the home lab front. I had honestly never considered a steam deck over a pi5, and I’m looking at also building a MESHnet system and stuff that I would need a Pi for.
Best advice I can give is to look at online auctions, estate sales, and check out to see if there are any Goodwill’s near you that specialize in electronics. You can run a lot of modern games on 10 to 5 year old hardware, probably won’t be the prettiest build but hey if it works. Also remember you can always tear open a modern laptop for that sweet sweet storage.
I remember that was the case for PS3 and BluRay, but not so much DVD and the PS2. PS3 was, what, $300? $400? Where as the cheapest BluRay player that just played BluRay movies was almost a grand.
I may just not remember it being similar for PS2. I was a sophmore in high school when it came out.
The PS3 was stupid expensive at launch, like $600 in 2006, nearly $1000 in 2026 dollars. But yeah I think that argument was made then also.
I think the PS2 was marketed specifically for DVD capabilities in some cases, I remember an IR dongle and remote control they sold so you didn’t have to use a controller.
It might be an option that doesn’t come up much, but older/lower-spec consoles are an option: The Playstation 4 and Xbox Series S. They’re not available for recent big AAA games, but that’s less and less of the big trends. There have still been many games coming out this year for the PS4.
That’s, of course, if you’re really on a low budget for hardware. Otherwise, a PC is a great investment for games on Steam sales.
I’d be interested to see how sales of the steam deck compare. Sure, it’s a pc not a console, but the whole thing is to bring pc gaming to console gamers so I’m interested in the comparison.
EDIT: based on a quick search, 4 million as of this time last year. I did not find anything more up to date than that. Looking that up made me realize that it would be nice if this chart had a date on it since two of the consoles in the chart are still in production.
You don’t NEED new stuff to play games. My computer is pushing 8 years old, I just upgrade the nvme or graphics card when needed. I got a refurb 3070 last year for $450 with warranty, can get one on Amazon now for under $300 without warranty. You don’t need 64gb to play games, 16 is plenty and you can get motherboards that use ddr4 fairly cheap.
Look around, second hand market is fine, just very the parts. This 3070 will last me a few years minimum.
From an colleague of mine, who bought an M1 Macbook Pro when they were new; he told me that there was a Wine fork (don’t know the name sadly) for Apple silicon which kinda worked with most (older) Steam games, not as nice as Proton on x86-64 Linux, but good enough for his game tastes. Don’t know if it’s still maintained or not…
and a lot of mac games that came out before apple silicon simply will not run. and ive had mostly poor results trying to run games with crossover and whisky.
your best bet is to stick with the limited selection of games that have native apple silicon releases. and with native releases on my m2 mac mini im still experiencing some pretty bad input lag.
some strategy games like rimworld and stellaris are good options.
I'm one of those patient gamers, where I'm just happy I finally have a machine that can play about 89% of the games I have to throw at it. Moreso happier that it can confidently run PS2 emulation, something I've been chasing for years to have a machine that can do, to own anyways.
I think you just need to sit down and contemplate to yourself what you want out of a machine. It's not a good healthy mindset to be fretting about upgrading all of the time. I mean, you made a huge leap already going from 15 years to what you have now.
Also consider that, there will still be games released that look graphically demanding and everything, but will require maybe a 1060 GPU, just as an example. Probably 8GB of RAM. It's only the AAA stuff that wants everything to be tip-top shape. Don't chase those.
The good news is that single-player games tend to age well. Down the line, the bugs are as fixed as they’re gonna be. Any expansions are done. Prices may be lower. Mods may have been created. Wikis may have been created. You have a pretty good picture of what the game looks like in its entirety. While there are rare cases that games are no longer available some reason or break on newer OSes with no way to make them run, that’s rare.
With (non-local) multiplayer games, one has a lot less flexibility, since once the crowd has moved on, it’s moved on.
I played +400 hours last year and most demanding game in my library has a GTX 1050 minimum requirement. There’s much more to gaming than yearly AAA releases.
I felt like everyone I know has at least owned one, and they where more consoles where actually used as Netflix boxes back then out of necessity due to lack of good smart TVs or set top boxes.
Plus they had an extra 5 years of being around, not to count the fact most early adopters bought another twice, especially with the 360 due to RROD.
I think the Wii stole the momentum. PS3 and 360 were just crazy expensive compared to the Wii and the prev gen of consoles. And unlike PS2 those two consoles lacked a lot of games for kids. So for parents it was an easy decision to just get a Wii. Not to mention if you already had a PS2 you had a large library of games at your disposal and the machine was modable, it’s why it still sold very well in the end of the console’s lifetime especially in middle income regions, like it sold super well in South America. So many PS2 owners weren’t going to convert to PS3, just way too expensive and can’t play pirated games.
Older and or used hardware is gonna be a place to start for CPU and GPU. Used dell optiplex can get you most of the way there, then buy a decent GPU when you can. Just make sure it fits in the case and the PSU that comes with the optiplex can handle the power draw. I’d recommend a new PSU though. Dont buy used for PSU or storage is the best advice I can give.
Optiplex are not gonna get you top of the line performance or anything but it’ll be a lot better than nothing and you can always use it for something else later like a nas, a server, home theater PC, etc.
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