Got it. I mentioned $80 games because you lumped in Nintendo and the price of the Switch 2 console is actually extremely reasonable when you consider what you’re getting for only $50 more than a base Steam Deck which is its closest market comparison.It's really more than just that. Raising the system prices is bonkers. The series s for 380? The x all digital 2tb 730? These prices are ridiculous for old tech at this point. I have to think that this is for one of a couple reasons. Either the next round of consoles are going to range 700 to 850 and they need a buffer to make it look like not such a big jump. Or it's a way to save some face to leave the console business. Well no one wants our systems so let's just focus on the other devices. The money is in the software, not the hardware.
As far as 80$ games, I agree it was inevitable. The issues I have are, one, can we get off this "economic conditions" nonsense? This is a play of greed, that's all. Things like tariffs don't affect digital games.
Second, There's been very few games in the last 10+ years that have been worth the $60 let alone now $80. Games have never been more broken and buggy than now. The amount of monetization is higher than ever. They say budgets are higher than ever. But then we see something like expedition 33 releasing for $50 from a 30+ people team on what I saw a 30$ million budget. And it seems to be on a lot of peoples short list for game of the year. So it doesn't have to be crazy like the latest Spider-Man with what, a 300+mil budget? This seems like it's a them problem and they want us to fix it.
A good amount of it is indeed greed but the tariffs will play a huge part especially for Sony and Microsoft as I don’t think they followed Nintendo to Vietnam. Digital $80 games may seem crazy but to play devils advocate there is a reason for it at least from a console manufacturers perspective. By increasing the margins on already high margin items like accessories and digital games it could help alleviate the need of how high to increase the price of the console. I have no idea what these numbers would actually need to be for the actual need vs. straight up greed but the logic makes sense. This is also why prices would increase worldwide rather than just in the US where the tariffs are actually in effect. It would be an absolute nightmare to keep the console price the same in Europe and increase it crazily just in the US.
You’re also spot on for worrying about the price of next gen. Theres no way all this economic stuff calms down enough in just the next two years for those prices to be reasonable. Even Nintendo left the door open for a potential price increase which makes me so happy that I was able to secure my preorder with an employee discount on top lol.
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