Is the $500 tier of “New Console” really that good? Player votes have given the answer

From The Legend of Sword and Fairy to Tale of Wuxia, over the years I’ve swapped out countless graphics cards and carried several generations of consoles on my back, but the softest spot in my heart has always been reserved for that old PC that accompanied me through the very first Legend of Sword and Fairy. Back then I knew nothing about frame rates or resolution; I only remember that during the final battle in front of the Demon-Locking Pagoda, the screen stuttered like crazy, but I still clenched my teeth and pushed through, just like a wandering swordsman hanging on with a sliver of HP until the final showdown, determined to wrestle out a result even with nothing but a wooden sword. Maybe because of those days, I’ve always had a particular obsession with the question of whether “gaming gear is worth the money.”

IGN recently did a poll asking “How much are you willing to pay for the next-gen console?” I went over the numbers, and my first thought was: this feels exactly like a big bargaining conference in the jianghu. Most players set their psychological price range at 300–500 USD, which is about 2160–3600 RMB—basically a range where performance and value-for-money can be considered balanced. They’re not chasing the ultimate, but they want something solid and reliable. The slightly higher 500–750 USD range roughly corresponds to those willing to buy “divine weapons”; the proportion is still notable. But beyond that, at 750–1000 USD, you’re already looking at a niche crowd of hardcore enthusiasts and collectors. As for those truly willing to drop over 1000 USD, they’re almost like the big spenders in wuxia stories willing to throw half their life savings at a “peerless sword.”

Judging from the poll results, “under 500 USD is still the most accepted launch price for players,” and once it goes over 750 USD, the audience share drops off a cliff like an aggro bar sliced clean in half. This conclusion is a very straightforward reminder to manufacturers: no matter how much you hype the specs, if your price floats up into the clouds, most people will just stand by and watch coldly. Coming back to the games themselves, our generation of players has lived through console price hikes, seen exchange rates fluctuate, and learned on the PC hardware battlefield that “performance doesn’t come for free.” But when it’s actually time to pay, the measure in our hearts is still very realistic: no matter how powerful the console is, if there aren’t good games to play on it, it’s like grinding to max level without a single decent boss fight.

Beyond nostalgia, what I care more about is what these pricing expectations mean for domestic wuxia and xianxia titles. Keeping the console price under 500 USD means that in the coming years the console market won’t fully drift into “for the rich only” luxury territory; the stage is still there for Chinese teams, and so is the player base. But looking at it calmly, once hardware prices skew too high, many domestic players will instinctively turn back to the PC platform—and the wuxia and xianxia games we know best are already deeply rooted on PC. For consoles trying to attract Chinese-made content, this actually creates not-insignificant pressure. If you want a player who bought The Scroll of Taiwu for a few dozen RMB on PC to suddenly turn around and pay thousands for a console plus an even more expensive version of the game, and all you plan to rely on is “launch exclusivity,” sooner or later you’ll be cursed into oblivion.

So for regular players—especially fans of domestic wuxia and xianxia games—my buying advice is actually very simple. If your budget is in the 2160–3600 RMB range, and in the future you come across a new console with relatively balanced performance and a sincere lineup of exclusives, you can consider it a handy longsword—as long as the Chinese games you regularly play are willing to come to the platform, then it’s a trusty weapon on duty. If your budget can stretch to 3600–5400 RMB and you don’t mind paying a bit of a premium, you can pursue a quieter device with more storage and flashier design, treating it as a collectible-grade sword at your waist. But if manufacturers really dare to push launch prices above 750 USD, I’d recommend you hold off and look more into upgrading your PC instead. At that point, a console would no longer be “a companion walking the jianghu with you,” but more like a sacred artifact you have to worship on a pedestal. For a player like me who came from the Legend of Sword and Fairy era, money should certainly be spent where it matters most—but that blade, ideally, should still carry a bit of the scent of our own Chinese jianghu.