There is not enough competition and options to yield mass boycott unfortunately. Console bussines has a very high entry bareer and most companies simply don't know how to play against the Big 3. The only options left is to stop gaming and go spending money on something else i.e. let the industry die. It's not exactly a very wise decision if you're a gamer. 

There are gaming options outside the big three though. PC has been my main platform for a very long time, and right now it's mainly Sony that is suffering from it. That's also not the only alternative. Of course you get a different kind of an experience in at least some ways, but the point is that there are alternatives - you don't have to stand the big three.

I believe most customers are not well versed enough in technology to build a reliable PC. A fair share of console sales are still bought for teens and kids 

You don't need to build one yourself, there are plenty of prebuilt ones available. It's still not as easy as getting a console, but you absolutely don't need to build a PC yourself. PC is not the only alternative either - I'm sure the big three are also worried about mobile, and every powerful piece of consumer technology is probably something to look out for as far as the big three are concerned. There is certainly some pressure to keep things competitive. Obviously even more would be better, but it's not a terrible situation.

I don't buy that as an excuse. We've had the same three major players for the past 20 years and it's only really recently where we've been seeing so many issues. Back when the 3ds came out nintendo were greedy and tried to sell it at too high of a price and consumers spoke with there wallets and they had to drop the price. 

Most teens and kids indeed start gaming at mobile nowadays. But I don't think dedicated gamers can truly look to mobile as a viable option. Most smartphone games are developed thinking on monetization practices, it's a different subset of bussines that don't target the same audience who buys consoles or build PCs

The pre built PCs, mostly laptops, are much more expensive than console and with worse performance. Well at least where I live. A basic gaming laptop with inferior setup to a PS5 is above 5500 BRL range. PS5 is 4500 range. Series X is also 4500 range. I think PC gaming still fairly good option in Brazil though, thanks to software prices on Steam being way cheaper than on Sony store (don't know about MS store) and also free online, so the higher entry price can pay itself in long run at least (and your collections never really dissappear, you can buy another PC and keep all your games). One of the reasons why I feel PC gaming is more popular than consoles here. 

Is that so? Sony was also known for very high prices for PS3. Xbox implemented paid online many years also

Of course customers will react when charged for more than they are willing to pay. The problem is the margin. 3DS was sold for 250 USD when DS was already less than 100 USD and the Vita was around the corner. A successor launching thrice the price of the current console is far more impact full for customers than Sony increasing 50 USD for the digital version

But I believe the true wildcard for Sony here is PS4 instalbase. I migrated to PS5 because I wanted to keep my PS4 collection. I could go for Xbox which is slightly less expensive, and have better and cheaper services but the difference in price was not enough to justify having many physical and digital games rendered useless

The ps3 sold 70 million less than the ps2 a huge drop in sales. 

I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make here? I said in my first comment that sony would get away with this with no consequences, yet you are acting like I said they would suffer for it.

Somehow they made it look way too similar or same but increased the price of the digital SKU

Sure, there's a 200 GB bigger SSD now I guess.

Also kinda pointless to buy the digital SKU when the disc drive is $79 (USD) when you could just pay an extra $50 (USD) to buy the disc version SKU.

Also the stand being extra lol.


I'm fine with my OG PS5 - hopefully a Pro version comes out in the future.

My intention was only to highlight pricing issues and anti consumers policies are old news, they exist for a long time now and they are mainly consequences of having very few players in the market. You drop Xbox One for PS4 and then get we have Sony increasing the prices of everything.

The point I want to make is cyclical nature of the market (you buy a console and stay locked to it for years if you want to extract the most value of your purchase) increase the likelihood of customers don't having much of a choice other than accept the practices or changing hobbies. 

The distinction I made for 3DS was the highlight customers can of course still choose the rival brand or some replacement for a console, but the cost difference will need to be huge. Xbox is a bit less expensive than PS5 but not enough to justify migration (yet).

Sony better watch out though, if MS somehow manages to make their acquisitions works and can pull something better than their current mediocre gaming output then keeping market share and high prices will no longer be such a pushover for Sony. So yeah, if you want Sony to review their price policies the best way is to cheer for Xbox become more competitive, asking for people to simple buy less Sony won't cut it