Submitted 23 hours ago by sundray@lemmus.org to games@lemmy.world
I won’t purchase another system because I don’t want to deal with 1) constant downloads- new games, game updates, system updates, data collection 2) logging in all the time 3) not owning a physical copy of a game.
They complicated the fuck out of doing basic things on their systems and I want no part of it. What have they done to keep the consumer interested in their systems?
Exclusives.
Legit the only reason.
Microtransactions, ads, no offline modes, you don’t own your own games any more… well they topped all of it with the new console. You buy games that are just empty boxes. Might be a slip of paper in there letting you rent it for $80 flat fee, but they’ll take that game back any time they damn well please.
NOW BEG FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT PEASANT.
They’ve never taken a game back. Everyone is causing a fear that doesn’t exist. I only buy digital, never had a problem.
Turns out, fucking over your customers is bad for buisness. Who could have guessed?
OMG! It’s almost like constantly raising prices just isn’t working out!
It doesn’t matter how expensive RAM gets, what the market is doing, how much AI is driving up component prices, or whether the market is bullish or bearish. At some point, consumers reach a breaking point. When a product becomes too expensive, people stop buying it. They don’t particularly care why it’s expensive. They care whether it’s worth the asking price, and whether they can justify spending that much money on it.
And that’s the problem Sony and Microsoft seem to be running into. Between rising console prices, increasingly expensive games, subscription price hikes, and a growing number of anti-consumer practices, they’ve made gaming an increasingly expensive hobby while giving consumers fewer reasons to feel good about spending their money.
What’s worse is that these companies have spent years alienating a significant portion of their own fan bases. Aggressive monetization, digital ownership concerns, restrictive ecosystems, and the push toward subscriptions have steadily eroded consumer goodwill. You can only squeeze your customers so much before they start questioning whether they want to remain customers at all.
At the end of the day, consumers aren’t obligated to buy a PlayStation or an Xbox just because they bought one last generation. They can stick with their existing hardware, buy fewer games, switch platforms, or walk away from gaming altogether.
You can’t price your way to endless growth, especially when you’re simultaneously giving your customers more reasons not to buy your products. Eventually, the market pushes back. And frankly, it’s hardly surprising that we’re seeing that happen now.
If I have to drop nearly $1k on a gaming platform the money is so much better spent on a PC anyway.
Especially since on PC apps like retro arch give you better access to backlogs that these companies aren’t even offering! You want to play PS2 games 4k upscale 60 fps? Can’t do that on PS5. You can surely do it on PC though.
LOL Consoles are too expensive, and this is the find out stage of their fuck around. Its not all that surprising, especially with the ending of physical games on Sony's part and Microsoft being generally shitty... They might not recover for a while. Bully for them!
This is true. Who wants to spend all that money at once. My PC may be more expensive than I console but I spent no more than $250 at a time as I upgraded it. People don’t need $1000 graphics cards to play modern games.
I had a ps3 and a ps4 and was fully up for getting a ps5. Then it came out right around COVID time and I couldn’t get one anywhere because of scalpers. So I thought, “No worries, I’ll just wait a year or two and pick one up for cheap.” Then it just never got cheaper. Now it’s like a 5-6 year old machine that costs over $900 CAD so I just never bothered.
And in the midst of these increasing hardware costs Sony thinks people would not mind paying the premium for their digital only games, completely killing the second hand and retail markets, bless their heart.
It’s the same theme everywhere. They build for some kind of non existent luxury market while buyers stretch themselves thin. Now no one has any money left and credit cards are maxed.
We’re not buying what’s being sold. So now what?
Now they blame millennials and gen z kids for ruining gaming
And then they switch to everything being a live service so instead of buying games you just have access to the “whole library” of games (for whatever payment tier you’re in) which they will change and remove games without warning and deleting all of your progress unless you pay them at least $20 a month for cloud saves
Oh and the only games in the games library are ai slop vibe coded games that are unplayable carbon copies of each other
I’m amazed they’ve not crashed more. The PS5 and Xbox whatever the fuck they called it are both 6 years old, if you haven’t already decided to buy one why would you get one now after the price hike?
Some people really want to play gta 6 before it comes to pc I guess
I’ll eat my shoe if a PC under $1000 will be able to play GTA VI even halfway decently when it comes to the platform. My handheld PC is nominally way more powerful than my Series S, but I’m lucky to get half the performance out of it because the Series S gets a bespoke treatment from devs to make it work well.
That’s how I ended up buying a PS3 back when GTA V was released. Well, that and Gran Turismo and wanting a Blu-ray player. But it was still not really worth it.
Same. Maybe gta6 presales tempered the fall?
Not just here but everywhere. Everyone (except those with too much) is holding tight to their wallet until trump dies and some stability comes back to the world.
These companies have said plainly that they don’t see prices returning to pre-pandemic levels even if the current economic crisis is resolved. Corpos are too greedy, and the people in power are even greedier.
