Why can't you justify a console? The cheapest Xbox is 300 dollars. If the console lasts 5 years, that's similar to paying 5 dollars a month for a streaming service.
If I want to play God of War a few hours a month then paying 700eur to enter or 75eur and a Netflix style subscription? Which is more reasonable sounding if you're not devoting much time.
Put it this way: Why do people use cloud based hosting over buying their hardware?
Mostly it's because they convert the one time cost to an amortised cost based on usage.
consoles are very affordable really (compared to the cost of a PC), but they do share a lot of the same problems as cloud services. Constant updates, little control. The PS5 interface is sadly filled with ads.
