: 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.

not if the next guy is playing on a newer PC >_>

: 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.

You should be able to handle plenty of games though. Anyway, what about a desktop? That would be better anyway and Leisandir did mention incremental upgrades, which are mostly not going to happen on a laptop.

: 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.

Then why are you so positive about digital distribution? I mean, presumably you're blaming PC issues and not Steam issues, but if you didn't look at exactly what each patch did, you don't know that-- a lot of them are for things that were messed up somewhere in the chain from the developers to you, or things that have changed in Steam or your OS, or even hardware issues (which means you don't have to deal with them), and Steam games occasionally get things added for free (which is more often than console games), and those things generally need a patch to work or even exist.
The assumption that you can patch a game's flaws later is often blamed for the shoddy quality of games now, especially when they first come out, and digital distribution relies on a very similar assumption. (disclaimer: I don't agree that games are generally shoddy these days, I don't know enough about it to have an informed opinion on that, and if and when I do think that's the case, I won't presume to know the reason for it without some real evidence and real consideration)