I upgraded from my 15 year old PC to one of the new Mac Minis at Xmas last year, thinking that I would be fine for gaming with my Xbox / Game Pass, and I would “skip a generation” on PC hardware. I have a small Steam / Epic library, but everything that didn’t work on MacOS, I had a Game Pass version of.

Fast forward a year. Xbox shit itself, RAM and GPU prices / 2026 outlook are dismal, etc etc

What’s my best option going forward for gaming? The only option I see right now is cloud gaming like GeForceNOW, but it seems like such a ripoff.

Any advice?

Edit- a lot of people are fixating on GamePass. I canceled my GamePass sub when the price went up. I no longer have it.

  • Brewchin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    27 days ago

    Game Pass sounds great, but the average game play time is ~2 weeks. You’re paying $240–480/year to skim the surface of multiple games.

    That’s a lot for what is essentially a demo experience. There are better ways to approach gaming.

  • caseyweederman@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    25 days ago

    Some friends at work started up a patient-gamer-style Pokémon book club. It’s been four months and we’re almost done Pokémon Black/White (which may sound impressive except that we started with Pokémon Black/White)
    My point is: there’s basically an unlimited number of good games that run on old hardware. Not that retro Nintendo hardware is cheap these days, but if you’ve got some lying around…

  • Lfrith@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    25 days ago

    Cloud gaming is financially contributing to the end goal of turning hardware ownership into a rental service, so I’m staying away from that. Even if it can’t be stopped I don’t want to add to the funds endorsing it.

    I think the way forward is to just be fine with older hardware and getting less demanding newer titles. There’s those who only game on a Steam Deck, and been happy with it. Emulating old games is an option too.

  • Aielman15@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    26 days ago

    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.

  • warm@kbin.earth
    1·
    27 days ago

    Get a Steam Deck? You can hook it up like a PC, use it sat around. Though its not a powerhouse. Wait and see how the Steam Machine fairs? There’s still a good second hand market for parts too.

    Its a shitty time at the moment with scumbag companies and AI, so consumers are completely fucked.

    Also: Fuck subscriptions.
    Plus the game pass versions of games are complete dogshit compared to the Steam versions most of the time.