A bit silly, IMHO.

To play Nintendo I need Nintendo hardware.

To play Sony I need Sony hardware.

To play Steam I do NOT need Valve hardware

-the above is why nobody cares.  The price increase has literally 0.00% impact on my PC gaming.  

*also Steam has free online, Nintendo and Sony don't.  

Edit

I will happily say **** the Deck, because the value of abysmal, especially compared to the S2, but I don't have any issues with Steam via the price impact.  

Also, Nintendo is not hated on the forums, it is beloved to the point people think 30 fps is awesome, lol.

$949? How pitiful.

I do agree companies need consumer pushback otherwise they'll only keep making things worse, that's how profit works.

I also think it needs to be reasonable, if the PS6 is a hardware that costs than like $780 to build, and they sell it for $700, the pushback should not be the price, but the product, if people are being priced out.

PS3 is a bad example IMO, Sony lost SO MUCH money with it trying to keep the price down, I remember reading they were once losing nearly $200 each time they sold a PS3, that is not a good business and the entire company suffered massively from those losses.

Sony made revisions to the PS3 and managed to get the Slim decently priced, so yes consumer pushback did work to make them move, but it was not the case of wanting big profits on hardware despite what they could, they just had a very expensive to make product.

IMO the PS6 would inevitably be more expensive than the PS5 because it is just how diminishing returns work, if we want considerably more power, nowdays there is not that much room to achieve it other than making the product more expensive in the end, which was not nearly as big of a problem in the 90s or 2000s.

What matters is reach a good point between tech good enough to warranty its existence for another 8 years, and how to make it still have a reasonable price.

I think the PS+ situation is far, far worse than the entry price for the system in the last years before this AI bubble situation, it more than tripled around here in Brazil since the PS4 days back in 2013, that has no actual justification other that getting as much money as they possibly can, so I do really agree on that front.

I think MTX is a whole other problem but that it really just doesn't have much to do with that subject right now, to me expanding games, for a decent price, and when it doesn't feel like it's adding previously content cut for extra profit, is fine. And cosmetic optional stuff is up for everyone to decide for itself it is really matters or not, tho. Aside from that, it is a massive problem but which I honestly think was way worse before, now it has many other forms like lootboxes and such, that are a way bigger issue.

Of course it's just a theory, but I think it's a very reasonable one. I don't really know or much care about what Gabe says, because Steam is generally a very fair platform, especially for its size. I have pretty much zero concerns about Steam right now - my concerns are about the time after Gabe, because we know what we're getting with Gabe based on what is now already decades of experience, but we don't know what's coming after him. GOG is my platform of choice whenever I do have a choice, but for now, Steam is also pretty great. It's not perfect, but overall, it's probably the best gaming service by far.

There's nothing wrong with Steam despite the price increase. The new Steam Deck prices are absolutely insane though, but Steam itself is still great value (can't really beat free with lots of features too). I can't say the same about any console service unless play an insane amount of games so I can fully utilize the benefits of the services - which I don't, so they're just terrible value. Of course that all comes on top of very pricey hardware as well.

Also, Steam Deck's price has nothing with my ability to play PC games. There's a ton of options, including old hardware, both new and used, and even old hardware can play a ton of games. On consoles, there's no such luxury of choice - you eat up the price the console manufacturer has, or you don't play (there's used options too, but in practice their prices are affected by official pricing).

It's just games, if finances are a big concern I'd say just get a used base PS5 or new Switch 2 (before price increase) depending on your use case/preferences and that will keep you playing for a long while yet. 

Games are just supposed to be a distraction, provide some entertainment, you're not supposed to go broke in the process, there's tons of legacy stuff as well to play that can keep one occupied for weeks/months/years that's cheap. If gaming as a hobby is causing you significant financial duress ... it's time to back away, find cheaper options or go outside and try doing something else, really you'll be fine, probably better off. 

The next gen consoles will be expensive, just is what it is, you don't absolutely need one if that money is better spent elsewhere. The generation leaps are not what they used to be anyway, it's not like you're missing out on Super Mario 64 or Final Fantasy VII style experiences by being "stuck" with a Super NES or Genesis in 1997 or something. 

If someone time travelled to today from 1997 and all you could show them was a 13-year-old PS4 even ... more or less you could show them everything modern gaming is and they would be largely up to speed without much fuss. The games even still look fairly comparable. Whereas a 13 year gap in the 80s-90s would be the gap between the NES (1985) and Sega Dreamcast (1998) ... that's a crazy difference. 

Honesty I'm not even sure about that, every server those cloud companies use for game streaming is a server not being used for AI slop, and as we know, they need all the RAM they can get for their AI slop.

We're all well aware of this. Regardless, this is a symbol of the absolute economic enshittification of the world that is taking place now that the oligarchs have been allowed to run wild. They're using the world as their playground and forcing us to pay for it, and that goes far beyond video games and other things that would be considered "luxuries" and encroaching deeply into the realm of actual necessities.

Yes, there is a lack of good Switch2 exclusives

And on the other hand, it's probably still cheaper to buy the 1 TB Steam Deck plus the PC versions of many good non-exclusive games than the Switch 2 and the Switch2-versions of the same games.

Just a few examples:

I'd rather have a physical copy of Indiana Jones. As for the rest, PS5 has physical copies of those.