dharh said:
Rough times if even some of this is true. I will say for myself, I would rather get the PS6 version of this idea over the XBOX PC. I already have a PC. Even if XBOX had enough exclusive games to make me buy and XBOX, I would still buy all the PC games on Steam rather than anywhere else. There is no scenario I see here where I would change my buying habits from this:PS>PC>XBOX If console prices are going up as much as people are talking about people are more than likely to stick with prior generations or older PCs. We are very likely heading into the dark ages of both PCs and Consoles. For how long, I can't predict, but I will call it. The dark ages of gaming are upon us. |
I expect the price inflation caused by the massive IA bubble to not last as long as many other people do, just like NFT and blockchains, the bubble will pop, but it'll take longer as the drive now is a lot larger.
RAM is the worst affected by now, with SSD following, and the problem is most of the production is focused to provide IA needs but not only for right now, for the future, contracts to deliver to them for 2 or more years in the future are what are driving the costs up the most, but IMO most of those will simply start not becoming sales at all.
Some companies haven't even built the datacenters to run their projects yet, they are literally buying stuff with money they don't have based on expectations of future profits that don't exist yet, most will inevitably fail and a few big ones will dominate like pretty much every other kind of business, so most contracts already occupying the near future production lineup capacity of RAM and SSDs simply won't be ever met, IMO, and it will flow back into the market.
There is no need to thousands of those companies and a tiny fraction of them will be able to actually profit from it, so by 2028 second half or 2029 first half it should be already much better. IA will still be diving production lines capacity with the overall market, but IMO that's how it'll settle, it'll be more expensive than before, but not ridiculous as it is now in 2026 and how I expect it to still be in 2027.
So, I think the PS6 may be able to release in the tail end of it and eventually its components will go down in price, like they used to do before, so it might even get a slight price cut unlike the PS5.
I think without it happening the PS6 could be a $600 machine but that's it, price is expected to rise from gen to gen, so if they manage to keep it around $700 for launch it'll suck but it's not really that much higher than it could ever be to be honest.
Unless quantum computing actually becomes a thing and it work wonders in consumer level power, there just won't be another huge leap that allowed parts to become much cheaper while they are still relevant for production, so prices not dropping are to be expected unless it does evolve that way.
Part of the IA villain that is screwing up everyone now is actually also the hope for the future of games improving now with so much diminishing returns in tech, machine learning is allevianting the raw power needs as we can see with DLSS, FSR and PSSR, so the PS6 won't need as big of a raw power leap from the PS5 like it did compared to the PS4, so that's also part of the reason why the PS6 could cost "just" $700 and still be a decent upgrade over the PS5 Pro that costs the same, and a big upgrade over the normal PS5 that is already quite powerful, unlike the PS4.
I do expect things to improve quicker than most, they'll get even worse before it tho, but gaming won't ever be as affordable as it once was, nor in consoles or on PC, unless quantum computing or something else different really changes things up, the current model can only be alleviated by machine learning but that's it, obviously just my opinion tho.
