Play Monster Hunter World: Iceborne on Your Phone Like a Switch Using Steam Link

Continuing with the performance tests: I downloaded the Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak demo and ran it. It looks maybe just a little sharper than the Switch version.

Right on cue, the Steam version of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne was on the Summer Sale for just 1,980 yen, so I grabbed it for testing purposes. Honestly, this is the game I built this gaming PC for in the first place. It runs without any issues, and it looks gorgeous.

By using my Xperia 5 II—which I've previously used with PSP emulators for past portable Monster Hunter titles—along with a gamepad and the Steam Link app, I can play Monster Hunter World: Iceborne on my phone just like a Switch. Of course, I can play it on the TV too. It's amazing. It's just like a Switch. Since I've spent so much time playing Monster Hunter Rise and Generations Ultimate on the Switch Lite, getting used to the Switch Lite makes playing on a monitor tiring, so this is the ideal setup. Plus, I don't even need to buy the PC monitor I thought I had to get.

As for the PC itself, it's a retired lease unit of the Fujitsu ESPRIMO D588/VW with an i3-8100, which are heavily listed on Yahoo! Auctions. I won the auction with a single bid and no competition for 7,700 yen (6,600 yen plus 1,100 yen shipping), and paired it with a GTX 1050 TI (LP, though it didn't need to be) that I found marked down at Hard Off for 2,200 yen for the card itself. For 9,900 yen, I basically built a PS4-class machine.

Regarding winning the PC body, I was originally eyeing the previous-generation D587, but for some reason, the same person kept outbidding me, and I figured it would just stress me out, so I moved on. As a result, finding out that 7th-gen CPUs aren't supported by Windows 11 convinced me I should get an 8th-gen model instead, which led me to grab the D588.

By the way, this unit came with a hard drive instead of an SSD. I figured I could just buy one later, but after bidding, I realized it's much more efficient to choose a unit with an SSD from the start. Unable to tolerate the slowness of the hard drive, I immediately swapped it out for a 256GB SSD (2,500 yen).

That said, with just 256GB, installing about three games fills it right up. I might need to keep less-played games installed on a hard drive and only move them to the SSD when I'm actively playing them.

As for the CPU, I really would have preferred something like an i5, but I figured I could upgrade that later too. I've been monitoring prices since, and an i5 system seems to run around 10,000 yen for the whole PC set.

CPUs on their own go for around 6,000 to 7,000 yen on Yahoo! Auctions since fewer people replace just the CPU, and I often see them sitting without buyers. The sweet spot is when a seller finally gives up and lists one at a bargain price.