Is the market ready for a $500 console yet?

[Conina]

SKMBlake said:

Shadow1980 said:

Inflation matters.

$300 is dirt cheap for a console today. It was a bit exorbitant 30 years ago, because a dollar was worth twice as much. Assuming inflation stays about constant, a $500 PS5 will be only 11% more expensive than the PS4's adjusted launch price. Hardly bank-breaking. It's not like going from the PS2 ($438 adjusted) to the PS3 ($631 adjusted, 44% higher than the PS2 and 45% higher than the PS4).

You can't compare consoles to other stuff. That's my main point. Of course inflation matters. But it's irrevelant when it comes to consoles and general gaming.

I call bullshi+ on that.

Of course you can (and should) compare the costs of console gaming to the costs of other forms of entertainment. You can compare it to the costs of PC gaming, mobile gaming, yearly/monthly/hourly costs of going to the cinema or theatre, costs of access to movies and TV-shows at home, costs for other hobbies like photography, pimping your ride, collecting stuff, skiing trips, other vacations, etc.

Console gaming ain't in a bubble. A big (and still growing) part of popular smartphones and tablets is the entertainment sector... otherwise almost nobody would need the flagship models when even the $100 devices can handle all the basic functionalities of their much more expensive brothers.

Of course everyone has preferences in his/her entertainment spendings, but even if many people set themselves an arbitrary limit for the price of a console, most of them will at least unconsciously compare the value with similar forms of their entertainment and with the added value to the predecessor console (f.e.: "only 1/x loading times, only double the price. This time I don't even have to buy a handful launch titles at full price, there are a lot of great PS4 titles for $10-$20 I haven't played yet, all improved on the PS5")

Last edited by Conina - on 19 April 2019