Comment by PaulHoule

In 2002 I remember PS1 being sold for 99€ in Toys'r'Us in the Netherlands, next to a PS2 being sold for 199€.

The phrase “cost of living increase” is used to refer to an annual salary increase designed to keep up with inflation.

Typically, you should be receiving at least an annual cost of living increase each year. This is standard practice for every company I’ve ever worked for and it’s a common practice across the industry. Getting a true raise is the amount above and beyond the annual cost of living increase.

If your company has been keeping your salary fixed during this time of inflation, then you are correct that you are losing earning power. I would strongly recommend you hit the job market if that’s the case because the rest of the world has moved on.

In some of the lower wage brackets (not us tech people) the increase in wages has actually outpaced inflation.

Is your salary the same as 10 years ago?

Those in charge of fiat printing presses have run the largest theft or wealth in world history since 1971 when the dollar decoupled from gold.

Says who?

Economists use the consumer price index, which tracks a wide basket of goods and services.

Comparing console prices to a single good is nonsense, even if the good has 6000 of years of history, it's not a good comparison to a single good in a vacuum.

"PCs do get cheaper over time though"

pc get cheaper but the gpu isnt

I like big picture mode in Steam, but.... controller support is spotty across Steam games, and personally I think you need both a Steam controller and a DualSense or Xbox controller. Steam also updates itself by default every time you launch, and you have to deal with Windows updates and other irritations. Oh, here's another update for .net, wonderful. And a useless new AI agent. SteamOS and Linux/Proton may be better in some ways, but there are still compatibility and configuration headaches. And half my Steam library doesn't even work on macOS, even games that used to work (not to mention the issues with intel vs. Apple Silicon, etc.)

The "it just works" factor and not having to mess with drivers is a huge advantage of consoles.

Apple TV could almost be a decent game system if Apple ever decided to ship a controller in the box and stopped breaking App Store games every year (though live service games rot on the shelf anyway.)

But when I have to install drivers, or install a non-Steam game, I can't do that with the controller yet. That's what I need for PC gaming to work in my living room.

If you have steam, ps4/ps5 controllers also work fine.

Plus add your GOG games as non-Steam games to Steam and launch them from big screen mode as well.

I'm aware of Big Picture Mode, and it doesn't address either of the scenarios I cited specifically because they can't be done from Big Picture Mode.

Screen size is pretty much irrelevant, as nobody is going to be watching it at nose-length distance to count the pixels. What matters is angular resolution: how much area does a pixel take up in your field of vision? Bigger screens are going to be further away, so they need the same resolution to provide the same quality as a smaller screen which is closer to the viewer.

Resolution-wise, it depends a lot on the kind of content you are viewing as well. If you're looking at a locally-rendered UI filled with sharp lines, 720p is going to look horrible compared to 4k. But when it comes to video you've got to take bitrate into account as well. If anything, a 4k movie with a bitrate of 3Mbps is going to look worse than a 720p movie with a bitrate of 3Mbps.

I definitely prefer 4k over 720p as well, and there's a reason my desktop setup has had a 32" 4k monitor for ages. But beyond that? I might be able to be convinced to spend a few bucks extra for 6k or 8k if my current setup dies, but anything more would be a complete waste of money - at reasonable viewing distances there's absolutely zero visual difference.

We're not going to see 10.000Hz 32k graphics in the future, simply because nobody will want to pay extra to upgrade from 7.500Hz 16k graphics. Even the "hardcore gamers" don't hate money that much.

Does an increased pixel count make a bad movie better?

Is the difference between 100fps and 240fps noticeable though? The OP said "somewhere between 60hz and 240hz" and I agree.