No one is taking a loss on hardware again, Microsoft is headed to 3rd partyville, Nintendo won't and Sony is not going to play that game anymore either with no direct competition (why should they).
You want some shit, you can pay out the ass for it now, that's how game hardware is going to work in the future. All this subsidize things like it's still 20 years ago is over.
PC GPUs are priced out the ass and that's probably not changing either as both AMD and Nvidia pivot away to focus on much more lucrative AI server business, PC gaming is small potatoes to a company like Nvidia (with the Switch I think it was like 9% of their total company revenue last quarter). 50 series GPUs will likely be more expensive again over the 40 series at launch.
$699.99 for a PS5 Pro is just the beginning. The *only* reason I think Nintendo will even think about keeping the Switch 2 pricing reasonable ($400-$450, maybe $500 for a deluxe SKU) is because they might still be shit scared of the Wii U/3DS launches, but that's the only reason why. Once they get over that fear, that whole pricing bracket will fall apart too.
Gamers are just going to have to suck it up and accept that the good ol' days of getting massively subsidized hardware for reasonable prices or outright bargains are over.
Last edited by Soundwave - on 17 September 2024
