PS5, Xbox or an RTX 3080 GPU?

The much anticipated PS5 received a price and release date this Wednesday. Prices have been set at $499.99 for the standard edition $399.99 for the Digital Edition that comes minus the Blu-Ray drive. These will release first in US and Japan on November 12. Rest of the world gets it on November 19. Pre-orders started early Thursday with a crazy rush online where many people have stated that their item has been 'virtually' snatched or emptied from their online cart while typing in payment details.

In Bangladesh we are always in waiting unless you have someone ready to buy and bring it to you by end of this year. One vendor estimated prices could be about 60-70k taka for first units which seems a bit steep. I would suggest we do what we do I traffic jams: curse, shout, huff and puff and wait. The world may or may not end before 2021 is upon us, so it is okay to not fret about a gaming console.

The pricing for Sony's Playstation is set against Microsoft's next gen consoles. An entry-level Xbox Series S is $299 and the range-topping Xbox Series X is $499 slated for a November 10th release.

Why are gamers excited about the new PS5? Why this huge rush for pre-orders when it is only launching with six titles on hand? Sony has confirmed that '99 percent of PS4 titles will be playable on the new device'. That's taking backward compatibility to a whole new level. Take that into that the PS4 couldn't play any of the previous titles unless you download the limited number made available on their own streaming service 'PS Now'.

If you remember, or not, that the PS2 could play almost everything from the original PS1. In 2007, the PS3 could play most of the PS2 games.

What about Microsoft then? Xbox One can play many Xbox 360 games through emulation.They 'promised' thousands of older games from XboxOne to the original can be played on the new S and X. We'll wait to see that.

Which brings us to the other big player in the console market: Nintendo. What are they releasing? Nothing. Turns out, they have likely and finally put the nails on the 3DS coffin. The Japanese site states it is no longer available. After 75 million units sold worldwide, they have decided to pack it up and focus solely on the Switch.

Gaming could not be any bigger. Keep in mind the gaming industry has seen a surge in business during this pandemic like no other. Razer reported USD $447.5m growth early this year. That's a 25.3% growth during the pandemic. As a result, everybody is overclocked to deliver more. For PC gamers,Nvidia'sRTX 3080 graphics card is a behemoth of a GPU that can deliver 4K 60fps or more. Which has resulted in gamers all over the word and in Bangladesh quickly trying to offload their previous gen graphics cards. A current RTX 2080ti goes for about 1-1.5 lakh taka. The RTX 3080 offering way more will go on sale this week at $700 and will cost about the same here. Will update local prices as soon as we get them.