It’s more cost efficient, and less of a headache to deal with anomalous problems like bugs and driver issues that can be as specific to your unique combination of PC hardware.

I recently bought RE Requiem and updated my graphics card drivers for it. They introduced a bug that would stop 2/3 of my GPUs fans from spinning at random. People who bought that game and played it on their PS5 didn’t have that problem.

Can't speak for other people, but as a patient gamer it's a combination of cost and longevity - I can get about 15 years out of a console.

I only upgraded from an original xbox to an xbox 360 because I found it in a dumpster (I did have to fix it and buy a controller, so it wasn't ideal). My wife's PS4 is now 11 years old and still works.

Since the Sega MegaDrive, I've always been a console kid.

Console is easier (plug in and play). But console gaming is more expensive in the long term.

I don’t anymore, ps5 was my last and I barely use it. It wasn’t worth buying, but I use my ps4 incredibly heavily.

I used to do console because it was easier. You know a game put out for a system is compatible with your hardware. You don’t have to fiddle with things to get them to work properly, much less well.

It used to be a decent value proposition. It was worth it enough that I’ve had every non-handheld console for decades. The games would be sold cheap used, they always worked, and used consoles were cheap. If you stuck with the secondhand market you could get a system and like 20 games for the price of buying the system and one game of $50 value new. But you could also resell the games if needed for some reason. It was an investment, and it definitely paid off. My collections is worth almost 10 grand now, and I certainly didn’t spend half that much on it, when each game was $10 or less.

Those value propositions changed when physical media stopped being the main thing. Now used games sell for near what new ones do, because they just didn’t make that many. And why would they continue to make them when everyone downloads?

So now your question is valid, but it didn’t used to be in the same way.

because pc gaming is a huge pain in the ass.

console gaming is not.

some of us just want to play games. we don't care about 120 fps bragging rights or spending hours resolving driver issues. console is superior experience for that.

There are fewer and fewer reasons as time goes on, but the big one is that it's usually a lower up-front cost (in a lot of cases, still is) and just works without any fuss. We might find the fuss on PC to be pretty minimal, but on console, it approaches 0. PCs have gotten easier to work with, people have become more literate in how to use them, and the long-term savings on PC with a significantly sized library have become more apparent, but there will always still be a market for something like a console, even if that means they abandon some of their defining traits in order to survive the future.

I mean, when it comes to console exclusives, some can't be beat. Nintendo and Sony have proven that console exclusives still drive sales.

Because I like sitting down after a long day and playing games on my big ass oled tv.

I don't like sitting down and turning on my computer so that it can update Windows, then the game itself needs to be updated. Then the game runs like shit because my graphics drivers updated to a newer version that doesn't work well with the game I'm playing. So then I have to do some research to find the best driver version to downgrade to. So then I finally get the driver issue fixed and start the game, but now my controller isn't working because the windows update broke the Logitech drivers my controller needs. So now it's been two hours, I'm tired, I didn't get to play any games, and I still have more work to do tomorrow to get things working.

The cost of building a gaming PC has also gone up dramatically.

A whole ps5 is about the current price of just a decent "value" video card. Toss in your ram and storage and you're looking at three times the price.

It's a bit cheaper than pcs with similar performance, I believe. Some people have enough for a console, but not a decent pc. I've never had to buy a pc, so I'm not certain, but I think I've heard that before.

Simple, I can't play Kirby Air Riders or Splatoon 3 on PC. And while I still prefer the form factor of Nintendo's old smaller dedicated handhelds, I think the Switch (2) is still at least a little bit better at being a handheld than the much bulkier Steam Deck.

(Don't say emulation, because even then I still can't play online on official servers.)