| shikamaru317 said: I doubt they will go that high, but I'll just say that we saw what happens when Sony gets a monopoly in the past, PS2 sold 150m to the <25m each of OG Xbox and Gamecube. The end result was an extremely cocky and full of themselves Playstation, who charged $500 and $600 respectively for the two PS3 launch models (1 year after Xbox 360 launched for $400), and then went around making statements like Ken Kutaragi's "the PS3 is for consumers who think to themselves 'I will work more hours to buy one' " and "Xbox 360 is more like Xbox 1.5", and Jack Tretton likening the various consoles to food stating that "PS3 is surf & turf, PS2 is your favorite burger restaurant, Wii is just a lollipop, and Xbox 360 is a restaurant where you get sick because the cook isn't reliable". Sony were remarkably full of themselves after the huge success of the PS2, and that monopoly did nothing good for consumers. Now let's look at how this current gen has been shaping up. PS5 is tracking roughly in line with PS4 (which sold 117m lifetime), Xbox Series is tracking behind Xbox One (which sold 58m lifetime). That was before this imminent announcement of multiple Xbox exclusives going multiplatform, which will certainly cause Xbox Series sales to track even further behind Xbox One, and PS5 sales to begin to track over PS4. So most likely this gen we are shaping up for something like 130m+ PS5, and maybe 45m Xbox Series. That's not quite the monopoly that Sony had exiting gen 6 with PS2's 150m and Xbox's 25m, but it's also a margin that is large enough to be considered a monopoly. So, we have a history of Sony abusing the consumers when they have a monopoly, and we are tracking towards a Sony monopoly once again. Will they go as high as $800 for PS6 and $90 games next gen? Maybe not that high, but I'd say that $600 PS6 and $80 games will almost certainly happen next gen, and they maybe even go as high a $700 for PS6, especially with the way that computer parts are being affected by inflation. Xbox becoming non-competitive with Sony in terms of hardware likely won't be good for consumers. |
Some of this feels a little alarmist.
The market is pretty different from what it was 15 years ago. Mudslinging competitors between the 3 companies is unusual today. PC is still in the game. Who's to say that a $600+ PS6 wouldn't prompt someone else to try to undercut Sony?
This is also heavily assuming that MS becomes a non-factor, which it seems they still have hardware plans, it just probably isn't going to be their primary driver anymore. (And frankly it hasn't felt like their primary goal in the past few years.)
The issue of $80 games is more complicated. Sony wasn't the first one to make games $70. Take Two was. And a lot of companies have jumped on that train. Even Nintendo has made a $70 game, despite not being directly in competition.
The issue is industry wide. The consumer base isn't particularly growing on consoles. In order to make bigger more competitive games, you have to spend more money, you have to figure out how to get more money out of consumers. A big reason why live service games are so popular right now. A lot of these games from Ubisoft, Sony, Take Two, Microsoft, Activision are costing in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of them are massive successes making a few times that. A lot of them aren't. $80 games would reduce some of the risk. It'll unfortunately probably happen regardless of anything else. Just like $70 has happened, despite MS trying to be a hold out.
The unfortunate reality is that there is no free lunch. Something has to give somewhere at all times. Either the industry has to slow down on their infinite growth or consumers have to start paying more.
Last edited by the-pi-guy - on 06 February 2024
