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. 

Really?

"I really like the game but lack the money to buy it. I thought I might at least ask for a free account before piracy," a fan tweeted.

Minecraft creator Markus Persson responded: "Just pirate it. If you still like it when you can afford it in the future, buy it then."

Nah, if prices go too high, people simply won't buy.

People have finite disposable income and the vast majority are not gonna drop $700 or more on a console when there are so many options for more affordable gaming and entertainment these days.

If Sony or Nintendo try to pursue and normalize luxury prices, they're going to learn the hard way that luxuries are something most people can do without.

This.  People are grossly overreacting to the pro.  It is a luxury item and isn't the baseline.  

Nvidia has perfectly fine GPUs at $350 to $500, while also selling a $1600 4090.

AMD is focusing on budget friendly and is dropping high end focus.

People need to settle down and stop being so dramatic.

It's a good thing people are over reacting. They'll eat the price on the ps6 and not go over boars however they've found people's line in the sand on the other hand which seems to be 599. I'm very much expecting the PS6 to be 599 and not very much more powerful than the Pro and people won't see an issue. But who knows where the economy will be in 4 years, could be massively wrong and we could see PS4 level pricing again, that thing was massively cheap for it's time and selling the Ps4 PRO at that cost was again insanely cheap or things could go massively wrong and 699 will seem cheap when the time comes. Calm down for now but be ready to riot when the time comes.

I guess is my point is we shouldn't assume luxury prices means new baseline.  Rolex sells 20k watches, that doesn't mean watches are 20k.  It just means some watches are 20k. 

As mentioned earlier nvidia has nice $400 to $500 GPUs.  AMD has a few nice $400.