: Price, you hit the nail on the head. Even a high end, not highest, laptop can
: do what you suggest. I have one of those. Dedi GPU too. In the USA, the
: price is around $800. That's already twice the price of a PS4. To reach
: the loftier goals of the best gaming experience you can add on at least
: another $300 with a jump after that being another $700.

: If you set lower goals for your PC gaming you can get away with it on a $800
: laptop. At least with a console you know your gaming is as good as the
: next guy's.

: If you think that same PC will keep up with the AAA titles for five years,
: I'm shaking my. I don't even plan for a laptop to last for more than 3
: years. That way, with a triennial replacement plan, I can keep up with the
: latest tech. I don't buy games for it though.

: I've seen my son having to deal with Steam distributed games. It was at
: times, a horror show of TU after TU to get a new release to barely work.

$800-$1000 for a device which will play games as well as act as a functional, ergonomic portal to the Internet and a crap-ton of other services. Your console works as a media center, maybe, but I've yet to see Internet browsing done well on one, and there certainly aren't word processors or business programs that run on them. A PC gives you tools you're probably going to need in life anyway, tools which are worth the three to five hundred dollar price difference between it and a console. And remember, that gestalt price is an opening investment; you don't have to replace the entire machine to upgrade.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about re: Steam issues. It hasn't been my experience, and that certainly doesn't invalidate your complaint. I've had problems getting older games to run, which is to be expected, but I can probably count on my left hand the number of older games I've been completely unable to run. The only issues with newer games were that small hiccup with Vista and DX10, and a few that have had incredibly steep system requirements - but those are few and far between anymore.

Skyrim is, like, the biggest mess of high-polycount, tons of physics objects, multiple simultaneous and flashy visual effects, and multiple AI entities all operating at the same time. If you can run that now, you won't have problems for the next few years. Five years ago, the same could not be said for Crysis, but visual technology has leveled off a lot since 2007. All that crap they were showing that the Xbox One can do, what with the rippling fur and the skittish fish, my PC's been able to do for years. I don't anticipate needing an upgrade for several years after this.