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The story
A post believed to be from a high school student, asking on X (formerly Twitter) “Which do you think is better, a gaming PC or a PS5?”, was reposted to 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (“Geha”) board and drew a lot of reactions. Gaming PCs offer higher performance, but even a mid-range graphics card alone tends to run around 200,000 yen, making the total cost steep — whereas a PS5 can be had for about 60,000 yen. The thread saw a clash between people pointing out the harsh reality of PC pricing and people recommending a PC as an investment in the future (for things like AI and programming), with opinions split over which one to pick.
Which do you guys think is better, a gaming PC or a PS5? Asking as a high schooler. Want to hear everyone’s opinions.
Source: x.com / Original post here
What people said
https://x.com/mirai_toki19/status/2108832211998814344
A rig with a ~200,000 yen RTX 5060 Ti would be fine, but yeah, that's still pricey.
First off, your parents would flip out. They'd tell you to at least get one "for studying."
If you can't, get a PlayStation.
If you're still asking other people for advice as a high schooler, you should just get a PS and be done with it.
Picking PS5 here is step one on the road to becoming a "geha" loser (a console-war obsessive).
The Switch 2's specs are way too trash, so that's out of the question.
You need a high-spec PC for AI stuff too.
Stop gaming all the time and study instead.
You'll end up like the middle-aged man-children ("kodoji") on this board.
What a rude guy.
Even if you study, you end up like this anyway.
Most new PC gamers these days are entitled trash with a victim complex: their own setup is bad, but they go trash-talk manufacturers, flood reviews, and freely harass dev staff. From an actual PC user's perspective, they're seriously just a nuisance.
But there are plenty of games you can't play on console.
Just touching a PC doesn't make you good at engineering, you know.
I dunno, I think there's a real difference.
I've seen engineering grads who don't even know what the IPA is (Japan's IT certification body), so there's definitely an initial learning curve.
Kids who are already used to computers can spin up a Docker setup right away.
Even the sensible answer isn't going to get through to him.
That's not biased, is it? If he's after AAA titles, PS5 looks like a perfectly legitimate option to weigh against it.
For instance, if not PS5, what else would YOU even put on the scale against a gaming PC?
Sounds like you're the one with biased ideology, not biased thinking.
PS5 wouldn't even enter the picture as an option in the first place.
The only real question is what tier of PC to get.
But if you're the kind of person who asks a dumb question like "which is better, gaming PC or PS5?", I think PS5 is fine for you.
If you were genuinely interested in PC gaming,
you'd at least have some idea of what you want to do with it,
so normally you wouldn't even ask which one is "better."
Exactly this.
The moment you're asking other people, a PC is 100% not happening for you.
Though buying a lower-spec PC at the same price is also worth recommending.
Going all-in on gaming from high school on is a one-way ticket to rock bottom 🥺
You'd be better off buying a PC and putting in the effort to ride the AI wave 😎
That's the correct answer.
A high schooler who comes in with a full-blown victim complex from the very start is out of the question.
Thinking about the future, it's better to buy a PC and get used to it now.
PC, hands down.
Honestly, you'll barely need a smartphone at home anymore.
You'll start noticing how inconvenient phones actually are.
Plus there's a chance it ties into a future job.
A PC can do a lot, but it's insanely expensive — probably close to 400,000 yen these days.
If it's just gaming and some light streaming, a PS5 (around 60,000 yen) covers it.
Pick whichever one doesn't strain your budget.
Where, exactly, is that "the correct answer"?
No way, no way.
This reminds me — during Monster Hunter Rise, a high-school viewer asked streamer Shaka (a popular Japanese streamer) on stream, "Shaka, can I buy the PC with your collab 3090 in it?" and Shaka himself shut it down immediately.
Told the kid to spend his money on things that actually suit a high schooler instead of buying a PC.
There's a clip on YouTube, go look it up.
That's what a normal adult response looks like.
If something goes wrong, who's supposed to deal with it? Way too many people who recommend PCs are just irresponsible.
No, it's not "no way, no way" — the point is that your claim, "on X it's unanimous, everyone says buy a PS5," is just a flat-out lie.
And there it is — the mystery phrase "if something goes wrong with a PC…"
This is the one thing I will never, ever agree with, seriously.
"If there's trouble with a PC…" — trouble like what, exactly?
It's just a vague, fuzzy phrase with zero specifics that looks like it's only there to stir up needless anxiety.
If you already have a cheap desktop PC and you're not into mouse-based gaming, PS5 works too, but if you're doing FPS-type games, PC is the only real option.
Personally I don't game on PC, so I use a PS5.
Even if you owned something nobody else had, like a Neo Geo, you'd still want to just talk normally with your friends about the newest Pokémon game, right? It's a communication tool too.
Being able to play together with everyone else is a real strength.
Even so, the Switch 2's specs are trash and there are a lot of games you can't play on it, so it's out of the question.
Parts gradually start wearing down,
and once the storage starts throwing errors you have to replace it.
As the whole system generation moves on — CPU, memory — you end up needing a new motherboard too,
and the power supply degrades as well, so you basically end up replacing the entire thing anyway.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Mid-range GPUs for gaming PCs (like the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti) have climbed to around 200,000 yen in street price in recent years due to semiconductor supply issues and the weak yen, putting them out of easy reach for students. A PS5, by contrast, can be bought for about 60,000 yen, and if the goal is simply playing AAA titles, it offers strong value for money. The thread split between a “pragmatist” camp arguing that if gaming is the goal you should pick based on cost-effectiveness, and a “future investment” camp arguing you should get used to a PC now as an investment toward AI use and programming skills — the latter view reflecting the recent AI boom. Worth noting: this thread originated on a board with a long-standing, deep-rooted rivalry between PC and console camps — the Hardware/Industry board, nicknamed “Geha” (short for “game hardware”) — so declarations like “on X it’s unanimous that PS5 is recommended” should be read with the awareness that this board’s culture tends to attract fairly one-sided opinions.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt/summary from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [“Geha”]) thread “High Schooler: “Which do you think is better, gaming PC or PS5?”“.
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