Lol as if one person can be the cause of all this
its not even a choice for me. i have been unemployed for over 2 years now. since just before he got elected.
If I bought one it would end up in the pile of gaming devices I don’t use. I have an RG35XXSP for GBA, GB,and GC, a Retroid Mini for PSP, Vita, NES, SNES, PSX, DC, and arcade, a Retroid Pocket Nova for PS2, GC, and N64, an AYN Odin 2 portal for Android games, PC games/streaming, a 5800X3D/7900XTX PC for 4K OLED gaming, and a 5700X3D/9070XT for 1440P widescreen gaming. I’m nearing 660 games on my steam/epic/gog libraries and I have 2TB of rom dumps for all of the retro systems. I’ve spent thousands of dollars to realize I don’t like gaming, I liked hanging out with my friends.
Good lesson to learn. You can possibly still sell all that shit and break even, the way prices are these days.
Clearly this is because people are just tired of buying physical goods. They want digital consoles!
Honestly, almost every console runs on my PC. Why not just make Microsoft Xbox for Linux?
Stadia tried it.
Ahead of its time, IMO. And honestly should not even have wireless. Might be usable in grandma’s house out in the middle of the woods (unless Grandma’s got a shit-ton of IoT stuff…or one cheap security camera), but just about anywhere else it’s far too unreliable.
The future will be even worse. Have you seen what people have been doing with AI the last couple of weeks. People have decompiled entire games using AI and made PS5 games run on PC natively. Something that took years by multiple devs takes a few days by a single dev with a Claude account. Sony and MS are definitely shitting their pants right now. Their solution will be cloud streaming only consoles.
Good thing there’s already more good games out than I could play if I lived another hundred years.
Yeah! Everything muat be digital and if someone still wants the box it can just have a paper with a code in it.
I mean who would like to play the single player game about 5 years later when the servers are down?
Right?
Can’t play games when hungry.
You’ve clearly never seen me ignore all my biological needs to play games for 14 straight hours.
Yeah, indicators are indicating. Things they don’t seem to talk about. Used car lots are empty while new car lots are full. The tourist restaurants no longer have waiting lists. Gaming is a luxury expense, as in we don’t need it to survive, while new game prices are higher than they’ve ever been. I’m willing to bet most if not all luxury spending is down.
Prices are high and companies decided shitty AI is better than good people. So jobs are getting scarcer or paying less.
In the words of my kids: we’re cooked fam.
Amateur!
Gaming in general is way too expensive now.
At least we have retro games to play instead.
Which I’m playing on my Steam Deck! Which starts at only…wait, 750 dollars?!?
Bought it when it came out 419€. I dont see myself paying twice the price today.
Or you could get an AYN Thor for 350$ + 30$ shipping and a wait time of 3 months
The handheld PC market is really becoming competition, huh?
Doesn’t mention how Switches and Steam Decks are doing, but I would venture to guess that Valve is eating Sony and Microsoft’s lunch.
Gabecube is projected to sell several hundreds thousand copies. PlayStation 5 is close to 100 million units sold.
I will be curious how PS5 does moving forward and how well any PS6 does. Seems like Sony is in the FA stage and might be transitioning to FO.
Sony and Microsoft don’t even know Valve exists. The Steam Deck sold in its lifetime less than each console in a few weeks after launch.
The new Xbox coming out next year is going to have direct Steam support. And that’s no accident.
Xbox series X|S sold a total of just under 35 million. Those are actually estimate numbers, as Microslop stopped reporting their (embarrassing) numbers years ago.
Steam has an average of 38.5 million concurrent users, with a peak of 43.5 million users.
Steam is literally bigger than Microslop’s Xbox division, and infinitely more profitable. Sony’s PS5 has sold something like 91 million units.
The Steam Deck isn’t the relevant metric here. Every single computer with Steam installed is.
Given that RAM prices are up on everything, probably not.
People aren’t avoiding new consoles because they object to Sony’s business practices. They’re avoiding them because they’ve been prices outside of the “toy” category.
Hardware costs have gone up, compelling games releases for them have gone down (and didn’t start from a good position).
Such a mystery.
Not to mention they explicitly stated disc sales are dead. All my console games are physical, so I will no longer buy consoles games or consoles. Seems like the way to go.
Lol
Raising Prices and making them the EXACT same as Computers but Worse didn’t bring in MORE Sales? Quick! MAYBE if we Raise the Prices MORE it’ll Reverse course!
-EVERY High Paid CEO ever!
EXACT same as Computers
I wouldn’t call it exact same. Hardware, yes, compatible. But that is not what a console is about. The hardware compatibility to a PC if any is a positive for consoles, because it makes ports and develop on the games much easier without much fuss. And consoles aren’t worse to a PC in all cases, they still have some value. The operating system and game compatibility, and ease of use are major factors.
It’s not exactly the same, but I do feel like it’s almost always worse in the console side (excepting Nintendo here).
On console you’re juggling patches and updates, installing to drive, you have concerns about whether games will play well on non-pro versions of the system, Xbox is traditionally hostile to physical media while PS is ending it.
