Is there even a mass market for next genn console's anymore?

[EricHiggin]

CosmicSex said:

JRPGfan said:

I think Consoles die, at over 700$. At that point, you are not breaking 100m consoles sold.

Like a 800$ PS6, is gonna sell maybe ~60m tops, imo.
If Xbox does a 1300$ Xbox Helix, next gen from Xbox, you will be lucky to see it break 10m.

PlayStation and Xbox need a wakeup call.
Someone needs to go smack some sense into them.

This ever higher performance levels, at higher prices to deliver that... is not gonna work.
I would rather PS6 be like ~10-15% better than the PS5, but KEEP it's current price.... and cross gen titles just being a thing all gen... than them doing a real big jump in hardware that then ends up costing too much for consumers to mass adapt.

I think Sony and Microsoft are both aware of what's going on and its not what they would want at all.  They will try keeping the price down even if it means offering lower end SKUs.  I honest don't think that Microsoft intends to launch with a $1300 console anymore.  I expect them both to offer $599 options at launch.  This thing where these giant companies price themselves out of existence isn't something they are going to willingly walk into. 

I mostly agree, and I hope they're tuned in well enough to know they really need to approach next gen this way.

MS already did this with the Series S/X. They explained back in 2020 that they saw a future coming where this hardware strategy made sense. They were right. They just executed a bit poorly this time around. It would be a bit shocking if MS didn't stick with the low and high tier model for Helix. They could also add a handheld to that strategy if they decided to.

SNY can obviously do the same thing, and I don't see why they wouldn't, given what's happening and what looks to be continuing with RAM and SSD's. They've got a PS6 that's going to be Pro level in terms of cost, plus a handheld, which can only be so powerful since it's mobile. All SNY has to do is use the mobile guts of the handheld and put them in a console and they've got themselves a borderline affordable PS6 model. if they want to make it widely affordable, they can subsidize it if they want to.

This solves the cost problem for the most part. While it would hinder how far next gen can advance to a certain degree, 9th gen already wasn't that large of a leap beyond 8th gen. We're at the point of diminishing returns, so 10th gen will again be a lesser leap overall beyond 9th gen no matter what.