When you want to play APEX, Call of Duty, or other popular game titles, you’ll probably wonder whether to play on a PC or buy a PlayStation 5. As someone who owns both, I’d like to walk through the advantages of each and who each one suits best.
About gaming PCs
Who it suits
・People who want to do things besides gaming
・People planning to stream games
・People who can spend a fair amount of money
The biggest advantage of a gaming PC is that you can customize it to your own taste.
You can pick out the parts and build it yourself, or you can buy a pre-built machine from a shop like Dospara.
The more you spend, the higher-performance a PC you can build.
If you want to play games in 4K, expect to pay at least around 200,000 yen once you have everything.
That works out to roughly 150,000 yen for the PC itself, plus about 50,000 yen for peripherals like a monitor and mouse.
It does cost money, but you can add lighting, fuss over your peripherals, and really express your own style.
Choosing a PC also requires a certain amount of knowledge, so you end up learning a lot about computers along the way.
Having built my own PC, I’ve found the knowledge I gained useful in all sorts of situations—I can give a quick diagnosis when a friend’s PC is acting up, and I can handle maintenance on my own machine.
Since it’s a computer at its core, you can also do things other than gaming.
In particular, programming often calls for a machine with decent specs, and a gaming PC easily clears that bar.
Some people may worry about the games themselves, but you can generally buy games on a site called Steam.
Most of the well-known titles sold on the PlayStation Store are also available on Steam, so there’s not much to worry about.
If anything, you can also play PC-exclusive games, which greatly widens your options.
Next, about the PS5 (home game console)
Recommended for
・People who aren’t comfortable with computers or electronics
・People who just want to play games
・People who don’t want to spend much
・People who want to play with friends
Here I’ll use the PS5 as an example.
PlayStation has a friends feature that makes it very easy to play games while using voice chat.
Because it’s a dedicated gaming machine, these gaming features are extremely easy to use.
If you buy physical copies of games, you can sell them at a used-goods shop like Book Off once you stop playing, which saves money overall.
The console is also smaller than a PC, and a single unit uses less power than a PC. (PCs draw about as much power as a hair dryer at this point.)
It doesn’t get mentioned much, but the thing I personally liked best was how the controller feels to use.
You can use a PS5 controller on a PC, but problems come up easily—you have to remap buttons, and connecting wirelessly introduces lag, so I ended up using a wired connection. On the PS5, I barely noticed any lag even over a wireless connection.
You might say that’s only to be expected, though.
Precisely because it’s a dedicated gaming machine, it’s inexpensive, yet its gaming performance is on par with a 300,000-yen PC—I have no idea how they pull it off.
The PS5 is built to an unbelievably high spec.
This was only a partial look at the two, but I hope it helps you decide which is right for you.
Personally, I think deciding based on your purpose—whether you just want to play games or want to do other things too—leads to the decision you’ll be happiest with.