If you’re going to install digital games and download updates, worry about compatibility, might as well play on PC. Those issues are less on console, but present on both.
Meanwhile most games are getting PC ports (since modern consoles are very PC like and games need the extra sales), you’re not as locked down to a single store, you have more room to upgrade incrementally (in theory). Operating system is also in favor of PC.
Ease of use I’d still grant that consoles have advantage, sure.
I don’t argue all this to put down consoles, I love consoles and played only/mostly on consoles for many years. But I think there’s a lot of truth to saying modern PS and Xbox have moved so close to PC that they’re losing the pros and embracing the same cons.
It was about the prices… THEY are the same
Another industry with its bottom falling out.
I’ve just bought my first console in nearly 10 years but it wasn’t any of the big three. My partner and I are loving our new Steam Machine.
Ah yes, the Nex Playground.
Congrats! My wife and I have two steam decks. Great “consoles”. Super fun.
Curious to see Nintendo’s numbers in comparison.
And yeah, those prices are insane. At a certain point, just pay for a PC and have access to whatever you want. Plus, you don’t have to pay an additional fee for online features. It doesn’t have to be the best gaming rig ever, especially for most people. And recoup the money spent on a gaming rig by escaping the closed eco system. Wait for good sales on PC games or turn to the high seas.
And honestly, outside of Nintendo, I haven’t seen a console exclusive game on Xbox or PS5 that I’ve wanted to play in years. Last non-indie game I actually loved playing was Baldur’s Gate 3. I think AAA gaming is more or less dead for a lot of people.
Those prices though. People can still game without consoles, and with the way their destroying the economy, it seems people have wisened up to that.
Nintendo’s numbers
N: “here is a new Mario game or something, whatever, nobody cares anymore, $80 pricing why not”
Customers: excited screaming and trampling each other
Not gonna pretend that I’m not one of them. I’d probably buy a Switch 3 today if they said it was bundled with Super Mario Odyssey 2.
I’m a sucker for first party N games.
just pay for a PC and have access to whatever you want.
Yes and no. Yes in many cases, but no in exclusives. Also it depends on the operating system, because Windows 11 is terrible. It’s so much cleaner to just boot up a console and play something, than to use Windows. Linux? Yes, that’s better, but then you have less games to choose from (especially with the online multiplayer games). Whether this is enough as a replacement depends on many factors. So saying “just buy a PC” is not always the right choice. And that comes from someone who advocates PC and always says “PC is the endgame”. We are not there yet. Also god bless Valve (for now).
However, some of the exclusivity issues go away with emulation, recompilation and decompilation efforts.
I think exclusives are a bit of a none starter now. Previous gens of consoles certainly had a good chunk of exclusive games that may have enticed people in. But this gen has had very few that would be “system selling good”. And then you have all of the pc exclusives as a counter argument.
I would also say that you have a significant backlog of incredible games that you can still buy and play, and don’t tend to disappear as you move between generations on PC, so unless you are wanting the newest shiny game, you will have too much to play in your life time.
Also windows 11 isn’t terrible… It isn’t good, but it’s fine. And I don’t think I agree with it being cleaner to boot up a console and just play a game. If you have steam run at start up, they are pretty equal.
Linux? Yes, that’s better, but then you have less games to choose from (especially with the online multiplayer games).
It’s pretty much only those mmo games at this point. Pretty much everything else works, often better than they work on Windows 11
How long until someone digs up a bunch of Halo Infinite discs from a New Mexico desert?
Fallout 1&2 intensifies.
Oh no! Major corporations are not making billions?!
How can we help!
/s
Good. Die.
Is this surprising? It was written all over the wall when sony went after anime hubs and pushed hard to shut down free portals. Now microslop is making a push to make movies? That’s bound to go as well as sonys garbage. Scroungers looking for scraps that can’t read the room.
I can’t afford to upgrade my PC with the prices of shit these days so this weekend I actually bought a PS5.
With the new relapse jailbreak the PS5 hacking scene seems to be popping off and it is a way that I can play newer games at a more reasonable price.
Sony certainly didn’t get any money though, I always buy secondhand and this is no different and they will not get any money for games either but what with Linux running on old old firmwares it is only a matter of time before these newer, crackable firmwares also get Linux support and then I will effectively have a new, better PC for a fraction of the cost.
In the meantime I can go and play bloodborne finally!
How is this when PS5s just sold out for the GTA VI launch? How much did that askew the YoY or YTD?
sales crash 33% to the lowest since 25 years ago
steep price hikes
duh
these companies have, for decades, failed to provide any compelling reason to spend way too much money on a one trick pony when you can spend not much more on a PC that plays games (better), plus countless other things you can do with a PC, not just for entertainment, but work, production, bills, banking, and on and on.
consoles will never go away though. there will always be a segment of the population who buy into the bombardment of ads telling them that a console is necessary
What about the Switch 2?
The world may heal after all …
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 45 minutes ago
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