A decent mid-range GPU is $400. That's TWO Neo-Geo games even before you adjust for inflation. Fancy LED lights are cheapish because they're just LED lights...

I'm sure the kids posting their setups on Tiktok are probably the most spoilt and if 90s rich kids could do the same you'd see kids showing off their entire AES and SNES collection and their brand new pentium.

Sounds to me like a _lot_ less than the most popular console for young people these days, the Nintendo Switch. You can get a used one for $200, I see kids on the subway close to the poverty line who scrounged the money together for one. Personally, I didn't know anyone whose parents could afford to buy them a Famicon AND Neo Geo, back in the day.

Right but it's not though, nearly all of the big-ticket esports games are easily playable on a GTX-1060...

You could build an entire esports machine, with monitor (and RGB!) for less than 1000USD. I have done it many times.