Please stop making me buy the same computers over and over again

Game exclusives are the stupidest thing in the world. I own a Playstation 5 – a console that Sony lost money on when I bought it. I own an Xbox Series X – a badly named console that Microsoft lost money on when I bought it. I own a gaming PC that nobody but me lost money on when I bought it. All of them have more or less identical hardware inside them. Some a bit more powerful, some a bit less, but the difference is negligible.

That was fine 10 years ago when the consoles actually tried to do different things. Yes, the Kinect was a failure but at least something unique to the platform. But now I just have multiples of the same computer sitting at home because I want to play some games that are exclusive to one of them. This is dumb on so many levels. I can spend less money on games that are actually profitable for the makers because I had to buy consoles that neither manufacturer made money on. It’s detrimental to the climate and just not a smart way to allocate resources.

I also want to get into VR gaming. So I probably should buy a Meta Quest 3 because it’s relatively cheap, works with my PC but also as a standalone Headset. The PC part is important, because of course I’d like to play Half-Life Alyx at some point. But I also want to play Gran Turismo in VR. I love racing games and this would be so much fun. But of course that requires a PS VR 2. Guess what: Half-Life Alyx doesn’t exist for Playstation though.

So I won’t buy a VR headset because despite how this post sounds I’m actually not made of money. That also means that I won’t buy the games I want to play. You know – the actual reason to buy hardware. This situation is utterly idiotic, because it prohibits me to give money to the people that actually deliver the value that I get out of gaming. Instead they try to get me to put another fucking CPU into my house.

This is not how sustainability works. Please stop making me buy the same computers over and over again.