Nvidia’s RTX 50 Series Disaster Drove Me to Console
After months and years of battling insane GPU prices, stock shortages, and endless game optimization issues, I finally broke - made the switch to console
The Situation
I’ve recently had the "pleasure" of upgrading my PC after more than five years of service.
Rocking a B450, AMD Ryzen 5 3600, 16GB of DDR4, and an Nvidia 2070, I was doing fine for a while—until Monster Hunter Wilds came out in late February. It was running everything on low with DLSS, and everything looked like a blurry, blobby, grey-textured mess. Granted, the game had horrible optimization at launch, but my PC wasn’t really keeping up with current titles.
Plus, I wanted to try 2K or 4K gaming for the first time since I started PC gaming at 1080p 15 years ago.
Hearing the news that the RTX 50 series was coming out, I was hyped. Finally, something to swap out my dusty old 2070. This was the first time I was actually buying a new graphics card in a while. When I did my research, it was to my horror that even a mid-range 5070 or 5070 Ti was going to cost me upwards of $900–$1,000. I was still going to do it because I wanted a "quality" upgrade.
But after everything I went through—researching the paper launch, the nonexistent stock, the scalpers, the fake MSRP, the horrible PC optimization of ports—I was really done with this whole PC gaming thing. Everything was just so wrong. All I wanted to do was play my silly video games.
Turning to Console for The First Time
I’ve never owned a console—Xbox or PlayStation. Not because I’m a raging PC Master Race guy, I just didn’t grow up with them. I was looking back and forth between a PS5 Pro and a new mid-to-high-tier-ish graphics card, and they were basically the same price for me.
I had the opportunity to finally try console gaming for the first time in my life, so I took the shot. I bought a PS5 Pro (and a disc drive).
Closing Thoughts
The TL;DR is that I’m probably never going back to PC gaming (until Valve releases their “gaming console”). I love the haptics, the adaptive triggers, the gaming-focused-first design, the feel, the “I’m playing a video game now” vibes away from my computer, and the physical media boxes.
I didn’t have to think about overclocks, game setting tweaks, or the buggy-ness of Windows 11. I just turn the console on and I hunt monsters. It’s a lovely time.
For the first time, gaming wasn’t a hassle. I work in IT and tech, so I’m really tired of playing IT support for myself when I just want to relax and enjoy something that is polished and focused on one purpose.