Hardware advice tends to be written by people who already own everything. This is written the other way round: ranked by how much each purchase actually changes the experience, with the things most people skip at the top and the things most people over-buy at the bottom.
The priority order
| Priority | Category | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Storage expansion | Genuinely necessary on every current console within months |
| 2 | A controller that isn't drifting | Worn sticks degrade every game you play |
| 3 | The display | The most under-appreciated purchase in any setup |
| 4 | Audio | A microphone upgrade beats almost any other single upgrade |
| 5 | Screen protection & cases | Cheap, and prevents the most expensive handheld damage |
| 6 | Specialist input (wheel, HOTAS, stick) | Transformative for specific genres, useless outside them |
| 7 | VR | Unmatched for sim racing; thin release schedule elsewhere |
| — | Cooling accessories, dust covers, RGB | Mostly solving problems that don't exist |
Storage is not an accessory
Modern AAA installs routinely exceed 100GB and every current console ships with usable capacity below its advertised figure. This is the purchase people put off and then make in a hurry at a worse price.
The standards are not interchangeable, and buying the wrong one is common. PS5 needs an M.2 NVMe drive meeting Sony's speed and physical requirements, ideally bought with a compliant heatsink attached. Switch 2 needs microSD Express specifically — a fast UHS-I card from your camera will not work. Xbox needs its proprietary expansion card for current-generation titles, though a cheap USB drive is excellent cold storage alongside it.
2TB is the value sweet spot on price per gigabyte across most formats right now. And sort it before November: pricing around a launch the size of GTA 6 does not move in the buyer's favour.
The platform verdicts
Three machines are generating most of the current buying questions, and each has a specific catch worth knowing before you spend.
- BUYShould You Buy a PS5 in Late 2026 — After the Disc Decision?Buy the drive-equipped version. The exclusive library is still the argument.
- DEPENDSSwitch 2 Performance Reality Check: Buy Now, or Wait?Excellent for exclusives, wrong as your only machine for third-party AAA.
- DEPENDSSteam Machine, One Month In: Should You Actually Buy One?Check your top five games' Linux compatibility. That's the whole decision.
- BUYConsole Storage in 2026: What to Buy for PS5, Switch 2 and XboxThe three standards, which aren't interchangeable, and how much you need.
Controllers: buy Hall effect if you have the choice
Stick drift is a wear characteristic, not user error. Conventional analogue sticks read position with a physical wiper sliding across a resistive track, and every movement abrades it slightly. It's a matter of when, not if.
Hall effect and TMR sticks sense a magnet's position without physical contact, which removes the dominant cause of drift entirely. If you're buying a controller in 2026 and you have any choice, that's the specification worth paying for. If yours is already drifting: check the warranty first, because manufacturers have honoured drift claims; then either fit replacement Hall effect modules yourself, or replace the controller. Paying a repair service most of a controller's price to restore the same failure mode is poor value.
Specialist input: right genre, or don't bother
This is where the most money gets wasted, and the pattern is consistent. Force feedback wheels transform simulation racing, where feedback is genuine information about grip — and add novelty and nothing else to arcade racers with heavy steering assist. HOTAS setups transform flight simulators and are actively worse than a gamepad in arcade flight games, because those games' assists are tuned for thumbstick throw.
Fighting game inputs are the honest exception to the usual pitch: no stick or leverless controller raises your competitive ceiling, and top players have won on all three formats. Buy for comfort and consistency over long sessions, not for an edge.
Two rules that apply across all three: mounting matters as much as the device — a wheel clamped to a flexing desk transmits its own movement instead of the car's — and the used market here is excellent, because this gear gets bought enthusiastically and abandoned quickly.
- DEPENDSStick Drift: Repair the Controller, Replace It, or Buy Hall Effect?Warranty first, then Hall effect. Deadzone tweaking is a stopgap, not a fix.
- DEPENDSRacing Wheels and Pedals: What's Worth Buying, What Isn'tSim racing yes, arcade no — and the pedals matter more than the wheel.
- SKIPHOTAS or Controller for Ace Combat 8? What You Actually NeedArcade flight plays better on a pad. Buy a HOTAS for simulators instead.
- DEPENDSArcade Sticks and Leverless Controllers: Worth It in 2026?Buy for comfort and consistency. No input raises your ceiling.
VR: buy mid-tier, or buy for sim racing
The headsets are better than they've ever been and the major-studio release schedule is thinner than it's ever been. That combination should shape how much you spend rather than whether you buy.
For sim racing and flight simulation, VR is the single biggest upgrade available and no monitor competes — depth perception for braking points is not reproducible on a flat screen at any size. For general gaming, a mid-tier standalone headset that can also tether to a PC is the sensible purchase, and stretching to the top of the market is hard to justify while the software flow is this thin. Budget for a comfort strap in the same purchase; the stock ones are the main reason headsets end up in cupboards.
The accessories that don't do what they claim
Two categories worth naming directly.
Handheld cooling accessories. Devices throttle for two different reasons: they hit a temperature ceiling, or they hit a configured power ceiling. Most modern handhelds spend most of their time power-limited, where extra cooling changes nothing at all because temperature was never the constraint. Check with a monitoring overlay before buying anything. Lowering the power limit and capping the frame rate are free, and produce a smoother experience with better battery life than an unlimited configuration.
Dust covers left on a running console. Actively harmful. They obstruct the intake and exhaust paths the cooling system is designed around. Fine on a cold, powered-down machine; a problem in rest mode.
- DEPENDSHeadset or Separate Mic and Headphones? What to Buy for Game AudioSplit the setup if you talk a lot. A dynamic mic on a boom arm beats costlier condensers.
- DEPENDSCapture Cards in 2026: Do You Actually Need One?Only if you're bringing console footage into a PC. Match passthrough to your display.
- DEPENDSCases, Skins and Dust Covers: Which Protection Is Worth Money?Screen protectors and hard cases yes. Dust covers over vents, no.
- SKIPCooling Pads and Clip Fans for Handhelds: Worth It?Most handhelds are power-limited, not thermally limited. Fans change nothing.
- DEPENDSVR Headsets in Late 2026: Buy, Wait, or Skip?Buy for sim racing. Buy mid-tier for everything else.
The hardware that actually earns its money
Storage, a controller that works, and screen protection. Those three cover most of what people regret not buying — and none of them are expensive.
What holds up
- Storage expansion is genuinely necessary and cheap to get right
- Hall effect and TMR sticks remove the cause of classic controller drift
- Specialist input is transformative in the genres it was built for
- The used market for wheels, sticks and flight gear is unusually good
What doesn't
- Storage standards aren't interchangeable — wrong purchases are common
- Wheels and HOTAS setups add nothing to arcade titles
- Handheld cooling accessories mostly address the wrong constraint
- VR's major-studio release schedule has thinned considerably
The verdict
DEPENDS on what you play — but the first two purchases are the same for everyone. Sort your storage, on the correct standard for your platform, before November. Replace a drifting controller with a Hall effect one. Those two do more for day-to-day play than anything else on this page.
After that, buy specialist input only for the genre it was designed around, buy VR if you sim race, and skip the cooling accessories until you've confirmed you're actually thermally throttling.